Chapter 180: Scouting Atlantic City [3]

The sensation of being watched didn’t fade as we continued forward through the residential blocks—if anything, it intensified with each step we took deeper into Atlantic City’s silent streets. My enhanced senses remained on high alert, that prickling awareness crawling across my skin like static electricity, but I couldn’t pinpoint the source no matter how carefully I scanned our surroundings. It couldn’t be helped since Dullahan seemed to prioritised the Infected’s presence.

I chose not to mention the persistent sensation again. Brad had already dismissed my initial warning as paranoid imagination, and bringing it up repeatedly would only feed into his narrative that I was unstable or attention-seeking. Better to maintain vigilance privately while keeping the group focused on forward progress rather than creating additional tension over threats I couldn’t prove existed.

The residential neighborhood gradually began transforming around us as we advanced, the architectural character shifting from purely residential homes toward mixed-use buildings that signaled our approach to Atlantic City’s commercial heart. Small businesses appeared at street corners—convenience stores with shattered windows and looted interiors, family-owned restaurants with faded awnings, neighborhood bars with neon signs now dark and lifeless. The buildings themselves grew taller and more densely packed, the spaces between structures narrowing as suburban sprawl gave way to urban density.

"We’re getting close to the main commercial district," Martin said quietly, his gaze tracking upward toward the skyline ahead where casino towers rose like dark monoliths against the star-filled sky. "Another few blocks and we’ll be in the thick of it—the boardwalk, the casinos, all the tourist infrastructure."

"Which means infected concentration is about to increase dramatically," I said. "Everyone stays sharp and remember—silent kills only unless we’re completely overwhelmed, maintain formation integrity, and if things go catastrophically wrong, we retreat immediately back to the vehicles."

"Yeah, yeah, we heard you the first ten times," Brad muttered from his protected position in the center of our formation. "Stop repeating yourself like we’re children who can’t remember basic instructions."

I ignored him, my attention instead drawn to something far more concerning.

The infected bodies we’d been seeing scattered throughout the residential blocks—the evidence of recent systematic clearing operations by unknown survivors—had abruptly stopped appearing. The last corpse I’d spotted had been perhaps three blocks back, and since then we’d encountered nothing but infected that were very much still animated and mobile.

Either the survivors conducting those clearing operations had limited their activities to the outer residential zones without penetrating deeper into the commercial districts, or something about the inner city had deterred them from advancing further. Neither explanation was particularly comforting.

"Contact ahead," Sydney said softly. "Looks like... a lot of contacts. Maybe twenty or thirty infected clustered around something in the street about two blocks forward."

I focused my own vision in the direction she’d indicated, enhanced sight cutting through the darkness to reveal what she’d spotted. A significant concentration of infected had indeed gathered in the middle of an intersection—far too many to ignore or bypass safely given that our route forward passed directly through that area.

"What are they doing?" Clara asked, squinting uselessly into the darkness that prevented her normal human vision from seeing what Sydney and I could observe clearly. "Are they just standing there?"

"They’re feeding," Rachel said with quiet disgust, her own enhanced senses having picked up the details. "There’s a body in the center of that cluster—something they killed recently enough that it still interests them."

The feeding behavior itself wasn’t particularly unusual. Infected would consume any fresh meat they encountered, whether human, animal, or each other if one of their number was damaged enough to qualify as prey rather than fellow predator. What made this situation badly significant was the concentration—thirty infected occupied with feeding represented both an opportunity and a danger.

On one hand, distracted infected made easier targets. On the other hand, disturbing a feeding cluster could trigger aggressive responses from the entire group simultaneously.

"We need to clear them," I said after a moment’s consideration. "That intersection is our most direct route forward, and trying to detour around that many infected in an urban environment this dense risks running into even worse situations. Better to deal with a known threat than stumble into unknown ones."

"Agreed," Martin nodded. "But we need to be smart about it. Engaging thirty infected simultaneously would be suicide for most groups. We need to thin their numbers before committing to direct confrontation."

