Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 106

Chapter 106 Those three never meant for us to leave here alive

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Finished

Rachel raised her hands slowly, keeping her voice incredibly soft and steady. “Hey, just take a breath. We aren’t here to fight you, and we don’t want to steal everything you have. We just need to survive, just like you.”

Jolie nodded, stepping up beside Rachel to lock eyes with the trembling young man. “She’s right. Look at us. we’re just people trying to make it through the day. There’s a whole horde of monsters right outside that door. If we start fighting each other in here, nobody walks out alive. Let’s just talk about this.”/

The young man’s grip on the machete faltered slightly as he listened to their calm voices, his panicked eyes darting between Rachel and Jolie. Rachel held the crazed man’s eyes and he slowly started/moving the machete away from Danielle. No one seemed to notice this but Rachel was nodding slowly.

While the captor was completely hyper-focused on Rachel, Jake seized the distraction. Moving like a ghost, he slipped through the shadows of a nearby snack aisle, circling around the man’s blind spot. With explosive speed, Jake lunged forward. He clamped one hand tightly around the man’s wrist, twisting it sharply to force him to drop the machete, while his other arm forcefully yanked Danielle out of harm’s way.

The machete clattered loudly to the linoleum floor. Danielle stumbled backward into Ryan’s waiting arms, gasping for air, as Jake pinned the disarmed young man firmly against a store shelf.

The clatter of the dropped machete triggered absolute chaos.

Agnes burst out from the back storeroom clutching a thick coil of nylon rope, only to freeze and let out a piercing shriek of rage as she saw Jake pinning the young man. “Let him go, you bastards!” she screamed, dropping the rope and grabbing a heavy iron tire iron from the counter, swinging it wildly as she charged toward Jake.

At the same time, the heavy-set man lunged at Allen, attempting to tackle him into a display of canned goods. Allen yelled out, pivoting quickly to block the collision with the shaft of his shovel, sending cans crashing and rolling loudly across the floor.

Danielle was sobbing in Ryan’s arms, but the noise inside proved to be disastrous. Outside, the ten zombies heard the shouting and shattering glass. They began throwing their bodies violently against the locked front door, the metal frame groaning under the pressure as cracks began to web across the glass pane.

“They’re going to break through!” Rachel yelled, trying to hold the shifting door frame with her weight while screaming over the din of the fighting.

The team surged forward as one, moving with brutal efficiency. Within seconds, they completely subdued the three hostiles, knocking them all out cold. Acting fast, they dragged the unconscious bodies into the back storeroom to get them out of the way. Meanwhile, Julian and Rachel sprinted to the heavy ATM near the entrance, using all their strength to shove it directly in front of the shaking glass door. It was a solid barrier, but they knew it would only hold the snapping horde off for about ten minutes.

“Where is Clay?” Jolie asked out loud, her voice laced with worry. “He is the owner.”

Without wasting a breath, she and Allen ran through the storage doors into the warehouse space, passing towering crates of snacks and drinks. “Clay! Are you here?!” Jolie yelled.

They rounded a tight corner and froze at the sight of a small office. There, slumped heavily in the doorway. was Clay. He was obviously dead, a large puddle of dark, dried blood staining the floor beneath him. He had

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Chapter 106 Those three never meant for us to leave here alive

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been stabbed. Jolie’s eyes welled with tears at the sight of the kind old man. Allen immediately wrapped his arms around her, hugging her tightly to comfort her. After a second, he let her go, pure anger distorting his

“Those three never meant for us to leave here alive,” he growled.

Julian suddenly pushed the office doors open, skidding to a halt as he saw the murdered store owner. He grimaced but forced his voice to remain flat. “Look, we don’t have much time. Let’s clean out everything we can.”

The team scrambled into action, the urgency of the ticking clock pushing away their shock. Ryan and Danielle were already a step ahead, opening heavy canvas duffel bags and filling them with canned goods/ protein bars, and bottles of water with frantic speed. The rest of the group joined in, systematically clearing the remaining shelves into their packs.

Outside, the glass pane began to spiderweb with deep cracks as the weight of the horde pushed the ATM backward.

“We can’t use the front door, we’ll get trapped,” Jake noted, looking at the groaning barricade. “Is there a back exit?”

“There’s a loading door in the warehouse,” Jolie said, wiping her face.

The team grabbed their heavy duffel bags and sprinted to the back warehouse. Before opening the door, Allen and Julian quickly dragged the three unconscious killers out from the office, using Agnes’s thick nylon rope to tie them securely to a heavy metal support beam right in the middle of the storeroom.

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