Chedderfield
“Excuse me,” Kirk said, his voice cracking, “I just wanted to let you know that you can’t go topside right now.”
“What do you mean?” Chedderfield asked as he tightened the straps of his laminate samurai armor. He’d unequipped it when they were resting and had to make small adjustments now that he put it back on.
“The, umm . . . The cleaning crew, as Dad calls them, is outside now. There are also more people. There will be another big slaughter as the zombies kill everyone again. The zombies always win.” Kirk sighed.
“They didn’t win last time,” Chedderfield shot back quickly, feeling like a football fan whose team had just been insulted as the kid implied humans always lose.
“And they won’t win this time. We need to get to the surface right away and help those people out,” Archimedes said. “There is no way they’re prepared for those undead bastards. Even we were surprised by the cavalry.”
“Wait, you two are missing a detail,” Nguyen said. “What do you mean ‘cleaning crew’?”
“The undead that come and take away all of the bodies after every fight,” Kirk clarified. “I thought you guys had fought them a bunch. Haven’t you ever seen the people that come and take away the bodies afterward?” With no response from the group, he added, “That’s why Dad says the streets aren’t covered in bodies. Because the big, spooky undead come and drag away the living and the dead, and that if we go above ground, we’ll be dragged away too.”
Nguyen scratched at her chin. “That’s right . . . Their catapults, their portals—or at least, that portal they were building at the stadium . . . They don’t waste bodies.” With a bit of a mischievous grin, she looked over at Kirk, who was ogling her, and added, “I wonder how many dead kids your age they had twisted and malformed, their screaming faces in anguish as they—”
“That’s enough. No need to scare the boy,” Archimedes interrupted, cutting off Nguyen before she could get too graphic with her description.
Kirk, who nevertheless looked visibly uncomfortable, shook his head. “No, no, that’s just something Dad says so we won’t go topside.”
“Oh, but it is real. And it’s going to happ—”
“Okay, enough of that, Nguyen. We don’t have time to be discussing this stuff if there is about to be a battle above ground. We need to make sure that another group of people isn’t dying to another surprise cavalry charge or worse,” Archimedes said as he opened the door to where Emma and Danielle were resting.
“I don’t know. I wanted to let Nguyen go a little longer,” Chedderfield chuckled. “The group above will be fine.”
“It’s not real . . . I . . . I warned you!” Kirk said before leaving abruptly as Archimedes entered the bedroom again.
Chedderfield followed behind him to find Danielle was still asleep, but Emma was wide awake, curled up in a fetal position with her head on one pillow while she cuddled up with another pillow in front of her. Lucy was sitting, her back against the wall and her legs sprawled out behind Emma. She was patting the kid on the head, seemingly ignoring the fact Emma obviously wasn’t asleep.
“We leaving already? It hasn’t even been an hour,” Lucy said as she looked at the pair entering the room. Her eyes focused on Chedderfield. “Your girl isn’t even awake yet either, Queso. What’s the rush?”
“Zombies topside—I mean, above ground,” Chedderfield responded, the word “topside” feeling a little uncomfortable as he said it in mimicry of Kirk.
“You wanna stay down here, kid?” Archimedes asked Emma. “No one’s gonna fault you if you do.”
“She isn’t that weak,” Lucy said proudly, patting Emma’s head one more time before standing up. “It was just one bad fight, and she’s tough. She’s as tough as they come, aren’t you?”
Emma wiped her nose, even though it looked dry, before nodding her head as she sat up. “Yeah, I can do it. I can do it,” she insisted, but it looked more like she was talking to herself than to Lucy or Archimedes. Chedderfield didn’t feel it was his place to say anything though.
“You had unsummoned the turret, right?” Archimedes asked, cutting straight to business.
“Uhhh . . . yeah . . . And Ring of Purity is still on cooldown too,” Emma replied, producing two cards from her inventory.
Archimedes grabbed the Turret skill from her hand and examined it. “It reset the cooldown. That’s odd. The Heal skill was more finicky. This might be a good cheat way to move it,” he noted before grabbing the other skill. “The transfer didn’t reset the cooldown on this one though.”
