Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night - Chapter 88

Chapter 88: Hunting the Awakened
Zane and the girls traveled deep within the decrepit city, which had begun to decay as a result of conflict and a general lack of maintenance. Humanity was in its second week since an apocalypse began, and it was only a matter of time before the world’s power supply began to shut off.

While this wasn’t a concern for Zane, specifically because of Olivia’s exceptional skill. It would definitely be a problem for humanity soon enough. Zane and the girls travelled for quite some time. Until they penetrated deeper into the city than they had ever done before.

The good thing about travelling in an up-armored Humvee was the simple fact that the Undead lower than Tier III did not pose a danger to them. Because of this, Zane and the girls had trampled over the undead hordes with their vehicle as they drove through the roads.

The flooding from the storm a few days prior had caused glaring issues for the infrastructure of the city. The streets were in a far worse state of affairs than they had been in prior to the apocalypse. And that was saying a lot, considering America’s infrastructure was already crumbling before everything went to shit.

This made it exceptionally difficult for Zane and the others to traverse the damaged streets, which were already largely blocked by abandoned vehicles of all kinds. But eventually, through sheer perseverance and careful maneuvering. They managed to find an abandoned police station, one with a citadel like structure that would be easy to defend once it had been cleared out.

And surprisingly, they managed to find this ideal location by mid afternoon. Thus, Zane and the girls spent the rest of the day killing the Undead who remained within the police station, before locking its gats shut, effectively sealing it off from the outside world.

Zane and the girls then spread out their supplies in the cells which had beds in them, and shared a meal together. Though Zane refused the meal, out of concern for the girls who needed it far more than he did. It became apparent by the end of it all that they would need to scavenge for more supplies eventually.

And because of this, Zane decided that when the girls passed out later in the night, he would head out into the city and silently pillage what remained in this area that they had yet to scavenge through. Soon enough, Elena and Olivia fell asleep in their own cells. While Zane silently left the facility, making sure the gates were locked up behind him as he did so.

He then walked out on foot into the night, whose streets were no longer illuminated. Partially because the majority of street lights had been damaged in the conflict between the living and the dead, as well as the conflicts between the living and one another that had occurred over the past two weeks.

But also because there appeared to be another storm brewing, one that blacked out the moon and the stars above. Zane didn’t care however, his physical senses had improved quite drastically since he began upgrading his attributes. And in many ways which the girls had not.

Perhaps this was because his body was considered “living dead” and thus evolved differently than a standard awakened survivor’s. But for whatever reason, after increasing his physical attributes, Zane’s ability to see in the darkness without night vision or thermal devices had improved significantly.

Because of this, he was able to stalk through the streets almost as if he were truly an undead. Walking among the nomadic hordes of corpses with ease. Zane spent several hours scavenging for supplies, only grabbing what was truly needed. While also getting his hands on cigarettes and alcohol wherever he was able to find them.

In the end, he went far beyond the encampment to the point where he suddenly felt as if he were lost. This was, after all, not an area of town that he was familiar with. After all, even before the apocalypse, this was a bad part of town, where one risked becoming a victim. Now that its denizens had been turned into undead monsters, it was even more dangerous.

Or it was more dangerous for the average person, but for Zane it was far safer than it had ever been before. Because he knew that he was lost, Zane ultimately took a moment to collect his bearings, and lit a cigarette as he did so.

While Zane let out a puff of smoke from his lungs, he saw a burst of fire in the distance. This was not an explosion caused by a weapon, as there was no significant sound accompanying it, nor was it a flame that was sustained, failing to spread beyond the initial flash.

This was peculiar to Zane as he kept the cigarette in his lips while shouldering his rifle, where he gazed down its scope and dialed up the magnification to a point where he could see what was happening.

When Zane did see what had caused the flame, he was truly surprised. In the distance, no more than three hundred meters down the road, was a group of survivors battling a sizeable group of Undead. They were not using firearms, or else Zane would have heard the gunfire.

Instead, they were using melee weapons. But what had truly shocked Zane was that the source of the fire had come from one of the survivors’ hands. It was not just fire which was being manipulated by these survivors, but also various skills were being displayed by the survivors. Some of them were elemental based, while others were far less obvious.

Zane knew immediately what this had meant. He had come across a group of individuals that, like himself and the girls, were awakened. This was very bad news for Zane, as it meant not only did he have competition for resources among the other survivors in the city.

But this also meant that the hostiles he would have to deal with from now on would be far more unpredictable. Zane quickly stamped out his cigarette and rushed behind cover as a way to evade the potential powers of super sight, or super hearing. Which he had no idea if anyone in the group had, but made preparations for regardless.

He hid behind the cover while aiming down his scope and watching the Survivors as they battled the Undead. Very quickly, he was able to find out what their abilities were, none of which were defensive in nature.

Because of this, Zane waited until the survivors had killed the Undead which they had aggro’d, he also waited for them to loot the blood crystals, several of which appeared to be from Tier II Undead, which meant that there were Undead in the group that were not Howlers but still Tier II.

Lusting after the bounty which these survivors had obtained from their life and death struggle, Zane immediately flipped off the safety from his rifle’s lower receiver and lined up his optic’s reticle where he held his breath before squeezing the two-stage match trigger. A muffled gunshot erupting into the immediate vicinity as he did so.

*Bang*