Chapter 18 - The Mall Incident

They patrolled the mall floors in turns.

Everything was normal until they heard footsteps reaching them from the first floor.

They were all alerted from the footsteps that became clearer and clearer to them.

Jasmine stood in front of them and looked forward at the closed door that lead the path from the first floor to the second floor of the mall. They could hear a beast's breath from the door's other side. Suddenly, a shadow could be spotted under the door. It was munching over something and sniffing.

It stood there for a whole minute and went back to its first floor. Jasmine and her team had decided to retreat from this mall in the dawn to avoid this unknown beast. They all prepared to retreat in the morning after they received the orders from general Herald.

The general refused them to retreat from the mall unless they found any evidence of his nephew's death or recover his body. She explained to him about the beast's appearance that he had refused to believe.

She refused the direct orders and started retreating from the mall early in the morning.

The general had intently called at the satellite phone which rang in the mall. Soon after, the phone stopped ringing, and they could hear the footsteps again, but they were fast.

The beast followed their entire team that was escaping from the mall, but they were caught by it between the stairs that could only make them run upstairs.

It was a huge dog with various scratches on its four limbs. Its red eyes had already caught up everyone inside them as it snarled at them while chasing. It was still time for the sunrise, so it was still dark in the mall.

The team had outgunned it and positioned themselves at the pillars, pointing their guns at the door. Their tactic was to shoot when the target arrived in front of the gate.

The mutated beast dashed in the door, which caused it to be hit by some bullets. It immediately fled and stood by the door, whimpering after being hit by dozens of bullets.

There was one teammate that had started to behave strangely after it made eye contact with the beast. The eyes had turned lifeless and dropped its gun on the ground. She immediately pointed her gun to the nearest soldier before pulling the trigger.

The soldier didn't stop after killing one.

Everyone pounced upon her before she could point it to other soldiers, making her immovable. Before they could control the situation there was a sudden shadow passing through the door aiming one of the soldiers on the ground.

The soldier's head was chopped off and fell two meters away from the body. His Blood splattered around and stained everyone, including Jasmine. The female soldier broke free from their grip and immediately shot her through her chin.

Jasmine had already lost two comrades to an enemy that was right in front of her but unidentifiable. The darkness of the room played the huge role to hide this strange beast's body movements, making it almost invisible.

Flared up with anger, Jasmine charged towards the beast with her fiery fists. She jumped in the air to attack it. Her body landed on the designated area, but the beast's figure had turned into a fading shadow. There was a muffled scream that made her turn around. One of her teammate was dragged away from the room with blood gushing out from its mouth.

They all ran towards the first floor, following the screams of their comrade. They entered a pitch black corridor, making their alert formation. Jasmine was the one leading this formation.

They followed the sounds and entered a slightly darker room.

They discovered the soldier's lifeless body and returned to their formation. Huge sweat drops covered their faces, filled with killing intent. They lost three comrades just for a lustful person's death.

Jasmine turned back to give her teammates a command for retreating.

There was no way for their squad to confront this threat with their current strength. Their eyes had tears and started retreating in an order.

They closed the door and immediately ran towards the first floor for retreating. Before they could get the surrounding's clear understanding, they saw a zombie looking at them from the first floor. Its upper half was covered with an exoskeleton protruding from beneath its skin.

Before they could react, they saw a swarm of zombies gushing inside the mall. They started shooting at the swarm without a delay.

Jasmine was afraid that they would not be able to retreat. What made her have this thought was not the sudden swarm of zombies, but that strange zombie looking at her team with its lifeless eyes. It was clear that starting from this point on they were not the hunters but the prey.

The fight went on for hours when they found out that they had left no bullets. They threw away their guns and immediately switched to close combat with their military knives.

There was a pile of corpses falling down from the higher floor. At first the fall would kill the zombies immediately, but after being floored with hundreds of these corpses, the zombies were not immediately dying from the less impact from their fall.

Jasmine had headed towards the strange zombie with strange exoskeletal and had exchanged a few blows with it. Surprisingly, the other zombies avoided Jasmine and its range.

She was heavily injured and barely able to stand. The zombie was not attacking her, despite knowing that she was an easy prey.

The zombie finally made a move.

It reached Jasmine, grabbing her with its powerful grip, and dropped her at the entrance of the mall. She heard a command in her head, "GO….AWAY".

She felt dizzy and fainted.

….

James was shocked to know that Jasmine had arrived at his neighborhood from the mall that was roughly a kilometer away, with her remembering nothing.

"That's all I remember" said Jasmine with a solemn expression on her face.