Midnight Squad: The Ties That Bind

by J. L. M. Visada

  Samuel tried to soothe her, but was choking back his own sobs, “Shhh. Your mother is in a better place now. She’s in heaven. We have to just have faith that God knows what’s b-“ He broke down and started crying. He might have been an ass, but nobody deserved this.

  Niki and Danika went over to Samuel, “Sir? We’re very sorry for your loss. If you don’t mind, we’ll take her to one of the restrooms where she can get cleaned up, and maybe you can go with Grim and get the blood off of you.”

  Samuel’s head bobbed up and down, but it was obvious he wasn’t all there. The man had lost his wife, and he was starting to crack up. Grim started to complain, but Niki shot him a look that made it clear there was no room for discussion.

  Grim walked off with the father. Niki and Danika took the daughter off to their room. That left Penny, me, and Katy to watch over the rest of the group. I took a look around. There were some older people, a young couple, some teenagers, and of course, Purple Ponytail.

  “What’s your name?” I was sick of calling him Purple Ponytail in my head.

  “Olli Grants, but most people call me O.G., or when I’m in my fursona, they call me Manicorn.” Olli said.

  Penny snorted, “Manicorn?”

  Olli smiled, “Yeah, baby. I’m half-man and half-unicorn. So the two halves make me wholly awesome! Care to guess which part is like a horse?”

  Penny smiled, “Listen Olli, I’m going to chalk this up to you being traumatized, but call me baby again and I’ll feed you your own scrotum. Do we understand one another?”

  “Yes, ma’am.” Olli said nervously. Then he looked at me and started to open his mouth.

  Immediately Penny interrupted, “Don’t even think about it.”

  “So you and her are…?” Olli asked.

  “Yes, not that it’s any of your business, but she’s mine, and so is the big man that will happily twist your head off your shoulders if you keep looking at us both like that.” Penny sounded irritated, but she looked like she was ready to bust out laughing any moment. Olli was just adorable, like some adorably harmless pervert.

  “So, the big guy that walked out of here is your boyfriend?” Olli said nervously.

  “No…he’s our boyfriend.” Penny said as she put an arm around my shoulder.

  “He’s a lucky man, but he’s no Manicorn.” Olli said with a playful smile.

  “So, are you staying up here or coming down with us?” I asked.

  “I would love to go down…with you.” Olli wiggled his eyebrows. I didn’t even try to hide my smirk.

  Penny, however, didn’t find it nearly as entertaining as I did. Her eyes started turning blood red, “Listen, maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough. She’s mine. The next time you hit on her will be the next time I hit on you. Are we clear?”

  “Next time? But that implies there is a first, oomph!” Olli doubled over. Penny had punched him in the gut. She was a blur of movement, and if not for Olli lying on the ground, I’d have never known that she had hit him.

  “Are we clear now, or would you like a refresher?” Penny spoke sweetly, but her expression was anything but. The girl may be a tad overprotective, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say a part of me found her aggressiveness to be a bit of a turn-on.

  Chapter 31

  Grim returned with a still visibly shaken Samuel, and shortly thereafter, Niki and Danika brought back Samuel’s daughter. She was a pretty girl. She had long brown hair, and hazel eyes. She was still pretty pale, but that was probably from shock. Niki and Danika had loaned her a change of clothes, which was pretty sweet, but they were my clothes. She was a bigger girl. Not a chubby girl, but definitely curvy, and my clothes were the only thing that might have fit her. Of course, she was about eight inches taller than me, so my sweatpants looked like a pair of capri pants and my shirt looked a bit like a midriff on her. The worst part was that she actually looked better in my clothes than I did. I tried not to grumble and complain, but they’re my clothes. Shouldn’t the clothes I pick look better on me than on some stranger?

  “Th-thank you.” The girl said between sniffles, and I felt like a complete jerk. The poor girl just lost her mom, and I should be more sympathetic. Instead, I was grumbling about clothing.

