Chapter 100
The main road through High River gave off the vibes of a ghost town. Looted buildings all around, with no traces of life or happiness. If it wasn't for the splatters of blood and black goo here and there along the pavement, it would seem as if people had just up and left. The big question, was where had all of the bodies gone. Deep within, Nat hoped that as many people got out as possible, and the people left behind were just eaten by the monsters. However, they had not been seen to eat the dead in previous towns. The monsters had always been more apt to leave a body where it lay, and move on to the next. That was because, if they left them, they would.... Turn.... "Shit!" Natalie cursed, now having all the dots connect. How could she forget what would happen to the dead? She started walking faster down the main street, warily keeping an eye out on any of the connecting roads.
"What's wrong Nat? Why are we moving faster?" Shannon asked, confused. She had seen all of the monsters as they had entered the town. What could be so bad that would make her wife worry?
It was in this moment that numerous things happened at once. Natalie realized that she had not explained the whole zombie issue to Shannon. How corpses could come back to life and be ridiculously tough and strong. The three of them all got their first view of the bridge through the buildings, barely spotted through the abundance of trees. And the answer to all of Shannon's question came out from all around them. Zombies, with a count far too high to count came out, and more were swarming out of the buildings around them by the minute. From their reaction, they did not like the light of the sun, but that did not quench their hate for the living apparently. As she saw the zombies come out from the suburbs, two thoughts went through Natalie's mind. How glad she was that they had not tried to cut through the maze of houses beside them, and how foolish she had been for thinking that there may only be a few goblins left in town. Seeing that the zombies had already turned their way, Nat shouted out, "Run!" before bolting forward.
Sol and Shannon were one step behind her. They had just passed 5th Ave SE, and still had a few blocks left to go until they got to the bridge, but even that now did not even seem like a sure-fire path to safety. There were just way too many zombies for them to deal with, and bottlenecking them to fight them all off was only going to delay the inevitable. If these were truly zombies from the standard fiction of the past decade, then these were enemies that would never tire, follow them as long as they could, and get taken down by no less than a critical hit to the brain. She had not taken the time to confirm any of them when she faced one on its own before, immediately braining the reanimated corpse before trying to make sure she knew the enemy. Now it was coming back to bite her, literally. Not even bothering to pull up her bow, Natalie did her best to weave through the crowd. With their number and how close they already were, stopping to fight would just result in a death sentence. She did not look back to make sure the other two were following, as if she was unable to survive, she would not be able to help them. That, and she got reassured by the other canines in the Soulscape that they were keeping an eye on them and that they were doing fine.
As she broke through the far side of the group of zombies, Natalie made a few strides to give herself some space before turning around. As she did, she was relieved to see Shannon and Sol come through the zombies, albeit not nearly as gracefully as she did. Sol had acted like a battering ram, and brute forced his way through a bunch of zombies, clearing a path for Shannon behind him. He came out with a few missing tufts of fur and a couple scratches, but all in all came out no worse for wear. Shannon had not a wound on her, but she was already getting out of breath and sweating. Not having worked out extensively while she was recovering, her stamina was worse off, but that ultimately would be a matter of time. Time they currently did not have. As the three of them moved across the bridge, Natalie repeatedly shot arrows backwards at the following horde. However, as she was shooting while moving, her shots were all over the place. Arrows in shoulders and torsos did nothing to slow any of the shambling corpses. However, one lucky shot impaled one of the leading zombies in the head.
At that moment, each and every zombie started shrieking. Natalie, Shannon, and Sol all stopped their movements to just see what would happen. They had never fought a group of zombies before, and this was something they had not seen before. However, stopping there was a terrible mistake. As one, the massive mob of zombies started running straight towards the bridge, where they had been attacked from. Seeing this, Sol immediately picked Shannon up by her jacket and tossed her onto his back and started running down the road. Luna even came out underneath Natalie, lifting her up and following her mate. If they had tried running from them normally, the zombies would have caught up with them in a sheer race of attrition. If it was not for their warg rides, Shannon and Natalie would have inevitably joined in that horde. Now it was just a matter of if they could escape the zombies, or would the wargs tire out first.
Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Selvaria, Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Hades, Krimson, Neal, Sebastian, Ethan, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!
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