by T. A. Uner
Its spry arms had black claws, which ripped and slashed Zombie flesh like a butcher in a meat market. It snapped at one female Zombie and bit off her breasts. White pus-like blood leaked from the dual wound before it was overrun by its undead peers.
The Raptor soon found itself valiantly fighting off more Zombies. Giselle wondered why Reptilius hadn’t ordered them to help the Raptor. Wasn’t it our ally? She wondered. When she asked Reptilius, he was silent. Instead he signaled for her to continue firing.
“You teach those wankers a lesson!” Holbourne called out to Sawtooth, who, utilizing his higher ground advantage was disintegrating the undead at an impressive rate. And any Zombie that got through, well, fell victim to the croc’s teeth.
Giselle smiled at the croc. That’s why you’re special, boy. A few minutes later the toothpaste flow of Zombies through the anomaly started trickling down until activity ceased; the chirping screech from the anomaly abated.
The Raptor, despite its impressive combative skills lay dead at the edge of the pond shore. Its flesh teeth-marked and gouged from Zombie bites. Its head floated a few yards from where the rest of its body lay. Its yellow pineal eye staring lifelessly into nothingness.
“We won! We bloody…fucking….WON!” Holbourne was jumping up and down like a kid who’d won his first game of checkers.
“Doctor, I suggest you relieve yourself back at the house and refresh yourself with
nourishment—excluding alcohol of course.” He turned toward Giselle. “Giz, that goes for you
too.”
“But what about you, Rept?” she asked as she stretched her sore arms. The rifle wasn’t heavy but it made her hands sore.
“I do not require nourishment.”
Holbourne approached Reptilius and lit another cigarette. “I must tell you doctor, that cigarette smoking is illegal in this time.”
The cyberneticist laughed and smiled at Giselle. “The world’s under attack by fucking Zombies and this bloke worried about a little second-hand smoke. Hey, Malcolm I have a question. When you and Gizzy girl here went to the trading post to get the gel, I stumbled across a green wine bottle.”
“And?” Reptilius said unemotionally. “Did you drink from it doctor?”
“I took a wee bit into me mouth; it tasted like motor oil. What the hell was that mate?”An explosive sound came from within Reptilius’ helmet. To Giselle it sounded like a muffled guffaw, but common sense told her otherwise.”
“It was crocodilian secretion…in layman’s terms: croc urine.”
Holbourne looked like he’d just swallowed a mouse. Giselle exploded into laughter.
Above the Zombie blood-soaked stretch of sandy terrain, on the grassy swamp knoll where Sawtooth rested, he opened his snout, revealing a pink mouth that discharged a short burst of guttural cackling.
***
The sun dipped close to the pink horizon, causing the heavens to beget a field of tiny blinking stars within a swath of evening sky that slowly churned from violet to black. Holbourne was glad he’d been able to get something to drink up at Malcolm’s house.
There wasn’t much of a selection in the cuisine department except for a strange candybar-like item wrapped in brown cellophane. They were labeled Skorch Bite. When Holbourne bit into one it tasted like a protein supplement, and he ate two more, not realizing how hungry he was. He also guzzled down half a gallon of spring water and watched Giselle eat across from him at the kitchen table. “Damn.”
“What’s wrong doc?”
“Those Zombies blokes, they… they used to be human. God knows how many fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers I’ve killed. I couldn’t stop thinking of my wife and daughter.”
Giselle sat closer to Holbourne. “You can’t look at it that way; I lost my folks too, and my little brother. At least I think I had a little brother—a part of me says I was an only child. I know the realities are meshing with one another, and according to Rept, this is the focal point.”
The scientist took another gulp of water. “I’ve got to flush that scaly bugger’s piss from my system.”
They found Reptilius outside. He had retrofitted Sawtooth with a winch and the croc was dragging the Raptor’s corpse into the water while Reptilius pushed the bulk from the rear.
