by Goforth, Jim
Back in Armada, Dax, Buck, and Lincoln used to sit around in the midst of drinking sessions while they all played black metal albums and talked general shit, and the trio often went off on tangents regarding guns, weapons and things like bullets, mostly brought on by their various obsessions with creating bullet belts with live rounds.
Mark vaguely recalled mention of hollow tips, expanding bullets, frangible and armour piercing varieties, though he wasn’t entirely sure the difference between them, or whether they’d be able to do that to somebody’s countenance. He guessed it was highly probable, though he did remember somebody pointing out that these types of projectiles were created not to leave any exit wound, but rather to either expand upon penetration of the target, or to break up inside and mushroom around the victim. The results here looked like the bullet had taken her whole face off, expanding as it may have exited, or caused the whole visage to explode in a mushroom cloud of bloody gore and mutilated flesh. Whatever the case, Mark felt like throwing up as badly as Miranda was doing right now, but sheer stupefied brain-numbing fear kept him from doing anything, even diving on the ground to avoid another round of murderous gunfire.
Where the hell had all the Sentinels come from? They weren’t in evidence anywhere while Plaguewielder performed the impromptu set on Stage Four, not before the assault by the death metal thugs, and certainly not after. Not while Undead Fleshcrave cut loose with the insidious Zombie Trigger, and not while Seth’s astute black metal riffing and tremolo ice impacted on that Trigger, deadening its attempts, sent the Fleshcravers into damage control.
And not even when the whole lot of them began their frenetic, haphazard battle dash across the undead riddled grounds of Blackwater Park, their savage leaders led by Tempest, slicing a bloody swathe through any zombies in their way.
The Sentinels were never there once. They’d never been seen, never emerged, never made their presence apparent. Until now.
Tempest sure fucking wouldn’t lead them all straight into a vipers’ nest, he wouldn’t have charged the Undead Fleshcrave stage with the violent fervour he did, if the Sentinels had always been barricading it. Because they hadn’t been. They’d emerged from somewhere, looming out of the bloodmist as if they were materialising spectres; evil, vengeful ghosts rising out of the havoc created by the zombie puppets birthed by Undead Fleshcrave, themselves also mere marionettes with death metal strings yanked and manipulated by Global Death.
As the creeping, crawling fear spread all over Mark, rooting him helplessly in the one spot, vulnerable to the very real likelihood of a hail of bullets opening his whole head up like an exploding watermelon, he was struck by the chill of thinking that perhaps they were some hideous ghostly manifestations, these death-dealing Sentinels.
Or more likely, they’d been ensconced inside the stage, beneath it. As the stage eventually lowered the band down to ground level, somebody triggered off the waiting Sentinels, that the brutal five piece were about to be set upon by the approaching Subversion faction, that thorn in their side which plagued them ever since Armada.
Though it was probably only a handful of seconds between the first cavalcade of gunblasts from the Sentinels, it felt as though time stood still or was moving sluggishly around Mark. It was like he was trapped in some strange undercurrent of treacly atmosphere, very much like the swirling bloodmist surrounding them, and it held him in a terrible thrall, making him a sitting duck. He realised he’d never recaptured the gun he’d let slip from his fingers to lessen the impact as he fell to the ground with Miranda, and he also acknowledged he’d never get his hands on it before slugs ripped through his body or perforated his face in a leaden bite of death.
He saw the guy in the Iron Maiden shirt swivelling around, his face splattered with Lizette’s blood, his expression a horrified mask of terror, the whole act of being cut down by raining bullets eclipsing the fear of being massacred and masticated by undead monsters. The fellow was clearly turning in a bid to run back the way they’d come, a vain attempt to outpace flying bullets.
Abruptly, he jolted forward in conjunction with another short sharp series of popping cracks, the expression of fear swimming on his features shifting into one of pained surprise, and his arms jerked spasmodically out in weird angles. A gout of blood punched out of his chest on the tail of a bullet, ripping right through the face of Eddie the Iron Maiden Mascot as he loitered with a scowl and a blood dripping hatchet on the front of the man’s T-shirt. His run to escape a trail of bullets scoring through his flesh was a painfully short-lived one as another thumped into the back of his head.
