Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife)

by Robles, Joyce

  Despite his lack of reaction she motioned that she would take the exam room to the left and that Palmer and Brook should go right. Could she handle a zombie on her own, she had no idea, but Palmer didn’t seem competent enough at the moment to be useful and she’d rather let Brook manage him than herself. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but she would rather take the risk of being by herself then leaving Brook or Palmer hanging. She was just thrilled that Brook was so good at taking orders because he didn’t even try to argue the point. Jennifer took a breath and kicked the door to the left open, not hard enough to slam it into the wall but hard enough to get it close, she didn’t like the idea of something hiding behind it. She took a second to observe what she could see from the outside, giving her a good view of what was immediately in her line of sight. She was always prone to running in with her aim up and ready, or at least she had been before Manson had beaten into her the importance of avoiding what he’d called the fatal funnel. She understood the mechanics of it, didn’t enjoy pointing her 9mm at the floor but did it anyway. She took the step through the door frame in a way that gave her space, in most cases to avoid having her gun taken from her or in this case getting her arm bitten into she supposed. She cleared left first and then swung right again just to make certain she hadn’t missed anything, not that the room was big enough for that, but she did it anyway just to ascertain there weren’t any convenient closets or such nonsense to check. "Clear," she called just so that her comrades knew what was happening on her end, then headed back into the hall and moved to repeat the process in the next room. Before she could kick the next door in she heard Brook call an all clear and he and Palmer were out in the hall beside her. She was getting ready to grab the handle on the next door, when more rifle fire rang out from across the building and didn’t stop, Alpha must have hit the revenant mother-load. "Looks like we’re out of time, let’s do this quick." Brook gave her a nod, they would do this right because missing anything at this point could come back to bite them in the ass, literally.

  She turned the handle, ignored her initial hope for silence and pushed the door in with enough force to slam the door into the wall. Manson’s training stuck, a fact she was glad for when she stepped into the room and a figure out of her line of sight was almost on her in a flash. If she’d stuck her gun in the door up and ready to shoot it might have managed to sink it’s teeth in her. Lucky for her it was dead and unlike a vampire it’s reflexes were slow, it lunged, she didn’t get a good chance to look at it. Enough time to note it was female, sporting a missing chunk of jugular, before her aim swung up and a round took off half it’s face. Still the gunfire down by Alpha was continuous, "damn it Tom," if he got himself killed she was going to kill him, and she was pretty certain she wasn’t going to like it. Trying to force herself to stay focused on her own task instead of rushing off like she wanted to she shouted another clear and moved unto the next couple rooms. It wasn’t a long hallway, not really, but it felt like clearing it would take forever like this, why the hell hadn’t Tom brought in more men. She understood why she was here, in the building, she had people in here, but why the hell hadn’t Tom simply leveled it? The amount of shooting going on with Tom’s team had her worried, she knew for certain that he wouldn’t waste ammo and wouldn’t let his people do so either which meant the emergency room was a mess.

  She cleared the hall with Brook and Palmer always only a room behind her to the right, she suspected that was only because Palmer was slowing Brook down. But she was glad to see that the sound of gun fire was motivating them past their own zombie fear, she thought she heard shots from the rooms they were in but it was hard to tell with the continuous shots from Alpha and the neighboring shots fired by Whiskey down adjacent hallways. Clearly the act of actually clearing the entire building was going to prove an exhausting endeavor. Jennifer wanted to get to the tenth floor, that was where Clive was and certainly where she was hoping Manson had been moved. Between here and there stood nine floors, that could take the better part of forever at this rate. She could have slipped in, gotten to her floor, checked to see if her people were dead or alive and been back out by the time they reached the floor she wanted. She knew better then to think that Tom wasn’t going to burn this building to the ground, so what was he doing, clearing the floors one at a time.

