Chapter 182: Scouting Atlantic City [5]

BANG! BANG! BANG!

I dropped instinctively, flattening myself against the nearest car chassis as rounds tore through the infected ahead. One by one, their heads snapped back, burst open in sprays of gore.

I squinted down the moonlit street, pulse pounding. There stood a dozen figures—hard faces rimmed in torchlight, weapons raised and trained directly on me.

"Don’t move."

I froze, every muscle locking into place as I assessed the situation. My brain processed dozens of variables simultaneously: distance to cover, number of hostile weapons, probable ammunition types, escape routes, defensive options, offensive capabilities if this devolved into combat.

The math was brutally simple and completely discouraging: if these people decided to fire, several of us would die before I could activate Time Freeze or any of my other enhanced abilities. Rachel and Sydney might survive with their Dullahan durability, but Martin, Clara in her wounded state, and the three useless members of our party would be cut down in seconds.

In which case, I might just freeze the time and get rid of them but...

Slowly—moving with exaggerated care as if I were approaching a wild animal that might bolt or attack at any sudden motion—I shifted position. My hands came out, palms open and visible in what I hoped would be read as a non-threatening gesture. I raised my head carefully, letting moonlight illuminate my face clearly so these armed strangers could see I was young, human, not some infected monstrosity wearing human skin.

I looked at them properly then, taking in details.

They were survivors like us—that much was immediately obvious from their clothing and equipment. Mismatched gear scavenged from dozens of different sources, patched and repaired with the kind of careful maintenance that spoke to deep understanding of how precious functional equipment had become. This vests worn over civilian jackets, military-grade weapons mixed with hunting rifles and improvised armaments, boots ranging from combat models to hiking gear to simple work boots reinforced with duct tape.

But there was something in their eyes—in the hard set of their jaws and the aggressive posture they maintained—that I couldn’t quite interpret. Hostility, certainly. Suspicion, absolutely. But something else lurked beneath those surface emotions. Something that looked almost like... recognition? Or maybe not recognition exactly, but assumption. As if they’d already decided who and what we were before we’d even opened our mouths.

"What are you waiting for, Rico?!" A voice shrieked from somewhere in their formation—male, higher-pitched with stress or possibly youth. "Shoot that bastard down! Do it now before he can—"

"What?" The word escaped my mouth before I could stop it, genuine confusion overriding caution. I stood up slowly, my expression darkening as I tried to understand what the hell was happening here. My gaze swept across their line, searching for some explanation in their faces that would make this make sense.

The sharp, distinctive sound of weapons being cocked and safeties clicking off echoed through the street like a deadly percussion section. Every gun that had been merely aimed at me shifted slightly—small adjustments of angle and tension that signaled immediate readiness to fire.

"Don’t move, I said." The man who spoke—apparently the Rico that the panicked voice had addressed—stepped forward slightly from the formation.

He was built like a tank made flesh—easily six-foot-three or four, with shoulders broad enough to belong to a linebacker or professional wrestler. His head was completely shaved, the moonlight gleaming off his scalp and highlighting the sharp angles of a face that looked like it had been carved from granite rather than born naturally. Scars traced across his features—a long one bisecting his left eyebrow, another cutting through his lower lip. His hands, wrapped around a well-maintained assault rifle with obvious familiarity, were massive and scarred across the knuckles.

At least they didn’t seem to be associated with the coward who’d shot Clara and then run away like the gutless piece of shit he was. If this group had been working with that shooter, they wouldn’t have wasted time with threats and posturing—they would have simply opened fire the moment they had clear sight lines. The fact that we were still breathing meant they were operating under different motivations and protocols than the sniper.

But that realization brought its own troubling question: if this armed group wasn’t responsible for shooting Clara, then who the hell was that rifleman? A lone wolf operating in the city? A scout for yet another faction? Some kind of deranged survivor who shot at anyone entering his claimed territory?

No. I didn’t have time to puzzle through that mystery right now. The immediate threat—a dozen armed and hostile survivors who looked ready to execute us on the spot—demanded my full attention.

"Wait, what’s happening here?!" Christopher’s voice cut through the tense standoff as he appeared from the alley behind me, Sydney and Rachel flanking him on either side. All three looked panicked, eyes wide as they took in the scene—me standing exposed in the open, a dozen guns trained on our position, infected corpses littering the street.

"Wow, that’s a lot of guys," Sydney said surprised. "Like, genuinely impressive numbers. Are you guys recruiting, or...?"

The armed group’s response was immediate. Every weapon that had been focused on me swiveled with precision to cover the new targets. Suddenly Christopher, Sydney, and Rachel found themselves staring down the same barrels I’d been confronting, red targeting dots painting across their chests and faces.

"W...Wait a minute, why are you shooting at us?!" Kyle’s voice emerged from behind them—high-pitched and cracking with terror. I glimpsed him cowering behind Rachel’s back like a child hiding behind his mother, using her body as a human shield without any apparent shame about the cowardice that action represented. Brad and Billy were similarly positioned, trying to make themselves as small as possible while maintaining the protective barrier of more capable people between themselves and danger.

