Chapter 11

Luckily he wasn't alone. As humiliating as it was for him, Max swooped in and landed a hard kick right on the muscular guys spine snapping it in two. Even with a broken back the thing still refused to give up and only constricted tighter like a snake.

With both Max and Thomas trying to remove the guy with little success, Anne finally caught up and placed her rifle barrel directly against the mutants temple and fired.

One insanely loud gunshot later and the mutant went limp and fell to their feet.

"Thanks for the backup."

BAM! Another gunshot and another obliterated skull. "Don't mention it. Lets just clean this up and get moving." Anne said.

Max took his battle stance and said, "I second that. Unlike you I don't really enjoy risking my life every five minutes."

Only one thing to do then Thomas thought to himself and doubled the amount of adrenaline in his system and charged forward.

The rest of the mutated in the streets were all drawn to them by the sounds of fighting and pretty soon the group had cleared every one in sight.

The road was covered in blood and dead bodies that had mutated in horrible ways. Some had more than two arms or legs and some had huge pustules growing out of their bodies.

Thomas took out a piece of cloth from his pack and used it to wipe away the blackened blood from his arms and face. Its always dangerous for normal people to get mutated blood on them but less so for someone already mutated.

After the group got cleaned up and Anne reloaded her rifle, they were back to jogging through the city.

The road was lined with tall buildings almost the size of skyscrapers but not quite. Even so, some of the mutated people were still roaming around inside because they couldn't find their way out.

The mutated are just about as dumb as zombies. No brains but they do have increased strength which is why its a death sentence to get grabbed by one of them. If they don't squeeze you to death then they will at least hold you until all its friends take a bite.

By now the group has been running for about an hour and Thomas hasn't even begun to sweat, although he does have a mad headache from over using his adrenaline. Max is probably holding up even better than Thomas on account of his mutated legs.

Going by stats alone Max's legs are at least twice as strong as Thomas whole body. On the other hand Anne isn't looking so good. She was able to mutate a couple of days ago yet she still has no idea what part of her got enhanced. It was obviously not her body considering she looked like she was about to pass out from exhaustion.

While he was running Max called out over his shoulder to Anne. "Hey, you want a lift?"

As embarrassing as it was, she had to accept. She was covered head to toe in sweat and her heart was ready to explode.

Max came to a stop and crouched down for Anne to hop on his back. Once on board, Max took of at full speed to catch back up with Thomas who was already 50 meters ahead. Anne had to hold on tight or she would surely fly off and take a hard tumble on the concrete.

"You guys okay back there?! Thomas yelled.

"Yeah man, try to keep up!" Max said and zoomed past Thomas and just like that it became a race between the two.

"Oh no, please don't go too fast or I might fall off!" Anne screamed with the wind flying into her face.

She was a little panicked but honestly she was having a lot of fun. It was almost like riding a really fast motorcycle or something.

This went on for some time until Anne thought she spotted something ahead of them on the road. When she finally made it out she was frightened to say the least.

"Guys stop! Stop now!" She yelled.

Thomas slowed down and looked back at Anne. "Why what's up?"

"There's someone in the road up ahead."

"I don't see anybody. Are you sure?" Max asked.

"Yeah of course. Actually it looks like there's three of them, and they have guns."

Once they heard that they came to a complete stop in the middle of the road. In this new world there was usually only one thing worse than mutated, and that was other people.

Settlements are safe zones and are protected by guards but out here in the wasteland it was a free for all.

Even with the power of being mutated it was mostly still a death sentence to go up against someone with a gun unprepared.

The three of them ducked into an alley and Anne hopped of Max's back.

"How can you see them from this far away? I mean that's got to be a few hundred meters at least." Max voiced his thoughts.

"I'm not sure. It seems so clear to me." Anne said while peeking around the wall of the alley to look down the road.

"There's definitely three of them and they have the road barricaded too. She continued.

Max thought Thomas was being awfully quite so he looked over and saw him looking up.

"What are you looking at man?" He asked.

Instead of replying he put his back against the wall and took off running straight towards the wall on the other side. Before Thomas slammed face first into the wall he leaned his torso back and stuck out his leg and basically ran up the wall for a few meters and then jumped to the other wall and did the same.

He repeated this process over and over until he made it to the roof and grabbed the ledge and pulled himself up. Seconds later he looked back down and called out.

"You guys wait here. I'm gonna get a better look ahead."

Both Max and Anne's mouths were agape because of what they just saw.

"I feel like even though I'm mutated my mind still isn't used to things like this." Max said.

Anne had to consciously close her mouth. "Yeah same."

"Well, there's no way in hell I'm staying all the way back here. Lets move up."

"Okay, but lets be careful. I'm not in the mood to be shot at today." Anne said and then they started moving up the street closer to where the blockade was. They made sure to stay close to the buildings as they moved so they wouldn't stand out as much.

They quickly dashed from cover to cover until they were finally close enough that even Max could see the blockade. Anne was right, there were at least three of them standing guard with guns in hand. Unfortunately the guards had what looked like fully automatic weapons.

"Anne can you see what kind of guns they have?"

"It looks like some type of submachine gun. I'm not sure what they are called, and they all have sidearms as well."

"Shit. Whatever Thomas is planning better work or were toast." Max said as he let out a sigh.

Max was thinking it would be much easier at this point to just turn around and find another way but he lost sight of Thomas as soon as he made it up to the roof and he had no way to contact him.

"Lets just wait and see what Thomas is going to do before we make a move." Max said.

Anne didn't take her eyes off the guards. "Sounds good to me."

Now that Anne found out what her mutation is she simply couldn't stop using her new ability. She scanned the blockade and the street and the rooftops above them. After a couple of minutes she finally spotted Thomas up above the guards.

"Look up there. I found him." She said.

"What is he doing? If they look up he's as good as dead." Max stated.

While they were watching Thomas they could see him holding something in his hands. He peaked over the edge and with frightening speed he threw it down at one of the guards. Something splattered out of the guys head and he fell down dropping his gun and going limp.

The other two guards heard the guy fall over and turned with guns raised.

Thomas head the other guys call out and look around in panic. They couldn't find the source of the attack.

What Thomas had thrown was a rock that he found on the rooftops and with his strength he was able to throw it with the force of a cannon blowing a hole clean through the guys head.

Thomas readied another rock with the intent of taking another life. Most people would probably hesitate at doing such a thing but Thomas had already been through that phase and did whatever he could to survive. These thugs would just as soon shoot them down before uttering a single word.