Stronghold In The Apocalypse

Chapter 18: Family

Leo finally returned to the house feeling exhausted.

"Heyyyy...where did you go?" Michael saw Leo came in through the front door while holding a glass of water.

Leo didn't say anything and looked at him then at glass of water on his hand and then back at him.

"Water?"Michael noticed him looking at the water on his hand and offered it.

"Yeah" Leo said as he slumped down on the sofa as he motioned Michael to give to him.

Michael handed him the glass of water and also went back to the kitchen to get one for him before siting on the sofa opposite of Leo.

"Where are the others?" Leo asked as he positioned his body on a sleeping position on the large sofa.

"They are still sleeping and I just got up, probably around 2-3 minutes ago" Michael said while taking a sip of his water.

"I see, I'm also gonna take a nap, wake me up after 3 hours" Leo looked at the wall clock, pointed at 2:30 pm and said to Michael.

"Alright" Michael nodded understandingly and went to lock the door and made sure if everything is lock where no one from the outside can go in before heading to the balcony keeping a lookout out without Leo telling him to.

Almost 3 hours later, Leo was awoken by a noise/commotion going around him.

Leo immediately sat up in alert and sweep at his surroundings with a sharp look. Leo noticed that Joe and the rest are talking with raised but hush voices as they stood in front of the window while looking at something outside.

"What's up?" Leo got up and walked towards them.

"U-uhh, you're awake, sorry if we woke you up" Joe said.

"It's okay, It-" Leo said but was cut off because he heard someone screaming and crying for help.

"You heard it too?" Tom asked.

"Shall we go and take a look and probably help them?" Joe ask Leo carefully.

"Let's, go take up your weapons and head out, I'll go first" Leo said and the four of them immediately ran upstairs while went outside and get a closer look.

Leo opened the gate and behind are the 4 guys already came out of the house and ran towards him.

"Close the gate" Leo instructed as started walking towards where the sound is coming from.

The rest followed after Josh made sure the gate is closed and followed Leo.

After a few moment's later, they reached a clearing just a few meters away from the neighborhood and what they was a family of 3 people, a woman, a little girl crying and a robust man who was frantically protecting the girls behind him from Zombies trying to get them using two baseball bats on both hands.

And they woman noticed a group of armed people and yelled in joy: "Help us please!". The man also noticed even before the woman but he was wary of them because they're armed.

Tom and the rest did not move but instead look at Leo. Leo noticed that they are probably waiting for him and thought " Are they already starting to looked at me like a leader? Then that's good" Leo asked himself smiling.

Leo just nodded and started surveying the surroundings for potential danger other than the Zombies.

Finally getting the consent of Leo, the four of them immediately went to help them.

Roar! ~

When suddenly a deafening roar sounded which startled the group even Leo immediately wore his Armor and took out his M110 SASS from his Inventory.

The rest of the group along with the 3 new people gathered around him.

"What the heck is that?" the man who was holding the two bats looked at Leo in shocked and surprised along with the woman. They were bewildered by sudden appearance of a Armor covering his body.

"Pretty cool, right?" Josh sounded boastful like he was the one wearing it when he saw the shocked looks of the two people.

"Shut up and look carefully at surroundings we don't know what kind of animal that released that roar" Leo reprimanded him.

"I think it was a mountain lion, well even though it sounded different" the man interjected.

"And you are?" Leo looked at him and asked.

The man flinched from being looked at by someone wearing a high tech looking armor especially if its someone towering over you "Ahh, y-yes. I forgot to introduce ourselves, this is my wife Laura and my daughter Michelle and I'm Staff Sergeant Austin Jay".

Austin was robust white man around 6 feet 5 inches with a haircut like those in the Army with green eyes and Laura is a beautiful woman with long blonde wavy hair with deep blue eyes but shorter probably around 6 feet 1 inch and their daughter Michelle probably around 8 years old, looking much like her mom but inherited her father's green eyes making her look like a child star.

"I'm Leo, the head of this group and we will continue this discussion later because here it comes" Leo said in a grave tone as he pointed his rifle towards the emerging monster coming out from the woods.

Roar! ~ the monster roared at them as strange glint would flashed across it's eyes as it moved left and right assessing the group of people in front of it but its eyes never left Leo, probably felt that it was the most dangerous of the bunch.

"Oh god, It's really a mutated mountain lion!" Austin exclaimed in shocked and fear.

Leo raised an eyebrow when he heard him "Slowly back away towards the house and you.. know about this mutations?" he asked intrigued as they slowly moved back with guys at the back and Leo taking the front facing the monster as it inched closer to them.

"Not really, I just heard some rumors going around when I was still back at the camp" Austin gulped nervously and tightly gripped his weapon while his hands are already full of sweat while looking at the mountain lion following them.

"When was that?" Leo asked.

Austin was surprised when he heard the calm voice coming from the person inside the Armor, like Leo wasn't even bothered that a huge monster twice the size of the regular mountain lion and it even has a foot long horn on its forehead looking at them like a prey.

"I think it was around a week ago when I heard it" Austin gulped but still answered even though he was feeling the tension lingering on the air, like the monster would pounce at them any second now.

"System, does that mean that some of this animals are already mutating even before I got sent here?" Leo asked while his finger is slowly pressing on the trigger when he noticed that the mountain lion is slowly moving towards them.

"Yes host" the system only gave a brief answer and then at the same time the mutated mountain lion suddenly made a mad dash towards them while roaring.

Roar! ~

Bang! Bang! Bang! ~

Kyaaa! ~

Oh shit! ~

Different sounds was heard and following a heavy thud sounded on the ground like something heavy fell.

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