People of Walmart

After getting settled down and unpacking all of their stuff, Grant decided to go out and do some scouting on his own. He figured that the Ally, Richard, and Robin would like some alone time and he wanted to see if he could get a lay of the land.

He already knew the area fairly well from having lived there for most of his life, but he wanted to see what state it was in now that The Path had been around for three days already.

Before Grant left, he told the other three not to open the door for anyone other than himself. They all readily agreed of course and bid farewell to Grant while telling him to stay safe.

After walking out the door, Grant made sure that the door was closed completely and secured in place so that they wouldn't have to deal with another situation such as the one the day before. He wasn't one hundred percent positive that Jeff and his goons were the ones staying at the shop but it seemed likely they were the previous residents.

Hoping that to be the case, Grant started to walk down the road heading to the closest shopping center.

Grant decided to first make a supply run to some of the nearer convenience stores because although they had a large stash of food at the moment, they didn't have enough clothes and other supplies, so Grant figured now would be a good opportunity to stock up.

Now that they had a semi permanent base of operations, it would be easier to stash large quantities of supplies.

His second task for the day was going to be to make a sweep of the area surrounding their new base of operations. He planned to sweep through everything within a mile radios of the gun shop to make sure there were no dangerous monsters making the area home.

He had no doubt that he would inevitably come across other survivors while he was out and about, but he had decided that in that case, the only help he would provide would be getting rid of the monsters.

After that, it was up to them to figure out what to do next.

He also wanted to look for any vehicles that were still running. He had tried a few vehicles throughout the past three days, but he wasn't able to get any of them running. He wasn't sure why exactly that was, but since the electricity was still working, he figured it had something to do with the machines themselves rather than an outside influence.

Smaller vehicles and even smaller trucks and SUV's wouldn't cut it though. Not only because they would have a lot of supplies to carry when they inevitably moved, but their were now tons of obstacles laying in the roads making straight up travel difficult.

During the initial phase of The Path, people had either abandoned their cars where they were or had been turned into zombies and been unable to continue to operate the vehicles so there were cars parked anywhere and everywhere on the roads with the occasional crashed vehicle here and there.

Not only were there cars everywhere but debris had been blown all over the place during the storm on the first night, so that would make it even more difficult to travel with smaller vehicles.

While Grant was thinking about what type of vehicle would be best and what kind of supplies he should be bringing back to the shop with him, he realized he was approaching the Walmart that was located not far from where the gun shop was located.

Deciding that was the best place to begin his looting, Grant started walking towards the Walmart. Along the way he crossed paths with many monsters and zombies but he made quick work of them because they weren't nearly strong enough to delay him for even a moment.

When he walked through the doors of the Walmart, he had expected to be greeted by a massive group of zombies due to the popularity of the store and the fact that The Path had appeared on a Saturday, when a lot of people would normally be doing their shopping but, contrary to his expectations, he saw no zombies or even heard a zombie for that matter.

It was the absence of any sounds that instantly put Grant on guard. He drew Wet Noodle from its scabbard, cranked his senses to the max, and waited for something to try and take him by surprise or catch him off guard.

After standing in the doorway for a few minutes without anything attacking him, he took slow and steady steps forward so as to progress deeper into the building.

Thankfully the lights were still operational so he could see everything around him clearly, but that still wasn't enough for him to drop his guard. It made no sense for a store as large as and as popular as Walmart to be completely empty of any zombies or monsters only a few days after The Path's emergence.

Since Grant's arm was still wounded and in pain, he decided that he should quickly clear the store of any potential dangers and then go back to the front of the store to grab a cart to carry his supplies in.

As Grant progressed through the buildings though, the more tense he began to feel. Just the idea of walking through a giant store like Walmart and not seeing or hearing anything at all was absolutely nerve wracking.

After awhile, he started to think that it may have been possible for someone to have come to the building before him and cleared the place of any monsters.

It would make sense that some people would think that a giant superstore like Walmart would be a good idea for a place to shelter in place but Grant still decided not to let his guard down.

Until he saw another person or had cleared the entire store of potential dangers, he would continue to be vigilant.

After 15 minutes of wandering through the store, his vigilance paid off.

As he rounded the corner of an aisle to head even deeper into the store, he suddenly came face to face with a zombie.

He knew it was a zombie and not a living person because it had large chunks of flesh missing from different parts of its body while bones were visible through some massive wounds.

At first, Grant was caught off guard by the fact that his Overclocked Perception hadn't sensed any danger, but without hesitation, Grant moved his sword to separate its head from its body which he succeeded in doing with the same ease as every zombie he had fought before.

What concerned Grant was that even though he was quick, the zombie should have had time to react but the zombie seemed to ignore his presence even up to the moment of its death.

The moment that the zombie died however, his danger sense started to ring in full force, like the death of the zombie had somehow set off an alarm and everything within range was reacting too it.

Without hesitation Grant jumped up onto the top of the shelves to try and get a better view of the surrounding areas of the store.

The reason he had avoided doing this at the start was because he wanted to investigate the building slowly and try to avoid a massive fight if the place was overrun by zombies. Waste not want not was his motto when it came to his stamina and energy since he knew he had a lot of work to accomplish that day.

When Grant looked out over the surrounding aisles though, he knew that conserving his stamina would be nearly impossible at this point.

Charging in his direction were no less than a thousand zombies. And unlike the zombies he had faced before, that were slower than a baby's crawl, these zombies were running with a full head of steam charging in his direction.

[What the fuck is going on here? How are these zombies so fast compared to other zombies? Sherlock, you got any ideas or is this another teachable moment where I need to figure it out myself?]

Grant had asked Sherlock the question but before Sherlock had the opportunity to answer his question, Grant had already dropped back down to the floor and ran quickly to a more open area of the store.

He knew that he would likely end up surrounded if he went to an open area, but he also knew that he would be surrounded if he stayed in the aisle and instead of fighting in the aisle where space was limited, he wanted to have more space at his disposal.

While running to the front of the store where there was the most open space, Sherlock finally answered his question, but the answer wasn't what Grant was expecting to hear.

{They are neither a special mutation of a zombie nor Enlightened tier zombies. So that leaves only one possibility.

I can tell you they are not a special mutation of a zombie because they all look the exact same as normal zombies and their auras or mana signatures, if you will, are the same as normal zombies.

If they had acquired a special mutation then their would have been an alteration to, at the very least, their aura.

The second option is downright impossible. For a group this large to have all reached the Enlightened tier at this point would be impossible.

Just look at your accomplishments as an example. For three days you have fought a large quantity of monsters and even fought monsters much stronger than you and yet you have still not reached the required level to enter the Enlightened tier.

Since the first two options are impossible then that leaves only one other option.

Something or someone is leading them and providing them with bonuses to their stats.}

[If that's the case then..?]

{Your conjecture is correct. There is an Enlightened Tier monster or human somewhere within this building.}