chapter 42 : Stockholm syndrome

Knowing that the presence of other runners in town had been confirme, Calvin immediately contacted Paul by radio to inform him and ask Christina to take shelter in King with their children just in case but the communication was poor and the two men didn't understand each other.

Calvin's bad feeling definitely grew stronger and his heart was beating erratically as he tried to communicate with Paul because despite the crackling on the channel, he could hear shouting and commotion from Paul's side . As he tried to resume communication with Paul...

 "AAAAAAH Stop, leave him…LEAVE HIM ALONE…" They heard the scream of a girl inside and Cal hurried to go look and find to his surprise Rebecca the girl he had been looking for since the beginning protecting a blond man in his thirties from the angry mob who wanted him dead.

He immediately calmed down this commotion before walking towards Rebecca in panic.

 "You…you're the one responsible for all this…you're the one who destroyed everything here…" Rebecca said to Calvin as she cried and he frowned.

 "Rebecca Lamb ? Are you Walen's big Sister ? I promised your sister I'd take you back with me so you're going to stop what you're doing and follow me, I've wasted enough time on this shit…" He said boredly and she grabbed her lover, saying that she would not leave without him because the crowd would certainly kill him.

Calvin asjed an explanation and it was an angry black woman in her 40s who emerged from the crowd to explain everything after a short cacophony.

 "This little fool was brought here a few months ago and like every woman here, she suffered abuse from these bastards but she fell in love with one of them. That bastard Dylan (the guy Rebecca was protecting) was one of those rapist Nazis and took advantage of powerless women whenever he wanted but became interested in Rebecca until she fell for him. This little bitch never tried to escape since they've been together like it's just fine with her." The woman said angrily and Calvin looked at Rebecca with disgust mixed with incomprehension.

 Rebecca : He made mistakes but he also took care of me, we love each other and-(interrupted)

 "WALEN IS LOOKING FOR YOU. (snaps fingers) Bitch, remember your little sister ? She goes out from time to time and puts herself in danger to look for you because you are the last member of her family on earth.

She asked me in tears to bring back her big sister who apparently didn't give a damn about her and preferred to fool around with a racist who raped her." Calvin said angrily, he felt like he was dreaming and didn't know how this kind of situation was even possible.

 "She's not my real sister, Walen was adopted and my mother died protecting her because this girl is mute. If people take care of her then that's good because I don't want to take care of her, tell her I'm dead." Rebecca said to Calvin who started to smile before telling himself that his work here was done.

 "THEY ENTER …" Nathan shouted alertly outside as he and his companions began firing at the runners who had managed to break through the hotel gate.

Panic gripped the survivors and Calvin fired a second shot to get people's attention.

 "Ladies and gentlemen, it's no longer time to confine ourselves to the role of eternal victims. Do you want to live ? Fight for your survival or die because I don't owe you anything so I don't have to strain to defend you.

Each of you if you put your fear aside can easily kill one of these walking corpses so overcome your fears and save your lives, no one will do it for you..." He said as he started to head outside while the survivors were urgently looking for something to defend themselves and Rebecca took the opportunity to hide with her boyfriend to wait for an opportunity to escape.

Calvin went outside to help Nathan and the others who had started the fight outside and they didn't wait for him to take care of the runners because even though they were faster and stronger than normal zombies, their physical prowess remained on a human scale so it wasn't complicated to shoot them down from a distance even if they were running towards Nathan and his friends. 

The only real problem was the horde which was coming little by little.

 "I congratulate you guys, you've done an extraordinary job here. However, the real fight will begin and your shots will only increase the horde.

Be ready to fight, be smart before you get scared and you'll clearly have a chance of surviving." He told them as he started shooting the zombies with his silenced pistol.

 "You, they say that you killed a lot of these Nazis and that you are very strong. Why don't you lead us ? If you help us get out of this alive then we will follow you wherever you go, our people need a black man like you and I believe you can help us get through this apocalypse." A slightly fat black man said to Calvin while other majority black survivors in the crowd supported this proposition.

 "Our people ? We always have to bring everything back to race, huh…? What race are you talking to me about when you let shit like slavery happen a second time while crying about your faute ?

You stayed there to live through this misfortune without really trying anything while waiting for a savior like our passive people always did and you think I would be interested in having people like that by my side ?

 You had the numerical advantage even with slaves of other ethnicities sharing your fate but you did nothing except become victims, A SECOND TIME.

If I had never gotten here then how much longer could this have lasted ? I was like you with this race thing in my head at the beginning but seeing you makes me tremble because it's so ridiculous and pathetic, YOU are pathetic with a mentality of eternal victims.

 I'll create a strong community that will survive everything in this world through the tenacity and strength of the indomitable human spirit. No race, no ethnic community but only human beings wanting to survive and ensure that our extinction desired by this disgusting virus is just a bad wind.

