17 End in sight
The two grenades exploded almost at the same time, right when the horde rushed past them.
The explosion shook the entire building.
Even though he was likely the only one who knew what to expect, that didn’t make it any less stressful to face thousands of zombies all crammed into the school’s corridor below them.
“Free the pendulum!” Mathew shouted when the wave of the zombies pushed those still shocked by the explosion out of the way.
With the stairs demolished, a huge chunk of the floor collapsed, creating something akin to a fall trap.
Under the force of the zombies pushing from behind, the zombies at the front would run towards the former staircase… and either fall down the stairs or directly drop over the edge to the lower floor.
Sure, it would only take to turn around and climb the stairs back to get where they started… But an action like this would require the zombies to be capable of thinking.
‘It’s gonna take them a while, but they will find a way,’ Mathew thought, watching how the group of seven men rotated the power-wheel and swung the pendulum into the crowd of the zombies.
This stationary weapon was made so that the hammer would first gain momentum and then strike right at the height where the head of the zombies would be. What’s more, the zombies lucky enough to avoid getting hit in the head would still end up pushed down the hole and forced to move up the floor.pᴀɴᴅᴀ-ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ.ᴄᴏᴍ
“Pull it back!” Mathew shouted, reaching out with his hand to the back, only for one of fellow students of his to pass him a grenade.
“Throw the nades whenever they are raising the pendulum!” Mathew shouted, moving towards the second phase of his plan.
For now, this was the most effective way to keep thinning out the number of zombies. With the grenades preventing the zombies from stacking in a single place, the pendulum continued to crush several zombies with each swing it took.
‘It’s far more effective than I expected it to be,’ Mathew thought, throwing yet another grenade down the gap and leaning back.
“Mathew!” Nadia shouted, trying to force her voice through the constant noise of the ongoing fight. “What the hell is going on?!” she cried out, clearly in distress.
But who could blame this poor girl for being stressed out if she first succumbed to some strange and insanely rapid disease, only to wake up in the middle of a zombie apocalypse!
“Nadia, I’m sorry, but I can’t right now,” Mathew said, turning his head to look at the girl.
‘As much as I want to just cuddle her and keep her in my arms to calm her down,’ Mat thought, moving his eyes towards the girl…
And then, he saw the depth of terror in her eyes. pᴀɴᴅᴀ ɴoᴠᴇʟ
It wasn’t an expression one would make when faced with a horde of zombies. What’s more, from her current point of view, Nadia wasn’t likely to even have an angle to see the zombies in the first place!
‘Is this about her race?’ Mathew thought when he noticed the information flashing in the half-transparent windows floating slightly above the girl’s head.
According to the only window that had any content, Nadia was no longer a human but a half-zombie.
“What’s wrong?” Mathew asked, forgetting about the ongoing battle and focusing all of his attention on the girl. He then brought his hand forward and grabbed Nadia’s fingers only to cup them together and then cover Nadia’s hands with his own.
“Everything… I can see everyone’s hearts pumping, the sounds…” Nadia moaned before falling to her knees. “The entire world is red all around!” Nadia cried out while wrestling her hands free. She then his her face in her palms.
‘Is she turning?’ Mathew thought, glancing over at the girl’s status in panic. And the former “recovering” changed to something else.
[Status: In a shock]
This one line was enough for the young man to somehow calm down. But the noises from right behind his back quickly brought Mat’s thoughts back into reality.
“Nadia, I’m here,” Mathew whispered into the girl’s ear, hoping to reach her in this way. “I need to take care of a few things for now, so can you just sit down and wait for me to come in a moment?” ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
Instead of sharing Nadia’s panic, Mathew decided to put on a perfectly calm but busy front.
“O-okay,” Nadia muttered, unsure how to react.
Throughout their entire relationship, she was usually the one to protect and cheer Mathew up. And from how easily Mat managed to subdue her fear, turning her into an obedient little girl, the change was still quite surprising for her.
“Good girl,” Mathew purred, rustling Nadia’s curly hair.
Mathew stood up and took a deep breath. He then turned his head to the other side, inspecting the progress of the battle.
“So far, so good,” Mathew muttered under his nose.
The results were far from satisfactory, but they were better than Mathew’s grave predictions.
Even the combination of the explosions and the swinging pendulum had its limits.
Soldiers could throw the grenades only once per swing of the weapon; otherwise, they would risk damaging it.
Because of this short time window, the zombies eventually started to form into waves, quickly building up a disgusting pile of rotting flesh.
Both the explosions and the pendulum would often miss the vitals, turning the zombie into a mesh yet not fully killing them. And as time went on, those broken parts of zombies continued to build up.
‘Thank God the hole is quite big,’ Mathew thought.
When the explosions went off earlier, the resulting demolition deleted not only the stairs but also quite a bit of floor from the level below. The falling rubble simply blasted past the aged floor, only stopped on the next level.
That’s why the zombies not only had to move up but also move forward.
Unable to breach the gap on their own, they could only rely on this build-up of corpses that would eventually bridge it. Yet, it had to grow considerably higher just to account for the changed angle.
After all, for a pile to grow up, it had to rest on some kind of foundation.
But the zombies kept on coming. And there was no telling when this swarm would end.
‘The monsters have yet to show up,’ Mathew thought, scanning the area as he grabbed one of the grenades before timing it out and throwing it right at the zombies.
A dull sound of the explosion shook several of the bloodied bodies, throwing them around like some rag dolls.
One of the zombies, already only contained within its head and half of its shoulder area nearly managed to land on the upper floor.
‘Tsk,’ Mathew clicked his tongue when the still active corpse flew right past his feet.
Even if it would take way more than a single scratch for someone to turn, it surely would cause a massive commotion.
And then, something that Mathew initially didn’t dare to believe.
Mat’s lips formed a smile, only for the young man to shake his head and focus.
The influx of the zombies finally slowed down. One could see that down the corridor; their horde was starting to thin out.
‘Right, the school is fenced off,’ Mathew thought, relieved by the change. ‘And there are only so many students to turn in here,’ the young man added, blinking his eyes to refresh his eyes.
It would still take them a long while before the fighting would come to a complete end. But at least they could now see some kind of future ahead!