With Giselle’s help they fixed up their surroundings as best they could. Another chirping noise began assaulting the silence, this one louder. Three Zombies appeared without warning. They looked the same as their predecessors except these barred two pairs of fangs and hissed. The bubble hadn’t been activated but Holbourne took one down with the butt of his rifle. It got up and head-butted the Englishman, sending him sprawling to the ground. Giselle, enraged at seeing her friend attacked, met the first Vampire Zombie head on. She hit it with a haymaker that split its jaw in two. Holbourne watched in awe as the other Vampire Zombie’s advance was halted by a spin kick. This girl is fucking awesome, Holbourne thought. If we survive this apocalypse maybe I should adopt her.
“These Zombies are a lot stronger than the previous type,” Giselle said helping Holbourne up.
“Whatever gave you that idea?” Holbourne said. His sarcasm making Giselle laugh, if only for a moment.
“I’m activating the defense sphere,” Reptilius said. They watched as the bubble formed around them right before six Vampire Zombies plowed out of the anomaly and started sinking their nails into the bubble.
For a moment Holbourne thought it would pop like a balloon. Small holes appeared in the bubble’s surface but it quickly repaired itself. Holbourne wiped his brow and commenced firing. Two Vampire Zombies blew apart but then started reforming. To Holbourne they looked like clay figures remolding themselves before their original shapes were restored.
“Aim for the heads!” Giselle said.
“Are you sure, Giz?” Reptilius said. “How do you know?”
“I just know.” She fired a volley at each Vampire Zombie’s head. They blew apart and did not reform.
Sawtooth had been caught outside the bubble without his weapon. He circumnavigated around the bubble, trying to get back to high ground. The Vampire Zombies were again bottled up near the anomaly’s entrance, but slowly they started pushing through and piling up against the bubble.
Holbourne moved away from the vanguard and inched back toward where Malcolm was still standing behind the large weapon Giselle had called a “Gatling Gun.”
“Your scaly mate’s in trouble.” Reptilius turned to look at Sawtooth, who, much to Holbourne’s surprise used quick bursts of speed to return to his former spot. The winch reformed into the Repulser weapon and resumed firing.
“He’ll be fine.” Reptilius grasped two v-shaped handles flanking a thin console attached to the aft section of the circular weapon. “Be sure to observe what I’m doing, doctor, this weapon—it’s called a Slicer—is arming itself. If I fall today you must man it.”
Holbourne watched as the console lit up, and then Malcolm fired. The Slicer spat out a circular cluster of energy arrows. They cut through the bubble and expertly beheaded a squad of Vampire Zombies. “Bloody fucking yay.”
A holographic targeting screen appeared above the console. It was locking in on Zombie heads as fast as Reptilius could fire. “My brain has linked with its targeting sensors, doctor. If you were to use it you’d need an earpiece for the targeting computer to read your thoughts.” Reptilius stepped back from the console. “Now, you try it.”
Holbourne dropped his rifle and stepped up to the console. The Slicer’s handles felt cold under his palms. He could imagine how a weapon of this magnitude could give its user a God complex. “You’ll need this.” Malcolm placed a tiny earpiece inside Holbourne’s ear. “Now think about what type of spread you want to fire: thin…circular…wide?”
Holbourne focused on the anomaly opening. Giselle and Sawtooth were looking outmatched; they were blowing away Zombies rapidly, but these Vampire Zombies were harder to kill. “Where are the rest of those Raptors you promised?”
>
“Forget about them; focus on the anomaly.”
Holbourne grasped the handles and pictured a coil-shaped spray of arrows. He thought it up and less than a second later they exploded from the Slicer’s cluster muzzles, springing toward the Vampire Zombies like a giant runaway Slinky. A second and third spray soon followed and three dozen Zombies were vaporized. Another spread followed, one arrow nearly grazed Giselle’s ear. She cursed and swiveled her head around, Sawtooth style. “Doctor, watch where you’re pointing that thing!”
“I didn’t fire at you, it just…just…” slipped my mind?
“Make sure you’re not wearing the earpiece when you think of firing. That, or turn it off
doctor.”
“Easy for you to say, mate you’re an expert using this…”
But when Holbourne turned around, Reptilius had disappeared.
He did not know what had happened to the beacons. They were set to emit signals that would lure the Raptors to the sphere. He started scanning for them and found the few he had placed strategically behind his home.
