How Zombies Survive in the Apocalypse

“Hick…!”

Someone let out that sound while watching the zombies swarm underneath the warehouse building.

Those corpses, having already run for several kilometers, didn’t seem tired at all as they mindlessly tried to climb up the warehouse walls.

The frenzy flickering in their eyeballs caused some people’s consciousness to become disturbed.

However, before that disturbance could turn into panic, Asher’s shout rang out.

“Stay focused, everyone! Here, take these magazines!”

Even in a situation where zombies were right at their doorstep, Asher busily moved around the warehouse rooftop.

He concisely informed each person of what they had to do.

Of course, what Asher said to everyone was essentially the same.

The only task for all those present was to prevent the zombies from climbing up.

However, the reason Asher personally approached and repeated similar words to everyone was because of their fear.

There were still those unfamiliar with combat present.

And even for those accustomed to it, some were uneasy due to their injuries.

Asher was trying to calm them down.

“…”

Aiden highly evaluated Asher’s actions.

For a group leader, even of a small group, it was indeed a fitting judgment.

Even if they clearly knew what needed to be done in such chaotic situations, having their minds stabilized would be a great help.

Moreover, this would be Asher’s only chance to encourage his companions like this.

Once the thousands of zombies that had already swarmed truly began their assault on the warehouse, there wouldn’t even be a moment’s respite to speak.

“Kiiiii!”

Bang!

Without hesitation, Aiden fired at a zombie attempting to climb up the wall.

The zombie with its head pierced fell backwards.

However, as soon as one corpse fell, two others immediately took its place, clawing their way up.

The shrieks, now doubled, erupted along with four hands flailing towards the sky.

Bang! Ba-bang!

Aiden silenced one of them, and in that moment, Sadie beside him blew off the head of the other.

Having experienced several battles by now, Sadie’s shooting skills with a pistol had markedly improved.

Not only that, but the clarity in her eyes was now unwavering.

While even most adults were daunted by the sheer number of zombies, this child had taught herself how to face combat without fear.

“…”

Aiden looked admiringly at Sadie’s transformation.

On the other hand, Arian’s gaze was filled with bitterness.

And amid that, the zombies’ shrieks resounded.

“Tsk…”

Clicking her tongue as if annoyed, Arian picked up her pistol.

Since she couldn’t use her machete from atop the warehouse, this was the pistol Aiden had given her earlier.

The pistol spat bullets.

Although Arian’s shooting motions were more awkward than even Sadie’s, her bullets still admirably struck the zombies’ heads.

“Aiden.”

At that moment, Asher approached Aiden.

Having visited every other person, he had now come to Aiden as well.

However, Aiden, who didn’t need reassurance, opened his mouth as Asher handed him magazines and a few grenades.

“How much ammunition is left?”

“About 5,000 rounds, excluding what I’ve distributed. See over there in the center? Ask them if you need more.”

Asher pointed towards the center of the warehouse rooftop.

There was a large ammunition box that they had desperately brought, even abandoning other supplies.

The injured unable to fight and the children were filling magazines and distributing them to those with guns.

“5,000 rounds…”

Aiden shook his head slightly.

For a small group like Asher’s, it was a considerable amount of ammunition, but it was clearly insufficient against the zombie horde rapidly approaching.

“Also, I have a request.”

Asher pointed to the door near Aiden that led to the stairs down to the lower floor.

It was connected to the path they had ascended earlier.

“Can you and your group block that entrance? I had it temporarily barricaded, but it won’t hold for long at this rate.”

Aiden had indeed seen Asher and his companions piling boxes there earlier, but as Asher said, it wasn’t a sturdy enough barricade.

Those zombie masses would soon tear through those boxes and break down that door.

It seemed like a waste not to utilize Arian’s strength in such a situation.

There was no reason to refuse.

“Alright, we’ll take care of it.”

So Aiden accepted his request.

For Aiden’s group, it wasn’t a particularly burdensome task.

At this, Asher nodded and swiftly moved on.

“The stairs-“

“Got it, I’ll handle it.”

As if already aware of Aiden’s thoughts, she responded.

She had already put down her pistol beside Aiden and taken out her machete.

“Should I go down there?”

“No, don’t waste too much effort. We need to conserve our strength as much as possible.”

