by M. E. Betts
"Stay in touch," Shari said. "I'm up here on this roof--I need you two to help be my eyes and ears."
"Yes, ma'am," Enrique replied.
"Princess," Kandi said, "you may want to look lakeside."
Shari looked in the direction of Kandi's outstretched finger. She saw a handful of sadists cutting eastward toward the lake, south of Soldier Field. She ran southward across the roof until she reached the concourse, which she crossed, stepping onto the roof of the east building. She traversed the roof, jogging in a northeastern direction until she could see the lake.
"I need all available snipers on the roof of the east building, facing the marina," she said into her walkie-talkie. She watched as a stream of sadists trickled eastward, following the original group whose members were situating themselves in and around the marina. Those still on the road were retreating from the assault rounds issued by McCormick security. Many also unloaded shotguns at the sadists, filled with a wide range of shells.
As Shari raised her scope, surveying the scene outside of Soldier Field, she saw a sadist target one of her security guards. The young male sadist raised a ten-inch, gold and black Desert Eagle. He pointed it at the face of Simon, the happy-go-lucky male guard with whom Shari did patrol most nights. He had celebrated his 21st birthday a few weeks prior. The sadist unloaded his cartridge into Simon's face, then retreated toward the lake as others of his kind were doing. As he turned his back to Simon's corpse, Shari saw an older guard, a wiry male named Larry with a full head of thick, white hair, fire a slug into the back of the sadist's head from a distance of about thirty feet. A fellow sadist a few feet ahead of him, off to his left, felt a chunky, gelatinous stream of fluids, flesh and bone hit the back of her head, pasting her hair with the biological matter. She turned and looked back, just as the man missing most of the upper half of his head was falling to the ground, his legs buckling lifelessly beneath him. The female sadist screamed in horror as she saw his face, or rather where his face had been. As it turned out, the exit wound had blasted most of his visage off of his head. She ran, screaming and shaking her head frantically from side to side, attempting to flick some of the gore from her sleek, black hair.
As Shari reached the edge of the roof, she saw that dozens of sadists had reached the marina, still populated by rows of small to medium-sized yachts. She also saw most of her ground forces attempting to close in on them, approaching the marina with guns blazing. Reports echoed through the thick snowfall.
"Those of you on the ground," Shari said, "guard the outside of that hole in the building, first and foremost. All my people left inside, I need you just inside that north wall. Back up our people outside if and when you can, but make sure you stay alive at all costs. You'll be our last line of defense if they manage to get into the building."
"Got it, boss," Hugo's voice said from the speaker of her radio. "It's even almost breathable in here now, since there's a big hole for the smoke to leave the building."
"One well within range, Priness," Kandi said, squinting with one eye through the scope of a long-barreled revolver. Shari's gaze followed Kandi's, to a sadist crouched on a walkway in the marina. He was hidden by a yacht from most of the McCormick forces between Lake Shore Drive and the lake. Shari aimed her sniper rifle toward the sadist, momentarily ignoring the snowflakes piling up on her thick, fringy eyelashes. She squeezed the trigger, striking him in the forehead and causing him to subsequently tumble into the dark, frigid water of the marina. She shifted her scope, moving onto the next closest target. Around her, other snipers made their way to the edges of north and east buildings, converging for a full assault on the enemy forces. For a moment, Shari's gaze traveled westward, away from the lake. The highway was littered with bodies, some sadists and some bearing the silver and black riot gear of McCormick security. As the despair threatened to overcome her, Kandi stepped into her field of vision, so close that Shari could see the pores in her skin.
"Not gonna help us right now, Princess," she said. "Focus on those who are still standing."
Shari narrowed her eyes, but nodded in agreement. The sadists' snipers made up most of those gathered at the marina, where they used yachts for cover as they fired various long-range rifles toward the hole in the north building, where McCormick security defended the complex. Shari picked off a few of the snipers as they left their cover to go in for a shot, their bodies crumpling into the icy water.
