Be Careful What You Wish For: A Zombie Apocalypse-Chapter 424: Nepotism At Its Finest

Cocking his head to the side, Dimitri studied the man in front of him. While the two of them were roughly the same height, Dimitri won when it came to muscle mass. However, that alone couldn’t determine anything.

Where Dimitri was built like a brick shithouse, the other man was built like a swimmer, hard muscles but leaner. That would make it easy and quick for him to react in a fight, like Salvatore or Ronan.

"It’s not up to you where I fall when it comes to her," replied Dimitri with a shrug of his shoulders. Neither man needed to say who they were talking about, because as far as the two of them were concerned, there was only one woman worth it.

And if they were talking about different women, even better.

However, both Dimitri and Eric knew that they weren’t. Hattie’s men all had a certain je ne sais quoi to them. That ability to go from normal to psycho in less time than it took someone to open their mouth.

Like recognized like, and neither one was willing to back down.

"We are all moths to her flame, and only she has the right to decide who dies and who is reborn in her fire," continued Dimitri.

The other man raised an eyebrow before conceding Dimitri’s point. "I’ll take you to her then," he announced, only for the guards to start crying out in protest.

"You cannot let him into the base," said the leader, his eyes bouncing between Dimitri and Eric. "He is too much of a threat."

"You noticed?" scoffed Eric, rolling his eyes as he looked at the man. "And just what are you going to do to stop him? I mean, you have a plan, right?"

"If we can’t melt him, we’ll freeze him," shrugged the leader as one of the other soldiers stepped forward. His hands were completely encased in ice as he demonstrated his powers.

"Good luck," sneered both Eric and Dimitri at the same time. The two looked at each other and smirked before Dimitri was hit with a blast of ice water that froze the second it touched him.

"I’ve been colder," deadpanned Dimitri as he literally shook off the cocoon of frozen water. "I suggest that you go up North if you want to learn how to freeze things."

The ice power user turned pale before stepping back in line.

"Do I want to know?" asked Eric, waving off the team as he swept his arm toward the gate of Sanctuary.

"Meh," shrugged Dimitri, brushing off a few pieces of ice that were still clinging to him. "Met some nice people, went on a cruise, Hattie got a couple of pets. All in all, it was a nice, relaxing vacation."

Eric nodded as the men and women around them fled, trying to get away from the monster.

"Sounds like fun," nodded Eric. "She likes pets?"

"Yeah," agreed Dimitri, a dreamy smile on his face. "The cuter the better."

Storing that away in his memory, Eric led the way to the hidden base at the back of the Sanctuary. "I’ll keep that in mind. I think I can come up with something she would like."

-----

The lead soldier, Caspian, narrowed his eyes as he watched Eric and the monster strolling away without a single thought. Eric hadn’t even taken him to the quarantine building for the mandatory 24-hour observation.

Even he would admit that the chances of the man being attacked and injured by a zombie were almost zero, but almost wasn’t good enough when it came to protecting everyone inside the Sanctuary and base.

It was starting to get under Caspian’s skin, the amount of nepotism that was found amongst the higher-ups. Réne and Alicia ran pretty much all the day-to-day things, and if they didn’t like you, you didn’t stand a chance at surviving. If they did like you, then you were easily elevated to a higher position and got better perks.

Eric was now in charge of the base side of the Sanctuary, after Bishop was forcefully removed. To this day, Caspian believed that there was something wrong with that move. While his memories of that night were blurry, he knew without a doubt that there was no way Bishop would be involved with hurting anyone.

As a soldier, Caspian had to bow down to Eric, because once again, he was friends with Réne and Alicia, but there was no mention of whether Eric even had military experience. Now that he had decided to take the monster under his wings, he was putting the base in danger.

Biting his lip, he looked down at his friend on the ground. "Someone come and bring him to the pit," he sighed, closing his eyes. They had started the pit, a massive hole in the ground that they filled with dead bodies. There were spikes at the bottom of it that managed to impale the bodies, just in case they decided that they didn’t want to stay dead.

Even if there were enough bodies in the pit to render the spikes useless, the hole was deep enough that it was practically impossible to climb out of it.

Cemeteries and mourning were from a long ago era when the dead stayed dead. Now there was burning or the pit.

And Keller hated the idea of being cremated more than he hated the idea of going to the pit. This was the last thing that he could do for his friend.

As intently as he was looking at Keller, the man the monster had killed, he missed the small black shadow that snuck into Keller’s hair and then into his ear. When the four men arrived to take the body away, Caspian said a quick prayer before turning around and going back to watching the line.

Even if no one else cared about the safety and security of the civilians who wanted to come to New Dawn for the hope and security that it promised, Caspian was willing to kill and die to protect it.