Chapter 23: Zombie Killing 101

Suicide is the last thing on my mind! I set out to conquer death itself, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do! Nothing will stop me!

Ryan slowly turned around right into the faceless façade of the Parasite Queen herself. The light from the energy shield cast an eerie white glow upon the Horde Mother, enhancing her already menacing appearance. She stooped low and watched him silently from beyond the white screen of the force field projection. Ryan immediately crawled weakly away. However, his good arm gave out from under him, and he stumbled into the dirt. Grafael had to drag him away from the barrier towards the center where Éclair sat among the other unconscious bodies. Gumar took up position behind them as a low whimper of terror escaped his puffy lips.

The Parasite Queen slowly circled the bubble shield as if probing it for weaknesses. A low hiss emanated from her as she assessed her prey while her hair tentacles writhed furiously above her head. Éclair took hold of Ryan’s shoulders in a firm grip as he leaned against her for support. Ryan rested his hand over hers, feeling grateful for her touch with such evil so close at hand. The Horde Mother suddenly stopped and raised one of her massive hands with its hook-like fingers. She touched the forcefield, and her flesh sizzled against the energy wall. Still, even with her flesh burning, the Parasite Queen forced her hand forward as she slowly pushed against the shield. The field bent slightly inward like a rubber sheet as the Parasite Queen moved her hand further and further into the bubble. Finally, after her hand had been reduced to little more than bone, the Parasite Queen was rebuffed as the energy shield forced her back.

The Parasite Queen growled in frustration as several tentacles loomed from her head and angled themselves towards the ground near the shield. The tentacles shot into the earth like worms. Ryan felt a trembling sensation beneath his feet just as a sliver of the white energy field burst out of the ground right in front of him. Ryan and the others cried out in surprise, backing away as the Parasite Queen’s tentacles attempted to pierce through the barrier from the inside. Like before with her hand, the tentacles made the shield convulse inward slightly before bouncing back into the ground. The Parasite Queen withdrew her tentacles from the dirt and examined the tips which had suffered burns similar to her hand.

“The shield makes a perfect sphere around us!” explained Éclair. “My godfather himself designed it to keep Parasites and their infected victims at bay! You can’t break through it!”

The Parasite Queen hissed, her face splitting to reveal her four jaws chittering and clicking irritably. Then she extended several dozen tentacles from her head which shot up into the cavern ceilings. Using her tentacles as tethers, the Parasite Queen lifted off from the ground and drew herself up towards the ceiling of the cave several hundred feet above them. She went up so high that it became difficult for Ryan to see her through the mist, even with the white light of the shield illuminating the cave. When the Queen neared the precipice of the cave ceiling, she stopped and hovered there with her spindly arms stretched out before her. She just floated there for the longest time. Though she was now farther away from their sanctuary, something about her actions made Ryan even more uneasy. And then, the Horde Mother opened her jaws as far as they went, making her face resemble a black hole. As she opened up her face, a rhythmic humming noise filled the air, sounding very different from her usual screeching sounds.

Something shifted within the cavern. All the tentacles with their infected victims dangling lifelessly throughout the walls and ceiling began to stir. The infected men and women started moving, and then the tentacles began dropping them to the ground one after the other. Every thud! signaled a newly revived enemy as the infected piled up within the cavern in a rainstorm of the undead. A few corpses even fell against the shield itself only to be repulsed away in a smoking heap of burning flesh. From the sound of bones breaking, Ryan hoped the fall might cripple the Infected, but almost immediately after each one fell, their limbs snapped back into place as they stood up on their deformed legs. The Infected Zombies moaned in unison as they shuffled towards the bubble shield from every direction with lifeless expressions. Already a few hundred had gathered with dozens more dropping by the second.

“How long will that shield last?” asked Ryan.

“Fifteen minutes max,” answered Éclair. “Probably less if they swarm us all at once.”

