CHAPTER 6 - AND MY AXE!

Like the shriek was a signal, next thing I knew there were a half dozen of the things rounding the corner, rushing at Carver. His zombies set themselves up to block the attack, and they more or less succeeded. The creatures coming at us were strange. They only stood about three feet tall, with skin the color of green jell-o and small knives in their hands. They were wearing scraps of clothing, but not much.

I had to wonder where the things came from. The initial zombies were actual cadavers, risen from the dead. What were these? They looked like goblins from some fantasy movie, and under the circumstances maybe that’s preciselywhat they were. But that didn’t explain where they’d come from. Had whatever happened changed something into these creatures? Maybe they’d been corgis yesterday, or worse…people?

Those knives they had were sharp, though. Without just a quick thought, I sent Rosencrantz and Guildenstern forward into the fray, then looked about to see if there was anything else I could do. One of Carver’s zombies went down quickly, and only the arrival of mine evened the odds enough that his second didn’t fall immediately after. We needed more options. I didn’t want to try fighting these things with just my club. They were nimble, and even with my speed boost I was worried about those knives.

There, on the hallway wall, I saw my answer: a fire extinguisher. And because this building was totally old school, the compartment where the extinguisher was stored had something else as well.

An axe!

I rushed over and yanked the weapon out. It was heavy and not balanced for killing goblins, but it had a lot more reach than the stick I’d been using before. It would do.

With the axe in hand I sprinted back to the stairwell. Rosie was on the verge of going down, and I couldn’t let that happen. If we lost the zombies we’d be stuck fighting these things hand to hand ourselves, and based on what I’d seen so far, that was going to end badly. I worried about the people who didn’t have pet zombies to defend them. If these creatures were running around all over, then this was beyond bad.

I shoved all of that aside and hefted the axe over my head in a big downward blow. It smacked one goblin aside with a glancing hit, but then bit deep into the shoulder of the one I’d actually been aiming for. They were packed in so close around Rosie that it was hard to miss.

The thing squealed like nothing I’d ever heard. It gushed bright red blood from the wound, spatters splashing everywhere, including on me. My stomach heaved, but this wasn’t the time. The goblin I’d hit yanked itself backward off the axe head, which caused it to bleed even more fiercely. It staggered a few more steps and then went down.

But the others now recognized me as a bigger threat than the zombies. Guildenstern had crushed one goblin, and all three of our remaining zombies were each fending off one of the creatures, but that still left one more, and it was coming straight at me, dagger flashing.

It thrust the blade toward my heart. I saw it coming, and thankfully I wasactually faster than these creatures. The axe’s weight slowed me down, but dodging was simple enough. I batted the knife-hand to my right with the axe haft as I shifted my body out of the way to the left. Before I could recover my balance enough to counter-attack, Alfred was already there, swinging his club in a quick downward arc that took the goblin in the head. He followed that up with three more swift blows, and it went down.

I turned back to the zombies, but one on one, they were holding their own okay against the goblins. Carver’s zombie had even taken its foe down, and was now helping Guildenstern finish off his foe. I brought my axe down on the one fighting Rosencrantz, and that was pretty much the end of the fighting.

A tap of that goblin and the other one I’d killed won me another pair of clear crystals. I motioned for Alfred to take two as well. “You stepped up. You get the reward.”

“Thanks,” he replied, kneeling down to gingerly touch two of the dead goblins.

Carver did likewise. “Good thinking on the fire axe. We should check the halls on the other floors as we go, and maybe pick up a few more.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” I replied. “If the zombies can open doors, I bet they can use a simple weapon, too. They’d be more effective armed.”

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Carver cast his animate spell on one of the goblins, and it worked. It was smaller than the human zombies, but it picked the knife it had carried back up. I snagged three more knives from the dead goblins and passed them to the other zombies, while Carver and Alfred each took one.

Better armed, we continued our cautious descent. The lab was only on the third floor of a four-story building, but it still seemed like there were more steps than there’d ever been before today. We halted on the second floor, which was ominously quiet, and Alfred darted down the hall to snag another axe.

“There should be one on the ground floor too,” I said.

“And we’ll pass it on the way to the main entrance,” Carver added.

