I turned, to find a rifle pointed at my face. Well, as much as ‘in my face’ at 10-feet could be. Clever old-timer, too far to cut. He should have been closer. Not that I was going to cut him even if he was closer. Damned Dark Affinity.
“Grandpa! Stop that right now! He saved my life!”
He, at least, had the temerity to look a bit ashamed, if not enough to fully lower the rifle from loosely pointing in my direction. At least it wasn’t directly pointed at my face anymore. I liked my face.
Gramps studied the door where the wolf had run off to, then to Lena, then back to me. He seemed to reach some sort of conclusion, then nodded, “Thanks for keeping her safe, kid. Is that the sword?”
With a nod, I held it up so he could get a good look at it, “World War I, Patton blade. Good one.” Apparently he knew some stuff.
I was too tired to inquire further about it though. I sheathed it and grabbed the shotgun from where Lena had dropped it. Then, I started the process of reloading both of my guns.
“Lena, I ain’t letting you out of my sight for a single second-”
Surprisingly soft from her, “You don’t get it Grandpa.”
“What’d you say to me?”
“I said you don’t get it! The world is different. We shot that… wolf a lot of times.” Her voice had been growing shrill by the end of her statement, and she shook her head to reset it, “We have to take risks or else things like that will just keep getting stronger and stronger. If I don’t, if you don’t, if everyone just huddles up, we’ll all die. Maybe not tomorrow, but then the next day, or the day after. I saw how fast that thing moved. If Tom wasn’t as strong as he is it would have killed me in the first second. The only thing that surprises me is that it hasn’t already entered through one of the second floor windows-”
“Not to interrupt,” I was picking up my shotgun and snapping it shut, “but do we have to have this conversation, here?” The shuffling of feet from outside accentuated my argument.
“Shit.”
Surprisingly, that wasn’t from me, hearing her Grandpa cuss seemed to unsettle Lena as well.
I ran to the front of the room and looked through the front window before pulling away just as fast.
“Lots. I mean, lots of zombies. This way is a no-go.” The zombies appeared now and filled the front of the store. I flipped the somehow still-but-barely-managing lock shut as I saw the handle turn. That’s right, smart zombies. Well, at least compared to the movie baseline.
Gramps and Lena followed me into the back as she reloaded her own pistol with a second magazine.
There were a group of 5 zombies that had been torn to shreds in increasing states of damage. The thing that stuck out to me was that the wolf hadn’t known to take out the brain. When she had figured that out, it looked like the rest were taken care of in short order.
This whole thing left questions though. How had she been here? Did she know somehow? Had she been listening in at some point? While I was on the roof? Or was it some feeling? Did she get some announcement when I did and methodically explored around until she found a place that was most likely to have a sword? Any and all of the options were deeply unsettling. Literally none of them made me feel better. I didn’t even want to think of the possibility of it being a combination of factors.
I checked the splintered back door and shoved down the flash of panic at the strength of the wolf that must have caused that.
The windows in front both shattered one after another and we moved outside, splintered door or not.
Running along the back of the businesses was a stone paved alley. It was small and had a wall with houses on the other side of the stone and iron fences of surprising quality, homage to its roots I guess.
Gramps looked back and forth then, “Left, it should put us out right by the school.”
“But, the rope!”
Gramps grinned at his last living relative, “You think I’d be as irresponsible as you.?” He laughed and then quieted himself.
I smirked and snorted some air out of my nose, it looked like Gramps was getting all fired up.
_______________
We stacked against the corner and Gramps peeked around then waved in response to something, he turned and motioned for the both of us to follow. Lena followed. My words followed her.
“I’ll be back, I gotta do something else.”
I turned to head down the alley before I felt a hand grab me, “Where are you going?”
Over her shoulder I could see Gramps, eyes slightly narrowed.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
I lowered my voice, “Listen, I have to Consecrate this sword at an Altar for my Quest.”
Her eyes widened and I continued before she would make a big deal out of it, “Listen there are already zombies all over, a few more won’t hurt and I need whatever I can get from the Quests if I’m going to kill the Mortician.”
I’d have to bother asking for the full story about the Mortician one of these days because her face completely changed when I brought him up. Especially since I would have to kill him. Probably tonight, tonight seemed like a good time to ask.
“Are you coming back?”
I looked her straight in the eyes, “Yeah, I am. Immediately after the Church.”
She nodded, “We’ll be ready, just make it back,” then was pulled away by Gramps as I turned back down the alley.
Order of Operations. Get inside the Church, Consecrate the Sword, Get back to the school.
Okay, time to move.
----------------------------------------
I heard a few gunpops from the direction of the school and I made sure to keep a wide berth as I passed the back of the Antique store. I heard groaning and the pile of tripping bodies that clambered out from inside the store. I had no idea why they had been waiting in there, and quite frankly, didn’t really give a shit.
