Path of the Dead - Working Title

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Sara watched as she was impaled by nine different shards of glass: One into her left her right hand, one in her left wrist, one in her left bicep, one directly between her left shoulders joint, four in different locations in her torso and one into her left thigh. Tears filled her eyes and she didn't care if they fell onto the corpse of her sister, she didn't care if her emotions were showing, she just watched her sister get thrown out of a window on the tenth floor. She looked back at Wade, who was beginning to make his way up the stairs to confront King, "Just what the hell is wrong with you? When the hell did you get the idea to throw Sasha out of the window? There's no way you're Wade Smith, because he would never have thrown her out of a window."

"Then I must not be Wade Smith then." When he looked back at Sara, there was something in his eyes that even gave Sara a sense of dread and pause. He stopped himself from moving any further and focused all of his attention on Sara, "And just what exactly are you going to do about it?"

That's what she wished and thought in her mind of hat he was saying, but he simply stood there, and she could somehow feel herself beginning to take shallow breathes, as if she was somehow losing oxygen. Fighting the sensation, she took three steps s she could confront this man, but she passed out before she was able to do so.

Wade looked back in front of him as he began to head up the stairs, and at the top, he saw Benjamin King standing there, waiting for him.

"I'm impressed that you were able to make it up here, but I shouldn't be too surprised since it is you, Mr. Wade Smith." He gripped his cane tightly as he waited for Wade to completely ascend the stairs. He turned his back and made his way back to his chair and desk that sat in front of the window that looked out across the entire city, "I know you have come here to kill me, but I would like to make a deal with you, if you're willing to listen."

Wade had no intension of agreeing to whatever the King was going to offer him, but he figured he'd humor him before killing him, "What is it you have in mind?"

"A business proposition more than anything. Wade, I want you to join my empire. I want someone with your kind of power to help me rule this city so something like this," Indicating the destruction and chaos that was ruling over the city, "And since I'm sure you're wondering what you would be getting out of it: Not only will I leave your friends alone, but I'll even give back the one girl back."

Wade was actually rather surprised at what King was offering him: He was expecting some kind of bullshit just so he could probably stay alive just a bit longer, but this deal that he was offering honestly didn't sound that bad. And if he is infected with the virus that has spread throughout the city, then technically Zach, Jacob and the others think that he's dead.

Damn. This is going to be harder than I thought.

King suddenly got a massive smile across his face, a smile that a man would get when he thinks that he has won. Suddenly, he went from a man bargaining for his life, a man that was scared but was trying not to show it, to being a man who was very relaxed and thought that the world that he thought was crumbling around him was now forming back together again. He sat in his chair and propped his legs on top of his desk and placed his hands behind his head as he leaned back in his chair, "So....do we have a deal, Wade?"

The way that King was suddenly starting to act was very displeasing to Wade, thinking that he had won. Thinking that Wade was just going to join him. Yeah, the arrangement that King had made Sounded nice, but it was whether or not that he was going to uphold that arrangement that was holding Wade back...at first. But now that he saw how confident King was for where he was relaxed enough to recline back in his chair broke any chance of Wade agreeing to the terms, "You know something King...you almost had me there for a minute."

King's smile face turned to a face of displeasure, "Excuse me?"

"You see, although your 'Proposition' sounds rather convincing, I remembered that they are words coming from a dead trying to turn his rotten luck around before he ends up biting the bullet. Now...how is it that you're willing to die, from one killer to another?"

King's face quickly progressed from his smiling face to the face of displeasure, to concern, all the way back to fear. Where did he go wrong? He had done everything he always had when it came to situations like these, and even had a simple plan for the ones who refused his offer, but this...this somehow felt different compared to the other times. He gripped his cane and after Wade took a couple steps towards him, he panicked, "No! It's not going to end like this, you motherfucker!" He grabbed his cane and pulled it apart to show that it was a shotgun cane and fired off a shell.

Wade took the shot, nearly losing his arm as he spun around the blast to the best of his ability and caught King by the throat and pinned him against the glass by the throat, cracking it in the process. He got close to King's face and while King was still rather dazed, he broke King's wrist, preventing him from using the shotgun cane on him again, "You never did answer my question, King. However, if yo want to go out in a blaze of glory, I can happily accommodate you."

King could see nothing else but Wade's eyes, but despite everything that was going on around him, he was still able to say the one thing he said to everyone who was trying to kill him, "I'll give you till the count...of three to make up...you mind."

Wade smiled, "If you think your assistance is going to be able to help you, you're only going to be disappointed."

"One..."

Wade slammed King hard against the glass, breaking it behind him.

"Two..."

Not caring of any other threat that King had, Wade released his grip, dropping King out of the window, allowing him to freefall eleven stories straight to the ground on the bottom level.

As King fell to his death, he uttered one final word before hitting the ground.

Three.

Not knowing what the hell King was even counting for, he turned around, looking for the room where Jessica was being held in when he heard screaming. He ran towards the screaming and flung a door open and found that Jessica was about to get attacked by three zombies. He quickly pulled his hood up and ran in, punching a zombie clear through the back of their skull and coming out of their mouth. Using the zombie stuck on his fist, he used it as a shield towards the other two while he did what he could to free Jessica from her binds. He felt one of them slip by and immediately ripped his hand out of the one zombie and ripped its head clean off and then chunked it at the last zombie to try and knock it off balance and daze it for a moment long enough for him to finish removing the binds off of Jessica.

Jessica was scared and confused about who this guy was that as saving here. At the moment with the door being open and being the only real source of light, her eyes were having a hard time adjusting to the light, but could hear everything that was going on around her with her "savior" and the three zombies. It also wasn't until now that she felt th3e side of her head throbbing and stiffness within her left leg and possibly a couple of her ribs. She could feel her binds slowly getting released but she could also tell that whoever was trying to save her was having a hard time multi-tasking of trying to save her and kill the zombies.

Wade finally removed the last of Jessica's binding and turned around just in time to grab the zombie by its head and snapped its neck. He looked to Jessica and asked in the same voice that he used for Zach and Jacob, "Can you walk?"

"Yeah...yeah, I should be fine." She tried standing up, but after taking a couple of steps, she started to fall whenever she was caught by whoever this guy was, "Now don't take this the wrong way and I appreciate the help, but just who the hell are you?"

Wade smiled under the hood, "I'm no one special. Just someone who's tired of Benjamin King's bullshit. You wouldn't be Jessica though, would you?"