Danny picked up his backpack from the floor and squeezed through the hole in the barricade while holding it in his hands.

The passage was way too tight for him to strap it to his back and go through.

He could not even pass while walking normally - the width of his shoulders preventing him from doing so - not to mention passing with the bulky bag stuck to his back. In fact, even while being carried in his hands, there was barely enough room for his bag to go through the gap.

‘I need to remember this if I am forced to retreat here. Getting stuck with undead hot on my trail would suck big time. It’s probably better to simply throw the bag over the barricade before I go through.’

After giving himself a mental note to remember later, Danny strapped his hiking backpack onto himself once more, before he carefully started making his way down the steps.

As he reached the second flight of stairs, turning the corner, Danny could clearly see the toppled barricade that the survivors had erected on the second floor in a desperate attempt to hold the swarming undead at bay looking downwards.

‘There’s a lot more dried blood here. Almost more than the entirety of the third floor added together…’ Danny thought somberly as he looked at the remains of what undoubtedly had been a frantic and tragic last stand.

There were even pieces of chewed flesh, some fingers and even a rotting leg scattered on the floor, which told part of the sad tale of those who had once called this place their sanctuary.

Danny did not let himself get shaken by the gory visage though.

After so many days had passed since the start of the Apocalypse, he had been exposed to scenes like this many times already. He had grown increasingly unsensitized to such bloody images and grew to see them as just another common facet of this new normality.

Though he was not immune and some disgust and apprehension were to be expected, Danny barely batted his eyes at the display, merely pausing a few seconds to examine the battlefield in order to garner some clues about what had happened and what he may expect going forward.

The despairing struggle of the survivors had happened long ago however, and the undead that had been lured there had already dispersed.

For some reason, the zombies did not seem to be attracted to pieces of flesh that had been separated from the living. This explained why there were so many chunks and parts of the human body littered on the floor, dirtying the place and polluting the air with their rotting stench.

Danny had already noticed this fact a few times during his travels. It was not that unusual to see the undead leaving leftovers behind.

This told anyone who was paying attention that whatever lured the zombies to attack the living was not simply a compulsion to eat meat.

No. In fact, from his talks with the demon and his own observations, Danny speculated that it had something to do with soul power. Though what was the exact relation between it and the hostility the zombies showed towards the living, he had no idea.

The creatures showed no interest in one another, which told him that they were indifferent to soul crystals. After all, every single one of them had one lodged inside their brains.

Also, to confirm his guess, Danny had even tried to present a crystal to a zombie he had immobilized in the past, just to see what its reaction would be. However, the creature had ignored the shiny stone completely and focused solely on Danny himself, so there were no leads there.

It truly seemed that they cared little for the precious gems. Whatever it was that the creatures wanted, it was something the living possessed that they themselves did not.

‘It seems that the more I know, the more questions without answers I have.’ Danny lamented his poor access to information and cursed the demon once more for his stinginess before moving on.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

At the moment, there were no zombies crowding the flight of stairs he was currently on.

Also, the random debris and pieces of furniture that used to be a part of the toppled barricade blocked the sight of any unsuspecting undead at the second floor, offering Danny enough cover for him to hide behind and conceal himself from the line of sight of his enemies as he continued to make his way down the steps.

Peeking over the steel railing and looking down the stairway, he could spot only one single zombie at the periphery of his sight, right at the edge of his range of vision on the second flight of stairs, not counting the one where he stood.

‘Hopefully I won’t have to deal with you in the near future.’ Danny looked away, hoping that the fight against the zombies on the second floor would not be loud enough to attract any enemies from the lower floors.

Though he had only spotted a single zombie on the next two flights of stairs, he could not be sure that there were not any more on the path leading to the first floor. Being quiet was still a priority.

On that note, it was fortunate that it was raining outside. The weather was helping him out quite a lot at the moment.

Though it might not seem like much, the noise coming from the outside actually made it harder for him to be detected and increased the threshold of how loud he could be without being discovered.

Crouching down, Danny picked up his hammer with his right hand and made his way to the nearest breach of the toppled barricade, all the while keeping his body close to his cover.

Slightly inclining his body forward, Danny stretched his neck and peeked over the side of the overturned table he was hiding behind. Taking his first look into the second floor proper.

Immediately after doing so, his hopes for repeating the stealthy approach he had applied to the previous floor had been dashed. He could count at least a dozen zombies prowling the main corridor of the second floor, three of them very close to his position.

And who knew how many more were waiting inside the rooms and in the other corridors.

Pulling back from the opening and hiding himself from view, Danny sighed in his mind. ‘Well, I knew this was bound to happen sooner or later. Luck can only do so much.’

Though he had been fortunate so far with his encounters and the disposition of his enemies, his luck was bound to run out eventually. Toss a coin enough times and you are bound to get an unfavorable result eventually.

When dealing with such sheer numbers of enemies, with so many zombies dwelling inside the factory, Danny was bound to come across a situation he could not cheese his way around.

Now, he could only grit his teeth and prepare himself to what would be, without a doubt, a grinding and demanding fight.

Risking being spotted once more, Danny peeked over his cover and checked the second floor again, more thoroughly this time. The first look had been too short for him to properly analyze the area and take in all the details.

A few seconds later, Danny lowered his head and hid himself again. He already what he had to do.

‘This is going to suck.’ He thought while narrowing his eyes and focusing his mind. Getting ready for the challenge ahead.

He waited a few moments for all three of his closest enemies to turn away from his direction before he rushed into the corridor, running to one of the office spaces that had its door open.

Danny did not wish to face his enemies at the stairway, since he felt that doing so would risk attracting the rest of the horde which remained down below way too much.

He thought that his best bet was to hunker down in one of the rooms of the second floor and hopefully use its walls to somewhat contain the spread of noise. At the same time, he hoped to use the enclosed space to reduce the speed which zombie reinforcements could join the fray.

Since the doorway only allowed for one person – or creature in this case – to get in at a time, the zombies would not be able to mob him to death. That is, as long as he did not take too long to kill any enemies who got inside the room and did not give them the chance to swell their numbers.

He could only take so many enemies at once, so failing to cull their numbers in an effective and quick manner would most likely mean his death.

Also, even though he would be trapping himself by rushing into a room now, Danny had a plan for getting out if he found himself stuck.

From his observations, he knew that the room in question had a window. In the worst-case scenario, he could close the door and block it with whatever objects he found in the room to buy himself some time before making his escape through the window.

Then, he could use the ledges and outcroppings at the side of the building to climb his way back to the roof.

He knew that climbing the building’s exterior to get out of his predicament would be incredibly dangerous. Not to mention that it would be a particularly miserable experience under the rain that kept pouring outside and with a horde of undead on the ground, waiting for him to make a mistake and fall onto their eager arms and teeth, but he knew it was feasible with his current grip and arm strength.

He definitely could do it if it proved to be necessary.

‘Let’s hope it does not come to that…’

He did not waste any moment hesitating or second-guessing his choice though. The die had already been cast and there was no turning back as some of the zombies further along the corridor had already noticed him in his mad dash towards his chosen room.