Mark Clodi - Discovery

“So?”

“But you…you're so fast! And you're on their side!” Max said shouting.

“So?” she asked again. Ella stepped around Max and made her way to a large chair that was set up on one side of the room. A middle aged zombie was sitting there, Max could tell he was a super even without using his special sight, the other woman to one side of him was younger, perhaps thirty when she died, she was slim and beautiful, with brown hair that verged on red and dark eyes. Both of these undead had sun browned skin and wore business attire, her in a conservative skirt with a white blouse and matching jacket, he in a tight fitting black suit.

“Harry, I brought you the prisoners as you told me to.”

“Only three alive, plus one half dead.” the woman sneered from one side. “We told you to bring them all back, I hope you had the rest of them turned at the very least.”

Ella gave the woman a dismissive glance and said, “You know the zombies don't like following my orders precisely, there were more causalities than expected.”

“How many did we lose?” Harry asked. He seemed distracted to Max, as if his focus wasn't here or that he didn't really care what the answer to his question was.

Shrugging Ella said, “I don't know, they came in through the park, the runners on the street broke too soon and we lost a bunch out there. No cover, I told them to wait.”

From the hallway that Ella had taken them down the two zombies on the floor started firing their rifles at an unseen foe. After a moment a line of bullets riddled the floor of the hallway, stitching across one of the zombie's head and neck, but only hitting the other one in the shoulder. The damage to the second one was enough to make it impossible for him to fire his rifle and bullets flew down the corridor in such profusion that for a moment the single prone zombie was obscured by the dust raised from the rounds chipping holes in the floor.

Stewart regained her feet and pulled out her pistol before Max even realized she was moving, turning she started firing from the hip at Harry and continued to walk her gun up towards his head as she went. Only Harry wasn't there, he started moving as soon as Stewart and had ducked behind Ella. A fast zombie jumped towards Stewart, attempting to hit her blind side, but she spun and shot his teeth though the back of his head. Max finally felt in control of himself, he ducked sideways into another smart zombie, catching it by surprise as it rushed Stewart. They both fell backwards and Max had just enough time to see Ruben and Kirk separate and crouch down. Kirk leaned towards the zombie Stewart had killed and wrested an ancient revolver from its belt as the next wave of minions approached. Stewart turned to get a bead on Harry only to have her hand knocked brutally down by Ella's fist.

“Fuck!” Stewart yelled while punching the woman in the face. Ella's head rocked back and blood flew in a spray behind her, she continued to fall back in a roll and ended up spinning sideways in a crouch facing Stewart. Aubrey and Harry had stopped and were just watching. Ruben was in the best position to see all of the fighting, he noted Bill's arrival with some of the boys, he saw Max wrestling feebly with the smart zombie at the foot of Harry's chair and he saw Kirk take the first of three shots at Harry from his crouched position by the corpse nearby. The first shot rang out and a picture behind the zombie sprung a hole in it, shot number two hit Aubrey in the chest and splattered the wall behind her with gore. Then Kirk fell sideways, shot by one of the gun toting zombies headed their way. Even on the floor Kirk was a soldier to the end, he lined up one last shot and winged Harry in the right leg. The zombie hardly flinched and another round of gunfire stilled Kirk forever.

Ruben raised his hands to shoulder height and two of the zombie aimed guns at him, though the old man thought they were going to shoot him, they held back. Harry picked Aubrey up off of the floor and leaned close to whisper something in her ear. The woman's eyes met those of Ruben for a moment, then she finished getting up and turned to watch the fight between the two women. From her crouched position Ella launched herself at Stewart, who ducked sideways just as fast and landed another short blow to the other woman's ear as she went by. Ella screamed and lashed out with a kick sideways, Stewart took the blow on her thigh and had to backpedal to avoid falling down. This gave Ella her chance and she ran towards Stewart with both of her arms held wide. Stewart again side stepped and chopped her hand into Ella's elbow while trapping the woman's hand with her other arm, there was a sharp crack and Ella screamed in pain as her arm was broken.

Pulling the woman by her broken arm Stewart stomped down hard on Ella's foot, which caused the woman to scream again. Ella had one free hand and swung it around and connected soundly with the back of Stewart's head, causing the police officer to lose her grip on the broken arm. Pulling away Ella cradled her arm for a second, then pulled it straight out, while releasing another scream of agony. Stewart was dazed and stumbled into Ruben, who caught her and turned her around to face the other woman. The two gun toting zombies watching Ruben glanced at Harry, who shook his head slightly, indicating he didn't want them to interfere. Seeing this Ruben said “Go get her!” and pushed Stewart back towards Ella.

Bill got to the corner leading into the main galley of the Art Institute first and immediately pulled back when gun fire peppered the area.. Crouching down he risked a peek and saw a half dozen zombies with various pistols and rifles looking towards his position. One of the fast zombies came running around the corner firing two pistols, his charge was brought up short by Javier and Bart. Chen was back at the last corner they had passed, watching the hall behind them to make sure no one followed them.

“Grenade?” asked Javier, after a moment of waiting in vain for the other zombies to charge blindly around the corner at them.

Bill shook his head, “No, Ruben is up there. Max and Stewart too. It looks like they got Kirk.”

“How many?”

“Four guys watching the hallway, a couple watching Ruben, one wrestling with Max, Stewart is fighting some woman and there are a couple others standing against the wall just watching everything.” Bill said, running the images through his mind quickly.

“What do we do Sarg? We can't just sit here. They will bring more up behind us.”

Bill thought for a moment, then nodded. “Gimme a grenade. You take one too and follow my lead.”

Max could not get the goddamned zombie off of him. In high school and even in college he had wrestled for the schools he attended. He was never a top performer, but he liked the attitude and the way he could eat pretty much anything during training and not gain weight so he had kept it up until he got married. While he was not a champion by any means, he knew how to wrestle, something his opponent did not know. The problem was his opponent was very strong and didn't react to pain the way a living person would. The normal holds of any given match were fairly easy to apply, but the zombie was just using brute strength to break free from them. Then it hit him, he was fighting by the rules, the rules of a game that no longer had any meaning in his current context. I need to let go of the reins on this one. Wrestling, like chess, involved planning ahead to win the match. If your opponent was new to the sport the easiest wins were achieved with the most basic of moves, however, much like a game of chess, seasoned veterans developed counter moves.

Stewart was seeing double, shaking her head wasn't helping. The two Ella's in front of her were only swinging one arm, but which one was the real one? A blow landed on her cheek and she tasted blood in her mouth, then she took a hit to the stomach, that one didn't hurt as much, her vest absorbed most of the blow. She used the opportunity to punch Ella in the throat, her follow up blow missed the 'other Ella', but the shot to the neck seemed to give the woman pause. Both fighters stepped back, Stewart blinked her eyes and tried to get the Ella's to merge. For her part Ella was only interested in landing a killing blow, her arm was causing her tremendous pain, it felt like there were a thousand worms burrowing through her muscles and bones. Experimentally she flexed her fingers on that hand, they moved! Bending her arm slightly only led to pain, however when she did so something seemed to twitch in her elbow and it didn't hurt as bad as it had a moment ago. Smiling she looked on as Stewart continued shaking her head.