16 Chapter 15: A New Enemy and Teaching the Ladies how to Grind Like a Gamer

The man didn't shamble towards them like the creatures from before, but was instead sprinting at them with its arms stretched in their direction as its mouth let out loud grunting noises. It moved at a pace far faster than the previously out of shape body would signify as its new found bulging muscles flexed with each step it took. When it got close to them it even started to run on all fours in a desperate attempt to gain speed to close in on its pray faster.

Joshua stepped in front of the surprised group and crouched down waiting for its approach. When it got close enough it jumped towards its closest target in an attempt to grapple Joshua to the ground, but was instead met with an elbow to the face that stopped it in its tracks. Joshua immediately proceeded to kick it hard on its back knocking it to the ground before jumping on it and holding it in place with a full nelson hold. The creature was extremely strong for its size and tried to buck and flail its way out of the position, but Joshua immediately put his full weight on top of it holding it in place.

"What the hell is that?" Nathan said with a tinge of fear in his voice. "It can't be a zombie right? Please tell me it's not a zombie."

"It's not a zombie." Madalyn sarcastically commented getting a bright smile of relief from Nathan before his hopes were once again shot down.

"Of course it's a zombie you idiot." Joshua grunted out as he maintained his hold on the thing. "I saw this guy die at the gas station, no mistaking it. So unless he decided that eating people and purple contacts were cool then he's a zombie."

"Not to mention those web like tendrils all over its body." Natalie said as she curiously inspected the thing.

"Ok we don't have all day hear restraining this thing is like trying to hold a hog in place so one of you need to kill it. No wait scratch that, Madalyn you kill it." Joshua said a little frustrated at how laid back everyone seemed to be while he was struggling with the thing.

"Why me?" Madalyn asked.

"Cause you're still level two while the other two are already level three. Besides you've only killed four zombies so far right?" Joshua started to explain before Nathan cut in.

"Oh so you want to see if there's a difference in the amount of experience they gain from killing the zombies and the creatures. Smart." Nathan said as he realized what Joshua wanted to figure out.

"They might not even give any experience, but this is the best way to test it out so kill the damn thing already. Grab the daggers off the strap of my tool belt, I got them for you anyways." Joshua said as the strain to hold the zombie in place started to cause him to sweat from the effort. Madalyn did what he asked and grabbed the pair of daggers from the back of his belt before coming towards his front and quickly stabbing it in the head. For a second its body froze up before it went completely limp and Joshua was able to let it fall to the ground.

"Hmm these are nice. Way better than the kitchen knives I was planning to use." Madalyn said as she hefted the two daggers in her hands before twirling them around a bit.

"Did you gain a level?" Joshua asked her.

"Did I what? Oh no, I didn't get that surge of strength I felt when I killed my first one of those creatures in town if that's what you mean." Madalyn replied after understanding what he was asking. She put the daggers snugly between her belt and the sides of her pants until she could find something better to hold them with.

"So that means it gives less than six times the amount of the other creatures. Will have to let you kill a few of them at the edge of town to see if these zombies give any more experience than the creatures do." Joshua explained as he stood up and gently moved the body of the zombie over so he could get a better look at it. He was able to trace all the tendrils on its body back towards the bite marks found on its neck and legs. They traveled to just about every inch of its skin and you could even see it invading the fringe of its eyes. The hair on the man's head was quickly falling off as the tendrils traveled over its skull leaving only a few random strands of hair on its scalp. It's previously shiny white teeth were now yellow with a purple tinge to the edge of every single one of them. Even its frothy saliva was starting to have a purple hue to it. The blood from where Madalyn stabbed it was even turning a purplish color after meeting the air instead of the usual crimson red.

"Well this thing will definitely give me nightmares for the next few days." Nathan said as most of the group nodded in response to his words.

"Do you think everyone bitten turns out like this?" Natalie asked while biting her lip in worry at the thought that her former coworker might have ended up like this.

"Sadly that's the most likely case. When I saw another person that had been bitten in the Mayor's office he also had these tendrils starting to spread all over his body." Joshua explained before taking his eyes off the zombie and looking around to make sure there weren't any more of them heading their way.

"If that's the case then this will be a big problem." Laura voiced out gathering everyone's attention. She silently pointed towards the zombie then back towards the purple haze surrounding the town. "These zombies can come out of the haze unlike the creatures. What's to stop them from wondering all the way towards the farm or anywhere else for that matter?" The consequences of her claims dawned on all of them.

"This is going to be a problem, were going to have to fortify the place more. At the moment all those things have stopping them is a wooden fence and nothing else." Joshua explained. "Maybe we can use some barbed wire or something else to slow them down. We'll probably have to set up traps and alarms of some kind in the area around it so that we can be alerted to their presence at night."

"Do you think that we should go back and warn everybody about them right now?" Natalie asked.

"No, for now they aren't much of a threat. So far we've only seen one of them coming out of the haze even with all the noise that one made we haven't seen any others. Plus it was the closest one to the fringe of the purple haze being at the gas station and all, so it'll take them a while to trickle out of there and become a threat." Joshua responded.

"So what do we do now? We still going with the plan of grinding their levels up?" Nathan asked as he looked towards Joshua.

