I never heard Jason come in. He was just there, like a faint breeze deciding to take form at my side. With skill like that, everyone in the bar should've been freaking out from his presence, and yet no one even batted an eye. All except for the horse headed weirdo, who pulled up to the counter without a care in the world.

  “Ay dios mio,” said Jesus, sitting next to Jason. “If it isn’t Jason Zoorhees in the flesh.” He gestured for Rocky to give him a bottle, and the bartender reluctantly obliged. “Care for a drink?”

  “Decapitation!” The masked man snatched the bottle out of Jesus’ hand, lifted his hockey mask a little, and took a sip. “Drowing!”

  Jesus cackled, patting the big man’s back. “So you like it, huh?”

  Rocky smirked, caressing his mustache. “So you wanna drown in all the tasty drinks we have in this fine establishment, eh? What a nice compliment.”

  Are these two insane!? I guess Rocky was understandable since he didn't know the freak, but Jesus literally worked with the guy. He should know murdering was this man’s favorite hobby.

  My attention turned to Sunshine for a quick sec c, and she was just as confused as me. We both remained quiet, unsure of what Jason would do if we made the wrong move.

  “So, what brings Underground City’s resident man-child to the surface?” asked Jesus, looking down at the dagger in Jason’s belt. “I thought Daemon was pretty stubborn about you being up here alone. Where’s Kofi?”

  “Headshot.”

  “Axed? That’s surprising, but I guess he was always the rule breaking type. I wonder who’ll replace him. Maybe Daemon’s brat. What’s his name again? Dante, right?”

  Jason took another sip. “Type One Diabates.”

  “Seriously? Well, that’s unfortunate. His power had a lot of potential.” The swordsman dropped his katana on the counter. “By the way, you never answered my question from earlier. What are you doing on the surface?”

  Jason looked straight at Jesus. “I originally came here to capture a Type Two who could turn invisible—a very useful ability.” How could he just switch between talking normally and talking nonsense like that? “We received a tip from the Corleone Family that it was hiding out here. Tell me where it is, Hernandez.”

  “He’s dead,” Horse Head replied, scratching his neck. “A bunch of zombies turned him into their next meal.”

  “Is that so?” The masked man pulled out his dagger, and placed it right next to Jesus’s katana. “That’s very unfortunate. I did something supposedly ‘very sinful’ the other day, and I thought capturing this Type Two would grant me some more freedom.” He clawed with his mask with one finger, while tapping on his bottle with another. “This isn’t good. I’ll have to make up for my failure with something even better.”

  He shifted his focus to my daughter and I, his red eyes drilling holes into my soul. “Perhaps the head of Sunshine Hunter will do.”

  The fear plaguing my mind vanished—replaced by the need to punch a hole through this bastard’s face. While the punch I landed didn’t specifically achieve that, it was able to send Jason flying through the bar until he collided with a sleeping man.

  With a loud yawn, the guy lifted his head a bit. “Get off of me, or I’m gonna beat-”

  The only one doing the beating was Jason as he picked up the man with ease, and threw him at a pair of laughing drunks.

  They dodged just in time, ending their giggles prematurely. “Hey! Who threw that!?”

  “It was that asshole in the white jacket and green pants! You got a problem with us, asshole!?”

  “AIDs!”

  “Did you hear that, man? This piece of shit just said you have AIDs! Are you just gonna let that slide?”

  “Like hell I would! Let’s show this guy how to treat people with respect!”

  “Bar fight!”

  Fists were swung, chairs were thrown, and tables flipped—chaos had taken over what was considered a refuge for the survivors, and it was all ‘cause of that masked psycho. Despite Jason’s initial threat, he looked to be way busier fighting anyone who came after him than coming after us. Fortunately, that was the distraction Sunshine and I needed to slip out of the bar unnoticed.

  Or so we thought.

  A powerful blow slammed into my back, bouncing me off the wooden floor. I wasn’t in the air for long—Jason caught my face in his hand and drove me back down with a thundering crack. The masked man’s dagger descended toward my torso, but before it could pierce me, Jesus stopped it with just two fingers.

  One finger rested on the blade’s tip. The other pressed against Jason’s forehead.

  “Jerome Hunter’s death is very unwanted, chico grande,” Jesus said darkly.

  “Headshot!” growled Jason, backhanding a man that was about to hit him with a chair.

  “Why? I guess you never were the type to listen during meetings…” He began to twirl his sword. “Guys with useless Radius Abilities like us don’t mean shit in this world, but the hombre muerto is different. He can’t just fix the effects of the apocalypse, he could reverse it completely.”

  Jason groaned, then spotted Sunshine sneaking through the entrance. In an instant, he blurred from sight, reappearing behind her with his hand inches from her skull. She couldn’t react in time, but she didn’t have to. Jesus and I were already there, grabbing the prick and yanking him back.

