The group continued advancing while carefully controlling their spacing.
Andrey kept an unusually sharp watch on everything around them.
The others looked alert enough, but in his eyes they were still far too relaxed.
Especially that guy named Wesker.
Andrey felt as though the man was ready to disappear at any moment.
Someone like that was unreliable.
He would need watching.
The SVD Custom remained slung across Andrey’s back.
He moved in the middle of the formation with a Desert Eagle in hand, alert for threats from every direction.
Then he heard barking.
“Watch your surroundings!” he warned.
The others nodded.
They could hear dogs around them as well, but these barks were different from normal—lower, harsher, and vicious.
Crack…
It sounded like a dry branch snapping underfoot.
A moment later, the rapid pounding of running feet came from ahead.
Without seeing the source, one might have mistaken it for a cheetah or a pack of jackals.
What came charging toward them instead was a pack of rabid-looking dogs.
Chris, whose eyesight was particularly sharp, could already make out exposed bone and rotting muscle and skin across their bodies.
“Front line, fire!
Rear four, keep watching the perimeter!” At Andrey’s order, the handguns opened up together.
Several zombie dogs charging head-on were killed immediately, while a few agile beasts actually twisted aside and avoided the first volley.
They continued hurtling toward the inspection team.
Yet even after dodging the first shots, none could penetrate within five meters of the group before the dense crossfire cut them down.
“Watch the rear.” Andrey warned them again.
Sure enough, several of the mutated animals had circled around from behind.
Jill and Barry were both excellent shots and killed three infected dogs trying to flank them.
Kenneth started to move closer to check the bodies, but Andrey stopped him.
Instead, Andrey picked up a rock and threw it at one of the fallen animals…
The moment the stone touched it, the supposedly dead dog sprang up—only for a large-caliber Desert Eagle round to blow its head apart.
Kenneth felt a cold rush of fear.
If he had walked over there just now…
“These things aren’t that easy to finish.
Be careful.”
After giving the warning, Andrey ordered everyone back into formation and continued forward. This chapter was taken from novelping.com without permission.
By now, they understood.
This was no inspection.
This was combat.
“Captain Andrey, Albert Wesker is gone.”
Chris reported it, and Andrey’s eyebrows nearly climbed off his forehead.
He had taken his eyes off the man for one moment and Wesker had vanished?
He did not start cursing.
Instead, he looked toward the four covering the rear and said they needed someone brave with good marksmanship to guard the left flank.
Any volunteers?
Before Barry could speak, Jill raised her hand and volunteered.
Looking at the courageous young woman reminded Andrey of the women on Li Yun’s team.
He smiled and assigned Jill the position.
Although Andrey had noticed something earlier: during the first attack from the rear, he had initially heard only one gun firing.
Probably Barry’s.
Jill had likely frozen for a moment when confronted with something she had never imagined seeing…
Their group of ten had become nine, but they kept advancing.
Before leaving the forest, they encountered two more attacks by infected dogs.
Altogether, they killed roughly twenty of the creatures.
There really were a lot of strays in these mountains.
Once they emerged from the forest, the group spotted an overturned jeep ahead.
When they approached, they found every soldier around it dead.
There were no survivors.
“Watch the perimeter.
Enrico, John, with me.
Let’s inspect the jeep and see if anything useful was left behind.”
Everyone except the two named men immediately took up security positions.
Enrico was the first to find a clue inside the jeep: a file folder.
“Billy Coen?
Death-row inmate?
His body isn’t here.
Is he still alive?” Andrey quickly skimmed the file.
He had already confirmed that all the corpses around the vehicle belonged to the military police escort.
There was no prisoner among them.
Apparently the kid was hard to kill.
Enrico immediately asked whether Billy might have killed the escorts.
Andrey shook his head.
He and John had examined the bodies. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
The soldiers had either been bitten to death or suffered fatal wounds from claws.
None of it looked like the work of a human being.
“Don’t come any closer!
Stop!” Jill suddenly shouted.
Andrey had noticed it too: several human figures around them were beginning to move closer.
“Stay back!
I’m warning you—stop!” Jill issued a second verbal warning, but the figure in front of her kept shuffling steadily forward.
Finally, acting on instinct, she fired into its knee.
The target dropped to one knee.
Jill had just started to relax when the man began dragging himself toward her again.
A chill shot through her.
She was about to fire into the other knee when Andrey shot first.
The large-caliber Desert Eagle round blew the man’s entire head apart.
Andrey knew immediately that he had created a new problem.
The Desert Eagle had plenty of virtues, but it was loud as hell and threw an enormous muzzle flash.
Sure enough, the gunshot drew more zombies toward them.
Andrey studied their numbers and reached a simple conclusion—kill them all.
“Aim for the head!
Don’t let them get close.
If you want to make it out of here alive, stay alert.”
Andrey drew his second Desert Eagle and began alternating fire between the two pistols, becoming the absolute center of the engagement.
The others supported him with their M92 handguns and kept the zombies from closing in.
By the time both Desert Eagle magazines ran dry, the wave had been wiped out.
Kenneth and Rebecca found a crowbar in the overturned jeep and only then dared approach the bodies.
Anything whose head had not been destroyed by Andrey’s Desert Eagles deserved caution.
After examining them for a while, Rebecca and Kenneth were both frustrated.
The corpses carried identification, but there was no information explaining who these people really were, what they had been doing, or how they had come to be here.
They immediately reported that to Andrey.
After thinking for a moment, he asked whether there was any form of mass transport nearby.
“There’s a train line close by.
The tracks are just ahead.”
Rebecca answered first.
Andrey nodded.
Then they needed to find out whether the train was still there.
This many people could not have arrived all at once without some form of mass transportation.