Life After the Undead (Completed)

PART 16: The Beast .2

Jack's P.O.V.

I had stayed as long as I could at the Shady House until the sun started to set. At that point I called for one of my men to come and get me, because I never left my compound alone at night.

Well, that's not strictly true. Sometimes I went out on patrol, because being a leader didn't mean not pulling my weight, or we were doing a supply run. The point was, I didn't leave my people alone, not at their weakest.

I also knew that my men didn't like coming out to the Shady House, so, as a compromise, I agreed to meet them outside the gate so they wouldn't have to drive into the property. I didn't leave the house, though, until I saw lights on the road, cause I was not going to wait by myself in the dark and get picked off by zombies.

But before I left, I managed to get a kiss goodbye from Melissa.

I don't think you understand how happy I was to have finally made some sort of head-way with Melissa.

And all it took was a life-and-death situation... well a few of them actually. But, hey, I was going to take it.

I was on cloud nine the whole way back to our compound, I didn't even care when they told me that Godrick had not come back yet.

Whatever, the kid could take care of himself, but if he wasn't back after sunset I would have to set out with a select team to find him.

I wasn't going to worry about that yet, though.

My usual routine was to drink with the guys—it was a good way to keep up the rapport between me and my men—so I went to the bar to socialize. I didn't drink as much as I usually drank, only because I didn't know if I was going to have to go out to find Godrick yet. I still managed to throw back at least three before disaster struck.

We were in our compound, no one and nothing ever tried to cross us, specially a full frontal attack. So we all figured that we were safe, me included.

Oh boy was I wrong.

A compound was only as good as its walls, and our walls were high and thick. So yeah, it was pretty surprising when something just effortlessly jumped over it.

In fact it was so surprising that, at first, the wall guards didn't raise the alarm. They had just sat there, staring at the back of the massive Beast that had jumped our walls as if they weren't sure they were seeing what they were seeing.

But then again, when I finally got out into our courtyard and saw what they were seeing, I too couldn't believe what I was seeing.

It was inside at that point, I hadn't realized it yet. I had no idea that it had gotten over our greatest line of defense until the alarm rang and with that alarm came the roar. This deafening, glass shattering roar.

There was half a beat of silence between that roar shattering the windows of the bar before the screams and the gunshots started up.

We all ran out of our main headquarters, our bar, to help fight it, but it was too late.

The Beast was already inside, and bullets did not work on it.

I didn't get a good look, as soon as I recognized that muted neon green as it thrashed through our compound, I was working on getting our men out and away.

There was no point taking on the Beast, if it got into your compound, if it was after you, it was better to just accept the inevitable.

I could re-build the compound, we could move it elsewhere and start anew. Especially if I had Evelyn on my side to at least offer us some sort of help. But recruiting new men, especially ones that I trusted would be harder.

So getting them out was my main priority.

For a while it was just chaos. Just screams and the sound of rubble going flying as the Beast stuck its massive head into each and every one of our buildings. I kept shouting over the din for everyone to retreat. Fall back, get in the trucks, and drive away.

Everyone else got out except me. I stood there and I watched. I watched the Beast continued to destroy our compound, except... that wasn't really what it looked like. Then, as suddenly as it started, it stopped. Just pulled it's head out of one our back buildings and just... walked away.

It was so random. It was almost like it was looking for something specific but that was crazy. It was clearly just hungry and looking for food, even though the Beast never came this far to hunt.

I mean, sure we saw it moving around, but it never came to our compound before. We had always been safe from it.

When the Beast left, I began my search. Looking for survivors in the rubble, taking stock of everything that was either broken or destroyed.

We'd have to rebuild a lot, but it didn't look like we lost a lot.

Eventually the people who had ran became to come back, which meant I could do an inventory of my people.

The second I saw one of my trusted advisors I was moving towards him.

"Jack! You're alive!"

See, why did he have to sound surprised? I mean, sure the Beast rarely left survivors but obviously I was wily, scrappy, I could survive most anything, could think of my way out of most situations.. You don't become a Duke without being cunning in some way shape or form,

I shot him a scowl before asking: "How many people did we lose?"

He seemed to realize that now was not the time for reminiscing. He jumped to attention but he didn't have an answer for me.

"Not sure, we're going to do a head count."

It wouldn't be an hour later until I realized that we actually hadn't lost anyone except for one. Oh we had some casualties, but no one was eaten. They merely succumbed to their injuries, after being thrown by the Beast, or having rubble fall on them, but they were all accounted for.

No, the only person who was missing was Mina.