Chapter 7: The Recon Team

Three figures next to the corner of the alleyway was simply sitting down, the corpses that was in the middle of the streets. Walked down upon it as if it was a calm, placid parade. Dan was in the middle drawing figures onto the handheld map, its textures rugged and yellow, Dan frantically looked back up to confirm the last positions of the zombies. While Cody kept watch and simply continued to rush Dan with his words.

“Hurry up… Dan hurry up…” whispered Cody

“I’m drawing as fast as I can!” Dan in a sotto voice (Loud whisper)

“Cody, you’re not helping by rushing him. He’s already having problems drawing the figures with his “art talent”  Ivan used his fingers to emphasis the word “art talent”.

Dan’s marking on the map was similar to a child’s drawing with the difference of actually having purpose, where the symbols do not randomly repeat and a curvy line that went from their base to the objective.

“I was never good at drawing okay? Didn’t I already make this clear to you guys back when you threw the map on me and said” Dan assumed a strange face and impersonated Cody’s voice to the best of his ability.

“Since you're the radioman I presume you got the art and the logistic ability to create a map skill.” Dan resumed back in his own whisper. Logistic doesn’t even have anything to do with map drawing, its fucking Cartography that’s more into map making. “

Cody ignoring Dan, immediately backed up and signaled Ivan to cover their position. Cody grabbed his bowie knife and placed it in front of him. As Cody finished his preparation, a zombie was seen walking by the alleyways’ opening. It’s body was decaying, the spring shirt  it wore was filled with claw marks and the short pants were stained and filled with a mixture of dirt and blood, its smell repulsive as it tried to walk by, however  Cody immediately launched himself into the air and swung his left fist onto the zombie’s face. Giving a smacking sound, thus turning the zombie’s back towards him. Using his right hand to lift his knife, he grasped the handle and turned the dagger point downwards on his hand. Letting loose the force onto the back of the zombie’s head. Blood gushed forward and the zombie’s groan was severed, Cody grabbed the knife, lifting it out of the head and giving a swing onto the neck of the zombie. Quickly bleeding  it, as if it was a chicken hung upside down. The blood gave out and started to pool at the zombie’s feet. Cody kicked down the back of the zombie’s knee which made the body kneel there.

Having finished his actions, Cody knelt down behind the corpse’s body as it’s head drooped downwards. He retreated back slowly towards Dan and Ivan.

“Nice job.” complimented Ivan

“Right, where were we at? Ah right, horrible drawing talent.” said Cody

“At least give me a break.” Dan Whined

“Anyways I’ve finished it. This should mark most of the positions of the walking hordes. Potential firefights and the debris that will assist the undead.”

“Right, time to head back. As usual I’ll take point.” said Cody

As soon as Cody finished talking, a large grunt was heard inside a building. The sign on the side said “Chinese Buffet ($12.99), Cody tried to look inside the building with his eyes and saw nothing but the darkness. Dan gave Cody his binoculars, he grabbed it and peered through it.

“It’s still too dark…” said Cody

“Might as well just leave this place.” said Ivan

“Mark this place for strange sightings….” ordered Cody

Dan grabbed his map out placed an red exclamation mark (!) next to their position. Cody looked at the map and looked at Dan with a questionable look.

“Dan, when we get back to Landford. You’re going to have to make a map legend for the symbols that you marked on the map. I can easily mistake this for a child’s fantasy map of the small forest that they visited. “ said Cody

“....”

Dan simply looked at his map silently, and packed up. They turned around and started to head back, until a scream was heard. Cody’s ears peeked outwards and turned his head. Ivan and Dan as they turned about to looked behind them they saw Cody running towards the other end of the alleyway towards the scream, Ivan lifted his hands and tried to grab Cody’s shoulder but failed.

“Don’t Go!” yelled Ivan

Cody ignored him, and ran towards the source. He saw the dark store and the big figure looking down upon something. It was a woman in her late 30s, dressed in torn jeans and a white t-shirt, beside her was a man in his 40s wearing a simple leather jacket and jeans he carried a  machete on his right hand. While the woman held a colt 45 towards the big figure, shooting a couple times into it, following the shots the man ran towards the big figure trying to chop its head. The big figure felt nothing and used its right arm to bash the man deeper into the inner store. The man’s body flung towards the wall and blood gushed out from his mouth. The distance thrown from the position was a similar scenario to when a cat bashes a mouse out of it’s way. The man sprawled out onto the ground, tried to get up but simply fell back down onto his arm. Realizing his position he suddenly yelled out something to the woman.

“RUN! WE COULDN’T -” the big figure ran towards the fallen man, cutting off his words as it began to lift its arms up and smashed the man to death with one blow. Cracks were heard as fists of the figure went into the mushy body of the person. When the big figure turned its back to show the result of his thrash, the body of the man that used to be there was now a red oozing pulp of blood with two fists imprinted within it, the head of the man was covered in blood on the neck while the face was in a shock. With his dead eyes, and opened mouth. The big figure continued to back away from the dead man, with blood dripping from it’s fists, the blood dripping onto the ground sounded no different from water drops. The woman feeling the situation was dire took the opportunity to run out of the door. The doors swung open and someone was in front of her. It was Cody with arms pointing into the alleyway. Having caught her attention, Cody immediately directed her towards the alleyway, where he left his position.

“Over there!”

Cody turned around and ran, while the woman followed him willingly. They went into the alleyway and Cody stopped next to Ivan and Dan while the woman started to run past them only to have Cody grab her arm.

“It’s alright! You’re safe! said Cody

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“No, that was a Zerker! RUN!”

