Hunting (2)

The moonlight shone unimpeded. Now no longer a circle of fire, it lit up the new world below. Two men walked on an empty street, yet from afar they could hear it: Screams, shots, crashes.

That was not a normal night, nor were the two simple people. They walked with confident steps on the asphalt, they had been preparing for this moment for a month. Yet, as the screams and shots rang from afar, a bad nostalgic feeling hit Nikolas' mind.

All this time living in normalcy and peace almost made him forget the horrors of the apocalypse. The ever present deaths, blood and tears.

His heart pounded and adrenaline flooded her body, for a brief moment his hands shook in uncertainty. But he soon recovered, he was not the once young and useless boy.

[This time, It won't end the same. My family is alive and I will make sure to exterminate everything in my path if it means protecting them!]

"Come father, let's see if our neighbors are still alive…" Nikolas resolved his mind as they stopped in front of their neighbor' house. The house in question was not big, it had only one floor and a small wall surrounding it.

Reginald walked closer behind his son, the armor he wore made low clicking sounds as he walked. Nikolas easily jumped over the wall and, without wasting any time, Reginald followed suit.

Behind the wall they found themselves in a well lit garden, with a few bushes and well-groomed flowers. However, no sound came from inside the house.

"How are we going to do it?" Reginald whispered.

"It's quite simple, let me show you…" Nikolas said and walked slowly towards the nearest window.

He drew his sword and hit its metallic part against the glass with not much strength to break it, but enough to make the window tremble and a metallic sound originated from this sudden contact to echo out loud in the silent house.

*GRRAW!*

*GRRRR!*

Four low grunts immediately replied to the sound, followed by four zombies slowly creeping forward to the window. As they got closer, it became clear that two of the zombies were not the same as the ones they killed before.

"See… no one alive here!" Nikolas stated coldly and then used the tip of his katana to force the window open.

As soon as he opened the window the four zombies arrived, crowding dumbly into the small space of the window, stretching their arms out, vainly trying to catch their prey.

"Hey look, those two were once our neighbors. It seems they took no heed on the warning…" Nikolas said as he pointed at two specific zombies. Instead of the naked, near transparent white skinned spawned ones, the other two stood out. They wore clothes, pajamas to be exact, covered in dried blood. Bites were clearly visible on parts of their bodies like necks and hands, and they already showed signs of decay.

They were exactly what you'd expect from a zombie, except for the big red eyes.

The zombies crowded around the window, preventing themselves from getting out.

"Dumb." Nikolas commented harshly as he thrusted his katana, ending their life. Could it be really called life?

*DING!* The system rang in his head, but he decided to ignore it. He knew what it was about, just a level up.

"Okay, let's grab their eyes and a bit of blood before getting out of here." Nikolas said as he walked forward to jump over the window, however before he could do that…

*BOOOOM!*

A great explosion resounded from the east in the distance. The ground shook slightly and a large ball of fire lit up the skies. For a moment, the night turned day.

"What the hell!?" Exclaimed the duo at the same time, even Nikolas wasn't expecting that.

"It's not too far from here, in that direction is the airport.." Reginald knew the city like the back of his hand and soon estimated roughly where he was coming from.

"Did a plane crash?" Nikolas lamented, he had heard reports of plane crashes in the past, but none had occurred in Florianópolis. He lamented, not because of the plane, but because he had plans to go there and that would make things even more difficult . "Dammit, it will attract tons of zombies to that place, perhaps some will cross our neighborhood to get there."

As the ball of fire diminished and the night turned dark once again, Nikolas continued his activities. He went inside the house, collected the red eyes from the zombies he just killed and got off without looking back.

"We can get back here to collect the food and search inside, now let's go father" The boy said, interrupting his father who was deep in thought. The next house will be yours!"

Reginald nodded silently, thinking about killing their "ex-neighbors".

******

The father and son simply jumped over the wall and were in the garden of the house next door.