Ryan groaned as he rose slowly to his feet. “All of you stay inside. I’ll handle-”

Almost immediately, Ryan fell back down, too exhausted to even stand.

“Idiot!” scolded Éclair as she traced her healing hands over his backside, slowly easing the pain. “Even you need a moment to recover.”

“That ... is a good point,” conceded Ryan tiredly with an upraised finger.

“I hate to bring this up, but do we have a plan for getting out of here?” asked Grafael. “For we must contend with the army before us, and the one behind as well.”

Grafael referred to the army of Parasites that stationed themselves about a hundred meters behind the barrier. Unlike the infected slaves, the Parasites made no move against the shield. It seemed their only orders were to keep them from escaping. An idea formulated as Ryan realized that the stationary Parasites marked the point where he and Éclair first entered the cave, which meant that the exit lay somewhere beyond that army.

“We ... uh ... actually do have an escape plan for once,” said Ryan hesitantly.

“We do?” asked Éclair in surprise.

“Yeah, provided we have enough time to get everyone awake.”

Éclair nodded. “Grafy,” she said while she continued healing Ryan. “Do you think you can hold them off while I help Ryan and revive the others?”

“Or die trying, my lady,” said Grafael resolutely as he pulled his giant war hammer from the strap on his back.

“Gumar gor chog Grafael,” said Gumar, which Ryan guessed was his way of saying that he’d help too.

“Then let’s see who can fell the most, my friend,” said Grafael with a hungry grin.

“Voka,” said Gumar with a grin of his own to match Grafael’s.

“Here, take these,” said Éclair as she reached into her sack and held up a couple of golden pendants shaped into circular flames. “These will generate shields around your bodies. I’m sorry to say they won’t offer as much defense as Psionic Armor, but they will protect you from the Parasite gas.”

“Goka,” said Gumar gratefully as he and Grafael took hold of the pendants and pinned them to their chests.

The pendants began to glow with a yellow light when a membrane of dim, orange energy enveloped both Gumar and Grafael. The membrane hovered just a few millimeters over their skin and made it seem like a bubble of translucent orange light had covered them. As a result of the pendants, Gumar and Grafael shimmered slightly with the glow of the orange shields.

Gumar then withdrew two long metal rods from his vest and attached them together perpendicularly. The rods connected as gears, gyros, and cogs expanded outwards from the shafts, making it appear that the objects grew in size. Thousands of tiny mechanical parts clicked together from the rods until they formed something that resembled a canon. The weapon was larger than Eclair’s body as Gumar held it with one hand under the barrel and by the handle at its side to steady the massive contraption. The cannon had four rotating barrels at the end, each one roughly the size of Ryan’s head. Beneath the barrels were two giant bayonets with spinning saw blades. With a flick of the rod handle, the machine whirled to life with the buzzing of the blades and the twirling of the barrels.

“Ne’er saw true beauty till this night,” whispered Ryan as a little drool rolled from his gaping mouth. “I want one.”

“I thought you liked swords?” asked Éclair from behind him.

“I still do,” said Ryan as he continued to admire the craftsmanship of the Troll’s cannon. “But can’t a man love more than one awesome thing?”

Even if he couldn’t see her face, Ryan felt Éclair rolling her eyes at him. “You’re hopeless.” Éclair then handed Ryan a Sun Gem. “Here, Romeo. You should take another Sun Gem. If you’ve got time to serenade a cannon, you can recharge your psions while you’re at it.”

Ryan took hold of the Sun Gem and drew forth psions from it. The pink crystal slowly shrank in his grip as the energies within it coursed into his body, revitalizing him. Already, Ryan began to regain feeling back into his injured arm thanks to Éclair and the Sun Gem. Grafael and Gumar walked to the edge of the barrier as the first wave of Infected Zombies approached.

“Just give me a little time and I can help, guys,” said Ryan, flexing his arm experimentally.

