Chương 20: Culling the Herd

While Ryan and Mr. Diaz were embarking on a dangerous quest to fetch supplies for themselves and their group. Zane was getting acquainted with the new survivors he found himself with. Aside from a group of a dozen students, there were two faculty members. Including the Principle of the School, who had somehow, or another managed to survive until now.

The principal was a fat, short, balding middle-aged man, with beady eyes, and a long pointy hooked nose that almost appeared as if it were a beak of some kind.

He wore a pair of glasses and a suit. In many ways, he resembled a popular comic book villain. Especially if he were to wear a monocle and top hat instead of his usual attire.

It was because of this that students usually referred to the man as "The Penguin" despite his name being something far more normal like Oliver Watson. Or Mr. Watson officially.

Mr. Watson was wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief, while expressing his concerns about Zane's recent murder to the young man's homeroom teacher. All while eying the busty mature silver haired beauty's chest with a lustful gaze.

"Should we not be concerned with Mr. Graves and his recent… actions? What if he does the same to the rest of us? Surely we're not going to sit by and wait for that psycho to murder us all? I always knew there was something seriously wrong with that kid. The way he silently eyed us all with such disdain, I dare say he was one bad day away from going on a shooting spree!"

Despite the fact that Zane had just slapped the shit out of Olivia, the woman was quick to defend the young man from her former boss with an almost vitriolic statement.

"Keep that boy's name out of your mouth, Oliver… He is the only reason Elena, and I have survived this long, and I will not tolerate your disrespect!"

It was not just Mr. Watson who was surprised by Olivia's defense of the man, in fact Elena, and the other students who were huddled together in a classroom were also shocked by the fact that the woman had so quickly defended Zane and his outright insane actions.

But before the penguin shaped man could actually respond to Olivia's dismissal of his concerns, a voice interrupted them. It was a callous and cold voice. On which they were all too familiar with. Standing in the doorway was Zane who still gripped his bloodstained baseball bat tightly in his hands.

The young man was quick to point out to the new group of people who had joined him, and bark commands at them.

"Nobody eats for free around here. I don't care how scared shitless you are, if you want to eat, you have to work. You with the brown hair and freckles, you're going to be on watch with me tonight. We will rotate around the building to keep an eye on the perimeter to make sure those two monsters don't try to break down out barricades.

As for Penguin, and the two of you. I'm sending you on a retrieval mission. There's not enough supplies to go around, so the three of you will go fetch some food, water, and medicine for the rest of us. There's enough bags around this building for you to bring back a good haul, so be quick about it!"

Mr. Watson despised being called by his nickname. More than just about anything in this world, and was quick to stand up and waddle over to Zane, so flustered that he practically forgot the way that the young man had bashed in a fellow student's brains mere moments before.

"Listen here young man, I'm the principle of this school, and I will not allow you to order me around as if I am some kind of slave! You will respect my authority, and that of Miss Bennett's!"

Zane narrowed his eyes before swing his back off his shoulder and into his hands where he repeatedly made a menacing gesture which caused Mr. Watson to break out into a cold sweat once more. But it was Zane's menacing words, combined with a venomous tongue, which thoroughly forced the older man into submission.

"Oh yeah? And how exactly are you going to enforce your control over me and the others? It's a brave new world, Mr. Watson, might is right, and your authority means nothing when you are incapable of backing it up with force… Now get going before I do to you what I did to that other punk…"

The middle-aged principal looked back at Olivia with a pleading gaze, but she simply snubbed the man by averting her gaze altogether. With a heavy sigh, the Penguin tidied his suit coat, before waddling off in search of bags to fulfill the demands that Zane had made of him.

With the threat of violent retaliation on the table, the other two students who were tasked to follow their principle into the jaws of hell sheepishly ran off to do as they told. But it was clear by their physique that they were not cut out for such sprints.

Once they were gone, Elena approached Zane, and dragged him aside from the other survivals. There was a look of fury in her beautiful blue eyes as she scolded the man for what he had just done.

"I know what you are doing?"

Zane's black eyebrows raised as he gazed upon the young woman with a lifeless expression, before responding to her question with one of his own.

"Oh, really? And what is that?"

Elena sighed heavily, her substantial bosom heaving as she did so, before she outright said exactly what Zane was thinking.

"You're culling the herd… You plan to send out our weakest members to go die…. That is cruel Zane, even for you…"

Zane did not initially respond, and instead swung his back onto his shoulder in silence before turning away from Elena, he was just about to exit the empty classroom which she had dragged him off to, but instead stopped in the middle of the doorway, where his words would be something that Elena would forever remember.

"We don't have the luxury to look after the weak… This is a survival of the fittest, and those three would only drag down our chances of making it out of here alive… Harden your heart, because we don't have the ability to be compassionate any longer…"

After saying this Zane left Elena alone with nothing but her thoughts, and his parting words.