Unlike the one they were moments ago, this one was poorer. It was a poorly maintained wooden house that showed some signs of termites in its structure. The grass in the garden was not mowed and an old car was in the garage. A more common house than one would expect in Brazil.

Immediately, outside the house, they spotted a crouched putrid zombie, with the remains of what appeared to be a dog. At the noise of the steps, the creature turned its red eyes and looked at them with intensity, a new prey had presented itself.

*GRAWWW!*

"Oh, that is John..." Said Reginald

"No, that is just a mindless beast that wants our neck. He is all yours by the way…" Said Nikolas, looking at the dead dog and ignoring the zombie slowly creeping forward. [And that reminds me that I need to go to the Zoo later…]

Seeing his son's inaction, Reginald readied himself. He shook his shoulders to ease the tension, an old habit he had developed in the police force, and drew his sword.

His sword was a classic medieval western one, with a double-sided blade, straight cross-guards, a black hilt and yellowed, weathered pommel. There was a symbol on the blade, but it was too worn for her to identify.

He held it tightly above his head and with a quick step forward, delivered a strong downward blow!

*PACK!*

The sword drove deep into the zombie's skull, killing it instantly. The body fell limply to the floor and Reginald struggled to withdraw his sword.

"Nice one!" Nikolas praised but gave some pointers afterwards. "But be careful next time, it's not interesting that your sword is pressed on the zombie's head... imagine the disaster that would be if we were surrounded."

"Hmm." Reginald nodded as he collected the eyes and the blood from the beast.

********

"What if they are alive, should we invite them to join us?" Reginald asked.

They had been killing zombies for a while now. Fortunately or not, none of the houses so far had people alive and because of that, father and son had leveled up twice already.

In front of them was a house whose lights were on, meaning that the residents were probably not sleeping when the apocalypse hit. Did they hear the warning on TV? Were they able to escape the zombies? It was impossible to know, but the father and son hoped they were alive and kicking.

"Just let them be for now, we need to clear the area first." Nikolas pondered, he had other priorities at the moment, sooner or later he would find and gather people to survive, he needed that for a Heaven after all. But not now. "Eventually people will leave their houses in search of resources and safer places. At that time we can sort out who'll be on our side…"

"Perhaps I could try to contact some of my older friends too, to get them at our side..." Reginald pondered out loud, more to see what his son would say.

"If you think that they are reliable…" Nikolas added, it was harder for him to trust unknown people.

Reginald understood.

"Let's go, this house is mine, right? Just can't get enough with the feeling of leveling up!" The man said with a smile.

"Just wait until you spend all your free stat points, it's even more addicting!" Nikolas teased.

Just as Reginald said that, he advanced toward the nearest window. The man closed his hand, which was protected by his heavy armor and punched with all his might on the glass.

*CRASH!*

The glass instantly broke into shards and the noise echoed inside the house.

"Is anybody there!?" The man shouted. "We are not robbers!"

*GRRAWW!*

*GRRAAWW*!"

Unfortunately for them… or not, it was not a human who answered. Attracted by the noise, two white humanoid creatures approached the window.

*SLASH!*

Before they could get out, Reginald used his sword to decapitate both of them in a single slash. He had learned the lesson and the sword did not get stuck.

"No leveling up this time..." He sighed dejectedly. For some reason, he was already getting addicted to leveling up.

"Haha!" Nikolas laughed out loud, he knew his father wasn't going to level up now and couldn't help but to smile at the older man, he indeed was not used to gaming concepts. "It only gets harder and harder to level up, dad, don't be so impatient."

They went silent for a bit, trying to listen to any sound coming from the house. But there was none, the people inside had either fled or were too afraid to show up.

Nikolas noticed that the zombies had no marks nor blood in their mouths and concluded that there should be two people alive somewhere, most probably inside the house and so decided not to enter.

"We have dealt with the Zombies, no need to be afraid!" He shouted. "We'll be going now! Bye!"

"Let 's go before they can show up!" Said Reginald who was now itching for even more levels and did not want to get distracted by talking.