Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 29: You're Not Master Chief!

"Sir! Are we not moving yet? If we don't the Zombies will surround us with their numbers" Alex said like he was complaining.

"It's fine, it's not like they can bite us, especially you. You have a thick skin" Leo said with the last sentence being said like a joke.

Even though Alex is an android so hearing Leo saying he had thick skin made his right eye twitch.

"Joke aside, come here and take over the turret. I'm gonna head somewhere for a bit" Leo immediately jumped off the tank immediately after he said that.

Alex immediately took over the turret without saying anything as he killed any zombies that comes their way creating an over three meters tall Zombie Wall over ten meters away from the tank.

On another side.

"Dylan! We're gonna die at this rate!" Mark yelled in fright as held on the grab handle so tight from the SUV running over all the zombies on their way.

"It's fine!" Dylan resolutely yelled as he stepped on the gas pedal harder, as it sped faster sending all obstacle flying.

Kyaa~! Thud! Kyaa~! Thud!

The two women inside screamed and the two siblings held each other in a tight hug, shutting their eyes.

Brooom! Brooom!

"Dammit! The car got stuck!" Dylan cursed as banged on the steering wheel.

The reason the SUV got stuck was because of the rear wheels stuck in a heap of mutilated flesh preventing it from going forward.

"Shit! Dylan drive or we're dead!" Shirley from the yelled with a restless voice seeing that they are slowly getting surrounded.

"I'm trying, alright!?" Dylan said with a bit of annoyance and panic within his tone.

Honk! Honk! Honk!

"Damn! Damn! Damn! We're trap!" Dylan kept slamming the horn button as the produce honking sound attracting more zombies towards them than necessary.

"Dylan, what are you doing!? You will attract more of them!" Mark yelled at Dylan as he immediately stopped him.

"No! Let's hope that at least one of them would be able to hear car!"

"We're doomed! We're doomed!" Shirley yelled as she finally lose all hope as she sobbed.

"Shut it!" Dylan angrily yelled.

A few moments later, the car is now fully surrounded by Zombies with even the glasses are starting to crack from not being able to handle the weight of the zombies repeatedly slamming on it.

"Sorry guys, It seems I was wrong. We should've had just escape out of the city. Jacob, Olivia, Ashley, Shirley, Mark, I'm truly sorry" Dylan sighed as he leaned back on his seat, hopeless with tears already streaming down his face.

"It's fine, we've all decided to come with you so don't blame yourself" Ashley from the back said filled with hopelessness.

"Yeah, Before I was always afraid of death but now that I accepted it. I feel calmer instead, how weird" Mark sighed as he bitterly smiled looking at the Zombies who's eager to have a bite off of them.

Shirley and the two siblings just cried without saying anything. Then silenced reined inside the car with the only that can be heard are the Zombies banging the car door along with muffled sobbing sounds.

Just as despair slowly sinks into them, they suddenly heard a loud roar and then they saw zombies flying away after that the sound of a rifle started being fired and then they saw the zombies surrounding their car getting decimated.

And then suddenly the zombies in front of the car suddenly got thrown away like heap of trash and what they saw stunned all of them, standing in front of the car was a huge red metal 'thing' that looks like a Humanoid Armor armed with a rifle as 'it' continuously shot at the Zombies around them.

"My God! It's USNC Soldier!" a childlike voice suddenly shouted in excitement.

*****

"This bunch of idiots!" Leo cursed when he saw the car at his minimap suddenly stopped and slowly got surrounded by a couple of dozens of zombies or maybe even more.

Leo stopped, just less than a hundred meters away from the car, now looking like a mound of zombies.

[Primal Roar!]

Leo with his skill created a clear path in front of him, in a fan shape like the the signal of a Wi-fi. Then Leo dashed as he started shooting using his Overpowered Rifle M395 DMR that never runs out of bullets.

"Die, you bunch of man eating bastards!" Leo made a final assault as he finally cleared a path towards the car, Leo put his rifle on his back and started throwing the zombies in front of the car.

Leo started shooting at the zombies again while yelling "Give me your money bastards! I'll need it to buy a lot of things! So, don't worry as your sacrifice won't be in vain!"

