'You don't have to go in if you don't want to.' A man in a red hazmat suit touched the shoulder of another man in yellow hazmat.
The one in yellow nodded and responded. 'If not me then who?' he said brushing his hand off.
'I don't think you are making a wise choice Jimmy. Humanity has few bright minds left as we know, please don't lessen the amount.' The red hazmat dude said and then walked away leaving Jimmy to his thoughts.
'Who cares about trivial stuff like that? All will be lost if nothing is done. I don't need a bunch of wussies telling me what and what not to do with my darn life.' He muttered.
Before the man stood large metallic doors shot together and riddled with Hugh bolts. It had lots of prominent radioactive signs and warnings plastered on it.
From the hazmat visor, one could notice how Jimmy was sweating profusely, his eyes reddened by internal torment, and his eyebrows twitching insistently. He was in great panic! Clenching his fist, he walked forward and uttered some words.
'Allow access!'
'Voice recognition accepted. Now allowing access' a female robotic voice resounded all around the corridor where he stood.
Swoosh!
Soon thereafter, after a few clicks were heard, the metallic doors began to separate, and white mist escaped from the opening between the two and dissipated in every direction.
The mist-shrouded what was inside, but one could discern the sinister green pair of eyes. It glowed right at the center of the room in what seemed to be a large container of glass with a bunch of tubes attached to it.
'Alright then. Test subject 056 is secured, ready to move in.' The man announced through a communication device attached to his suit.
'Oh help me, God.' He prayed before finally taking a step through the veil of fog into the ominous room.
...
...
Chris turned around slowly and looked. He saw something he wished he would never face.
Looming over him was a 9 feet humanoid creature with an arched back. Its body was armored with venom gloss scales and it had elongated limbs with webbed fingers. Its sharp lime eyes were bulging out almost to the point it looked like it might pop out at a moment's notice, and its dark purple lips spanned across its reptilian face.
Its lizard-like tail swayed left to right as this creature looked intensely at Chris, instilling fear into him. It opened its mouth wide revealing its serrated brown teeth and green slimy tongue bristled with barnacle-like growths. As he was about to consume him...
Bang!
The bullet went straight into the head of the creature pushing it back.
'Run!' Drake yelled.
He had managed to take direct aim and shoot at the monster in time before it could attack Chris.
Chris ran out of the way while the creature tried to recover.
Bang! Another shot to its torso! Nice one!
It fell and squirmed. A loud shriek escaped from its mouth. Drake prepared to fire once more but as he was about to he heard lots of growls coming from the other side of the building.
The bullet sound had attracted other zombies!
'Let's make a run for it! We can't fight them all!' Drake ordered. The rest of the group listened to Drake's command and ran ahead of him.
He turned around to do the same but something grabbed his leg, refusing to let go.
It was the humanoid!
Its bulging eyes, like those of a chameleon, moved about until it finally focused on him.
'Oh darn it!' Drake quickly pulled the trigger to fire at the thing's wrist, but…
*click click* … It was an empty shot!
'Oh come on!!!'
The creature tugged and Drake lost balance from the pull and toppled to the ground. He let go of his rifle in the process.
Drake, now immobilized, saw other Zombies approaching him. Now, the number of zombies that surrounded him was about twenty, including the unknown creature. He didn't know what to do at that point but to accept his fate.
'Darn it! I thought I was unstoppable?!' He exclaimed as he was dragged closer by the strange entity towards his death.
...
Meanwhile, the rest ran for their life, thinking that Drake was behind them until Michelle noticed.
'Hey where is Drake?!' she exclaimed.
The remaining looked back and didn't see him.
'Oh baby no!' Rose screamed and was about to rush back but Chris held her hand before she did.
'Leave me alone! … I swear if you don't let go of me!' Rose screamed. She had lost it!
'Rose, calm down.' Chris coaxed her. 'Drake is tough, I know him well enough to say that he can handle the situation on his own. You going back will only interfere with him escaping.'