  When she reached the last door on her side of the hall she twisted the knob pushed the door in and had a revenant nearly stumble out into her. She barely had time to lift the 9mm up to aim, didn’t have the space for it, on instinct she whipped the gun up toward the things face and because it was taller then her the grip of the Beretta slammed hard into the things nose. She moved to strike it again in the face and was almost shocked when it fell over and didn’t move. She had not used any sort of precision in the blow, but apparently her Beretta had smashed the things brains in. She stared at it’s downed corpse for a second before putting a bullet in it’s head anyway, she wasn’t sure if you could stun a zombie, she wasn’t taking any chances. She stepped into the room and found a mess, it was the first room that was covered in gore so far, it was also the closest to where Alpha was. Jennifer saw the mangled corpse lying on the floor behind the exam table, it wasn’t moving and she didn’t have a clear shot for it’s head, she cleared the room before making her way to the body. There wasn’t much of it left, or at least, not much in one piece, guts, and what she was pretty sure was the inside of the bowels was all over the floor. Jennifer tried not the breath in the smell to keep her gag reflex in check, she stayed long enough to put a round in the scalped skull and made her way back into the hall.

  She waited for Brook to emerge from the last room on the right with Palmer at his rear before she peeked out around the corner of their hall. No one and nothing was there to make a grab for her so she did the only thing she could think to do, "CLEAR TO THE RIGHT!" She waited a beat to see if there would be any following calls, she was rewarded with the three man team who’d taken the left shouting the all clear. When the center gave no reply she looked back at Brook, "I take that to mean we go down the center?"

  "Your call Sir," Jennifer rolled her eyes but gave another quick peek around the corner, the first point-man from before they’d split ways rolled out from around his corner and motioned for her to follow suite.

  "Yup looks like we’re up," Jennifer stepped away from the wall and cleared her corner, knowing well enough that Palmer and Brook would follow. She raised the Beretta in case anything that wasn’t Whiskey’s missing members came rolling out of the center hall but kept her finger off the trigger. She reached about a distance of five feet from the center halls corner and motioned for Palmer and Brook to stop, immediately they both plastered themselves to the wall. Jennifer followed suite and gave her attention to point-man number one, he was team leader after all so she would take her next cue from him. After his team was lined up and waiting he started to motion that they were going to enter down the center when, to what Jennifer was sure would have been a beating offense from Manson, the barrel end of an M16 came protruding out of the hall, the person aiming it clearly pasting themselves into the shadows. Maybe it was unnecessary but it was on Jennifer’s side of the hall, she grabbed the barrel and shoved the aim to the floor before giving a yank and dragging the moron out into the hall. Whoever he was he swore, she didn’t care she swore right back, it looked like maybe Tom should have had Manson teach his boys a thing or two. Seemed like Manson knew what he was talking about after all, fatal funnel come to bite someone in the ass, she supposed it was lucky he had an M16, the barrel was long so it gave him some chance to avoid getting a chunk out of his arm for the mistake. "Don’t they teach you morons anything," Jennifer finally spat when the guy she’d nearly disarmed and dragged into the hall was done swearing.

  The guy just glared at her until point man number one barked for him to confirm an all clear. "Don’t look at me like that," Jennifer growled when he ignored the order, "you practically disarmed yourself."

  "Harrison, is
your hall clear?" Point man one finally got up in fatal funnel flunkies face when it was clear he wasn’t going to get over it on his own. As soon as there was someone to take over dealing with triple-f she focused her attention down the wider hall full of elevators. She knew that hall was all that stood between her and the emergency room. She could take off and meet Tom on her own, that would make him mad, it would also force Brook to follow her, she was stuck here waiting for Point man one and Triple-F to reassert who was in charge and who couldn’t clear a corner.

  "Hang in there Sir we’ll be back on course," Jennifer looked back at Brook and rolled her eyes.

  "As long as we’re going to be stuck here Brook I wish you’d just call me Jennifer or Ryan or anything but Sir."

  "Whatever you’d like little lady," Brook was smiling, because she’d given him an opening to start calling her what, little lady?

