Chapter 5

Jeremy's eyes widened when the system repeated the number. "How are we going to get out?"

I scoffed, rolling my eyes before letting my mind race for a solution.

Eventually, there seemed to be only one. And it was almost as risky and stupid as barging out to fight almost two hundred zombies.

"We can charge out."

His head snapped to face me from his place next to the window. "What?"

"We charge out while pushing the door, creating a path in between for us to run through with it. They're level Cs, so they can't be that smart."

"Have you lost your mind?" The sound of his voice carried, riling the zombies outside even more. "What's the difference between that and just fighting them?"

"The difference is that we live, and we don't stick around for a fight." I rushed to the kitchen.

He followed right after me. "You can't actually be considering this. How will you even take the door off?"

My fingers yanked the drawer open a bit too aggressively.

There were four in total, and after carefully searching each one, I found the drill in the last. "This is it."

He sighed, cupping his face. "So we charge out, then what? We run? They'll chase us. And did you miss the part where the system said 'mostly level Cs'?"

"Nope. But like you said, we can take a few. It won't be easy, but then again, staying here and getting stormed when they eventually breach through is just as hard, don't you think?"

A sharp rumble from outside caught both our attention, and we turned toward the cracked window, blocked by the hungry zombies.

"What are the chances of that being normal rain?" I gulped, testing the drill to make sure it worked, which it thankfully did.

I partially wished for it to be acid rain. For it to catch Jason and Maya and burn through their skin.

But black rain would do nothing to help our current situation, and that meant putting off my hatred for them for a little while longer.

Once Jeremy and I were out of here and sorted things out, I'd figure out what to do about those two. Because if they thought screwing me over for death was a good decision, their lives were about to become way worse than they currently were.

"I don't want to take those chances," Jeremy said, his voice nearly swallowed by another grumble and the growing growls of zombies outside.

"Help me hold the door up. As soon as it's down, we drop the drill and run."

He slung a bag over his shoulder, probably filled with whatever he'd managed to raid from this place, then handed me a similar one to carry.

His palms pressed against the door, bringing his face so close to mine that he'd only have to lean down for a second for our lips to touch.

The thought was immediately shut down as I was brutally shoved back to reality by the hungry growls outside.

Pulling down the door was fairly easy, but it was also incredibly loud, and the noise only riled up the undead outside.

"Almost done. Are you ready?"

More thunder, meaning the rain was coming soon, and as much as my situation was already hell, adding black rain to the list of problems wasn't something I was looking forward to.

He nodded, lifting the door off the ground by a fraction.

"On three?" he asked, waiting for me to nod before yelling, "Three!"

My palms pressed hard against the wooden door, shoving it quickly through the crowd of zombies gathered outside.

It was harder than I thought, but somehow easier with the new abilities granted to me by the system.

[Threat proximity: too close.] It chimed, and for the first time since it invaded my head, I almost felt annoyed.

We shoved our way through, and I had to leave the door halfway through for Jeremy to defend while fighting off the zombies that weren't thrown off by it.

Eventually, the foggy clouds came into view, and we had made our way through most of the crowd.

Somehow, my nose was able to pick up the scent of the few zombies that weren't level Cs in the area.

Jeremy must have sensed it too, because we didn't even need to talk before we were both bolting toward the direction of the main road, away from the horde of zombies trying to follow us without toppling over each other.

[Threats temporarily at bay. Next level: find transport. Points to level up: 128.]

"Points to level up?" The statement was all I could force out while panting and running.

"Yeah, we're level A zombies, darling. There are three levels above us, and we need to complete tasks to level up," Jeremy replied, his words coming out in short bursts like mine.

As we approached the highway, I pondered our new task. "Since we're in zombieland and everyone's currently looking for brains, how easy do you think it'll be to snag a Tesla?"

The highway came into view soon enough after minutes of running.

My ears picked up sounds that could only be possible due to my abilities, sounds that made me wish I didn't have them.

The sound of flesh squelching and survivors screaming.

Jeremy came to a halt at the same time as I did, staring at the zombies perched on the highway with burning cars and half-eaten bodies too far gone to rise even with the virus.

"We hae higher chances of charging our way out of here on foot than finding a Tesla."

My throat felt dry as it dawned on me that he wasn't even wrong.