By the time they stepped outside, the heavy downpour had reduced to a drizzle.
The first thing all three of them noticed were the mutated humans scattered across the open ground. They moved slowly, almost aimlessly, their bodies swaying as they dragged their feet across the wet concrete. Some wandered in loose circles. Others stood completely still for seconds at a time before twitching and shifting direction again.
The three of them stopped instinctively.
It wasn't that the sight was unexpected. It just pulled a cold and automatic fear out of their chests regardless of how prepared they thought they were.
Ryan was more composed than the other two. He had power he could trust, and more importantly, he had the ash soldiers.
"Calm down," he said quietly. "And don't make noise."
Ethan and Lucas stiffened immediately, but there was something in his voice that made both of them listen without question.
"These things can see, but not clearly. Their hearing is another matter entirely," Ryan continued, eyes fixed ahead.
Lucas swallowed. Ethan did the same.
That was new information. After all, they had been hiding in their rooms from the start. Up until now all they had known was simple — those things hunted people.
Ryan's frown deepened as he looked over the courtyard.
There weren't enough of them.
North University was a private school, but its population was still substantial. The low numbers in the dorms had been one thing, but there should have been far more out here. He could see bodies scattered across the ground, and their count actually outnumbered the mutated humans still moving around.
That didn't reassure him. It made him uneasy.
If most of them weren't here then they were gathered somewhere else.
Ryan wanted off this campus as fast as possible.
Ethan leaned slightly closer, keeping his voice barely above a breath. "To reach the maintenance road we'll need to pass the cafeteria, the gym, and the theatre hall."
Ryan didn't hesitate. "Then let's move."
He stepped forward, slow and measured, and the other two followed without a word. They kept close to the building at first, using the wall as cover before angling onto the inner paths of the campus. The drizzle continued, soft and steady, masking the faint sounds of their steps.
The outline of the cafeteria came into view ahead.
They were almost past it when the doors burst open.
The bang carried through the drizzle. Two figures stumbled out onto the wet ground, a boy and a girl, both soaked and wearing panicked expressions on theirfaces. Their eyes locked onto Ryan's group the moment they emerged.
"Help!" the girl screamed, nearly losing her footing as she caught herself.
Behind them, movement spilled out through the open doors. Several mutated humans rushed out of the cafeteria, drawn by noise and movement and the two people sprinting away from them.
"Let's change direction!" Ryan said, already moving.
Ethan followed on instinct. Lucas came half a second behind, his heart lurching.
"Wait! Please!" the boy shouted from behind. "They're chasing us!"
Ryan didn't look back. Behind him Ethan clenched his jaw while Lucas tightened his grip on his knife.
"Don't leave us! Please!"
The screams continued behind them when Ryan's movement came to a stop.
Five mutated humans blocked the path ahead, drawn by the noise.
Knowing he had no choice, Ryan moved despite the fear sitting in his chest.
Power surged through his legs and he closed the distance before the creatures could react. The first one barely turned before the axe came down, heavy and brutal, crushing into its skull with a sharp wet crack. Ryan ripped the axe free without breaking stride.
The second lunged. Ryan swung sideways and the creature's head snapped back as bone cracked. It spun and collapsed.
The third came in close. Ryan drove his shoulder into its chest, staggering it backward, then brought the axe down before it could recover.
Behind him, Ethan had gone completely still and Lucas had forgotten how to breathe.
The fourth and fifth stumbled into each other as Ryan closed on them. One hard kick sent them tangling together. He stepped in immediately with two heavy strikes, one after the other.
Ryan didn't look at the bodies. "Don't stop moving!"
Ethan snapped out of his daze and Lucas followed immediately.
What Ryan hadn't anticipated was that his display would make the two survivors from the cafeteria even more determined to reach him. They had barely escaped the new creatures that had cornered them from their noise, and now they were closing in fast.
"Shit."
Ryan didn't slow down or look back. Unfortunately he had only taken a few more steps when more mutated humans appeared in front of him again, blocking the way forward.
They were ten this time.
Ryan didn't stop moving.
It wasn't that he lacked fear. It was exactly because of the fear of death that he couldn't stop himself from moving. He tightened his grip on the axe and closed the distance.
The first creature went down the same way the others had, fast and brutal. The second and third followed before the group had time to react.
But ten was different from five. All Ryan had was better stats. He was no born fighter.
By the fourth, the gap appeared.
Two creatures came from his left at the same time, moving faster than the others. Before they could land an attack, a shout came from behind Ryan.
Ethan had moved forward, knife in hand, toward the closest of the two. The blade was too dull to do real damage, but he drove it into the thing's shoulder anyway and twisted, buying just enough of a distraction to break its focus from Ryan.
Lucas did the same on the other side, stabbing at the second creature's back, his breathing ragged, his technique nonexistent. The knife barely did any real damage, but the creature turned toward him instead of Ryan.
That brief relief was all Ryan needed.
The axe came down on the first, then the second. Both dropped.
Not paying them too much attention, Ryan turned to focus on the remaining five.
Perhaps their recent actions had given them a measure of confidence, because Lucas and Ethan charged forward alongside Ryan, each picking one of the remaining mutated humans. Ryan didn't know what had come over the two, but he called out as he closed on his own targets.
"Aim for the head."
He didn't believe either of them could actually finish their opponents, not with those weapons. He needed to get through his three fast.
Ryan closed on the first before it had fully turned toward him. His lead foot planted hard against the wet ground and he swung low, driving the axe into the side of its knee. The joint gave with a crack and the creature buckled. The follow-up came immediately, a downward strike to the back of the skull as it dropped. It hit the ground and didn't move.
The second came in fast, arms outstretched, mouth open. Ryan sidestepped just enough to let it overextend, then brought the axe around in a tight horizontal arc. The blade caught it across the temple. The creature's legs folded and it collapsed sideways into the wet concrete.
The third was slower. Ryan didn't give it time and stepped in hard, driving the axe head into its sternum. When it staggered he brought the axe down one final time across the crown of its skull.
After finishing the three, Ryan turned back but what he saw made him pause.
Ethan was on top of one of the creatures, stabbing it in the eye socket over and over. His arm drove the knife down with a mechanical, shaking intensity, his face twisted with something caught between madness and raw terror. The creature had already gone still but Ethan hadn't registered that yet, or didn't care.
Lucas had the other one pinned by the head with one hand, holding it against the ground while he drove his knife repeatedly into its face with no specific target or technique, just desperate force aimed somewhere in the direction of killing it.
The two only stopped when a pair of small orbs appeared on the ground beside the corpses, faintly glowing, the same kind Ryan had seen after his first kill in the dormitory.