  "If you start calling me Little Lady Brook you won’t like the name I’ll come up with for you." Admittedly it wouldn’t be as easy to give him a degrading nick-name as Triple-F but she would mange something. When she put her attention back into the next hall to be cleared she nearly jumped out of her skin to see that Alpha had ghosted their way right down the hall without her noticing. Tom was smack in front of her and he was lucky her reflexes were good or she would have shot him. "Jesus Christ Tom are you trying to get yourself shot," she growled even though she wanted to screech it at him at the top of her lungs.

  "I see you already managed not to follow orders," he was glaring again, although she suspected he did it a lot anyway. She observed her current location, she was furthest in the hall, making it look like she’d intended to take point even if she hadn’t.

  In the end she just shrugged at him because what could she say, if he’d wanted her to stay safely tucked into a center somewhere he should have taken a better look at the layout of the first floor. "How was the E.R., sounded busy," it was a lousy attempt to distract him from his war path to keep her in line.

  He didn’t answer her which was typical Tom, instead he called over his shoulder, "lock the elevators down." Without a second glance he was working his way back down the hall, if he thought Jennifer wasn’t going to follow him he was crazy.

  "Tom, what are you doing in here," she just spat the question out because she didn’t think there was any way to work up to it. "If this is really just clean-up why not just light the building up," as if she’d just said something that could send his entire little operation into revolt he spun back on her.

  "Is that what you want, I thought you wanted to find your people."

  "I do," she gave him a suspicious glance, "don’t try to make it sound like you did this for me we both know that’s not what this is. If this place isn’t leveled to the ground it’s because there’s something in here you want, I want to know what or who it is."

  "Sorry Jenny, but you made your choice," she was tempted to kick him in the shin, this was his way of reminding her that he’d given her the choice to join his operation, she’d chosen to go elsewhere and so was not privy to his super secret government ulterior motives.

  "Fine," if that was the way he wanted to play it then perfect, she didn’t want to waste her time with his super secret bull shit anyway. She didn’t follow him back down the hall where she was sure he was going to order more people around. That suited her just fine, his little operation would probably run smoother without her anyway. Before making her way back down the hall to Whiskey she took a moment to ascertain that there was a staircase at the other end of the hall. She didn’t want to bring Tom’s operation to a halt, she simply didn’t necessarily feel it was the best use of her time to blindly follow him around. Which he’d just made perfectly clear was exactly how he was expecting things to proceed.

  ‘Tactically speaking separating from the group seems unwise, given the probable population locked into the building.’

  Jennifer shook her head, she didn’t remember asking, ‘Rou since you’ve been mostly useless outside of being a nag I think we’ll just agree to disagree.’ She thought to herself and prayed that the damn voice would shut up, she was going to need all her focus if she had any hope of managing this. The voice apparently agreed because silence was her only answer, at least they could agree on that much. She stomped her way back away from the direction Tom had gone and therefore to the stairwell door that was furthest from him.

  "What are you up to," Brook met her at the door, an event she could have lived without.

  "Oh you know just rarin’ to go," she said still fuming, she glared over her shoulder in Tom’s direction just to ascertain he wasn’t watching her every move, he wasn’t.

  "He letting you take point, don’t think Tyler will like losing Whiskey much," Brook looked over his shoulder and indicated Point-man One who was still tearing into Fatal Funnel Flunky.

  "No worries, I think he’s safe," it might take him a little longer then he’d like to get his team in the door but he’d get to keep his command. "You want to help me with the door," Jennifer asked feeling bad to involve Brook in her schemes at all.

  "What for," he looked puzzled but took hold of the handle when she indicated.

  "Just open the door," he was fatally flawed in the sense that it was clear he took orders even when he wasn’t sure what he was doing. As soon as he pulled the door open she cleared the entrance, shame Triple-F couldn’t have gotten the practice. It was clear so she took the door from Brook, "you can step back." She waved him back with the Beretta in her hand and again to his own detriment did as he was told.

  "What are you up to anyhow, I don’t think the Lieutenant would like you jumping ahead a schedule." Brook watched her step back out in the hall and stared at her confused when she aimed the 9mm at the door handle.

