Chapter 11: CHAPTER 10

Ray

Ray lost count after fifty of the ghoulish undead. Killing them in small groups or luring them into choke points to finish larger ones, he had probably killed close to seventy when he cleared the third floor of the office building. Then came the cleanup. Dragging the bodies one by one out into the sun to smolder and turn to ash was far too labor-intensive. He had no choice for the first floor, but for the second and third floors, he just pushed them out the windows. Overall, it had taken him three hours. That only left the warehouse.

Taking a breather and drinking some water, Ray prepped himself for the last building. Easily equal in size to the office complex, he was sure that it held numerous dangers. Far more places for the undead to hang out in. Far more places for them to ambush him. But he had been lucky so far, there had been none of those special zombies or any sign of his nemesis. He could only hope that was still the case when he went inside of there as well.

Of course, just thinking about those things screwed him.

He had just steeled himself to attack when the door burst open and a naked, pale white body rushed him. Startled, he leapt backward as the thing swiped oversized hands with inch-long claws on them through where he had just been standing. A feeling of immense dread roiled through Ray’s guts, telling him this thing was different than the others up to now.

“Motherfucker!” he yelled, bringing his hammer down.

Unlike the prior undead, who took their hits and died like he expected them to, this thing dodged to the side. Rolling like some kind of pale white ninja, it hissed at him and then scurried up a wall.

Ray stared at it in disbelief. “Hey, you bitch! Get down here and let me kill you … again!” he yelled, shaking the hammer at it. The pasty white creature opened its maw and hissed at him, like some kind of demented cave dweller. “Fuck you!” Ray yelled back.

He was both keeping an eye on the creature chilling in a corner of the office and the open door to the warehouse. Slowly moving towards the warehouse door, the pale monstrosity narrowed its eyes and watched him. Head swiveling from Ray to the door and back again, it hissed and flung itself at him. Almost as if it had realized what he was doing.

“Shit!” he cried out, throwing himself into a roll to avoid the sharp-looking claws. Ray came up out of the roll and swung his hammer blind, surprised when it connected and flung the creature across the office and into a cubicle wall. He took the opportunity to close and secure the door to the warehouse, even as the creature attempted to free itself from the debris.

Locking the door, Ray looked up to see the thing midflight, aiming for his face. Its claws extended and maw open showing dozens of razor-sharp teeth.

Ray spun the hammer up into a golf swing, catching the creature under the chin even as the claws dragged across his chest. The strength of his attack caused its head to explode in a shower of gore, painting the ceiling with very wet, and very red, blood and brain matter.

This immediately told Ray two things. The first being that this thing wasn’t dead, and if it wasn’t dead then other things could be alive too. The second thing was that those alien fucks had, if not outright lied to him, then had not included a lot of information they probably already knew.

Breathing heavily at that thought he realized that his chest hurt. Looking down he saw that the claws had cut clean through the supposed reinforced fabric of his suit. Even the nasty skinless monster that was stalking him couldn’t do that. Two shallow gashes had sheeted blood down into his suit. Grabbing a nearby coat hanging on the back of a chair, he tore out the line and held it against the cuts.

As he stood there, recuperating, Ray realized he didn’t have a lot of time left. If there were more than a few of those things left inside the warehouse he was fucked. He also hadn’t gotten a safe zone message from the System yet letting him know that this area was secure.

Swallowing, he pulled the liner away after a few minutes and saw that the bleeding had stopped. Taking a deep breath, he dragged the headless pale corpse outside of the building and tossed it into the sunlight. He then beelined for the warehouse door. Standing out front of it, Ray once again steeled himself. Opening the door quietly he didn’t see anything.

Daylight streamed in from the skinning windows lining the upper portions of the warehouse. It gave a somewhat creepy illumination to the building, allowing shadows to stretch from one row of stored goods and materials to the other. He just really hoped that there wasn’t going to be more than one or two more of those things in here.

Unfortunately, there was something far, far worse.

As Ray moved deeper into the warehouse, something crashed into the ground at the very back. Swiveling towards the noise instinctively, he nearly missed the crate that was thrown at him from the opposite side.

Once again on the defensive, he threw himself into a forward roll, almost avoiding it entirely. The crate clipped him on the shoulder and sent him into an uncontrolled spin into a stack of coiled wire on the far side of the aisle.

Scrambling to his feet he raised his head to look at what was attacking him only to see a blade flashing toward his head. He parried it with the head of the hammer and lashed out with a kick, getting a growl back in return. As he gained his feet and steadied himself, he saw the skinless monstrosity retreat back into the shadows.

That fucking thing was in here with him.

Knowing how it had sent its little minions after him before, Ray had no doubt that it was only the two of them in here. Now he knew why that white thing had been so eager to get out. It hadn’t been trying to solely attack him, it had been trying to escape that skinless monstrosity.

Taking a good look around the warehouse, Ray could now clearly see the signs of intense fighting. There were body parts, pools of drying and congealing blood, and viscera spread all over. He could see white limbs and bodies, as well as bodies of the skinless spread evenly across the floor of the building.

