by Mark Clodi
Chapter 42 -- Katie
Katie fell down halfway across the street. It took her some time to realize she had fallen over, she was lost in the flood of memories. When she finally came to, she found herself lying in the pouring rain trying to piece together the fragments of her mind. 'It's like doing a puzzle during an earthquake. The pieces keep shifting faster than I can get them into place.´ When she came back she found she was crouched over her rifle trying to shield it from the worst of the rain. 'Old habits die hard. Always protect your gun.'
Randy offered her a hand up, which she accepted and he pulled her to her feet. She looked at her hand for a moment, then at Randy. "What'd I miss?" she asked him as she ran over to, and rolled under, a late model Ford.
"Aubrey went inside with her troops, more zombies are trickling in, but they seem to be ignoring the melee in the warehouse and heading deeper into the building. Look at the doorway, there is where they all went."
Randy was sitting with his legs crossed in front of the Ford, he was pointing at a ragged hole in the otherwise pristine warehouse wall that their new angle allowed them to see. "That looks new." Katie said.
Shrugging his shoulders, Randy said, "Yeah, does it matter? Oh, I saw the old guy run around back of the building too. His eyes were closed and he was stopping and going in a strange pattern."
"Strange pattern?"
"Yeah, he would take three steps and stop dead still for a second, then take a few more steps and stop again. Sometimes he'd run twenty or thirty paces before stopping. Sometimes he'd only take a single step. The time he stayed still varied too."
"I don't really care about the old coot. I am surprised one of the contestants for 'best dressed zombie in military garb' of the year didn't put a cap in him though."
"That's just it; I don't think anyone saw him. I mean anyone who cared. Team Aubrey wasn't exactly interested in capping his ass. The others probably would have. I think, but they always seemed to be looking where he wasn't at."
"Weird, but it doesn't matter. How's our team doing?" Katie took a rag out of her pocket and wiped the scope down, then proceeded to give the gun a quick wipe down as well.
"Down to her and her man Kurt."
"Kurt? You know his name."
"Yeah, sure, I went to high school with him."
Katie grunted, "Small world."
"I'm just shitting you. I don't know who he is, I named him Kurt, so I could root for him. He is like, one of the good guys."
"Asshole." Katie lined up her rifle and tried to get a bead on one of the men inside the building. The bright lights were a stark contrast against the dim light made from the approaching storm.
After a moment, Randy asked, "You gonna take a shot or what?"
"They're moving too fast. What's with all these assholes going into the building, but not fighting?"
"How should I know? Just pick a target, even winging someone will slow them down enough for Kurt or Aubrey to finish them."
"Good point. I was looking for a head shot." A split second later Katie's bullet winged the zombie Aubrey was fighting in the shoulder. Aubrey wasted no time, she swung her fist around to shatter the thing's skull and moved on to the next opponent.
"Good shot! Were you aiming for him?"
"Quiet, you!" Katie snarled.
"Sure, sure, the rain and the thunder and the grunting and screaming isn't a problem, but me commending you throws off your aim."
"Randy...." Katie warned. Her next shot took one of Kurt's zombies in the ankle, the zombie stumbled and wheeled away from Kurt, whose attempt at a coup de grace missed by millimeters.
"Shit." Katie chambered another round and missed her target completely.
"That's one for three. You can do better than this."
"Better than you could do." Katie mumbled.
"At this range? Not likely." retorted Randy.
"With this gun? Very likely. You'd be lucky to get one into the building." The next bullet struck the only other woman in the hanger right between the breasts. It knocked her backwards from Aubrey, directly in front of Kurt, who slammed the double sided combat knife up under her chin into her brain.
"That was clean. Go Kurt!" Randy cheered.
"Hey, that was me all the way!"
"Go Katie!"
"Six more. Uh-oh, their peeling an 'A' lister off of Aubrey for Kurt. Kill that bastard!"
"You in love with Kurt now or what?"
"Two versus six, I gotta love the underdogs!"
