Bad Day (The Seryys Chronicles)

by Joseph Nicholson

  In the time it took for the thug to pull the trigger, Kay’s reflex package kicked in. By the time the bullet left the barrel, she had pulled her sword. She batted the bullet away, and it ricocheted harmlessly into the wall of the tunnel.

  “Get her!” he shouted.

  All five of the workers rushed her in a clumsy and pathetic attack. Kay took two steps forward, planted her foot on the thigh of the first attacker to push off into a backflip, bicycle kicked two of them in the face and knocked them both onto their backs. To her relief, those were the two guys with guns. As she landed, the other three were on her. The first took a swing at her with a wild hook. She leaned backward as his fist went past, chopped down on him with her sword, severing his arm. She struck the second with a straight shot to the face, breaking his nose, and kicked the third in the gut, causing him to stumble back.

  Broken nose crumpled to the floor, and stubby arm dropped to his knees, screaming and clutching his arm. By that point, the two armed men were back on their feet and taking aim. With the speed of a sabercat, she deflected the bullets as they came. With a quick jump, she bashed the armless man in the face with her knee, and closed the gap between her and the only remaining unarmed combatant. The two others threw their allegiance to the wind and gunned their friend down as Kay used him as a shield.

  She pushed the dead body forward as they continued to shoot. They ran out of ammo and needed to reload. That was when Kay made her move. The man on the right was using an old, old revolver-style weapon that packed a real punch, but took forever to load. The man on the left was using a semi-automatic pistol that took less time to reload. She went after the semi-automatic user first. He ejected the magazine and fumbled through his pocket for his spare. He found it, grasped it, and pulled it from his pocket. At this point he began to register that the blade of Kay’s sword had pushed all the way through his body. It wasn’t until the hilt touced his chest that he fully realized that he was injured; the sword was that sharp. With a flick of the wrist, she ripped the sword out through his side, cutting him almost in half. He was dead before he hit the ground.

  There was only one man left. Knowing he was grossly outmatched, he did the only sensible thing throughout their entire interaction: he ran. Kay wasn’t about to let him get away. She made a move to chase him, but was stopped by a soft hand on her forearm. It was Ray. He looked up at her with his big green eyes and said, “Let him go. He’s not going to hurt anyone anymore.”

  The stern, battle-hardened look on her face softened and she smiled down at her youngest brother. “Okay,” she said. Who was she to disobey the logic of innocence? The man disappeared into the darkness, heading north and leaving everything behind… including his map. She walked over and picked it up. “According to this,” she said, “there’s a hatch five hundred yards northeast of us.” When she looked up, she saw horror on faces of her family. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s just…” her mother struggled to find the words. “We’ve never… you know… seen you… in action.”

  Kay instantly blushed and looked down at her feet in shame. “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “You… killed that man,” she said, pointed at the man she nearly cut in half.

  “It was him or us,” Kay responded.

  “I know,” her mom said. “It’s just, scary to watch.”

  “I know it is,” Kay agreed. “I was forced to watch something similar every day as a form of mental conditioning.”

  “Let’s get a move on,” her dad said. “No sense dwelling on this now. Our top priority is to get out of here and get back home or to another safe location so we can plan our next step.”

  They got the map, their bearings, and got on their way. A relatively short walk—by comparison to the rest of their trek through the sewers—and they found the hatch. To their horror, it was locked with a key pad that asked for a security code. There was no information on the map, or on anything the workers left behind. Not to be discouraged, Kay put in her master override code from when she was an Agent and the hatch popped up.

  “Lucky for us,” Kay remarked, “these things weren’t reset after the Agent Program was dissolved.”

  They rode the lift up to the street, and it was almost night when they finally emerged from the sewers to find their fair city in shambles. They found the first house that wasn’t occupied and holed up for the night. The particular house they found had a sturdy door and secure basement. She herded her family down and had them lock the door while she scouted out the area.