'But I have to make sure he is alive!' She cried.
'Okay Let me go back instead, since I know how the zombies operate and also my way round the city.' Chris said.
'But I...'
As Rose was about to say something, Michelle interfered.
'Rose, as much as I hate to say it, Chris is right, you will only become a hindrance to Drake if you go back. Chris would be a better option. Plus, he knows that if he doesn't come back with Chris, he's in for a hellish ride with us since all this was his idea in the first place.' She concluded, casting a glare at Chris who looked the other way.
Rose managed to calm down a little bit but was still shaky.
'What even is that thing?!' James, who was oddly quiet since exclaimed.
'That's a Riptoid, a type of zombie… Don't worry about it for now, I will tell you guys about it after I bring Drake back. Let's agree on a meeting point.' Chris said.
'How about the cafe over there?' Diana suggested. Turning around, they saw the tiny restaurant by the corner of the street that felt somewhat intact compared to the other buildings around.
They all agreed that would be the meeting point. After that, Chris left to find Drake while the rest went to the cafe.
'This is so freaking terrific. It hasn't even been an hour yet and we are already in a tight spot. Before we all perish, I want to let you all know I hate being on this team.' James growled.
'Awww… sorry to hear that baby. Why don't you go suck your thumb or something.' Michelle jeered at James, making him scoff.
'Good grief…' Michelle sighed, rolling her eyes.
...
Chris hurried towards the location where they met the Riptoid to find Drake.
Actually, in a real sense, he hoped to return to his corpse. The reason was that he knew the zombie they were dealing with. It wasn't any ordinary zombie but one whose craftiness is beyond comparison.
It belongs to the group of zombies with intelligence higher than most humans. These zombie groups are classified under the lords of the zombies, and the Riptoid group happens to be up there in the echelon!
Reality speaking, it could have killed Chris in an instant, but it decided not to do so at first. Just the same way sharks carefully observe their prey to see if they are a threat before attacking, it had done so to them.
After seeing the only notable defense they had was a mere hunter rifle, it was surely going to engulf them all at once. But lucky for the team, its attacking chance was deferred by the shots Drake had made.
Given its high intelligence it couldn't have settled for only one man, its greed wouldn't allow it to. Since one of its perks is turning invisible, it might try to follow Drake back to his remaining companions.
So Chris knew that finding Drake alive would mean the devil wouldn't be far off. These were all Chris's deductions as he made his way back to the location.
He then saw a dead soldier by a corner of the street and noticed he had a long sniper rifle on.
'Sweet! I hope it's loaded.' He removed the sniper from the soldier and checked its chambers. He saw six bullets left inside.
Wonderful!
He wore the sniper rifle and continued to search the dead soldier for more items. He managed to recover about twelve sniper rounds, a small handgun, some first aid materials, and some food rations.
Excellent!
After bagging them all, he continued with the advance. 'It's like the goddess of luck is shining on me now. But it would be a bad sign if this was a video game because it might mean a fight against a big boss is about to happen.' He gulped at the thought and continued until he spotted someone approaching him.
'Great! It is Drake!.' He muttered sarcastically as his worst fear came to be.
'That creature is obviously around him, I don't need to know about the creature to sense its blood lust from way over here, how come I didn't sense it before?' he rambled on.
Drake also saw Chris from far away and decided to approach him. As soon as he approached him, the blood lust Chris felt dissipated in an instant. 'Does it know about my innate ability to sense it?' He thought.
'Should I shoot Drake and run away to avoid further repercussions?' Chris pondered for a brief moment and gave it no second thought.
'Nah, I'd rather not have to deal with matters that affect my conscience.' As he tried to come up with other ways to help their situation, he spotted a construction site at the far end of the street that had a huge crane and other construction vehicles.
This brought to his mind a brilliant idea that could help them turn the tables around, but there was a high risk that the plan would go extremely south and hasten their downfall.
'Well it's worth a shot'