I kept a slow jog and the shotgun in the ready position. I crossed a street and continued into the next block’s alley. About halfway there, I checked back and noticed the zombies entering the alley behind me. When I turned back around, my exit ahead started to fill with them as well. Dammit. I would take an easy win, any day now. I guess they don’t call it an apocalypse for nothing.
I kept going forward and when I was maybe 15 yards away I lifted the barrel and let a booming shot rip out. It wasn’t super accurate, but it was also a shotgun. Half a zombie's head turned into mist before I fired the other barrel at another then cracked the barrel to reload and looked behind me. Maybe 30 yards behind me, the closest ones in front of me were about 10 away when I closed the barrel and brought it back to my shoulder. I fired once and took one out then sidestepped and managed to blow two heads away for the cost of one shell.
I felt pretty clever and the way ahead looked clear. For about a second and a half before another shambling horde swept around it. Fuck this.
I ran and threw my shotgun over someone’s backyard fence, then reached up and swung myself over.
I dropped to the grass and reloaded as I looked around. Nothing. So far. I closed the shotgun and held by the barrel with one hand and drew the saber. Wouldn’t do me any good to give them a live updated GPS by continuing to fire. My minimap showed them converging where I had just been… and then, the red dots were gone. Shit, this thing was almost useless.
I kept moving and tried the back door. Having no particular desire to loudly break into someone’s abandoned house I moved around the side and unlocked the gate.
Something was startled as I ran through the gate and barked at me,
It had been a small dog, inbred as hell. I dismissed the surprising discomfort at that and continued, moving through yards and shish-kebabing the occasional rat, mouse, and squirrel. A few birds tried me, but they were flightier. More opportunistic, if they even tried me at all.
A raccoon got uppity and called me a shockingly horrific series of words before it scampered away. By the time my senses gathered again it was gone. I peaked around a wooden fence and a fucking zombie jumped at me. I swung and cut into its neck to no result then in a half panic I… willed it away, a firm desire not to get bitten again and a burst of small force pushed it off course and face first onto the ground.
I planted a foot on its back then plunged the saber into the base of its neck and peaked around the corner again. There were scattered zombies… looking around. Zombie scouts? I sighed and wiped off my saber on the zombie’s clothes before resheathing it. The Church was maybe a block and a half ahead of me. I hefted the shotgun and ran.
Making judicial use of the butt of the shotgun kept things relatively quiet for a bit, but that advantage disappeared when the zombies turned from the alley poured out of the end of it, into the street. Took them long enough. I figured they were smart for zombies, so still pretty low on the general IQ scale.
I made it to the front door, then realized that it wasn’t a real solution and peaked around the corner and realized that I didn’t really think this through as well as I should have. Split between running back and trying the front door and checking around the back… I remembered that my boot hadn’t done much to the door. If it was a huge crossbeam like some medieval shit then even my shotgun wouldn’t work. At least not in two shots.
I chose the side and was met by a wall of stone. I'd almost be impressed by the construction if I wasn’t running for my life to complete a Quest that I didn’t really want to do.
There. A door, an old wooden thing. I tried the handle and didn’t even curse, I wasn’t expecting it to be open. I kicked above the old iron lock once then backed up and unloaded both barrels into it from some distance. Zombies just got to the front of the Church, 50 feet. I reloaded it and kicked it again. It groaned and moaned but moved. I shoved against it with my shoulder and kept pushing. It didn’t… open persay, but the top corner wedged open enough to where I could make something happen.
I wedged my hands in the gap then pulled and pushed them apart. I barely expected it to work but the wood… moved. Shit, the Penitent System worked. Old wood splintered as I continued then shoved myself through the top. I heard footsteps from outside as I wedged myself in and then, with a pop and a healthy amount of new splinters on my entire side, I was in. I heard more groans. That’s right, there were zombies inside. The door behind me started to shudder and I saw decayed fingers trying to repeat what I had just done.
I turned the corner and a zombie lunged at me, I pushed it back with a small effort of Will then followed it up with a 12-gauge to the head. Without its head it did the cool movie-staggered drop to its knees and then to the ground. Damn though, the zombie movies hadn’t been kidding about the blind-corner-lunge. I thought that was just to raise the tension, but in reality, they really had that trick down. My ears rang from firing in the enclosed space as I pushed my way forward. Another shot, another zombie, two actually. I debated using my pistol but decided on just walking briskly backwards and reloading my shotgun.
I saw it through an archway, the way to the main chapel. The way ahead was chock full of zombie. I fired into the crowd, reloaded, fired again, then continued until I made a bit of a beachhead into the crowd by virtue of dead zombies. I dropped my shotgun, pulled the saber and drew my pistol then charged into the gap. They were slow and relatively strong, but I could dodge, slice, and shoot well enough to break through the uncoordinated group. I would have been dead long ago without the System. Shit, I still might be.
I started to instinctively run away from the Altar to draw them away, but remembered, thankfully quick, that these were smart zombies. I couldn’t just dumb lead them around the room in a big loop. Too much video game logic was bad as not enough.
I sprinted back and wiped the saber off on my pants before slamming it on top of the Altar.