  After walking a few blocks in each direction, she knew exactly where they were. It was going to be a day’s travel northeast of their current position. Knowing where she was, she returned to the house, scaled the side, and sat on the roof to keep watch. While in the Agency, she had mastered the art of sleeping without sleeping. It was amazing what one could do to train their mind to rest without actually sleeping. It was a meditative trance that still allowed her to be aware of her surroundings.

  Morning came slowly; as the sun crested the plains to the west and the moons began their descent, she leapt down from the roof and roused her family. Now, with a clear direction and an end in sight, they moved with purpose. Two hours into their walk, they encountered their first Reaper. Kay left her family behind and dispatched the creature quickly and quietly with a clean sweep that took its head clean off without a sound.

  In the distance they could hear the things screeching. Each time they heard one, her brothers would pull close to their father.

  “Just stay calm and stay quiet and we’ll make it home safely,” Kay said. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

  The progress was slow going. It was far slower than Kay liked, but she couldn’t push them any faster without drawing attention from unwanted parties. They skirted along a line of high-rises, headed north, when they were ambushed for the first time. Two Reapers, both with pinkish skin, lunged from an alley snarling and drooling. One pounced on Jay. It was the last thing it ever did. With a whirlwind attack, Kay leapt the distance, then with a handless cartwheel and a slash of her sword, lobbed the head off of one and landed with her sword through the top of the head of the next.

  Just as they fell to the ground, five more emerged from another alley two blocks down. Their nose flaps flexing, apparently smelling fresh blood. Kay quickly herded her family into an abandoned restaurant on the ground level of the high-rise closest to them. They ducked down behind the counter as the five Reapers pounced on their fallen comrades and feasted, fighting with each other over the meal. When the dead Reapers were nothing more than bones, the five living ones began looking around for their next meal… and found it in the restaurant.

  One of them crashed through the window, and the others followed. Kay had to think quickly. She shoved her brothers into the cabinets beneath the counter. Her parents were too big to fit so they rushed to the back room and locked the door. Kay squeezed herself into one of the ovens and the door slapped shut.

  “Damn it!” she whispered to herself as she heard snorting from the things approaching.

  The only thing she could hear were her brothers whimpering. Come on, she prayed, control yourselves. From the window of the oven door, she watched one of the Reapers leap up onto the counter and shriek. It knows we’re here, she thought. The others followed suit. Before long they were behind the counter, sniffing away at the cabinets. That was when she realized that hiding from these things was an act of futility. Hiding, she realized, was obscuring the enemy’s line of sight. These things had no eyes! They “saw” through sonar and sense of smell! Her brothers were sitting ducks!

  As they began tearing apart the cabinetry, Kay slipped out from the oven and shouted at them to get their attention. She leapt over the counter headed for the street where she had room to fight. The Reapers—all of them—followed her out. With the Reapers coming in from all sides, she altered her stance so that she could easily whip around to cover her backside.

  She did
n’t want to give them a chance to make the first move, so she charged at one of them. The thing reciprocated. Just as they were about to collide, Kay slid on her kneepads under the beast, holding her blade up high and cutting a deep swath into its belly, spilling its purple guts all over the street. She didn’t stop there. The next two Reapers to meet her blade lost their heads, leaving two more (technically three as the other Reaper writhed about in a pool of its own entrails).

  The remaining Reapers attacked at once. They never touched her and with one whirling, fluid motion, she removed both of their hands. They continued their fight regardless. Kay spun into a butterfly kick, knocking them both back a step. When she landed, they had recovered and attacked again. Without claws, they were relatively harmless. Kay easily avoided their attacks, and finally finished it with two well-placed shots to their faces.

  When the coast was clear, Kay returned to the restaurant to retrieve her family. Once they were all together again, they continued their trek back home. At the halfway mark, Kay halted because she heard something that sounded like voices echoing off the buildings. Very quietly—especially after their last encounter with survivors didn’t go well—she snuck to the corner and peered around quickly. In a split second, she was able to identify twenty-five people rummaging through a convenience store half a block down.

