It was surprisingly easy. For better or worse, the bulk of rotbloods had gathered in the heart of the cargo depot, a twisted instinct driving them to clump together like some grotesque horde. Herd mentality, or whatever you wanted to call it—it didn’t matter. What mattered was they were all concentrated in one place, and that made our job a hell of a lot simpler.
We’d jumped from rafter to rafter, circling around the mass of rotten flesh, climbing down only for the length of time it took to secure a door.
Bolting them shut would’ve probably been enough, given these were thick metal doors—tough enough to keep out anyone foolish enough to try breaking in before the world had gone to hell. Still, I’d always preferred the “better safe than sorry” mentality, taking the extra time to improvise barricades. Some of the heavier pallets weighed in excess of a hundred kilos and I’d stacked several against the door.
An hour later, we were back atop the rafter nearest the herd, watching. The rotbloods hadn’t budged, still swaying in place like sickly crops in a decayed field. Their stillness was deceiving—beneath that dormant facade, violence simmered, just waiting to break free. It wouldn’t take much. A sound, a noise, and they’d rise as one—crashing forward like a tidal wave of flesh.
And it was exactly what I was counting on. The maze of iron scaffolding and stacked produce boxes had been their advantage once, but not anymore. Now, it was mine.
“You really sure about this, Jon? Like, sure, sure? It’s not too late to back down, figure a less risky plan,” Mina whispered, crawling back from the rafter’s edge, the pouch of iron bolts in her small hand swaying with each movement.
“Kinda late for second-guessing, don’t you think?” I muttered, my fingers working at the laces of my steel-toed boots. Silence was going to be key for this whole operation, especially if I planned on using Mina and Tina’s distractions to their full effect.
My backpack, hunting coat—and soon my boots—had all been securely stashed on the rafter and I was wearing only my pants, undershirt and belt.
“It’ll be fine. You just do your part, I’mma do mine, alright?” I added, softly placing my boots near the rest of the equipment, and got up to roll my shoulders, getting used to the weight of the machetes I was now holding in each hand. Sledge-axes, with their long hafts, would only get in the way now. I needed speed and sharpness, not weight. At least for the first part.
“Hey, Dracula?” Tina whispered, and I turned to face the tall woman. Her expression was a mix of concern and something else—something I couldn’t quite place. Gratitude? Appreciation?
Before I could even start to figure it out, she flashed me a toothy grin—surprisingly warm and almost… cute, for someone built like an amazon, and a thumbs-up.
“You got this, tough guy.”
I smirked back.
“Damn right I do. You two owe me so I ain’t dying. Simple as that”.
Tina huffed, her eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Oh, right, right, blood and wrestling training, yeah. Well, big guy, don’t worry. Deal’s a deal. If we make it out of this, I’ll make sure to wrestle you. Hard and rough.”
I rolled my eyes, half at Tina’s double entendre, half at Mina’s embarrassed squeak. By now, I’d come to understand that the taller sister was a woman of culture, or at least liked to play at it. She could dish out the innuendos, but when it came time to take them—well, that was a different story. She was still a bit too innocent for that.
“Lady, I’m a classy guy. I expect to be wined and dined before I let someone wrestle all of this husky goodness,” I shot back with a wink, already leaping off the rafter before a red-faced, stammering Tina could even get a word in.
My bare feet slapped soundlessly against the concrete as I landed in a crouch, magnitudes too elegant and fluid for someone of my weight and build, and I moved through the warehouse like a ghost, bare feet barely making a sound on the cold concrete. The shelves of pallets loomed like silent sentinels, jagged edges casting long shadows in the dim glow of battery-powered fluorescent lights. It was beautiful. Quiet. For all that I could hear the heartbeats of Mina and Tina up above on the rafter, I treasured this singular moment of… peace?
No. No it wasn’t that. It was the hunt. The act of stalking, unheard, unseen, ready to pounce.
Excitement.
I was excited. Filled with anticipation. This was another test. Another trial life had placed before me, no different than the Vampiress, the Goblins or the Orcs. And I was starting to love it. Every challenge I conquered, every trial I broke, it filled me with something… new.
Something I hadn’t experienced before this. Something I didn’t have a name for.
With a brisk shake of my head, I let the intrusive, introspective thoughts slide out of my mind. There was a time and a place for everything, and this wasn’t it.
Reaching the maze’s edge, I crouched low, slipping between the towering stacks of crates, staying just out of sight. Every muscle was coiled, every sense sharpened to a knife’s edge. My enhanced hearing picked up their low groans, the shuffle of their feet dragging across the floor. My nose flared, catching the scent of blood and rot mixed together—too many of them to ignore, too many to fight if they all came at once.
But that was the entire plan. Don’t allow them to come at me in a tide. This was going to be about stealth. About speed and silence. Two machetes, my vampiric abilities, and my body, honed and heightened by whatever the hell had happened to me, was my only weapon now. And I intended to use it, to full effect.
