Larry Correia: Monster Hunter Vendetta

"This isn't over," the Englishman shouted over the music. He turned his attention away from me for a moment, and nodded at someone on the far side of the party. I had no idea who or what he was signaling, but it probably wasn't the wet tee shirt contest. He returned his attention to me and smiled. "Well done. For now… but, dead or alive, I'll deliver you to the Dread Overlord eventually."

"Better things than you have tried."

"Farewell, Hunter. We will meet again… assuming you live through the next few minutes, that is." He faded back into the shadows and was gone.

If I could get to my radio, I could rouse the team and chase this puke down. I took a step forward, flinching violently as the pressure hit a piece of broken glass impaled in my heel. Swearing, I paused to yank the tiny shard out and toss it into the bushes.

"Oh, man, dude, are you okay?" one of the bystanders asked stupidly. "You totally like fell out the window!"

I snarled. He cringed back. The partiers gave me a wide berth. I glared at them angrily and anyone who was even vaguely contemplating saying anything retreated a few more feet. Turning my attention to gathering reinforcements, I started limping for the entrance, but there was a commotion on the far side of the pool. Some of the partygoers were screaming now, real cries of terror that could be heard even above the din of the dance music. I turned back toward them, dripping blood, holding a giant knife, and bellowed, "What now?"

Zombies. Lots of zombies.

The party was officially over.

Someone had backed a package truck up to the entrance of the pool area. The rear doors were open and corpses were tumbling out. These undead were in an advanced state of decomposition. Their flesh was rotten and sloughing off. Many of them were missing eyes, noses, and ears. There were so many that they must have been literally stacked on top of each other inside the truck's hold.

There are many different variations of undead, with your basic zombie being the simplest of all. A zombie is just an animated corpse, wandering around in search of one thing: flesh. The big problem with zombies is that they multiply like rabbits. Their bites are always eventually fatal, and the bitten always rise as zombies themselves. Their poison travels instantly through the nervous system, and not even amputation of the bitten limb can stop the transformation. Basically, they're a major pain in the ass, the Monster Hunter's equivalent to cockroaches. Usually stupid, and normally slow, zombies are not much of a challenge for an experienced Hunter, provided that said Hunter has a decent gun and friends with guns. I was pretty much alone, had just gotten the crap kicked out of me, and was armed with only a knife. The kukri was a great big freaking knife, mind you, but still it was only a knife. Not a good recipe for success.

I could have run away. Even with one ankle already swelling, there was no way they could have caught me. I could rally my team and come back to the pool with some real armament. That would be the safe thing to do. But as I watched, one of the tourists, a guy just barely out of his teens, was pulled down by some of the corpses. They descended on him like a pack of dogs, and his screaming and kicking stopped in an instant. The zombies were falling out the back of the truck into a pile, but spurred on by the nearness of meat, they were driving themselves to their feet and lumbering into the mob. The tourists panicked as they saw their friends getting disemboweled right in front of them. Hundreds of people began to crash into each other, trying to shove their way to safety. The small and the weak were smashed underfoot, just more zombie fodder.

The smell of decay hit my nostrils.

MHI was a private company. We weren't cops. We weren't the Fed's Monster Control Bureau. We were contractors, mercenaries. We had no obligation to protect the innocent unless they were paying us to do it. To jump in was suicide.

"Aw… damn it." I raised my Ganga Ram and charged the truck of undead. I pushed past the fleeing partiers. There were lots of them, but I'm a big man, and when I pick a direction, I'm hard to stop. My bare feet slipped on the water that splashed onto the tile as the crowd knocked people into the pool. The patio was packed. You could feel the panic of the herd.

The mostly sober were able to flee, but those that had been in the water were sitting ducks. A young woman was trying to climb out, but one of the zombies had grabbed her by the hair and was tugging her toward its jagged mouth, maggots wriggling in its face. I lopped the creature's arm off at the elbow. The girl flew back with a splash. The zombie turned automatically toward me and I removed the top of its head right above the eye sockets. It went limp. It pays to know your monsters. With zombies, destroy the brain, and they go right down.

Another zombie saw me, locked on, and charged. This one had been an old woman once. "Whoa!" I jumped back as it swiped at me. These zombies were fast. I had dealt with regular zombies before, but I'd only heard rumors of faster ones. It kept coming, head bent, lipless mouth open and snapping. If those teeth broke my skin, I was worse than dead. I shattered one of its knees in a cloud of dust with my bloody heel and it toppled into the pool.

Hacking and slashing, zombies to the front, zombies to the side. Have to protect these kids. An ironic thought considering most of them were about my age. A man went down with one of the undead on his back, biting at his neck. They were too far away; I wouldn't make it in time. I spied a half-empty beer bottle lying on its side, scooped it up and threw it at the creature. The bottle shattered over the thing's skull, but it was far too distracted by food. The man screamed as the zombie latched onto his throat. The scream bubbled off into a gurgle.

I lowered my shoulder and dived, crashing into the undead, feeling its bones snap beneath papery skin. I rolled to my knees much faster than it did, and with a brutal chop sent the zombie's head spinning away from its neck. My blade came away coated in spider webs and blackened ooze with the consistency of mud. These zombies were far from fresh. I gagged on the stink.

The creatures were everywhere. There must have been fifty in that truck, and already they were multiplying, as some of the tourists' bodies began to convulse. The music was still playing. Fireworks were still erupting. The scene was utter chaos. If we didn't stop these things now, we were going to have a full-fledged outbreak, right in a population center, and that's a nightmare. A nearby girl, obviously stoned out of her mind, began to giggle and point at the sillier looking zombies, oblivious to the other one that was heading right for her. Friggin' stoners. I started toward her.

A hand locked around my injured ankle with a grip like iron. Looking down, I saw the man who had been bitten. He pulled at me, his mouth open, hungry, his brain already dead, his system now overcome with only one impulse… food… me. That was near instantaneous reanimation after death, the sign of a bad strain. "Sorry, dude." I bent over and smashed open the top of his head. I was instantly splattered with brains. After two swings he quit moving. The fresh ones are harder to shut down. The distraction distracted me long enough that by the time I was done, stoner chick was missing her nose. "Damn it!"

There was a gunshot. A security guard had come out from the hotel to see what the commotion was. His eyes were wide, staring as the creatures soaked up bullets and kept coming. One of the shots missed and, thankfully, put the bleating stereo out of commission. The patio was now quiet except for the moaning of the recently deceased and the screams of the fleeing.

"Shoot them in the head! Cabeza!" I shouted, leaping over dead and twitching bodies, running for the hapless guard. "Despidalos en las cabezas!" I took the nearest zombie from behind, driving my blade through its dusty throat and wrenching the head aside. The security guard fell to his knees, his hands stretched in front of him as a zombie in a yellowed wedding dress bore down on him. Too far. My Ganga Ram was not balanced for throwing, but I hurled it end over end to strike the zombie in the head.