The phantom was gone yet the boys had no idea what had driven him away. In their minds, only one explanation felt certain. The weak flee from the strong. They had just witnessed the proof moments earlier. They themselves had fled from the strong, all the way into the bloody supermarket.
With the immediate threat somewhat gone, they needed to rethink their plan. Not that the previous one had been poor, but they had never imagined that a single phantom could cause them so much trouble in such a short time.
Alexis began to go over everything they had and the many problems that came with it.
"First, most of us are injured in a supermarket that reeks of bodies and blood, with real monsters possibly hunting us down."
"What do you mean? You clearly saw the phantom run away."
"Exactly, Jacob, exactly. But run away from what? And what tells you it did not leave only to return with others, ready to feast on our bodies after whatever frightened it finishes the job?"
"..."
Jacob could not find any words, and even if he could, starting a debate in the middle of this chaos was a bad idea.
"What do you suggest we do then?"
Mathieu had had enough of the shouting and chose to listen to the only person who seemed steady enough to come up with a plan.
"I know what I am about to say will sound crazy, but you need to listen carefully to understand it."
With that, the group fell silent. After all, Alexis never spoke without a clear understanding of what he intended to do.
"We cannot just walk out in case it appears again, so two of us will have to leave the security room to gather what we absolutely need from the supermarket."
"And what might that be?"
"… We need walkie talkies for a start, and-"
Gabriel quickly cut Alexis off with a brief motion of his hand.
"In what world are we supposed to find that in a supermarket? Are you actually joking? It is clearly not the time for that. Look around you! Look at the cameras. There are hundreds of bodies on the ground, and you are joking?"
Clear anger and disbelief showed on the faces of the entire group. What Alexis was suggesting seemed impossible to carry out. It was obvious to everyone that he had gotten far too ahead of himself after bits of luck at the weapons store.
"Explain yourself! It's impossible to do, and it's not like we have time for your crap!"
It was then that Gabriel realized he was overreacting, as he had grabbed Alexis by the collar. With a flicker of anger on his face, Alexis gently pushed Gabriel's hand away from his shirt.
"As I was saying, we need to find walkie talkies. It does not matter if they are toy versions or not, they will still work as long as our group stays within the same area."
It was then that Arnaud, who was bandaging himself with the first aid supplies found in the security room and the bandages Mathieu had collected, spoke up.
"We cannot just send two people out without knowing anything, can we? So what do you propose?"
Alexis did not even seem to think before answering and replied at once:
"Are we not in a security room with about 20 to 25 cameras across the building? We should be able to spot some products on the shelves, no?"
________________________________________________________________________________________
For the next 20 minutes, Alexis, Gabriel, and Arnaud scanned every camera angle as best they could, but without success. That was until Arnaud noticed something on camera 17.
"Hey, is that the tip of a walkie talkie?"
Alexis quickly turned to look where Arnaud was pointing. It did appear to be the end of a walkie talkie, but they could not be certain. There was no way to confirm it except by going there themselves.
Alexis then looked at each member of the group in turn. Most of them had suffered some kind of injury in the past hour, but only two would be needed to go out. Arnaud and Gabriel could not risk it, they would likely be slaughtered because of their heavy injuries. Philippe, Victor and Jacob had taken the most trauma from fighting the phantom compared to anyone else in the group, and Mathieu was the least experienced, having witnessed the least of the battles and not truly understanding how to face a phantom.
"Didier, you and I are going to go get the devices. Do you agree?"
From the extremely surprised look on Didier's face, Alexis did not even wait for an answer. But before he could cross the security room door, Didier spoke up.
"Wait, I am coming with you!"
Didier rushed to his feet, panic and determination mixing in his voice as he grabbed his Viking axes. His hands shook slightly as he forced himself to move, then followed Alexis out into the blood soaked chaos beyond the security room door. Alexis glanced sideways at Didier. Even in the dim light, the fear on his face was small yet unmistakable.
