11 Clearing a Path

The moment Zane and his followers entered the second school building, they noticed that it was packed full of walkers. But the undead monstrosities failed to notice the trio as Zane silently motioned for them to creep past them.

The Tier I Undead, known as Walkers, had many benefits when compared to living human beings. Their bodies were stronger, and faster in many regards than the average human, thanks to their lack of a pain threshold which allowed them to use all of the strength that their physiques were capable of.

In addition to this, they had heightened hearing, smell, and sight. Allowing them to detect living beings with expert precision. Stealthily sneaking by the dead was seldom an option when they could smell you a mile away. The primary means of doing so, if Zane could make an educated guess, would be masking their scent and making as little noise as possible.

But if they came within a direct line of sight with the dead, then this would only result in an attack by the monsters. Zane was perhaps the sole exception to this rule, because of his unique skill [Dead Man Walking.]

The issue with this was, Zane had two fully living beings next to him who would aggro the Walkers instantly if detected. And because of this, the Walkers would treat Zane as if he were a member of the living as well. With this in mind, Zane had two options to proceed to his ultimate destination.

Why had he allowed these two women to follow him, despite the risk they posed? Well, that was because they were excellent mules. Zane could only carry a few days' worth of supplies on him by himself, but with these two other women, that load could increase significantly.

Sure, he would also need to expend more resources, but these were women. They needed far less in terms of caloric intake than a man like himself. Not to mention, after that interaction with Ryan, Zane was starting to believe that he might need a small group of people to assist him in his dealings with the living and the threat they posted to his continued existence.

Though he had not fully accepted Elean and Olivia as team mates yet, the idea was mulling in the back of his head. In the mean time his primary focus was consumed with thoughts about how to proceed to his objective.

His first option was to kill his way to the workshop area of the school where both the woodworking class room was as well as the metalworking class. It was these two destinations that Zane desired, specifically, so he could outfit himself with a superior melee weapon.

Knives were lethal instruments, but they left much to be desired. For example, Zane's reach was extremely limited with the weapon he currently had. Meaning he would essentially be within fighting distance of any Walker he engaged. Or worse, striking distance if he was somehow unfortunate enough to engage in combat with Stalker.

Not only was that thing unnaturally agile, but it had menacing claws on its hands which Zane expected were fully capable of taking his life in a single blow. And while Zane had a ranged weapon which was his pistol, the reality was this weapon was a double-edged sword.

For starters, the pistol was loud, very loud. And since the undead had a heightened sense of hearing, and were aggro'd by sound, this was a good way to get a horde on his ass. Without a suppressor that would not only dampen the sound signature of his firearm, but would also make it difficult to detect his exact location, Zane did not feel comfortable using a firearm unless he absolutely had to.

There was also another problem with the pistol, limited ammunition. It's not like he had a ready supply of 9mm ammunition on him. What he had was the 20+1 rounds in his gun, and the three spare magazines.

Why 20 rounds? Because the officer he took the weapon from was clearly very knowledgeable about firearms. Not only had the man modified what was essentially a stock striker fired polymer handgun with ridiculously expensive aftermarket parts. Like an improved slide, a stippled frame, a micro compensator, improved internals, and an enclosed red dot. But he also added +3 baseplates to every magazine.

In all honesty, Zane suspected the cop had paid upwards of 2-3 grand on upgrades for his duty weapon. Which, when your life relied on such a firearm, that was probably a wise investment. And Zane was lucky enough to reap the spoils of such a fine handgun.

But again, the problems with using the handgun to clear out the Undead were evident, no matter how nice it may be. And thus, Zane had no choice but to risk his life with his knife in hand as he cleared a path through the undead horde that lied between him and his objective….

--

A pile of corpses lined throughout the hallway, and Zane was stained with coagulated blood. Olivia and Elena were both horrified by how callous Zane was as he cut down on those monsters who used to be his fellow students.

But Zane did not care in the slightest. Instead, he began to do something shocking after he cleared the hallway, and that was digging into the skulls of his kills with his blade. His former homeroom teacher nearly threw up when she saw this, while Elena tried her best not to raise her voice as she questioned the young man's sanity.

"What the hell Zane? What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Zane had honestly forgotten that these two pesky flies were still surrounding him, or he would have if the constant reminder that they were the reason he was having such difficulties getting to his destination was in the back of his mind.

Thus, he sighed heavily as he dug out a small blood crystal before tossing it to Elena. The crimson haired beauty instinctively caught the device and recoiled in disgust as she held the blood crystal. But when the blood and brain matter smeared on her hands, it revealed a dark red crystal, which immediately dispersed the revulsion she felt, and instead replaced it with curiosity.

"What the hell are these?"

Zane did not want to explain, as Elena would not believe him until she had consumed one herself. And convincing her to do something so disgust was going to be a difficult matter. Nor did Zane want to share his spoils, at least not at the moment. Thus, he made a comment on something that was mere speculation by his part.

"They are called blood crystals. This is just a guess, but I suspect they are what give these undead their powers. How they form in the brains of the infected, I have no idea…."

Elena frowned when she heard this. After all, Zane had said these things were called blood crystals, but his choice of words was strange. Thus, she immediately interrogated him about where he had heard this.

"Who calls them that?"

Zane, however, ignored Elena entirely while he walked towards the girl and coldly snatched back his prize, before walking to the next corpse where he began the collection process. It would be entirely pointless to mention the system at this point.

Such a thing would either elicit a disdain filled comment of disbelief, or worse provoke an argument while the trio were in the middle of a precarious situation. Neither of which was something Zane had the patience to deal with. Thus, he simply avoided answering any questions regarding the blood crystals.

Speaking of which, for whatever reason, the corpses in this building seem to have a higher ratio of blood crystals. Yet Zane did not have enough evidence collected yet to form a hypothesis on why this might be.

Instead, he collected the blood crystals, while Elena and Olivia watched him with discomfort. It was only after the man had finished this process that he had begun to walk towards his destination, which was now clear of obstacles thanks to his violence.