Through the driving snow, on the edge of the lake, Shari saw a familiar face, grinning madly as he snuck up behind one of the snipers. He placed his hand over the front of the sadist's head, pulling back, and jammed a small metal instrument up and under the chin as the sadist sat crouched with his AR-15. The figure sprang upright, ducking behind another boat and disappearing from Shari's field of vision.
"Jesus," she whispered, pausing to take down another sniper, "did I just see Merlin? How did he even get to the marina without any of us seeing him?"
"I'm sure it'll make an interesting story to hear about," Kandi said. "Later, of course."
Shari picked off another sadist, then looked toward the north building to see how her team was faring. On the front lines, McCormick forced held up their riot shields, defending themselves from sadists who were down to just melee weapons.
About seventy-five yards from Shari, a large, rotund female sadist pinned down a thin, petite McCormick security guard with her own shield. Shari lined up the shot, adjusting for not only the accuracy of the AK, but also for the driving wind that now caused the snow to fall at a diagonal slant. She pulled the trigger, striking the woman in the lower back skull. Shari's petite fellow guard lifted her shield with great difficulty, rolling the corpse of the much larger woman off the shield and on to the ground.
"What exactly was Skinny McBabywrists doing on the front lines, anyway?" Kandi wondered. At that moment, the tiny McCormick security guard unwittingly showed Kandi exactly why she was on the front lines by slinking off toward a nearby sadist who was distracted by the sniper firing at him from the roof. She snuck up behind him, raising an ice pick with one hand and pounding it into the sadist's brain stem with the other.
"Good show, then!" Kandi said heartily.
Shari noticed that the remaining sadists were creeping ever closer to the crash site in the north building.
"Let's head down," she said, starting toward a fire escape. She glanced around at her fellow snipers, self-conscious as she realized that she had uttered the sentence aloud. None of them seemed to pay her any mind, so she continued on her way.
"You're out of practice, Princess," Kandi said as she led Shari down the fire escape, which was blanketed in about two inches of snow. "Don't make a habit of speaking out loud to me. You want people to think you're just crazy enough. Leave them to wonder exactly where the border lies between Shari, the rational-minded leader and Shari, the batshit-barmy, raging bitch."
Now those are the belligerant-ass remarks I've been missing, Shari thought, smirking as they reached the bottom of the fire escape. They crossed a thin patch of grass onto Lake Shore Drive, just beneath the concourse crossing overhead. Stretched from the northeast corner of the north building and the northwest corner of the east building, just north of the concourse, was a makeshift wall of concrete blocks, built by the residents of the complex shortly after the apocalypse had unfolded. A ladder was leaned up against the fifteen-foot-high wall, allowing those inside to exit the perimeter. Shari began to ascend the ladder, following Kandi ahead of her.
Why were you hiding? Shari thought.
"Why did you run away from me?" Kandi countered. "Truce?"
Shari nodded. You're damn right, truce. Her radio crackled from her hip.
"A lot of undead are really close to the building now," Mindy informed her.
As Shari reached the top of the ladder, she saw the wave Mindy was referencing. They were all freshly killed sadists and McCormick security.
"Any grenades left?" Shari asked Mindy through her radio, just before sliding do
wn a length of rope to reach the ground outside of the perimeter. She threw the knotted rope back over the other side.
"No," Mindy's voice crackled in response to Shari's query. She sounded breathless as she continued. "I've got something else up my sleeve, though."
Shari raised her AK, looking through its scope. Up the road, she saw Mindy and Enrique running south down Lake Shore Drive, about fifty feet ahead of the moderately-sized mob of undead. They both laid flat, round discs on the ground behind them as they moved.
"This is enchanting, Princess," Kandi marveled, anticipating the blast as the fringes of the undead horde reached the first of the mines. She cheered as the first one went off, her black eyes twinkling as the thunderous sound ripped through the snow-blanketed city. Undead were destroyed in a thirty-foot radius around each mine, taking out virtually all of the undead after several mines went off. Mindy and Enrique ducked off to either side of the highway. Mindy scaled a six-foot fence, bounding from one post to the next, about a five-foot gap, before disappearing from Shari's field of view. Enrique leapt onto a railing running into an alley, then propelled himself upward, across the narrow alleyway, and into an broken-out second-floor window.