"Say, Didier?"
"What is it?"
"Why did you follow me when it is almost certain that phantoms will appear as soon as we go out?"
Didier hesitated, the question slowing him for a moment. Then he looked up at Alexis, forcing the words out with quiet resolve.
"If you die out there, I will feel like your death is my fault. And in any case, we need experience fighting phantoms. Otherwise, I will never be able to save anyone, will I?"
At that answer, Alexis let out a faint smile before beginning to explain where they would go.
"The walkie talkies are in the upper left corner of the supermarket."
"And where are we exactly?"
"..."
Clear hesitation and unease showed on Alexis's face as he answered.
"We are in the lower right corner…"
"Isn't that… on the complete other side of the store?"
A gloomy expression settled over Alexis's face. He did not even try to hide his disappointment.
As the duo slowly advanced through the blood-soaked supermarket, they could not help but feel disgust at the sight of bodies scattered across the floor. Only then did they fully grasp the horror of what had happened. The victims had not simply died, they had suffered. Many showed unmistakable signs of having been eaten alive, with intestines and other major organs grotesquely exposed beyond what remained of their bodies.
It was a horrifying and nauseating sight to witness. Above all, the heavy stench of blood filled the air, already within every inch of the ground.
The deeper they moved, the stronger the urge to vomit became. They forced it down, reminding themselves that this was only a single supermarket that can hold about 250 people. If this alone was so unbearable, what would they face in an entire city drowned in blood and bodies? They could not afford to break over something so small compared with what awaited them.
Even so, Alexis and Didier could not fully suppress it, of course not, they were just a bunch of kids. What lay before them was beyond anything they had imagined, far worse than horrible in human sense. In a weak voice, Didier muttered a comment that, in another world, might have drawn extreme judgment if the apocalypse had never come:
"They kill the kids in an even worse way than adults, by the looks of it."
In front of them stood the severed head of a boy who looked no older than nine, impaled on a jagged piece of wood, displayed like a trophy, like a banner of human remains. Like a sign of victory on an enemy camp. Despite this, they needed to advance as they were around halfway there.
________________________________________________________________________________________
|Meanwhile in the security room|
"Why are you all focused on the interior cameras? The whole purpose of being here is to watch the outside."
Arnaud and Gabriel turned to Jacob as if they had just remembered their only responsibility, but the realization faded almost immediately.
"So what? It is not like any of them would come near us, especially since whatever scared the phantom last time is probably still out there."
"..." Jacob then let out a faint sigh in utter desperation.
"Is that not perfectly my point?"
Arnaud only wanted Jacob to stop talking, so he switched the feed from the interior cameras to the exterior ones.
"See? There is nothing at all."
Jacob leaned in, scanning each camera to make sure they were not cutting corners. His eyes moved from one screen to the next until he froze on a single feed. It took him a moment to understand what he was seeing.
"… uh, guys? Is that a phantom?"
Gabriel and Arnaud snapped their attention to the screen. The camera clearly showed a phantom, moving slowly toward the supermarket.
Since the phantom was not grinning like a madman, it did not seem aware of their presence, yet it kept advancing. Jacob burst out,
"Which side of the building is it on?"
Gabriel glanced at the camera number.
"Number 5... That puts it on the right side of the store. So Alexis and Didier are moving away from it while it is getting closer to them, and with all the bodies along its path, it probably will not go very far inside."
"That is a relief, I suppose?"
Out of the corner of his eye, Jacob caught a flicker of movement on camera nine.
"Wait… what is that?"
Then he saw it. Another phantom was approaching.
"There is another one!"
"Camera nine… it is heading toward Alexis and Didier. Left side."
The situation was quickly turning dangerous. On one side, a phantom close enough to hear any commotion if a fight broke out. On the other, two seventeen year old boys, completely unaware that they were walking straight towards a deadly being.
Victor spoke up, his voice carrying a strained confidence.