"Yeah, what the hell is this?!" Brad’s attempt at aggressive confrontation fell completely flat when delivered from a position of obvious terror while hiding behind a woman he’d been insulting and dismissing for weeks. "You can’t just threaten us like this! We haven’t done anything wrong!"

"Kill these bastards, Rico!" The skinny figure I’d heard earlier—apparently named Jake based on how others addressed him—shouted from his position in the formation. "What are you waiting for? Just give the word! We can end this right now before they can cause problems!"

"Shut up, Jake," Rico’s voice snapped. "These people are... weird."

He frowned, his weapon lowering fractionally—not enough to remove the threat, but enough to signal he was reassessing the situation rather than simply preparing to execute us. His eyes tracked across our faces.

"What do you mean weird?!" Jake’s voice climbed toward hysteria, gesticulating wildly enough that I worried he might accidentally discharge his weapon. "They’re with Callighan! You know they have to be! Look at them—fresh gear, weapons, organized group moving through his territory! This is exactly what we’ve been warned about!"

"Wait a minute," Sydney interjected, confused. "Who the hell is Callighan? Because I’ve never heard that name before in my life, and we definitely aren’t working for anyone by that name or any other name."

"Don’t speak!" Another member of the armed group—a middle-aged man with a graying beard and haunted eyes—pointed his weapon directly at Sydney’s face. "Don’t say another word until Rico gives permission, understand?"

"Alright, alright, no need to be so aggressively rude about it," Sydney said, raising both hands in the universal gesture of surrender.

I knew playing this carefully and non-threateningly was our best option given the current situation. These people had superior numbers, established firing positions, and what appeared to be military-grade weapons against our comparatively lighter armament. A firefight here would be catastrophic for both sides—we might win through our Dullahan enhancements, but the cost in lives could be horrific.

Of course, at worst, I could always activate Time Freeze and shift the balance dramatically in our favor. Ten seconds of stopped time would allow me to disarm most of them, reposition our people to cover, maybe even neutralize their leadership before they could respond. But something in my gut told me these weren’t bad people—not really. They seemed just scared and wary about something.

Besides, there seemed to be a fundamental misunderstanding here. If I could identify and correct that misunderstanding, we might resolve this without bloodshed.

"Look at them carefully, Jake," Rico said, his frown deepening as he continued his assessment. "They all look like kids. Teenagers, maybe early twenties at most. Does Callighan recruit children now? That doesn’t match his operational profile."

From their perspective, he wasn’t wrong in that evaluation. Sydney, Christopher, and I had been high school students just a few months ago when the world ended—seventeen and eighteen years old, our biggest concerns involving exams and college applications.

Rachel and the other three members of our group appeared to be in their early twenties based on physical appearance—young adults rather than kids exactly, but still far from these people.

"Please," Rachel spoke up. "We have someone seriously injured who’s bleeding out. We need—"

"Don’t move! Stay back!" Rico’s weapon snapped up again, the muzzle centering on Rachel.

And that—seeing a gun pointed at Rachel in as many minutes, watching her flinch backward with a bit of fear clear in her eyes—that shattered what remained of my patience like glass under a hammer.

First Sydney and now Rachel.

I moved.

Not at full Dullahan speed—that would have appeared supernatural, would have revealed abilities I preferred to keep hidden from potential threats. But fast enough that I crossed the distance between us in perhaps a second and a half, my enhanced reflexes allowing me to track Rico’s minute muscle tensions and predict his trigger discipline.

My hand shot out and caught his wrist—the one supporting the rifle’s forward grip—in a grip like a mechanical vise. Enhanced strength that exceeded normal human parameters by significant margins allowed me to control the weapon completely despite Rico’s considerable size advantage.

"W...What?!" Rico’s eyes went wide with shock as he realized what had just happened. His finger moved toward the trigger reflexively, but I was already responding—my thumb pressing down behind the trigger itself, physically preventing the mechanism from engaging even if he applied full pressure.

Then I raised his wrist upward, forcing the rifle’s barrel to point toward the sky rather than at Rachel. The entire sequence took maybe three seconds from initial movement to weapon control.

"Don’t point a gun at a defenseless woman," I said, looking up to meet Rico’s eyes despite his significant height advantage. My voice emerged colder than I’d intended—ice over steel, something t I couldn’t completely suppress after watching Sydney threatened and then Rachel similarly targeted.

Rico gulped audibly.

"Rico!" Multiple voices shouted simultaneously from the armed group’s formation, weapons swiveling to target me specifically now rather than spreading across my whole group.

But I ignored them completely, maintaining eye contact with Rico while continuing to speak. "Did she threaten you? Did any of us threaten you in any way, with words or weapons or hostile actions? Do you even know who we are, or are you acting purely on assumptions like idiots?"

I hardened my grip around his wrist fractionally—not enough to break bones yet, but enough to cause serious discomfort and make the implicit threat absolutely clear.

"Nghh... wait!" Rico groaned, his face contorting with pain as my fingers compressed flesh, muscle, and bone with force.

