Chapter 28

The party gathered up their weapons and left their vehicles running in case they needed to make a swift exit. Anticipating that the building would be filled with narrow halls and small rooms, they split into two teams once more, using the same roster as before.

They entered the lobby together and heard the sounds of chewing. They found the source of the sound behind the receptionist desk. Junior put an end to the sound with his crossbow and assured everyone else that it was better not to look. The young man didn’t seem to bothered by what he’d seen, however. Rather, he simply reloaded and grimly looked forward.

The high-rise had more than just the radio station in it, and the decision was made to swiftly go floor by floor and clear whatever they found. The basic floor plan was the same for each floor, after all, so unless one team got bogged down fighting they should be able to divide and conquer.

Eli moved on to floor two while the other group cleared the first floor.

They emerged from the stairwell. Eli was accompanied by his mother, by Peter and Sophie, and by Junior and Susan. Susan cocked her head and listened for a moment, then shook her head. “I can’t hear anything, but the sign said that this is a psychologists office, so there might be soundproofing. We should go room by room and check.”

So they did, with Mattie and Peter leading the way and unceremoniously kicking in any door which stuck. But they quickly found that the second floor was clear.

As was the fourth, and the sixth. On the eighth floor, Sophi frowned and signaled the others to stop.

“I hear chewing,” she said.

Junior grimaced and tightened his grip on his crossbow. “Lead the way.”

They found three zombies standing over a dead woman. Chewing, of course. There wasn’t much left of the woman. Without any ceremony, Susan and Junior let loose with their crossbows. Sophi fired her bow at the same moment. The three projectiles struck the enemies in the head, destroying their brains and putting an end to their meal.

The party was about to turn when Eli saw something written on the wall. In blood, and not in English.

“Wait,” he said, and he went to read grizzly message.

The Fires of Cold Hearths does not burn. It does not warm the heart of those it envelops. It does not in winter yearn for the birth of spring. In black and death it walks, the living it stalks. It does not cook meals, for those who walk by the Fires of Cold Hearths meals still walks.

Or at least that’s what the words would be if they were translated into English. In Bokuto, they were the same but different, yet surprisingly still lyrical. Eli pulled out his backpack and began shifting through the pages until he found what he was looking for.

“Here it is,” he told the others. “The Fires of Cold Hearths . It’s the ritual that’s awakening the dead on this floor. If we find the altar where it’s being cast from, I can disable it.”

“Okay, great,” Sophie said. “How do we find the source?”

Eli frowned. Because he had an idea. “First we clear the tower,” he said, confirming the strategy they’d already settled on. “Then we have a chat with the reporter when she lands. We’ll need her help.”

~~~~~

As one of the four adults in the other group, Erik had initially been tempted to allow a more democratic leadership style arise than existed in the initial group. At first. But he recognized the pitfall to that idea. Namely, it would undermine Eli’s authority to have the adults think that they were ready to lead in this new world.

If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

So instead he had stepped into ‘teacher mode,’ which is how he led the discussion without anyone really realizing that he was in charge. But he definitely was, and the adults soon realized it.

Still, they had their marching orders, so there wasn’t much to discuss. Elaine scouted the floors for them and, if there were less than three zombies in a room, she put them down without disturbing the rest of the party. They came across two times where the rest of them needed to fight in clearing to the ninth floor.

Both times the fight had been over within moments, with John supporting Elaine at ranged and Erik the Trickster supporting Maia the Knight in melee. Luke was mostly superfluous, and thankfully nobody was injured enough to require Alaina’s ministrations.

At least not until they reached the top floor of the tower. The radio station occupied the penthouse, and everyone was on guard. But nobody was expecting Elaine to empty her entire clip. She shot once, then two more times, and then fired until she ran dry. She appeared a moment later, cursing.

“It’s one of those boss enemies,” she announced with frustration. “Get ready for a fight, because my entire clip did nothing but piss it off.”

The group had only a few seconds warning before the pale zombie of a man with massive headphones came charging through the door behind her. As she had said, his face was riddled with bullet holes, but rather than causing his head to explode like normal zombies, the wounds were regenerating.

“I’ll try fire,” Luke said, and he proceeded to cast a spell. It was the same Fire Dart spell that he’d gotten used to casting, and his proficiency with the spell was paying off as it took him only a moment to cast. Unfortunately the elite zombie blocked the magic with his fist, which caught flame and did not go out.

With its left hand on fire, it held a mic in its right. It put the mic to its lips and it screeched!

The party screamed as the sonic attack, amplified by the speakers in the radio station lobby, made their ears bleed and damaged their sense of balance. The attack lasted for a seeming eternity before it faded, leaving the party stunned.

Elaine was the first to recover, and without saying a word she took her reloaded pistol and aimed at one of the speakers. She pulled the trigger, and managed to shoot a second speaker before the zombie launched a second sonic attack.

This one was weaker than the first, and it allowed the party a short reprieve. Elaine, pulling in details as the world seemed to slow down for her in the unique way that it had been lately, noticed that the zombies hand had burned away.

“It’s weak to fire,” she shouted to be heard over the ringing in their ears. “Luke! Cast your spell again! Aim for its head!”

But the boy didn’t hear her. Nor did Maia, who leaped into melee with the zombie and began slashing her short sword. Elaine and Erik both cursed, and Erik jumped in to support her.

Elaine stood back at ranged, holding her pistol but unwilling to shoot into the melee while the fighters were moving in unpredictable patterns. Instead she took down another speaker that was hanging from the ceiling, then held her gun in a ready position.

Erik danced with the zombie, which was using its microphone like a club and its burning hand like a torch in combat. Unfortunately it was fast, much faster than the typical zombie. Also unfortunately it healed its injuries as soon as he inflicted them. His trickster abilities weren’t of any help here. He couldn’t get into the zone he needed to make something appear somewhere that it wasn’t, like when he’d put two coins inside two different goblins head. With his ears ringing, it was all that he could do to be where the zombie’s club and grasping hand were not.

Maia was having the same trouble as Erik was, but she was holding out better. She’d recovered her balance and was beginning to figure out the zombie’s move. It was just frustrating that her sword wasn’t sharp enough to cut cleanly through the zombie. It kept getting caught on the monster’s thick muscles and its bones, then the wounds that she was causing would heal up in seconds after the--

Suddenly her sword cut cleanly through the zombie’s left arm. The flaming appendage fell to the ground, leaving her and the foe both stunned. Fortunately Erik took advantage of the open and launched forward, slicing his sword through the monster’s neck.

The sword, empowered by Eli, who had just arrived to the scene with the rest of the party, severed the zombie’s spine. The monster’s body fell like a marionette whose puppetmaster had cut the strings, and its head rolled nearby.

“Oy, what was that for?” the zombie’s head asked.

Then its white eyes went gray, and died.

‎