Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 28: In The Face Of Great Danger, Lies A Great Reward

BOOM! RATATATAT~! BOOM! RATATATAT~! BOOM! RATATATAT~!

"This..! What's happening!?" a group of five people taking shelter inside of the apartments in a five story building exclaimed as they woke up startled from those loud burst of gunfire along with a rumbling sound.

A young man wearing some kind of a school uniform immediately ran outside to the balcony of the apartment with the others immediately following behind him.

"Is the army here!?" a girl wearing the same uniform said excitedly as she looked at the light constantly appearing from the distance even though they really can't see what is happening from where they are. They just thought that maybe the army is here fighting the zombies just from the continuous gunfire that would only stop for a few seconds before continuing, sadly almost all of them didn't notice the flaw from their thoughts.

"No, I don't think so" the young man who came out earlier shook his head.

"Dylan, what are you talking about? Only the army would have that kind of firepower!" another girl suddenly interjected angrily raised her voice at him. After all, all of them just had their hopes up when suddenly someone tells you something like "Don't get your hopes up".

Before that young man, Dylan, was about to explain, another young man gestured him to stop and said "Let me explain for them" Dylan did not object and nodded as he turned to face the direction of where the fight is coming from.

The two girls and a young kid, a boy who was just around 10 years looked at the guy. The young man felt a bit uncomfortable being stared at, cough and said "As Dylan said, it's probably not the army. Listen carefully" he said as he gestured them to listen to the sound of someone wreaking havoc.

"What are we listening anyway, Mark? Isn't it obviously the sound of gunfire and some kind of cannon?" the young girl who first complained earlier said angrily.

"Oh Shirley, haven't you figured it out yet? Listen! The gunfire would stop for a bit then continuous again! From those, you can at least figure out that it's not the Army! If it was the Army, then it would at least produce different sounds of gunfire but right now I'm guessing it's just a Machine Gun being fired and something like an RPG. It means that it was a group of not less than ten people. One of them is holding a machine gun while the other guy is probably holding some kind of a rocket launcher while the rest are holding cold weapons, did you get enlightened yet?" Mark said with a bit of annoyance from just how dumb this girl is sometimes, even the 10 year old kid already had a look of realization from his face.

When Shirley heard his words, she suddenly burst into tears and said in between her sobs "Then..d-does that mean..we're doomed to d-die here? We've already almost ran out of food!" the other girl also had bit of tears on her eyes as she hugged Shirley.

"Come on, don't lose hope. We'll look for food at the other apartments first thing in the morning" she tried to comfort her while patting her back and then she noticed that the kid went into one of the rooms dejected and she suddenly released a sighed of helplessness.

"B-but..B-but Ashley" Shirley stuttered.

"There's still hope" Dylan suddenly said as he faced them.

The others looked at him surprised even Shirley who was crying earlier immediately stopped and looked at Dylan with a bit of anticipation.

"As what you'd expect from someone of the Student Council" Mark said with a bit of hope.

"Whoever this group are, I have at least 60-70% sure that they are probably here to rescue a survivor like us just from the ruckus they are causing right now"

"How did you even get into that conclusion?" Ashley questioned.

Dylan looked at her and the rest before he carefully explained "One, as you might have already guessed that these zombies are very sensitive to sound so with the ruckus they are doing they are practically attracting all zombies nearby towards giving us survivors an ample to chance to escape from here or even out of the city and lastly, if my deduction is right, the world is probably suffering this much like us with these chaos, you can already say that we're in the middle of a Zombie Apocalypse, a fiction turned real. We've practically returned to the Dark Ages."

"Wait! Are you somehow telling us that" Ashley suddenly exclaimed in realization including Mark and Shirley.

"Mmmmp, No one would waste precious ammunition like them if they aren't here to rescue someone. If I were them I would just create a walled camped and hide there to at least avoid some of the chaos outside in the world" Dylan said and he stopped talking as he already conveyed what he wanted to say.

"You've already said a lot, are you perhaps telling us to take this chance and escape out of the city?" Mark said with arms crossed and without them noticing the kid from earlier already came back and listening intently from side but when he heard Mark saying about escaping, his face immediately turned gloomy.

"No"

"Then..?"