Grafael raised a hand without turning to Ryan. “You’ve already done more than enough, little brother. Anymore and you will put me to shame. Regather your strength and rest for now so that we may count on your fortitude later. I have a feeling there’ll be plenty of battle yet to come.”

Ryan sighed. “Fine. Just remember, no glorious death for you today. If you let any of those undead freaks get the better of you, I’ll consider it your worst dishonor.”

“I concur,” agreed Éclair.

“Do not fear, little ones. The son of Hrothgar will not die today.”

“Gumar goog,” said Gumar in a tone that sounded like he was complaining.

“Apologies, my friend. Neither Grafael nor Gumar will die at the hands of such unworthy foes.”

Gumar laughed, his long ears bouncing with the bombastic echoes of his mirth. “Gumar grom gakcho!”

Indiscernible language notwithstanding, Gumar sounded so fierce and determined that Ryan found his admiration for the Troll rising. The Infected Zombies gathered just a few meters away from the sphere. All at once, they broke from a shuffle into a sprint towards the barrier with their slobbering jaws snapping madly. Still cloaked in their own personal energy shields, Grafael and Gumar stepped forward.

As soon as he stepped through the barrier, Grafael jumped into the air on his powerful legs and sailed over forty feet high. He plummeted back to the earth wielding his hammer and smashing it to the ground, which created a shockwave of dust and rocks that sent dozens of Zombies flying away in pieces. Grafael then rushed through the ranks of the Zombies like a bulldozer as he bashed away at them with his hammer, his fist, and his tail. Grafael made full use of his Earth Elemency in this battle as he sent missiles of stones into the enemy ranks with every swing. When Grafael pounded the ground with his feet, spikes of stone sprang from the earth to impale the enemy and bar passage for those behind.

For the finale of his onslaught, Grafael extended the chain built into the head of his hammer which allowed for long-range combat. The head of his hammer dented the ground as it fell, then Grafael whipped around his chained-hammer and scattered a group of Infected Zombies that had been surrounding him. Grafael sent the head of the chained hammer forward, letting it burst right through the stomach of an advancing Zombie. The hammerhead continued to travel even after smashing through the Zombie’s ribcage until it crashed into the ground about fifty feet away from Grafael. The Saurian then gave out a mighty roar as he yanked on the chain, pulling its buried head out of the ground and ripping the Zombie that it had punctured in half. As the head left the earth, a ball of rock had formed around the hammer, compelled to stick to the head by Grafael’s Earth Elemency. The boulder that had formed around the hammer’s head was at least the size of a tank, and Grafael lugged the massive object around with ease. Ryan watched in awe as Grafael used the boulder at the end of his chain to pummel the enemy forces like a massive wrecking ball, probably felling around fifty in a single swing. The cavern echoed with the sounds of the crashing boulder and Grafael’s battle roar as the stone was released from the chain to flatten a dozen more infected before coming to rest at the other side of the cavern.

While Grafael gave a magnificent display of his earth prowess, Gumar held his own as well. The rotating barrels on his cannon sent giant balls of energy which fluctuated between differing colors of red, green, and yellow. Each ball of energy exploded like a grenade into the army of the undead, disintegrating several infected at a time. With such firepower packed in each shot, Ryan figured that such a weapon would have a slow recoil time, but the rotating barrels allowed for rapid fire which let Gumar send out dozens of shots within a few seconds.

And if any of the beasts got too close, Gumar would beat them away with his gigantic arm or hack them to pieces with the bayonet saw blades. One Zombie that managed to get past Grafael ran straight for the barrier only to be severed into three neat slices of meat by Gumar’s saw blades. With no enemies in the immediate vicinity, Gumar took a step back and stopped firing. At first, Ryan thought that he might be out of ammo, but then he noticed that the cannon had started glowing. The rotating barrels each emitted a flashing light of shifting colors which convulsed together to form another giant ball of energy. This ball of energy was much larger than the ones that came before and grow to a size almost as large as the cannon itself. The ball of unstable energy shot from the cannon with a loud clap! creating the biggest explosion yet as at least fifty undead were disintegrated on the spot.