"I can handle that," Christopher said, already unsling his assault rifle from his shoulder. "Give me elevated position with clear sightlines and I’ll pick off half of them before they even realize they’re under attack."

I considered the suggestion briefly before nodding approval. "There’s a three-story building on our right with fire escape access to the roof. Rachel, go with Christopher and provide overwatch security while he sets up. The rest of us will hold position here and move forward once he’s reduced their numbers to manageable levels."

"On it," Rachel said immediately, already moving toward the building with Christopher following close behind.

"Wait, you’re seriously going to start shooting?!" Billy said with barely-suppressed panic. "You said using guns would attract every infected in the city! Are you trying to get us all killed?!"

"Suppressed weapon," Christopher replied without breaking stride toward the fire escape. "Won’t be completely silent, but quiet enough that sound won’t carry more than a few blocks. And we’re doing this because the alternative—trying to engage thirty infected in melee combat all at once—is significantly more likely to get us killed than a few controlled shots."

He and Rachel disappeared into the building’s shadowed entrance, leaving the rest of us to maintain defensive positions while they ascended to the rooftop. I tracked their progress mentally, my enhanced hearing picking up the subtle sounds of their careful movement through the structure—footsteps on stairs, the soft creak of the fire escape ladder, finally the barely audible scrape of Christopher settling into firing position.

Several tense minutes passed in silence. Sydney and I maintained watch on the feeding cluster ahead, confirming they remained distracted and unaware of our presence. Martin and Clara covered our flanks, eyes scanning windows and doorways for emerging threats. Brad’s faction huddled together in the center of our formation, muttering complaints too quietly for me to parse individual words but loud enough to convey their general displeasure.

Then I heard it—the distinctive metallic click of Christopher chambering a round, followed immediately by the suppressed cough of his rifle firing.

The sound was indeed remarkably quiet, more like a sharp exhalation than a proper gunshot. Certainly nothing like the thunderous reports that unsuppressed firearms produced. But quiet didn’t mean silent, and I watched carefully to see if the infected cluster would react.

One infected at the cluster’s edge simply collapsed mid-feeding, its skull destroyed by Christopher’s precision marksmanship. The others continued eating, completely oblivious to their companion’s sudden termination.

Another suppressed shot. Another infected dropped.

Christopher worked systematically, targeting the infected at the cluster’s periphery first and working inward, ensuring each shot resulted in immediate brain destruction and instant cessation of all function. His accuracy was genuinely impressive—every single round found its mark, no wasted ammunition or near-misses that might alert the feeding cluster to danger.

This was actually amazing, he really became good didn’t he? He must have trained a lot during his time at the Municipal Office.

By the time the feeding infected finally began reacting to the steady reduction in their numbers, Christopher had eliminated perhaps fifteen of them—cutting the threat level by half before they even understood they were under attack.

The remaining infected began spreading out from the corpse they’d been consuming, heads swiveling as they searched for whatever was killing them. Their movements were agitated, aggressive, but confused—they could sense danger without being able to identify its source or direction.

"Now," I said quietly. "We move before they can scatter completely."

Our formation advanced swiftly, closing the distance to the intersection while the infected were still disorganized and uncertain. Sydney and I took point, our enhanced speed allowing us to cover ground faster than the others while maintaining combat readiness.

The infected spotted us when we were perhaps thirty feet away—close enough that retreat wasn’t an option for them, far enough that we could engage on favorable terms. They surged forward with that characteristic infected aggression, growls building in their corrupted throats.

I met the first infected with my hand axe, the weapon’s blade crushing through the side of its skull with enough force to send bone fragments spraying. Before it had even fully collapsed I was already engaging the second, my movements fluid and efficient. Duck under grasping hands, pivot, drive the axe blade upward through the soft tissue beneath the jaw and into the brain cavity. Withdraw, block a third infected’s lunge with my forearm while simultaneously striking down with the axe to split its skull vertically.

Beside me, Sydney fought with even more efficiency. Her knife work was surgical in its precision. She’d once explained to me that knife fighting was about understanding anatomy, knowing exactly where to cut to produce maximum damage with minimum effort. I thought she was just showing off but watching her now, I believed it completely.