The closest rotblood was four feet away, a swaying, catatonic thing that had once been a middle-aged man. The remnants of a biker jacket and leather pants clung to pale, sallow skin, yellow pus dribbling languidly from the mangled mess of its head, half eaten, lacking a lower jaw entirely. The corpulent bulk of a bloatfly peeked out from where an entire chunk of its cranium had been eaten before infection, pulsating like some aberrant perversion of a heart.
I lunged, as silent as a whisper, and lashed out with my machete in a sharp draw-cut.
*Schlisshh* *Thunk*
The blade was sharp and I was strong. Flesh and bone parted like an overripe fruit as I beheaded the walking corpse in a quick blow, lopping off its head in a spray of gore and corpse-pus. The body spasmed once, then collapsed with a heavy thud, sending a tremor through the nearby rotbloods, their once-still forms coming violently alive, twitching and jerking as they were roused from their deathlike slumber.
Heads twisted toward the sound, jaws snapping open, and the air filled with the harsh chorus of chitin scraping together. Five of the closest ones lunged toward the noise, their movements quick and jerky, a blur of hunger and rage.
But I was already gone.
Before the body even hit the ground, I was already moving—silent, quick, circling behind them. My machetes were ready, cold steel reflecting the faint light. Another lunge. Another swing. The sharp hiss of blades cutting through the air was the only sound, the only warning before they met flesh. And split it open.
A rotblood straggler fell, legs scythed under it, tempered steel carving through ligament and kneecaps. Another collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, the top half of its skull flying in a geyser of viscera. The thunk bodies flopping to the concrete alerted the others nearest and I surged in, arms swinging in deadly arcs, lopping off heads with every slash, piercing skulls with every thrust and hamstringing legs with every stroke.
This wasn’t some barbarian roaring as he charged into the fray, nor a knight holding his ground against a tide of enemies. That was the kind of nonsense they spun in movies and tall-tales. Not my world.
This was predation. A hyena picking off the weak, an eel slipping through the cracks, always moving, never caught. Every rotblood that dropped, its body hitting the concrete with a muffled thud, pulled the others closer, but also helped me. My steps masked by dead flesh flopping against the ground, my swings hidden in the pitter-patter of blood raining down. I circled the growing swarm, striking with precision—cutting, slashing, and pulling back just as fast, always staying one step ahead. It was pure brutality, a deadly rhythm of hit-and-run, a dance of violence and survival.
Guerrilla tactics. Pure pragmatism. No honor, no grandstanding—just results.
Two more rotbloods collapsed, heads cleaved by my blades, and I lurched back, a hair’s breadth away from a growing wall of grasping hands.
Twenty-three walking dead down. My strikes had been clean, my method efficient, but the cost was becoming evident. With each kill, each sound of collapsing bodies, their numbers swelled, a growing mass that began to close in on me. What had once been a fluid dance—strike, retreat, strike—was slowly turning into something far uglier. It was like trying to break through a shield wall, the herd coalescing into a dense, overwhelming tide.
*Thwack* *Thwack* *Thwack*
The barrage of sounds hit like a signal, a sharp and strident clatter of metal striking metal. I snapped my gaze upward just in time to see another volley of bolts arc through the air, slamming into the far rafters with a deafening clang. In an instant, the mass of rotbloods shifted, some lurching left, others veering right—motion driven by nothing more than instinct, the mindless hunger that fueled them unable to grasp anything beyond the immediate. Noise meant prey, and to the dead, that was all that mattered. The herd thinned, each staggered step pulling them away from their focus, and for a brief moment, the breach opened again.
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"Good girls," I hissed, catching the movement from the corner of my eye—Mina and Tina, perched high on the rafters, tossing handfuls of nuts and bolts into the chaos below. They were creating an opportunity for me. An advantage.
I took it and charged again. Rotbloods tumbled back as I bulled my shoulder into them, the machetes in my hands flickering like adder tongues—swift and unforgiving— severing necks, and spilling entrails in a quick, bloody dance. Three more rotbloods fell in the span of a few seconds and I broke through.
But I didn’t slow. Instead, pushing harder against the ground, letting my momentum build until I was sprinting at a speed that would rivalled a cheetah, crashing straight into the next group of shuffling rotbloods. Mass, inertia, and momentum were my allies, and I bulldozed through the cannibal dead—trampling, cutting, and pulverizing anything that stood in my way, preventing them from regrouping into a solid mass.
The ceaseless clatter of metal on metal filled the air, a constant, deafening rhythm that masked my movements, obscuring my presence. The Miller sister's synergy was perfect. And in the span of minutes, thirty more of the walking dead had been given their peace.
As much a blessing as it was a curse. Smaller numbers meant smaller herds.
The last thirty or so had formed into a tight, compact herd, too clustered together to be drawn off by any distraction. They moved as one, a singular organism, shuffling relentlessly toward any noise, their collective focus leaving no gaps to exploit. If I tried the same tactic now, there’d be no way through—not even with my enhanced strength. A formation this dense was more than just a barrier; it was a deathtrap. And I’d already learned what it meant to be overwhelmed by them. A lesson I had no intention of repeating.