Down the road, to the north, Shari saw the scavenging group heading in behind the re-killed undead. The group stuck to the sidewalk to avoid discovering undetonated mines.
A group of sadists were gathered in and near the highway, engaged in combat with McCormick ground forced defending the large entry wound in the building. As Shari stood behind the cover of an overturned bus, picking off sadists when she could, she became aware of an approaching figure in her peripheral vision. She turned, preparing to crack the figure in the skull with the butt of her AK, when she realized that it was Merlin.
"Jesus, Merlin," Kandi said, "your pupils are as big as saucers."
"I see you found the drugs," Shari whispered, narrowing her eyes.
"Merlin cleaned the marina," he whispered, showing her a bloody metal spork as he leaned in close to her ear. "I cleaned it spork and span."
"He knows no in-betweens," Kandi said with a pleased smile of admiration turning up the corners of her mouth. "I like that."
Before Shari could respond, he tuck-and-rolled away, behind another vehicle and out of sight.
"I don't think he's bullshitting us, Princess," Kandi said as they continued to periodically step out from behind their cover, getting shots in here and there. "It seems awfully lonely over there at the shore, doesn't it?" She peered through one eye, pointing her imaginary revolver to the west. Shari's gaze followed the direction in which the tip of Kandi's revolver was pointed, raising .357 in the same direction. She aimed and squeezed the trigger, piercing the temple of a sadist who crouched in the road, aiming a shotgun at Shari's frontlines.
So the marina's been neutralized, she thought.
"And your mine-slinging parkour enthusiasts have made short work of whatever revenants were on the way," Kandi added.
That left only the group of sadists outside of the north building, who persisted in their attempt to force their way into the complex. As Shari's eyes panned across the area, she noticed one sadist off from the rest, speaking into a walkie-talkie. Shari moved in further, then reached over her shoulder to arnm her compound bow. She nocked an arrow and aimed at the lower right arm of the sadist, the one holding the walkie-talkie. As she exhaled, she released the arrow toward the sadist, roughly twenty-five feet west of her.
The arrow struck the sadist between the two lower arm bones, as she had hoped. He dropped the walkie, ripping the arrow out and leaving a much worse wound in the process. Kandi moved in, Shari behind her. The sadist reached for the walkie-talkie as Shari approached him.
"Navy Pier?" she asked, her voice low as she her boot on the radio and slid it behind her. She pointed her revolver at the sadist's forehead. "Or Willis Tower?"
The sadist sneered, reeling with the pain of his shattered radius. A steady stream of blood pumped from the wound, creating a spreading crimson patch in the newly fallen snow.
"What?" he hissed, angry but also growing progressively more disoriented due to blood loss and shock.
"Where did you come from?" Shari asked, slowly enunciating the words. "Navy Pier, or Willis Tower?"
"That's kinda personal," the sadist replied, his words slurred.
Shari placed the gun gently between the sadist's eyebrows. "The situation is rather personal, isn't it?"
"What are we going to do, Princess?" Kandi asked, her eyes sparkling. "Tear him a third eye?"
"Not yet," Shari said, turning to grin at Kandi. "First, I need to dig down. Take personal to another level."
"Dear God," the sadist uttered. "Who are you talking to?"
In one smooth motion, Shari went around behind the sadist, who was seated on his rear on the ground, clutching his injured arm just above the elbow. Without pausing, Shari grabbed the injured arm, locking it behind him. He quickly realized that struggling would cause him intense nerve and skeletal pain at the shoulder, and so he went as limp as was possible while maintaining a steady, upright posture.
"So," Shari whispered seductively into his ear, causing him to squirm in discomfort, every hair on his body standing on end. Her fingers walked a slow line downward, starting at his neck and making their way down his arm. They closed in on the raw, ragged wound ripped into his lower arm by her arrow head. She ran her fingertip, bare in her fingerless leather gloves, in a circular motion, tracing the border where intact flesh gave way to torn, ruined, mangled tissue.
