5 Encounter

"It's getting worse each day." Axel looked through some binoculars and saw some weirdly behaving zombies.

It seemed that his suspicion about some zombies was spot on. There really were special kinds of zombies mixed between the normal oldies that had, like their name implied, special abilities.

That is beside the runners that were most common among the more special zombies there were also what he liked to call screecher.

They would emit such a loud sound you could be 100% sure that at least all the runners would come knocking on your location very soon with the support of the slow ass road blockers that were the shamblers.

Just thinking about it made it such a nuisance. But at least those basters were more blind than the rest and as long as you killed it fast or just sneaked past it, it was pretty safe.

Come to think, Axel has determined that the screeched probably had a very acute sense of hearing than anything. So you better hope that you are able to sneak very silently.

The strengths of each type of zombie were pretty obvious. The slow ones had a very good sense of smell, the runners could actually still see quite well and the screechers heard well.

Good thing he didn't bother about doing the gut trick. If a runner had noticed him it would have been over right at that moment.

Those zombies all had brutal strength that could make the best bodybuilder blush. They literally tore through the skin in seconds and ripped apart your limbs like they were not even connected to your body.

The zombies also scratched through wood pretty easily at some point when given enough time to do so.

Metal did help stop that but if a speedster noticed you, you better get moving on since those fuckers slammed themselves against pretty much everything and it could mean you would die in a dumb place if the door does not hold.

Or worse, it could not open anymore because of the deformation and you would die of hunger. It was not a problem for Axel but the hell he would get stuck into some fucking room again. That would basically mean he ended up exactly where he started.

Breathing in and sighing he could only lament his discovery. There went his little easy life.

"At least I haven't seen any extremely special zeds." What he meant by that was zombies like the ones out of Left4Dead or Resident Evil. Those would raise the difficulty even more. But those military guys would then already have been killed long ago.

For now, Axel had to accept this and try changing his rather nonchalant way of dealing with things. He also needed to find out first if decay would rot away those things and what consuming human flesh meant for their sustenance.

Being done with his little scouting he slowly climbed down from a telecommunication tower that stood somewhat far out from the city and made his way towards a certain place.

He had noticed a campsite nearby that seemed to be frequently used by survivors. Axel figured out that after wrecking his head a little bit that it was probably the group of Rick.

Well, actually he was not sure if it was Rick's group already. Time was kinda fucked up really. At first, Axel already wondered how the cities could look so damn swarmed with walkers in just a few weeks. But considering that everyone was basically infected and those different types of zeds existed meant that all hell could have just been let loose at the start of the pandemic.

Walking for a while in the woods and getting rid of a few shamblers that he stumbled upon was rather easy.

Axel got used to fighting those things rather quickly. And with 2 skills equipped that helped in that made it so much easier. And every dead zombie meant more experience for his ability if not a good skill he could use.

Currently, Axel had an uncommon skill card about marksmanship and uncommon blade mastery. Both of these cards were green and had been upgraded by him. It was a surprise how many zombies actually were gun fanatics. Or they acquired that skill in the last minute, who knows.

He was kinda happy about it. Why he chose exactly those two? That was because he wanted to be able to protect himself. Blade mastery also increased his martial prowess with blades of all kinds. It was a fantastic skill that had not restrictions like dagger or knife mastery who were skill specifically to that object.

But later on, he would definitely use the footballer uncommon card that he got from some unexpected young-looking zombie. It was a skill that increased his overall physical ability like stamina and running speed.

Though that had time for now and he could always switch the active skills with the ones in his inventory. He didn't need to dissolve all skills into experience after all and holding on to them could really come into use.

Being in thought while staring at the zombie corpse beneath his knee he heard some twig snap and turning his head towards that sound he could see an older man looking at him from behind a crossbow.

Both of them stared at each other and Axel just raised his hands up.

That he actually would run into Daryl Dixon of all people was somewhat of a surprise. At least it was not his lunatic of a brother.

"What did you find, brother? Oh, what do we have here?" Another voice sounded and when you speak of the devil it does appear.

A nearly completely bald man that looked somewhat older than the other one came closer and looked at Axel. He looked at him while moving his lips as if chewing something.

"Get rid of this kid.", said Merle.

That made Axel frown. How the fuck did this guy came to that conclusion. "Wait, you don't need to do that, yeah? You can have the stuff in my backpack. No need to be unreasonable." Axel tried to negotiate.

Daryl also looked a little bit distraught and frowned. "He is only a kid."

"So what? Clearly, this little chimp is a bonafide killer from the way he is sitting on the corpse."

"I ain't doing something like that." Daryl lowered his crossbow. "Hey, kid. You alone? Want to come with us?"

Axel stared at Merle. "I am not sure I like following strangers that wanted to kill me..."

Merle just snorted lightly and walked away. "Who said anything about killing a brat? Let him be. Having another mouth to feed would be more trouble than it is worth."

"Wait, you are not alone?", asked Axel now and Daryl nodded.

"We got a camp not far from here. If you want to join, just tag along.", said Daryl and looked around if there were others.

Somehow even Daryl didn't trust Axel completely. It didn't matter if he was a kid or not.

Axel only nodded silently. For now, he would go and meet the cast of the future Alexandria. Making some connections was alright.