Chapter 52 Loose Ends
Whoosh!
71
Finished
The shovel tip hovered at the last man’s throat. His legs gave out, and he crumpled to the ground. A faint, acrid stench wafted up.
He’d wet himself on the spot.
“I… I…”
He was shaking so hard he could barely get the words out.
“I was wrong, I’ll never do it again… Please, spare me. I didn’t even want to come here in the first place…”
Robin’s voice was flat. “I ask. You answer.”
The man nodded so frantically it looked like his head might detach.
“Name.”
“Roc… Rocky Hutcherson.”
“Where did your group come from?”
Rocky swallowed with difficulty. “Not far from the zoo. There’s a gas station with a mini–mart attached. Still has a decent amount of supplies. That’s where we’ve all been hiding out.”
“Did everyone from the mini–mart come here today?”
“N–no. Only some of us. There are still eight or nine people back there.”
Robin’s eyes narrowed. “How many of them know about Shangri–La?”
“Pretty much… all of them. That Robinson guy never mentioned how strong you were, so our boss figured he’d just bring part of the group, take this place by force, and then move everyone else in afterward.”
“How much food is left in the mini–mart?”
“Still a fair bit, actually. If everybody rations carefully, probably two or three more days‘ worth.”
Eight or nine people, two to three days of food. That was no small amount.
Robin’s mind was already working. A plan was taking shape.
She kept asking, “Besides the earth ability guy, does anyone else in your group have special powers?”
“Y–yes, yes.”
Rocky nodded like a bobblehead. “There’s a guy who can run insanely fast–zombies can’t even catch him. And there’s a woman with about ten cubic feet of storage space. She uses it to haul supplies.”
A space ability user?
O
11:32 Sat, May 23 M.
Chapter 52 Loose Ends
That genuinely surprised Robin.
71
Finished
In her previous life, space abilities had been among the most coveted powers in the entire apocalypse. Storage meant supplies, and supplies meant survival–the single most important resource in the wasteland.
By the later stages, when humanity’s development had stabilized, and scavenging teams had become the norm, virtually every squad deployed a space ability user as its core asset. That person got treated like royalty–coddled, protected, practically worshiped.
They carried the team’s entire lifeline inside them. As long as the space user survived, the whole team had hope.
“Anyone else?”
Under Robin’s razor gaze, Rocky’s composure finally crumbled. He dropped his head and ground out through clenched teeth, “There’s… one more. Our vice–captain. He used to be a kickboxing instructor at a youth center before the apocalypse. Freakishly strong–can kill a zombie with a single punch. He’s the most dangerous person in the group after our captain.”
The captain he meant was the earth ability user.
“Heh.”
Robin let out a cold laugh. “If I hadn’t pushed you just now, you were going to leave that one out, weren’t you?”
Rocky’s face went white. “No! I swear–I would never! I was just so terrified I blanked–please, I’m begging you, let me live…”
“Relax.”
Robin withdrew the shovel. “Your life still has value to me.”
The relief nearly liquefied him. He sagged to the ground, drenched head to toe in cold sweat.
Robin looked him over, her gaze settling on his shoes. “Pull out your laces.”
He blinked, confused, but didn’t dare stall. He unlaced them on the spot.
“Done. What now?”
Robin took the laces and bound his wrists tightly together.
“Quiet.”
Her voice left zero room for negotiation. “Stay here. If you run, I’ll hack off both your legs and feed them to the zombies.”
“I won’t run! I absolutely, positively will not run!”
She headed back. By the time she got there, Ella and the others had already mopped up most of the
23
111
O
2/3
VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army