Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night - Chapter 104

Chapter 104: Juggernaut
After packing up their items and piling them in the Humvee, Zane and the girls rushed into the armored vehicle where they drove off through the city. Naturally along the way there were plenty of Undead, whose strength was growing despite their overall numbers dwindling.

It was a serious issue to drive through the hordes, especially since higher tier undead like Abominations and Stalkers posed as serious risk to the group of survivors even if they were inside the protection of the Humvee.

Abominations had enough strength and durability that they could crush an armored vehicle like an up-armored Humvee with a single blow. They were incredibly dangerous and usually required small groups of awakened survivors to kill.

The fact that Zane, Olivia, and Elena had already killed one of such monstrosities during the early days of the apocalypse was a testament to the powerful skills that they had all awakened, something which was definitely above the norm.

Because of the danger that these undead monstrosities posed to Zane and the girls, they drove very cautiously through the city, trying their best to avoid these powerful enemies. Eventually, however, as Zane knew, they needed to take a stop at a gas station.

Zane and the girls had slowly driven through the crowded streets filled with undead and abandoned vehicles for quite some time. Due to how packed the streets were, and how difficult to navigate they were, what normally would have been a thirty to forty-five minute journey across town took several hours.

But, they were now in South Reno, one gas station away from entering the highway which would allow them to continue on their journey to the Capital of Nevada, Carson City. The moment Zane stopped the car, he went over the basics of what they would need to do to ensure a safe extraction of gasoline.

“Alright, here’s the plan… Angelica and I will use the scalable ladder in the trunk to get on top of the gas station while Elena and Olivia clear it out. Once the perimeter is secure, I will establish Overwatch, and make sure nothing else tries to harm Olivia, who will use her skill to power the gas pumps so that we can actually get some gasoline from the tanks. As for you Elena, you will be in charge of actually pumping the gas. Sound good?”

Nobody disagreed with Zane’s proposal, and thus they quickly exited the armored vehicle, their weapons drawn, loaded and their safeties off as they enacted this exact plan. Olivia and Elena took point, with Elena having her rifle slung, and instead her Katana in hand.

The amount of Undead she had slain with this weapon was quite excessive, after all, only Zane had a suppressor on his rifle, which meant that whenever at all possible the girls did not fire their carbines out of fear of attracting unwanted attention, whether that be from the dead or the living.

By now, Elena and Olivia had ample experience clearing rooms, and they quickly entered the store with their weapons drawn, looking for any undead stragglers who might be left behind. And there were indeed three of them. Elena cast her time reduction spell, freezing time on its spot, while she and her party members remained entirely unaffected.

As she did this, she expertly unsheathed her blade in a way that managed to decapitate one of the walkers, the blood crystal embedded in its skull rolling out of the severed head and onto the ground as she did so.

Olivia struck next, using her makeshift club to bash in the skull of another Walker, and finally Elena dispatched the third so quickly that her skill had not even deactivated. Within a span of three seconds, the undead were terminated, but it was only after a thorough sweep of the building, and its restroom facilities did the group finally sigh in relief.

While Elena gathered the blood crystals and stashed them in her pocket, Olivia ran out to the pumps where she cast her own skill, Electric Discharge, and began to guide the energy into the part of the structure which required it.

After all, all across the country the power grid was rapidly failing, the city of Reno no longer had any power left within it, the only power capable of being generated was either via the use of diesel generators, certain renewable energy sources, or Olivia’s skill which made her into a living power generator.

While she focused on supplying energy to the system, something that required her active attention, Elena ran over and began pumping gas not only into the tank of the Humvee but also into their Jerry Cans, which were beginning to be depleted as well.

The entire time, Zane lied on the roof top gazing out into the distance. Angelica was acting as his spotter, using her spotting scope to mark targets for Zane. Something she was quick to mention to him.

“Abomination, approximately 300 meters northwest. Scratch that, two abominations… They appear to be heading in our direction… What do you want to do?”

Zane adjusted his scope so that he could get a better view of the targets. He knew by now that shooting an abomination with a 5.56x45mm NATO projectile was about as useful as throwing a pebble at it.

All it would really do would piss it off and aggro it and everything else within its immediate vicinity to their location. Thus, Zane’s tone was cold and calculating as he made a suggestion.

“Monitor its movement for now. It shouldn’t be long before our tanks are full and we can get out of here…”

Angelica silently nodded her head in understanding, but in the next second, she gasped. Because Zane was looking in another location, he did not see exactly what she was frightened of, but the sound she made was not reassuring, and what was even more concerning was the fact that the girl tugged at his jacket almost as if she was too afraid to get on with the words.

“Angelica, just tell me what you see? Where are you looking at?”

There was genuine fear in Angelica’s voice as she struggled to speak her thoughts in a clear and precise manner.

“J…Ju… Juggernaut! JUGGERNUAT FIVE HUNDRED METERS OUT NORTHEAST! ZANE IT SEES US! IT SEES US!”

Zane had no idea what the hell Angelica was freaking out about until he looked over in the direction she was staring. Barreling towards them, and in doing so, smashing through the buildings in its path, was a massive undead monstrosity approximately the size of a single story building.

The system alerted Zane to what type of undead this was. Causing him to understand exactly why Angelica used the term Juggernaut.

—

[Tier V Undead – Juggernaut]

[Level: 🕱]

[HP: ???]

—

Like so many other times Zane and the girls made first contact with a higher tier undead, the Juggernaut had the saem old skull and crossbones symbol meaning that if they even attempted to engage the thing in combat, their lives were forfeit. When Zane saw this, he immediately folded his bipod and began running down the latter yelling at all the girls as he did so.

“GET IN THE FUCKING CAR! WE HAVE TO GO NOW!”

The girls did not know what had panicked Zane so much, but Angelica was right behind the man, barely taking the time to grab the ladder and scale it down so that it could fit in the trunk while they rushed towards the Humvee.

By the time Angelica and Olivia realized what was happening, Zane was already in the vehicle starting the engine. Causing the two women to scurry as they sealed the jerry cans and loaded them in the trunk. Once they had done this, they hopped inside the vehicle’s passenger seats, the car already taking off down the road before they could fully shut the doors.

Luckily for them, at max speed, the Humvee was significantly faster than the giant monstrosity barreling towards them. And as if the heavens had blessed them, the highway seemed far less packed with abandoned vehicles than the city’s streets. Meaning after a terrifying pursuit, one that left Zane and the girls sweating bullets, they finally managed to escape from the Juggernaut.

Upon realizing that it could not catch its prey, the Juggernaut gave up on its pursuit fairly quickly, returning its attention to the other gnats in the city who were completely incapable of defeating it.

Though they didn’t realize this, Zane and the girls were being watched the entire time by stalkers, who coordinated with its superior, aka the Juggernaut, in an attempt to catch them unaware.

If not for the fact that Angelica had seen the juggernaut before, it could close the distance between them. The three of them would have been dead for sure. Something that Zane would quietly reflect upon over the coming days. As for Carson city it was about an hour’s drive from where they were.

And with the new city would come new challenges as Zane and the girls struggled to uncover the underground vault which allegedly housed the Governor and his family. As well as potentially other survivors.