  His dagger was in the air. That didn’t stop him. All it took was a simple finger tap on the hilt to drive the blade through my throat. I fell, and in the tiny timeframe gravity held me hostage, Jason pulled his weapon out my neck. Seconds later, the two men engaged in a clash of metal, leaving me on the sidelines.

  However, I couldn’t stay on the sidelines—not when my role as a father was being challenged. My rocket feet blasted me back into the fight, resulting in a devastating tackle to Jason’s hip. The wall in front of me exploded into nothingness, sending us flying to the outside.

  Regaining my footing, I jumped back, increasing the distance between us. “I thought you Underground assholes were gonna leave us alone for the time being! What happened to that?”

  “Beheading!”

  “I’ll behead you!” I shouted, firing a blast at the enemy.

  Jason sidestepped with ease, and charged at me. Every time I aimed my palms, he’d move to the side. Wasting energy on missed shots didn’t sound good, so flying out of there was my top priority.

  The bastard prevented that, grabbing my leg and throwing me back down.

  He held me down by my neck, attempting to choke me. Guy must've skipped some zombie classes ‘cause clearly he didn't know zombies couldn't breathe in the first place.

  Although, Jason’s strength was still off the charts, and challenging it would be trouble. That statement was reinforced by the way he stomped on my arms, pinning them down as his fingers dug further into my neck.

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  Shooting energy wildly didn't work against this psycho, so something else needed to be done. Memories from my fight with Jesus appeared in my head, and I remembered a lesson he indirectly taught me.

  While a Type Two like me couldn't directly use the fiery aura that Horse Head and Jason utilized, mimicking it was possible. Just like last time, keeping the energy I absorbed inside of me would boost my strength a crazy amount.

  So why the hell wouldn’t he move no matter how much I struggled!? Was I not pushing hard enough? No. Thrashing didn’t mean shit when being restrained like this cut off my movement. And even if the energy covered my whole body evenly, that balance wouldn’t get me out of this.

  This Radius Ability of mine had to be used creatively—just like… Kevon. He could turn his whole body invisible, but he’d mastered dropping the effect on specific parts, even making a single limb vanish while the rest stayed visible.

  My mouth opened, energy building inside. But I didn’t release it. I just needed Jason cautious enough to get off me. Luckily, it worked. But the second I rocketed upward, he was right back on my trail.

  I funneled the stored energy from my core down into my fist, keeping my arm out of the masked man’s sight. The weight of my hand grew, though an immense intensity was brimming underneath. Jason closed the distance in a blink, dagger glinting in his grip. The blade hovered above me for a split second, his body coiled to drive it through my chest.

  This was it.

  “Fatherly Fist!”

  I swung upward, the energy-coated fist detonating against his mask. The crack was sharp, like shattering ice, and a jagged fracture formed across his faceplate.

  Jason staggered backwards, holding his face like it had gotten burned. “My… mask! My… treasure! It’s broken! Need to fix it…”

  One giant leap to the sky, and the man was out of sight. Leaving the battle unfinished left a bad taste in my mouth, but having a prolonged battle with that child murderer wasn’t the best idea.

  I wished he could’ve answered some of my questions first…

  “Womder where he’s going?” I asked myself, shaking my hand around.

  “To his happy place,” someone answered. That someone was Jesus, and he had brought Sunshine back to me.

  “We almost died!” she exclaimed with a big smile. “But why did we almost die if Kofi said they weren’t gonna go after us for a bit?”

  “They must’ve sensed how much stronger I’ve gotten since then, and got scared of my potential,” I answered, thinking back to that punch I gave Jason.

  Sunshine lightly punched my leg. “Hey, don’t forget about me.”

  “You’re right. I can’t forget about you… With you as my partner, that prick won’t last long.” I tapped my chin with my knuckles. “But how did they find us here in the first place? We’re nowhere near Woodshaven, let alone Underground City.”

  “Do you want me to show you how?” asked Horse Head, pointing his sword at my arm.

  “Show me how?” I muttered, folding my arms.

  But something felt off, like I was missing a crucial part of myself. That’s when the pain hit me as I looked down to see what was wrong. Stumbling back, my fingers grazed the stump that was once an arm—a limb that Jesus was inspecting in front of me.

  “You-You cut off my arm!” I shouted in pain, gripping my wound.

  “Hey, what’s wrong with you!? You can’t just cut my dad’s arm off!”

  “Tranquilo, tranquilo,” he sighed, digging his fingers inside the severed arm’s ooze. “I cut it off at a speed so fast that the pain wouldn’t be too bad. And I needed to show y’all this.”

  Between his fingers was a small black chip with a red, blinking light in the middle.

  I scratched my head in confusion “The hell is that?”

  “It’s a tracker,” Sunshine replied, getting a closer look at the device. “Small enough to surgically place into the body without the person feeling or noticing it. Must’ve given you this when we were underground.”

