Malcolm checked on Karina as they both searched for weapons. Jesse gave up on the door and retreated back to Harold.
“Ruby!” he called out.
The little girl came out of her cell ready to fight. She threw Jesse a baseball bat and pulled out two of her own knives. Jesse took the cue rather smoothly and together they approached the first clumsy cannibal. He bashed its head in with one swing, knocking it to the floor for Ruby to finish off, focusing his attention on the coming wave.
Malcolm held Karina’s hand. He felt her pulse racing. The last thing Malcolm wanted to do was watch her succumb to a freak out. He knew it was her greatest fear, losing control. Harold, Jesse, and Ruby could not kill the undead as quickly as they were stumbling into the room. Some were getting past them. Malcolm defended himself and Karina with a fire-ax from the emergency display in the hallway. He drilled the first zombie with the ax, cleaving its skull in half. It fell to the ground but its skull was not so quick to release its grip on Malcolm’s weapon.
The next two zombies got in close to Malcolm, forcing him to abandon the ax. He pulled his knife and put it right through its eye, almost in a downward thrust, puncturing through to its brainstem. It was a clean hit, but there was still another zombie to put down and behind that one a wave more he would not be able to stop. Malcolm pulled the cell door closed with Karina inside.
“I’m sorry,” Malcolm admitted before continuing the fight, “I’ll get you out after we kill them all.”
“And what if they kill all of you?”
“Let one bite you, don’t starve to death in here.”
“That’s reassuring.”
Malcolm laughed as he tapped the magazine lightly on his head before popping it into place. This was the last of his ammunition. It was now or never. The “now or never” moment he had been waiting for since he met up with these people. He joined Harold’s flank and began letting off burst shots at the enemy.
The gunshots woke up Job’s cell block. Annie stayed back and watched Job while they armed and prepared to help the rest of the group survive. Karina watched from her end of the block as they fought the monsters back. Young Ruby was by far the most impressive, with her two knives, covering their backs. It gave them the confidence of a front, and with that, a strong footing against the horde.
Hinges only have enough grit built into them, when pushed to capacity they crack just like anything else. The hinges on the prison door the mob of the wreaking dead pushed through were passing capacity. Karina heard the pinching sound of them snapping and then ricocheting off the ceiling. The amount of these undead getting crammed through the cell block gave them unbelievable force to move the door out of their way. Nothing could stop them now. If a federal grade steel prison door didn’t stand a chance, what good would three men and a little girl do?
Harold backed them all down the hallway past Karina’s cell, approaching the southern end of the block. He still had faith in his friends as he slowly retreated and waited to hear the sound of the door unlocking behind them. To his avail and with the confirmation of Karina’s facial reactions, reinforcements had arrived.
Rebecca and her moonsword stood between Atticus and Marcus both armed with duel-wielding pistols. They made quick work of the zombies in the room. Rebecca rallied with Harold, Malcolm, Jesse, and Ruby while Marcus and Atticus reloaded their pistols. Bodies were beginning to line the floor. Karina watched them stumble over to her cell. Rebecca kept cutting down anything stupid enough to get in her way, giving Ruby a chance to take a breather between Atticus and Marcus. Atticus looked at the girl wiping her own hands.
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“Here,” he handed her a pistol while he reloaded the other one.
A zombie slipped past Rebecca unseen by the rest of the group and headed right for them. Karina yelled out to warn them but before Atticus or Marcus could finish reloading their clips it was put down by Ruby. The gun smoked in her hands. Atticus was almost in awe. Her stance was perfect. Legs spread enough to anticipate the recoil. She almost looked ashamed before handing it back over to Atticus.
Atticus laughed, “Keep it, Ruby.”
He pulled another pistol from behind his hip and cocked it along with the other one he finished reloading.
The melee team pushed the horde back into the stairwell, Rebecca doing all the heaving lifting. The titan sword was heavy yet smooth, it cut through them seamlessly, never getting stuck or failing to do the job. Rebecca tried moving her hand as if she was painting massive brush strokes. She would cut through one of their sides and move the blade up into the center of their chest cracking the breastplate spinning a clean finish through the top of its head. Her right heel marked her twirl and gave her balance to bring the space sword back down on the never-ending onslaught, along with her wrath.
The newly formed gun team relieved the melee team, filling rotting head after rotting head with red hot lead. Malcolm backed up, ready to take a conservative approach, regain his strength, and keep protecting Karina.
“Malcolm!” she called out to him.
A witness to it all, Karina was feeling helpless and had to do something. Malcolm haphazardly crawled over the permanently deceased. Ruby had long since been forced to give up the task of coffin nail. In his exhaustion he struggled to stay on his feet but Malcolm got to her all the same.
“You saved my life” she gratefully acknowledged.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself…just yet.”
Karina pulled him close, their cheeks pushing the dried paint off the bars of the cell, and gave him the kiss he had been waiting for since Savannah. Sometimes, when a zombie gets cut down it will lose motor functions temporarily, but if the brain is not disassembled it will come back. They always come back. Its guts dragged rotten flesh along the floor of the cell neighboring Karina’s. Pieces of its decaying teeth broke on Malcolm’s bare ankle. The knobby bone prevented some of the teeth from breaking Malcolm’s skin but not all of them, and not after the crawler bit down on his heel. A slight smirk could be seen on the corner of Karina’s face if anyone had been looking, but they weren’t.
The pain was excruciating, as if he could feel the fire of the infection burning in his blood. Malcolm could not help but squirm and scream. “GET IT OFF! GET IT OFF OF ME!” he kicked.
Karina held his hands on the bars as if that was actually doing something. He kicked and he kicked and it still did its worst to his leg, ripping and nipping at his boot. The leg of his pants was shredded and stained red. Its head was finally removed from its half of a body by Rebecca. She took one look at Malcolm’s condition and both as a doctor and a warrior she took it upon herself to relieve him of his leg. Rebecca was kind enough to leave him his knee. After that incident she had enough of this skirmish.
“Finish your clips,” she commanded the gun team before walking into the stairwell.
Atticus followed behind her. His intentions were to cover her but instead he ended up witnessing her single-handedly bring the stairwell down on itself. By sweeping the main walls of the infrastructure in a counterclockwise fashion by the time it was all coming down Rebecca slipped passed Atticus and together they safely made it back. This was exactly what they needed, a permanent solution. But it came at a price.
Rebecca dropped the sword rushing to Malcolm’s side. He was losing a lot of blood.
“Do we cauterize the wound?” Karina asked.
“No, it’s too big. We keep fresh bandages on it and wait it out,” Rebecca informed her as she wrapped the nub.