The Third Breed

Strategy

He still felt the poking pain in his arms and legs, from all the killing they did. After the stabbing practice, Max decided to teach them slashing techniques, though he knew how to do it, the ones that the man taught to them prove more effective. As they were able to use it against a few more straggler on their way down.

After two more hours of walking, they finally reached the foot of the mountain, Max immediately grabs both of them forcing them to bend down and hide in the bushes.

“What!” Ariel whispers.

The two of them looked around for any signs of movement.

“Danger,” Max say before crawling towards a nearby tree.

“Huh?” Ariel said while looking at him.

Lance just shrugs and signaled his friend to follow Max, he was now used to the mans acute senses.

They both stopped to watch him climb the tree, the speed of his ascent was incredible, leaping from one branch to the other and then grabbing its trunk to get higher.

It took a while for Lance and Ariel to reach Max. Both of them were gasping for air since they climbed there as fast as they can. They rested at the biggest branch of the tree while grabbing on to its trunk.

“What is it?” Lance asks.

Max was looking far away into a clearing just below them. Ariel then took out his binoculars to see what their companion was looking at.

“s**t, its a horde,” Ariel gasp, then passes him the binoculars.

There was about several groups of zombies gathered together at the road to the next mountain and was almost covering the place. By the looks of it, there was about a few hundred of them.

“What now?” Ariel groans, frustrated at the sight.

Lance takes out his book, and stretches his map to check the surrounding terrain. “We’ll, we can try to take a detour, but that will .”

“Stay here,” Max cuts him off.

“Max wait, we can’t just fight all of those things.” Ariel immediately grabs on to their companions arm before he could move.

“Yeah, there’s too many of them even for you,” he adds.

Max just shrugs his shoulder. “I’ll just run if I get tired,” he says as if it didn’t bother him at all.

“No Max, you can’t,” Ariel was now hugging their companions arm, fearful that they would lose him to the numerous monsters.

Yet, Max kept on budging to escape from Ariel’s grip. It seems the man was not keen with sudden changes to their plan.

“We can always look for another route Max,” he tries to persuade him once more.

Max just gives him a sharp look. “No, they will cause problems later.” he states.

“But you’ll die,” Ariel whines as he was now loosing his hold on the mans arm.

“I have a better idea, though it’s going to take us some time, and half of our stuff,” he says to get the two men’s attention.

It seems there was no reasoning with their companion now. So, Lance decides that they might as well help him rather than not do anything at all.

Max raises a brow when he looks at him, while Ariel ended up pouting. He just smiles at the two then shows them the canisters he got from the crate. He then proceeds to tell his plan which the two both agree on.

“Alright let’s go through this again.” After almost a few hours of hard labor they were finally done. “Ariel, you’ll stay up in the trees as our support and look out, since it will be safer for you up there. Max will lure them to the foot of the mountain, once the zombies starts climbing and slows down, that’s when we strike them, is that clear?” he looks at the two men who were quite happy with their work.

“I like it,” Ariel says raising his thumb.

“Okay,” Max second the notion.

“Max, make sure you don’t take of your face mask, okay,” Lance reminds him pointing to the special apparatus that they were now wearing.

“Okay,” Max nods.

“Alright, lets do this,” Lance claps his hand.

Though he was still scared and unsure of what to expects he was confident at what they were about to do. He had complete trust that all three of them will be able to survive this if all goes according to plan.

Choosing the steepest part of the mountain to set traps, he made sure that they would be able to escape in case they get overrun by the numerous zombies.

When Ariel was up the three, Max began descending the mountain. Lance felt his heart race again. He couldn’t stop the lump from forming in his throat as he and Ariel waited.

A few minutes past and they hear the earth rumbling from a far.

Ariel looks at his binoculars and shouts at the sight of the horde. “s**t, here they come!”

“Alright, get ready.” He says when he see’s Max running towards them.

The crawling infected looked like a sea of meat behind him, covering a large part of the land. The whole place was then filled with loud screams and screeching as the creatures grew closer.

Max increased his speed to lengthen the gap between the monsters. Leaping like a deer from one mound to another he immediately reached Lance.

“Max, stick to the plan okay,” he reminds him.

They both unsheathe their swords as they wait for the mob to get closer. The slopes caused some of the zombies to either slide or tumble down, causing a domino effect. A few more meters and the creatures trips on the string they set up, triggering the canisters that they lined up.

