Chapter Forty Seven - Zombies Found In Aisle Seven

The misshapen head, which had just been removed from its neck, fell to the ground with a squelch.

"God, it smells disgusting in here!" Complained Monika under her breath, as she followed the two men before her into the office space. This had become the tomb of the undead creature that Ren Zexian had sensed within. It had been apathetic, barely moving its neck to face them before the sword put it to rest. Although they still had a couple of small rooms to still look into, most of these spaces had proven to be empty so far.

They moved on, not willing to spend any more time in the stench of the room, but found nothing in the other offices, leading them to believe that their greatest challenge would be the shop-floor space and warehouse. Both could be accessed from here, so they still needed to remain on guard; if the zombies smelled or heard them, the hunters would become the hunted. Worse still, there was no lighting. The shop-floor would have a bit from the glass panelled front, but it would not reach all the way to the rear end of the store and certainly not into the warehouse. All of the offices had windows, the light of which leaked into the corridor, aiding their journey, but the locker-rooms and toilets were without the luxury of light; they had been fortunate not to run into anything while waving the torches about attempting to ensure they were devoid of threat. They were heavily reliant on Ren Zexian and his ability.

With that said, they decided to retreat down the corridor and enter the shop-floor first, nearest that main source of light. The number of zombies would be greater, but they would not be fighting blind.

The place where the corridor intersected with the shop-floor also happened to be where there was a rotten mess of fruit and vegetables; the former fresh produce nothing but mould and black goop. Unsurprisingly, there were flies hovering about the drippy remnants. These flies were also bothering the undead being that dragged itself across the floor towards them with obvious intent. The zombie's hind legs were missing, its entrails spilled from its putrid body, which happened to be crawling with white maggots. Both Patrick and Monika heaved, while Tyler's nose wrinkled in disgust. Ren Zexian calmly lopped off its head.

"So gross," Patrick couldn't help but mutter and Monika nodded in agreement.

Jonah indicated with a finger that they needed to keep the noise down, then glanced at Ren Zexian who pointed to a position behind the first wall of high shelves; that was where the nearest zombie happened to be. Not all sound could be muffled, their shoes tapped or squeaked along the stone floor no matter how lightly they trod upon it and they drew the attention of the nearest zombies with just this. Fortunately, it was just a group of three, which ran and leapt towards them at varying paces and were easily dealt with. None of these displayed any abilities.

Ren Zexian pointed down the length of first aisle beyond the vegetables to indicate that there was a Zombie at the other end, but were it not for the large, glowing eyes that suddenly stared in their direction, they would not have seen it. Cracks of light appeared over its body as it made its way towards them, yet otherwise it was like an ordinary zombie, with a slow, dragging pace, green, grey skin and dark, yellow teeth. Of course, with such a bright source of light, other zombies would be attracted to it; it suddenly staggered as a nimble zombie leapt from the high shelves onto it and dove its teeth into it's neck and shoulder.

"What the fuck?!" The squad couldn't believe what they were seeing, one zombie devouring another. However, Ren Zexian felt as if he could understand the situation, he recalled not only something that Dexter had mentioned, but something from his own experiences. That nimble zombie was stealing the cultivation of the glowing zombie in the only way it knew how; by eating it... or more specifically, its core.

The Cultivator wasted no time, first tapping Patrick on his shoulder to gain his attention before gesturing. The smaller man nodded then used his gift over gravity to press heavily onto the two zombies, allowing Ren Zexian to finish both off using blades of wind.

"Look out!" Arthur called out as numerous metal cans suddenly hurtled their way.

"Metal zombie, not good!" Jonah felt a tiny tug upon his gun and cursed beneath his breath. They retreated to the nearest conveyor belt just as the tins stopped coming, abruptly, and the wire baskets replaced them as the chosen projectiles.

"Its methods are crude," Cole pointed out. They had a metal user in their team, they had already learned what sort of tricks that man could come up with; moving metal objects with his mind was the simplest of them.

"You say that like its a bad thing!" Monika snapped at him, before ducking the basket that almost hit her.

They were pinned down, seemingly unable to fight back, mainly because they had yet to spot the zombie attacking them. Ren Zexian knew it was close by, however and approaching as it attacked them, albeit at a snail's pace. He also deduced that the creature could only handle a few objects at a time and had to be within a certain radius of those metal things before it could grab them. It likely had not long developed its abilities and hadn't mastered them. He altered his crouching form, ready to leap into the air on a wind cushion before using a wind blade to end it. However, the attacks suddenly ended.

