by Kirk Allmond
Kris heard Alicia calling out orders behind her cloak of invisibility. Occasionally, Kris heard the soft whisper of smoke as Alicia reappeared. The woman fought in a similar style as the super zombie Kris killed not too long ago. Appear, strike, disappear, reappear, strike, and disappear. It worked well for her. Alicia had been in law enforcement before the end of the world and was deadly with a gun. She’d spent hours at the range practicing, but she always had an affinity for knives. She liked the way the handle fit in her hand and how effortlessly the blade sliced through the air. “KA-BAR 5017 Full-size USMC, mark 2 fighting knife. Seven-inch blade with a fixed plain edge. It was designed to serve American troops in WWII, and it is still used today. In 1994, the blade was updated with a tool steel blade, synthetic handle, and synthetic sheath and marketed ‘The Next Generation,’” The Voice said.
“Thank you for summing that up for me,” Kris said sarcastically.
It would take Kris around ten minutes to get to the battle. She hoped that Alicia and Markus could hold their ground until she got there.
“Alicia, I’m fine, and I’m coming to you. The douche that’s handling the zombies is in the tower. I know that fucker; be careful. If I get there before you kill his ass, I’m going to melt his fucking face off.”
-----
Markus was crouched down behind the eastern corner of the church, gun in hand. His eyes scanned the area, and he was formulating a new plan of attack. Their first approach had gotten two of the men killed; they couldn’t lose any other souls tonight. He had his lips drawn into a tight, thin line, and he was using his free hand to absent-mindedly pull on his goatee. Markus only did that when he was deep in thought. They were running out of options. If they couldn’t push back, they would lose the trucks. And if they lost the trucks, they wouldn’t survive.
Above him, there used to be a large, beautiful stained glass window. The picture had been the scene depicting Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying to God to take away his anguish the evening before he was crucified. That scene seemed fitting, given the current status of the world. All of the colored glass had been destroyed shortly after the parasites took over humanity. The glass had been blown outward and littered the grass. With each shift of his body, the glass crunched under Markus’s boots. “Markus, I found the one running the show. The fucker is in the bell tower,” Alicia said, gesturing to the opposite side of the church. As she appeared behind her brother, he didn’t flinch. Markus had gotten used to her sudden appearances, and they hardly fazed him anymore.
“How did you find him? Did he see you?”
Alicia shook her head. “I saw his head poke up through the window. I was invisible the whole time. He didn’t see a thing.”
Clearly skeptical, Markus eyed his sister but didn’t reply.
“The church is full of them, so there’s no getting in up the stairs. Gotta find another way in.” She paused a moment to look at Markus. “Well, I’m off to kick ass!” She kissed him on the cheek. “Keep your eyes open, Mark.” And with that, Alicia disappeared again.
Markus shook his head and checked his ammo. The magazine in the chamber was the only ammo he had left. They had never intended for a full-scale battle. Their farm and its inhabitants were woefully ill equipped, and all of their supplies were running very low. Alicia had raided the police station last week, but it came up empty. There was a military depot close-by, but Markus had talked Alicia out of getting a group together to investigate it. His worry for his little sister’s life was more important than anything else.
“Markus, we’re fucked.” It was Jackson behind him now. He was tight up against the side of the stone church as well.
“Not yet, we’re not,” Markus confidently replied.
“Two men down. Running low on ammo. We’re surrounded, and who the hell knows where Alicia went?”
“Watch it, Jackson.”
“Sorry, G. No disrespect towards her. Just wish we knew what the fuck she was doing.”
“She’s got a plan. Always does. She found the guy controlling them; he’s up the bell tower.”
“So when we going in?”
Markus shook his head. “We ain’t.”
“You’re shitting me.”
He shook his head again. “No. We go in there and we’re more fucked. Need to take him from outside the church. If we go down, brotha, we go down together.”
-----
Alicia quickly discovered that she could either be invisible or teleport but not both. She had tried to reappear totally invisible in the middle of a group of fifteen zombies, but they had seen her and almost took her down. Rethinking her plan was a necessity now. She wouldn’t be able to sneak up on the handler in the tower and take him out quickly; he was clearly not the “physical” type, so she didn’t expect him to ever make an appearance on the ground unless he absolutely needed to. Alicia was going to have to draw him out some other way.
“Alicia, I’m fine, and I’m coming to you. The douche that’s handling the zombies is in the tower. I know that fucker; be careful. If I get there before you kill his ass, I’m going to melt his fucking face off.” It was Kris’ voice in her head. Alicia stopped moving very briefly and looked over her shoulder, hoping the beautiful woman from North Carolina was there. She wasn’t. Everything had been moving so fast that she hadn’t had much time to dwell on her mysterious disappearance. From the way that Markus described it, she was stolen out of the truck shortly after Alicia had left. Alicia thought back on all of the memories she now shared with Kris and recalled that when she was in the hotel room in Mobile that two men had come into the room. One was a teleporter—probably the one that took her. The other one was very powerful and could get inside one’s head to control one’s actions and thoughts. He could probably do even more than that. She would need to approach him with caution.
