They headed west with Jade riding his bike beside their bus, throughout the journey he would bother them by saying things they didn’t understand like “I am the bicycle of justice, don’t worry you’re safe with me” while giving a thumbs up and smiling, or “JUSTICE CRASH!!!” whenever they encountered a road bump, but they would just give him puzzled looks filled with fear.

The roads were free for the most part as the lion had smashed the cars that were on it to the side. The students were worried about the big paw prints that caved the road in but they were too afraid to disobey Jade.

‘*sigh* these kids aren’t cultured, they can’t even see that I’m trying to lighten the mood’ Jade thought, depressed.

When they were in the area around the entrance of a bridge that lead further west they saw an undead. It was walking across the street they were driving through; the bus avoided it while Jade slowed down and shot it with his pistol.

“We’re here guys” he said signaling the teacher to stop the car. The students came out, while Jade looked around for the tallest building he could find, he pointed to a skyscraper a few 100 meters away and told them to follow him. The time was 6:38pm.

The bus was parked beside the building, after which the crew headed inside it. They took the elevator to the top floor. Jade took the binoculars he took from the hardware isle and surveyed the surrounding area. There were hundreds of thousands of undead, most of which were standing still while the rest were walking around the area, looking for… their soul mates?

The horde covered most of the area that lead to the bridge as well as the bridges entrance. It was impossible to get on the bridge without going through them.

Jade took note of their formation; the standing undead formed an oval around 2 gigantic figures, the iron lion being the one of them, it was now about 3 times the size it was when he saw it, the other figure, which was just as big, was a whitish pink spherical mass with many holes on its body, each hole shot out thick grey fumes at different intervals. The two gigantic creatures stayed in a large junction.

The outer sides of the oval of unmoving undead were filled with undead that still had grey spots, the undead with smaller grey spots being closer to the inside, the innermost part of the oval only contained undead without grey spots, this section making up only about 1% of the total area. The iron lion was sleeping while the sphere just kept emitting fumes.

‘So you’re the culprit’ said Jade while looking at the innocently fuming sphere, ‘You’re probably the reason why the corpses turn to undead’. Jade quickly thought up a simple plan ‘The undead are covering the area around the bridge’s entrance, so there is no way to go around them, I’ll just have to take out their leaders and see what happens, if everything goes well it’ll just be like when Arya killed the night king, an anti-climatic, but good ending, if not then we roll with the punches, it’s not like it does us much good by having them around, and most importantly the lion is sleeping’

“We’re staying here for tonight, get some rest we’ll move out by 1 am” Jade said in a ‘matter of fact’ tone to the crew which looked at him in disbelief. One of them spoke up in fear filled her face “What are we going to do about… this” she said pointing at the horde “You didn’t tell us there would be monsters with the zombies” Jade replied “I didn’t tell you because… I don’t know everything” and left the room.

Jade slept in a different room after checking out the building, that’s what he wanted them to think; he was awake the whole time revising his plan. By 10:22pm he checked on the class members finding them asleep, the person who they had as a lookout was helplessly dozing. ‘They’ve had a rough day’ Jade thought as he started making his preparations.

…

11:47pm, Gbenga woke up with a start, his phone was ringing, the caller, his classmate Joyce, he picked the call in confusion, mostly because he didn’t want to wake up his sleeping classmates.

“Hello” the voice ringing over the phone was the terrorist that had been harassing his classmates, anger rose up in him but quickly died down as he remembered when the terrorist had pretended to shoot him, he shiver as he replied “H-Hello terrori-sir, D-Do you need anything?” the voice over the phone sighed and said “You know, I’m not a terrorist, I’m just a serial killer, the acts of terrorism I committed were out of duty, not desire. Anyways I need you to wake the others up the escape begins now”

Gbenga was confused, he checked the time it was 11:48pm, “I thought you said midnight” the voice replied “You know what they say; the early bird gets the chicken, now wake everyone up so I can explain the plan”.

‘Isn’t it the worm?’ Gbenga thought before he realized that the terrorist, now serial killer, could have just woken everyone by himself without calling ‘Wait where did he get my number and isn’t this Joyce’s phone, what’s happening?’ he questioned but could not express them as he knew the person over the phone didn’t care about his opinion.

Gbenga woke everyone up told them the situation and put the phone on speaker “Ok everyone, we’re about to do a mission, you know, like the ones you see in movies and games, If you look outside the window” the voice said as everyone turned their heads “you will notice that the lion has begun to turn orange and is shining a bit”. Gbenga saw the lion realizing what was being said was the truth, he woke up around 9:00pm to keep watch but the lion wasn’t like this at that time.

“I saw the lion change during my time awake, my guess is this isn’t its night theme, I think it’s getting stronger, which isn’t good for anybody. I don’t know much about the sphere but, I’m sure many of you like me guessed it was what created the undead… or zombies as you people call it, but I do know a bit about the lion”

Gbenga was surprised at the confession, he thought the monsters were as new to the terrorist as they were to him, realizing that the terrorist had kept crucial information from the class he was starting to fear the man more than he already did but then he thought in regret ‘If only we did more than just hide, we would know more about our situation and we probably would have found other people, we were too afraid and now we’re stuck obeying a terrorist’.

“The lion’s roar can stun whoever hears it for some seconds, it was smaller the last time I saw it so the skill could have improved, regardless, I got sound blocking head phones from the super market, so if you wear them you’re good. Apart from the roar I don’t know of any other long range capabilities it might have and considering that it leveled up overnight I don’t know what new thing it might have in store, but don’t shoot it, bullets are useless against it. On the bright side it’s lazy like a normal lion and will not bother itself to do too much work”

“As for the undead, I know that the more they eat the stronger and smarter they get and the smaller their grey spots. Their grey spots are also their weakness, but guns work on them, they’re senses are similar to ours so I’m 80% sure they don’t see in darkness, I mean why would they?

I’ve never met an undead with a fully healed grey spot but I’m sure of one thing, they won’t be dumb like the rest… hopefully they can’t fly. The sphere monster may be able to control them but I’ve made preparation for that, your job is to stay alive for as long as you can, until I kill the lion and the sphere”

‘He knows so much about them, did he fight them before he met us… that has to be it, he fought them before, even the lion and survived. He might be a criminal but he’s not a coward like us’ Gbenga thought as he heard the terrorist’s analysis.

“The things you need; the head phones, night vision goggles, magazines and rope are in the room where I slept. Any questions?” Gbenga hurriedly asked the question that was on everyone’s mind “Where are you?” “Close by, you have until 12 pm to prepare, may the games always be in your favor” the voice said and then the call was cut. Gbenga checked the time; it was 11: 53pm.

There was silence for a while, then everyone began to scramble toward the door, they got to the office the terrorist had slept in finding bags with labels on them, they all took what they needed, leaving a fire extinguisher behind, satisfied that there was more than enough for everyone.

Gbenga thought ‘He didn’t have all these things with him when we left the super market, he must have gone back to get them, why didn’t he call any of us to do it…’ Gbenga’s thoughts were interrupted when Damola, a female classmate said “do we have to wait for him we can just run away now” although her face revealed her the fear and nervousness.

Everyone looked at themselves for a while, but before they could come to an agreement an explosion rang out from above them and the horde of undead all turned to the direction of the building they were in.