"W- what is that?"
I turned to look and saw an incredibly tall figure standing in the middle of the opening, it seemed to have been standing there for a while with its neck making a crack sound when it looked up at us.
I immediately stopped running and took a step back, looking at the face of the monster... It was making a sickening smile with drool slowly dripping down its mouth to the chin until eventually hitting the ground.
The moment the first drop of drool hit the ground, it began to slowly chuckle, almost as if it found us amusing. The footsteps behind us continued to get closer, however both Mandy and I had completely shut out the sound of them, instead, paying very, very close attention to what the zombie... no this is something that can barely even be called that, was doing.
"It's him."
"What?" Mandy quickly asked, not sure by what I meant.
"This is the zombie that was trying to break in back at the tourism centre." I responded, with a stern look, clutching the Colt M1911 in my holster on my waist.
Before I had the chance to act, the zombie let out a very loud roar, the moment it did that, both I and Mandy immediately drew out our weapons and instinctively aimed it toward the monster.
"The running behind us has stopped..." Mandy exclaimed, holding steady aim with her right arm's finger on the trigger, ready to shoot at any moment.
For just a moment, I took my full attention off the monster in front of us at Mandy's words, listening for the footsteps that were just approaching from behind. In that single moment, the zombie appeared between Mandy and me.
An insurmountable feeling of dread appeared along with the incredibly fast zombie. It chuckled for just a second, in that time, I tried to readjust my aim - Mandy did the same.
It instantaneously stopped laughing and grabbed both of our guns, it looked into my eyes, almost like it was trying to make me lose my will to fight.
It's dead, black eyes stared into mine for just a split second, however its overwhelming presence made it clear in that moment, there was no way I could do this alone.
BANG
My body twitched at that moment. I looked to the side of the monster and saw Mandy's shotgun was releasing a barely noticeable smoke trail, most of the pellets had missed, but it was clear that its head had been hit.
The zombie didn't seem very physically affected by it, but it was clearly, extremely agitated. It's facial expression completely changed, before it was a cold, hollow gaze, now, it was full pure, unfiltered anger and agitation towards the both of us, especially Mandy.
In one swift motion, it knocked both of our guns to the ground, on which they slid off, and began lunging at Mandy, turning its back to me.
Almost instinctively, I took up my rifle that had been mounted on my back and aimed it, pulling down the safety latch to firing mode.
Multiple, in quick succession firing sounds from my gun were heard.
I hit the zombie three times in the back and once in its left leg.
The zombie stopped its attack on Mandy and turned to face me, it's breath could be seen in the air, its fury in its entirety seemed to have been shifted to me.
The next moment, I found myself lunging to the side, less than a split second before the zombie tried to attack and kill me with blunt force.
The zombie stood still for a few moments, it almost seemed like it was confused. Mandy immediately took this as a sign and ran towards her shotgun, which had been knocked out of her hands during their first encounter.
The monster finally turned around and looked at me, it made a sickening grin, almost like it was enjoying this - like it was a game to it.
At this point the feeling of despair was competing with so many other feelings and emotions, anger, fear and weirdly... excitement.
"Move, Adam!" Mandy shouted, pointing her gun towards me from a distance.
I quickly looked towards Mandy and saw I was directly in her line of sight of the zombie, I looked to the side, about to run and saw my Colt M1911 which had been thrown away by the zombie a minute ago. I had let go of my rifle during my lunge; it was in the opposite direction.
I immediately began running, both to grab the handgun and to get out of Mandy's line of sight.
As soon as I had gotten just far enough out of the way, Mandy shot, she fired again and again.
I looked back and the zombie was dodging each and every one of her shots, he stopped between rounds and stood still, and only moved when she shot, almost to show off his speed.
After the fifth shot it had finally reached Mandy. The zombie grabbed the barrel of the shotgun and faced it up, the heat emanating from all the shots seemed to not bother it even just a little bit.
I ran up to the zombie from behind while it was preoccupied with Mandy, changing the grip on the handgun, I put my arms over the zombies' neck, with the handgun taking the initial blunt force, I put the handgun on the front part of the neck and dragged it to the ground, taking my hands off its neck as it was falling.
Mandy and somehow the zombie both seemed surprised by what I did... to be honest so was I.
Without hesitation, I aimed the handgun to the zombies' head and fired, I shot three consecutive shots and for a moment it almost seemed to work, it momentarily looked like it had completely died.
After a moment of laying on the ground, it quickly stood up and turned to me, it had a serious expression on its face, before it looked like it was having fun or was extremely angry, however, now it looked like it had had enough.