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.

A zombie approached him slowly from the back, waiting to catch him off guard. It studied him, studied his attack patterns, and slowly crawled towards him. It was mixed in with the “dead undead” bodies on the floor so as to not attract attention to itself. Lex turned his back towards the zombie to attack in the other direction, and the zombie immediately launched itself at him. In one quick jolt it had gone from the ground to almost on top of Lex, and just when it thought it was about to reach him, Lex moved. Spinning on his heel Lex avoided the zombies lurch and swiped at its neck with his knife, using its own momentum to cut its neck. From start to finish, Lex had not even seen the zombie. To him it was just a single moment between so many other intense moments, but he would be surprised to know that this was the third “mini-boss” zombie he had dispatched so effortlessly whereas he had struggled so much with it before.

Somewhere along the way Lex lost his knife too. It broke or got stuck or was pulled from his hand, he could not remember, but he had lost it. That had not slowed him down though. His punches delivered a devastating blow to the zombies skulls, his fingers piercing though as if daggers and his kicks launched zombies far away as if they were shot through a cannon. He had awakened a primal side of him he had never known, his brain was working faster than he had ever thought possible, and his actions followed almost as quickly as he thought of something. In this life or death moment, Lex had completely let his instincts take over, and if the “mad” Marlo were to look at him now, it would be up for debate which one of them was the mad one. The downside of such feral fighting was that he had become completely numb and so did not notice that along with battered bruises, his body was slowly starting to be covered in cuts and scratches.

“LEX QUICKLY HIDE!” he suddenly heard a roaring sound in his head, and he recognized it as Mary. Before he could ask her what happened, he noticed a red warning flashing on his monocle, pointing towards his left. When he turned to look his pupils shrunk and he was filled with horror. The giant mutated lion was rushing in his direction, being chased by what looked like a giant ten feet tall zombie. Lex didn’t need anymore motivation, he jumped as far off from the car as he could and launched into a sprint.

“Approach the center of a building and put your hand flat against the wall!” Mary instructed urgently, and Lex obeyed, not wasting time on questions. To his great delight, as soon as he did so a blue light formed on the wall and he ran through. As soon as he crossed he turned his attention to listen to the sounds outside – the lion and giant zombie seemed to pass right beside the building and crossed it. Lex waited a few more moments to ensure they had passed. When he was assured he asked the monocle how to lock the door and followed the instructions, after which he took a look around the room to see if there were any zombies. The room appeared to have been a lounge once. Sofas were arranged neatly around a table and various decorations filled the room. A few plants that had seemed to have overgrown let out a soft, green light, illuminating the room creating a pleasant environment. Lex, however, had no time to appreciate any of that.

When he finally found there were no zombies he collapsed onto the nearest couch. He was thoroughly exhausted. He had lost all his supplies and his clothes had been ripped to the point that he was practically nude.

Without thinking too much he pulled out the second bottle of Botlam Dew from the system and moved his aching hand to deliver it to his mouth, a simple action that had suddenly become immensely painful as soon as he let himself relax. Once he drank the bottle he closed his eyes and fell asleep. He was completely mentally and physically exhausted. He did not know it, but he had spent nearly three hours continuously fighting zombies. His body was completely black and blue, and his originally pristine and flawless skin could not be differentiated from an old piece of beaten leather.

If he had known how bad his condition really was he would have panicked, but the last time he had checked his body the zombies had been unable to pierce his skin so he thought he was still safe. If he had known how many scratches his body had sustained he would have assumed that he was infected. Which he was, for a short time, but a closer examination of his wounds would show tiny droplets of Botlam Dew killing off even tinier black, wriggling spores. Unwittingly, he had saved himself. Even Mary did not notice, as she was not able to view the status of his body. She just appeared in the air and watched him sleep, worry painted across her tiny face.

“You can’t die, not yet…” she whispered, her thoughts completely unknown.