  She sunk back around and signaled for her family to join her.

  “There’s a group of people just down the street,” she whispered. “They seem to be preoccupied. I think we can sneak past them without drawing their attention and hopefully avoiding bloodshed.”

  “How many?” her mom asked.

  “Twenty-five,” she answered.

  “And if they spot us?” her dad asked.

  “I’ve taken on more at a time than that,” she said, omitting the part where she lost and was drug off to a cave on Seryys IV, but they didn’t need to know that part. Besides, they looked to be mostly civilians, so unless all of them happened to be masters of martial arts, she’d fair pretty well. “Let’s go. Nice and quiet.”

  They crossed the street to get as far away from the horde of people as possible, and skirted along the buildings. Her brothers watched the group closely, fearful. The last people they ran into tried to kill them, so they were wary. They had almost cleared view of the convenience store when Jay stopped.

  “Jay!” Kay whispered angrily. “What are you doing?”

  “I think that’s Alak,” he said. “He’s a friend from school. Maybe he can help us. His parents are super nice!”

  Kay looked to her parents who nodded approvingly. “I think that’s Brand right there,” her mom said, pointing at kid’s mother.

  “Yeah!” Jay shouted, running in their direction. “It is! Hey, Alak!”

  “Jay, wait!” Kay said. Something just felt wrong with this whole situation.

  The shouting child grabbed their attention. They turned to regard to him. What he—and the rest of them—saw made him stop so hard, his feet slipped out from under him and hit the ground on his backside. He began backpedaling on all fours.

  Kay couldn’t believe what she was seeing! When little Alak turned to face Jay, he revealed the left side of his face… or what was left of it. From the nose to the ear, his face was missing! All they could see were bone, tendons and muscle. His left eye was hanging by the optical nerve from the socket. Brand was no better. She sported deep, long slashes that started at her right shoulder and went all the down and across to her left hip, shredding her blouse and bra and exposing everything beneath. Her face was covered in dried blood and wore a completely blank expression on her face.

  “By the Founders!” Kay gasped at the macabre sight before her. “What the hell is going on? Jay, buddy, get to your feet! We need to move. Jay was paralyzed with fear as those walking corpses approached.

  “Stay here!” Kay said to the rest of the family. Pulling out her sword, she sprinted to Jay just as Alak and Brand got to him. They opened their mouths; Alak’s opened further than it should have, revealing a gaping maw of teeth. Alak fell on Jay, snapping his jaws at Jay’s face. Kay kicked Alak in the teeth, snapping his head back and flipping him to his back. Brand went after Kay. She thrust her sword all the way through Brand’s chest, right where she knew the heart would be. To Kay’s horror, she kept coming. Kay kicked Brand with a straight thrust kick to the chest, forcing her back and removing the sword. Then, with another quick swipe, Kay decapitated her. The body fell to the street but the head kept snapping at her.

  Alak was almost to his feet when Brand’s head hit the street. And now, there were twenty-three other dead people converging on her brother. With a short lunge, Kay brought her sword down atop Alak’s head, splitting it down the middle to his collarbones. He fell, dead…more dead. The others were on them. She grabbed Jay by the loop of his backpack and dragged him to his feet, yanking him backwards, back toward the rest of their family.

  She spun her brother around and shouted, “Run!” Then she spun to face the wall of living dead. Knowing now how to dispatch them, she moved with deadly grace, like a ballerina with a sword. Heads flew and rolled. Limbs fell to the street useless and ownerless. Bodies were cut in half, leaving the torsos to crawl slowly about. When she was done, only a handful of crawling torsos remained. She finished quickly. Then she heard someone scream: her mom. They were cornered by another group of the dead. She sprinted into the middle of the horde, again becoming a whirlwind of splattering blood and glinting metal. As the overwhelming number of corpses increased, Kay heard another cry for help. She stopped her lawnmower routine and saw that, though she was keeping the undead at bay, another larger Reaper with dark pink skin was upon her family. Her father was using a pipe from a downed street sign to fight the thing off, but she knew as well as he did that that wasn’t going to save them.

