Day: 130

Zombies killed: 3120

I could already listen to heavy metal starting to play in my head as I took the sawed-off shotgun and a machine-gun whose name I didn’t know from the line of weapons, shoved a big magnum revolver in a colder by my waist, opposed to the mace-long sword, and stacked some grenades inside a pocket, as if I was about to rip and tear some demons.

Prepared; having no meaning in taking more guns with me once that at any given point I would be at just a few minutes from them at best; I turned to my twin sister. She was also done, having chosen to take just a sub-machine gun, a spear that she made with a very scary knife (she really seemed to love those lances) a big precision rifle and lots of ammo. I couldn’t even take a glimpse of her skin beneath the full set of black police armor enhanced by post-apocalyptic ati-zombie technology. Good.

“Alright, I’m getting down” I tested the walkie-talkie one more time and did as I said.

“Remember: if I say ‘fuck, a flying zombie!’ it means that there’s a zombie flying and I’m fucked”, my twin sister replied, going her way up.

The stairs have been blocked by cells grids and spikes, then I climbed down the ladder also made by Morgaine, that went thru the entire building and holes on the floor, and led me to the ground floor. The windows were open so they wouldn’t break and I could attack, but the path blocked to the zombies by metal bars. Taking a deep breath, and knowing that Morgaine should be already at the roof, I confirmed: “I’m ready”, and as soon as I said so, I heard the first shot.

“BANG!”, it echoed louder than I thought it would, being inside the building and three floors under the shooter, the firing defying the skies all the way up there, and sending shivers down my spine; I knew exactly what was happening, and yet turned to the ladders behind me.

I knew a zombie had died. And more had just noticed human presence and were searching for the shooter.

“BANG!”, Morgaine shot again, and thought her targets were too far away for me to see them, I could already imagining another undead’s head exploding under the powerful bullets.

More bullets were fired by my twin sister up there, then in slightly quicker succession.

Still unable to kill anything, my mind wandered in my nervous wait: I wasn’t the only one who trained shooting with the guns, and the same way she was better with the slingshots, the net and spear, Morgaine displaying great talent with the precision rifles and hardly missed a shot after just a little bit of training.

There was a pause in all the firing at the roof, and I imagined Morgaine already reloading her gun. When the shots restarted, they came in a way quicker sequence; the creatures were getting closer, even though my twin sister was shooting like crazy they were getting closer, so it should be a large horde.

My finger lacked tacked, completely evolved by a thick glove, but maybe it was because my heart beating faster, adrenaline filling my veins, or maybe because I just grew used to the sensation, but my senses were somehow sharper, and I could feel the trigger of the machine-gun with easy. I tapped the sword by my waist. I said I preferred clubs, and so Morgaine had welded a ball of knives at the tip of the blade.

“BAN…”, there was another interval, and another cartridge clip was substituted. I could already listen to the groans, some closer than others, some approaching really fast.

Why there were swords in the evidence room in the first place? Well, maybe someone got a bit excited by the zombie apocalypse scenario and started to cut off heads a bit too soon…

“If they just had waited a little more…” I said, finally turning to the open windows again, lifting the sawed-off shotgun and pulling the trigger, the sudden burst loud, and the smell of burned typical even thru my helmet; a deformed special zombie that looked like a dog, and were awkwardly a hood and a hat, fell to the ground before the building with a hole in its chest that allowed me to see the horde behind it. “They would be able to have the fun they wanted.”

As soon as the putrid wave reached the right distance so my bullets would be the most effective, I changed the shotgun for the machine-gun and, holding it with both hands, without really aiming but letting the barrel at the high that its fire would find or the chest, neck or head of the creatures, I shot.

Even though the weapons wasn’t one of the really big ones and my body had developed well in the last months, its kick was strong and I couldn’t hold the trigger for more than a few seconds without losing control: I more or less aimed, shot for two straight seconds, relaxed my index finger, aimed again and repeated the process over and over, until reload, focusing on thinning out the horde equally in its entire extension.

The hundreds of bullets found the creatures bodies with easy, the compact undead mass without really trying to protect itself, and the projectiles, more potent than I imagined before shooting for the first time, made great damage, putting large holes on the creatures bodies, passing thru their gooey flesh and muscles and breaking bones with easy, completely obliterating fingers, ears, and appendices, and tearing off entire limbs. I moved my weapon as a hose for watering the plants, and made fall blood and guts; but I still could see, with a single second or even half a second of interval, skulls popping like balloons filled with water, Morgan’s targets falling one after another.