-----
Markus craned his head around the corner of the chapel to scan the area once again. The area was packed with zombies. He looked over to Jackson, and by the look on his face, the other side was the same—between the two of them stood the remaining three men from the trip. Liam had a shotgun, and the other two, Tommy and Eric, each had 9mm pistols. Liam held up four fingers to let Markus know he had four shells left. Tommy held up one finger, and Eric held up two, signaling that they had three clips between them. If the realization that they didn’t have enough ammo to win this fight bothered Markus, he never let it show. He had spent most of his life going against the odds, and this was merely just another obstacle to overcome. They just had to hold on long enough for Alicia to take out the super that was controlling the horde and then get the hell out of there.
Wish I could do the shit that Alicia does, Markus thought as he slowly stood up. He kept his back pressed against the grey stone church. The day the parasites spread through the earth, Markus miraculously managed to avoid being bitten by any zombie. It was a Wednesday afternoon when it happened. The siblings were heading to Lowe’s to pick up some lumber for a fence he was building for their mother. Alicia had off that day, and she never minded helping her brother or simply spending time with him. They were in the parking lot when it happened. Markus had the truck bed open and was lifting the lumber into the back. Alicia had just made a crude joke, and the two of them were sharing a laugh when it happened.
He recalled watching in horror as the first ghoul he had ever seen tore into his sister. The creature had bit into Alicia’s upper left bicep, and she had screamed in pain. Markus was running on adrenaline as he grabbed the crowbar out of the bed of the truck and began smashing in the skull of the thing that was now chewing on Alicia’s skin and muscle. After the second hit, the zombie’s skull cracked. With the third hit, the crow bar pierced its brain. It sank to the parking lot, and Markus the over-achiever hit it one more time to make sure it wouldn’t be getting back up. Alicia had her opposite hand clutching her severely injured arm. She was losing blood rapidly, and a few minutes later, she had passed out on the seat of the truck. Nev
er in his entire life had Markus felt so powerless as when he truly believed his sister would die and he could not save her.
Markus would not fail his sister again.
He gestured to the four men to his right, and they all gathered around him in a tight cluster. “Here’s what we’ll do...”
-----
Alicia saw him again. He had stood up, a smirk on his face, and then made eye contact with her seconds after Kris sent her message. Alicia suddenly felt very uncomfortable. A chilly sensation was trickling down her spine, making all of her hair stand on end. She shrugged her shoulders a few times, trying to loosen herself up. A sudden bout of fear was not something that she had time for.
She had scoped out any possible way of getting into the bell tower, but the only way inside it was by scaling the side of building or teleporting. And she certainly wasn’t planning on doing the former. As long as he was up there, they were screwed. If she could be fast enough, she could pop into the tower, grab him, and move him down to the ground where she would have much better luck.
In a swirl of smoke, Alicia reappeared in the center of a group of zombies. In her usual fashion, she would appear, strike, disappear, reappear, and strike again. She dispatched five of them swiftly, their heads all falling off their shoulders and tumbling to the ground. A small stream of blood trickled out of the stumps of their necks as they rolled. For the remaining four, Alicia used her guns instead. She swiftly sheathed her KA-BAR knives she kept strapped against either thigh and then reached inside her vest for her Smith & Wesson .40s. She fired six times and was immediately annoyed that she managed to miss twice when they were right in front of her. As she was mulling that over, she holstered both guns back inside her vest.
“Bravo, girl. Bravo.” The foreign voice inside her head was so overwhelming that it brought Alicia to her knees, her hands over her ears. But he didn’t stop. “Other than a fancy parlor trick, what else do you have to bring to the table? What could you possibly hope for, child? You can’t win—none of you can. We will wipe out every last one of you until there is nothing left. You’re pathetic. All of you.”
Alicia screamed, trying to drown out his voice. She looked towards the tower and saw him standing up, intently watching her. His head was tilted arrogantly to the side. He watched her like a child would watch a lion in a cage. Fascinating but certainly not threatening behind bars. His cockiness filled Alicia with rage; she had to shut that fucker up. She closed her eyes and imagined herself standing next to him in the tower. When she opened her eyes, she was there with him. Before he could defend himself, Alicia threw herself on top of him and transported them to the parking lot below.
Just as they reappeared, the super pushed Alicia away from him. She flew through the air a few feet and then skidded across the pavement on her side, her skin ripped apart by the gravel. With a groan, she pushed herself back up to her feet. She smirked then ran the back of her hand across her mouth to catch the blood that was dripping down her chin. “Is that the best you’ve got?”
“Sweetheart,” he said, “you have no idea what I can do.”
“I’m dying to know,” she replied. “Let’s dance.” Alicia reached down to her thighs and pulled her KA-BAR knives free. She tossed one into the air and caught it by the blade. Once she caught it, she had her thumb placed along the center of one flat side and her fingers on the other. As she caught it, she disappeared. A moment later, she reappeared much closer to the man and hurled the knife at him, aiming for his right eye-socket.
