The Innkeeper
chapter-23

To a degree Lex had become used to the darkness and could make out vague shapes in the distance. The constant rain made it difficult for him to hear any walking zombies, but similarly it stopped them from hearing him as well. Lex's eyes gleamed with excitement as he confirmed everything was set and stepped out of the building to begin his hunt.

First and foremost, he would not hunt anywhere near the building he was in. He was treating that as his home base and didn't want to risk attracting a horde near it. Secondly, he moved in the opposite direction from where he saw the giant lion - that was an enemy he wasn't yet ready to face. He carefully memorized his path as he moved further and further away, crouching behind the cars as he surveyed the city.

Similar to what he encountered previously, all the zombies along his way were dead bodies on the ground. It took him a decent amount of time before he finally encountered a few - three of them were standing in a daze staring towards a certain building. They were dripping wet from the rain, though that did not seem to bother them.

Lex watched them for a while, but they didn't move. Either they knew there was prey in that building or they were just standing there, waiting till they heard an indication of life from anywhere. When he was certain they wouldn't move, he thought about how he should attack them, and repeated the movements in his head a few times. When he was certain, he moved towards the zombie closest to him without hesitation.

In one swift movement he grabbed it by the neck and stabbed it through the base of the skull. The zombie died just like that, without any struggle or noise. Carefully, Lex laid the body down on the ground and moved swiftly towards the other two zombies. They were standing side by side so it would be difficult to kill one without alerting the other, so this time Lex didn't bother trying.

He repeated the maneuver from last time, grabbing the zombie's neck and stabbing it in the skull, but instead of laying the body on the ground Lex threw the body at the other zombie! The last zombie was knocked over, and before it could do anything Lex stomped hard on its head, killing it instantly. The whole affair was complete in less than ten seconds, but Lex's heart was beating like a drum, adrenaline coursing through his veins. The entire process was flawless, he couldn't think of a way he could have performed better.

These zombies were normal slow ones, and Lex called them regulars. Regulars seemed easy to kill so long as they weren't in a large group. It was the one he faced in the park at the end, mini-boss as Lex had temporarily named it, that was tough. Appearance wise the mini-boss didn't look too different from regulars, but it's actions were distinct and driven with purpose. Lex wanted to avoid those if possible, he was not yet good enough at combat to be confident enough to defeat it every time they fought. As for the lion beast, the big-boss, that Lex wanted to avoid at all costs. He had no idea how strong it was, but Lex didn't doubt that he would certainly die if he fought it.

He inspected the three zombies to see if he could find anything on their bodies that could tell him more about this world, but alas there was nothing - there were barely any clothes so how could he expect to find anything else.

Ignoring his disappointment, he continued on his journey to hunt. After searching for a short while he found another group, this time however there were many of them bunched together moving randomly through the street. There were too many of them and he thought he should avoid them, yet fate had other plans. He heard barking, and suddenly from the horde two zombified dogs came bolting towards him.

For a moment Lex was filled with panic, an instinctual reaction, but he quickly overcame it and stared at the two dogs. He absolutely had to kill them, he couldn't risk letting them bite at him at all! His heartbeat accelerated as he watched the two dogs run towards him and his body trembled with nervous energy.

The dogs lurched at him, and in a split second he knew they were too close to one another. If he tried attacking one, he would in turn be attacked by the other. He jumped and rolled to his side dodging them, but reached a building with no more room to go that way. Before the dogs could turn and attack him again he launched himself at them, not wasting any time. Attacking their skull with the knife put him too close to their mouth, he didn't want to risk it, so he kicked the first dog as hard as he could on its body, trying to disable it.

The first dog was thrown away but the second one used this time to turn and attack Lex. Once again he jumped and rolled away, feeling slightly like a character from a certain, extremely difficult video game he'd played (any guesses?) to dodge the dog's attack. From the corner of his eye he noticed that the horde of zombies had started moving towards him! He didn't have time to waste, he kicked the second dog and turned to look at the first one. It was still coming at him, but was limping now so it had slowed down considerably.

Lex grinned, it seemed he wasn't so bad at this. He attacked the first dog again and this time he kicked it on its head. The dog tried to bite at his leg but Lex was too fast. With that last attack the dog's neck cracked and it became completely disabled, though it was still alive and staring viciously at Lex. With decent practice, he did the same to the second dog, which died instantly when he kicked its head. There was no time to celebrate though, the horde was almost upon him.

This time, Lex decided to retreat. Though the regulars were very weak, they had a great advantage in numbers which Lex could not overcome. Not to mention, if a mini-boss was hiding in the horde Lex would be a goner. Better to run and fight another day. In the dark, with Lex's great running speed, and the roaring of the rain covering the sound of his footsteps he quickly lost the horde.

He took some time to rest this time, not wanting to jump straight into another fight. He wasn't tired, but he didn't have a complete grasp of his body's new stamina and didn't want to risk fatigue in his next fight. After 15 minutes of sitting in the shade, away from the rain, he continued his search. Fortunately his body had become very resistant to the cold, otherwise he would have gotten sick from being in the rain so long.

This time, he found zombies fairly quickly. They were in a large horde, much larger than he had ever seen, and they were moving together all in the same direction at their usual pace. He didn't even need a moment to deliberate, Lex retreated and went in the opposite direction. But it was only a few minutes later he found another group of zombies, this time only four, but they seemed to be heading in the same direction as the larger group. Something was clearly happening, and Lex didn't want to risk his life to find out. Immediately he decided to give up going back to his "home base" and started moving in the opposite direction to where all the zombies were going. A couple of times he saw some lone zombies limping down a street and used the opportunity to kill them, bringing his quest total to 8/20.

Everything was going smoothly, until it wasn't. He heard a loud roar from the direction the zombies were going towards, shaking the city itself with its might, which was followed by a series of loud crashing noises. Someone, or something, was fighting a tough fight and it was making a lot of noise. For a moment Lex was grateful he decided to move away, but then the buildings around him started emitting a soft blue light in the shape of an archway. From within the buildings came out zombies who initially seemed to be attracted to the noise, but quickly caught sight of Lex.

"Bloody hell!" Lex cursed as he started sprinting as fast as he could. "Mary, how much longer till I can leave this world?" Lex roared in his mind as he kept running. The zombies behind him were already a safe distance away, but new zombies kept exiting buildings around him. He needed to get to a clearing as fast as possible!

"You've only been in this world for 6 hours," Mary said sympathetically. "You have at least 18 more hours to go, with the possibility of more."

"Bloody hell!" Lex swore once again, and promised himself he would never again wish for more excitement in his life. THIS WAS TOO MUCH EXCITEMENT!