Novel Full 341 Clash on the roof
‘Calm down,’ Peter thought, closing his eyes and taking a deep breath. He held the air in his lungs, turning his chin up as if he wanted to bathe his face in the warm rays of the setting sun.
Peter gradually released the air out before finally raising his lips back up. He then took another breath and…
“WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?!” Peter shouted from the bottom of his lungs, bringing his eyes down and throwing a furious look all over the roof.
The people all around didn’t know how to react.
They did everything exactly how they trained. The second the horde appeared, their brought down all the wrath of the modern warfare upon them, showering them with bullets and mortar shells while they were all grouped up before switching to precise fire to take down the rest and then following up with a ground assault to clean up the stragglers.
If there was an element that was lacking in this form of defense, it would be air-based assault and complete air supremacy. Yet, given how they were nothing more but a makeshift civilian militia, asking for planes would be way too much.
They did everything just how they should. And yet, the seemingly easy defense turned into one hell of a disaster.
“Do you guys shat in your mouths or what?!” Peter screamed out again, his face turning white from all the excessive fury.
‘Equipment loss I can somehow recover, but the people that died…’ he thought, turning his eyes down towards the streets, where the four members of the assault team now roamed the bloody battlefield as the new sort of zombies.
The only reason why Peter could recognize them from the top of the roof was the massive difference between the old zombies and those that rose from the dead just recently.
“Calm the hell down,” Ciryl, the highest-ranking officer under Peter that continued to stand by his side suddenly spoke up, braving the danger of speaking to Peter while he was at his wit’s end. “We still need to deal with those who went inside despite their wounds!”
Ciryl’s words were like a bucket of cold water thrown on top of Peter’s head.
“Right…” Peter muttered, gritting his teeth as he turned his eyes towards the stairs leading back to the building.
With people bearing zombie-borne wounds now in the building unless they were utilized in a timely matter, they would bring an end to this entire base.
‘And seeing how hard it is to kill this sort of zombie, more mistakes are only bound to happen,’ Peter thought, gnashing his teeth together as he scrambled to come up with a new plan.
Peter raised his hands and slapped his cheeks twice. He then blinked his eyes thrice before giving his head an energetic shake.
“Okay, I calmed down,” he said, moving his attention away from the soldiers on the roof. “Right now, we need to…”
“What the fuck was that supposed to be?!” Leila shouted the second she stormed out from the staircase that Peter was looking at just a moment ago. “Didn’t I warn you that those zombies are far, fucking, stronger?!”
Before Peter could give his orders, the girl forced her way past the two soldiers that already moved to stand guard at the mouth of the staircase.
It wasn’t like they didn’t try to stop her. Those two well-built men with heavy guns handing in their hands simply proved to be incapable of stopping the ball of fury that the girl turned into.
“Calm down,” Peter urged Leila. “We don’t have the time for this right now. We need to deal with the wounded…”
“And why do you think it took me so long to get here?!” Leila shouted back, not giving Peter any time to explain the situation.
The girl locked her hands on her chest as she stood her ground. She raised her chin and looked at Peter along the bridge of her nose while throwing fire from her eyes.
“Did you…” Peter attempted to ask the obvious
“Kill them?” Leila finished for the man while raising her left eyebrow. “No, I did not,” she then revealed after a moment of theatrical pause. “I slowed down the progress of the virus by cutting off whatever they got bitten or scratched at,” she then revealed without holding anything back at all.
‘That would explain the faint screams I could hear before,’ Peter thought, squinting his eyes a tiny little bit.
“What good will such brutal measure do?” Peter then asked.
It wasn’t like he enjoyed the idea of losing even more people than it was already necessary. But first, he couldn’t accept this sort of half-measures that would only put the problem for later in the future. And secondly…
Being the quasi-politician he was, he could feel that by submitting to the words of this girl, he was rapidly losing the authority of the troops gathered on the roof, the elite he handpicked to serve directly under his command.
‘Even if what she did was right, I can’t let other things it was her initiative,’ Peter thought, gritting his teeth as he steeled himself for the war of words that was about to ensue.
But Leila… simply rolled her eyes.
“Slowing down a virus does exactly that,” she stated while keeping up her arrogant and furious appearance. “It gives us more time.”
“More time to do what?!” Peter shouted, although not as eagerly as when he was scolding his troops on the roof. “To enjoy the screams of pain of those who you maimed?!”
“To give Mathew more time to arrive here with the cure,” Leila replied, unfazed by Peter’s antics.
‘I know revealing the fact about this cure might not be a good idea,’ she thought, suddenly feeling some doubts about her decision.
Yet, a single image of the terror-stricken faces of those who returned to the safety of the base with zombie bites or scratches over their bodies was enough to reaffirm Leila’s confidence.
‘Either way, we can’t afford to lose manpower so easily. I’m sure Mathew will understand,’ she thought.
“A cure?!” Peter, obviously, took a moment to process the groundbreaking news, only to then jump on the opportunity to further his own agenda. “You had a cure and you didn’t even bother to tell me?!”
“And why would I?” she asked, leaning her head over her shoulder. “Either way, it was never for me to decide whether to give you the cure or not,” she then added only for her smirk to turn into a grin. “And if you want to argue about this point…” her grin turned into a fully-fledged smile, “then you can wait a moment. Mathew will be here in just a moment!”