  “It’s okay. You look better in them than I did, anyway.” I responded. The girl cracked a brittle smile. She was still in shock, but she was pretty tough.

  Grim started towards the elevator, and then stopped, “New plan.” He turned around, “We need weapons. Anybody have any ideas?”

  We all racked our brains. Eventually, Danika and Penny went around ripping bedposts off of the beds to be used as clubs. They weren’t the best weapons, but they’d at least be something we could use. Most of the people decided they wanted to stay up here and wait on us. I can’t say I blamed them. I wanted to stay up here myself.

  We started moving towards the elevator when Jes said, “We shouldn’t go down the elevator.”

  “Why?” Niki asked.

  “If the door opens up, who knows how many zombies might be on the other side? Does anyone actually want to be trapped in a tiny elevator with a couple hundred zombies trying to funnel in?” Jes said, and we all had a collective shiver. None of us even considered that possibility. “We should make our way down the stairs. It’ll be slower, but we’ll be less likely to get penned in that way.”

  There was a ping on my phone, and suddenly Janine was using my phone to talk. “A bunch of news sites are saying the president is going to give a speech at four p.m. about everything going on.”

  Grim’s expression grew dark, “A rough guess says they won’t do anything to us until after he gives that speech. So we have about eight hours to get down there and make our way back up. Penny, keep listening for anybody that’s still alive as we make our way down. We’ll rescue who we can, but we keep moving toward the target. It won’t do us any good to waste time rescuing people if we get firebombed in the end. Penny, you’ve dealt with zombies before, right?”

  “Yes, father kept them as a security detail.”

  “Anything you can tell us that might be useful would be appreciated.” Grim spoke as calmly as he could.

  Penny thought for a second, “Let’s assume they are magic similar to my fathers'. It means they’re following orders. They’ll be slow, but damn near impossible to kill. Don’t stop just because you destroyed the brain. Keep hitting them until they stop moving. With father's zombie guards, you could cut off the head and they’d keep coming. So keep swinging until they stop moving, no matter what. If they bite you, then the spell will probably spread. I don’t know how fast, but considering how quickly it went from zero to zombie apocalypse, I’d say it is a pretty fast turnaround. Don’t get bit. If you get bit, you’re dead. I’m going to assume that since technically I’m already dead, that I can’t be turned into a zombie. I got bit a few times back in my father’s castle and nothing happened; I assume it’ll be the same way here. The cambion should be immune to their bites, as well, since she’s also not exactly alive.”

  “I have a name, you know.” Jes grumbled.

  “Yes, and if you keep my friends alive through this, then I’ll take the time to learn it. Until then some of this is your fault, and I’m tempted to feed you to these little biters as a distraction, while the rest of us escape.” Penny wasn’t even remotely joking.

  Grim broke the mounting tension between the two women, “Okay, so Penny, you and Jes will take the point of attack. Danika, you and I will take the outside edges. Samuel, you and your daughter stay with DD and Olli in the back. Keep your eyes open for anything that might sneak up on us from behind, and warn us if we start getting penned in. Niki, I need you to pick up the slack wherever it’s needed. Please be careful. Katy, since everything hinges on you being able to put Janine back in her body, you’ll be in the middle. Everyone protects her no matter what. If she dies, then we’re all as good as dead anyway. Janine, you keep searching the news and search for nearby smart phones. Jump around try
ing to find more survivors, and try to get them to safety. Twilight, Who, I need you two to use your powers of illusion to keep the survivors up here safe. Can you do that?”

  Who nodded, “Yes sir, it will be an honor.”

  Grim smiled at the little blue guy, “Great, now let’s get rolling, people.”

  We made our way down the stairs. It was kind of strange to be walking backwards the entire time, but Grim wanted us to get used to guarding the back. So we all moved carefully. Samuel watched over his daughter like a hawk. “Cassie, you need to keep your eyes open, and please be careful.”

  “Yes, daddy.” Cassie sniffled. She was just barely keeping it together. Her makeshift club was shaking nervously in her hands. I expected her to just drop the club and run off screaming any second, but then again, I kept expecting the same thing from myself. So far, we were both doing much better than expected.

