Chapter 225: Gaspar [1]

"Group of Infected approaching! Multiple targets, coming from the east!"

Both Rebecca and Mei immediately turned their attention toward the source of the warning, their personal conflict instantly forgotten in the face of potential danger.

Rebecca’s hand instinctively went to the knife sheathed at her belt—a weapon she’d been training with but had never actually used in real combat against Infected.

Mei immediately started moving toward the commotion. Rebecca followed a few steps behind, matching her pace.

The warning was coming from the opposite direction, not from Atlantic City where Ryan and the others had gone, but from the road leading back the way they’d come. That was unusual. Most of the Infected they’d encountered had been stragglers wandering out from the city itself, drawn by old instincts toward areas that had once held large populations.

"How many are there?" Mei asked as they approached Margaret, who stood near the front of the defensive line with a concerned expression.

"There appear to be approximately twenty of them," Clara answered before Margaret could respond. She was shading her eyes with one hand, squinting into the distance where the shambling forms were slowly becoming more distinct against the horizon. "Maybe a few more—it’s hard to get an exact count at this distance."

"It’s manageable," one of the armed men said with more confidence. He gripped his hunting rifle tighter, checking the magazine one more time. "We’ll use the firearms to deal with them from range. No need to let them get close and take unnecessary risks with melee combat."

Margaret nodded her agreement. "Everyone with guns, form a firing line here. Those without ranged weapons, stay back and be ready to finish off anything that gets through. We want clean, controlled engagement. We don’t take any risks."

She turned to address Mei and Rebecca specifically. "You two should move back behind the vehicles. This could get loud and messy. We’ll handle it."

Mei simply nodded without argument, turning to head back toward the camping van without any apparent desire to watch the upcoming fight or prove herself useful in the engagement.

Rebecca looked briefly toward the approaching threat, her eyes straining to make out details. From this distance, the Infected were just dark shapes, twenty or so figures moving together. They were still maybe two hundred yards out, giving the defenders plenty of time to prepare.

She clenched her hand around the knife handle. Some part of her wanted to stay, to prove she could contribute, to show she wasn’t just dead weight that needed protecting.

But she also wasn’t stupid enough to think she could meaningfully help against twenty Infected when people with guns and far more experience were handling it. All she’d accomplish by insisting on participating would be getting in the way or putting herself at unnecessary risk.

Frustrated with her own uselessness but recognizing the reality, she lowered her hand from the knife and turned to follow Mei back toward the camping van.

"Don’t you want to stay and watch how they fight?" Rebecca asked from behind Mei. "

"Watching people shoot guns at a cluster of Infected isn’t particularly interesting or educational," Mei replied without turning around or slowing her pace. "And I care about preserving my eardrums, you see. Gunfire is extremely loud, especially when multiple firearms are discharging simultaneously in close proximity. No reason to subject myself to that."

Rebecca felt somewhat upset at Mei’s dismissive response. "So I suppose you’ve just decided to remain useless indefinitely? Never bother learning how to actually survive in this world? Just coast along relying on everyone else to protect you until the inevitable day that doesn’t work anymore?"

The words came out harsher than Rebecca had initially intended, but once she’d started, momentum carried her forward.

Mei stopped walking and slowly turned around to face Rebecca.

Behind Rebecca, back at the defensive line, people had gathered to watch the upcoming engagement—though most maintained a safe distance behind those actually holding weapons. Some seemed drawn by morbid curiosity, wanting to witness the violence. Others looked genuinely concerned, wanting to ensure the threat was properly dealt with before relaxing their guard. Family groups stayed further back, parents positioning themselves between their children and the line of sight to the approaching Infected.

Twenty targets was a significant number after all. People wanted visual confirmation that the defenders could handle it before returning to whatever they’d been doing.

"Do you have something specific you’d like to say, Rachel’s sister?" Mei asked, raising one eyebrow.

"I said exactly what I meant," Rebecca retorted, crossing her arms. "At least even though I’m physically weak and inexperienced, I’m actively trying to learn how to fight. I practice with my knife every day, I watch how the others engage Infected, I’m preparing myself to be useful when it matters. But you? You don’t seem to care about any of that. You spend your days reading stupid books that won’t help anyone survive. You’re never actually on the field when fighting happens, are you? Always safely in the rear."