The woman tried to pull free but immediately froze as the roar echoed the city. *GRAAAAAAA*

“SHIT! WE GOTTA LEAVE LIKE NOW!” the woman panicked

Cody upon hearing that roar was already dragging the woman together with him. He took point while Dan and Ivan simply followed, as they ran, the walls behind them tumbled down, letting the dust take the air. Dan looked back and the big figure with a muscular body in a torn white t-shirt came out. The legs muscular with torn jeans. It looked back at Dan and the others with its black eyes, its black eyes had no pupils, no whites it was simply black. The head of the figure was bald and the body had a large trapezius and back, larger than the form of a body builder. Dan immediately reacted to the monstrosity and yelled.

“Oh shit! Come on guys RUN!”  

They ran out of the alleyway passing the cars parked on the side, while the large creature started to run towards them, crushing the cars under it’s weight. Ivan immediately took action and fired at the figure. The creature continued to run towards Ivan. He jumped out of the way before the creature came near him, causing the creature to crash into the walls and the store crumbled into it. Ivan stood back up and threw his hand towards Cody and the others, telling them to fall back.

“I’ll meet you guys back at Restroom #3, the place where we couldn't take numbers 2!” yelled Ivan

The creature stood back up, brushing off the rocks. It stared into Ivan’s eyes, its eyes turns red and the chest puffed out, Ivan rocked the shotgun and began reloading shells into it. Quickly getting up on top of a truck container that was located on the street. Ivan grabbed his beretta tomcat and shot at the creature’s chest, however it continued to puff it’s chest. After a moment the creature suddenly shudder for a short moment and gave out a tremendous roar. *GRAAAAA*

“Oh no!” muttered Ivan

He jumped down from the truck container and landed upon the dead bodies that were piled upon one another. Before he could run a hand grasped onto his ankles, he fell down and looked back at the culprit. The zombie that rose from the dead bodies had red eyes, the drool that came out of it’s mouth signifying the lack of brain matter. Ivan aimed the beretta at the zombie and shot out it’s brains, swiftly taking it out of commission, then giving a strong kick to break off the limp arms from his leg. Ivan looked around and found more zombies walking towards him, he stood up quickly and ran up towards the nearest door that was in front of him. He quickly slammed into the door, but only fell back down onto the sidewalk once again. He got back up and threw a grenade over the truck, causing an explosion, leaving the zombies around him in a daze as they slowly looked over towards the flames that spewed out from the explosion.

“Stupid creatures getting riled up by sound alone!” muttered Ivan

Ivan immediately stabbed a small explosive onto the doorknob of the door, immediately going towards the dead bodies as cover. The door blew up, slowly it opened itself ajar. Ivan looked back at the creature as it ran around crashing into the cars that stood in front of it, occasionally crashing into some zombies.

“This creature is stupid…” as soon as Ivan said that the creature that he talked about turned it’s head and ran towards him.

“SORRY!” Ivan ran into the building and set a claymore at the doorway. Quickly looking back and scanning the store. It was a retail store for clothings, mainly containing women’s fashion, and some accessories for the wrist.

Ivan ran towards the countertops and slid across it towards the back of it.

“Should I hide, or brave the undying creatures? I say brave it, horror films always have the hiding people die first.” muttered Ivan

The claymore immediately explode and the creature had its arms across it’s face. Once again it faced towards the skies and roared. The arms bashed open the outer rims of the door and the creature’s speed immediately picked up and ram through the clothes towards the countertop. Ivan immediately rolled out from the back of the countertop and shot his shotgun at the creature. The shots it was accumulating had dark red blood leaking out of it. The creature, before it reached towards the countertop immediately stopped and bashed its arms upwards towards Ivan. Catching his kevlar vest and sending him towards the display windows, where the mannequins wore lavish clothings. He crashed into them and was stopped by the barred windows, he gritted his teeth as he heard the groans from outside.

“Agh, that hurts! Who the hell would steal these clothes! What’s with the security?” groaned Ivan.

The store’s alarm immediately went off, Ivan’s face went pale. He got out of the display window and saw the creature looking at him. It’s eyes red and the arms flailed out towards Ivan, as if it was taunting him with it’s monstrosity.

“Dude! I can’t fight your muscles. Damn steroid taking monsters!” yelled Ivan

Zombies started to pour in from the door, Ivan threw out a grenade onto the doorway and ran towards the creature located at the end of the store. The explosion decimated the doorway and flung the zombies out of their positions, crashing into the walls and the clothing racks. As Ivan ran towards the creature the creature started to run towards him. Ivan immediately jumped to the side and led the creature to crash into the wall. Ivan got back up and jumped on top of the creature’s back, grasping his bowie knife out from his side belt. He firmly stabbed it into the creature’s head, the creature roared and thrashed about.

Knocking off everything that stood near it, the zombies one by one continued to pour into the store with it’s alarm. Ivan continued to stab the creature’s head, allowing its blood to pour out on top of Ivan’s helmet. The creature’s arms bashed into a zombie’s head causing the brain matter to gush out, the force was so strong that it was as if the zombie was a soda can crushed one sidedly allowing it’s liquid to spill out from the top. Blood strewn onto the floor that was already littered with women's clothings.

The creature managed to throw Ivan off it’s back, smashing him into the walls behind it, enough for the wall to get crushed and open up it’s stubborn self to the outside. Ivan was thrown off and fell down through the wall’s hole, coughing blood out of his mouth, the impact from the creature to the wall, threw him out of the store by a couple feet. Now he was coughing in a wet alleyway filled with untouched trash cans.

Ivan stood back up and saw that the creature continued to move it’s arms, bashing the heads of the zombies that walked towards it. He looked to the side that led back out to the streets, there were a couple zombies trying to claw it’s way through but was blocked by a wired fence. His face covered with blood, his kevlar torn by a fist, and his legs were worn out.Ivan clutched his sides, and slowly walked out of the ordeal. This time he didn’t dare say anything.