My Sniper System in a Zombie Apocalypse World-Chapter 80: Unfinished Death

Headless bodies littered the streets below. Some infected knelt over the corpses, tearing into them with frantic hunger. Now and then, another infected would suddenly drop from a wall or a building, already headless, slamming into the ground with a heavy, dull thud.

Hundreds of infected filled the streets, howling in rage. They clawed at nearby buildings, smashing against doors and walls. The more that died, the worse it became. Their agitation spread fast, feeding into one another until the entire area boiled with madness.

From the rooftop above, the one responsible crouched in silence, watching the chaos unfold.

’They’re getting too close,’ Jaxon thought calmly. ’Time to move.’

He rose slowly and dismissed his rifle. His eyes lifted to a higher rooftop nearby.

He rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck, steadying his breath. Taking a few steps back to gather momentum, Jaxon sprinted towards the edge.

The gap was wide. His fingers scraped against concrete before catching the ledge. Using the strength in his arms, he pulled himself up and rolled onto the rooftop, landing without a sound.

The new position gave him brief cover. He slid close to a concrete wall, keeping his body hidden, then summoned his rifle again as he took aim.

Shots followed.

One by one, they fell, their bodies crumpling to the ground, but it didn’t even budge through their sheer numbers.

’At least the stacks and coins keep coming,’ Jaxon thought with a faint chuckle.

It did not take long. The infected were closing in again.

He could not stay here.

With a soft sigh, Jaxon dismissed his rifle once more and moved. He flowed across the rooftops, leaping from one to the next, changing positions again and again. Each spot was one he and Natasha had scouted before.

Whenever the infected drew too close, he was already gone.

For hours, Jaxon played a deadly game of hide and seek with the infected. Instead of thinning their numbers, it only made things worse. The horde had grown, swelling until there were nearly a thousand of them roaming the area.

’I’m running out of places to hide,’ he thought grimly.

Seconds passed, and the pressure closed in. When he glanced down, his chest tightened. Infected were already climbing the walls of the building he stood on.

His eyes snapped around, searching. Then he spotted another building not far away. He brought up his scope and scanned it fast, it looked empty, no movement or heat.

He fired several shots, shattering the windows.

Without hesitation, Jaxon sprinted and leaped from the rooftop toward the broken opening. He slipped through the window, rolled across the floor, and landed cleanly inside the dark room.

’Whew... made it,’ he thought, letting out a breath.

He looked at the level up notification in front of him, a small victory amidst the overwhelming chaos.

(You have leveled up to Lv. 9.)

But the relief lasted only a moment. The howls outside were getting closer.

’I need to get out now,’ Jaxon thought, already moving. It was time to head back to the bunker.

Jaxon moved through the corridors in silence, his rifle summoned in his hands, with a narrow beam of light cutting through the dark.

Black blood coated the floor. It smeared the walls and pooled in corners. Worse, thick strands of flesh clung to the concrete like webs, stretching from wall to wall.

Jaxon covered his nose.

’What the hell is this... and this smell...’

The stench burned his nostrils. A putrid, decaying odor that clung to the air, making it hard for him to breathe, each inhale a struggle against the suffocating stench.

He quickened his pace as he moved deeper down the corridor.

When he turned from one corner, he froze, his senses overwhelmed by the sight that lay before him.

In front of him was a small mound of corpses and torn flesh piled together like a crude nest. Limbs twisted at wrong angles, and faces were half gone.

And standing on top of it, devouring the corpses with ravenous hunger, an infected stood, its form unlike anything he had ever encountered.

It was huge. Its torso was bloated, its throat swollen with large sacs that pulsed as it breathed. Cracked skin that constantly leaked dark fluid, dripping onto the corpses below. Its breath sounded wet and strained, like it was close to choking.

"What the hell... a new mutation?"

Jaxon raised his rifle, but it was too late. It was already staring at him as if it had been waiting. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Its mouth stretched open, and a shrill scream burst out.

The sound was sharp and broken, like metal tearing apart. It slammed into Jaxon’s ears. Pain exploded through his head as he dropped his rifle and clutched his ears.

"Argh!" Jaxon shouted, his voice lost in the cacophony, covering his ears tightly.

The scream did not stop. It drilled deeper, rattling his skull. His vision blurred as pressure built behind his eyes.

Gritting his teeth, Jaxon forced his shaking hands back to pick up his rifle. He aimed through the pain and pulled the trigger.

The bullet tore straight into the creature’s open mouth. Its head burst apart in a spray of dark fluid and flesh, the grotesque form collapsing onto the pile of corpses below.

The scream cut off at once, and the silence that followed was deafening.

Jaxon dropped to one knee, gasping. Warm liquid ran from his ears.

’Shit... I can’t hear anything.’

He shook his head, trying to clear it, but the world refused to come back.

All he heard was a sharp ringing. ’Tinggggggg.’

Suddenly, Jaxon noticed the corpse move. Not the head, its body.

The headless infected lay on the mound of flesh, its torso rising and falling, pulsing like a beating heart. Each pulse was slow and heavy, sending a sick rhythm through the room.

His breath caught.

’It should be dead... I saw the notification.’

A sharp warning screamed inside his chest.

’Run. Now’

Ignoring the agony tearing through his ears, Jaxon forced himself up and bolted down the corridor. His boots slipping on blood and flesh as he pushed his body to its limit.

One second, two, three.

A violent blast ripped through the building behind him. Flesh and concrete burst outward, the shockwave slamming into his back and throwing him across the hall, slamming hard against the ground before rolling across the floor.

For a moment, everything went black.