BOOM!
The explosion stole his attention for only a second. But when Jason looked back, the creature was gone.
'Damn it!'
But that was far from his biggest problem right now.
The mutants, motionless like mannequins moments ago suddenly shuddered following the explosion—like babies startled from their sleeps.
Their heads slowly turned towards the direction of the explosion.
GROWL!!?
Before their growls could even echo through the streets, they all burst forward at varying speeds towards the location of the explosion.
'Seems re-routing is the only way now.' Peeking from his cover, Jason looked towards the direction of the explosion and frowned.
'Even civilians should know better than to make this kind of noise here. So what's going on?'
Ducking back into cover, he pulled up the map on the GEC device preparing to map out another route when he suddenly froze.
Behind him, at the entrance of the alleyway he had just passed, a mutant stood silently with its gaze locked on him.
Both sides just stood frozen.
Suddenly, another mutant burst through the window of the building he was using as cover, lunging straight towards him.
Pushed by adrenaline, Jason dived sideways, crashing through the doors of the building.
Landing heavily on the floor, he ignored the pain and immediately sprang back up, sidestepping just in time to avoid the mutant's follow-up grab.
That maneuver left the mutants wide open and Jason immediately went in for the kill.
Twisting his upper body slightly, Jason drove the 27 centimeter knife clamped forward in a reverse grip, burying the blade straight into its chest.
Simultaneously, he raised his right hand and slammed his pistol right into the mutant's face, knocking it to the ground.
However, before he could breathe, he was roughly tackled to the ground by the second mutant.
He managed to keep the creature's snapping jaw mere centimeters away from his face—courtesy of his left elbow wedged against its throat.
Even then, between the creature's struggling and its horrendous breath, Jason was barely holding out. The mutant's claws sank into his arm as it kept pushing forward to take a bite out of him.
'What the hell is this strength? How are this things so damn strong?'
Struggling with the mutant, Jason turned his head sideways to access his situation, Jason saw something that made his heart drop to the pit of his stomach.
The first mutant he had neutralized, or at least believed he had, was now sitting up as if nothing happened.
The skin around the knife wound on its chest was filled with writhing veins, and the wound itself was slowly knitting together—visible even to the naked eye.
'The hell! How could it still be alive?'
Jason was about to panic, but in that instant, the image of a female mutant with a knife in the eye flashed through his mind.
With his left hand barely holding the second mutant back, he raised his pistol and aimed at the first mutant.
BANG!
The moment the first shot rang out, Jason retracted his arm, pressed the muzzle against the second mutant's temple, and pulled the trigger.
BANG!
SPLAT!
Blood and brain matter splattered across the floor, some of it staining Jason as the mutant's body began twitching.
Jason quickly pushed it off and sprang up. The first mutant lay some distance away, also twitching, a bullet hole in its forehead.
"Hah... Hah... Hah... "
'Shit! Too loud!'
Without bothering to catch his breath, Jason sprinted to the nearest window and cautiously looked at the street outside.
GROWL!!
Guttural growls answers from various alleys and buildings, including the one he was currently inside.
Even the mutants running along the main street towards the explosion suddenly stopped, heads slowly turning to Jason's location.
'There are still more in the building? Damn!'
Still running on adrenaline, Jason hurried towards the back of the building and up the stairs to the second floor.
Drops of blood from the wound on his arms dripped onto the floor as he ran.
As he hurriedly and quietly ran up the steps, the thudding steps of something heavy and reckless charging down the zigzag stairs resounded as well.
'Judging from the sound, it seems to be a single mutant. Going outside now would be suicide. A quick takedown, then.'
Hurrying to the corner of the staircase, Jason silently crouched and waited.
Amid the sound of shattering glass and the shuffling of feet as the mutants rushed towards the building, the other one descending finally reached the turning corner.
The inertia of its descent sent it crashing into the opposite side of the staircase, an opportunity Jason immediately capitalized on.
Bursting from his crouching position, Jason rammed his body into the mutant pinning it to the wall.
The seven-inch blade of his knife found its way through the mutant's eye, sinking all the way to the handle.
Jason quickly pulled the knife from the eye and sprinted upstairs, leaving the twitching body of the mutant behind.
'As I suspected, direct damage to the brain is the way to kill them.'
Just as he sprinted halfway up the stairs and the other mutants burst the entrance.
WROOARRFF!!!
A terrifying cry suddenly erupted somewhere in the distance.
It sounded like a cross between a bark and a roar, loud and deep enough to reverberate throughout the entire building.
Every scrambling mutant froze. Then without hesitation, they rushed towards the source of the roar. Within seconds, those surrounding Jason's building had disappeared.
'What was that?'
Peeking from the stairs, Jason watched all the mutants abandon him and charged towards the mysterious roar.
He immediately sprinted up to the second floor and towards the direction of the roar.
Looking towards the commotion on the street in the distance, he saw a crowd of mutants chasing after a creature.
Squinting his eyes, he finally saw it.
A massive black Cane Corso burst into view. Nearly the size of a juvenile horse, it looked less like a dog and more like a charging beast.
Bits and pieces of rags hanging from its body. Rags that Jason immediately recognized as remnants of K9 tactical vest.
'A mutated military canine, was that what has been watching me?'
Jason studied the retreating creature as nearly two dozen mutants closed in on it.
The creature using abandoned vehicles as obstacles, managed to avoided getting totally surrounded.
It rammed into one of the abandoned vehicle, knocking it into two approaching mutants.
Simultaneously, one of its front paws descended, crushing the head of another mutant.
Its massive jaws snapped shut around the head of another mutant, fangs sinking into the mutants brain.
The Cane Corso violently whipped its head sideways, hurling the corpse into another group of mutants charging from its front.
That move opened up a path through the horde which the creature charged right through.
'Hold on...' Jason narrowed his eyes.
'It's not feeding... It's clearing a path through the mutants.'
However, before Jason could observe it further, it had arrived at a turn.
For a brief moment, the creature's head turned toward Jason's position, almost as if it was aware he was there before disappearing into another street with dozens of mutants on its heels.
'That... isn't the stare of a mindless beast.'