Dead Man Walking: Living By Day, Dead By Night

Once these individuals were equipped with blunt weapons, Zane made it abundantly clear, with a menacing gesture, that they were going to fight the Undead outside the safety of their temporary shelter. And if they didn\'t… well, his words spoke for themselves.

"Not one step back, or I\'ll shoot you myself...\'

This was the command given to his new "conscripts" which Zane intended to use against the Undead horde which was currently in control of the high school campus. This intimidating statement was of course inspired by Joseph Stalin\'s order 227, which was notorious for forcing prisoners, and later conscripts into the German machine gun fire during the second world war.

A strategy which, while ultimately successful, came at the cost of millions of lives.

Thus, after removing the barricades from the front entrance of the second building, Zane kicked his quivering "soldiers" forward, unafraid to use violent force to compel them to fight. Meanwhile, Elena and Olivia stood at his side, eying him with disapproval.

Evidently, Zane\'s cruel methods were effective. As the moment the Walkers approached his pawns, they immediately began to swing their clubs as if their lives depended on it. Smashing the skulls and sometimes limbs of the undead monsters while crying tears from their eyes.

Never in their life did they expect by escaping the catastrophe of the main building, and escaping to safety elsewhere that they would be forced to fight, and potentially die for the sake of someone like Zane. But then again, Zane was now not only equipped with one gun, but two.

And he had even given a third to Elena, who until now seemed to support Zane, despite his cruelty and indifference towards human life.

Zane did not even need to take a front line approach while the walkers were the primary threat. In fact, he continued to issue commands from the rear, reminding everyone in front of him that if they dare take one step back against the onslaught of the undead horde, then he would kill them himself.

The threat of death coming from the front and rear was definitely something that a normal person could not handle. But as Sun Tzu once said, "Throw your soldiers into positions once there is no escape, and they will prefer death to flight."

Because of this, at least for the first few minutes of combat, these "conscripts" continued to fight and risk their lives against the Undead. But after only five minutes of combat, one young man finally broke, dropping his club, and running away from the tight formation that Zane had ordered his pawns to engage in.

"I can\'t do this anymore! I\'m sorry, I just want to live!"

As the man ran away, the others looked in hope towards him, while bracing off against the undead which sought to overwhelm them, using their baseball bat like clubs to push the monsters away, and attack them.

Knowing that morale was about to break, as were his ranks, Zane mercilessly aimed down the illuminated reticle of his fixed 4x scope, and fired a shot directly through the back of the deserter\'s skull. The loud crackle of gunfire was definitely something that would attract unwanted attention.

But at the same time, it served as a very real reminder about what happened when those pawns disobeyed their orders.

The survivors in Zane\'s group did not even have time to be stunned, as they were currently under assault. But they did manage to catch a glimpse of the deserter\'s instant death, as his body fell to the floor, after his head practically exploded from the 5.56x45 projectile.

Zane\'s face was expressionless as he rested his trigger on the flat side of his rifle\'s lower receiver, before calling out to those "troops" beneath his command with an equally callous tone in his voice.

"Anybody else want to fuck around and find out?"

Nobody dared break ranks and flee after what they just witnessed, and instead, they fought more fervently than ever before. Desperate to slay the horde of Undead which sought to overwhelm them. Along with the newcomers who were attracted by the loud crack of the gunshot which broke the sound barrier.

It was at this moment that Zane issued a command to Olivia, whose ability he was already aware of. After all, Elena had yet to tell Zane about what skill she had been granted by the system.

"Olivia, your skill has a 90 second cooldown. Am I right? Begin targeting those Walkers that seek to get close to the group!"

Olivia snapped back to reality after witnessing Zane ruthlessly murder another one of her former students. She curled her fingers and gritted her teeth, knowing what she needed to do, before calling out to the man she had chosen to follow to hell and back.

"Alright… I\'ll se what I can do!"

Shockingly, to everyone involved, Olivia\'s powers appeared far more destructive than any of them had realized. When she cast her skill, a giant bolt of lightning shot out from her fingers, and towards a group of Walkers which sought to join those who were attacking the front lines that Zane had formed.

Within a five meter radius, everything that existed within it was completely and utterly decimated, quite literally turned to ash. Even Zane\'s black eyes opened wide in surprise. The only thing that remained from the Walkers that Olivia had zapped were the blood crystals embedded within their brains, which fell to the floor seemingly unscathed from the destructive attack.

Knowing that Olivia was capable of such destruction, Zane was starting to think that she was someone he needed to keep alive at all costs. A thought that he never had for anyone other than himself until now.