"That's the plan. First will figure out how much experience those things give you ladies by allowing Madalyn a chance to kill a couple of those creatures. Then we go with the train plan." Joshua said. Everyone nodded along, but only Nathan seemed to understand the train plan.

They all approached the purple haze and got just outside of it before Joshua signaled the rest to stop and wait. He then forged on inside the purple haze for a ways until he spotted the first creature shuffling its way in a random direction. He immediately started clapping his hands together to grab its attention before leading it back towards his group. When he walked out of the haze it took a few moments for the creature that was slowly following him to appear at the edge of it. It started to flair its nostrils and sniffed the air before letting out an enraged screech at the fact it couldn't continue to follow Joshua.

"Alright I'll keep its attention while you sneak around behind it and take it out quickly." Joshua said as Madalyn gave him a nod in affirmation before he started to clap his hands once again to keep its attention on him. Madalyn quickly sneaked around it and stabbed it in the back of the head with one of her daggers as efficiently as possible before once again stepping out of the haze. "Well?"

"I felt it, there was a surge of strength like the first time I killed one of those things this time." Madalyn replied with a bit of a smug expression at the increase in power.

"Then that means each human zombie is equivalent to five of the creatures. You've killed five of those things and one zombie so that evens out." Joshua said. He and Nathan were both smiling now that they could put a value on how much the zombies were worth to them in their goal to strengthen the others.

"So we going to start the grinding session now?" Nathan asked with a grin as he picked his shovel up in attempt to look as imposing as possible.

"Yep, you guys wait here while I go form a train of these things and bring them back over. Be ready to kill them then. Oh step a little ways away from the haze just in case I end up pulling a zombie, don't want to surprise you guys with it chasing me out here." Joshua said before leaving and heading back in to the haze. He went deeper into the haze this time and approached the area near the gas station. He could see more of the creatures within his view than there were there yesterday. For a while he made noise and collected more and more of the creatures as he led them in a big circle until somewhere around twenty of them could be seen shuffling after him.

He made his way back to where the others were waiting while keeping a slow pace so that the creatures could keep up. When he made it back outside the range of the town and saw Laura and the others waiting not too far down the road from where he exited he waived them over to join him.

"How many did you get?" Nathan asked as he looked on as the crowd of creatures started to shuffle their way in to view.

"Around twenty or so. Should be a good amount for our first test." Joshua replied. He noticed the ladies didn't seem as confused to their conversation as before so he assumed Nathan must have explained things to them while he was gathering the creatures for them to kill. "Alright we've got all the time in the world for you ladies to kill them so there is no need for you to take any risk. Take them out from range if you can."

They all nodded at Joshua's comment before taking up positions to start killing the creatures. Joshua stayed at the side nearby just in case anything occurred that was unexpected. Natalie pulled out her bow and started thinning the herd out with her arrows. Laura on the other hand immediately went to casting small fire explosions in between the heads of two of the creatures and took two out at a time. She had to do it at a slower pace sense it caused her to fatigue faster than the other two.

Madalyn on the other hand took out some knives from a small bag she had tied to her waist. She then tossed them extremely accurately towards the heads of her targets. Whenever she hit to low you could hear a hissing sound come from the creatures as a green ooze would start forming around its wound and kill it in a matter of seconds. The others looked on in surprise at the way she figured out to use her ability more straightforwardly than they expected.

"How'd you become so good at throwing knives?" Nathan asked after they finished killing the last one of the bunch. He was clearly impressed with her skill.

"I had tons of practice throwing them at a wall with a picture of my husband on it." Madalyn nonchalantly replied causing the others to grow tense before giving them a teasing wink. No one knew whether she was joking or telling the truth.

After they finished Joshua would go back into the haze to gather more of the creatures. He would wait for a few minutes to give it time for more of the things to form so he could get more at a time. They repeated the process several times and Joshua had to either restrain or cut the legs off any zombies that decided to join the party from time to time. He'd have the ladies rotate on who got to kill the zombie sense they were worth more points. After a while the sun started to set and they decided to call it a day. All of the girls had been able to reach level four, but level five was still a ways away if the pattern of experience gain had anything to say about it. Now they would most likely have to kill a thousand creatures worth of experience before reaching the next level. Level nine was looking nearly impossible now that they thought about it.

"Well I guess we should call it a day." Joshua said as he heaved what looked like a suitcase over his shoulder. He had decided to grab it from his truck so he had more clothes to wear and wouldn't have to look like a lumberjack called Billy for however long this phase would take.

"Sounds good to me." Madalyn said while stretching. The others looked rather exhausted as well except Nathan who had a weird expression of being excited by the group getting stronger while feeling useless with nothing but a shovel in hand.

"Alright will head back. Madalyn you can split off from us when we start getting near the farm, but make sure to be careful. Those zombies could wander towards anywhere so try to set up some alarms or traps around the place you stay at to alert you if there's any danger nearby." Joshua said worriedly. He felt bad that she couldn't just comeback with them, but knew it would be a bad idea and only stir up more trouble after what happened.

"Oh you're so sweet, already worried about me." She responded with a smile, but nodded to let him know that she would do what he had said. The group headed back and took a couple hours to get near the farm with how exhausted everyone was. Madalyn split off before they came into view of the farm and headed her own way while the others all headed towards the mansion to get a bite to eat and have a good sleep.