Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 232: Hoarder

Meanwhile.

"You guys stay here, and wait for me"

Dirk said to the people in front of him while putting on a thigh holster strap on both of his thighs.

"What's happening?"

Austin, who was holding on his injured chest with his girlfriend assisting him at the side asked, a little bit worried.

"You two heard what the commander said on the radio, right?"

"Yeah, and? What's happening?" asked Anna as Dirk's action is making her worried that something bad might happen.

Dirk grabbed his rifle and looked at them and said, "The commander never uses the radio, ever! So something urgent must be happening. I need to get to the air and see what is happening from up there. You two are in charge while I'm away, don't tell the kids what you heard, alright?"

Austin and Anna both nodded at the same time.

"But it's going to be okay, right?"

"Don't worry Anna. if its something we can't handle, then we can only leave this place for the time being and get the Boss to help us"

Dirk laughed after saying that and left for the PELICAN.

"Don't worry, he doesn't seem that much worried"

Austin quickly comforted his girlfriend when he saw how worried she was just from her looks.

"I know, but we just got out of predicament, and I don't want to go back again to where we can only eat biscuits and carbonated drinks to get by everyday babe"

"It's fine. Didn't you hear what Dirk had said? If it's something they can't handle, then we'll leave this place. I don't think they're bad people and would just abandon us after taking care of us, right?"

"I guess so"

Austin smiled and kissed Anna's forehead before directly looking onto her eyes.

"Come on, help me get on the bed babe. My wound is aching again"

Bzzzzt!

The PELICAN slowly took to the skies and flew towards the center of Pear City.

"W-what? What's happening?"

"Are they leaving us!?"

The kids hurriedly came out of the building they were in when they saw the PELICAN taking off, all panicky.

"I didn't see Austin and Anna leave with Dirk. let's go ask them!"

"Really!? Let's go then!"

Except for Min, the kids are all panicking as they hurriedly made their way towards where Austin and Anna are, and burst inside the barrack,

"Why did Dirk leave on the PELICAN?"

Min hurriedly ran towards Anna, her face was so close to her that there's only a couple of inches left between their lips.

Anna quickly shifted her head away from this energetic and scary little girl.

Austin laughed seeing the scene and the nervous expression on the kids, as he could understand what they're feeling right now.

"Relax kids, Dirk just went to pick up the commander and the others. Nothing to worry about"

"But...but, he should have brought me with him! I wanted to ride it ever since my eyes laid on it!"

Merlin couldn't help yell as he started getting teary eyed like a kid who can't go with his father at his work.

Smack!

"Shut up, stop acting like a kid"

Art kicked Merlin on his butt and sneered in disdain at his behaviour.

Merlin stumbled forward and turned his head around and glared at Art.

"But I am a kid, and so are you! You bastard!"

Out of anger, Merlin jumped towards Art and threw a punch at his face.

"You bastard!"

Art took a couple of steps back while holding his face, and he also charged at Merlin and threw a punch of his own, and both kids started brawling while the rest of the kids started cheering at the side.

"Yeah, beat him up Art!"

"Go get him, big bro Merlin!"

"Yeah!"

Looking at the boisterous kids, Austin's face twitched as he couldn't believe what he's witnessing.

"These kids...they're not normal at all"

"Exactly"

Min, who heard what he said, looked at him proudly with her arms crossed over her chest.

Austin and Anna just laughed and they thought to themselves.

'Yeaaaah... but you're the freak among them'

Meanwhile.

Dirk is currently in the air and flying towards the city center, and when he's almost there. He didn't even need a second to figure that sh*t had hit the fan!

"Ahh...sh*t. This is f*cked up"

Dirk quickly turned on the radio and accessed their frequency.

[Commander, this is bad. I can see a horde of zombies heading southeast and it seems they are heading towards the direction of our temporary base!]

[How far?]

[ETA two hours based from their speed]

"What!?"

"I knew it! This must be the reason why there aren't a lot of zombies here"

Lin and Carl who had just arrived with the girls at the shopping center couldn't help but gasp in surprise.

[How big is the horde? Over.]

[My estimation is around ten thousand or more sir. The problem is a quarter of their number are consisted of mutated zombies, some of them are even zombies we haven't encountered before, over]

[Hoarder]

Just that one word sent a shiver down their spines.

And Anastasia who doesn't know much of the difference in the zombies just looked confused but at the same time terrified along with Karina after they heard that a horde is heading towards their direction.

After all, they know how dangerous a f*cking zombie horde is from the many zombie movies they had watched before, and it's not something to joke about.

And at the same time, she finally realized why this place doesn't have a lot of zombies.

Dirk had already realized what was happening when he saw the mutated zombies moving together, and Lin and Carl also grew terrified at that as through many encounters with these man eating creatures. They grew to learn that mutated zombies don't move together and instead hunt their prey on their own, like lone wolves.

And the only time that they would gather together is when a zombie who can control them appears.

Hoarder, it is a small mutated zombie around one meter tall that doesn't have any combat abilities but has the freaky ability to control zombies, and their first encounter with it was when they were in Washington.

And because of its strange ability, they gave it the moniker, Hoarder.

[Your orders commander?]