Fuck the race, fuck slavery, fuck the Nazis, fuck these walking corpses who want to eat us, fuck our weak culture based almost entirely on lamentation. Do you wanna survive? The white, Asian , Mexican and the Jew niggas near you want it too so move your asses together because death is coming for you and that bitch is hungry..." He said under everyone's gaze before take his assault rifle to go towards the horde and start killing the zombies one by one with an aiming speed and precision that they had never seen.

 "Where did this guy come from…? "Nathan asked in appreciation of his firearms prowess.

 "I don't know but he's real Nigga, fosho…" The black woman who had been talking about Rebecca and her boyfriend earlier said as she walked past him with a small hammer in her hand.

More and more people began to walk towards the approaching horde to begin engaging them in hand-to-hand combat as Calvin was already eliminating several of them through the entrance which looked like a funnel from a certain point of view.

 "That's good, you're starting to understand. Don't try anything fancy, it's been almost two years since all this shit started and you know to aim for the head so don't aim for anything else except with a simple kick to their chest to push them back.

Don't panic, the smell and their image is disturbing but remember that you are faster than them, you'll see that they are by far much easier to manage than you think.

Back off if they gain more and more ground in large numbers and cover each other, if there are too many for you then take refuge inside the hotel or gain height on high surfaces to continue the fight. " Calvin said as he threw his silenced assault rifle and backpack onto the roof of a nearby truck before taking out his ice pick in his left hand and his Hammer claw in his right hand to start killing the zombies in close combat.

 The fight gained in intensity and these people, despite their recent misfortune had also lived outside, they at least knew how to defend themselves against a zombie and Calvin's advice to keep a safe distance or push the walkers away with a push kick was very helpful.

As he said, they realized after several minutes that they were much stronger than the walkers and that fear was their greatest enemy, this feeling was amplified by watching Calvin fight alone at the front managing all these zombies almost effortlessly and even then, he didn't even have his sword.

 People faced with common dangers had to really fight side by side for their lives and didn't take unnecessary risks while fighting, they were not babies to go so far as to tell them not to do stupid things.

They knew the situation was delicate and that the first to be too confident or too playful would end up devoured.

Nathan came to meet Calvin up front with his friends and they nodded at each other before resuming the fight while other more survivors also moved forward.

 "We need to disperse them a little, let a few people go on the roofs of the trucks to make noise and attract some of them, we'll manage the rest downstairs and if some get tired then move back and I'll do the rest." Calvin said and the people didn't wait long to do as he said and it didn't take long for the results to be seen but just as things seemed to be going well, screams were heard at the back.

Apparently, several of the supremacists he had killed had reanimated as walkers to attack the people behind who were mostly women and children.

Calvin asked Nathan to go see what was going on in the back and he left with several other men including a tall, fairly muscular black man with burn marks on him.

 They arrived at the back to start taking down the zombies to save the people when they saw a small troop of walkers surrounding Rebecca and Dylan who was holding her hand but while the fear was at its peak within them, Dylan in an excess of cowardice pushed Rebecca towards the zombies before fleeing under the eyes of Nathan who saw the girl trying to struggle before being bitten by three of them.

The large black man with burn marks intervened to help her but she had already been bitten.

Nathan took a deep breath and brushed his blonde hair back before running after Dylan with a hunting knife.

 Minutes later, he returned with blood on him to find Rebecca in tears from the pain of the bites while the man who saved her tried to calm her down.

Nathan said nothing before returning to finish exterminating the zombies in the back with the others.

Calvin was now fighting alone at the front because he had pushed back the others who were starting to tire, he didn't let any zombies pass to the amazement of the others but the walkers were still numerous.

 He wanted to give further instructions when the sounds of vehicles accompanied by gunshots were heard outside.

Listening to this, Cal asked the others to go hide as they might be reinforcements from the other outpost.

After a few dozen seconds of eliminating the rest of the zombies near the portal while the other walkers were drawn outside, Cal quietly went out to see who it was.

 He saw people killing the rest of the horde outside and seeing the diversity of people with guns, it was not the supremacists from the other base but Vincent who had in fact arrived as renforcement.

Cal saw Vincent using two silenced pistols with modified magazines to take down zombies and frankly, he was a great marksman. The two men saw each other and Vincent gave him a smile.

 "Why are you here and how did you know ?" Calvin asked him and Vincent moved closer by storing his weapons in their holsters.

 Vincent: I decided to take initiatives on my own, I didn't know what you were going to do so I sent people to observe not out of distrust but out of curiosity. I also took care of the Mall outpost and to convince the other communities of the good faith of my vision, I gave them the opportunity to fight, to deliver theirs in battle themselves and that was a quick success as the outpost was captured in no time with the help of the forced laborers inside.

 "Let me guess, those you sent to watch here warned you about the horde and you came ?" Cal asked him and Vincent raised his eyebrows smiling, he asked him what the situation was and Cal told him that the other enemies had been neutralized much to Vincent's joy.