  “Hmm. Or maybe Dante put this in me without me noticing,” I suggested.

  “However it happened, it’s gotta go away.” Jesus crushed the tracker in his palm, and scattered the pieces on the ground. “You’re not the only one who got marked, hombre muerto.”

  “I knew it! So that’s what that vibrating sensation was.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked my daughter.

  She lifted her hoodie a little, revealing the black mark Maria pointed out to me when we first met. “Maybe this black mark here isn’t ’cause of my disease, but ‘cause it’s a surgical scar. Those guys marked me when I was unconscious.”

  “Those pricks! How could they give a child an unwanted surgery like that?” I bent down to Sunshine’s level and examined her scar a bit more. “There’s gotta be a way to get that tracker out of her. Isn’t there?”

  “I could cut it out of her,” Jesus answered casually, sliding his finger across his blade. “Then again, they wouldn’t just place a tracker inside of her without making sure it’s somewhere deep within. There’d be a lot of cutting, and a lot of blood. She might even d-”

  “We’re not cutting my daughter open!” I interrupted, standing back up. “As her father, I forbid it.”

  Sunshine pouted, folding her arms. “Why do you always prevent us from doing cool stuff, Jerome?”

  Jesus groaned, folding his arms too. “Yeah! I just want to do an unlicensed surgery on your kid.”

  “Was slicing my arm not enough for you?” I replied, aiming my stump at the swordsman. “If there isn’t a safer way to remove the tracker, then let’s drop it for now. Let’s worry about other things like taking these Underground Radius people out for good.”

  Jesus nodded. “Understandable. If they’re gonna track y’all anyway, then might as well go after them first—starting with Jason.”

  My hand clenched in excitement. “Sounds like a plan. We’ll move out tomorrow!”

  My daughter and Jesus looked at each other, and then back to me.

  “Uuum… Jerome,” Sunshine said nervously, twiddling her fingers. “Maybe it’d be better if you went after Jason… by yourself.”

  I laughed at what a horrible idea that was. “Anyways, we’ll enjoy the peace and quiet we have in Boomsbarrow today, and-”

  The swordsman tapped my head with his katana. “She’s serious, hombre muerto. A temporary separation would make this A temporary separation is the best way to make this plan work. It'll only be for… a month maybe.”

  “A month!?” I gasped in disbelief. “I've been with my daughter for about nine years, and I've never been away from her longer than a few days. A month just sounds wrong.”

  “Remember when I said Jason went to his ‘happy place’? Well, that happy place is actually Hallowsville.”

  “Oooo! I heard of that place,” Sunshine exclaimed, hopping up and down. “It’s the city that only celebrates Halloween every day. Hallowsgiving, Hallowsmas, Hallowtine’s day—I personally think it’s stupid. Why only do one theme when you can do multiple?”

  “That’s not important right now, kid. Horse Head, Hallowsville is around Brooklyn , right? Even with all the obstacles between here and there, it’ll take, like, a week max to get there.”

  “It’s not the journey I’m talking about,” said Jesus. “The tough part is actually beating Jason, and at your current level, you wouldn’t last a few hours. By my totally unbiased calculations, a month of training should get you to half of his full power.”

  I really hoped this dude wasn’t underestimating me… “Well, with you kicking ass by my side, we should be good.”

  “We’d actually be pretty screwed,” he replied, lifting up his horse mask to reveal a jagged, puckered gash stretched across his neck, like a seam stitched by a careless hand. “This is from the last time me and that big boy fought. And this was only because I spilled juice on his face.”

  I leaned in for a closer look. “Yeesh! That looks real ugly.”

  Sunshine’s eyes sparkled. “Now that’s a cool scar!”

  “Would you stop calling painful looking scars cool?” I sighed, turning back to Jesus. “Alright, fine. Maybe… training is needed. But what's gonna happen with my daughter? I mean, if Jason can do that to you, then we should all stick by her as much as possible. He could come out of nowhere like today.”

  “Don’t worry. He’ll only have going back to Hallowsville on his mind. He’s done it before, and he’ll do it now. But that doesn’t mean Jason’s the only threat.” Jesus drew two circles on the concrete with his sword, and then added three more behind the circle to my right. “Since the little lady still has that tracker in her system, the likelihood of any UG soldiers or lieutenants going after us instead of you is higher.”

  Guessing ‘UG’ stood for Underground Radius. “What’s this about soldiers and lieutenants? I only saw six of them.”

  “Soldiers and lieutenants are anyone whose Radius Ability or overall skills don’t ‘fix’ the effects of the apocalypse. Think of it like… applying to a McDonald’s as a manager, but you don’t have a lick of work experience. That’s when they make you a cashier instead. Guys like Dante and I were in that field.”

  Sunshine and I nodded.

