“Will the doors hold?” Anthony asked anxiously from where the three of them stood in the corridor.

“They are the strongest in the hotel,” Daniel answered him, understanding the man’s anxiety but internally wanting to yell back at him.

It was crystal clear to him they represented the only chance of Anthony’s family surviving, because ultimately they needed to get to the bottom of the high-rise, and if the fighters failed, then Trudy would never escape.

Yet Anthony’s question triggered a fresh stream of thought in Daniel’s head.

If Anthony and Trudy had survived this long, then there had to be hope for others. After all, prior to Daniel giving Anthony weapons, they had been defenceless. The paladin class granted weapon skills and healing. The farmer gave nothing, and they lasted, but if there were other pairings with combat classes, then they might be striking back like him and Ivey. Especially if their abilities were magical based. How many other humans were still alive, either hiding away in their rooms or maybe even doing what Daniel and Ivey and carving out their own personal fiefdoms, if three suites and some corridors could be called that.

“Are you sure?” Anthony asked. Behind Anthony, Ivey rolled her eyes and stuck out a tongue at him with a smile on her lips.

“Yes,” Daniel answered patiently. “I have reinforced it. The faster we get this done, then the sooner we can return.”

“Umm, sure. I just feel bad leaving them.”

Ivey had obviously had enough and walked over to the opposite door and rapped sharply. She put her ear against the door to listen, and Daniel wanted to grab her and pull her back. He could all too well imagine a zombie paw smashing through the timber and then tearing her to bits.

He went to step forward, but she moved back anyway only to knock again before once more resting her head against the wood. He stopped his stupid instincts. If there was a zombie and it attacked the door, Ivey was not in a position where she was in any real danger. In fact, having her scout was sensible after all. It freed up the two stronger fighters to respond to threats.

“Clear,” she called out while waving Daniel forward. He put the restraint net down as it was not something that could be deployed and instead moved the pressure plates in a defence circle. Every engagement had to be in his favour. No risks.

He put his hand on the wood, and then he yanked the door handle open. It opened while technically locked because he had distorted the wooden frame, so the whole locking mechanism went with the door.

Next to him, Anthony stood ready, but there was no reaction from inside.

They all let out their breaths and then Anthony, with surprising bravery, went in like a commando breaching a room. Sword ready, he burst through the space, checking for enemies. Daniel followed as backup, which was Anthony’s decision. As the man had said, his sword and shield skills meant he was best placed to meet a surprise attack. He was the best person to go first and then Daniel could step in and use his super speed to finish a distracted enemy.

Anthony shook his head and came back. The room was empty, and from the state of the place; the occupants had checked out earlier in the morning. With a touch of Daniel’s hand, the self-closing mechanism at the top broke, and the door stayed open just like he wanted it to.

“Next.” Daniel moved towards the next door.

“Handsome, no,” Ivey called out to him. He startled a bit at the new nickname, but as far as they went, it was not a bad one. “Shut and seal them,” she ordered. “We need to make sure nothing sneaks into the rooms behind us.”

With a nod. He shut the door, and another flare of green and a strip of wood, which was paper thin, grew over the latch. If anything opened the door, that would tear and it would be pretty obvious that the integrity was broken.

“Great job,” Ivey enthused, giving him a quick peck on the cheeks. “Now next.”

Without hesitation, she went to the next door and knocked. Daniel’s heart was pounding and when she leant in, he kept imagining a monster exploding through the door.

“Just your imagination,” he told himself quietly.

“What?” Ivey asked, her head still against trying to listen for movement in the apartment.

Why would she talk in that position? “Nothing.” Ivey stepped back and waved him forward.

Anthony burst in with Daniel on his heels.

Empty!

“Wait,” Daniel ordered, and he turned the desk into another pressure plate trap.

The next room had been blasted open. From the inside. It was clearly one of the mutated humans breaking out. They still searched it and once they were out, Daniel sealed the door.

He was happy to have created another restraint mesh. While he did not think there would be a second massed group of zombies, it did not hurt to prepare.

The more he amassed, the better as far as he was concerned.

Ivey switched sides of the corridor.

Empty.

Every time they started the routine, he still had the same physiological responses. Increased heart rate and faster breathing. He was sure a doctor would have said something about adrenaline or possibly an even more exotic medical term, but to him, it was just stress and anxiety. Their luck was bound to run out.

Knock, knock.

It was the fifth time and Daniel knew what would happen. She would listen, then knock again.

Ivey leapt back.

Thump.

The door rocked slightly, but there was no sound of splintering or cracking. Small and weak, but remembering how those other ones had blurred, that meant nothing. The pressure plates were in position. Daniel’s hands glowed as he focused on the restraint net, altering it on the fly. It expanded out, flipping open to encase the pressure plates and the door with the ends clanging against the walls. That would hopefully hold whatever monster was in the room.

Thump.

The door held. With a glow of magic, he affixed the ends of the converted restraints to the wall.

Then he stepped back to admire the setup.

It was a zombie playpen. It was just like his sister had used with his niece and nephew dumping them in the playpen so they could not crawl away. He hoped the family was okay but he really could not afford the energy to worry about them. This version of the playpen was two meters high and had a lot of thin splinters sticking that made it look anything but innocent, but Daniel smiled. It would do the job, and that was all that mattered.

