Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 233

Chapter 233 The Brick Building

Finished

The heavy security doors clicked shut, locking a weeping Jessica inside the mansion. As the team moved swiftly down the driveway, a sudden gust of wind swept through the trees, and heavy, thick snowflakes began to fall from the grey morning sky.

As they adjusted their heavy tactical packs under the thickening snowfall, Joanna turned to Caleb, her brow furrowed. “Why the rush, Caleb? What did you see up there?”

Caleb’s expression was grim, his eyes still dark with the residual strain of his meditation. “There are two warring factions fighting for complete control inside Tech Valley right now,” he explained quickly, his voice tight against the whistling wind. “One group is Blood Fang, and I saw several direct ties to Elliot operating within their ranks. The other side is run by a faction calling themselves The Progeny.”

He leaned in closer, his tone dropping to an urgent whisper as the show began to coat his jacket. “Blood Fang is actively drawing a massive zombie horde straight to Major Levi’s position as we speak. They are using them to flush him out before using another horde towards The Progeny. If we don’t get in there on foot and extract them immediately, the Major and his entire group will be completely wiped out by morning.”

With a swift movement, Joanna opened her pocket dimension and pulled the entire team inside, leaving the snowy driveway completely empty. Standing alone under the falling snow, she closed her eyes and used her mental connection to the space, sending a silent psychic text message directly to Caleb for the map data and Major Levi’s exact coordinates.

The structural blueprint of downtown and the flashing tracker beacon materialized instantly in her mind’s

eye.

Joanna focused her intent on the high-density urban grid ahead. Tapping into her fully recovered energy, she executed a rapid, silent series of long-range spatial jumps. The snowy suburbs vanished, replaced by a dark blur of towering corporate skyscrapers and frozen streets.

Pop.

Space warped one last time, and Joanna dropped lightly onto her feet inside a narrow, shadow-drenched alleyway. Flakes of snow drifted down between the structures, landing on the cracked pavement. Beside her stood a massive, old brick building right in the heart of Downtown.

Waving her hand, Joanna expanded her dimension, pulling the crew out onto the icy asphalt. She purposefully kept Caleb inside the safe confines of her space to act as their remote tactical eye.

“We’re at the brick building,” Joanna communicated mentally, sending the thought flashing back to him.

Inside her mind, Caleb’s voice echoed back immediately with sharp precision. Excellent. There’s a rusted fire escape door directly to your left. Take that in, head down the corridor, and make an immediate right toward the central stairwell. The Major is holding the third floor.’

The team slipped through the rusted fire escape door, their boots making no sound on the gritty concrete floor. As they moved into the dark corridor, Caleb’s urgent mental messages continued to flash directly into Joanna’s mind.

‘The horde is moving faster than expected,’ Caleb warned, his psychic voice tight with strain. “The zombies will be

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Chapter 233 The Brick Building

Finished

at your position in twenty minutes. Even worse, Blood Fang has several lookouts stationed in the neighboring buildings overlooking your exit route. You need to take them out before you try to move Major Levi’s group.”‘

Joanna paused at the edge of the central stairwell, her eyes narrowing as she processed the ticking clock.

‘Once the lookouts are down and you secure the Major,’ Caleb added, sending a glowing path through her mental map, you have to lead them several blocks north. It’s the only extraction lane that will keep them safe from the trajectory of the main horde.’

Joanna gave a sharp, imperceptible nod into the darkness. Understood, she fired back mentally.

She turned to Briggs and Jake, raising a hand to signal the team to hold their positions in the stairwell. If they were going to pull off a mass extraction in twenty minutes, she needed to clear the skies first.

Joanna turned to her crew, her eyes hard and commanding. ‘Briggs, take the team up,’ she sent the thought flashing to everyone. ‘Get Major Levi and his people packed up and ready to move in ten minutes. I’m going to take care of the lookouts.’

Briggs gave a sharp, professional nod. With a swift hand signal, he led Jake, Jolie, Julian, RJ, and Kailee silently up the concrete steps. The team moved out with absolute military precision, vanishing into the upper stairwell.

Left alone in the shadows of the ground-floor corridor, Joanna slipped back out into the narrow, snow- dusted alleyway. She pressed her back against the cold brick wall, pulling a pair of compact tactical binoculars from her tactical belt. Raising them to her eyes, she slowly panned across the dark windows of the towering concrete structures flanking the street.

It took less than two minutes of searching before she caught a flash of movement.

On the seventh floor of a dilapidated apartment complex directly across the street, a window pane was cracked open. Through the glass, Joanna focused on a young woman. She was heavily grimy, her face streaked with dirt and ash, but her posture was alert and dangerous. She stood close to the ledge, peering down at the empty streets below while pressing a button on a weathered, handheld walkie-talkie.

“South perimeter is still quiet,” the woman’s voice rasped faintly through the winter air, her words cutting off as she waited for a response from the Blood Fang network.

Pop.

Space warped silently, and Joanna materialized directly inside the shadow-drenched, seventh-floor apartment. Before the female lookout could even register the sudden shift in air pressure, Joanna’s fist connected sharply with the back of her neck. The woman dropped instantly, her handheld walkie-talkie clattering onto a dusty mattress as she slumped to the floor completely unconscious.

Joanna snatched up the radio, slipping it into her pocket to monitor their comms channel, and stepped right up to the cracked window pane. Raising her binoculars once more, she scanned the opposite side of the intersection.

Most of the neighboring concrete structures were completely dead, their lower levels boarded up with rotting plywood and rusted sheets of metal. However, as she panned across a low-rise commercial building directly adjacent to Major Levi’s stronghold, she caught a glimpse of movement.

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