ROAR OF THE ROAD!
ROAR OF THE ROAD!KABOOM!CRUNCH! The sounds I'd heard a thousand times playing GTA, amplified a hundredfold, droned on endlessly. Part of me wanted to just plow through and wipe them all out, but I had to hold back. My goal was breaking through to the provincial office—not starting a full-scale war. Vehicles had their limits too. I needed to shove them aside just enough and keep moving fast.
Beneath the massive trucks shielding my front, pulverized monster corpses and rivers of blood poured out nonstop. A few were still twitching, but the vehicles trailing behind ground them into paste. Here I was, driving my van smack in the middle of this mechanized legion, pushing forward. The infected still had no clue I was there.
"We got this!"
My eyes locked on the provincial office building. SPLAT!THUD!CRACK! Flesh ripping and bones shattering—it was so constant my ears were going numb. The infected tried fighting back in their own way, but how do you stop a driverless car barreling at you?
"SKREEE!"
As countless ones got smashed, a few latched onto vehicles and clawed their way inside. Was it coincidence from their attacks, or had they learned from slaughtering screaming passengers in cars during the early outbreak? Either way, once inside, there was nothing to attack.
"SKREEEEEK!"
They thrashed and clawed at the steering wheel or dashboard, but it was pointless. The infected-infested vehicles just kept smashing through everything blocking the road ahead. Suddenly, one got a front-row seat to watch its kin turned into bloody pulp.
The forklifts were impressive too, throttle wide open, forks cranked up to chest height like some modern cavalry charge, safety regs be damned. Seeing infected heads explode like watermelons on those forks was pretty damn thrilling.
HISS. Some cars took hits of acidic spit. Windshields melted, letting traces of acid and acrid smoke seep into the cab. But even that was meaningless. Driverless vehicles were tougher and more savage than I'd imagined.
Artemis kept perfect blade-like spacing between vehicles, but if the lead ones seemed overloaded, she'd swap formations to rotate them back.
"GRRROOOOAR!"
Suddenly, an enraged roar split the air as a variant dropped from the sky. CRASH! The Bongo van that had stylishly wiped blood off its window with a wire after scattering three infected like bowling pins got flattened. The victor bellowed in triumph before hunting its next meal.
BOOM! This time, a smaller sedan crumpled, nearly halved, its overloaded tire wobbling.
The third target was in its sights. But it failed. WHAM! A massive crane counterweight bigger than the variant's head smashed its skull from behind, sending it flying.
"KYAAAOOOO!"
Of course, it wouldn't die from that. It leaped sky-high and pounced on the crane truck. CRUNCH! With insane strength, it bent and wrecked the crane arm, then hammered away wildly. BOOM!BOOM!BOOM! The crane lost balance fast; the variant kicked off, and it flipped sideways.
That was the turning point. No matter how strong the vehicles' breakthrough power, smashing endless infected took its toll—parts started failing, momentum slowing. We'd dodged as much as possible, but attacks were trickling toward me now.
"SKREEEEEK!" SPLAT! I smashed one, then wiped blood off with a wire.
Just a little farther.
The provincial office was almost in sight.
"GRRAAAH!" BOOM! Damn it! A car racing ahead of me a bit exploded.
Dumb beasts or not, they had enough brains to target mid-sized vehicles they could smash in one or two hits. Soon, few vehicles matched its taste, making it inevitable it'd spot me.
"GRRROOOOAR!"
It jumped at me, but I barely swerved. THUD-THUD! It gorilla-ran after me and slammed a body-check from the left. CRASH!
"Shit!"
A few more like that and I was done. The van could break down and strand me—game over. As it prepped a second ram, the truck ahead veered left and slammed its brakes.
SCREEECH.KABOOM! The charging variant vanished behind the truck in an instant.
A fire truck filled the gap ahead. Looking around, barely half our starting convoy remained. But the monster numbers hadn't thinned much. Either there were just that many, or the racket was drawing more.
Get ready! Clearing the path!
The moment her signal hit, I unbuckled. As the escorts peeled aside, our target—the provincial office—came into full view.
SCREECH. Tires screeching long black streaks, I braked hard. I launched out, sprinting inside.
BOOM! "GRRROOOOAR!"
This goddamn variant timed it perfectly at the last second. BANG!BANG!BANG! I fired on the run, aiming for its head, trying to slip past. But it shielded its face with one hand and swung the other.
SPLAT! "Ngh."
I got flung trying to force entry. Not a direct hit, but it felt like my body was shattering.
"SKREEEEEK!" No need to look—infected were swarming from all sides. My teeth ground together.
"Get the hell outta here!" BANG!BANG!BANG! Dumping my remaining rounds into the variant did jack—its tough hide shrugged them off. Shotgun buckshot was useless against something like this from the start. Needed at least machine-gun AP rounds to dent it.
BANG!CLICK! The empty chamber echoed hollowly on the last shot.
"GRRRR." It knew its turn, approaching with a pleased growl. Then—
HONK!HONK!
A blinding flash and deafening horn enveloped me and the variant.
"GRR—?"
Distracted, it got bulldozed by a dump truck. Tough or not, against near-30 tons, it was just another pin. It flew, spraying blood, snapped a streetlamp in half, and crumpled.
I seized the gap and slipped safely inside. Infected tried following, but that was nixed.
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!
Vehicles rammed the entrance en masse, instantly forming a barricade. Nearly 200 tons of steel wall—even variants couldn't touch it amid the crashing, flipping chaos.
"SKREEEEEK!" "GRRAAAAR!"
"Hah... hah..." Sprinting inside sapped my strength. I dropped to a knee, gasping until I steadied.
Good—no major damage.
"Feels like I'm dying, though."
Shaky hands reloaded the shotgun. Just 6 shells left. But I wouldn't need more here.
Clatter. A shell slipped from trembling fingers.
You okay?
"Gotta be. This nightmare ends soon."
The control room was less than 100 meters away. I scooped the last shell and racked it. Click. As I crept forward, a new voice chimed in.
Have you entered the provincial office building?
"Yeah. Finally made it. You'd freak if you heard what it took."
Rose. Can you scan for infected inside this building?
I apologize. I lack access permissions for the facility, so I cannot confirm. Communicating with you is the extent of my capabilities.
"Just like you when we first got here, Artemis."
Even a supercomputer was blind without links—just awakened, nothing connected.
Why is that?
There's an entity with irregular respiration unlike standard infected. The gas it emits is highly unstable.
At that moment, something emerged from the opposite end of the hallway we were traversing.
"GRRRR."
One glance screamed not your average infected.
"Thought we were done? What the hell is that?"
I shouted in despair. About 2 meters tall, perfectly balanced upper and lower body, arms dragging to the floor. Thick fingers and nails like spears each. Most striking: its eyes—eight of them, spider-like in two horizontal rows, glowing deep red. Just being stared down by them felt oppressive.
It slowly dropped to its knees. Those eight red eyes stayed fixed on me. My shaking hands leveled the shotgun.
THUD! It shot forward like an arrow as I pulled the trigger.