ch. 26 Village

Nick crouched on the top of the mountain and looked down with the scope on the rifle, the shepherd dog called "Beast" was lying next to him silently as he took stared off in the direction Nick was looking.

In the direction of where the man and dog duo were staring, was a small run down village that made third world countries look fancy.

Half of the village was completely destroyed while the other half was only partially destroyed, everything was covered in grim and rust, trash littered the floor and was even used to cover the windows that had all been shattered.

The only light source for the shabby villages was multiple bonfires that were in the verge of being extinguished to light the place up.

Following Beast direction, Nick had run up five hills and crossed over three valleys before he found the lair of the freaks. From all of the distance he crossed, Nick saw a couple of large craters littering the desert and just around the village Nick saw multiple of such craters, giving Nick a realization.

'I see! This "village" was just actually a testing ground for bomb, and judging by those mutated freaks, it was atomic Bombs! This village must've just been empty houses constructed solely to see how far away a bomb can damage them!'

This realization only made Nick want to immediately rescue those kids before leaving. Not only had he already absorbed a mutant and did need to absorb another, but this radiation was probably terrible for his health and didn't want to stay another second than he had to.

"Good dog, now you can go back to the RV." Nick stroked Beast head, only to nearly get bit by the angry dog if he hadn't moved his hand.

"Calm down boy, fine you can stay and fight!" Nick could see the anger in the dogs eye and it was direct at the mutants village.

Looking down at the village for dozens of minutes, Nick reached into his bag and grabbed a large black cilender and began attaching it to the top of his gun.

The cylinder was a silencer for his HK416, while it won't affect the sound of his gun at close range, it will greatly reduce the muzzle flash of his gun and help him remain hidden longer in the dark.

Laying his bag filled with anti supernatural countermeasures down, Nick grabbed extra magazines before silently running into the village with Beast in tow. With the absorption of the large mutant and the decline of the hill, Nick moved at frightening speed down the sandy hill to the point that even Beast was having a hard time keeping up with him.

From stop of the sand hill, Nick found no traces of dogs, cows, horses or any other animal in this small village that could alter them, and there were no mutants patrolling the village.

All of their life the mutants have always been the predators hunting down normal people, they could never imagine that they would be tracked back to their lair and hunted down by someone they would've deemed prey.

Without anything to worry about, Nick and Beast silently crept over the the outskirts of the mutantd little village.

These houses were incredibly damaged and they were repaired with rusty scrap iron, plastic bags and other bits of trash. This meant there was large gaps inside of their houses and allowed Nick to observe what was going on inside.

Peeling back the plastic bag that covered the window, Chiba looked inside and spotted an oafish mutant man absent stirring a pot and next to the man was a hideos woman sleeping soundly on a terribly stained couch.

As he surveyed the disgusting room that was dimly light by the fireplace, that's when he spotted him.

The unconscious Bobby laid on the floor, his mouth gagged with a stained rag, his clothes torn, his right arm missing leaving a growing pool of blood, his legs broken in different direction and his body was covered in cuts and bruises.

Seeing the state of the young boy, Nicks face contorted in anger and subconsciously lifted his gun about to shoot the mutants dead, when he had a moment of clarity to activate his snakes mindset and a wave cold logic washed over him but his heart still beated with fury.

Putting his gun down, Nick silently ripped the plastic bag off of the window and entered the house making sure not to step in the broken glass and trash before creeping over to the cooking mutant.

As he neared the man, Nick looked over at the pot and saw a small hand floating around in the murky water as even Nick's snakes mindset began to faulter as his anger.

Without wasting a second, Nick's left hand supported the left side of the mutants head as his right hand grabbed his knife and stabbed forward, piercing the mutants right temple and killing him.

Despite the quick kill, the mutants body began to spasm and squirm, throwing the pot to the floor and awakening the mutant woman.

"GRA-" Before the hideous mutant woman could scream, the knife in Nick's hand pierced through her throat.

While he'd been aiming for the eye for a fatal attack, this was quite lucky as it prevented her from warning the others.

Walking over to the mutant woman gagging on her own blood and desperately looked up at Nick with pleading eyes, Nick had no mercy for the cannibal as he took out his second knife made of silver and sunk it directly into her right eye, ending the cannibal life.

With the enemies dead, Nick walked over to Bobby and took out a large zip tie before putting it around the boys missing arm and tightened with lots of strength to stop the blood flow.

Stopping the bleeding arm was all help Nick could do, this boy needed urgent medical care but Nick couldn't do that just yet, he still had to save the baby.

Gently picking the wounded Bobby up, Nick took him outside to an old broken down refrigerator he spotted early and hid him inside, making sure to leave it cracked open a little to breath.

'If this is the state of Bobby, I need to get to Catherine!' With urgency in his step, Nick ran over to the house that Beast was sitting outside of.