Chapter 59: An Extra Carry-On

Everyone in the vehicle was left shocked by Harvey’s decisive move. Good thing he had only aimed at the young man’s thigh. This caused him to stop giving chase to their vehicle, as well as leave him an option to escape back into the college building on his own.

Murder of a fellow survivor was a line their group was uncomfortable about crossing, but a line they would have to cross one day. The survivor count had dropped to a scary thirty-five percent in just seven days; meaning, unless things stabilize at this value, it would just keep dropping more.

And this was only being hopeful since it seems that, as the days passed, even the most regular-looking mutants are becoming very strong, and there have been multiple reports of people encountering some really weird and horrifying mutants.

All that was not what was most urgent at the moment; the most urgent thing for the group was escaping the college grounds. Close to a quarter of the way from escaping through the college gates, Harvey’s rifle ran out of ammo, so he resorted to using the butt of the rifle to plunge the skulls of the mutants, which proved even more impactful than his ordinary hammer; but the durability of the rifle was going down by the minute as he did. Once an item’s durability reaches zero, it becomes impossible to recover.

So, Harvey switched to his hammer as they pushed their way through the gates and finally back on the expressway where mutant activity was minimally concentrated, unless a horde passes through.

It was packed inside the SUV; Damon sat in the back row seat with Leo in his lap, Kora and Nick on either side, as the young man carried on erecting earth shields in the most dire moment and took time to occasionally rest and recoup his MP.

In the middle seat, it was Hazel and Mildred on either side, cutting down mutants that got close through the window; and when the accumulated wounds exceeded what the body armor could resist, they quickly used a health injection. In the middle of the middle row, sat Tristan and Tessa.

In the front row was Sage, who was driving, and in the opposite passenger seat was Harvey. It was a well-oiled machine; just as they had practiced repeatedly. There was no time to rest, and no time for Hazel to celebrate uniting with her brother. Even on the highway, it could become dangerous if they let their guard down.

"How far are we from Dempture?" Mildred called to Sage, who was driving with a paper map sprawled across the windshield of the vehicle.

Dempture is the closest countryside location in the state, where the population was most minimal, and also the place where the biggest government safe zone in the state was located. But Damon and the group weren’t going for the safe zone, but for the fact that the small population in this area makes it one of the safest zones; and their destination was Damon’s vacation home; location on a vast portion of land, in an even more secluded terrain of the place.

The contacts Harvey had reached out to in the military had not been able to send help quickly enough. Brad was already enough of a threat, but a mutant horde would just seal their fate.

"It will take at least a full day, but we should get there by tomorrow night if we keep going at this pace," Sage replied, his eyes fixed on the road ahead, maneuvering through swaths of dead or charging mutants.

"We also would have to stop once or twice to refill on gas," Nick added from the back as a sudden thump came from behind them.

"What’s that ?!" Hazel and Nick turned but saw nothing, so they carried on their way. But unbeknownst to them, someone else was hiding inside the trunk of the car. Having eavesdropped on their conversation that she would be stuck in there for more than a day; they had almost blown their cover in shock.

An hour ago, Kailita was in her boarded-up dorm room, lamenting the fact that since that day, no other treasure box had dropped in the region, close enough for her to acquire with her incredible speed.

Kailita felt trapped in her room; she had run through all the resources she got from the box quickly, and there had not been any treasure boxes dropping close enough for her to speed to and acquire without risking her life with the mutants.

She lay stretched out on her small bed, sighing in dejection, wondering if she should perhaps join one of the two survivor groups in the school; at least that way, she would be able to survive the next few days. But that was the problem; Kailita wasn’t just a recluse; she also found it really hard to trust people.

"I am gonna starve to death in here." Kailita intoned as she rolled on the futon.

"But wait..... I am strong.... And I am probably the fastest..."

"Shouldn’t I be able to easily take down these freaks?. Yeah.....lets do it!"

Kailita pumped herself up, standing up from her futon and walking towards her door, but her hand paused as it reached the handle. Sighing, she jumped back into the futon.

"Sigh...who am I kidding? Those things are too scary. I am gonna die in here."

At that moment, a loud revving sound came from outside; she ran to her window to see a captivating view of a group of people laying waste to these mutants in such a coordinated way it gave her chills. The scary part wasn’t just the fact that a one-handed man was using some type of never-before-seen rifle that still works, and when most of the mutant attacks land on these, a translucent barrier shimmered occasionally; it was the efficiency of their executions: shots that sometimes took down two or more mutants at once; a lady plunging through skulls and flying around like an acrobatic assassin; a dude commanding the earth to raise shields when the mutants got too close. Bodies dropped dead around them. This group looked so cool; Kailita’s jaw was literally on the floor.

They caught a quick view inside the SUV of a young man who looked like the descent of the moon; beautiful like the calm of the sea.

"The white prince?!" Kailita exclaimed. Whether it was these people who looked like something out of a movie, or the famous white prince she had a picture of on her bathroom wall.... She knew what she had to do.

"Them.... I have to go with them... or I’ll end up dead in here."

Kailita cleared the entrance of her door, engaged her skill, and then zapped in the direction of the SUV, using the chaos going on to slip into the truck.

"kekeke."