Only then the horde reached the first line of traps set by my twin sister: a deep moat holding many tall spikes in its bottom. The chances of the creatures that fall inside the moat of dying were low, but at least they wouldn’t be able to move anymore, stuck by the spike, and we would be able to kill them with easy after that first wave ended.

The moat filled quickly, the creatures not necessarily avoiding it, and the next lines of zombies walked over their own kind stuck bodies, still approaching. When making the traps, Morgaine had almost pleaded to use the explosives, but I decided to save it for later, and so she simply made some chevaux de frise with the same intent of the previous well, but these could hold fewer creatures and the horde was about to reach our base. There weren’t many traps, but my twin sister spent much time empowering the building itself, so the approach of the creatures only meant that it would be easier to shot them.

Then:

“FUCK!”, Morgaine shouted up there and thru the walkie-talkie, her voice followed by grows and confusing sounds.

“Flying zombies?!”, I almost couldn’t believe it. I had seen no one while examining the town from the tall tower! Anyway, I rushed to the ladders.

“Fuck… off! Gah! …No! They aren’t flaying zombies…”, Morgaine said, panting a little and firing her sub-machine gun. “Climbing zombies!”

And, as soon as I hold the first step of the ladder and looked up, I felt the impact, as if a sudden increase of atmosphere had brought me to the floor and was crushing my chest, making it hard to breathe, the world reduced to a monochromatic deep dark red. The claws pressed deep against my armor until they found the slits between the hard plates and craved themselves into the thick cloth; the protection kept me away from the infection, but the skin under it succumbed and split; while four long fangs connected by braces and a mouth too big scratched against my helmet producing agonizing creaks and squeaks, trying to eat my head hole.

I tried to push the creature away, but it held strongly on me, and all I could do was to roll on the ground with my head inside the thing’s mouth. Having lost my machine gun when the zombie fell over me, I reached for my sawed-off shotgun, pressed it against the thing’s face and: saw my helmet be freed of the giant mouth, when the creature, smartly, focused on keeping my hand and gun pointed away from it and to the windows.

“This slippery fucker keeps running to my back!”, I heard Morgaine swear. And saw a second climber undead outside, its face covered by tattoos, holding tightly on the window metal bars and running over the buildings façade. “Where is he?!”

I could finally take a good glimpse of the type’s disgusting form, that looked like some kind of human-spider, arms, legs, and face too close, elongated abdomen and general repulsive appearance. With my hand already pointed to the right direction, pulled the trigger and a single bullet shot from the gun split the abomination in half in its more concentrated point of contact, while a hundred more little red dots popped all around the thing’s body, gushing blood like little fountains while the zombie fell from the wall outside. I really loved shotguns.

“I took care of yours, now help me with mine!”, I said, rolling on the ground once again and stopping right at the end of the ladders, staring the cloudy skies up there, thru a hole that looked really tiny from that distance.

“You don’t need to say it twice”, I heard Morgaine, and saw showing up at the opposite side of the ladder. With her fucking giant rifle.

“Wait, wai-!”, I was interrupted, but that time not by the usual “bam”, but for a placid silence, then an annoying buzz as I couldn’t listen to nothing more. I cursed, asking, I was sure, almost screaming why she didn’t use her fucking sub-machine gun, and if sis was trying to kill me; but at least I got up and noticed that there was not even a signal that the creature on the ground ever had a head in the first place besides the red a smoking hole on the ground, the size of a tennis ball.

I returned to my position and one of my ears began to work again and just in time to let me listen the exact moment when hundreds of creatures bashed like an ocean of flesh against the building, a countless number of hands coming thru the bars and trying to reach for me and with such a force that they splashed blood all across the almost empty first floor, all the grows, snarls and roars, the scratching noise, the sound of the slimy creatures pressing one against another to the point of breaking their own bones; it couldn’t be described with anything but “hellish”.

I turned just in time to get my hand on my sword-mace, cut the small zombie who jumped over me at the waist level, his entrails falling all over me. I stepped on the chest of the biting fucker, who tried to chew my boot, and smashed his skull with a single movement of my melee weapon, still staring the blood trail he left behind and to the underground garage. It should be completely sealed, but somehow creatures had break-in…

Exchanging the shotgun for the assault rifle once again, shooting carelessly thru the windows, I walked down the stairs, sighing. I should report that for Morgaine, right? But she probably would reply for me to take care of some god-level zombie that could be down there, and what she says usually becomes true…

“I’m going down the garage. We have some intruders, apparently”, I said anyway, already walking down the stairs and making rain fire over red eyes on the shadows.

“Be careful with the rhino-zombie, okay?”, my twin sister said between one shot and another. And, as soon as she did so, I heard the roar who made the walls tremble.

It would be another long day, I saw.