Michael was feeling incredibly annoyed and turned towards Rosita and the kids.
"Get inside the car and wait for me inside. I'll go check it out"
Rosita opened her mouth, but she immediately closed it when she realized that the kids wouldn't have anyone to look after them if goes with him.
"Alright, be safe out there."
Only after all of them got inside the car did Michael leave and headed towards the direction of where the scream had come from.
"Will he be okay, Aunt Rosie?" Jose sounded and looked incredibly worried as he watched Michael run towards the dense forest on the other side of the road and disappeared inside.
"Don't worry, he can take care of himself." Rosita turned around and looked behind her to assure them. She can still vividly remember how that guy had slaughtered tens or even hundreds of those walkers when she first saw him.
'That guy is no ordinary man. He's a man of many secrets.' She curiously thought.
Meanwhile, a group of five people, probably a family, are escaping through the woods.
The woman who was probably the one who had screamed earlier is carrying a toddler in her arms with whom we can assume is her teenage son running alongside her. Who is also carrying another small child between eight to ten years old in his arms. Behind them, is a middle aged man who's armed with a handgun on his right and a sharpened, bloodied iron rod on his left hand.
"Don't look back. Just keep moving while looking where you're stepping on. We don't want any of us falling down and getting injured." The man trailing behind them had been giving them the same reminder over and over again ever since they entered this forest.
"Dad, what about you? Did they get you?" His teenage son threw a quick glance behind him but he never stopped moving forward.
With a relieved smile on his face, the father responded while looking at a noticeable bite mark on the book wrapped around with packing tape on his arm. "Don't worry. The bracers saved me. This shit actually works."
"Well, we placed a metal sheet between the pages. So, I doubt they can actually bite through it." His son responded as he leapt over a large root.
"Stop talking and just keep running until we're safe." The woman angrily rebuked them.
The teenager wasn't having it and immediately responded with the following words. "No place is safe mom, unless we find a community of truly good natured people. But where would we find that kind of community these days when everybody out here is trying to take advantage of you? We tried to place our trust in those people when we joined them, but look where it got us. We're now running for our lives from not only biters but also from the people who we thought were good, but it turned out to be just a facade to lower our guard. Now they're trying to capture us to sell us to their clients. I don't even wanna know what they would do to us if they get their hands on us."
The young man shuddered when he thought of something, and hurriedly shook his head to get rid of those unpleasant thoughts.
Meanwhile, several tens of meters behind them, were a group of armed people.
They were the ones the kid was talking about who were after them, but it seems like they had gotten into trouble since the distance between the two groups had significantly widened.
"Where the heck are these bastards popping out from?!" One of them smashed open a walkers' head with a road sign while letting out a frustrated curse.
"Shut up! This is all your fault! You knew there were biters roaming around us, but you just had to freaking open fire on them! Now, those bastards are nowhere to be seen!" A man with matted long hair got so annoyed by his words and cursed him.
Angered that he was the one being blamed for their current predicament, the man cursed back while striking down another walker. "F*ck you! You bastards were the ones who told me to shoot them!"
"B*tch, you should have used your head! Who in their right mind would really open fire when there's a horde of these bastards around us?!" The man with matted long hair cursed back as he grabbed a walker's neck and stabbed its head with a long screwdriver.
"Shut your mouths and focus on escaping from here! You don't wanna die here and get eaten alive, right?!"
Someone yelled those words and it was like a bucket of cold water had doused their heads as it brought them back to reality and made them realize that they were still within the midst of a life and death situation.
Though they were lucky because the forest floor was covered with a large number of large roots that had sprouted above ground.
Which had not only troubled living humans, but also the living dead as a lot of them had already fallen victims on these roots, where they fell on the ground after getting tripped over.
"Keep up and follow me! We must catch up to them or else we'd be in trouble if they stumble upon another survivor group and leak our location and misdeeds to them!" A man with his hair tied into a ponytail and a face covered with tattoos shouted when he saw an opportunity to escape and quickly took the lead.
Thud!
He hurriedly kicked a walker to the side, then grabbed another walker by its neck and used it as a shield to push through the crowd of walkers.
"Follow Willis and cover his six!"
Seeing the opportunity to escape, everyone immediately followed behind the man called Willis and helped him brute force their way through the crowd of walkers like football linebackers.
And they almost failed when someone stumbled on his feet because of the troublesome roots all over the ground. Thankfully for him, his companions grabbed him on time and prevented the collapse of the formation.
On the other hand, Michael who had been watching them for a while was amazed at their tenacity and their ability to quickly adapt with the rapid changes around them.
'I wonder what kind of people they are?' Michael wanted to recruit them, but when he remembered the conversation he had overheard earlier, he shook his head in regret.
'Sadly, it seems this group of people had done some sneaky things.'
Hiding behind a tree, with tens of meters between them. Michael pulled out his Winchester 1892 and slowly took aim.
Michael let out a sigh. "It seems like more people are going to be added to my kill count."
Bang!
[You terminated a Zombie! Gained +1 EXP and +1 Coin.]
The bullet ejected through the muzzle and zoomed towards its target, shooting through a walker's head and striking the man called Willis on its neck.
The man's eyes widened in horror and surprise while his pair of legs continued rushing forwards for a couple more steps before he fell down on the ground, dead.
"Enemy attack!"
"Willis!"
Seeing his friend being killed in front of him, one of them yelled in anger. Though the man was filled with hatred, he didn't let it get to his head and affect his judgement, but calmly warned his companions.
"Crouch down closer to the ground but do not stop until I say so!"
Everyone followed his orders and ignored the dead body of Willis on the ground.
It wasn't that they were heartless, but they had already lost a lot of friends and they were already numbed to it.
Observing their actions, Michael judged that they weren't ordinary survivors.
'Retired soldiers? Former mercenaries? Or just survivors who had lost a lot?'
There were too many groups he could think of, but he knew he had just made an enemy that should not be left alive and must be cut down to the last person.
"Really troublesome, these people."
Michael just shook his head/ He raised his Winchester 1892, he aimed and fired.
Bang!
'Why am I always getting myself into this kind of mess.'
The other group on the other hand continued escaping while crouched down.
Crack!
One of them couldn't help but flinch when a bullet whizzed past his head and struck an adolescent tree beside him.
"F*ck! Why can't w-"
"Stop! 4 o'clock, fire!"
The words of the man who almost got killed earlier were cut off when they were immediately ordered to stop and shoot.
They turned to look and saw Michael aiming his rifle towards them.
Bang!
Seeing that there's only a single enemy on sight, they became emboldened and also started firing back, not even caring that another man was struck down by him.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The man who had been relaying orders the entire time looked behind them and saw that the walkers were still far away from them.
"He's alone! Take him down!"
A lone man and a group of seven people started changing fire, and at the same time, the latter group also had started to slowly move towards Michael while besieging him.
"This feels like Terminus all over again." Michael chuckled while hiding behind three. He was reminded of the day he raided Terminus by himself and was under heavy gunfire.