Katie fired again, twice in rapid succession, hitting the man once and putting another bullet into the wall behind him. Kurt swung his knife in a vicious arc towards the guy's head, but the man he was fighting blocked with his wrist. Kurt's blade severed the wrist easily, but the 'A' list fighter hopped back out of the fight to recover.
Katie was reloading and cursed, "Sure the bastard stops now, I totally could have had him myself!"
"You should have reloaded after the first three."
"Nag, nag, nag."
As she raised her gun to fire again, Katie stopped completely. A man was coming out of the hallway. One of the many slow, shambling zombies reached towards him and disintegrated as the two touched.
"I think the boss monster has entered the building." Randy said, "Shoot his ass Katie!"
Katie was looking at him and immediately became cognizant that he was aware of her too. She sighted down the barrel of her gun and fired at the bridge of his nose. The bullet struck true and rocked his head back...before ricocheting into the ceiling. When his head tilted back down his eyes were glowing white with an inner fire.
"What. The. Fuck." Randy said.
The zombies fighting Aubrey stopped when the man came into the hanger, and Aubrey made quick work of two of them, sending one's head rolling, before smashing in another with nothing more than her fist.
"That's the guy who did all this shit. That's the one who started this!" said Randy as he pointed at the man.
"Yeah, thanks Captain Obvious. Like the pictures at his house weren't enough of a clue. I think his name is..." Katie concentrated, trying to recover a fragment of her lost memory. "Thomas Sentry."
Upon saying his name she felt pulled forward. This was not an urge to move forward, Katie was literally dragged across the pavement out from under the car towards Sentry, many of the zombies in the hanger suffered from the same violation. When she stopped Katie did feel an immense compulsion to move towards the Doctor again. Dropping her rifle she stood up and walked into the warehouse, her duffle bag still hanging from her shoulder.
Sentry stepped towards Aubrey, the sole fighter who hadn't been pulled towards him. "So, this is all you've got? A common shooter and jumped up fighter who isn't even as good as half of my body guards?"
"It got me this far." Aubrey said between gritted teeth.
Sentry gestured at 'Kurt' and the zombie fell over, clutching his stomach, which started to smolder, a moment later he screamed in agony as his abdomen burned white, then burst into flame. In seconds he was a torch, with flames shooting out of his body as he curled into a ball on the ground. The concrete beneath him blackened and cracked from the heat and nearby bodies began to start smoking.
"And her? She isn't even half as powerful as he was." Sentry gestured again towards Katie. Randy stepped in front of her and absorbed the wave of energy that was released. Katie wanted to cry out, but she was held steady and unable to do so. "Well, isn't that interesting." Sentry said. He seemed almost as surprised as Aubrey, who looked at Katie with wide eyes.
Randy was undaunted by the attack and turned to give Katie a quick thumbs up, though she noticed he was sweating profusely. She had not seen him sweat since he came back from the dead to haunt her. "Shrug it off, babe. I can't do this all day."
While Sentry continued to stare at Katie with a puzzled look in his eye, Aubrey launched an attack. Her left hand knocked into his jaw at an inhuman speed, followed by an overhand knife thrust towards his ear. Sentry barely seemed to move as he
caught Aubrey's wrist in his hand with the knife point pressing into his cheek.
"You have to realize I am beyond such physical concerns now. Even if your knife had thrust into my head, it would have been just as ineffective as your sniper's bullet." He threw Aubrey backwards into the hanger door, bringing it down in a crumpled heap out in the parking lot with the woman wrapped in the middle of it. Sentry stalked forward towards the door, which now resembled a crumpled piece of paper. As he walked Sentry cast a sideways glance at Katie, who continued to stand and stare blankly ahead, trying to regain control.
The crumpled ball of light metal crackled above even the sound of the pouring rain as Aubrey struggled free. Sentry picked the edge of the door up and spun around to toss it across the parking lot towards some distant houses. He watched in satisfaction as the whole mess hit the ground over three football fields. Aubrey still stood where she had been before he threw the door, she shook a piece of the door from one of her legs and smiled at Sentry's surprised look.