Time for part two. Guerilla tactics had done their job. Now, it was time to funnel the rotten bastards through the maze.
With a single leap, I cleared a distance that would have made an olympic long-jumper balk with envy, landing near the rafter where the Miller sisters still crouched atop. A second jump put me atop it, blades sliding across the platform as I swapped them for the sledge axe.
Some jobs are easier with the right tools. This was one of those times.
A quick look at the twins—one nod, one wink—and I swung back down. No more stealth. No more quiet. It was time for noise.
The silence was thick, hanging heavy in the air, and then—crack! My axe head slammed into a rafter, breaking the stillness like a thunderclap. I hit it again—thunk—and a third time, letting the echo roll through. My lips curled into a sneer as the herd stirred and surged, lurching toward the sound.
“Come on, then,” I growled, voice low and rough. “Come on!”
The creatures charged, mindless and desperate, limbs flailing as they stumbled toward me. But they were too brain-dead. Too frantic. The narrow space between the rafters was their trap. Only two could fit at a time, and even that was a struggle.
I glanced at the mess they were making of themselves, piling into each other, only to be stalled. Despite their flailing, their mass, their numbers, there was no risk of the rafters toppling over. These particular ones were bolted to the concrete floor.
“First time I’m glad for OSHA regulations,” I muttered, a dry chuckle escaping. And then I rose the sledge-ax and swung in a brutal overhead.
*Crunch*
The rotblood closest to me crumpled in a welter of gore, the force of my overhead nearly bisecting it from crown to crotch. I wrenched my weapon out of it's gut in a spray of rancid blood, turning with the motion into another massive strike.
*Crunch*
Another.
*Crunch*
Again and again I swung, windmilling every blow into vicious overheads, taking the dead down even as they funneled through, breaking them like they were dried logs on a splitting base.
No human could’ve struck so deep into a rotblood’s body. No human could’ve followed through with the next blow fast enough, each strike coming down before the first had even finished its work, relentless and unyielding. A human would have exhausted himself. The weight of the ax. The effort it took to yank the weapon out.
But I was no human.
My strength and speed surpassed that of the most physically gifted men to ever tread this earth. My endurance knew no limit. And in this moment, my savagery made even the rotbloods seem weak, pathetic in comparison.
“Come on!” *Crunch*
“Come on!!” *Crunch*
“COME ON!!!” *Crunch*
The hiss of my voice had warped into a bestial, guttural thing, barely resembling human speech. Blood splattered my face. Gore stuck to my arms. Bone splinters struck my exposed flesh like shrapnel.
“Yesss! My most beautiful and beloved self! Dig deeper! Be the predator we were always meant to be! Let me join you! Let us be one…” the Animal hissed in the back of my head, and I snarled at it.
I. Snarled. At it. Like a dog, sending it reeling back into the depths of my mind with a frustrated growl. I wasn’t going to let it taint this moment. This feeling. This was mine.
Mine and no one else’s.
The shudder of haft in my hands as my weapon collided and broke through bodies. The feel of my muscles tensing and relaxing, coiling and springing. The sound of bodies hitting the floor thundering in my ears. Where had this been all my life?
Was it this what I’d felt in the parking lot? No. No, that had been different. That had been frenzy. Freedom. That had been both myself and the Animal, working in tandem. This was something else. This was only me.
Life on the line. Kill or be killed. Do or die.
I wasn’t just standing my ground anymore. I was moving forward, stamping my foot with each overhead blow, arms swinging faster with each slash, grin stretching into something manic, something mad.
And yet. A grin that felt more…human, than ever. I wasn’t bearing my fangs, like an animal. I was smiling. I was happy.
I. Felt. Alive.
The last remaining rotblood stumbled, pushed into a backpedal by the impact of my forehead slamming into its face, breaking teeth and fracturing bone. I drew my arms back, ax held above like an executioner, and swung with all my weight and strength.
The blade cleaved through skull, ribs, sternum, spine and pelvis, embedding itself deep into the concrete, as the rotblood fell in two separate halves. Bisected.
I let the haft go and took a step back. Jaw clenched, arms shaking, chest thrumming, muscles tight against my skin and hands balled into fists. A thousand and one emotions machine-gunning through my skull.
I wanted to pound my chest. I wanted to raise my arms and roar. I wanted to cry.
What was this feeling? Why had I never experienced this before?
“J-Jon? Y-You oka…?” Mina’s voice cut through and I snapped my head towards the woman looking at me from the edge of her perch.
She squealed and almost drew back, but a hand clenched her shoulder, holding her in place, as Tina popped up from the edge, a massive grin plastered on her face.
“Told you that you got this, Jon. Knew you would.” Tina said, grin on her face and understanding in her eyes.
Her words struck me like a whip. She understood. This nameless thing that I felt, that Mina could never comprehend, Tina Miller, wrestler and competitive fighter, understood more than anyone. The rush. The win. The passion.
And the words she’d just said? Words that said little, but spoke volumes. Words that I needed to hear, even though I'd never known just how much I needed them.
I slapped a palm against my chest and mirrored her grin.