One of the damned things had stopped transmitting. He started reconfiguring it. In the distance, 900 feet away, his hearing detected a cluster of Raptors gathered within a clearing of swamplands dotted with ancient cypress tries, Spanish moss draped over the surface of the green water. His Visor-scope counted nineteen Blues. At least the beacons had lured them this far. He fixed the beacon, attached it to one of the bolts of his ballista and fired it in the direction of the Raptors. Then, he walked as fast as he could back to the sphere. When he returned to the scene of the battle some of the mines were detonating. Took them long enough, he thought. But they were working, somewhat. Vampire Zombies were being blow up from the water. Some regenerated, while others, whose heads had been damaged, dissolved into cinders.
“You could’ve told us you were leaving, mate.” Holbourne had stripped off his undershirt, his pale chest gleaming with sweat.
“I’ll take over here, Doctor.” Reptilius slipped behind the Slicer. “Go help Giz!”
The sound of sashaying feet and shrieking rolled up behind them. The Raptors were coming. All nineteen of them and they looked hungry, and angry. They came like a pack of rabid dogs. Bouncing up and down, snapping their impressive jaws lined with jagged teeth and slashing their claws around. Through his visor-scope Reptilius could see the variations in their colors. While most were blue, others were a mixture of blue and black. Some were crimson and blue with rectangular stripes draped across their scaly backs and muscular flanks.
The anomaly was spitting out Vampire Zombies in rapid-fire bursts. The sphere tried stemming the flow but more and more kept slipping through. Reptilius saw more mines detonating, sending undead bodies flying around, and crashing against each other like roosters in a cockfight. The Raptors, despite being outnumbered four to one, met the first wave and tore through the Vampire Zombies like wheat reapers through a crop field. The Vampire Zombies tried biting the Raptors but the lizards were too expeditious. They enjoyed dining on undead fare, ripping their limbs off like slices of chicken meat.
Holbourne was guffawing like a mad bastard. Giselle was focused, but sometimes she would slip out of the sphere and crush a few zombie skulls, making sure to avoid getting caught between the Raptors and their new food supply. Much to Reptilius’ amazement not a single Raptor had fallen. Two of them hopped over a growing pile of Vampire Zombie corpses, before disappearing through the anomaly’s opening. Reptilius hoped they’d feast well in whatever hellish realities these creatures were coming from.
One Raptor finally fell. It was taken down en mass by two dozen Zombies. The muscular lizard shrieked while its compatriots ignored its plea for assistance, they were too immersed in their culinary delights. The Zombies tore both the Raptor’s arms off before stuffing them down its throat. Blood spewed from the two meaty sockets, spraying the Zombies with blood. They continued razing the blue Raptor’s body with their long black nails and vicious fangs, until fierce reptilian predator became their prey and disappeared under the onslaught of undead attackers.
More mines detonated. Two Blues had their haunches blown off when they both stepped on the same mine. They flipped backwards like gymnasts and landed on their necks. A group of Zombies arrived and stomped their feet on the two lizards like were welcome mats before Sawtooth fired a volley at them. Everyone in the targeted spot became dust motes that blended into darkness.
Apart from the particle ordnance coming from the defenders’ weapons, the sphere’s protective lime surface and the anomaly’s vortex were the only sources of light. The illumination under the water having been drowned out by the great mass of reptilian and undead soldiers jockeying for dominance. One side wanted food, the other a beachhead for invasion, both sides struggling for dominance, neither making significant headway.
Six more Raptors fell; three were the victim of a stray beam Holbourne had fired. The Englishman didn’t seem to care; the other three became sacrificial offerings for the Slicer’s deadly salvos.
Shots from the Repulser ceased and Sawtooth disappeared. Despite Reptilius’ faith in the croc’s resilience, he grew concerned, and used his visor to search for his friend. But the tetrapod was nowhere to be seen.
The remaining Raptors continued to hack through Zombies: bits of arms, shirt sleeves, hats and women’s underwear danced through the air and floated back through the anomaly’s opening.
The stem of Zombies started attenuating, much like their predecessors had before the only thing left was the sound of the surviving Blues, dining on ashes.