Swallowing, he took a defensive stance. Whatever this thing was, it had been strong enough or brought enough friends to take out a whole nest of those white bastards. And they were no pushovers, to begin with. They were fast, strong, and had claws that could cut through his suit. Something his nemesis couldn’t do. At least not during their last encounter.

A roar shook the building to its rafters, causing dust and dirt to rain down around Ray from above. His instincts screamed at him, so he threw himself forward into a dive just as that damnable tail slashed down, smashing into the concrete floor and leaving a small crater. He briefly caught the creature as it withdrew its tail, and he had no doubt that he would have been cut clean in two by that attack if it had hit him.

You are reading story HEX – A Zombie Survival LITRPG at novel35.com

Deciding being on the defensive wasn’t going to work, Ray began to run. He had more than enough space to maneuver within the large warehouse, dodging between crates and vaulting over obstacles. As he moved, he memorized the layout of the building. He couldn’t win if he couldn’t find an opportunity to attack. In order to find that opportunity, he needed to force that thing into a choke point.

As he was running, a smaller shape dropped in front of him. A miniature version of the monstrosity hissed in front of him. Without even slowing down Ray took its head off with his hammer, eliciting another roar from the much larger creature. There couldn’t be many of them in here, not if losing one made that thing so damn angry.

“Get fucked you freak!” he yelled back, responding to the intimidating noise. Another roar was its response to his taunting.

As Ray completed his circuit of the warehouse, he decided that he couldn’t fight in here. The ceiling was simply too high for him to reach wherever that thing was hiding. Without a way to get up there, he wouldn’t be able to finish it off. He raced towards the office doorway, intending to move into the shorter confines of the attached building where he could fight properly. The environment here was simply not conducive to his survival.

As he reached the door, his instincts screamed at him. He dove forward, smashing through the door even as the bladed tail ripped through his shoulder and side. He landed on the other side of the entryway in a heap. Reacting quickly, he grabbed the tail that was still piercing him and jerked with all his strength. The creature couldn’t get enough purchase on the smooth metal walls and was yanked off and slammed into the concrete, courtesy of Ray’s efforts.

It hissed and attempted to scramble to its feet, but Ray was having none of that. Huffing with effort, and short of breath due to his massive injury, he used the momentum to begin spinning. He smashed the skinless monster through multiple cubicles, chairs, and the receptionist's desk all while building up speed. With titanic effort, he released the tail causing it to rip out of his shoulder with a shout of pain.

The creature was flung into the air and through a window out into the sunlight. Ray scrambled over to the front door, determined to catch it outside and end it once and for all. As he staggered outside, clutching his hammer in one hand and holding his bleeding shoulder with the other, he saw the smoking thing running directly back towards him seeking to get out of the sunlight.

Hefting his hammer, Ray judged the distance. With a windup, he hurled it as hard as his newfound strength would allow him to. Whether the creature didn’t see it because of the smoke, or if it was too panicked because of the sun, Ray’s aim was true. The hammer struck its skull with a sickening crunch, causing the creature to fall onto the concrete.

Waiting for a few seconds, the bleeding man stared at the unmoving and still-smoking body. Others had turned to ash by now, which led him to believe this may be another trap. However, his only weapon was embedded in the thing's face.

“Hey fucker, you alive?” he grunted out to no response.

Ambling over to the thing, he paused just out of reach to examine it. Its chest wasn’t moving, and it was bleeding profusely all over the ground. The hammer had smashed a good quarter of the things head in. If it wasn’t dead yet, it would be shortly. Deciding the benefits outweighed the risks, and wanting to ensure it was dead before the sun set, Ray stepped closer to retrieve his hammer.

He placed his foot on the skinless shoulder, noticing for the first time that the muscle was dense and grey-colored. Shivering with revulsion, he reached down and grabbed the hammer. Only to have the thing's tail spear his lower abdomen.

With a release of air, Ray hefted the hammer and grabbed the tail even as the monster came alive. Filled with fury, he smashed his hammer down onto its skull even as it attempted to free its tail from his stomach. He was enraged, grinding the creature's head and shoulders to nothing but ground meat. After five swings the thing was only struggling weakly. After ten it was still. After fifteen it vaguely resembled hamburger.

Pulling his hammer up once more, exhausted from blood loss and the back-to-back fights, he opted to change the multi-tool into a blade. He used this to sheer off the tail that was embedded in his stomach, knowing that removing it was an immediate death sentence. As soon as the tail detached, the body began to slowly smoke itself into ashes.

“God … damned fucking garbage,” Ray gasped out. He staggered back to the building, just as the sun hit the horizon and dusk began.

Collapsing just outside the door, he drug himself across the threshold even as the cry from the undead outside went up. Ray knew that this was it, he was going to die.

Closing the door as he got inside blue screens popped up in front of his face. He took a brief look at them before dismissing them one by one.

---