Christopher and the others moved faster now through the sixth-floor hallways, no longer keeping that earlier careful pace. They were still checking angles, still keeping weapons ready, but the priority had shifted. Regrouping mattered more now. Ryan had split them for a reason, and Christopher understood exactly why he had done it. Ryan had wanted the others off the direct path of whatever might be waiting near Zakthar. He had probably guessed trouble at the top would be worse than anything below.
That did not stop Christopher from worrying.
If Ryan and the others had run into the kind of danger he had been expecting, then the smartest thing now was to get back to them fast.
He kept his rifle raised as they hurried down the corridor, Rachel and Cindy close behind, Ivy at the rear.
Then, just as they neared the staircase leading to the seventh floor, Rachel stopped so suddenly she nearly made Cindy bump into her.
"W-Wait."
Christopher turned at once.
Rachel was staring ahead, but not really at the corridor. Her face had tightened in that specific way it did when her instincts kicked before she understood why.
"Something wrong?" Christopher asked.
"Yes," she said, then looked at Cindy. "Don’t you feel something weird?"
Cindy blinked and shut her eyes for a second, focusing.
Her radar spread out, carefully, lightly at first. She felt the familiar strain rise almost immediately, that pressure behind her temples that always came when she pushed the ability too far. But it was not the radar itself that bothered her.
It was something else.
A warning.
Her Dullahan senses were reacting before the radar gave her anything clear. There was also a dull sound somewhere above them.
"Yeah," Cindy said, opening her eyes again. "Something’s above us. I can feel it. But I can’t tell what."
Christopher frowned.
"Ryan might need help."
Rachel moved forward too, but she kept her voice firm. "Careful, Christopher."
He nodded once.
Then all four of them climbed.
The stairwell felt colder than before, and the noise from outside had shifted again. Gunfire still cracked in the distance, but it came in rough bursts now, less steady than earlier. That either meant people were repositioning or dying. Christopher did not bother guessing which.
They reached the seventh floor and pushed through.
The hallway beyond was empty.
That should have helped.
It did not.
The whole floor felt tense in a way Christopher hated immediately. The corridor stretched out under flickering lights with too much open space between doors. Rachel kept her hands ready. Christopher led with the rifle. Ivy stayed unnervingly calm behind them with the handgun low. Cindy kept using the radar despite the strain beginning to clearly on her face now.
Rachel noticed it first.
"Don’t force it, Cindy."
Cindy gave a small nod, but she did not stop.
Because the bad feeling had only gotten worse.
It sat under her skin now, low and ugly, like something nearby had noticed them already. Her radar still did not give her a proper shape, but her instincts kept warning her anyway.
They advanced another stretch down the hallway.
Then Cindy stopped dead.
"Stop!" she shouted, spinning around. "S...Something’s coming!"
The others barely had time to react.
Heavy footsteps slammed through the floor and walls around them, loud enough to rattle the hallway itself. Then the wall on their side exploded inward in a burst of broken concrete, dust, and shattered plaster.
A massive Hybrid came through it.
Rubble crashed across the floor around its feet. Smoke and dust rose around its body in a pale cloud, but even through that they could see its size clearly. Huge. Broad. Wounded already, one arm torn up badly, but still moving with the kind of speed that made its size feel unnatural.
Christopher stared at it for a fraction too long.
The last time he had fought a Hybrid had been back when Jackson Township fell, and that memory hit him like a slap. Noise, blood, panic and death. That whole night had burned itself into him hard enough that seeing another one up close made his stomach tighten immediately.
And this one looked even worse.
"R-Run!" Christopher shouted, already firing.
His AK-47 barked sharply through the hallway. The rounds hit, but the Hybrid brought up its arm and shielded itself while continuing forward through the dust like the bullets were only making it angrier.
"Ivy!" Rachel grabbed Ivy by the arm and yanked her back before she could freeze in the wrong place.
Ivy moved with them at once while Cindy turned and ran ahead.
Christopher kept firing as he retreated, giving ground step by step while the Hybrid pushed through the corridor after them. Bullet impacts kicked dust and flesh from its upper body, but not enough. Never enough.
"The fuck is that?!" Christopher shouted.
"It’s bad, Christopher, fall back!" Rachel yelled.
"Yeah!"
He fired again, then broke fully into a run.
Rachel followed just behind him, but she kept glancing back because the Hybrid had fixed its attention on her now. She felt it instantly. It had sensed the Dullahan in her somehow, or at least something close enough to it, and that made the creature’s interest sharpen.
It came after them hard.
Its footsteps pounded through the hall with surprising speed for something so large. Even worse, heat seemed to come off its body in strange waves, faint but real enough that Rachel felt it when it got closer.
It reminded her of the Guardian Infected at the radio station.
That thing had nearly killed her and Ryan too.
They burst into what looked like a lobby area on the same floor, wider than the hallway and cluttered with overturned furniture and decorative tables shoved aside long ago.
Christopher looked around once and made the decision immediately.
"Upstairs! Move!"
The others did not argue. They turned for the stairwell and ran.
The Hybrid was already almost on them.
Rachel spun and threw up a barrier just in time.
A red shimmer erupted in front of the creature and caught it head-on. Its face slammed into the barrier with enough force to make the whole thing flash brightly and bow under the impact. The Hybrid growled and hammered at it at once, cracks racing through the red surface.
"Go!" Rachel shouted.
They ran.
Rachel stayed behind long enough to keep summoning barrier after barrier, each one buying another second, then another, then another. The effort taxed her fast. She felt the drain in her arms and chest with each summon, but it worked. The Hybrid kept smashing through them, furious and relentless, while the others gained ground.
By the time she threw up the fourth barrier and turned to run, Christopher, Cindy, and Ivy were already halfway up the stairs to the eighth floor.
Rachel sprinted after them and nearly stumbled when she hit the top, but Christopher caught her elbow long enough to steady her before they all pushed into the eighth-floor corridor and kept moving.
The hallway here was narrower.
That should have helped.
It did not feel like it.
Christopher ran with the rifle up, breathing harder now.
"It’s shielding bullets with its damn arm," he said, still half shocked. "What the hell is that arm made of?"
"Didn’t you see it?" Cindy said between breaths. "It was already hurt. Ryan and the others probably fought it upstairs first."
"Then why is it here?"
"Who knows? We just need to bring it down somehow!"
Christopher’s grip tightened on the rifle.
"I only need one real shot to its head. Just one. But these bastards think too fast."
"We’ll find—"
CRASH!!
The stairwell door behind them blew inward.
All four of them whipped around.
The Hybrid burst into the eighth-floor corridor through the broken doorframe, dust and splinters kicking around its body as it straightened up and fixed its white dead eyes on them.
For one second, nobody moved.
"Shit. Run!"
Until Christopher shouted it again they stormed off as fast as their legs could run.
Chapter 394: Taking The Golden Nugget Hotel [10]
7 min read