“The sphere is weakening,” Reptilius said.
Giselle was too tired to worry. Despite her Vampire strength, she understood their dire situation. They’d all been at it for hours, though it felt like days. “What do you mean its weakening mate?” Holbourne had his labcoat on again. The humidity had abated, not much, but with the lull in activity, they all rested and watched the remaining Raptors, who looked guttered.
Giselle watched as Reptilius took off his visor and rubbed his eyes before donning it again. He called out for Sawtooth and even left the safety of the sphere to inspect a dense swamp watershed. One Raptor launched a crazed attack upon Reptilius, who cracked his Solar Whip at the creature’s muscular chest. It exploded, sending chunks of scaly cubic skin bouncing against the sphere.
The other Raptors dashed toward the spot where their brethren had been minced. Giselle nearly vomited when she saw how they dined on one of their own.
“Pretty pathetic how these blokes have little respect for their own,” Holbourne remarked as he exhaled a venomous cigarette fume.
“Don’t say that near Rept,” Giselle reminded him, “he may take it personally.”
“Doesn’t matter, we won’t survive this onslaught.” He spat out a nasty trail of phlegm. “This fucking bubble’s about to collapse, there’s probably more waves of Zombies on their way. Who knows how many realities are controlled by those bloody—excuse the pun my dear—Vampires?”
She knew there was some truth to his words but how could he know the future? How could any of them? She watched as the remaining Raptors finished their meal and disappeared into the swamp.
Reptilius searched for Sawtooth.
It was not an enviable task, but the croc was his responsibility and he owed it to his conscience to find him. His visor picked up a light trail of blood. He eyed the plasma readings which matched Sawtooth’s mutated blood cells. He found his friend under the crown of a cypress tree, straddling a fallen log. The croc noticed Reptilius and snorted.
Reptilius noticed the gouge in the Sawtooth’s left flank. He removed a Cobalt warhead from his backpack and carefully rubbed the explosive mold into the wound. He watched as the mold solidified across the wound. It resembled a black patch, but was benign. Cobalt lost its explosive properties when it was removed from its warhead casing. The croc sighed and Reptilius patted his friend’s ridged snout. “You ready for another round, boy?” Sawtooth b
linked once and grunted. Reptilius took that for a yes.
“Are you sure you’re prepared?”
Reptilius spun around. In front of him was a faded white image. It solidified until the face of Tom Digby appeared. “Digby? What are you doing here?”
“Here to warn you that you only have a few minutes before the next wave of Zombies arrived. This batch promises to be the worst, and, one more thing, Croctus.”
Reptilius waited for the kicker.
“You must be ready to close the anomaly’s fissure, after the first ten minutes, the Zombies will start pouring through at a rate you and your friends will not be able to handle.”
Reptilius cursed. “Tell me about them, Tom.”
“I can’t.” Tom sighed and Reptilius saw the hermit’s eyes drop for a moment before they met his visor. “I can only tell you that there won’t be any chance to survive this final assault unless you hurry back. Now, I must go.” The image flickered once, and then started fading.
“How come they’re coming through to this reality, Tom?”
Tom’s face frowned. “Hurry up.” Then, he disappeared.
***
When Reptilius arrived back at the sphere he increased the beacons’ resonance. This time he wanted an entire army of Blues at their disposal. The only question was, would they come in time.
“Did you find Sawtooth?” Giselle asked.
Reptilius nodded, and the young girl looked happy to see the croc. Reptilius threw the beacon switch toward the anomaly just as the first Zombies started pouring through.
They looked just like the first batch, minus the Vampire fangs, but this time they smashed against the sphere before their eyes lit up like searchlights. Red flames emanating from their eyes pummeled the sphere’s surface and it blinked on and off like Christmas lights. Reptilius figured the Zombie's flames were draining it.
“Start firing, now.” Holbourne and Giselle got to work. But this time their weapons did little damage. Most of the time only black burnt splotches appeared on the Zombies’ surface. Finally after taking over half a dozen shots, Holbourne’s rifle blew off one zombie’s arm, revealing a thick mass of circuitry that sparkled and sizzled.