"Where are you from?" she asked him again.
His breathing quickened, and Shari felt his pulse accelerate, but he hesitated to respond. Her fingertip poked briefly into a deeper part of the wound, causing the sadist to squeal a high-pitched yelp of intense pain and panic. She continued prodding until he began to talk.
"Navy Pier!" he spat out, the words tumbling out of his mouth in his haste to end the torture. When Shari threatened to persist, he continued. "The bigger group is at Willis Tower. And take it from me," he said, his lips spreading to bare his teeth in a deranged grin, "you guys will have zero chance against them."
"Huh," Shari said, grabbing him by the hair and turning his head to look into his eyes. "Then you guys must be pretty disposable, if they sent you when they'd have done a better job themselves."
The sadist glared at her until she released his right arm, standing. His left hand immediately went for his right coat pocket, producing a .38-calibre pistol. Shari gripped the titanium drywall hammer on her left hip, lifting it free of the loop from which it hung. She swung the blade end in a sideways motion, swinging at hip level into the temple of the sadist, still seated on the ground. On contact, the blade burrowed through skull and brain, causing the sadist's eyes to roll lifelessly upward in their sockets, blood pooling at their inner corners.
Shari wrenched the blade free, her eyes wild and gleaming with the madness of survival as she stalked toward the next of her prey. She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the intact windshield of an overturned car, wielding her blood-drenched drywall hammer with a faint smile on her blood-spattered face. The whites of her eyes showed all the way around the dark brown irises. In some remote part of her consciousness, she was vaguely disturbed by the image before her, but her smile only widened.
"In my opinion, Princess," said Kandi's reflection beside her, "you've never looked better."
"I should say the same for you," Shari said, her tone light and musical, while a childlike smile broke out, full-fledged, across her face.
"Let's dance," Kandi said, a seductive smirk spread across her face.
Shari nodded. "I love to dance."
She felt almost giddy as she sprinted across the snow-frosted lawn toward some of the few remaining sadists. There was a lively spring to her step as she turned and stepped, swinging her hammer into the nearest sadist, catching him from behind. He never knew what hit him, his brain stem severed by the blade end of the hammer. She yanked it
free without pausing, never missing a beat. She was mimicking Kandi's motions, as if it were a dance number. She palmed the crowbar multitool on her opposite hip, procuring it as she pivoted on her heel. She jammed the nail-pulling end in a horizontal motion through the eye of another sadist who ran up behind her, attempting to subdue her with his machete. As she pulled the nail puller out of the eye socket, the mangled eyeball came out with it, dangling from its tethers as the sadist crumpled lifelessly to the ground.
It's like a carnival ride, Shari thought, gazing deeply into Kandi's eyes as her limbs continued to do their work, spinning and whirling, swinging and jerking. She saw Kandi use a crowbar multitool identical to her own, using the sharp, four-inch long foot opposite the hammer-head end on a female sadist. She used it like the manual can openers used to open cans of juice, puncturing a triangular hole in the crown of the woman's head with ease. Shari mimicked the action on another sadist, a large, unsuspecting male who had his back turned to her. A light fit of laughter bubbled up from from within her as she marveled at what her body was doing, almost as if it were of its own volition. She kept her eyes on Kandi, slashing her way through the melee-armed sadists as McCormick snipers helped, taking head shots from their perches on the roofs, high above Lake Shore Drive. Of the ground troops, the majority remained and aided in eliminating the last of the sadists, though a good amount were lost. Shari wasn't trying to think too hard about how many, but she knew it numbered at least in the dozens.
Shari knelt and pulled the thick wedge of her blade free from the forehead of a bald male sadist, grunting and jamming the spiked end of her crowbar upwards through the open mouth of another, all without pausing. As the implement sunk in, her left hand threw her drywall hammer like a tomahawk, surprising her as she watched it flip through the air and into the forehead of a female enemy nearby. Shari panted as she stood, pulling the crowbar free, and looked around her. The right corner of her mouth inched upward into a deeper smile, the left corner cautiously joining it as she spun to check the full three-hundred-sixty-degree view around her.