-----
On the opposite side of the church parking lot, Markus and the other four men were swiftly running out of ammo. About twenty zombies had fallen, but around thirty of them remained. It wouldn’t be long before they would switch to hand-to-hand combat. Two of them had knives, and Jackson had a baseball bat. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. They were fully relying on Alicia to kill the super in the tower because even though they were all excellent shots, it was not realistic to think they would survive without her help.
Markus pulled the trigger on his .40 twice. Each pull resulted in an empty, hollow CLICK. “Any time now, Alicia!” he shouted.
-----
The blonde man dove out of the way of the flying KA-BAR just in time. It soared past his face and imbedded itself in a tree five feet behind him. Alicia pulled her other KA-BAR free from her thigh and disappeared from sight. When she reappeared, she was crouched down behind him. Swiftly, she slashed at the back of both of his knees before disappearing from sight again.
The knife easily passed through his skin and sliced open his tibial nerve and popliteal artery. Immediately, he dropped to his knees, and blood gushed from the open flaps of skin and muscle. Alicia blinked back to being right in front of him, her knife prepped for a fatal blow to his head, but the super was ready for her. He managed to snatch the KA-BAR out of her hand, and with a sweep of his arm, the man knocked Alicia to the ground by taking her feet out from under her. Alicia slammed into the pavement with a yelp of surprise. It was as if the man could see what she had planned to do moments before she actually did it.
With a sharp inhale, Alicia began to imagine herself elsewhere. She began to feel the empty, cold darkness of a teleport, but something stopped her. Annoyed, Alicia tried again with the same end result. She couldn’t get away. Alicia looked up from where she had fallen on the pavement, and the blonde man was looking at her with a deranged smile plastered on his face.
“Looks like we’re playing a game of cat and mouse, aren’t we?” He laughed at himself. “Your race is so fragile. Almost not worth the trouble,” he said. The man then clutched the knife in his fist and plunged the knife towards her.
Alicia rolled to the side a moment too late, and the knife pierced her upper left shoulder and drove through her muscle. The man leaned forward, pinning Alicia to the ground. She struggled against him, trying to push him away with her free hand, but he was too strong. The sick grin never left, and he moved his face very close to hers. “By the way,” he whispered, “Markus will make a great addition to the dead. My soldiers will be killing him at any moment now.”
“Go to hell!” she spat in his face. The man only grinned at her.
“We’re already there, Officer,” he sweetly replied and twisted the knife in her shoulder.
Alicia swore loudly as the muscles tore around the knife. The man laughed, twisted the knife again, and dragged the blade upwards into her shoulder muscle. With each new stab of pain, Alicia felt her mind drifting farther and farther away from what was happening. She began to approach her current situation from a purely logical standpoint, and before she even realized it, Alicia’s mind was running on autopilot. Her hand reached inside her vest, and as her fingers grasped the grip, the super saw what she was doing. With a snarl, he tore the knife out of her shoulder with another twist. The moment the knife was out of her shoulder, Alicia jolted upwards. Red-hot rage washed over her as she tilted her head down and tightly clenched her teeth. She threw her body forward and head butted the man squarely in the nose. The bones cracked under the weight, and blood exploded out of his nose. His head flew back in surprise, and before the man could make a counter attack, Alicia pointed her .40 at the man’s head and squeezed the trigger.
The bullet erupted from the chamber and passed through the man’s forehead. A puff of pink mist followed the bullet, and the man slumped over to one side. That insane grin never left his face the entire time.
Her legs were violently shaking as Alicia finally got to her feet. She kept her left arm in close against her, and she continued to clench her teeth, fighting back the pain from the gaping wound in her shoulder. The thought of how long it would take this to heal crossed her mind for only a second before the shouts of Markus reached her.
And they were shouts of pain.
Alicia began to run, but she was rapidly losing blood. With each step she took, she felt herself growing weaker. As she came around one of the corners of the church, Alicia saw a huge do
me of color covering what was left of the horde with Kris standing in the middle of it. Markus and Jackson were with her, but Markus had fallen to the ground and had a very serious injury. It appeared as though he had been bitten on his arm as well as the side of his ribs. The wound was so deep that Alicia could see a sliver of white bone poking out. He was bleeding profusely, and Jackson looked like he was shouting at Markus, willing him to stay alive. Inside the dome, all of the zombies were standing perfectly still, and there was blood and pus running out of their ears and noses. She heard a POP as one of the ghouls exploded inside the sphere. Its intestines slapped against the side of the dome and slowly ran down the side. Alicia watched it begin to liquefy with silent, detached curiosity. She tilted her head to the side and briefly wondered if she was hallucinating. Then she thought of nothing at all as she collapsed on the ground.
Chapter 22
Ignition
Through creative organization, Kris managed to get Markus and Alicia piled into one of the trucks and all of the tankers back to Gander Acres. It was 2:30 in the morning by the time they all got back to the farm. Kris had an impromptu meeting with Alicia and Markus’s uncle Riley, the owner of Gander Acres. He was their father’s brother, and they had spent every summer on the farm as children. It wasn’t long before he had Alicia and Markus in separate rooms with direct medical attention. In general, they weren’t worried about Alicia. Her body was lacing back together again from the wound, and Liam, the resident doctor, assured Kris that she would regain consciousness in a few hours.