"I want us to escape towards where the gunfire is coming from" Dylan said something that sounded absurd.

""You're crazy!" Mark and the two girls yelled at the same time.

"No!" Dylan yelled back and looked at all of them with a determined face "What I said might have sounded illogical to all of you"

"Because it is!" Shirley said.

"If we escape from the city, chances are we're gonna die on the road, it might not even from the Zombies but from those monsters instead" as those words just left Dylan's mouth, Shirley along with Ashley and Mark shuddered as they remembered something horrifying.

Dylan looked back towards the sound of gunfire slowly getting further away and immediately added "But if we escape towards them and successfully integrated ourselves to them, then our chances of surviving is this world would be much higher than now. As wise people said before "In the face of great dangers lies ahead great rewards" Dylan said and closed his eyes then immediately opened and said with eyes filled with hope "And over there is that 'great reward' surrounded by dangers everywhere!" as he pointed at the direction of the light being produced by the burst of gunfire.

"Let's go!" Dylan said as he hastily went a backpack and wear it at his back and took a over a meter long slim iron pole with a sharp tip on one side. Then he noticed that the others are not moving and ordered with a raised tone "What are you guys waiting for? Go!" hearing him, the others immediately went and get their things.

Dylan then looked at the young boy "Jacob, you're coming with us" then he directly walked inside the room where the boy went earlier, Jacob then snapped out of his dazed and hastily followed inside.

Inside the room

There is a beautiful young girl around 8 years old lying on the bed looking at Dylan surprised and then at Jacob who immediately came beside "Brother, what's going?" she said fearfully holding his brother's arms.

"Little Sis, Uncle Dylan said he's taking us to escape here to a safe place" Jacob said softly to her as she lovingly patted her head.

Hearing Jacob calling him Uncle, made his eye twitch before saying "It's gonna be fine girly, We're gonna leave this place now and you two are coming with us" he said and walked towards them, he wore the backpack in front of his chest and then said "Come on, put your sister on my back. I'll piggyback her"

Jacob then assisted her sister and put her on Dylan's back and said to her "Hold on tight, okay?"

"Uhmm" she nodded, still looking a bit scared.

"Good thing I work out everyday" Dylan said to himself as he put his left hand at his back to support the little girl and to prevent her from falling if her arms gets tired.

"Let's go, make sure you keep up kid" Dylan said as he stood up from the bed and said to Jacob

Exiting the room, he immediately noticed the others looking at the girl on his back and Jacob lowered his head as he also know that they are being a burden to them. The others didn't say anything and looked at Dylan "Let's go?"

Dylan nodded and Mark opened the door and poked his head out to look around and said "It's safe" as he walked out and the rest followed and they started to descend the building from the stairs. Luckily for them, they didn't meet a single zombie on the way down.

As they finally got outside the building, they only encountered a few zombies who was heading towards the sound of gunfire. After that, they stopped in front of a Hummer SUV.

"Hold this" Dylan said to Jacob as he handed him his weapon.

Dylan took something from his pocket, it was a car key.

"Ashley, take Olivia from my back and get her on the car" Dylan said.

"Uhmm" Ashley nodded as she carried Olivia herself. Dylan then pressed the unlock button and the Hummer in front of them got its doors unlocked.

All of them immediately got inside the SUV and Dylan immediately started the car and slowly headed towards their objective and beside him he could hear Mark praying but didn't say anything.

*****

"Not anyone can just attend my party, you Zombies unless you pay with your life!" Leo laughed like he was enjoying the time of his life.

"Sir, you sounds like an insane man" Alex sounded from inside the tank.

"Shut it and fire the cannon towards those Zombies clumped together!" Leo barked as he ordered.

"Yes sir!"

"Exp, Money! Come to Daddy! Mwahaha!" Leo laughed in joy every time he hears the beautiful sound of a system notification.

Suddenly, he noticed some green dots appeared on his mini-map, that's clumped together.

"Enlarge" he said as the mini-map enlarge itself showing the entire City of Manchester.

Leo then smiled and he said "They are moving somewhat fast so they must be in a car and surprisingly they are heading towards me, Interesting"

"Stop the tank, we'll stay here for a bit" Leo commanded and Alex immediately stopped the tank but continued to fire shells after shells towards the horde of Zombies.