Riku walked towards the door and cleared the debris that he had placed to block it. After it was cleared, he slid the door open and peeked with his head out side to side to see if there were remaining zombies.
Thankfully, there was none.
He exited and walked slowly toward the stairwell which is just adjacent to the classroom he had just hid.
He planted his feet slowly and carefully, alternately, and in no time, he reached the third floor.
The sight of the hallway was just as similar to the fourth. Bloods stained the walls and the floors. And the scent of it is beginning to start to smell like a rotten carcass. Still, it was bearable.
There was no sight of zombies near the stairwell, so he proceeded with the second floor. Same sight, no zombies found.
It seemed that his plan had worked as he had imagined. He was now one floor away from securing himself out of this school.
And just as he reached the first floor, his eyes widened.
"What the…"
He barely managed the words. His eyes locked onto the thing standing at the end of the hallway.
It wasn't just a zombie.
It was something worse.
Its body was pale like bone, skin stretched unnaturally over a thin frame that twitched with every slight movement. It had no clothes, no hair, just raw muscle and sinew. Its arms were longer than its legs, and it crawled on all fours, elbows bending the wrong way like a spider with snapped joints. Its face—
Riku wanted to unsee it. But the appearance were similar to one of the special infected in the game. Screamer.
Sunken sockets. Mouth unhinged. A featureless face stretched like wax around jagged teeth. And as if it sensed his horror, it tilted its head slowly to the side—
—and screamed.
It was deafening.
Louder than the grenade blast. Louder than thunder. Louder than anything he had ever heard in his life.
Riku's hands shot up to his ears as the scream echoed down the halls and shook the windows. Even the walls vibrated. Lights flickered.
And then, from outside—
groans. Moans. Screeches.
Zombies.
Dozens. Maybe hundreds.
The scream had called them.
And the worst part?
The creature didn't stop to gloat.
It charged.
Its movement was all wrong—disjointed but fast, a horrible blur of elbows and knees scraping across the tiles with a skittering sound that made Riku's skin crawl.
"Shit!"
He turned on his heel and ran.
Boots slamming against the blood-slick floor, he made a dash back toward the stairwell. His mind screamed louder than the monster behind him, heart pounding like a war drum.
The MP5 was already in his hands.
He turned halfway and opened fire—
Tak-tak-tak!
The burst lit up the hallway, muzzle flash strobing against the flickering lights.
The Screamer didn't flinch.
It skittered left, dodging the burst with unnatural reflexes, then twisted back mid-run. It was closing in—fast.
Riku bolted into the stairwell and skipped two steps at a time, vaulting the railing to gain distance.
Tak-tak-tak!
He fired blind behind him as he climbed—shell casings bouncing off the walls, bullets chipping concrete, but it bought him a second. Maybe two.
Another scream tore through the building, this one shorter, sharper—like an air raid siren gone mad. The sound paralyzed his spine, but he didn't stop.
He reached the second floor landing and kept climbing.
More groans.
Zombies had heard.
They were coming.
He reached the third floor and spun around to empty another burst down the stairs.
Tak-tak-tak!
The Screamer was on the steps, climbing like a centipede, all limbs and speed and hate. Its mouth was wide open, drool and blood flinging as it charged up the concrete.
"Shit! Shit! Shit!"
He sprinted for the fourth floor, back to where he started and—
He sprinted for the fourth floor, back to where he started and—
The Screamer leaped.
It covered the distance between them like a missile. It slammed into Riku mid-sprint, its bony frame colliding with his chest like a sledgehammer. The two of them went flying.
WHAM!
They crashed onto the floor, hard. Air exploded from Riku's lungs as his back bounced off the tiles. His MP5 skidded across the hallway, out of reach.
"GAAH—!"
Riku's eyes widened in raw terror.
The Screamer was on top of him.
Its sunken face inches from his. That gaping maw unhinged wider than humanly possible—rows of jagged teeth glinting under the flickering lights. Saliva dripped like acid as it screamed again, this time directly into his face.
"RAAAAAAARGH!"
The sound made his skull feel like it would split.
It lunged.
Its jaw dropped—aimed for his head.
Riku screamed back and did the only thing he could—his hand shot to his chest rig, yanked the tomahawk from its sheath, and jammed it upward.
SHHK!
The blade pierced the creature's jaw from below, bursting out through the roof of its mouth. Blackened blood splattered onto his face like hot oil.
But it didn't die.
It thrashed.
It snapped its head back, shrieking in pain, then slammed it down again—desperate to bite. Its jaw still worked despite the blade. The bone creaked, and Riku's arms shook as he held it back with both hands, the muscles in his forearms straining to the limit.
"NOT TODAY, YOU FREAK!" he roared.
He reached blindly to his holster until his hand closed around the cold grip of his Glock 17.
He yanked it out.
Tak!
Tak! Tak!
Point-blank into its side. The bullets ripped into its ribs, spraying gore across the walls.
The Screamer reeled, but it wasn't enough.
It tried one more lunge.
Riku shifted his weight and wrapped one arm around its neck, holding its head still.
"Open wide, motherf—!"
Tak! Tak! Tak! Tak!
Four rounds into the monster's open throat.
The Screamer let out one last screech—a gurgled, choked mess of air, blood, and fury—and its body convulsed.
Then, it collapsed on top of him.
Dead.
[+2,000 SP. +500 EXP]
[You have leveled up!]
Riku lay there for a second, panting, drenched in sweat and blood, his chest heaving. His ears still rang from the point-blank gunfire. His arms trembled. The hallway swam in and out of focus.
His side ached. His fingers were sticky with black blood.
But the thing wasn't moving.
He shoved the corpse off him and sat up, breathing like a man who'd just climbed out of hell.
Then he heard it.
Shuffle. Moan.
More.
The horde was coming.
Riku's eyes darted to his MP5 lying a few meters away.
He had no choice but to fight against the horde coming at him.