  Kicking one of the undead in the back of the knee, she used him as a stepping stone and nimbly skittered over the horde of roaming corpses to her family. As she vaulted off the shoulders of a particularly tall man, she saw the Reaper backhand her dad out of the way, sending him flying, and tower over her mom and brothers. While still in the air, she threw her sword and buried it all the way to the hilt into the thing’s chest, but that didn’t stop it. She was force to go hand-to-hand with it. Not even a Reaper could hold its own against an Agent. The think took a wild swipe horizontally at her head. She easily ducked under it and came up with an uppercut that would put even the best brawler on his back. This Reaper barely flinched. It swung at her again, just as before, and just as before she ducked under it and landed four lightning fast strikes to the body that hurt her fists more than they hurt the monster. It shrieked with frustration as it continued to attack her. The horde of the dead was almost on them again. She pulled her gun and squeezed off twenty shots until the magazine was empty. Twenty of the forty-or-so undead dropped with holes in their heads.

  As she ducked under another raking attack, she grabbed a magazine from her belt, ejected the empty one and loaded the full one. She put two bullets in the Reaper’s face but didn’t kill it, only drove it back a few steps—which, for an Agent, was more than enough time to take down eighteen more undead, reload her gun, put three more bullets into the Reaper to keep it away, and finishing killing the rest of the horde.

  When all the walking corpses met a final death, she turned her attention to the Reaper again. This thing just wouldn’t die! She blocked an attack with her forearm, and pain shot all the way up her arm into her shoulder. Lesson learned, she began blocking the monster’s attacks with her feet as she tried to buy time to come up with a plan to kill it.

  As her feet began to feel the pain, she thought about her next move. The sword was still buried in the thing’s chest. With one fluid movement, she ran up, leapt, planted both feet on its chest, reached for the sword, missed it by inches, took two more steps up its chest, kicked the thing in the jaw, and finished with a backflip, landing several feet away. However, it wasn’t far enough. The Reaper caught h
er just as she landed with a sweeping backhand that knocked her through the window of the building behind her.

  By that point, her dad was back on his feet and swinging the pole wildly at the beast. With a gutsy move, he thrust the pole forward and impaled the thing with it. The beast reared back with a screech that hurt their ears and lunged forward. Her dad barely pushed her mom out of the way as a large, clawed hand came down and gouged her shoulder. It should have cleaved her in half.

  Kay came flying out from the building and struck the monster with a flying sidekick that sent the monster tumbling. As the thing got to its feet, Kay thought, What would Khai do? She rushed the creature with all the strength she had, and sent a snap kick straight to the thing’s knee. She was reward with a loud crack and the monster screeched, falling to one knee. As it tried to recover, Kay cartwheeled over the monster, wrapped her hands around the beast’s chin, planted both knees in its back and pulled back with all her might. The monster writhed and shrieked, but with a broken knee it couldn’t do much to stop the inevitable.

  With one final, monumental effort, she growled through her clenched jaw and snapped the things neck. It fell dead to the street, and she retrieved her sword. Kay rushed over to her mom, who was leaning against the building clutching her shoulder. Kay tried to pry her fingers away from the wound, but her mom fought her.

  “Mom, I need to see how bad it is,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  Her mom relented and let Kay check it. “Pft! This is just a scratch!” It really wasn’t that bad. The wound was about two inches long and about half an inch deep. She’d sustained worse injuries than that that didn’t even leave a scar!

  “You’re going to just fine, mom. This really isn’t that bad.”

  Kay ripped a portion of her shirt off and wrapped the shoulder tight to hinder the bleeding.

  “What’s the plan?” her dad asked.

  “I think we need to stop for the night and let mom rest. We’re not far. We’ll make it the rest of the way tomorrow when mom’s regained her strength.”