Aiden briefly watched the zombies trying to climb up the warehouse walls, ignorant of their own fingers breaking in the process.

“Kieee…”

The ferocity with which the zombies had been charging seemed to gradually weaken.

No matter how numerous the hundreds of zombies were, Aiden’s side had 50 armed combatants.

Thanks to the absolute geographical advantage of being on top of a perpendicular building, dealing with this number of zombies wasn’t too difficult.

However, behind those zombies…

Tens of times more were surging across the plains as far as the eye could see.

That frenzied charge would reach them in barely a minute.

If those masses arrived here, the advantage in force would immediately be reversed.

Aiden didn’t avert his gaze from this fact but faced it directly.

“Conserve our strength?”

“With our current numbers, we won’t be able to hold out for long. There will be breaches. You and I need to plug those gaps.”

“And the stairs?”

“Destroy them completely. Can you do that?”

The warehouse they were in was a prefabricated structure centered around a steel frame.

As such, the interior stairs were also made of steel, something Arian could easily sever.

Of course, that would also mean eliminating their path for descending, but this was not the time to consider that.

“…Understood.”

Arian opened the door to the stairwell and went downstairs.

Soon after, the distant shrieks of zombies could be heard.

The noise, which had initially sounded like a faint whisper, gradually grew louder, as if someone was slowly increasing the volume on a speaker.

And finally, when those shrieks became as loud as thunder…

“Take grenades!”

Asher shouted to his group.

Those guarding the walls facing the direction the zombies were coming from pulled the safety pins on their grenades.

Their hands holding the explosives trembled like willow branches.

“Throw!”

Grenades flew towards the thousands of oncoming corpses.

Small metal objects that seemed insignificant compared to the crashing tidal wave surging forth.

One of them struck a zombie’s head and fell to the ground.

Another zombie then trampled over it, passing by.

Neither the one hit nor the one stomping had any idea what they had been struck by or what they had stepped on.

And right after that…

Boooom!

The grenades exploded simultaneously with an earth-shattering roar.

Corpses were torn apart and scattered by the deafening blasts.

The arms and legs of those following behind were ripped off, flying through the air.

In an instant, the ground in front of the warehouse, previously densely packed with corpses, was cleared.

But that only lasted for a moment.

Like the beach sands swallowed by the rising tide, more corpses surged into that space.

“Kiiiiii!”

“Kiii-!”

With frenzied cries, the rampaging zombies collided against the warehouse.

Bang! The building shook with the impact.

The steel pillars supporting the structure creaked, seeming on the verge of snapping.

Fortunately, however, the building barely withstood the collision with the zombie horde.

But the zombies didn’t stop there.

Even as the ones in front were crushed between the building and the subsequent wave of zombies, the next ones clambered up using the crushed corpses as stepping stones.

In an instant, the zombie horde surrounded the entire warehouse.

“Shoot! Don’t hesitate, open fire!”

Asher shouted.

The other vanguard members also bellowed from various points.

Kreeee-

Then, the sound of steel being forcibly bent rang out.

For a moment, it seemed like the building was about to collapse, causing some people to anxiously look around, but the structure remained intact.

It was the sound of the stairs Arian had severed collapsing under the weight of the climbing zombies.

“…Incredible.”

Arian, who had returned to the rooftop, let out those words as if exhausted.

Aiden couldn’t even turn his head towards her.

Despite pouring out rifle rounds, stemming the onslaught of the oncoming corpses was no easy task.

“There will be breaches soon. Support them. Remember, we cannot allow these things a path to climb up.”

Even amid that, Aiden’s voice remained calm.

Arian nodded and readjusted her grip on the machete.

The situation requiring her movement soon arrived.

It began with a certain man stationed at a corner.

Click!

Despite having one arm broken, he was trying to fend off the zombies with a pistol in his other hand, frowning as the trigger only produced empty clicking sounds, having run out of ammunition.

A new zombie was already clawing its way up, having shoved aside the one with its head blown off.

“Damn it…!”

He hurriedly looked at the magazine right beside him.

Pressing the magazine catch with his hand, he used his teeth to remove the empty magazine.

Then, holding the loaded magazine upright on the ground, he pressed the pistol down onto it from above to seat it in place.