"Um... Rebecca?" Daisy’s tentative voice interrupted as she approached from the side, clearly having arrived at exactly the wrong moment to witness this confrontation. Her eyes were wide behind her broken glasses, darting nervously between Rebecca and Mei.

Rebecca barely acknowledged Daisy’s presence, keeping her focus fixed on Mei and waiting for a response.

"Everyone has their own weaknesses and limitations," Mei replied calmly. "Not everyone is suited for direct combat, and recognizing that isn’t cowardice—it’s self-awareness."

"So you’ve just chosen to stay in the back like a coward indefinitely?" Rebecca pressed, not satisfied with that answer. She let a derisive snort escape. "Hide behind everyone else whenever any threat arises? Even Miss Ivy, who’s a nurse and arguably more valuable alive than dead in combat, offered to accompany Ryan’s group into danger. But you won’t even stand and watch from a safe distance?"

"You certainly have a lot to say about my choices," Mei observed, a hint of amusement creeping into her voice. "But you aren’t actually doing anything substantially better yourself, are you? All you do most days is complain about various things and pick fights with people. Quite the valuable contribution you’re providing to the group’s wellbeing and morale."

"I complain because I genuinely care about this group and feel concerned about its direction and decisions," Rebecca shot back, completely unbothered by Mei’s implication. "I pay attention to what’s happening, I think about potential problems, I voice concerns that others might be too polite to mention. But I guess that level of engagement doesn’t matter to someone as selfish as yourself, someone who has no one around to call friend or family, no one who actually cares whether you live or—"

"Rebecca!" Daisy cut her off sharply, her voice rising louder than Rebecca had ever heard it before.

Rebecca flinched at the interruption, surprised by the uncharacteristic force in Daisy’s tone. She turned toward her friend, only to find Daisy staring at her with an expression of genuine shock.

Rebecca’s mouth opened to finish her sentence or perhaps defend her words, but the look on Daisy’s face made her pause. The realization of what she’d been about to say settled over her.

She may have gone too far.

Definitely had gone too far.

She turned back toward Mei, an apology forming on her lips, but Mei had already turned away.

"If you’re finished with your petty squabbling, I don’t have time for this," Mei said as he began walking toward the camping van without waiting for any response.

"W...Wait, Mei, she didn’t mean it like that..." Daisy tried to catch up, reaching out toward Mei’s shoulder. "Rebecca just gets heated—"

Mei shrugged off Daisy’s attempted touch and continued walking, ignoring the attempt at peacemaking just as completely as she’d ignored Rebecca’s attack.

Daisy stopped, her hand falling back to her side, looking helplessly between Mei’s retreating back and Rebecca’s guilty face.

"What do we have here?"

The unfamiliar voice came from directly ahead.

Mei stopped abruptly in her tracks.

She raised her gaze upward.

Atop the camping van, their camping van, sat a figure that definitely had not been there moments ago.

A man in his mid-twenties lounged casually on the van’s roof as if he owned it, one leg dangling over the edge while the other was drawn up with his arm resting on his knee. He had dark brown skin and distinctive spiky blond hair styled in a crescent-shaped punk mohawk that ran down the center of his head like a ridge. .

He wore a denim sleeveless vest over a plain white t-shirt, his muscular arms bare and displaying several faded tattoos that Rebecca couldn’t make out clearly from this angle. Combat boots and worn jeans completed the outfit.

He sat with a wide smile on his face, his dark brown eyes gleaming with amusement as they swept over the three young women standing below him.

"Who are you?" Mei asked, her eyes narrowing as she looked at the intruder perched atop their vehicle.

She felt her heartbeat quickening for reasons she couldn’t entirely explain.

Rebecca and Daisy both seemed equally wary, their bodies tensing as they processed the threat.

"Gaspar," he replied simply.

"Are you with the Boardwalk Community or with Callighan’s group?" Mei asked right after.

Gaspar’s smile widened, showing teeth. "Callighan is a very close friend of mine," he said.

The answer immediately put all three of them further on guard, hands moving unconsciously toward whatever weapons they carried.

Ryan had told them about Callighan’s people in clear terms—they were dangerous individuals without regard for human life, the kind who shot first and never bothered with questions. One of them had put a bullet in Clara without even attempting to identify whether she was a threat. And Callighan himself, from everything they’d heard, was a psychopathic leader who ruled through fear and violence.