The remaining infected—perhaps ten or twelve still mobile after Christopher’s shooting and our initial engagement—tried surrounding us through sheer numbers. They came from multiple angles simultaneously, attempting to overwhelm us through coordinated assault that their viral intelligence enabled despite individual stupidity.

But Martin and Clara had reached the engagement zone by then, their weapons adding to the controlled violence as we systematically dismantled the infected cluster. Martin was quite brutal with his spike. Clara fought more defensively, using her machete.

The entire engagement lasted perhaps ninety seconds from first contact to final infected collapse. Fifteen infected eliminated in melee combat with zero injuries to our group and minimal noise generated.

We stood there breathing heavily in the aftermath, adrenaline still coursing through our systems as we confirmed all threats were neutralized and no additional infected were responding to the commotion.

"Holy shit," Kyle breathed, his voice carrying genuine awe for the first time since we’d met him. "You guys just... you killed all of them like it was nothing."

"Of course, we are professionals," Sydney replied.

Christopher and Rachel rejoined us moments later, having descended from their overwatch position now that the threat was cleared.

"Nice shooting," Martin complimented Christopher genuinely. "Fifteen targets, fifteen kills, zero wasted ammunition. That’s professional-grade marksmanship."

"You think?" Christopher laughed quite happily.

We continued forward through the intersection, stepping carefully around the infected corpses and the half-consumed body that had attracted them initially. I didn’t look too closely at the original corpse—whatever story it represented, whatever tragedy had led to that person’s death and subsequent consumption, there was nothing we could do about it now except keep moving and focus on our own survival.

The commercial district opened up soon around us as we advanced beyond that intersection. The residential character disappeared entirely, replaced by the unmistakable infrastructure of Atlantic City’s famous tourist economy. Hotels and casinos rose on both sides of the street, their facades still impressive despite months of abandonment. Neon signs hung dark and lifeless where they would once have blazed with colorful advertisements. Parking garages loomed like concrete caverns, their depths impenetrably dark and potentially filled with infected.

And everywhere—absolutely everywhere—there were more infected than we’d encountered in the residential zones.

They wandered the streets in clusters of five, ten, fifteen at a time. They stood motionless in doorways like grotesque mannequins. They gathered around storefronts with shattered windows, perhaps drawn by some viral-corrupted memory of shopping or entertainment. The sheer density of infected presence was staggering, easily ten times higher than what we’d navigated through in the residential neighborhoods.

"This is substantially worse than expected," Martin said. "I knew Atlantic City would have high infected concentration, but this is approaching nightmare levels. There must be thousands of infected in these commercial blocks alone."

"We need to be extremely careful about which encounters we commit to," I said. "We can’t fight our way through thousands of infected. We need to move silently, avoiding detection whenever remotely possible."

"The boardwalk and ocean are still several blocks ahead," Rachel nodded. "We need to penetrate deeper still if we want to assess beachfront properties for potential settlement."

"Then we find a route that minimizes infected contact," I replied. "Look for side streets, alleyways, any path that avoids the main thoroughfares where infected concentration is highest."

We began moving again, but with increased caution now. Every step was carefully placed to minimize sound. Every corner was checked before rounding it. Every cluster of infected was assessed and avoided rather than engaged.

"There," Sydney whispered, pointing toward a narrow service alley running between two casino buildings. "That cuts through toward the next block and looks relatively clear."

I studied the alley carefully with my enhanced vision. She was right—it appeared to be empty of infected presence, probably because it was too narrow and uninteresting to attract their attention. But narrow also meant confined space with limited maneuverability if we did encounter threats inside it.

"Alright, I’ll lead and—"

I froze mid-sentence, my head snapping to the side as a sudden presence prickled at the edge of my awareness.

BANG!

A gunshot cracked through the air, the bullet searing past my face—close enough to feel the rush of displaced air—before it thudded into Clara.

"Hahgh!"