Chapter 52

Looking for corpses is not a pleasant thing to do. Especially when you find more than initially planned. The inside of the room was a lot cleaner than the rest of the building so the footprints were useless past the doorstep. Rose lost a lot of her confidence from earlier and was looking at Anthony for directions.

"Tell me you have an idea what's going on."

"Well, Sarah said there was one corpse so either she was wrong or one of them is still alive. The dry one is more likely to be dead for real so you should check on him. I'll see what I can do with the other one."

Following the advice Rose sat down next to the dead man and began to check his injuries, hoping to find the one that caused his death. Soon after beginning she noticed from the corner of her eye that the nails of the corpse suddenly turned red and began growing rapidly.

She tried to get away but she reacted too late and a swipe from the reanimated man tore off the thumb of her already injured hand. After activating her ability and getting away, she assessed her injury and got ready to fight.

Anthony noticed what happened but couldn't help out because he had a problem of his own. The body he was supposed to deal with also started to move after a significantly more drastic transformation. It had the same red claws as its partner alongside some feathers and a pair of white wings.

The brawl that broke out turned out to be quite hectic as the room would have been too small for two people to fight in, let alone four, and unfortunately the living side was clearly losing out. Between the two of them Rose was in a worse position.

Even though she managed to get a bone shield from Anthony soon after they began fighting and she was facing the weaker of the two opponents, she couldn't fight back properly because she was concentrating on not getting any more injuries.

Anthony was in a better position since he could simply take his enemy's attacks and he also had an infinite supply of weapons. His problem was that both him and his opponent turned out to be more resilient than they were strong so neither of them could cause any serious damage.

After a while, Rose was starting to tire out. Unlike her companion she still had to worry about stamina management. With her concentration further divided she started to accumulate smaller cuts on her body and completely lost control of the fight.

[Stamina: 53%]

She tried to use her shadow leg to kick the insides of her opponent a few times but it didn't seem to achieve much. Without other options she started backing away towards the window, planning to grab the undead man and throw him out into the desert.

However, when she got close she heard the glass break behind her. Suddenly a dried-up hand reached past her and grabbed the monster by the head. As soon as the hand made contact with him the previously bloodthirsty corpse collapsed without resistance.

Rose turned around to look at the new arrival. Only to see Sarah hanging from the windowsill after the earlier stunt made her lose her balance. The feathered monster, seeing what happened to its partner, stopped fighting Anthony and flew out through the broken window, soon disappearing in the desert sand.

Everything was quiet again. Anthony helped Sarah inside to stop her from falling down and to question her.

"I believe you know what happened here?"

"Both of them were dead. Unfortunately, I could only sense the fresh one from outside. Also there are about a dozen more in the basement."

"Okay, we'll get back to that. First tell us what you did to that guy."

"I took his soul. He was already dead so there was nothing to stop me from doing so. Also ..."

Then the doubly dead corpse started standing up. It was a lot more sluggish than before signifying that it was now Sarah's zombie. It still kept the red claws but it's skin was in an even worse condition than before and was also starting to fall off.

"Do we check the rest of them?"

As the three of them made their way down to the basement the sun was already starting to set. Peter finally managed to wake up and found himself buried alive.

[Health: 78%]

[Stamina: 54%]

"How long was I knocked out? Where is everyone?"

"Anthony and Rose went to look at a corpse they found, Sarah sneaked after them and Drake is in one of the mounds of sand near you. By the way it's sunset but you can probably see that yourself."

The dark haired boy got up with some difficulty and started looking around for his still buried friend. Manda was watching him from the top of their van and assessed Peter's condition.

"You could use a few more hours of sleep. We'll probably have to actually contribute something tomorrow."

"Thanks for the advice but I'm fine. I use less stamina than I get back and it's about to be night-time anyway. I'll recover then."

Eventually Drake was dug up from the sand and woken up. He was still a bit dazed but otherwise in good condition. He was given a proper place to sleep and left alone to rest.

The other two boys were relaxing in peace when Peter received the first text message of his life. It was sent by Anthony and said the following.

[There's a feathered monster in the desert. Be careful.]

He didn't really know what to do with the information so he shared the message with the tattooed kid who also didn't have much to say.

"Tell me if you see something like this, just in case."

"You're the one with night vision. I won't see past the tip of my nose in an hour."

The two of them halfheartedly stood watch in silence until Drake spoke up, alarming both of them.

"Hey guys, do any of the locals have wings?"

They turned towards where Drake was looking and sure enough there were two figures standing on one of the distant sand dunes. While Drake and Manda could only see vague silhouettes, one of which appeared to have wings, Peter could see the two of them perfectly.

One of them was a humanoid monster with wings and covered in white feathers. The other was a boy appearing similar to them in age and who also had an intimidating pair of horns sticking out of his head.