Thump.

With a quick thumbs up to confirm they were ready, he stuck his hand through the restraints, being careful to avoid the two-inch-long shards of wood, and touched near the handle. Instantly, the wood around the locking mechanism gave way and then he quickly retreated behind the restraints.

The door blew open, and a young man with yellow eyes and long claws on his hands stumbled out. He stopped just short of the pressure plates that Daniel had put down. While it looked mostly human, complete with a polo shirt and slacks, the eyes were wild and unfocused.

“Feral,” Ivey said instantly.

Its eyes focused on Anthony. Lips curled up briefly, revealing elongated canines. The boy blurred forward, lunging at Anthony.

Crack!

It hit the restraint barrier, which bulged out but appeared to hold it. Everything was sped up faster than he could perceive it. The net snapped back into normal position.

Crack!

Crack!

Half a second had passed, but the playpen had been torn from the wall with the carefully designed internal structure, making it wrap around the speed-focused zombie. Stopping it dead.

Daniel tried to work out what had happened. The kid had triggered the first trap and avoided it just because it was so fast. It had hit the restraints with force and then been thrown back and had landed on a second plate, which resulted in the projectiles tearing out its stomach and the clashing traps to have torn it in two. The head had then landed on the edge of the third trap, triggering it, and half the skull had been chewed up in that interaction.

After seeing multiple bodies over the last six hours, it was gruesome, but no worse than kicking a spike through a head. There was the sound of throwing up from Anthony and the familiar smell of vomit.

There was a flash of healing magic, which surprised Daniel enough to get him to look more closely. There was blood running down Anthony’s leg.

So the speed kid had stretched the playpen sufficiently to land a blow and then the pen had snapped back while the left side had fallen away, which had resulted in the zombie being wrapped up and it falling back onto the pressure plate closest to him. That had triggered and cut the kid in half and the force of that then set off the third plate.

Fair enough. Next time, the fence would be stronger.

Ivey looked white as she assessed exactly what had happened.

“Golly gosh,” she said, sounding slightly shocked. “I guess the playpen was a good plan.”

Anthony appeared queasy. “I can’t do this,” he stuttered. “I feel weak.”

He collapsed on the floor.

Daniel stared at the man in disbelief and then mentally kicked himself in the butt.

The room was not cleared yet. His eyes instantly back to the open door. If a second zombie was there, it would have attacked after the commotion and they would have been in trouble, but there was no point taking chances and not checking was amateur, to say the least. Not that he was a professional, but he should, at the minimum, attempt to pretend to be one.

Club on his shoulder, he charged into the hotel room. There might be another one and if there was, he would hopefully see it in time to trigger its speed. Prior to learning to utilise that upgrade, he had been concerned about fighting one of these monsters one on one, but now he could move lightning fast. He was confident he could trade blows, if not finish them before they could do anything to hurt him.

Check the bathroom and then in the spaces behind the beds near the window.

Nothing!

Ivey might complain about his charging in unprotected, but his theory was that if there was another enemy taking the initiative from them, meeting them on his own terms was bound to be the best choice. No point letting them choose the battlefield.

The room was clear, at least nothing of anything living. There were clear remnants of a human half under the desk. Whoever it was had tried to run. When he looked back towards the mutated human, it was with harsher eyes. It might have appeared mostly human, but it was not. It, too, had died when the event happened.

When he got outside, Anthony was still on the ground with his hands over his face.

“Should you . . .” Daniel asked.

“Just shock,” Ivey said, ignoring Anthony. “He will get over it. I think we need more traps, though.” She looked pointedly with wide eyes at the destruction that the single zombie had wrought.

“Yeah.”

“Well, what are you waiting for?”

He jumped and then went to work. A short time later, as he checked his surroundings, Ivey was standing next to him and passed him four cores and a bottle of water. “You should have these. How about the white one?”

“I already ate it,” he told her, making a point not to look at the club, and then swallowed all four of the offered cores. He was not stupid. If the zombie cores were boosting his powers, that was good. He did not even care that they were cut out of human chests, or at least did not care enough to refuse them. He needed all the power that he could get.

That last zombie had been lightning-fast and while the traps to date had mostly worked, he was not so naïve to believe that they were infallible. Hopefully not today, but soon he was going to be forced to fight these creatures one on one without tricks, and he needed to be quick enough to match their speed by then. Strength could be countered with positioning, but speed was a different matter unless he went down the pathway of the brutes and grew lots of size and strength to shrug off any blows the enemy might land. Something he was unwilling to attempt.

With the ticking time bomb of the cores in his stomach, he kept working. It was better than thinking. Getting lost in the intricacies of wood and creating new designs was soothing for him. Calming, challenging, and productive, it was like the perfect combination.

Unfortunately, it ended too soon. The wood from the last two rooms was finished, and they had everything they needed for now. Part of him wanted to go crazy and build a full-on arsenal, but daylight was going, and they were on the clock.

The spoils of his labour were spread out around him. Six pressure plates, two standard restraints, and a super advanced playpen.

Anthony was on his feet., ready to fight once more, and they moved on. Primarily, they were searching for survivors, but in reality, Daniel knew this was about resources. They needed access to the mini-bars for water and food, and killing zombies was awfully satisfying.