The Endgame Chronicles (by Hugh White) novel Chapter 655

Chapter 655

“Raarh!”

The zombies surged upward.

Hayley and the others sprinted up the stairs for their lives.

-15 Books

The moment Hayley stepped onto the 15th floor, a zombie burst out from behind the safety door with a guttural snarl.

It was clutching a human head and chewing on it. Thick brown mush clung to its mouth, half-rotfed flesh smeared across its face.

The instant it spotted living people, it tossed aside the head it had been gnawing on. The thing had been dead for ages anyway.

The zombie opened its jaws wide. Inside, half-digested pulp sloshed around with white maggots wriggling through it.

It was obvious what it had been eating.

Rotten corpses that had been sitting here for years.

It was the one Hayley had noticed earlier. The man kneeling on the floor with the scalp covered in fly eggs.

“Raarh!”

The zombie lunged straight at her.

Ever since she lost her knife, Hayley hadn’t had a decent weapon. 1

So, when the creature came at her, she simply swung Griffin like a battering ram and used his foot to kick the zombie away.

Griffin had absolutely nothing to say about that.

The zombie flew backward from the impact.

Hayley kept carrying Griffin past the 15th-floor safety door and started up the stairs again.

Then, she heard a loud buzzing.

A dark cloud burst out from the doorway behind them.

Bzzzz.

Bzzzz.

A cloud of flies… Again!

Thousands of green bottle flies, each one nearly the size of a pinky finger, beat their wings as they poured out in a thick swarm.

Hayley threw up an air barrier instantly.

The barrier spread wide enough to cover Liam and the others behind her.

But the people farther back weren’t so lucky. The flies rushed straight into them.

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+15 FROUT

Anywhere there was an opening, they swarmed in.

They crawled down collars, into pants, ears, and even nostrils.

Anyone who happened to have their mouth open got the worst of it.

The moment they gasped, flies flooded in.

The insects buzzed frantically inside their mouths, bouncing against the inner cheeks, crawling across tongues and teeth. Tiny legs brushed against throats and gums as they wriggled deeper, laying eggs as they went.

Some even flew straight down toward the back of their throats,

The victims coughed and choked, unable to breathe properly.

Every opening was filled with flies.

Ellen was one of the unlucky ones. The second she opened her mouth to scream, it was filled with flies.

Donnie and Charlie waved their arms frantically, trying to swat the flies away.

The others clutched their faces and staggered forward.

At the back of the group, Warren saw the swarm coming.

Without thinking, he turned and pulled Jasmine behind him, shielding her.

Bzzz!

The cloud of flies swept past them.

Just as the swarm cleared the stairwell, the battered safety door behind them burst open.

“Raarh!”

Zombie Theo came charging out first.

Warren’s eyelid twitched when he saw Theo.

But there was no time to think.

He grabbed Jasmine and ran up to the 15th floor, then 16, 17…

Everyone was racing toward the rooftop on the 27th floor.

That was their only chance.

Warren’s stamina was noticeably better than the others.

That was no surprise. Back in their little base, he had always been the one eating the most and the best.

There had been 15 of them originally, all office workers from this building.

Warren, Jasmine, Donnie, Charlie, and Ellen had all worked at the same company.

Ellen had been the receptionist, and Jasmine the art director. Donnie and Charlie were designers in Jasmine’s

team.

Warren had been the department manager.

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Right before the outbreak, their company had been pushing through a huge project. Jasmine’s entire department had stayed late to work overtime. More than 30 people had been in the office that night.

Warren and Ellen hadn’t needed to stay, but they had for their own reasons.

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