We pushed ahead to the bottom of the stairwell. We’d returned to the marching order we’d used before—my zombies in the rear, Carver’s ahead, us sandwiched in the middle. It seemed the best plan, letting the zombies shield us from any surprise encounters.

By the time we reached the ground floor, the screaming had stopped. Whether that was a good thing or not, I had no idea. Was everyone dead? How bad were things out there?

“Hold here,” Carver said. “I’ll send the goblin zombie out to scout.”

We did as he asked, holding position while the undead critter waddled out of the stairwell into the area beyond. It came back a minute later.

“What did he see?” Alfred asked.

“He doesn’t talk,” Carver replied. “But since he wasn’t instantly attacked, odds are good the coast is clear. Let’s proceed with caution, but I believe it’s safe.”

My nerves were shot as we rounded the final corner. For all I knew there could be fifty more zombies down there, or something worse. But we were in luck; the coast was clear. No zombies, no goblins; nothing was waiting, although there were clear signs of recent fighting. Blood stains marred the floor here and there, and the walls had gouges torn out of them in several places. Whatever happened here was already past.

I was starting to doubt we’d ever find those two escaped cadavers. I’d been pretty sure I saw one outside when I looked out the window, and that one could be anywhere by now. And then there was one more that could be almost anywhere. If they were both loose in the wild, we might end up with a zombie epidemic yet.

The main doors were halfway down the hall, squarely in the middle of the rectangular building. We headed that way, guards up and weapons at the ready. One more fire axe was available for the taking, and Carver snagged it.

Then we were at the doors at last. They were heavy wooden doors, and were mostly closed. One was ajar a small bit, letting a ribbon of fading daylight into the room. The orangish cast to the light told me we were getting on toward late afternoon. The sun would be setting before too long, and I couldn’t imagine that would improve the situation. We needed to find someplace we could fortify before that happened.

Carver had his Karen Zombie open the door wider so we could peer out. The signs of slaughter were much stronger out there. I spotted the remains of several dead bodies scattered across the quad. Some of them were goblins, but most were human. A gust of wind blew smoke past the doorway, swirling as it met the air currents from inside; a police car was still on fire on the street nearby. Other cars were scattered about the nearby roads, all of them motionless, like they’d simply stopped working.

There was no movement. No creatures charging at us. No zombies running about. All was quiet, but I knew in my gut this wasn’t over.

“Should we make for our dorm?” Alfred asked. He lived in the same building I did, graduate student housing that was a little nicer than the undergrad units, and a whole lot cheaper than a Burlington apartment. “I bet others headed there.”

“It might be a good place to start,” I said. Although that building had a lot of doors, and it wasn’t especially defensible. I had a hunch we wanted something more easily secured.

“You two can do that,” Carver said. “I am heading for home.”

“You sure?” I asked. I didn’t know where he lived, but getting anywhere was going to be difficult. It looked to me like cars stopped working right along with the electronics, which was going to make travel tricky.

“Yes,” Carver replied, without elaborating. Instead, he gestured at the Karen zombie and made a pulling motion with his hand. She dropped like a sack of potatoes. Then he marched forward into the quad, headed in the direction of the burning police car. Wondering what he was up to, I followed.

I didn’t have to go far. He’d been heading for one of the more unusual bodies lying in the grass. This one was a horse. From the gear, it had been a police horse; the city had a few of those, and they’d probably used them to help respond when the crisis first hit.

This one looked like it had been stabbed to death with small knives, so probably goblins had gotten it. There was no sign of the officer who’d been riding it.

Carver gestured at the horse’s body, and it shivered, then slowly rose back to its feet. That was more than a little disgusting, because it had been hacked up pretty badly, but now he had a zombie horse, complete with saddle. I wasn’t sure I could bring myself to ride something that gross, but it would get him where he was going a lot faster.

Which meant he really was leaving us. Shit.

“You two take care,” Carver said. “My advice is to hole up somewhere and wait for some of the worst of this to blow over. If it’s localized, then help will get here from outside before long.”

“And if it’s not?” I asked.

Carver gave me a weak smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Then we’re all in a lot of trouble, Miss Serrano. I wish you the best.”

Then he turned, mounted his dead horse, and rode off without another word, the goblin zombie trotting at his side. Alfred and I were on our own, and night was going to arrive way sooner than we were prepared for.