  "Don’t take this personally Brook because it has nothing to do with you, but this is where we split ways." She quickly shot the handle, she barely took note of the way the men who were waiting for orders jumped, she was too busy yanking the weakened handle off the frame. The door was an emergency push bar, it couldn’t be locked from the stairwell itself, but ripping the handle off this end would slow them up a bit. "Sorry," she called to a stunned looking Brook before slamming the door closed behind herself.

  "What are you doing?!" She heard Brook shout through the door, she really did feel bad about leaving him, he’d probably feel bad breaking an order and all.

  "JENNIFER," she heard Tom outside the door now and he did not sound pleased. "OPEN THIS DOOR!"

  "No can do," she answered before taking off up the stairs, pausing only to clear the corners. She was fully aware that as plans went this was probably a really bad one, she herself had thought earlier that thousands of people came in and out of this building in a day. Who knew how many there were inside at the moment, who knew how many there were on just the one floor she wanted. She’d brought ammo but not enough to kill hundreds, she was acting like an idiot, probably. "Too late now," she told herself, and just like Tom was determined to prove her wrong a shot rang up the hall and she heard the stairwell door being kicked in. She had no idea why she hadn’t expected that to happen so quickly, Tom was a control freak, and a robot, but he didn’t play around when it came to his job. She had just done her best to fuck with that, he was probably pissed, and the minute he caught her she could look forward to getting kicked out of the building.

  "JENNIFER STOP!" of course if he was yelling then it meant that she needed to haul more ass, she took two more flights of stairs surprised to find them so clear. Tom was still yelling at her, though she wasn’t really listening to him, probably for the best because she was at the sixth floor when she heard it.

  Without pause she stopped and leaned her head back over the railing to look if she could see Tom. "Shut up," she finally yelled over the railing, "you’re bringing them down the stairs," she called down to him.

  "GET YOUR ASS DOWN HERE NOW!" he was glaring up at her, she could tell even from this distance.

  "Just clear your flo
ors Tom, I’ll meet you," despite the general hissing, moaning and other unpleasant noises descending the stairs Jennifer forced herself to continue to take the stairs two at a time. She didn’t want to leave Tom and his alone to deal with this, hell she didn’t even want to deal with this by herself, but she didn’t think that Tom was going to let anything out of his parameters happen. Or at least that was her usual assumption but he’d clearly taken a group of his and decided to come chase after her. What was wrong with him? She made it to the seventh level before what she was hoping was all the dead people in the hall came stumbling down the steps in front of her. "Christ," she counted twelve, she tried to tell herself that it could be worse, but she didn’t really want to picture that. She tried not to look at them, not really, and not just because they were missing limbs and flesh, she didn’t want to potentially recognize anyone and hesitate. She’d been hospitalized here on at least three occasions, she knew people here, and then there was Manson, Clive and potentially any family that had been visiting to worry about. She aimed at their faces but didn’t look at them, instead she cataloged them by clothing, six scrubs, two lab coats, and four plain cloths.

  The Beretta in her hands held a 15 round magazine, her clip ran empty before she could speedily plug all of them. She had four left stumbling over bodies to get to her while she reloaded, she tried to stay calm, that was key. She took a step back down the flight of stairs, as she ejected the empty magazine and she nearly had the next clip in, one of the zombies tripped over one of it’s officially dead companions and came sprawling in her direction. She jumped down another few steps to avoid it’s snapping teeth, but didn’t manage to keep herself from shrieking like a girl. She could have just shot it, but since it was already down there with it’s head on the stairs she slammed her foot down on it’s head. It’s skull gave way with surprising ease with the corner of the step pressed against it’s temple. She quickly shot the last two scrubs and remaining plain cloths before she could take a breath. It wasn’t until she could tune back into Tom yelling for her again that she noticed, one he was probably only a floor beneath her now and two, there was an edge of alarm in his yelling this time, she was going to chalk that up to her girlish screaming. Under normal circumstances she would have called down to let him know that she was alright, at least unbitten, as it was she knew he was on his way to have her dragged out of the building, and she wasn’t going to let that happen until she’d laid eyes on Clive or Manson herself.