  Then there was Olli. The man was living in his own world. He kept swinging his club like it was a sword, and once or twice I’m almost certain he whispered, “By the power of Grayskull.” Great, we’re facing a zombie apocalypse, and one of the people responsible for my safety is reliving the Saturday morning cartoons from his childhood. His weird comments and behavior distracted everyone so much that several of us nearly got bitten. We finally had to tune him out completely.

  We descended one floor, and thankfully, it was mostly normal. We were able to convince a few of the people to go upstairs and help join the others in barricading themselves in. We were feeling a lot better about things, and then we went down one more floor.

  Niki whispered, “Holy shit.”

  It was like some bizarre level of hell. There were zombies everywhere. Some of them were dressed like regular people, some were dressed like employees, and some were dressed in their fur suits. The only thing worse than a zombie, is a zombie dressed up in an adorable bunny outfit. You’d think it would make things better, but it only makes things creepier. There were half-eaten people all over the place, and right before our eyes, they began to reanimate.

  “Well, ladies and gents. It’s time to kick ass and take names.” Olli yelled in his best badass voice. Of course, the problem with that was that in yelling, he just got the attention of every zombie on the floor. They all rose and began shambling towards us.

  “Hey, newbie, next time you decide to go all Leeroy Jenkins on us, try and remember that there are no do overs.” Penny snapped.

  “Yeah, yeah, everyone’s a critic.” Olli grumbled.

  Penny and Jes pressed in on the zombies. Penny’s strength meant that every swing basically decapitated the zombie. Unfortunately, that meant you had to deal with a shambling, headless body, and that wasn’t much of an improvement. It couldn’t bite you, but it could hold you down for something else to bite you. So Penny would knock off their head, and then deliver another crushing blow in their midsection that left a crumpled zombie that was bent at unnatural angles. Arms and legs were folded over in strange angles wherever Penny made contact.

  Jes wasn’t nearly as destructive, but she was working as hard as she could. It took several dozen swings before her blows would bring down a zombie. Meanwhile Niki was already moving around like a whirling dervish. She was bashing in every direction like it was the world’s greatest game of whack-a-mole. Of course, the obvious difference being that when you play whack-a-mole, the little moles never once tried to eat you.

  Grim was brutally efficient. He wasn’t going for the decapitating blows that Penny was. Instead, he was delivering crippling blows that left the zombies unable to pursue us. He kept hitting them in the shoulders and hips so that once they shattered, the zombies wouldn’t be able to move. The most they could do was crawl like worms along the ground. As soon as Grim realized what they were doing, he began delivering a sharp blow to their spines so that they were then too crippled to do anything but groan and glare at us.

  The body armor was coming in handy. I hadn’t expected it to be of much use, but it had already saved Danika a couple of times. She kept getting distracted whenever Niki was frantically trying to help us out. While she was distracted, the zombies sometimes slipped in and bit her. Luckily, they were only able to get a hold of the armor. After the third time she was bitten, Niki screamed at her and Danika refocused on the task at hand.

  We kept pressing on. Sometimes we found a person or two barricaded in their room. We’d tell them to go upstairs to safety and then keep moving. Some took our advice, but others absolutely refused to step out. Unfortunately, more often than not we found half-eaten corpses, or dying victims. The dying ones were always the hardest.

  Grim took it upon himself to deal with the dying. He killed them all with a swift blow to the back of the skull. Sometimes they begged for him not to kill them, and sometimes they just sat there crying as he raised his club. We didn’t have the luxury of letting them live. They would eventually become zombies, and we couldn’t afford to let them change after we left. They might either come after us, or maybe shamble their way upstairs and go after the survivors.

