End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army novel Chapter 71

End Times, Surviving with My Beastly Army

Chapter 71 Lost Sanctuary

Leland froze for a moment. “Didn’t you say we could follow you?”

Ella let out a sharp, incredulous laugh. “Ha! There are five of you. How many seats do you think that car has? If you get in, where exactly do you expect us to sit?”

He worked his jaw for a moment, then turned his gaze toward Robin. His tone shifted into something that might have passed for reasonable in a boardroom. “Fine. Then get us a car too. You can manage that, can’t you? Or are we expected to walk while you ride?”

Robin didn’t even glance in his direction. She waited until Ella, Dane, and Tim had climbed in, then put her foot to the accelerator.

The sedan lunged forward with a snarl, leaving Lynch standing in a cloud of exhaust and grit. He coughed, sputtering, waving the haze from his face. “Hey! Don’t you think you’re going too far? I’ve never met anyone like you!”

The car was already pulling away, shrinking toward the end of the street. Lynch’s gaze darted frantically from the departing vehicle to the wrecked sedan with its shattered windshield.

“We’re taking that one then.”

In the rearview mirror, another car soon appeared, growing larger by the second. Tim shifted uneasily in his seat. “Robin, are we really letting them tag along?”

Robin’s lips curved faintly. “That depends on whether they can keep up.”

As she spoke, her foot pressed harder against the gas pedal. The engine responded with a deeper growl, and the car surged forward, the distance widening once more.

“Mr. Lynch, they’re trying to lose us.”

In the front seat of the trailing car, the driver squinted through the web of cracks obscuring his view, his face tight with strain.

“I don’t care,” Leland snapped, anger flaring again. “We’re sticking with them. If you lose them, you’ll answer

to me.”

The driver swallowed his protest and pushed the car faster.

On the outskirts of the city, in a low building that had once been a factory, the world had become a scream.

“Mommy! Mommy! They’re coming up from this side!”

A boy–no older than eight or nine years old–pressed himself against the wall. A hand had appeared at the sill, a thing of gray and withered flesh, its nails grown into black hooks that scraped against the frame with a sound like broken glass.

No one answered him. The room had already descended into a desperate struggle. Several adults were locked in a frantic fight the zombies.

30

OOT

III

1/3

12:01 Sat, May 30 MM ::.

Chapter 71 Lost Sanctuary

He opened his mouth to scream again, but what rose from his throat was silent. A face lunged into view. Half of it was gone. The one eye that remained fixed on him with unnerving focus.

His legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed to the floor, a broken cry tearing from his throat.

The thing in the window launched itself at him, legs kicking off the frame, arms outstretched, that ruin of a mouth opening wide enough to swallow his whole throat.

The boy’s mind went blank. He was so sure his life was going to end there. Then something punched through the creature’s skull from behind. Thick, dark fluid sprayed across the boy’s cheek, but the pain he expected never came.

He forced his eyes open just a fraction. An adult had finally noticed. A steel pipe had been driven straight into the creature’s mouth, pinning it mid–lunge.

“Get back. Get to the corner. Stay down.”

The man instructed, his voice shredded. Sweat and blood and something worse had soaked through his shirt.

They had all once lived nearby. When everything collapsed, their apartment buildings had fallen one by one, forcing the survivors to scatter. In the end, they had gathered here, drawn together by the same instinct to survive, and had formed a fragile group within the factory.

At first, they believed they had found a way to endure.

Then the food ran thin.

5

Without it, they would not need the zombies to kill them. Hunger would finish the job.

So they began to venture out. The first time had been the hardest. They’d learned quickly that the zombies were creatures of impulse, guided by scent and sound.

It was

grim work, smearing your skin with the rot of the things you were trying to avoid, but it worked. For half a month, it worked.

Until last night…

A team

of four had gone out again, following the same routine. At first, nothing seemed different. The

zombies ignored them, letting them pass as though they were no more than shadows. It should have been another safe return.

But just as that team found food and was getting ready to head back, something went wrong.

One of the infected broke from the pack and charged straight at them.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify