The armored bus rolled past the broken barricade.
Heavy tires crushed bones into dust, crushed shattered glass into even smaller pieces of shattered glass. The engine growled low and constant, vibrations crawling up through the steering wheel and into Ren's palms.
Behind him, Chloe drove the green military truck. He checked the rearview mirror once. Her knuckles had gone pale. Eyes moving quick, left right, left right, scanning every dark alley they passed. 1
Terrified.
But she followed his path exactly.
Zone Two was a different world.
No sir, not an exaggeration either.
Towering skyscrapers of steel and glass, most of them mid-collapse, leaning against each other like teeth knocked sideways. Black smoke had eaten the sky entirely. Ash drifted down in slow, grey sheets, coating the streets in thick blankets of nothing.
The silence had weight. Unnatural weight.
Ren tapped the brakes. The bus hissed to a halt.
A massive crater had bitten straight through the road ahead. Wide and ugly. Water pooled at the bottom, mixing with oil and trash in a dark swirl. No way around it. No way through it. 2
He grabbed the radio off the dashboard.
"Stop the truck."
"I see the hole," Chloe crackled back. Tense. Very tense. "What do we do?"
"We clear a path. Stay inside. Keep the engine running."
Ren grabbed the shotgun and shoved the bus doors open. Stepped out onto ash-covered asphalt.
He inhaled.
Scent Tracking kicked in automatically. Copper. Old rain. Nothing else. No zombies. 3
He looked up. Far Sight cut straight through the smoke like it wasn't even there.
High on the side of a glass tower, dark shapes clung to the surface. Moving slow. Blending with the shadows well enough that a normal person would've missed them entirely.
Not human. Not wolves or tigers either.
Wide leathery wings. Bodies wrapped in grey, stony armor.
[Mutated Gargoyle (Lvl 7)]
[Status: Hunting]
[Warning: Aerial Predator]
"Incoming from above," he spoke into the shoulder radio. "Get the heavy sniper ready."
A piercing shriek answered before anyone else could.
Three Gargoyles detached from the skyscraper. They folded their wings tight and dropped, plummeting straight down like falling boulders.
Ren pumped the shotgun. Stood his ground in front of the bus. 4
The first one flared its wings at the last second, jaws snapping straight for his head.
Ren pulled the trigger.
BANG.
Buckshot hit chest dead center. Stone armor cracked, grey chips scattering. The monster launched backward and crashed onto the street, screeching.
The second Gargoyle ignored him entirely. It swooped past the bus and dove straight for the green Humvee, heavy claws tearing deep gashes across the metal roof.
Chloe screamed from inside the cab.
"Shoot it!" Ren roared.
The heavy sniper fired.
Something else, that noise. Thunder compressed into a single narrow point between the buildings. Every remaining window on the block shattered at once. 5
The bullet punched through the Humvee roof and through the Gargoyle's stomach, ripping a hole in its stony flesh the size of a fist. It collapsed across the windshield.
Very dead.
"Good shot," Ren muttered.
And then the third one landed silently behind him.
He spun just as a stone wing connected squarely with his ribs.
Air left his lungs in one hard burst. He stumbled, dropped the shotgun. The creature lunged, mouth wide open, rows of jagged teeth coming in fast.
Ren grinned.
He preferred close combat anyway. 6
[Skill Activated: Rending Claws]
His fingernails grew out into dark metallic blades.
The Gargoyle snapped. Ren sidestepped. He drove his right hand straight into the side of its neck, claws punching through rocky hide and sinking deep into warm, pulsating arteries.
Dark blood erupted. All over his jacket.
The monster thrashed. Wings whipping, trying to break free. Ren planted his boots on the asphalt, grabbed its throat with his left hand too, dug both sets of claws in deep, and ripped its head violently backward.
Snap.
Spine severed.
The Gargoyle dropped, a lifeless pile of grey stone and meat.
[Target Dead: Mutated Gargoyle (Lvl 7)]
[Experience Gained: 250]
Ren stood over the steaming corpse and wiped dark blood from his face. The hunger coiled in his stomach, sharp and demanding, the way it always did after a kill. 7
He crouched. Used his claws to carve a precise chunk of muscle from the thickest part of the wing base. Tough, like hardened leather. He swallowed it without hesitation.
[Gluttony Activated.]
[Consumed: Gargoyle Wing Muscle.]
[Defense +3]
[Strength +2]
[New Passive: Echolocation (Low)]
[Description: You can sense objects and movement around you in total darkness.]
He closed his eyes.
The new sense washed in slow. He didn't need light anymore. The shape of the bus, right there in his head. The jagged crater edges. The abandoned cars. Every pile of debris lining the street. And the steady, terrified heartbeat of the girl sitting in the truck behind him. 8
He opened his eyes.
Felt invincible.
He walked back to the Humvee. Dead Gargoyle still sprawled across the hood. Ren grabbed its leg and dragged it off, tossed it onto the street like a trash bag.
Chloe rolled her window down. Her hands were shaking pretty bad.
"Did you see that?" she gasped. "The gun, it kicked so hard it bruised my shoulder."
"It saved your life," Ren said flatly. "You did perfectly. Keep it loaded."
He turned and looked at the crater.
"We can't drive through this. We find a bridge or a ramp."
He checked the stolen map. Stadium sat several miles east. Between them and the safe zone was the financial district, a maze of tall buildings and narrow, dark streets. 9
"We're taking a detour," he told her. "Follow closely. Don't stop for anything."
He jogged back to the armored bus and climbed into the driver's seat. Shifted into reverse, backed the massive vehicle away from the crater.
Then he steered toward a narrow side street. Buildings crowded in on both sides, squeezing out what little light the smoke had left behind.
Shadows everywhere.
Ren smiled. 10
Echolocation pinged constantly, mapping the dark alleyways in clean, perfect detail. Every abandoned car. Every debris pile. Every lurking shape hiding in the shadows that thought the dark was its friend.
Zone Two was a nightmare for normal survivors.
For the Glutton, it was just a very large buffet.
Ren pressed the gas and the bus plunged into the darkness.