Then suddenly he heard something that made him stop.

"My God! It's USNC Soldier!"

"Eh? Someone finally recognizes this Armor! Here I thought people haven't played Halo in their lives!" Leo thought in shocked before laughing out loud.

"Haha! Yes! So call me Master Chief!" Leo yelled back, trying to impersonate one of the main characters of the game.

Leo then stopped as he rested his DMR on his shoulder as he observer the people getting out of the car.

"A little girl and a young boy, two young men and two girls? Seems this four are University Students from their uniforms, sadly I can't quite recognized it" Leo thought as he observed them and he noticed that one of the girls is looking at him with admiring eyes then through the comlink "Alex, get the tank towards my direction" he commanded and then he disabled his helmet.

"You're not Master Chief!" suddenly the young boy yelled.

"Shh! Jacob!" one of the young men berated the kid as he pulled on his sleeves.

"I'm Leo, Leader of the." Leo stopped and thought of something for a few seconds and continued "Leader of the Earth Federation, state your names!" he sounded imposing but he was actually laughing inside when he suddenly thought of the name of their group, in a whim.

After that he looked at the kid named Jacob and said with laugh "And of course, I'm not Master Chief kiddo. I don't even have the same Armor as him and most importantly we don't even know what he looks like" and what Leo said stunned the kid, like he just realized something as he hid behind the young man earlier.

"Uhmm, I'm Dylan, this Mark, Ashley, Shirley and this kid here is Jacob while the little girl over there is Jacob's sister Olivia, Sir" Dylan stepped forward as he started introducing themselves nervously.

"What's with the girl?" Leo pointed with his chin towards Olivia as he took out two grenades he bought earlier and threw it towards a group of zombies just several meters away from them.

Boom~~~! Boom~~~!

The sound of the grenades going off startled Dylan's group that they unconsciously moved closer to Leo.

"So what's with the girl" Leo asked again.

"Her lower body is paralyzed" Ashley who was carrying Olivia answered him instead.

"Are you guys related?"

"No, we just met them when he just suddenly barged into their apartment yesterday when we were getting chased by those zombies" Ashley said embarrass when she mentioned about them trespassing someone else's home.

"Let me guess, you guys heard the ruckus we were causing and planned to take advantage of it to escape but instead of escaping outside of the city, you guys instead decided to head towards our direction, right?" Leo said smiling at them.

"Yes, I thought that instead of escaping outside the city and aimlessly trying to survive with the constant fear of zombies trying to eat us. We'd rather brave the danger of going towards your group and luckily take shelter under your protection" the man named Dylan said and then he added "Please take us under your wing. I promise you we're very useful!"

Leo didn't answer instead his eyes are looking at Olivia while touching his chin "With her condition, you decided to bring her with you?" hearing Leo saying that made Olivia lower her head ashamed while Jacob looked at Leo with an angry look.

Instead of getting angry, Dylan noticing the meaning behind Leo's words, said "I didn't want to abandon the two siblings in their home with nothing to eat. So I decided to bring them with us and even if we fail to reach our objective, dying in the jaws of those Zombies seemed better but painful. At least we're gonna die faster rather than dying a slow death from starvation" he looked at Leo with clear eyes without malice, Leo didn't even see a hint lying through his eyes.

Leo instead felt admiration towards him, after all the zombie epidemic just started but the dark human desires that was buried deep inside them would slowly surface and corrode the people's morality as time passes by. If it was another group in their shoes, those people would probably abandon the siblings and wouldn't want to carry a huge burden, they would rather leave them as those people would only think about their own lives and others wouldn't matter.

Luckily though, the morality of the people hasn't been corroded yet for the time being.

"Good thing these kids met this group early or else" Leo didn't even want to think what would happen to them if Dylan and his group didn't barge into their home.

Leo then moved towards the back of the back and gave it a push, releasing the car from being stuck on a pile of zombie 'corpses'.

"Get in the car for now" Leo said and the group immediately complied and got inside the the car.

Leo kept shooting at the Zombies around him to kill time as he waited for Alex to arrive and just a minute later, the silhouette of the tank along with its rumbling sound as it moves towards their direction appeared in their sights.