Deadman Running: A LitRPG Apocalypse Series by C.B. Titus

Author:C.B. Titus [Titus, C.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2023-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

THIRTY-THREE

...A PLACE OF HONOR

I moved as quietly as I could while maintaining the same odd movement I’d adopted to keep undetected by the creatures. It took an incredible amount of focus as my feet fought to return to a normal walking pattern. If I’d managed to save every one of the grenades I’d had at Pott’s I may have used all of them in the hopes it would remove any trace of the beasts, but as I was down to one, I chose to preserve it. I was nearly past the creatures and into the path, when the pile quivered. One of the creatures pulled itself from the center of it and began moving directly toward me.

I tried to move faster, making my way toward the wall in the hopes that I could press myself against it and avoid the creature’s detection, but it was moving too quickly, and I was too far from the wall. I started running.

The moment my feet started to move in a recognizable pattern, I heard a terrible wailing rise up from behind me, sounding almost like the cries of a child. I ran faster, hearing the one nearest me begin to move in a horrifying gallop as I did so. I had my gun out and ready to fire but wanted to focus on putting as much distance between myself and the pack of creatures as I could before using whatever limited ammunition The Cerberus may have left.

I was lucky in at least one way—I could tell that the path I was on was sloping upward, and I was starting to catch a hint of surface air. I was getting close to freedom. I came to a fork and, not having the time to consider my choices, I took the left path that seemed to slope slightly sharper upward. I continued moving, exhaustion starting to catch up with me and my vision taking on a reddish tinge as whatever reserves I had began to run dry. Then, I hit a wall.

The tunnel had turned straight upward, too sheer for me to climb and sized for only a single one of the creatures. I turned around to see the one that had been following me, my night vision forcing me to see it in perfect detail in a way a human would’ve been mercifully spared. I raised The Cerberus, listening as its cylinders began to spin while the beast bore down on me.

Almost on instinct, I activated Freeze. The creature’s movements arrested and it tumbled forward, carried by its momentum. It twisted as it pushed itself to move in spite of the ability’s effects. My face twisted in a look of disgust and pity, my stomach roiling. They were human, or had been. Now they were some hideous caricatures mutated by a mixture of the rEvolution Virus and exposure to rads far beyond anything else in the wasteland. I couldn’t bring myself to fire The Cerberus in that moment, letting the cylinders of it come to a stop as I ran out and backtracked back to where the path had split.

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