Ryan whistled at the spectacle that Grafael and Gumar displayed. “Alright, I’ll admit it. I’m a little jealous right now.”

“Don’t worry, Dragon Boy,” joked Éclair offhandedly as she focused on healing his arm. “I’m sure you’ll get the chance to show off how stupidly heroic you are as well before long.”

“Yeah, but I won’t get to do it with a giant cannon with saw blades,” groaned Ryan, wincing slightly at the touch of Medical Elemency to his injury.

Despite the amount of damage that Grafael and Gumar wreaked upon the Zombie army, they didn’t even seem to make a dent in the enemy’s overall numbers. Furthermore, the Zombies seemed quite unconcerned with the deaths of their comrades as they continued charging forward without reservation.

That’s the problem with Zombies. They don’t get scared no matter how many of them you kill! They just keep coming because they’re too stupid to be afraid. Then again, what’s the point of being afraid of death when you’re already dead?

Little by little, Infected trickled through the cracks of Grafael’s and Gumar’s defenses until at least a dozen crashed against the barrier. Even as the energy shield roasted them alive, the creatures continued their assault unperturbed by the damage they inflicted on their own bodies. Some even managed to push through the barrier and muscle their way inside. Though the few that made it inside lost their limbs and collapsed, if this kept up, then the barrier might weaken. Ryan knew that something needed to be done.

“That’s enough healing for now,” said Ryan as he forced himself to his feet. “Get the others awake. We’ll need their help if we’re going to get out of here.”

“You’re sure, Ryan?” asked Éclair in concern. “Because I can handle these leftovers if you need more time to recover.”

“You need to focus on getting the others awake,” explained Ryan. “Don’t worry about me, Éclair. When you’re around, I have strength to spare.”

“Alright,” said Éclair as she hurried to the next patient. “I trust you.”

As several Zombies pushed their heads through the energy wall, Ryan summoned a small fire to his hand for a little experiment. He shot a tiny ball of red fire from his finger to the energy wall which sailed through the barrier to hit an Infected in the eye. The fireball went out the back of the Zombie’s head, destroying its skull in a small explosion of red and orange gore. Ryan grinned as the Zombie fell lifelessly to the ground.

So, not only can we move freely in and out of the barrier, but we can shoot projectiles out as well. Nice!

Ryan decided to keep that info in reserve for now as he needed to conserve his psions for later use in the escape plan. That meant killing the Zombies up close and personal with the gauntlets. Like most Zombies that Ryan heard of, the Infected didn’t go down unless he stabbed them in the head. Brandishing his gauntlets, he went around the barrier wall stabbing invading Zombies through their brains. The creatures made awful squishing noises when Ryan stabbed them in their noggins, and the smell that came afterwards was terrible. Even as Ryan whittled down the numbers of the Infected attacking the barrier, scores more joined their ranks. To make matters worse, the barrier flickered as if getting weaker, and the walls seemed to close in as the shield receded gradually.

“We don’t have much time left!” called Ryan back to Éclair. “I think the barrier’s getting weaker!”

“I know, alright,” said Éclair impatiently. “I might have to forego conventional first aid and give them a shot of some stimulants to force them awake. Though it might leave them a bit unstable.”