The sound of his distress brought me back to myself—reminded me that I was on the verge of snapping this man’s wrist like a dry twig, causing permanent disability over what was fundamentally a misunderstanding. I released him immediately, stepping back and raising my own hands to show I wasn’t continuing the aggression.

I’d nearly broken his wrist...

"Rico!" Jake’s voice had climbed to genuine hysteria now. "This bastard just assaulted you! Let’s shoot him down right now! Everyone, open fire on my—"

"Wait! Please, everyone wait!" Martin’s voice cut through the escalating chaos, high and desperate with panic. He emerged from the alley behind us, supporting Clara’s weight on his shoulder as she sagged against him.

Guns turned toward this new arrival, fingers tightening on triggers as the armed group responded to unexpected movement.

But then they saw Clara properly—saw the blood soaking through her jacket and shirt, saw her face pale as death and drawn with agony, saw the way she could barely support her own weight. And every single one of them froze, weapons lowering fractionally as shock replaced aggression.

"Infected!" Someone shrieked. "She’s infected! Back away, she’s turning!"

"She isn’t infected, you absolute dumbass!" Sydney’s voice cracked like a whip, genuine anger blazing in her tone in ways I rarely heard from her. She stalked forward, positioning herself protectively between the guns and Martin’s vulnerable position supporting Clara. "She’s been shot! Bullet wound, you comprehension-challenged idiots! Look at the injury location—shoulder, not neck or bite zones! Does that look like infection to you, or are your pattern recognition skills completely broken?!"

It was genuinely rare to see Sydney this angry—but this clearly wasn’t a situation with any room for laughter or deflection.

"S-Shot?" Rico’s voice emerged with confusion and something that might have been dawning horror. His weapon lowered further, eyes tracking to Clara’s wound with what looked like genuine concern replacing the previous hostility. "Wait, someone shot her? Who? When?"

"Yes, shot—as in bullet fired from a rifle into living human tissue," Sydney said sarcastically, glaring at the armed group with intensity that made several of them shift uncomfortably. "Was it one of you? Because if it was, I really need to know right now so I can decide whether we’re about to have a serious problem or if we can move past this misunderstanding peacefully."

"Huh, what?" Rico’s voice emerged with genuine confusion. His massive frame twisted slightly as he looked back toward his own group, seeking confirmation. "Did any of you shoot at these people? Anyone fire before we engaged the infected?"

One by one, heads shook in negative response.

As expected it wasn’t them.

"Good for you, then," Sydney said.

Jake glared at Sydney with impotent fury. His jaw worked as if he wanted to respond with some cutting retort or renewed threat, but something in Sydney’s expression apparently convinced him to keep his mouth shut. He’d clearly failed to pick his target well.

"I don’t know who this Callighan person is that you keep mentioning," I said. "But we definitely aren’t with him, working for him, or associated with him in any capacity. We literally just arrived in Atlantic City tonight for the first time. This is our initial reconnaissance of the city."

"You just... arrived?" Rico’s tone carried skepticism mixed with cautious curiosity. "From where? What brings an armed group to Atlantic City specifically?"

"To find a suitable place to settle our community," I explained. "We lost our previous home to... complications. The entire town was invaded, and we barely escaped with the survivors we managed to evacuate. Now we’re looking for a new location that can support our people—preferably somewhere with ocean access, defensible positions, and sufficient resources to sustain long-term habitation."

Rico’s eyes narrowed as he processed this information;

"Find a place to settle," he repeated slowly.

"Regardless of the strategic reasoning," I continued, my voice taking on a harder edge as I shifted topics, "we are in a significant hurry right now. We urgently need to treat Clara’s gunshot wound before she loses too much blood or the injury becomes infected. And more immediately, we all need to leave this exposed position because you people just initiated an extremely loud shooting session in the middle of a city packed with thousands of infected who respond aggressively to sound stimuli."

Several members of Rico’s group shifted uncomfortably at my pointed words, glancing around at the surrounding buildings and darkened streets with renewed wariness. They’d been so focused on the perceived threat our group represented that they’d apparently forgotten the far more numerous and predictable threat that gunfire would attract.

"We thought you were with Callighan’s forces," Rico said through gritted teeth.

I honestly couldn’t care less about such excuses.

I didn’t respond verbally. Instead, I turned away from Rico and walked toward where my hand axe had embedded itself in the brick wall behind the car that man had been using for cover.

Grasping the familiar leather handle—smooth from weeks of constant use, the grain dark with absorbed sweat and blood—I pulled with steady pressure. The axe blade scraped against brick and mortar as it came free, small fragments of red brick falling away and clicking against the pavement.

"Doesn’t matter right now who thought what about whom," I said, turning back to face him.

The infected were coming. Drawn by the sustained gunfire like moths to flame, converging from multiple directions on the position where food sources had been so conveniently announced.

"Infected are approaching our position right now because of your loud weapons discharge," I continued. "I’m going to fight. What you and your group do is entirely up to you. You can help, you can run, you can stand there and watch. I genuinely don’t care which option you choose as long as you don’t actively interfere or shoot at us while we’re trying to survive."