Obviously the Sentinels had no interest in leaving this group of agitators with any ability to become reanimated undead freaks gorging on the flesh of any living souls they got their clutching claw fingers on. Almost every member of the initial Subversion group charge gunned down by the wall of Sentinels, were shot, intentionally or otherwise, in some region of the head. No brains left, or thoroughly damaged, splattered grey matter meant none of those headblasted victims would be rising again to switch allegiances to the ever expanding undead squadron.
Heather was the quickest thinking of the three of them standing here in a frozen snapshot of terror. She barrelled into both Mark and Miranda like she was a rugby player, launching a fearsome tackle, being none too gentle about it either. Her principal motivation was to drop all three of them on the ground, and fast, regardless of the blood, human flesh, shit, vomit, dirt, grime, and whatever other atrocities were all over the grass. As bad as it might have been down there, it was infinitely better than suffering the fate of Lizette, the security guard, the Iron Maiden fellow, the short, squat Renegade Master at the head of the party, the others flung forcibly to the befouled ground by cruel bullets.
Again, blood and foul matter splattered against Mark’s bruised and battered face as he hit the deck with Miranda, under the impetus of Heather, his gaze still turned towards that stage, where the death dealers materialised, as if spawned out of the swirls of bloody vapour.
Unbelievably, Tempest still stood, unchecked by the hail of bullets, as though they’d merely washed around him, or by some bizarre twist of fate, missed him entirely. Either way, he wasn’t about to turn tail and abort the mission they’d come this far to complete.
In a flurry of movement that looked as if it defied time and logic, speeding through that fog of slowed down time that was gripping Mark, Tempest brought his tattoo embossed right arm around in a hurling motion that released the sanguinary Funeral Moon formerly gripped in his fist. Though the heavy cymbal weapon was laden with serrated blades, as it scythed through the air it moved so rapidly it became a complete disc, spinning in a lethal trajectory.
From his prone position, his left cheek pressed to gruesome matter in the grass, Mark watched as the Funeral Moon’s revolving motion carried its jagged deadly teeth through the neck of the Sentinel on the end of the row of grey gun toting monsters, decapitating him in a brutal blow. The Moon sheared right through meat, gristle, vertebrae, and continued its deadly path as blood fountained from the gory stump and the dismembered head bounced away in the grass.
Tempest’s deadly propulsion was done with calculated precision and maximum velocity, and severing one Sentinel head was not the single goal.
Before the disbelieving eyes of those splayed on the grass, the Funeral Moon sheared right through a whole line of Sentinels, ripping heads off like a massive guillotine as it powered down the line of bodyguards. The precise throw, summed up by Tempest’s quick eye in a matter of seconds, utilised the side by side formation of the Sentinels to lethal effect, removing head after head from necks in showers of blood, powering more red mist into the air.
At least six of the grey clad souls became headless bodies, shuddering and convulsing before toppling like drunken dominoes under the cleaving assault of the Funeral Moon. Even before the spiralling disc of death’s journey was complete, Tempest was in action again. He ran down the line with his Freezing Moon, this cymbal weapon sm
ooth bladed rather than serrated but as lethally sharp.
From the right hand side of the debilitated group, Blizzard, Scarlett, and now Roxana, were not standing still in shock, pushing aside any immediate despair to launch themselves into the fray.
Scarlett triggered a blast from her pistol, burying lead in the gaping mouth of a Sentinel as Blizzard attacked from the opposing end to Tempest. His long arms swung the Blizzard Beast like some gigantic freakish axe, severing arms, heads, driving the blades into chest cavities, splitting hearts, mangling internal organs. Breaking through bones with ferocious power.
Roxana must have had the foresight to scoop up the shotgun propelled from Lizette’s lifeless fingers, stashing whatever bladed weapon she’d clasped prior, and now she rushed the dwindling Sentinel numbers too, aiming and firing as she ran.