  Kids were the hardest. Most of them didn’t understand what was going on. They just knew a big man was looming over them like a monster, and when he raised his club, they almost always looked betrayed by him. Some tried to run away, and those just broke everyone’s heart, because it meant Grim had to chase them down. The big man didn’t show even the slightest emotion. He was keeping it all pent up. At one time I would have thought he just didn’t care, but now that I knew the man better, I realized he was doing his best to avoid showing any emotion, because if he let it out, then Penny or one of us might step in to try and help him. He was carrying out his brutal, self-appointed duty so that none of us would have to.

  Katy was flinging magic left and right to keep the zombies back as best she could. She just couldn’t bring herself to kill them, and so she just used her magic to drive them back when they started overwhelming us. Even then, she didn’t really unleash anything particularly powerful on them. She was doing her best to conserve her power so that she would have plenty to get Janine back into her body.

  The rest of us had it comparatively easy. We were taking up the back, and that mostly meant just keeping our eyes open for anything trying to sneak up on us. Whenever a zombie started making its way towards us, we delivered a group beat down. We weren’t as brutal as Penny and Danika, nor were we as efficient as Grim. What we lacked in skill, we made up for in panicked hysterics, and wild swings of our clubs. Except for Oll;, he was treating it like some kind of video game.

  We were making pretty good time, and then Penny’s club broke. “Olli, give me your club.” She screamed.

  Olli spun around, “Why me?”

  “I want everyone else to live more than you.” Penny certainly didn’t mince words.

  “What! Come on…isn’t there at least a little love for your buddy Manicorn?” Olli asked nervously.

  “I’d ask for the asshole’s club, but he has a daughter to raise, so either give me your club or I’ll just start swinging you around, instead.” Penny stuck her hand out, and Olli reluctantly handed his club over.

  Olli looked over at Samuel and Cassie, “Great, I’m going to die because I practiced safe sex.”

  “I’d wear a condom too, if I had to touch your penis.” Penny snapped.

  “Come on! I gave you my club. Why are you still giving me shit?”

  “I’ll quit when you stop staring at DD’s butt.” Penny hissed.

  “Fine, but in my defense, we might be dying and her ass would make Sir Mix-a-lot proud.” Olli exclaimed, and I felt my face blush.

  Grim yelled, “Less witty banter, and more gore and splatter, people. We’ve still got a long way to go before we reach the basement.”

  We refocused, and kept plodding along. By the time we reached the first floor, we were exhausted. It had taken up most of our time to get here, but now we were almost there. The stairs leading down to the basement were to our right, but to our left was a hallway leading to
the convention hall. We could hear zombies groaning, and people screaming. From the sound of everything, there were more zombies there than there had been through the whole rest of the hotel.

  Penny closed her eyes and concentrated, “Wow, they really swelled in numbers since I was down here. There were about two hundred when I was here earlier, but there are almost a thousand now. It must be all the screaming from those people that are trapped. They must have attracted them.” She started moving towards the crowd.

  “Where are you going?” Grim asked.

  “Well we need to save them, right?” Penny asked.

  Grim shook his head, “We’re running out of time, and we shouldn’t assume that the basement is clear. We’ve got an angry poltergeist down there, and who knows what else. After Janine gets rescued, we’ll try to save them, but they’ll have to wait for now.”

  Penny wasn’t happy, but she agreed. We made our way down. When we reached the basement, the first thing I noticed was the green flames everywhere. They didn’t produce any heat, but it was disturbing to see flames licking every wall and coating the ceiling. At the center of the room was Janine’s body, howling and screaming. Memories kept flashing around her like illusions. They were too quick to really understand. It was like watching a television that was just randomly changing channels as fast as possible.

  The coven was standing on the far end of the room. None of them moved. They didn’t even acknowledge our arrival. Katy whispered, “You all go ahead, but be careful. Who knows what they might be up to? I’ll need a minute to clear my head before we start this.”

  We all moved closer. We were careful to avoid getting too close to Janine. She was raging at everything like some rabid animal. When we got closer, we could see that the coven had been bound by barbed wire to steel posts anchored into the ground. Their eyes and mouths were sewed shut, and symbols had been cut in their foreheads.