“It might be because the turret doesn’t have a duration limit like Ring of Purity, and the turret requires materials,” Nguyen postulated from the doorway. “Ring of Purity and Heal don’t. If you could just swap them between people there would be no penalty for keeping them up twenty-four hours a day. It’d be too broken.”
“That’s . . . a good point,” Archimedes replied. Then he turned to Chedderfield and asked, “Either way, you want to hold onto the card for now?” He produced the Ring of Purity card for Chedderfield, who took it from his hand.
“Might as well,” he said as he walked over to Danielle and sat next to her on the bed. “Hey, babe. Wake up,” Chedderfield gently shook the woman he’d come to love.
She stirred and mumbled something he thought sounded like, “Yes, Chakotay. Set phasers to sexy . . .” Chedderfield felt his face redden as he recalled their roleplay session the last time they’d gotten some alone time, and he shook her a little more forcefully. “Danielle, wake up. We have things to do. Everyone's waiting for you.”
Danielle rolled over, and Chedderfield saw her delightful curves barely hidden beneath her form-fitting clothes and the thin blanket she used, and he decided that he needed to find more time for just the two of them. Then she gave a long yawn and opened her eyes.
“I was having the best dream, Manny. Can’t I go back to sleep for a little longer? I hate leaving those kinds of dreams unfinished.”
Chedderfield smiled and held her hand as he got to his feet. “Sorry. I’ll help you finish it another time. We have to get going. There’s another battle above ground, and apparently there are more people outside the hell-cursed base. There’s going to be a fight there soon.”
Danielle sat up, all coyish flirtation gone from her expression as the memories of where they were hit her. She looked around, taking in the room, and with a single nod, she started to get ready, tapping a window in the air that only she could see. The system-enhanced college sweater armor she’d gotten from the hotel appeared on her, and a moment later, her laser rifle appeared in her hands. She looked over something and said, “With all that ‘food’”—she paused to emphasize that she meant the monster meat—“I’m all healed up thanks to Undead Delight, and I’m plenty good for a fierce phaser fight.”
“Great, then if you’re good to go, we got a fight waiting for us up top. Are you sure you’re ready though?” Chedderfield asked, feeling a little uneasy bringing her out into a potential battle so shortly after she had nearly been killed off from a stampede.
“I said I’m ready. I’m not a paper doll, I’ll be fine,” Danielle assured him as she stood up and straightened herself out, puffing up her chest as if to say ‘I can take on the world’ but also visually distracting Chedderfield from the urgency of the situation.
“Then let’s go,” Emma said. “I don’t want our cannon fodder to die before we hit the battlefield.”
“Those are people,” Archimedes corrected.
“Yes. They are people who will make great cannon fodder,” Emma snickered, clearly taking a little delight in Archimedes’ frustration.
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“You’ve been hanging around Lucy way too much,” Chedderfield noted as he heard Emma completely dismiss the people they were about to go try and help as just “cannon fodder.”
“Wait. Since my skills are on cooldown, what should I be using then?” Emma asked as the group started to walk toward the exit.
“Ummm . . . here,” Lucy said, producing her pistol. “You can use this.”
“Oh my god! You’re giving me a gun! REALLY?!” Emma looked ecstatic as she took the weapon. I can finally— Hey! I thought you were giving me that!”
“I was, but then you looked a little too excited. Just use your spear or something. Overly happy about a trigger isn’t a far reach from trigger happy, and that’s the first step to friendly fire,” Lucy explained.
“We’re not opening the door again for you all,” Lucas, who had been waiting near the door, said as the group exited.
“Yes, we will . . . as long as you’re still human,” Lorelai stated firmly. “Good luck saving those people. You stay safe up there!”
“Yes, ma'am,” was all Chedderfield said as he started to climb the spiral staircase that led back to the surface, the rest of the group following close behind him.
He reached the hatch at the top and twisted the handle, a soft squeal echoing in his ears as he pushed up and peeked out. Instead of the quiet and empty street he was hoping for, he was greeted with a battle that was already taking place.