The squad glanced over the conveyor belt to witness the collapse of a substantial zombie body, falling to the ground. There was a few thin spear of ice piercing through its neck and temple. "I did it..." murmured a rather surprised Tyler, who then gave a satisfied chuckle, before being thrown to the ground as it shook beneath him. The stone tiles beneath his feet suddenly became sand, before a few gunshots exploded through the air along with a whoosh of air and a now unmoving zombie fell on top of him. It's bloodshot eye dropped into his lap as Tyler threw it off in a panic.

"That's gone and done it," muttered Jonah as the roars of zombies collectively sounded throughout the building.

"Sorry, Sarge," Monika said as she lowered the air holding the gun. "It was instinct."

"I believe that the zombie with metal abilities made enough noise prior to that," Ren Zexian offered small comfort as he suggested that it was not her fault.

They'd ended the existences of eight zombies upon the shop-floor space, but that simply meant that there were at least nine to go and that did not include the nine that Ren Zexian had claimed were in the warehouse. Who knew if the latter group could get from there onto the main forecourt or not?! A group of four sped in their direction, though one lagged behind a little with an obvious limp, although its speed was clearly not impeded enough! Ren Zexian quickly controlled the situation, gaining the attention of these swift beings even as Patrick forced the weaker of the group to the ground. This one was quickly finished off by the long, butcher's knife in Cole's possession, while Jonah and the others tried to reduce Ren Zexian's burden a bit more.

"Incoming!" Called out Tyler, who'd still not yet rejoined the group. He splashed water onto the ground and attempted to freeze it, hoping to cause the zombies to lose their footing. It was only slightly affective; the first one dropped in a splay of limbs to the floor and was crushed beneath the heavy foot of the one following. It's foot only tore through a paper thin covering of flesh under the other's rib cage, but the remnants of its internal organs were spilled as the zombie over it continued onward. That zombie's feet seemed to cause the floor to tremble with every step, the remaining ice cracking and shattering across the stone.

Fortunately, two more of the original group had been vanquished and the only one remaining was dealt with by a combination of Patrick and the other's attacks. Ren Zexian then intercepted what he thought might be some sort of stone or armour zombie. However, as his sword moved to slice across what he thought would be near impervious skin, like which they had encountered before, his weapon actually began to bend. The curve increased the nearer it came to the creature, rendering his attack useless. He leapt away before a heavy hand could reach and crush him.

"This one is dangerous, get back!" He called out to the group, which retreated with some swiftness. "It has some sort of self-grounding... self-gravity ability! It makes it heavier and seemingly resistant to attack. I do not know whether or not that whether it has evolved to Patrick's extent however."

"I see two more!" Tyler called out.

"And another is coming from over where the fruit and veg section was!" Arthur called out as he retrieved his gun from its sheath.

"I thought we cleared that area?" Monika wondered aloud.

"Maybe it came from the warehouse?"

"Worry about that later!" Jonah snapped. "We need to deal with this bastard first!" Tyler's water attacks had been deflected as easily as Ren Zexian's sword and they daren't attempt to hit it with bullets.

"Retreat?" Cole wondered aloud. It was all well and good attempting this raid, but they would only be truly successful if everyone actually survived through it and currently, that was looking less likely. Ren Zexian threw a wind blade towards it, which was not completely deflected, however what managed to pass through the gravitational field about the zombie did little more than scratch its cheek. Nothing oozed from the wound, indicating its shallowness. And then suddenly the monster's whole body seemed to quiver, like a plate full of jelly held in a playful child's hands. The zombie exploded into chunks.

They didn't have time to question it, as the other three zombies had finally reached them. However, none of these posed any threat.

Cole finished off the fallen zombie, left half crushed to the ground by the gravity creature before they finally said the words that they hadn't the chance to before. "What the fuck just happened?"

There was a few shrugs and shaking of heads before Tyler asked Patrick; "Did you attempt to use your abilities on it during that fight?"

"Um, yeah," Patrick admitted. He'd unleashed his ability on it three times in fact, but not once seemed to be effective. That last attempt had been a measure of desperation.

"I think you disrupted its gravitational field with your ability," Tyler deduced. "I can't say for sure, I don't know why it exploded under those circumstances, I'm no scientist. But I think that's the only explanation." The others decided to agree with this, though they were all a bit clueless and to be honest; it was dead, who cared?

"On to the warehouse then?" Arthur suggested after Ren Zexian concluded that there were no more surprises lurking on within the store front.

Monika visibly shuddered. "I don't want to come across zombies like these in the dark," she complained.

"Well," Jonah said, after rubbing the stubble on his jaw for a moment in thought, "if we can't go to them, then we'll have to draw them to us. Let's finish this and get out of here. The smell of zombie guts is making me feel sick."