Chapter 76 - Mother

Before I choose one of those two choices, I backed away from the window and sat on a chair before removing the clip from my assault rifle. It didn't take me long to count how many bullets I had left and sadly, these fourteen bullets won't be enough to kill all of the hefbis that are after my head.

Once again, I returned to the same question that I asked myself a few minutes ago: What should I do?

Normally, the safest and most logical choice would be to wait it out, hoping that these ghouls won't rush inside the building after me, but then again, I doubt they won't, especially after I killed so many of them in the last twenty-four hours.

At the same time, by simply waiting for a miracle to happen, I would be left exposed to an all-out assault, and looking at my gear, I wasn't exactly prepared for one. Besides, I'm more than sure that that girl was somewhere near her pets, or else why don't they just rush like a bunch of mindless zombies?

Getting up from the chair, I once again looked outside the window, only to be pleasantly surprised when I saw a pack of raptors ripping apart two unlucky hefbis that may have been sent to scout the building. The raptors were most likely waiting in ambush somewhere close to the building I was bunkering inside, most likely thanks to the not-so-quiet attempt of lock-picking the door. Now, thanks to these killer machines, an idea popped up in my head.

I quickly grabbed my rifle and opened the window. Zoe's idea of grabbing a scope would now pay off, especially when I would put the scope to good use alongside the little laser point that all of our weapons had. Switching on the laser, I looked through the scope and put the red dot on the head of the closest hefbis while taking a breath before pulling the trigger. A muffled sound stopped every creature and in the next second, one of the hefbis fell on the cold ground. The other raptors stood alert when they heard the first shot but the next few ones, surprisingly, made them curious about what was happening on the other side and why does it smell like some juicy prey? The pack ran off in different directions, and a moment later the street was empty, but hearing the cries of those hefbis made me smile a little, since, for a while, I would be safe, at least from them.

Now that I had some time to recover, I decided to rest for a while in the bedroom. The whole apartment had pieces of furniture covered with cellophane, so the dust would fall on the furniture, but after many years, I doubt the original owners would return. Nevertheless, that didn't stop me from removing it from the bed so that I could take a quick nap.

By the time I woke up, the sun had finally set and from what I've seen on my watch, there were only a few hours until sunrise, which means that I could use the darkness as a way of getting deeper into the city or that I could just waste the rest of night in this apartment just as I initially planned to. After a quarter of an hour of thinking, I decided to explore the building for anything useful, since it would be better than sitting ducks in the apartment, doing nothing.

Before I leave the apartment, it would be better to check to see if anything was waiting outside so before I leave the room, I decided to listen for anything really. Thankfully, I couldn't hear anything, but still, that didn't mean that there wasn't a creature there. I carefully moved the wardrobe away and slowly opened the door a little. Using my flashlight I made sure nothing was in the hallway, but I still saw something I clearly remember not being there when I first came here. The only thing different was on the floor, where I saw a long trail of blood that went toward one of the open apartments. For the third time since I'd put my foot in this damned apartment complex, I had to make another choice regarding my well-being of me, but now it was quite simple: Do or die.

Slowly walking down the bloody trail, I had my rifle aimed towards the door, and no matter what kind of creature jumps out of there, I'll fill it with my two bullets, but as soon as I reached the door, I had to check if I was dreaming. Inside the apartment where the bloody trail led me, was a small orangutan or at least something similar to one. To be honest, I don't think I could call the creature that saved my ass in the street earlier today one, since it was many times bigger than what Pike's books suggested.

Before I could approach the not-so-little one, a massive hand grabbed me from behind rising me in the air. I was shocked and I'd lie if I didn't fear for my life, but thankfully as soon as I looked at what grabbed me, I saw one of the creatures that helped me. Judging from the way the creature looked at the smaller creature, I believe that the creature was a she, which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on how would the mother reacts. She sniffed me a few times before she let me down, on the other side of the apartment, before left me out in disbelief.

Seeing that she didn't harm me, I quickly left, heading downstairs. As soon as I was sure that nothing was waiting for me outside, I dashed out of the building towards the outskirts. There was no chance that I would get a third lucky encounter with those creatures and I'd rather not risk it by going deeper into what now I know it's their territory.

As I was running, I glanced for a few seconds toward the inner part of the city imagining what a nightmarish hellhole must be there. How many creatures live there and now that I've met a mother and child pair of those Orangutans, how do they live? Whatever toxic plants may grow near where the crater was located.

Sadly, not long after I start running, the hefbis gathered in one big group, chasing after me. was becoming ever light, but that also means that I would be easily spotted by the rest of the people and hefbis that want me dead. Here, in the middle of the street, the advantage was with them. I was unable to stop, as I didn't have any bullets. At the same time, they were shifting to all fours, and their silhouettes did not rise more than a meter above the ground. They almost merged with the road. No matter how fast I tried to run, the gear, rucksack, rifle, and the growing fatigue, were making themselves felt. I was starting to get just a tiny bit slower, but at the same, I caught sight of something flickering at one of the windows of a building that was directly in front of me.

Suddenly from the very same window, a gunshot filled the street and in the next second, one of the hefbis got his head blown off. As soon as I heard the gunshot, I dashed towards the right side, since from what Lee told us, there were outposts all over the area, even deep inside the wasteland, and because of that, I didn't want to risk getting shot by a stray bullet.

Just as I was about to continue running forward, someone dragged me inside one of the buildings before a rain of bullets fall upon the hefbis cutting them apart.

"Are you injured, boy?"

"He can't even understand what happened! Besides, did you see what he brought with him? We barely fought off the last group and that by using the wildlife!"

For a second, I didn't know what to say or do, but as soon as I saw the familiar gear on them, I knew that they were rangers, most likely scouts sent to observe the city.

"Thanks for saving me, but who are you two?"

"No, boy, the right question is who the fuck are you?"

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