The Innkeeper

Chapter 24 Awakening

Lex picked up his speed and tried to run past the zombies before they noticed him. For the ones who came out as he was running past he was successful, but there were many times where zombies had already exited buildings as he ran past. They would always be attracted to him and start moving in his direction. Initially he was still able to dodge them, but as time went by he had to preemptively start attacking them.

Killing zombies wasn’t his goal with these attacks. With one look he determined his optimal escape path, then stabbed or tripped any zombies in or near his path, turning them into a hindrance to the zombies behind them. Quick and efficient. Those two words could describe his actions at that moment.

At first it was just a couple that would come his way, but the hordes slowly grew. The once empty streets were filling up with the walking dead. Under normal circumstances Lex would be panicking once again, but unbeknownst to him, he had entered an extremely focused state. When two zombies would approach him from the front he would slash the first one’s neck and push it towards the other with his body, acting too fast for the zombie to scratch or bite him. When more zombies came his way he would quickly duck and slash the zombies thighs, making it trip, creating an obstacle for the zombies behind to slow them down.

Lex didn’t know, but slowly and steadily, even though he didn’t mean to, his zombie kill counter was increasing. This was because often when slashed the neck he started cutting the head clean off and other zombies would then stampede over the head, killing it. In barely a few minutes he completed the 20 kills, and the quest was updated, but Lex remained completely unaware.

This was because by now he was almost completely surrounded. Giving up trying to run, he climbed up onto one of the cars. On an instinct he instructed the Fancy Monocle to collect data on how the “blue light doors” that the zombies were coming from worked and updated him when it discovered something.

The “car” was rectangular and around 8 feet high and almost 15 feet long, which gave Lex a decent amount of space to maneuver. But he didn’t have time to think further – zombies were climbing up behind him.

He kicked a zombie hard on its chest, flinging it away into the zombie behind it, knocking them all down, but there was no respite. Behind him he felt a zombie cling onto his shoulders and attempt to bite him, but before it could he elbowed it to push it away. He turned, stabbed it through the eye and moved onto the next zombie as if it were nothing.

By this point he could no longer continue to dodge scratches. On his chest, his arms, his legs, everywhere zombies had tried to scratch him but fortunately so far it seemed they were unable to break through his skin – but repeated attempts might still be able to pierce through. That’s not to say he was unhurt, his body was covered in bruises both old and new, but he felt neither. Even his synthetic armor started to show signs of wear, but in the dark, rainy night who was paying attention to that?

Slowly, his efficiency improved even further. He used the momentum from one attack to flow into another, turning from his rigid, repetitive motions to smooth, flowing ones. When he saw an attack coming he could not avoid, he would try to catch it on his chest so his under armor could protect him.

He got another notification from the System, but it was ignored just the same. The monocle gave him a notification, but as if it were an unnecessary distraction Lex ignored it. Lex was now a killing machine. With his right hand he would stab, and with his left hand he would use his index and middle finger to stab zombies through the eyes. It was not something he consciously thought of, it was something that he naturally started doing. A pile of bodies had fallen on the ground around the car which had built a path for zombies to climb up, which only increased the pressure on him.

While this was happening, Lex was mowing through anything that approached him, his clothes ripped to shreds and his backpack lost somewhere along the way. He was covered in sweat and the spilled blood of his enemies.