In awe, Mark saw one Sentinel cranium obliterated like something from Scanners, crimson mush and bone fragments visible in a violent storm, and then another was blasted from close range in similar fashion. Roxana looked to be of the same mindset as the Sentinels themselves, seeking to make all her triggered bursts headshots. Considering the grey-suited bodyguards were allegedly impervious to the toxic zombie bites being able to morph them, it was probably unnecessary to try and shoot them in the head, but the Subversion duo, and the pair of lethal ladies acting with them, were neither taking chances nor leaving anything open. They wanted all of the murderous horde deceased and comprehensively so.
Now Heather crawled up onto her hands and knees, and Miranda, startled, snatched at her arm.
“No, wait, what are you doing?”
Ignoring her, Heather shook off her grip and swiftly shuffled forward on all fours, and Mark saw where she was aiming. His fallen pistol lay ahead on the ground, partially obscured by the outflung hand of Iron Maiden. That was where Heather was going.
“Stay down!” He said, attempting not to move too much. He didn’t want to draw any attention from any of the Sentinels who hadn’t been decapitated, eviscerated, or otherwise destroyed, but nor did he want Heather making any moves that would earn a rain of bullets flying in their direction.
Heather either didn’t hear him, or more likely, just as she’d done with Miranda, completely ignored the desperate request to remain still. She scooted across the bloodied mess of ground and closed her fingers around Mark’s relinquished pistol. As Mark fervently prayed to random deities he didn’t even believe existed that her flurry of motion wasn’t about to put him and Miranda in front of a firing squad, leaving their bodies riddled with bullet holes and faces mangled meat masks, Heather clutched the gun and then hauled herself upright.
Screams resonated around in hellish conjunction with intermittent gunfire from various vicinities around the park and the swish of blades cutting through the air, then the violent, meaty thunk of those weapons connecting with, and severing through flesh.
Mark heard sirens as well, uncontrolled shouting, desperate, panicked weeping, the hideous grunting and incantations of the undead hordes, a conglomeration of horrible sounds hammering at his eardrums, but he didn’t hear any more close proximity shots ringing out from the weapons of the Sentinels and he didn’t feel any lead projectiles punching their way into his flesh.
Daring to turn his partially squeezed shut eyes in the direction of the stage, he saw that Heather’s lunge for the gun, obviously to aid in cutting through the myriad of Sentinels was an unnecessary one, a belated and unrequired move.
The deadly pair of Moons, both back in the hands of their master Tempest, the ugly might of the Blizzard Beast, and the guns in the hands of the women and the surviving Renegade Master, had cut a murderous bloody swathe through the bodyguard ensemble, decimating them with an unsurmountable fury. The swift attacks in the wake of the deadly shooting spree came in a wave that hadn’t allowed any more shots to be fired; Tempest leading the charge with his Moons.
Now, scattered grey-clad bodies, drenched in gore, or mutilated beyond belief, segmented, hacked apart, shot down, and bleeding more crimson mess to leech into the sodden earth, sprawled all across the ground, across the front of the stage, and spanning out from it.
The body count was catastrophic on both sides, but the completely annihilated army of Sentinels achieved their aims with ruthless efficiency, regardless of the devastating cost to themselves and total obliteration of their numbers.
The stage of the five piece death metallers Undead Fleshcrave, was devoid of all presence, the band vanished like wraiths under the brutal smokescreen cast by their grey minions.
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE-SCATTERED MEAT SMORGASBORD
Seth barely realised he’d gone into sheer survival mode, a lethal desperado swinging a weapon of massive killing capacity, with gunfire resounding in his ears and terrible thoughts that shit had gone badly awry ahead, where Scarlett was separated from him, until there were a host of ruined undead corpses scattered around in bloody rags.
He hardly acknowledged that it was he, Black, and Nate alone, staving off the flood, with SternBitch, RunningWild, and ClumsyGirl caught terrified between their singing blades as they slashed with a frenetic speed that belied definition.
