The End Of Life

They found 4 zombies in the lobby. Briar and Basil slowly approached the nearest zombie and killed them. After killing the fourth zombie, everyone looked at Birch for further instructions. Birch looked at them and nodded. He looked around and said, "We need to go to the staff room. According to the information I got, the keys should be there. The staff room should be next to the security room."

The rest nodded, and Birch led the way to a corridor. There were a few zombies in the hallway. They could quickly take care of them. They saw a sign showing the way to different places in the building and they followed the sign showing towards the staff room. The staff room was at the end of the hallway. 

They slowly crossed the rooms and arrived at the end of the hallway. They saw the two doors opposite to each other. One had the plate staff room, and the other had security on it. They ignored the one with security on it and slowly opened the one with Staffroom. Birch slowly opened it and as he did he was scared beyond belief. 

There was a female Bloater on the other side. When he opened the door, the Bloater heard the noise and turned towards him, looking hungry. In the small room, only that single zombie was there. Birch closed the door and his head was now sweating a lot. 

David noticed his sudden reaction and asked anxiously, "What happened? Is it a zombie?"

Birch looked at him and nodded. He slowly whispered, "It is a huge zombie. Easily double of human size and was very big. It saw me-" and as he was about to continue, the door behind him received a strong push from behind. 

Birch couldn't stop it and stumbled ahead, leaving the door. The door opened, and the rest saw the Bloater. They tried to back away, Briar who was at the end looked back towards the security room and saw another Bloater wearing a security uniform. 

The Bloater noticed him and swept his hand towards him. Briar could only hold his big hammer to block the swing. He was thrown away into the corridor by the swipe. The rest three heard this and looked back to see the other Bloated and immediately ran farther away from the two doors. As they backed away, they looked at the two Bloater zombies slowly coming out of the two rooms at the end of the hallway. 

Basil ran to his younger brother Briar and helped him up. Thankfully, he didn't get any injuries from the harsh throw. Only a couple of scratches which could be negligible. As they looked at the two Bloaters ahead, they became more cautious. 

Birch turned towards David and asked, "Do you know these kinds of zombies exist?"

David shook his head. He only noticed the bitters, but not the Bloater until now. He gripped the gun in his hand tighter and aimed at the right one first. He slowly pulled the trigger, and it hit the right shoulder. But it didn't look like they did much damage to it. The usual zombies had weak body frames that a bullet was enough to blow a hand away. But it wasn't the same for this fat zombie in front of them. 

Both the Bloaters looked at them and slowly started to walk towards them. Seeing them walk, all four of them retreated immediately. They went to the other side of the corridor into the main hallway. David took aim once again and shot 3 bullets continuously at the right one's head. Birch was also trying to do the same. 

With 3 bullets in its head, the right one stopped moving and fell down. Birch on the other hand wasn't able to shoot the left one's head. All the bullets hit the other body parts instead of the head. With the right one's fall, the left one had more space and hence moved quickly towards them. 

Noticing it coming nearer, David grabbed Birch's hand and went towards the main lobby down the main hallway with the other 2 behind them. Once they reached the lobby, they noticed the Bloater was already in the main hallway and was looking at them. 

David immediately took aim and rained down the rest of the magazine on the Bloater. A couple of the bullets hit the head, killing it. As the Bloater's body fell down, David and the rest exhaled in relief. Birch looked at David and said, "Your aim isn't bad. If it weren't for you, we all would probably be dead by then."

David just smiled, waved his hands, and said, "No, it's just that I have been taught how to use a gun by a good teacher, you can say." Remembering all the times Mark threw him into a street with zombies with no intention to save him if he was in danger. Mark forced him to learn it quickly. 

Birch nodded and looked at the Bloater in the hallway. He sighed and said, "But still these zombies are way different from the normal ones. If we don't shoot the head more than 2 times and shooting it anywhere else has no effect at all." 

David nodded and said, "Alright, let's get going to the staff room now. We need to get out of here quickly before any more zombie like this one arrives." 

The rest nodded, and all of them went towards the staff room, crossing the two big zombies. As they entered the room, they noticed the board on which all the keys were neatly hanged. 

Birch reached out for the keys from the hanger and they exited the building. Coming outside they made their way towards the place all the trucks were locked away. David looked at the trucks and found them big enough for 10 to 15 people to stay comfortable enough on their journey. 

Checking the tags on the keys, they chose 4 trucks to drive back to the camp. As David completed his mission, Mark on the other hand was very irritated by the scene in front of him and wanted to curse David once he returned to the camp.