"I guess I have a few surprises too."
"I doubt you have anything more to amaze me with. You were a bit player when I sent you to Chicago and we know how poorly you did there. I should have sent Heather, she'd have that Iowa problem resolved by now and would have been back here to help oversee the next stage."
"The next stage?" Aubrey asked circling around until she was inside the building once more, leaving Sentry to stand in the pouring rain.
"Of human evolution. I suppose your incompetence will give me more subjects to work with." Sentry again stepped towards Aubrey, this time focusing on her, attempting to overwhelm her defenses and seize control of her mind.
Aubrey stepped further back into the building under the assault, using everything she had learned to keep him out. She almost failed under his initial attack, but slowly she adapted to his mental pressure, deflecting and rebuffing his attempts on her mind. Just when she thought he was about to give up, she counter attacked and launched a probe at Sentry. This caught him by surprise, but he deflected her blow as an adult might swat down a child's fist.
Sentry turned his head back and laughed, "You've been studying. I have to tell you I am impressed, but I am not worried. You might hold me off for a moment, but only just. You lack the skill, your attempts are childish and it's obvious you haven't been at this very long. I'll give you her." Sentry nodded at the still rigid Katie, "She is a piece of art that I look forward to examining. But you are simply not much at all." Again he assaulted her mind and again Aubrey stepped back physically from him.
Slowly Sentry walked towards Aubrey, she stopped moving backwards when she reached the center of the building. When he was close enough Sentry's hands shot out and he grabbed both of Aubrey's wrists, she continued to stare at him, trying to keep him from pouring into her. He bent her backward, until she eventually went down on her knees, and finally onto her back with her legs folded under her.
Sentry felt her defenses begin to crumple, just in his moment of victory, when he was going to find out all that she had been up to after he thought she had died, he heard the voices. Lifting his head he saw Max and Stewart step into the warehouse.
Chapter 43 -- Max
"What do you think he did with the bomb? I mean, I doubt he left it in the car." Max asked Stewart as they advanced.
"Shh, Max. You talk too much." Stewart said.
"I was just wondering."
Sentry seemed glad to see them. From his position on top of Aubrey he looked like a rapist caught in the act, a happy rapist. He stood up and put his hand out in front of him, Aubrey grasped it and he pulled her to her feet.
Max found using his zombie vision was much more precise than it was before, he could discern subtleties he hadn't noticed before and he was having almost no difficulties using it while still maintaining his normal vision. Aubrey wasn't on Sentry's side, nor was she under his heel yet, what Sentry did was designed to convey a message that all was well, but it was merely a front. Max steeled himself for what was to come next and Sentry didn't disappoint. A wave of mental power slammed into them and sent Stewart to her knees. Stewart reached her hand up to Max and he grasped it tightly as her mind was buffeted like a flag in the wind. Max shaped his mind like a knife and started to counter Sentry's efforts immediately, but not directly.
Instead of putting up a wall for Sentry to wear down, Max envisioned a ship, riding out the storm as wave after wave crashed into him. While he was keeping his mind afloat he started to grab the packets of orders Sentry was sending out to Aubrey, Katie, the other zombies, and towards Stewart. Slowly he started changing them, subverting the attacks to make them ineffective. At first Sentry didn't notice what was happening, then Aubrey snatched her hand from his and stumbled away from him.
Sentry glanced at her and forced his mind into a lance to penetrate Aubrey's defenses for the last time and bring her into compliance with his will. That moment was all Stewart needed, from her knees she launched herself at Sentry and pushed the man backwards away from Aubrey. With Sentry's attention broken, Max started to try and handle more and more of the messages that the man was sending. The effort to handle the traffic took all of Max's attention, but he finally had Sentry isolated, unable to send out anything that Max couldn't twist. For the moment Max just converted all of the outgoing orders to "You are free! Do what you want!" and it was working the zombies in the room started to recover and slowly began to move again.
