Ruins A.G.A. 2nd Novel in the Ruinsaga series

Chapter 10 .

Lily

The zombies moaned, teeth bared, fingers clawed out towards us. They never got too close though. Not as long as Gunnor was with us. He led the way through the woods while the rest of us pushed bikes through the few inches of snow.

"You really should have obtained sleds instead of bikes for the snow," Gunnor chastised us.

"Bikes will come in handy when we ride on a snowless road," Hunter said.

"But we're just starting winter," Gunnor pointed out. "There might not be snowless roads for several months."

"Sleds are hard to maneuver through the trees and someone would have to pull them. Bikes are difficult, but still more practical."

Gunnor sighed. "We should go to the store, get sleds and I can pull all of you. I understand that you all are too weak, but I'm not."

"We'd still have to maneuver through the trees," Hunter said.

"We could just travel on the roads," Gunnor said. "I understand you wanting to stay hidden from zombies before, but they won't get close with me here. They shouldn't have gotten close to you either," he said to Hunter and Grace. "Your dragon blood should keep them at bay. They seem only interested in humans."

"We are mostly human," Grace said.

"The zombies come after us too," Hunter said, "unless, we show our dragon eyes. That is the only time they haven't come for me. And even then, when there were a lot of them and they were already chasing our group, our dragon eyes didn't really stop them from chasing our group. If it had just been me and Victory though, I'm sure that would have stopped them."

"When your eyes turn gray, they don't attack you?" I asked because that was the first time I heard about that.

"Yeah," he said. "I wasn't sure at first, but when we first went to Monica's party to save our friends, the sliding glass door to the backyard was open."

"I remember," I said.

"I went ahead of the rest of you to close it. A zombie passed by right at that moment and looked at me. I changed my eyes to the dragon eyes and it passed on by as if it didn't see me."

"Even if the zombies won't get close to us because of Gunnor," I said, "that still leaves those men in the forest. Wait, were they human or were they some type of strange being too?" I hadn't known other beings had existed when I first saw them and it hadn't occurred to me to wonder about them since. "Can you tell who is human and not?" I asked Hunter.

Zombie moans came from all around us as we got closer to the road. They heard us talking and that drew them to us, but they wouldn't get too close. A wide circle of groaning zombies surrounded us. It caused the hairs on my arms and back of my neck to stand on end. I gripped the handle of my ax in my gloved hand. I noticed my brother held onto tightly to his baseball bat. More zombies joined the crowd of zombies attracted by the other zombies' groans.

"It depends on what they are," Hunter said. "The vampires have an aura about them that lets other supernatural creatures know of their presence without seeing them. It surrounded their mansion. That was why I tried to warn everyone not to go there."

"It's an aura that usually attracts humans, by the way," Gunnor said, "unless we expressly don't want to attract humans. We can use that aura to repulse humans if we so desire."

"Werewolves have a certain smell to them," Grace said. "It's easy to know it's them if you know what to look for...or smell for."

"But seeing them from a distance without the smell, you wouldn't know if they were human or not," Hunter added. "The people in the RU in? cafes were a mix of humans and venefici. The humans were lured there like Darren was."