  “You’ll get stronger during our time apart, and I’ll train the girl as much as I can,” said Jesus. “Obviously, I’ll protect her from any enemies, while you’ll keep Jason busy enough for us to come back and help you. We good on that?”

  Everything in me wanted to just shout a loud ‘no!’. However, this plan sounded like the best way for Sunshine and I to come out of this alive and much stronger than we were now. Horse Head was definitely a weirdo, but his strength was undeniable. He could easily protect and train her in ways I couldn’t even dream of.

  Plus, he was a human. I couldn’t trust myself to be around my daughter without those monstrous urges taking over again. This time, Angela’s words needed to be taken seriously.

  I needed to control this zombie side of me more. I needed… to understand it more, understand them more.

  “Absorption…” I murmured to myself. “Maybe if I absorbed other Type Twos, it’ll make me stronger. I’ve absorbed zombies before, and the power boost was insane.”

  Jesus neighed, patting my shoulder enthusiastically. “Now that’s what I call using your brain, which is ironic considering you literally don’t have one.”

  I smacked his hand away. “Speaking of things we don’t have, you’re not going anywhere alone with my daughter unless you put on some goddamn pants, you weird prick.”

  The swordsman gripped his chest, and reeled back. “Gosh! A knife to the heart with that implication, huh?”

  Setting his nonsense aside, my attention turned back to Sunshine. “Well, Sun, I, uh… I guess we won’t see each other for a while. I hope you’ll be fine without me by your side all the time.”

  Sunshine smiled. “Oh, please! You’re the one who needs me a lot more than I need-”

  I gave her a nice, big hug, ignoring her words. “Don’t forget, Sun. You still need to be properly punished for cursing at me earlier. I think the right punishment for you would be some hard, strenuous training. I’m talking wrestling school four hour type of cardio. Strength training not even The Rock could do. If you can get yourself right and ready for anything, then I’ll put what you said behind me.”

  Sunshine raised an eyebrow. “I hope you haven’t forgotten I’m only a nine year old.”

  I laughed. “I haven’t. Though, I do think it’ll be impressive for a girl your age to do half the things I’m thinking about.”

  “You’ll think I’m impressive?” A fire lit in her eyes as she grabbed my cheekbones. “I’ll do it! Heck, I’ll become even stronger than you.”

  Now that’s what I liked to see. “I’m looking forward to it.”

  *****

  “You should’ve told me how much my pants would fit you,” I complimented. Jesus and I were standing on the roof of a building as we were preparing for my departure. “I would've given you them sooner.”

  “I take offense to that,” said Jesus, tugging on his brand new cargo pants. “You sure you don’t want to keep these? The way you’re standing there so confidently without a dick in sight is pretty depressing.”

  “I’d rather be dickless than let some dude in his underwear hang around my daughter.”

  Although, I’d kill to get it back…

  “Here, take this.”

  He tossed a cellphone-like device to me, and I caught it. “Oh, I remember this. This is one of those advanced Status Boards I saw in the Underground. How’d you get one of these?”

  “Stole it when I initially left. Keep it on you so that your kid and I can track you down when we’re finished. Also, please don’t touch anything that you don’t need to look at. Pornography’ is very hard to come by nowadays.”

  Curiosity got the better of me. A few swipes later, and my eyes were officially glued to the screen. Could you blame me? These things were expensive back then. Trac Fones were my go-to.

  “You scroll like an old man.” I didn’t respond. 43 was the new 33 in this world! “Anyways, the girl’s still sleeping, you know. You don’t want to wait until she wakes up? Cruel.”

  “I don’t like it too, but Sunshine doesn’t have to be babied anymore. We gotta prepare her for this shitty world of ours—no matter how painful it’ll be… Well, try not to be too tough on her.”

  The shirtless man neighed into the sky like a rooster during sunrise. “I’ll do what I think is best, hombre muerto.”

  I shook my head in disbelief, and jumped onto the edge of the roof. “See you when I see you, Horse Head.”

  “Wait,” said Jesus, stopping me right before I flew off. “I’m sure you already got the message after our encounter with Boomsbarrow’s ‘king’, but you’re going to encounter or associate with, or even do all sorts of evil. And you probably won’t even know it until it’s already said and done. It’s just in your nature as a zombie.”

  My mind went back to Dante and Kevon. “What are you trying to say?”

  “Look, I’m just saying… to be careful. And be mindful of who you’re with. No one ever knows who’s gonna backstab them when they least expect it.”

  Those words were strange to me. Did he really think someone like me had to worry about that? “Don’t worry about me, Horse Head. I’ll be fine as long as Sunshine’s in my life.”

  Jesus paused, caressing his scar. “Well, I guess you can’t say I didn’t warn you.” He reached his hand out to me. “Adiós, hombre muerto.”

  I shook his hand. “Until next time, dude.”