Practically next door, there was a fight between a group of people and a formation of the undead. Unlike the previous group, all of whom were archers, this group of survivors was much more balanced. There were at least ten melee fighters on the front line in bone armor, marching forward, each one carrying a reinforced shield and a mace. Six or seven archers fired at the hell-cursed from behind the shield-bearers’ ranks. To the sides, swordsmen brandished their two-handed blades and readied for the attack.
The zombies advanced slowly, their arms replaced with crudely crafted spears, each step punctuated by a stab at the humans’ line. Yet for all their ferocity, the undead had a fatal flaw—the mangled appendages could not generate enough force to break through the line.
The human archers responded by unleashing a barrage of arrows into the zombie lines, taking out two and sometimes even three with each glowing arrow they fired. Still, the zombies advanced, undeterred by the arrow shower.
With the clean rhythm that the shield- and mace-bearers had, they were pushing the line of monsters back, so Chedderfield thought that their group would be completely unneeded. “This has to be one of the most tightly organized groups we’ve encountered,” Chedderfield remarked as he turned to Archimedes to see his reaction to the scenario, only to notice that Archimedes was busy summoning the turret. “What the heck are you doing?”
“I’m summoning the turret.”
“With what supplies?”
“I gave Emma two crates of summoning materials. I left this one by the entrance before we . . . Look, that’s not important. What’s the issue with me summoning it?”
“They have the fight. We’ll just be kill stealing,” Chedderfield argued.
“Yeah, kill stealing is bad manners . . . but I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Lucy said as she pointed over to a group of Zebra-riding cavalry that was charging in a tight formation out of the zoo and making a wide arc as if to surround the human group. It was clear to Chedderfield what was going to happen: they were going to crush the archers and then sandwich the line of melee warriors between the wall of spear-armed zombies and the cavalry. It’d be a perfect hammer and anvil technique as the hammer, or the cavalry, crushed the whole formation against the anvil, the line of cannon-fodder zombies.
“Crap, we can’t let that happen again,” Chedderfield said, and for half a second, he expected Archimedes to Leap Rush out into the field without warning.
“I have to summon the turret first,” Archimedes explained as if reading Chedderfield’s thoughts.
“You guys better go on ahead,” Nguyen advised. “Danielle and I will take point from back here and cover you all. When Archimedes gets his turret up, we’ll figure out what to do and—
“What about me?” Emma asked.
“You can—”
“Stick with me and the turret,” Archimedes answered, interrupting Nguyen’s orders and looking adamant. It was clear he wouldn’t take “no” for an answer. “She’s going to stick back with me and the turret. We’re both spear-users, so we’ll be able to handle the charge so long as it doesn’t sneak up on us.”
Nguyen rolled her eyes but didn’t argue with Archimedes. “Fine, but you and Chedderfield have to watch out for her.”
“Well, it’ll be zebra steaks for dinner,” Chedderfield said as he felt a hand squeeze his butt as he was about to leave, just hoping it was Danielle before he used Meat Slam to rush into the fight.
Macuahuitl in hand, he raced across the street and through the park toward the lead zebra rider, a large undead woman that looked like she used to be a competitive eater in her last life. She snarled and tried to stab at Chedderfield with her spear, but he ducked beneath the attack, losing only a fraction of his momentum, as his weapon cut through the front left leg of the hell-cursed mount, severing it completely. As the zebra tried to continue its charge, both monster and rider tumbled forward as the weight of the duo suddenly shifted to a limb that was no longer there to support them.
Chedderfield ignored the sound of breaking bones and ripping flesh on asphalt and immediately targeted another zebra rider, but the remaining cavalry units ignored him and leapt over their fallen comrade to continue their charge.
As Chedderfield shot out a spray of acidic bile, covering a rider that passed by him, he heard a loud boom and turned in time to see a series of heavy turret rounds pierce through a second and then third zebra rider. Laser beams streaked through the air, and a fourth and then fifth rider were felled. The damage was so swift as five of the zebra riders died in quick succession that the remaining five zebras tried to turn and change their target to Archimedes, Nguyen, and Danielle, only to be mowed down in quick succession by a heavy volley of ranged fire. Even Lucy was shooting her pistol with decent marksmanship for a girl running at full speed toward the approaching cavalry.