"Philippe, Jacob and Mathieu will go help the other two. Arnaud and I will handle the other one."
The others exchanged startled glances, clearly caught off guard by his words, and Arnaud was the first to respond.
"What exactly are the two of us supposed to do against a phantom? You remember what happened last time. It destroyed you, no it destroyed us completely."
"I know," Victor replied in a somewhat faint anger. "But this time is different. There are two of them. We need to silence at least one as fast as possible. Two of us will hold the one on the right, if keep it from reaching the other then we most likely win. We do not need to win on our side. We only have to buy Alexis and the rest enough time to take one down quickly, five against one, before it turns into seven against two. It may not sound that bad, but it really becomes two separate fights, and in that case, we lose."
The group was taken aback by Victor's composure. He was calm, unnervingly calm for someone who was most likely walking toward his own death. Before anyone could question it, Arnaud spoke up,
"How am I supposed to fight? I got stabbed last time. I do not see any good outcome in a two against one. It will spot me again, and this time it will not play with us."
"Do not worry. It will not see you. I will make sure of that. All you need to do is stay hidden, fire at the right moment, and reload as quickly as you can. Besides, my fighting style is easier to do in one against one."
"..."
Amid the confusion, Gabriel finally spoke, even though he would not be fighting.
"Guys, we should at least hear him out. What he is saying makes sense, and if we do nothing, we are all dead. That includes me. If seven preys were wandering around the bodies and blood of their own kind carelessly, the phantoms would search every corner of this building."
He paused, then added,
"If we agree, we need to move now."
________________________________________________________________________________________
Alexis and Didier were now very close to their objective point, the walkie talkies. The closer they got, the heavier the tension became. What if they were fake? What if there were no batteries inside? What if they were not even walkie talkies at all?
These were not questions they could afford to dwell on anymore. Not here, not now. With phantoms potentially nearby at any moment, doubt had to be pushed aside.
Without a sound, Didier slowly leaned to talk in Alexis's ear to make the least amount of sound as possible.
"Alexis, I just heard something move behind us... it's near, very near."
"Could it be the others?"
The look in Didier's face answered his question but he still let him finish.
"I don't know it was just a faint walking sound but I can't hear it anymore."
"Then we need to hurry. We might run into a phantom."
Out of the corner of Didier's eye, he caught sight of several walkie talkies resting against a surface.
"There they are."
The moment they saw them, the earlier conversation seemed to fade from both their minds for a brief instant. As they stepped closer, something felt wrong. The devices looked off, almost fake, like props rather than something meant to work.
When they finally stood in front of them, both boys hesitated, suspicion creeping in as they questioned whether they were even real at all.
It took less than five seconds to notice. The moment Alexis held the object in his hand, he understood what it really was. It was not a walkie talkie, and it was not even a toy version of one. It was a plushie. None of them were real.
All of a sudden, a low growl echoed from behind them. Slowly, they turned their heads, trembling, silently praying for the worst not to happen. But in the end, it did. A phantom stood behind them, smiling with its uneasy grin, with it's claws ready to dissect a new prey.
________________________________________________________________________________________
|On the other side of the supermarket|
A phantom moved through the alleys, searching for prey, something that would at least put up a struggle, something that moved. It had not moved, nor hunted, in a long time. Then, out of nowhere, a scream cut through the silence, drawing its attention away from the empty alleys of blood.
"COME GET A PIECE OF ME YOU PIECE OF SHIT!"
When the phantom turned its head, it saw a singular human. The prey had no big muscles to speak of, yet it was there, ready to play with him. Victor was standing in that direction with a confident glare, ready to play too.
Without saying anything, the phantom had only one thought in mind.
[Ah. There it is. My prey.]
The long boredom had finally paid off, and now it could feel something close to anticipation. Something like excitement rose within it as it moved forward, the faintest hint of satisfaction shaping into a smile, a bright one.