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(EXTRA CHAPTER)
Dr. Jenner clutched a cooler packed with blood samples and analysis data, staring blankly out the window at the ruined city flashing past.
They hadn't chosen to return the way they came. Instead, relying on the fragmented information and map provided by Merle, they took a more westerly route—longer in theory, but likely with fewer walkers—hoping to avoid the trouble they had encountered earlier.
But in the apocalypse, the roads were always full of surprises.
As Calista's group drove into an open suburban fringe, chaotic gunfire suddenly erupted ahead!
Not scattered shots, but a fierce firefight involving multiple people.
"Slow down! Pull over and take cover!" Leah ordered immediately.
The three vehicles quickly turned behind a dilapidated gas station, using the broken walls and rubble as concealment.
Leah raised her binoculars and carefully peeked out.
Several hundred meters ahead, a brutal pursuit was unfolding at an intersection.
Two pickup trucks reinforced with crude welded steel plates were wildly chasing an old school bus trying to escape.
Men leaned out of the pickups, spraying bullets at the bus's tires and windows, muzzle flashes flickering nonstop.
The bus driver was clearly panicking. The vehicle swerved erratically. The rear window had already been shattered, and the body was riddled with bullet holes.
Then the struggling bus suddenly swerved to avoid the gunfire—
Only to slam into a crooked utility pole by the roadside, finally stalling and collapsing helplessly in the middle of the road.
The pickup trucks quickly surrounded it.
Seven or eight armed men with vicious expressions jumped out.
They roughly yanked open the bus doors and dragged the passengers out.
Through her binoculars, Leah saw that the people being dragged out were several young Mexican or Hispanic men wearing old T-shirts and thick chains.
It looked like two gangs clashing.
A burly man who seemed to be the leader grabbed a struggling young man by the hair, kicked him to the ground, and roared at the other trembling survivors.
"Run! Go on, run! Those useless old geezers already went ahead of you!"
Before his words even finished, he raised his pistol.
Bang!
The gunshot rang out.
But the one who fell wasn't the young man.
Perhaps to intimidate them—or simply to indulge his own twisted amusement—the leader grinned viciously and fired a random shot into the distance before pressing the muzzle against the young man's forehead.
The bullet he had casually fired cracked through the pickup's rear window with a sharp snap!
It struck, with terrifying precision, the blood analyzer they had just salvaged from the CDC, secured in the pickup's cargo bed.
Merle let out a startled yell, frantically patting his head to make sure it was still there.
"Jesus! That fucking bullet just scraped past my ear!"
The faint glow on the blood analyzer's screen instantly went dark. Inside, tiny sparks crackled, and the smell of burnt circuitry quickly filled the air.
"No!!!"
Dr. Jenner let out a shrill, anguished scream. He threw open the Humvee door and lunged toward the smoking blood analyzer.
"My data! My samples!!!"
This portable blood analyzer was something he had deliberately brought along.
It was essential for studying Calista's blood sample.
That single gunshot—and Jenner's heart-rending scream—completely shattered the last trace of restraint Calista's group had about avoiding conflict.
The bastards had just destroyed the most critical result of their entire mission.
Damn it.
Those sons of bitches.
Kill them.
"Jenson, eliminate the threat," Leah said coldly, her voice dripping with killing intent.
She shoved open the car door, already bringing the muzzle of her M4 carbine up.
Almost the moment she finished speaking, a light metallic sound came from the pickup's roof.
Jenson swiftly climbed onto the welded roll cage.
He dropped into a prone position and set up his sniper rifle. The entire sequence took no more than two or three seconds.
Whoosh—
A distinctive suppressed shot sounded almost simultaneously from the roof.
In the distance, the man holding the pistol suddenly jerked backward and collapsed heavily to the ground without a sound.
A horrifying bullet hole had appeared in the center of his forehead.
The sudden, perfectly precise long-range kill stunned the entire group.
"Enemy attack! Take cover!" someone screamed in panic.
But Jenson's deadly gaze had already locked onto the next target.
Whoosh—
Another man who had just leaned halfway out from behind a pickup door, trying to locate the source of the shot, suddenly had his chest burst open in a spray of blood and dropped instantly.
"Sniper! By the gas station!"
The remaining men finally reacted, scrambling frantically behind vehicles or anything that could provide cover.
But in the eyes of a professional sniper, their panic offered nowhere to hide.
Jenson's breathing remained steady, his finger calmly taking up the trigger.
Whoosh—
A thug who had bent down to drag the young man on the ground as a human shield suddenly had his calf ripped apart by a bullet.
He screamed and collapsed, only to be calmly finished off by Jenson.
This precise and lethal triple strike completely stunned the pickup thugs and secured an overwhelming advantage.
"Suppressing fire! Take them out!" Leah fired first.
"Roger! Eat this, you bastards!"
At this distance, the thugs' pistols were nearly useless. Leah's team, armed with rifles and backed by a sniper, unleashed overwhelming firepower that pinned them down completely.
The fight quickly turned into a one-sided slaughter.
Within minutes, five or six of the pickup thugs lay scattered across the intersection.
Only one man, who had stayed hidden behind an engine block, realized the situation was hopeless. Taking advantage of the brief moment when Leah's group was reloading, he scrambled into a pickup truck.
He slammed the vehicle into reverse, yanked the wheel hard, and fled in panic amid the screech of tires scraping against the pavement, quickly disappearing down the street.
"Target escaping. One pickup, two o'clock direction. Awaiting instructions," Jenson reported, still maintaining his aim.
"No pursuit. Maintain alert. Good work, Jenson," Leah replied, scanning the battlefield.
Ensuring Dr. Jenner and the supplies returned safely to Rock Fortress was the top priority. There was no need to complicate matters further.
The sniper's timely action had minimized both the risk and duration of direct combat.
They drove their vehicles toward the disabled school bus.
Beside it, the three remaining survivors from the bus sat slumped on the ground.
"Thank you… thank you!" The young man who had been kicked to the ground struggled to stand, barely able to form complete sentences.
"My name is Miguel. This is Felipe and Guillermo."
Leah frowned.
"Are you gang members? The world's already ended and you're still fighting gang wars?"
Guillermo limped to his feet and hurried to explain.
"We're not gangsters! We're from a nursing home in Atlanta. I'm the security guard there."
He pointed at the slightly chubby Felipe.
"He's a nurse at the nursing home. Miguel is his cousin."
Wow.
Calista was confused.
Calista was shocked.
Weren't these people the nursing home group from Season One?
The nursing home residents never appeared again in the later storyline. Calista had assumed their plotline simply never intersected with the main group, which was why they disappeared from the story.
So they had actually been killed.
...
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