My Sniper System in a Zombie Apocalypse World-Chapter 132: The Flesh Network

Jaxon stared at the horrifying mass below. ’Should I throw grenades at them?’ he wondered.

The thought flashed through his mind almost instinctively. If he detonated explosives down there, the damage could be massive.

But he quickly dismissed it. He only had two stacks of grenades left in his inventory. More importantly, if the explosion woke up whatever that thing was...

Thousands of infected might rise at once. Even he wasn’t confident they could survive that.

Jaxon slowly exhaled and forced himself to stay calm. The urge to start shooting was strong, but this was far beyond normal hunting. This wasn’t a fight they were prepared for.

He leaned closer to the two beside him and whispered, his voice low. "Let’s get out of here."

Cindy and Na-rin both looked pale, their faces still tense from what they had just seen as they immediately nodded.

The three of them carefully backed away, retracing their steps toward the stairs.

Their footsteps were slow at first, careful and controlled, but once they gained some distance, their pace quickened. The oppressive silence of the building weighed heavily on them until they finally emerged outside.

The moment they stepped out of the building, Cindy and Na-rin both let out the breaths they had been holding. Fresh air had never felt so relieving.

Cindy glanced back at the dark entrance of the building, still unsettled. "So those infected... they were all underneath the building this whole time," she said quietly. "Is that why the infected have been acting strange? Why they keep moving toward this city?"

Her expression tightened. "Are they gathering here to... fuse together?" Her eyes widened, imagining what might happen if those thousands truly merged into a single being.

Jaxon forced himself to stay calm, though the scene still lingered in his mind. "Contact Natasha," he said. "Tell her exactly what we saw. She needs to report this to the military immediately."

Cindy nodded and quickly pulled out her radio.

Jaxon then looked at the two of them. "We’re heading back."

There was a hint of regret in his voice. He had originally come to hunt infected and gain more coins and stats, but forcing a fight against something like that would be reckless.

Opportunities to hunt would come again. Surviving came first.

.....

As the three of them began to retreat, the mutant infected they had left behind lay motionless, its head almost crushed. A slow trickle of black blood seeped from the wound, winding across the stairs like a dark river.

The blood dripped down until it reached the pulsing web of flesh below, where thousands of other infected lay entwined. The moment the black blood touched the mass, the web throbbed violently, faster and faster, as if it were about to erupt.

Meanwhile, kilometers away in the heart of Ironpoint City, atop the tallest skyscraper, the largest and most grotesque of all infected, its commander, the central nexus of the city’s horde, remained still, with its eyes closed.

Its broad ear-membranes twitched occasionally, sensing signals from the variants scattered across the rooftops.

The skyscraper itself had become a grotesque hive, its interior and exterior fused into a giant web of flesh. This monstrous structure served as the heart, the root from which all other webs in the city spread.

Suddenly, one of the hundreds of eyes embedded in its body snapped open. Through the network of flesh connecting it to its kind, information raced in, one of its own had fallen.

Instantly, it understood: intruders had entered its territory.

From its neck, a wide membrane of thin, pale flesh stretched outward like an umbrella. Beneath it were small holes hidden behind the thin membrane. Then vibrations pulsed through the holes, traveling across kilometers.

Elsewhere in Ironpoint City, the variants perched atop the skyscrapers, their sharp eyes scanning the skies for drones, felt the vibrations ripple through their spines. The sensation surged upward into their brains, carrying information at a speed too fast for human comprehension.

The variants remained still for a long moment, listening. Then, one by one, their eyes opened wide, and their attention shifted toward the site where Jaxon had killed the mutant.

Movement followed instinct. The variants closest to the scene began rushing down from the rooftops, leaping from building to building with unnatural speed.

On the other hand, thousands of infected that had been fused into one writhing mass began to twitch. Heads jerked, limbs strained, and a low, wet gurgle filled the air as they forced themselves apart, tearing through the flesh that bound them together.

One by one, the infected clawed free, emerging into the dim light of the city. They spread out across the streets, scattering in every direction as if driven by a single, desperate thought: find the living flesh.

Somewhere deep in the skyscrapers, the grotesque commander sensed it all. Its membrane quivered again, sending another pulse of warning across the city.

.....

On the empty streets, Jaxon, Na-rin, and Cindy ran as fast as they could, desperate to reach the outer edge of the city where Natasha and Isabel were waiting.

Suddenly, Jaxon stopped mid-stride.

"Jaxon? What’s wrong?" Na-rin panted, coming to a stop beside him.

He didn’t answer immediately. His eyes closed slightly as his ears tuned to every sound, trying to detect movement, vibration, anything in the distance.

When he opened his eyes, a deep frown lined his face. "They’ve awoken."

His thoughts raced. ’How did they detect us? We masked our scent... yet they still know?’ He couldn’t understand it. They had moved carefully, avoided disturbing the frozen horde, but the infected were no longer still.

Na-rin and Cindy exchanged alarmed glances. The thought of what could happen if those thousand of infected surged toward them made their stomachs tighten.

Then came the sound: low howls, a pounding rhythm against the ground, not just from the building behind them, but from multiple directions, as if massive bodies were charging toward their previous position.

"We have to pick up the pace!" Cindy urged, fear lacing her voice.

Jaxon grabbed her arm, holding her back for a moment, then pulled her along with Na-rin toward a dark shopping mall nearby.

"We won’t outrun them," Jaxon said, his voice low but urgent. "Something fast is moving ahead, they’ll reach us before we reach the car."

The heavy thumping grew louder, shaking the ground beneath them with every step. And any forward path would intersect with whatever was coming.

Cindy glanced back, worry flashing across her face. "What about Natasha and Mom?"

Jaxon shook his head. "Hide first, and we’ll contact them later. We plan along the way. Follow me, and stay quiet."

He led them around the corner, skirting side streets and shadowed alleyways. Every instinct screamed at him: ’they couldn’t avoid the infected forever,’ but careful movement might buy them the distance they needed.