The group crossed the battle site and trampled through the front lawn of the property next to their shelter while huffing and puffing.

Luckily for them, it seemed that the house to their right was uninhabited, since no zombies stumbled out from it. That or whatever monsters that lurked inside were stuck there for some reason. They did not care to find out as they already had enough problems as it was. The path in front of them was hopelessly blocked by six undead.

Danny recognized some of the shambling figures. It appeared that the ones that were initially hanging around the main gateway of the walls had been attracted by Janice’s screaming to the west side of the property and were now blocking their path unfortunately.

Danny could already see the despair in some of his teammate’s eyes. He could understand their fears, given that there were even more zombies coming from behind them, squeezing them from both sides of the street. All signs pointed to a costly struggle.

They had managed to keep a safe distance from their pursuers since they were able to travel faster than them, however, that distance would soon be closed if they got pinned down by the enemies at front. If they allowed themselves to be pincered from both sides than they would be utterly screwed.

Danny knew that he was quick enough on his feet to dodge the enemies at front and jump inside the walls if he kept going at this rhythm, in that case however, not all of them would make it most likely. Just because Danny was sufficiently nimble and could do it, that did not mean that others could as well.

The chances of Chris, Donovan or Jane being grabbed and submerged by the tide of corpses was rather large if they tried to do the same. Those three were less athletic than the others, so one or two of them would probably perish there if Danny and the rest decided to look only after themselves.

As the saying goes, you do not have to outrun the bear, only outrun the other guy.

Danny did not want to give up on his allies unless there was no other alternative though. Thus, after seeing their path blocked, Danny made a snap decision purely by instinct.

He accelerated even further, heading directly towards the smallest-looking zombie in front of them and threw the bag he was carrying with both hands with all his might in its direction.

Danny was fairly strong, so when they were each filling their own baggage previously, he opted to place around ten kilos of weight inside it, guessing he could easily carry that amount with one hand without exerting too much effort in such a short route.

Therefore, when said bag hit that small zombie squarely in the chest with the force of both the weight and the added momentum of Danny’s speed and throw, the creature was instantly pushed backwards and fell down on the ground with the tossed object still lying on top of it.

Danny then proceeded to rearm himself with his hammer, taking it back from his tool belt, and calmly approached the closest foe to him.

Seeing the effectiveness of the action, Jane and Carl tried to mimic it with varying grades of success. Both objects managed to hit their targets, but one zombie merely tripped to the side while the hurled bag fell to the other side, and the other monster merely backed a few steps before shaking off the impact.

Both Carl and Jane did not wait to see the results of their throws before taking action. Carl went after the other two unharmed monsters, rushing ahead fearlessly as to take as much heat as possible in order to ease up the situation for Janice. Jane on the other hand went after the one she had aimed at, the one that had tripped and was currently on the ground, in order to keep it occupied, giving more time to the others deal with their respective obstacles and hopefully killing it herself as well.

Janice, on her turn, went for the one Danny had hit first and still laid down weighted by the ‘projectile’. She figured that she could quickly send it off while all the other enemies were temporarily occupied in order to build up their advantage even further and as to not waste this chance of taking care of it while it was incapacitated.

As the four of them took actions successively, Chris and Donovan were still a ways behind, as they were the slowest members of the group. Unsurprisingly, they were taking a longer time to cross the same distance, since they were carrying three bags in between the two and had not resigned themselves to discard any for now, even as they were sweating and panting and with even more zombies on their heels.

Danny knew that every second was precious now, but he did not let the pressure dull his movements and thinking. After realizing that he would not have to deal with any other threats for the moment – given the opportune assistance provided by his allies –, Danny employed his tried and tested tactic of kicking his adversary down followed by a finishing blow. This time however, it took two swings of his hammer to make sure the monster would not get up again, but that only amounted to a couple extra breaths of time spent.

Janice had already finished off her target by this time, and had moved to help her best-friend that was struggling to keep her opponent rooted on the ground.

Carl was also having a hard time fending his two enemies off, but he was still managing to persevere for now, thus Danny decided to head towards the last one that had just reoriented itself after being mauled by an improvised missile and was now eyeing Carl with hunger, threatening to break the tenuous balance Carl had managed to construct.

Danny obviously would not allow that, so before the zombie had any opportunity to head towards his fighting companion, Danny took the chance to surreptitiously strike it on the side of the head with his hammer while it distractedly looking the other way.

Sadly, the swift blow was not powerful enough to finish it in one go neither it had enough force to make the zombie fall down as Danny rushed the attack to draw its attention away from Carl.

Thus, after seeing the monster still standing, Danny repositioned himself closer and delivered a considerably stronger attack on the creature’s leg.

As the zombie was still wobbling from the first impact, Danny could not aim properly at its head. Given that he would likely miss the critical target and would not be able to finish his opponent in one blow, Danny cautiously gave up that course of action, and went for the second-best alternative – its balance.

After going for the more guaranteed choice, Danny easily managed to down his foe and subsequently finish it off.

At this moment, Janice had just finished dealing with her adversary together with Jane. Carl on the other hand was still keeping his two enemies busy, managing to precariously but persistently hold on. The remaining delayed duo of the group had also finally reached the rest of them, and were looking back to the rapid approaching menace while panting, worry clearly plastered on their visages.

Danny could count at least twenty bodies sporadically stretching into the distance, divided into small groups. However, Danny was not anxious given that the worst part was already over.

Now that they had managed to reduce the numbers of the zombies blocking their way to the house, they would be able to swiftly deal with them by making use of their advantage in numbers. The battle’s result had already been pretty much decided.

That soon proved to be the case after Danny, Janice and Jane went to reinforce Carl. Once they regrouped and faced the last two remaining enemies while working together, they were able to smoothly and quickly eliminate the obstacle.

Afterwards, Carl and Danny hurried to retrieve the bags that had been tossed around and were scattered on the battlefield while Jane went ahead to set the ladder accompanied by Janice’s protection.

Nothing untoward or unforeseen happened after that. The group successfully moved their newly gotten goods inside the safety of the walls before going inside themselves one by one and, lastly, taking back the ladder.

Although their outing was filled with bumps along the road, they had achieved their goal and came back in triumph. After a period of respite, they would emerge reinvigorated, while feeling even more confident and better prepared to face new challenges.

No matter what the future held in store, for now they were safe and nothing would change the fact that when faced with this changed reality, they bravely decided to venture forth and the result that awaited their first foray was success!

The impact this achievement had on the whole’s team morale and its importance could not be stressed enough.