He’d gone to wrestle Thomson away from Dax, then that plan was cut short as pallid faced, blood dripping undeaders lurched out of the bloodmist, and the feuding pair managed to cease their grappling. The gun they’d both sought was lost under the feet of myriad zombies gnashing hideous teeth, and weapon-less, the duo would have been fucked had Black, Seth, and Nate not reacted with pace borne of fear.
As it was, even Black wielding his deadly katana, its blade running with blood, Seth whipping Mother North around so savagely every muscle in his arms screamed in agony, his shoulders a blaze of pain and his chest feeling as though it were about to explode, and Nate trying to make his shots count, couldn’t completely stem the tide.
True death heads who’d swarmed to this festival in droves were now swarming every living soul they could find, and their toxic brains wouldn’t allow them any fear from weaponry. If any still retained the ability and cunningness to remember the peril presented by swinging blades, Seth saw no sign of it in the plague waves coming for his besieged group.
What was more, he could faintly see through the horrendous red hue that wafted persistently in the sky, that they were also converging on distant shapes and figures ahead of his party, those who’d already reached the Undead Fleshcrave stage to be greeted by a crescendo of gunfire. And if they hadn’t already been blasted apart by the gunfire, which Seth knew with terrible cold clarity, hadn’t come from the bunch led by Tempest and the Renegade Masters, then Scarlett, Mark, Miranda, all the others not caught in this shitfight back here were going to be swamped by the undead freaks too. Trapped in this escalating slaughterfest where the undead just kept coming, he was useless and powerless to save Scarlett from anything.
“We’ve got to haul ass!” Black backed up a few steps, closer to where Seth gripped Mother North’s neck just above the headstock, her body and blades completely awash with bloody gore, ripped off sections of flesh, and other atrocities. A couple of torn off zombie fingers were ensnared in the strings, as if they’d been wrenched from the fingers of a guitarist playing so insanely fast his digits were removed, there was even a gruesome eyeball lodged between pickups, other things sheared from undead bodies adorning the wicked beauty’s form. “We can’t keep this shit up, standing still and swinging. We have to move, pronto!”
Seth could only agree. Hearing it stated aloud was music to his tormented ears, among the screaming, shouting, sounds of death and dying blending with sirens and undead vocalisations. The longer they tried to hold off the masses, just the three of them, with their other companions unable to assist much, the more likely their chances of dying, or becoming one with the undead nation increased.
“Move!” Black suddenly blared, this time addressing Dax, SternBitch, Thomson, ClumsyGirl, and RunningWild.
Dax didn’t require any prompting, he was up and on the move
in an instant. He didn’t look as terrified as the others, he merely looked pissed that he was unarmed, somehow lacking the Jungle Primitive he’d made his own. Seth couldn’t quite recall when that might have eventuated, but in any case, Dax didn’t have it now, otherwise he’d have taken his scarily effective zombie killing efforts to the hordes of death metal demons that continued in waves. In actual fact, Seth realised they weren’t all strictly death metal meatseekers now, there were folk who must have been Blackwater Park residents prior to this calamity, coming with gaping maws and clawing finger hooks.
Evidently not all of them were so comprehensively torn to shreds by hungry teeth that they couldn’t morph as well and further swell the ranks of the epidemic.
“Come on!” Black railed at the other four as Nate fumbled in his pockets, seeking to reload what was now an empty gun in a window of opportunity so narrow it was a mere sliver of space.
Finally, SternBitch broke into a run too, on the heels of Dax, who hurried her on in agitation.
The other three tarried too long, struck by a horrified freeze. Their reluctance, or inability to immediately move when prompted was costly—and deadly.
The humanivores which struck like a hideous and terminal plague of undead locusts were not those of death metal orientation, they were those turned by the toxic bites and flesh scratching nails of the death heads, and they came not as slow lurchers, but as dangerously rapid meatseekers.
It was as if each person subsequently effected by the original Trigger-switched souls, reacted in entirely different ways, mutated with the toxins or adapted, and while a host of the initial zombies were of the slower variety, those bitten by them and infected appeared to have evolved into something else.
