It had been more or less a year since the world ended and it baffled me as to why I still came across people like these.
From the shows I've watched or read, the government should've already abandoned their people, random strangers wouldn't even dare to have a normal conversation with another stranger, and— sure, there could be another type of 1% like these dumb shits, but it was still an experience seeing it in person.
What Seb did and I let happen could be a bit too much for these people but then again, even if his actual intentions weren't to do harm, how the fuck could we know that?
It takes less than a second to kill or even seriously maim someone so we wouldn't take the chance to figure out his real intention regarding the matter. They've just been in a fight where there was a chance that Seb could be the one injured instead so it was his own damn fault for waking up a sleeping bear, poking a tiger with a stick, or in a less figurative sense, fucking around and finding out.
With that said, they were eventually sent to this place's clinic of sorts, and as Rosie's attendant thought we'd finally follow her, I instead pulled out the sketch I drew and showed it to Terry.
"Hmm? What's this— Oh? Is this a gift? Thank you—"
I almost smacked the shit out of the motherfucker, "Look closely at the figure. I tried my best to draw her and this is a slim chance, but is she anything like the figure you saw last time?"
"Last time?"
"You know, when you were drunk as fuck and told me about this witch—"
"OHHH! I see now, yeah— Wait— Hmm~ I didn't actually see her face b-but I guess the clothes they were wearing was kind of the same?"
Logan cut in, "Really? A hood over rags? Kinda unique, I guess~ Shii..."
Terry apologetically scratched his head as he turned back to me, "U-Umm, how about the frog a-and the goose? Y-You found them, at least?"
I facepalmed as I remembered that specific detail, "N-No... No frogs or geese... Just a pit viper—"
"A pit viper?! A-A snake, you mean?!"
"Yeah, sure—"
"Hmmrgh..." Terry grumbled as he looked up, as if he was trying to remember something, "Umm~ I'm not exactly s-sure but t-the one you found was p-probably a different one... Sorry... We used to have a lot of them—even travelling ones—around these parts so it could be anyone... I-I doubt all of them survived though but be really careful though, they're not as kind as they were portrayed in movies..."
Nancy tilted her head from hearing that statement, "What kind of movies are you watching?"
"Hmm?"
"N-Nevermind..."
"UNDERSTOOD!"
"WHY DO I GOTTA DRIVE?!"
"I KNOW HOW THEY SHOOT BUT NOT YOU! YOU ONLY BROUGHT YOUR SIDEARM, WHAT GOOD WOULD THAT DO?!"
"FUCK IT, BUT WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?!"
I waved him off as I jumped to the back with Nancy, "JUST DO AS YOU'RE TOLD BUT I'M CALLING FOR BACKUP!"
"WE HAVE PEOPLE MUCH CLOSER TOO!"
"THEN CALL THEM AS WELL! BUT WE GOTTA HAVE AN ESCAPE ROUTE!"
"GOT IT! GOT IT! WHERE'S MY— HEY, YO! WE GOT SHUFFLERS OVER HERE! A WHOLE HORDE AND SHIT! BRING EVERYONE!"
Logan managed to call his men a little faster than me because I had to explain shit to him and assure Nancy who was already scared to death, but it didn't take long before I connected with Jose.
He instantly understood our situation as he dropped the call after hearing the word "Horde", and I left my radio with Nancy as I stepped out of my Raptor with my rifle.
From my perspective, I was seeing dozens and dozens of the dead that already invaded the road and smelled like the worst kind of Rafflesia but there were still more coming from the woods where the goose ran in.
And as I turned around, there weren't any coming from the opposite direction but if worst comes to worst, our escape route would be to drive into this open area—or the most optimal route which was to drive over blood and ashes after everything was over.
In any case, the AK Kuzma was using was ripping shit and making the most noise, but he did waste a full magazine just to attract almost half of the stragglers to our direction.
But yeah, Kaley was already making quick work of the ones that broke free from the herd with a lead bullet to their skull while Seb was taking careful shots to not waste any ammo. At the same time, Logan positioned our vehicle in a way that he could see both sides of the road while still barking endlessly at his own radio.
"I'LL CUT IN FROM THE FAR LEFT! KUZMA AND SEB! COME WITH ME! BRING ALL OF THE MAGS YOU COULD AND SOMETHING FUCKING SHARP!"
"UNDERSTOOD!/ Y-YES SIR!"
As it stood, we were facing a herd of regular deadheads with a mix of sprinters, so I decided to not burn through our ammo as much and let Kaley act as our backup. It was easy and safe to take them down from a distance but in an economic standpoint, it would be better to go through our pistol rounds first or take down as many as we could with our melee weapons.
On that note, I had already made my way to the far left as Kuzma and Seb took the middle road, but I still used my pistol to shoot "inside" the horde to attract their attention. Furthermore, it would benefit me if I had more room to move around so the more space I take without corpses lying around, the better.
And yeah, I just had the urge to use one of my fragmentation grenades to where they were most concentrated—which was to the far right—so I lobbed it in the right place, cut down three unfortunate souls, before rotting body parts flew out after the explosion.