Mark Clodi - Discovery

'Ah well it is go time isn't it, hope my suit is up to snuff.' She took a bead on the zombie man's head as he leaped to his feet and faced the inside of the Art building.

Into her mic Katie whispered softly, “Go.”

“Jesus fucking Christ Harry!” Max heard the woman's voice call out from the street. He could barely hear anything above the ringing in his ears so the woman must have been shouting in order for him to make it out. ' Great they are affected by the hearing loss too.' Looking around Max watched as Bill and another soldier fired on the last zombie in the room. The thing made the bad decision to stick its head over the heavy counter it was hiding behind and the two soldiers blew it off.

Ruben checked Kirk's body quickly and pulled the gun out from where it was still clenched in the old man's hand, he then headed over to Max.

“Go get them, keep them running. I'll take care of her now.” He said, tucking the pistol in his belt while he reached around and pulled some bandages from a pocket in his combat webbing.

Max looked to Stewart, then to Ruben and then to where Bill and Javier were getting up.

“What would she do? Just go Max, I can manage her.”

Finally Max relented and moved to the front of the building, pausing only to retrieve his shotgun. Bill and Javier were reloading as they paced Max from the other side of the room.

“I am retreating out the way we came, meet me at the door to the courtyard.” Ruben called after them.

“Reload Max.” Bill said. Max felt around for some shotgun shells and was surprised to find he still had a pocketful. The three of them approached the windows in a line and looked out to see zombies pouring into the area in front of the building.

“Good God.” Javier muttered, then pointed, “There!”

Bill and Max followed his finger and saw that Aubrey and Harry were standing by a large ornamental sculpture at the base of the long wide stair case, where they were taking cover from Bill and Max.

“Where is our sniper?” Max wondered.

“They are around, I hope they are anyway. We better fire at them and keep their attention on us, to give the sniper a chance to shoot.” said Bill as he readied a hand grenade.

Up above on the roof of the building across the street from them Katie took aim on the two zombies that had come out of the Art Institute. The two had been moving around since they were blown out of the building, finally they had stopped behind a huge piece of what passed for 'art' at the base of the stair. Perfect cover from the Art Institute, but no cover at all from her. Katie took a bead on the woman this time, trying not to count the number of seconds she had before the artillery landed. She saw the hand grenade fly as she squeezed off a bullet, she saw the woman zombie jump up a microsecond before Katie's bullet hit her in the head, the zombie woman went down.

“Fuck.” Katie whispered, the shot had looked clean, but the last minute jump had resulted in a neck shot instead of a head shot. ' Well I can pick it up in a minute after I tag Barbie's Ken.'

The hand grenade went off and the male zombie threw himself flat at the bottom of the stairs. The zombies rushing into the street were still too far away to provide the man or woman down there with any cover. Katie lined up her shot, wondering how long it would be until the first of the artillery hit, by her count it was already overdue.

Max led the charge out of the building as soon as the hand grenade went off, his fast moves caught Bill and Javier by surprise and he was halfway down the steps before they started moving.

“Did you know he was going to do that?” Javier asked panting.

“No.”

Max saw Harry laying on the sidewalk next to the bottom step, behind the sculpture Aubrey was twitching, injured, but not out of it. ' I knew the grenade wouldn't work.' Max thought, lining up his first shot on Harry. The zombie twisted sideways and raised his arm in front of his head, the shotgun shell passed through the thing's forearm severing its hand. Some of the shot peppered Harry's face as well and sent the zombie reeling backward from where it was trying to get up.

Bill and Javier fired into the zombies that were closing in on the front of the building while Max took another shot at Harry. Moving fast Harry dodged and rolled to his feet while Max tracked him. Running to point blank range Max pulled the trigger again, Harry couldn't dodge completely out of the way, the shot caught him in the shoulder of his missing hand and twirled him around completely so that he was facing one of the zombies walking towards him. This female zombie was pushing a baby carriage, a bloody splattered light blue carriage trimmed with dark blue padding. The young mother was wearing a set of gray sweat pants and an oversized baseball shirt, her black hair rested on the fair skin of her face, making a perfect frame for her hazel eyes. In the carriage a small hand flailed out of the stroller, it too was bloody and missing the smallest two fingers. Harry ducked sideways and sent a command to the mother to throw her carriage at Max as a distraction. His command was too late; Max shot the woman full on in the face as Harry dodged to one side, exploding her head like a balloon and spraying red ocher chunks onto the zombies behind her.

'How many shots does he have?' Harry thought, running sideways and then spinning to face Max.

Max was concerned with his ammunition too, he tracked Harry with the gun and struggled to reload the shotgun's magazine by sliding another shell into it. Harry took the opportunity and stepped into Max, knocking the shotgun sideways off target. The zombie then seized Max by the throat and lifted him up off of the ground.

“Max!” screamed Bill, who charged forward to his friend's aid.

“Jesus-christ!” Javier said softly trying to aim at everything at once.

“Stop!” yelled Harry, lifting Max off of his feet. The zombies obediently stopped, as did Bill.

Up above Katie heard the crunch of feet on the gravel roof behind her. ' I gotta take this shot'. The shot was a poor one, the zombie had one of the living soldiers lifted up in the air and was swaying slightly from side to side. From her angle Katie was afraid the bullet, whether it missed or hit would travel through the target and hit the soldier as well.

“I know you are here. I can smell you, I can hear you breath, but I can't see you!” came a voice surprisingly close to behind her. “Is that a gun? Why, I do believe it is!”

Katie fired as the voice yelled, “Gotcha!” in triumph.

“Stop! Put down your guns or I'll.." Harry's threat came to a sudden, messy end. Max looked down the length of Harry's arm just in time to see the zombie's head explode like a firecracker, splattering him from the waist down with brain matter and blood. Max felt a sharp tug as something tore through his pants at the same time. For a few seconds everything seemed to stop, Max was held up high by a headless zombie, grasping for breath as Harry's hand convulsed. Slowly the strength in Harry's arm weakened, then finally went limp, dropping Max to the gore covered pavement.

Frantically Max pulled at Harry's hand, trying to get it off of his throat, the world went black and he heard Bill yelling his name. Max didn't quite lose consciousness, just his vision for a moment, then air, foul, smoky air reeking of blood poured into his lungs.

Bill supported Max, holding him steady while asking, “Max are you all right? Are you okay?”

“F-fine.” Max said through a bruised throat. Looking around he saw the zombies all standing around in the street, stock still. The zombies didn't move much, except for their eyes, which shown with a malevolent hatred. “What the fuck?”