5. Tragedy.

On the way to the department store Leon has been practicing his teamwork with Spike. He will command Spike to charge forward and bite the zombie's knee and drag him to the ground while Leon walks over and aims his nail gun straight at its head.

TINK!

With a silent shot from the nail gun the zombie stops moving. He and Spike try out different strategies while traveling. Even though Spike can handle these guys all on his own, it's good practice for Leon.

Eventually they make it to the department store.

"What the hell..."

There isn't a single zombie in sight. Usually he would have to lure the huge crowd of around 50 zombies away from the front of the store to get inside. This time though there isn't any zombies at all.

"I've got a bad feeling, bud." Leon says while patting Spike.

Clack!

They carefully move towards the store. He can't sense any movement from inside but his senses are shit so there could still be hope.

He makes it to the door and slowly pulls it open. He is immediately hit with the strong stench of blood. While covering his nose with his elbow, he pulls out his crank flashlight to take a look around.

"..... Shit..."

"They're all dead..."

Every single survivor that lived here is strewn on the ground in puddles of there own blood. It doesn't look like they put up much of a fight either. It's not surprising since they couldn't even fight the zombies.

"Sigh."

He walks inside and closes the door behind him.

This flashlight was a lucky find. He got it from the treasure trove those thugs had. Even if it runs out of battery, you can just crank it a couple of times to charge it. Very useful for the apocalypse.

He begins to scan the bodies as he walks around the store.

"Wait a second. There are gunshot wounds..."

"That means they weren't killed by zombies. I'll find out who did this. Those bastards stole everything too."

The food and supplies these survivors had are all gone. Everything of value is missing from the supplies Leon brought them all the way to the tools and materials they had.

Suddenly he hears something behind the counter.

"Cough, cough!"

Leon slowly creeps around the counter and aims his light towards the noise.

"George? Your alive?"

"Hey... Kid... Cough..."

Leon kneels down next to George who is leaning up against the cabinet. His stomach is bleeding badly and his skin is pale. He doesn't have much time left.

"George what the hell happened here?" Leon asks.

"Those damn thugs... Cough... They're looking for you kid.... You have to escape before they find you..."

George slumps over dead. Leon grabs him to keep him from falling over and props him back up.

"Damn it all..."

"It's those same guys and they're after me. So then this is my fault..."

Leon sits there for a while completely still. After a few minutes passes he finally stands up and walks to the door.

"If they're looking for me then I'll give them what they want , but not yet. I need to be stronger..."

Later that evening Leon makes it back to the apartment. When he walks inside he sees Alexis drawing on a little note pad he gave her.

"Hey Alexis, I'm back. What are you drawing?"

"Some trees."

"Wow, I'm impressed. Those trees look super good."

"Thanks!" she replies with a big smile.

"Ill make us some food. You're hungry right?"

"Yes please~"

Leon rummaged through his food stash until he finds some mac'n'cheese that he cooks on the camping stove.

After they both finished eating, Leon tucks Alexis in to bed and tells her goodnight.

He spends the night checking his gear and making sure he has plenty of water and rations for traveling.

Leon didn't get much sleep that night. Even less than normal, but today he's going hunting for a new item. That's what he figures he needs to get stronger right now.

The next day as soon as the sun comes up, Leon and spike head out

With Leon and spike charging through the streets eradicating every zombie in sight, it looks like an absolute massacre.

The streets are littered with rotting and decomposing corpses.

Leon grabs the cores while spike runs ahead a little continuing to obliterate zombies left and right. One of spikes favorite ways of fighting is that he'll run into zombies one by one with his spikes out, impaling one zombie after another until he can't move anymore.

Then he will retract his spikes making all the corpses fall to the ground in a big pile and he does this over and over with out stopping. Leon starts to think spike has unlimited stamina or something.

Eventually they make it farther towards the center of the city. As they continue on they find more and more zombies.

Just after they finish off a group of 15 zombies, the earth begins to shake a bit. Not enough to throw of his balance but it seem something big is on its way.

"Spike hurry!" Leon commands spike to follow him around the corner of a nearby building to hide and see what they are up against.

After a few seconds the rumbling gets very close, and then they see it. A huge zombie that looks like an abomination. It has multiple disfigured limbs and tentacles. It's super fat and green colored.

"It must be a special zombie. One that evolved into something different than the others." Leon says to himself. "Maybe if we can take it down, we'll get a better core from it as well.

"Spike, let's go kill this bastard."

"Clack, clack!" Spike dances up and down in confirmation.

"Okay, go!" Leon yells.

Spike charges forward at the speed of running. The abomination spots spike almost immediately and swings one of its many gross looking tentacles to intercept him.

Spike suddenly lunges forward and bites the tentacle clean in half. He continues running forward destroying anything it swings at him. Leon runs around the large creature while shooting nails in its body.

It doesn't look like it's doing much damage so he kneels down and pulls out a small cartridge of nails and reloads. He then continues running and corrects his aim to shoot for the head, or at least what he thinks is its head.

Spike finally gets close enough and slashes his claws through the abominations large belly. Spike gets immediately covered with the abominations green blood. It quickly oozes out and before spike can retreat he gets completely covered. Leon hears spike whimpering as he tries to slowly crawl away but then soon becomes still.

"What the shit! It's acid!" Leon screams out.

There's a loud sizzling sound as spike gets melted down to nothingness. Meanwhile the abomination screams out in pain and starts flailing around randomly.

His large tentacles whip around him hitting the nearby buildings and leaves large dents in the road.

Leon hurriedly backs away and pulls out the talisman. He recently attached a string through it so it more like a necklace now. He quickly summons spike once again.

A huge surge of energy swirls around and then dissipates leaving an angry spike behind. Spike looks over at its master as if asking for approval. Leon nods his head and spike Bursts forward almost knocking Leon of his feet.

"Fast!" He exclaims in surprise while pelting the abomination with more nails. Spike quickly makes it back in front of the beast and smashes his entire body on the side of the abomination knocking it flat on the ground.

Spike retracted his spikes earlier as to not get any acid on himself again. Leon doesn't miss this chance and runs over to where the beasts head is laying on the ground and proceeds to spam all his nails at the same spot on its head.

He quickly kneels down to reload and shoots the entire cartridge in its head.

He stayed back far enough to not get splashed by its blood. Soon the fight was over with spike and Leon the winners.

"Good job Spike!."

CLACK! CLACK!

Leon pets spike and then starts circling the massive body to see if it dropped anything. Sadly... IT DROPPED A FREAKING ITEM!

He immediately picks it up to examine it. A blue window pops up with all the info about the item.

It called the Wraith's Shadow Cloak. It doesn't give any extra stats but it allows the user to blend into the shadows. Not bad, this will let him sneak around without being spotted and also let him get closer to his targets before they receive a nail to the head.

He throws the cloak on and starts heading back to his Apartment. He almost looks like a grim reaper with this baggy pitch black cloak on. The only thing he needs now is an enormous scythe.

It's almost dark and all the commotion just now is sure to attract other zombies. As he makes his way back to the apartments he tries his best to stay in the shadows of the buildings. He almost looks like a specter. Disappearing and reappearing over and over.