Rewrite the Apocalypse dream (by Dee Cari) novel Chapter 247

Chapter 247 I Am Going To Burn This City Down

“I hate this city,” Joanna muttered, wiping a layer of grime from her forehead.

Finished

She popped open a canteen and drank some water, letting the cold fluid wash away the taste of smoke and rot. As she lowered the bottle, a soft rustling sounded at her feet. Piper slithered closer, gently rubbing its thick, violet and green vines against her leg like an oversized, affectionate housecat.

“You’re welcome,” Joanna muttered under her breath, a faint trace of amusement cutting through her exhaustion.

With a brief wave of her hand, she pulled Piper back into her pocket dimension. The giant plant dissolved into a flash of spatial light and vanished.

Ignoring the sheer, unadulterated shock plastered across the soldiers’ faces, Joanna turned on her heel and yelled, “Pack up! We are leaving.”

Her core team moved instantly, slotting into defensive positions around Major Levi and his forty men. Keeping the stunned military detachment tightly surrounded, the group began their tense march …backward, retracing their steps down the damp subway line to return to where they came from.

“We don’t need to worry about the Progeny anymore, so we can stroll right out of here,” Joanna explained as they navigated the final stretch of the damp tunnels.

Julian beamed, clearly thrilled to finally be leaving the suffocating subway station. Free from the hazard of the standing water, he let bright arcs of electricity dance playfully across his knuckles. “Good. I can take the lead out there and kill any zombies we come across.”

They stepped out of the transit entrance and back onto the surface streets. The fresh winter air was a relief, but the path ahead was far from clear. They only had to walk two more blocks before Joanna could safely pull their own vehicles out of her pocket dimension, but the frozen avenues in this area were completely choked, packed tight with a massive, chaotic pileup of abandoned cars.

Briggs walked right alongside Joanna, casually launching bursts of fire at any zombie that tried to squeeze through the gaps of the piled-up cars. Around them, the rest of the crew and Major Levi’s soldiers smoothly coordinated their strikes, clearing a path through the frozen, choked avenue.

Despite the occasional wet splatter of decaying flesh, Joanna and Briggs looked like two people simply out for a casual morning stroll.

“I hate this city, Briggs,” Joanna spoke up, her voice dropping into a tired, bitter sigh as she watched Julian blast an approaching runner with a crisp arc of static energy.

Briggs snapped his fingers, setting another zombie on fire without even turning his head to look at it.” know, Joanna. Those aberrant zombies back in the tunnels were horrifying. Honestly, if you hadn’t pulled Piper out when you did, some of us could have been seriously injured.”

He paused, his eyes narrowing as he thought back to the empty cavities where the creatures’ energy sources should have been. “The fact that they had no cores… it has to be tied in with how they are able to make them stronger. They aren’t just natural mutations anymore. Someone is engineering them to bypass the standard limitations.”

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10:46 am

Chapter 247-Am Going To Burn This City Down

Finished

“I don’t want those creatures falling into the hands of Ellier.” Joanna said, her expression hardening as she looked out over the frozen gridlock. “We have to figure something out quick.”

Briggs nodded grimly in agreement. “If he figures out how to mass-produce coreless aberrations, nowhere will be safe.”

The group finally pushed through the last of the wreckage, clearing the two-block bottleneck and spilling out into a wide, open intersection. Without a word, Joanna tapped into her pocket dimension. In a series of spatial flashes, several armored vans and a few spacious RVS materialized onto the cleared asphalt.

Before heading to her vehicle, Joanna turned to Julian. “Let’s go back to your place for a bit. I need to think about some things.”

Julian nodded, pulling open the driver’s door of the lead van. “Sounds like a plan. It’s safe, warm, and far away from these tunnels.”

The doors slammed shut, engines roared to life, and the entire convoy drove back to Julian’s tnansion, leaving the burning warehouse and the dark subway lines behind.

Twenty minutes later, the convoy rolled to a stop in front of Julian’s heavily fortified gate. They all piled out of the vehicles, shoulders slumping under the weight of sheer exhaustion, their clothes caked in zombie guts, grime, and damp tunnel mud.

Julian rolled his eyes at the mess they were about to track inside, but he spoke up to reassure them. “Don’t worry, I still have running water. You guys can clean up.”

Relieved, the team pushed through the front doors and walked into the warmth of the mansion.

Then, everyone stopped cold.

Sitting in the main living space, completely unbothered, was Jessica Lumly. She was still here.

Jessica, the daughter of an old family friend, had harbored a desperate ambition to marry Julian for years, Julian’s face twisted in sheer disgust the moment he saw her, a wave of panic washing over him; he had completely forgotten she was still haunting his house, and he was terrified Joanna would blame him for Jessica’s relentless, uninvited flirting.

Joanna didn’t say a word. She merely shot Julian a sharp, warning look before marching straight past Jessica, ignoring her completely as she headed upstairs.

Shutting out the rest of the world, Joanna entered her assigned bedroom, locked the heavy wooden door, and instantly flashed into her pocket dimension. The chaotic noise of the apocalypse vanished, replaced by the serene stillness of her spatial sanctuary.

Caleb walked out from among the towering rows of stolen rations, looking her over. “How is everything?”

Joanna took a deep breath and quickly explained the anomaly of the coreless super zombies.

Caleb nodded slowly, his expression growing grim as he absorbed the data. “Do you want me to find out who is doing this?”

“Yes,” she said flatly.

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