“Fight isn’t over yet!” Archimedes shouted as he lifted his turret up, Emma helping him hold one side. The two carried the turret toward the formation of fighting zombies and humans.
“They released the emus!” the leader of the formation of spear and shield fighters yelled out.
“Bloody fucking hell! As if one war against emus wasn’t enough!” an Australian-accented man yelled from the humans’ shield line.
It was at this point Chedderfield saw what they were talking about: there were over a dozen undead emus wearing bone armor with bone archers on their backs charging toward the human formation. A creepy blue glow ignited around the skeletal archers while they pulled their arrows back, and Chedderfield couldn’t help but feel dread. He thought the moment they released their draws, the arrows would find their mark and kill at least a few of the backline human archers. Emma and Archimedes were still running toward the field with the turret, which managed to practically disintegrate one of the emus, and Danielle got another one, but Nguyen and Lucy missed shots, which meant that there were still at least ten arrows that were going to fly into the archers.
However, before the volley of arrows could be released, the formation of human archers reacted, pulling out and equipping three large glowing-blue tower shields that stuck to the ground and easily stood eight feet tall and four feet wide, each with a curve to deflect fire to either side. Two archers hid behind each of the first two shields with three hiding behind the third one.
“What the hell are those?” Chedderfield found himself mouthing as he saw the shields go up.
“Tell us when they finish firing,” one of the archers called out, but the thing that concerned Chedderfield was that the moment the skeletal archers saw the shields go up, they switched targets. Every single one of them had gone from targeting the back line of archers to targeting the next-closest shieldless and vulnerable-looking human target: him.
“Damnit!” Chedderfield yelled to himself as he looked around, rolling to the side and behind the trunk of a car parked on the street as ten bone arrows struck right where he had been standing and then they exploded sending shards of rock and dirt flying through the air. If he had been a second late jumping out of the way, he would have been turned into a pile of mush. When he stood up and looked back out, he saw the remaining emu riders fanning out in both directions as their bone archer riders began to nock another arrow each and prepare for the next volley. As he watched the bullets from the turret and the laser fire picking them off, he couldn’t help but think that if his group had been melee only, it would have been nearly impossible to kill the enemy given how ridiculously fast they were moving. Even with the speed and accuracy of their ranged attacks, only about one of every three shots was hitting.
Chedderfield saw the Mongolian-style circle shoot coming and knew that if the enemy was allowed to proceed, they’d have the ability to decimate his and the strangers’ group. He unequipped his macuahuitl and used his movement ability to charge into the circling emu riders. He body slammed into the closest bird, knocking it back but not over as the rider expertly maneuvered the mount. Chedderfield equipped his whip and lashed out at the undead avian, the sharp barbed spines wrapping around the molting chest of the monster mount. Yet, instead of pulling, Chedderfield used Meat Slam again, running right toward the opposite side of the encircling force. He felt the tug of mass behind him and heard a throaty growl as the emu was ripped off its feet and dragged behind him, and just as he reached the half distance, he activated Meat Slam again, targeting an enemy at a perpendicular point. Chedderfield felt but endured the strain on his body as he shifted direction, but the dragged emu didn’t fare as well. Its body was turned into a massive projectile and flung directly into the line of mounted archers as Chedderfield unequipped the whip that was dragging it.
“Fore!” Chedderfield shouted like an old golfer taking a long shot as the flightless bird crashed into some of the undead archers, ruining their attempt to encircle the humans and pepper them to death with arrows.
“Talk about flipping them the bird,” Archimedes joked, carrying the turret to where Chedderfield had stopped. He and Emma dropped the automated weapon at their feet and between the three of them and the weapon, they cleaned up the remaining discombobulated emus and their riders.
With their flanks protected, the other group was able to similarly cut through their foes, only losing a single shield-bearer to a lucky stab by two spear-armed zombies.