The mechanism hisses as it started releasing red smoke all over the place, as Lance had predicted, it followed the downward wind, engulfing a large number of the horde.

The screams and screeching grew louder as the infected started falling one by one, convulsing violently as the crimson cloud enveloped the monsters.

“Lets go!” Lance shouts as the smoke began thinning.

With that they dash unto the masses of flopping see of flesh. The creatures were still flailing from the effects of the smoke but was unable to attack or moved. Bodies rolled as Max began his dance of onslaught, he was able attack faster as a lot of the creatures were just standing.

As planned, Lance was just behind, assisting when needed, they did not move from their place, making sure that they took down as many as possible within their reach. This continued for hours until he reached his limit.

“Max, let’s retreat!” he orders, though the man look like he still wanted to continue, he still followed him.

They climb back up to their starting point as some of the creatures were still effected by the chemicals.

They were both panting as they sat at the edge of the mound, surveying the remaining horde. Max was still full of energy as he glared at the sight of the moving mass, it was as is he didn’t break a sweat at all.

“Let’s take a break first,” He throws Max a canteen, before taking a sip on his own.

“You guys were amazing, you took out a lot of them,” Ariel was cheering for them from the top of the Tree.

Lance waves at his friend, for some reason the fear and tension he was feeling awhile ago subsided. Now it was as if they were just playing around with the things. “There is still quite a lot of them,” he looks at Max who had just finished drinking.

The man just nods, putting down the canteen he draws his swords.“You stay here, I’ll finish off the nearby ones.”

Lance wasn’t able to intervene since Max already jumped down the slope. He went straight into a group that were getting close to their location.

“Ariel, were going with plan b,” he yells.

“Got it,” Ariel answers and starts taking aim.

Lance checks the perimeter again, Max seems to be doing well taking down quite a number of the monsters. But he was sure that it will take a whole lot more to take down that many.

From their left flank, Max was taking down groups of monsters in an instant, but on the right, some of the ones that were recovering from the smog were starting to move again.

Lance starts making some noise to get the attention of those on that side, once the creatures where within their range, Ariel would shoot them, straight to the head. This continued until he used up a hundred arrows.

Lance would then go down to retrieve the arrows, taking down a few safe ones as he goes. They repeated this a few more times, thinning down the number of the horde.

“Lance, Max is being surrounded,” Ariel panics upon seeing a few groups getting close to their companion.

“On it,” He releases a canister on the left to secure that area before going to Max. He then opens another canister, throwing it to the group behind their friend.

It immediately sends the creature in disarray knocking down some of them and stunning a bunch while others began sliding down. He then proceeded attacking the closest ones that he can get.

He notices that Max was now slowing down due to fatigue; his swords was drenched in blood making it harder to stab the monsters.

“Max retreat,” he yells at him. But it seems the man was bent on taking down as many of the creatures as possible.

“Lance, behind you!” Ariel warns as a bunch of the zombies were managing to avoid the smog and were able to wobble to their location.

They were being overrun, and some of the other creatures were starting to get back up. His mind began rushing as more and more of the reanimated corpses were getting closer, there were just too many of them. With no more choice he starts throwing the canisters he had towards Max whom was attracting most of the horde.

“Max, get back now!” He calls out again, this time the man listens and finally withdraws.

The terrain was able to aid in their escape as it was uneven and required a great deal of balance to trek. But more and more of the vile creatures were already at the top.

“Hurry!” Ariel was frantic as Max and Lance were able to reach the tree, a few of the creatures were right behind them.

They were already climbing when a few of the zombies were surrounding trunk. Both of them were out of breath so Ariel aided them. They rested themselves on the trees branches looking down on the horde.

“We’ll, we took down half of them and I doubt they’ll get up the tree, so, let’s rest for now, Is that clear Max?” Lance tone was now serious as they almost got overtaken because of the Mans rash action.

Max just nods in agreement but doesn’t say a word. Ariel began giving them food to regain their strength. It was already sunset when they manage to gather the whole horde around the tree.

“Alright, it’s dark enough, time got get out of here,” Lance says feeling much better now that they have rested.

He looks at the two men who gives him an approving look. With that they execute their last plan.

After making sure that the wind was still downward, Ariel triggers the remaining canister that they planted a few meters above the mountain, while he and Max throws two more just below. They waited until the zombie were stun, before gliding down from the rope that they attached to the top of the trees a while ago. They went down quietly and unnoticed, covered by the darkness, moving from one tree to the next, and then running the rest of the way down the hill.