It was a remarkably swift motion for using only one hand.

However, it wasn’t as fast as with both hands intact, and that slight difference ultimately proved costly.

“Kieee!”

Before he could finish reloading, a zombie’s head suddenly protruded up.

Unable to endure those few crucial seconds, it had already crawled up.

The man immediately tried to back away, but the sturdy arm of another zombie that had followed grabbed his leg.

Reflexively, the man tried to kick that zombie away.

But to the zombie that had finally seized its prey after a prolonged hunger, such a kick was inconsequential.

“Ughh!”

The zombie’s arm yanked the man down.

In that moment, when he couldn’t even resist and was about to be dragged off the rooftop by that force…

Chwaak!

A blade came flying from somewhere, cleaving off the zombie’s head.

The arm that had been pulling him went limp, and the man hurriedly withdrew his leg, kicking away the corpse.

The corpse then fell backwards, plummeting below.

At that sudden rescue, the man looked to the side.

There stood a young girl.

“What are you doing? Stay focused!”

Those crimson eyes chastised the man.

Jolted by that unsettling gaze, the frozen man’s senses were forcibly reactivated.

He recalled what he had to do.

After finally reloading his pistol, he took a position at the corner and unleashed a barrage of bullets towards the clawing corpses.

When he briefly glanced aside, the girl who had been next to him was already gone.

“It’s endless…”

Arian moved across the rooftop, defending the perimeter line.

Her movements had clearly surpassed human limits by now, but the zombies’ onslaught was so intense that hardly anyone even noticed, let alone pointed it out.

“Huuu…!”

Amid that, Asher let out a long sigh.

While responsible for one sector of the rooftop himself, he was also constantly monitoring the overall situation and recognized their disadvantage.

No, it would be more accurate to say their situation had already gone far beyond just ‘disadvantageous’.

Speaking coldly, the entire rooftop should have been overrun by the zombie masses long ago.

The fact that they were still barely holding on was solely thanks to the junk dealer group Asher had recruited – Aiden’s group.

The shooting skills of that junk dealer named Aiden, who wore a bulletproof helmet concealing his face, were astonishingly precise.

While appearing to simply spray rifle rounds, every single bullet accurately pierced the heads of the zombies climbing up the walls.

Moreover, whenever there was a brief lull for reloading, the grenades he threw seemed to calculatedly buy them that precious time like clockwork.

His performance was so remarkable that it wouldn’t have been strange if he had been solely responsible for defending one entire wall of the warehouse.

And that wasn’t all.

The girl called Arian, whom he had introduced as Aiden’s companion, was beyond astonishing.

Her movements, dashing at an unbelievable speed across the three walls Aiden couldn’t cover, were clearly unnatural.

She didn’t seem to tire at all, her speed never faltering.

The old water bottle she occasionally drank from like a beverage undoubtedly contained the blood Asher had given them as compensation.

The only normal one was the young female child they had brought along.

But compared to other children of similar age who were at best transporting ammunition, the fact that she was independently handling an entire sector, dealing with the zombies… it didn’t seem quite right either.

However, despite Aiden’s group’s remarkable efforts, Asher couldn’t feel reassured.

Simply because there were too many zombies.

“…”

He raised his head.

Zombies were still densely packed as far as the eye could see.

Only now could the end barely be seen in the distance, but even so, the sheer number was still outrageous.

This was the result of their desperate flight southward to secure this position.

They had only grazed the edge of the zombie horde spread across dozens of kilometers.

So the zombies that had swarmed here amounted to at most thousands.

Compared to the tens of times larger overall horde, it wasn’t that significant a number.

And yet, they were already running low on ammunition to deal with them.

If their bullets ran out… they would have no choice but to fight with melee weapons.

In that case, they wouldn’t even be able to hold on by a thread like they were now.

Anticipating that outcome, Asher grit his teeth.

Hoping against his own grim prediction.

But that moment eventually arrived.

“We’re out of ammunition now!”

How long had they been fighting?

It was only after the zombies’ momentum had gradually begun to wane.

One of the children who had been continuously distributing magazines shouted those words and threw down his own empty magazine.

Asher, having hurled his own emptied magazine aside, furrowed his brow.