If this Gaspar was associated with that group, then his presence here meant nothing good.

"What do you want?" Margaret’s voice rang out as she approached from the direction of the defensive line, Clara following close behind.

Behind her, the rest of the community members who’d been dealing with the Infected threat turned their attention to this new problem. The ones holding firearms immediately redirected their weapons toward Gaspar, barrels pointing up at where he lounged on the van’s roof.

The casual threat display didn’t seem to bother Gaspar at all. If anything, his smile grew wider.

"I’m here looking for a certain person..." Gaspar said slowly, his eyes sweeping across the assembled crowd with slowness before finally settling on a figure standing toward the back of the group. His hand rose, finger pointing directly. "You!"

The crowd instinctively parted, people stepping aside to reveal Wanda standing there in the gap they’d created. Her pale face and distinctive red eyes made her impossible to miss once attention focused on her.

"What?!" Joel immediately moved to position himself in front of his granddaughter, raising his arm protectively across her body.

Gaspar’s smile widened further, taking on an almost gleeful quality. "You really plagues of Starakians, you know that?" He said.

Wanda simply stared back at him with those red eyes, her expression unreadable and giving nothing away.

Gaspar’s smile faded as quickly as it had appeared, his expression shifting to something more businesslike and cold. "I’m going to take you—"

BANG!

The gunshot rang out suddenly and violently, cutting off whatever Gaspar had been about to say.

One of the community members holding a rifle had fired without warning, the bullet streaking toward Gaspar’s center mass at lethal velocity.

Everyone looked shocked at the sudden escalation, turning immediately back toward Gaspar to see the result of the shot—hopefully to see him wounded or dead, threat eliminated.

Instead, they all widened their eyes in collective shock and horror.

Gaspar’s arm was raised defensively, but it no longer looked entirely human. Something fluid and bright yellow had manifested around it, covering the flesh like living armor. The bullet had struck that yellowish substance directly and simply stopped, embedded in the strange material without penetrating through to actual tissue. No blood emerged. No wound appeared.

"I...Impossible..." The man who’d fired muttered in shock, his voice barely audible as his mind struggled to process what he was witnessing.

Everyone stared with equal disbelief, unable to reconcile what they’d just seen with any understanding of how the world worked.

Mei’s eyes widened as comprehension crashed over her. "You’re... a Host?" She breathed out, the words escaping before she could stop them.

A Symbiote host. Like Ryan.

Someone with a parasite granting them supernatural abilities.

Gaspar gave Mei a smirk of acknowledgment, confirming her suspicion—before his expression vanished entirely, replaced by something cold and emotionless as he turned his attention toward the man who’d shot him.

And then, with horrifying speed, something yellow flashed through the air.

A tendril, a serpentine extension of that same bright yellow substance that had protected Gaspar’s arm—lashed out like a striking snake. It moved so fast that most people barely registered the movement before it had already completed its deadly arc.

The tendril pierced straight through the shooter’s chest with a wet, meaty sound.

"Guughn!!" The man gasped, looking down at his own torso to see the yellowish appendage protruding through his sternum, having punched clean through his heart and out his back.

Blood began spreading across his shirt in a rapidly expanding stain.

A second later, his legs gave out. He collapsed to his knees, then fell forward onto his face, the tendril retracting from his body as he dropped.

Dead before he hit the ground.

"HYAAA!!"

Panic erupted instantly. People screamed and scrambled backward, trying to put as much distance as possible between themselves and this monster wearing human skin.

The remaining fighters with firearms opened fire in a desperate, uncoordinated volley—multiple weapons discharging simultaneously in a thunderous barrage aimed at Gaspar.

But that yellow tendril appeared again, multiplying and spreading like roots or branches. Multiple appendages manifested and moved with impossible speed, intercepting bullets in mid-flight. The projectiles embedded harmlessly in the yellowish biomass, stopped completely before they could reach Gaspar’s actual body.

"What the fuck is that thing?!!" One of the shooters shouted, his voice cracking with terror as his mind refused to accept what his eyes were showing him.

The people firing were completely dumbfounded, their understanding of reality crumbling as they continued pumping rounds into something that simply absorbed the damage without effect.

"Take her away!" Mei shouted toward Daisy, her gaze snapping to where Wanda still stood. "Get her out of here!"