Katie dropped the duffel bag onto the ground and it looked to Max like she was talking, but he couldn't hear her over the sound of the rain and thunder outside. Aubrey put her hands to her head and slowly sank to her knees rocking back and forth. On the ground Sentry started to glow.
"Stewart! Get back!" Max shouted, knowing what was coming.
Stewart didn't let go of the man, she grabbed him more tightly and as Max watched she started to share the glow with Sentry, her skin became translucent first, then her clothing, until she was a bright light attached to Sentry on the ground. Pulling back her hand Stewart punched the doctor in the head. Her blow had little effect, so she hit him again, then started to beat him repetitively, sitting up on his torso and raining blows down on him with both hands.
Sentry watched each blow come down and didn't react to any of them. Finally, with a shrug, he exploded. That was what it looked like to Max anyway, one minute there were two glowing people on the floor blackening the concrete, in the next Stewart was flying up into the beams high overhead and everything else around Sentry was pushed forcefully away from him. When the dust cleared, Max saw the man rise to his feet, he looked ten feet tall and radiated an aura of despair. Max felt overwhelmed, 'How can we stop this?´ The doctor brushed some imaginary dust off of his spotless white jacket, then smiled as Stewart fell to the ground beside Max.
"I didn't want to do this. I like being subtle and I would prefer to have allies by my side than to have slaves to trod under my feet, but you have made your decision haven't you Max?" The orders Sentry sent out doubled and then tripled, overwhelming Max's ability to deal with them.
Seeing the packets of details escape him, like running water through his fingers almost prompted Max to give in completely. Stewart stood behind him and leaned to whisper in his ear.
"Just keep him off of us. We'll do the rest."
Max looked around and found that there were just five people left in the warehouse, he could sense super zombies running like mad to get away from the area and he found Ruben a quarter mile away, carrying Bill at a jog in a beeline down the coastal road. Examining the people in a quarter mile radius he found that Sentry was only spending about half his efforts to bend them to his will; the other orders were going out all around the world.
'I can't solve anything if I am dead.' Max thought, 'Time to see if I can play defense.' With that thought he switched his ability to intercept the packets going only towards the people around him in the warehouse, anyone else out there was on their own. To do this he formed four tight circles around the
people in the warehouse, parrying each effort by Sentry to reach them.
Sentry didn't seem to sense that Max had changed anything and he turned back to Aubrey, "First things, first. Here is my offer to you, a paternal partnership. Join me as a goddess of our people or die and be forgotten."
Aubrey lunged for him. Sentry batted her aside, but then Stewart was there, weighing down one arm and trying to tug him to the ground again. The doctor didn't budge, he tossed Stewart into the wall to one side where she crushed a section of the concrete wall before falling to the floor. Aubrey returned to the action and hit Sentry in the back, staggering him forward.
Max did his best to subvert the orders Sentry was sending, but a few were getting through to his companions due to the pure volume the zombie was sending out. This worked both for and against Max, he couldn't create orders of his own and Sentry wasn't sure if what he sent would get through, so he kept sending a stream, which enabled Max to amend anything he missed the first time. The result for Aubrey was a stuttering sort of movement that made the physical battle easier for Sentry. Stewart seemed to adjust better to the wreath of protection Max was bestowing upon her. Katie wasn't; she was still struggling inside, despite what Max was doing. She just stood over her duffle bag, muttering to herself.
Sentry grabbed Stewart when she came at him, though both were the fastest of blurs to Max and he didn't see how either could intercept the other at the speeds they were moving. Sentry grasped both of Stewart's arms in his hands and swung her out from him into Aubrey as the woman came at him. Both women went down in a broken pile and sprang up quickly, but Max noted slowness in the two women that he hadn't seen before; they were hurt.
The shotgun blast took Sentry from behind and staggered him forward two steps. Another shot, another two steps, he turned to recover and Katie shot him in the head, rocking him backwards, but not knocking him down. Katie stepped forward with each shot, her hand under the barrel fed in another shell with every step.