While Ryan was distracted listening to Éclair, a single Zombie managed to get its hand through the barrier to grab him around the throat. Ryan lurched back in surprise as the creature’s fingers dug lightly into his neck. With a swipe of his right gauntlet now ablaze with red flames, Ryan severed the Zombie’s arm at the elbow. The Infected victim continued to press his mutilated face against the shield, giving Ryan a front-row view of his deformation in all its gory detail. The man, who had probably been wealthy judging from his business suit, groaned monotonously as his jaw dangled from just a thin strand of flesh. In place of a mouth grew tentacles from the top of the man’s upper jaw. Festering, pink tentacles and the man’s own blood covered his face, but just enough of the man’s skin remained human to make him haunting. Ryan groaned inwardly at the sight of this poor, misshapen creature as its body twisted around unnaturally in an attempt to wiggle through the barrier. As Ryan stood transfixed by the grisly Zombie, the hand that he severed came to life and grabbed him around the ankle. Ryan yelped in surprise before stomping the arm to cinders with a boot that he ignited with his red flames. Ryan then turned back to the infected man as a tear rolled down from the creature’s still human eye.

“Please kill me,” Ryan heard the infected man whisper.

Ryan’s heart reached out for the poor soul as he complied and put the man out of his misery by decapitating him with his clawed gauntlet. The head of the infected man rolled to the ground outside the barrier like a bowling ball only to be kicked away by other infected victims compelled to fight by the will of the Horde Mother. Ryan felt almost as dead inside as the souls that assailed him when the gravity of what he was doing dawned on him.

“This whole situation is unstable!” shouted Ryan to Éclair. “Just do it already so we can get out of this nightmare!”

As Ryan busied himself with meting out any straggling Infected along the barrier wall, he only half-observed Éclair as she dealt with the injured pirates. Éclair quickly withdrew a syringe from her bag and stuck the girl’s arm that she had been attending. Ryan then recognized the girl as the young pirate who had spoken with Grafael in the distress call. The dark skin as well as the long, wild black hair was unmistakable. The girl opened her mismatched green and blue eyes and jerked up panting for air with her face drenched in sweat.

“What the shite!” gasped the girl as her head swiveled around frantically, taking in her surroundings.

“Easy, now. Easy,” said Éclair calmingly, raising her hands in a nonthreatening gesture. “I had to give you a stimulant. You may feel a little disoriented, but I need you to calm down and-”

The girl trained her green and blue eyes on Éclair and raised a gun from the holster on her belt. “Get away from me! Don’t come near me, you hear!” The panic-stricken girl backed away from Éclair while pointing the gun at her head.

“Whoa, there!” called out Ryan while stabbing two Infected in the heads at once, one with each gauntlet. “Let’s just calm the freak down, kids!”

The girl swung the gun around to point the barrel at Ryan instead. Still preoccupied with keeping a wall of putrid flesh at bay, Ryan didn’t have time to deal with her.

“Hi, how are you?” said Ryan, jumping back as an Infected stuck its head through the barrier and attempted to bite his throat out. Ryan quickly dispatched the victim by stabbing through its jaw up into the brain. “I’m Ryan, by the way. Ryan Uruks. Could you do me a favor and not point a gun at me while I’m trying to fight off a horde of Zombies? It’s a little distracting.”

The girl gaped at Ryan as if he were the strangest thing she had ever seen, taking no notice of the army of undead monsters closing in around them from outside a shield of white energy.

Before the girl could respond, Éclair grabbed her by the wrist and twisted the gun away from Ryan. The girl tensed and struggled against Éclair’s superior Elemental strength to no avail.

“Drop the gun, or I will break your wrist,” commanded Éclair coldly.

“Maybe a little less violent, Éclair,” said Ryan, grunting as he kicked an Infected back outside the barrier. “She needs time to process.”

“So that gives me ample cause to let her point a gun at my friend?” asked Éclair, her voice still cold.

Ryan couldn’t help but feel touched at Éclair’s protectiveness for him, but also a tad concerned at this slightly psychotic edge she seemed to acquire. The girl in question found resisting Éclair to be useless as her grip grew tighter and tighter. The young pirate finally relented and dropped the gun. Éclair deftly caught the pistol with her free hand before it hit the ground, preventing accidental discharge.

“What’s your name?” asked Éclair as she twirled the gun through her fingers.

“Sh-Sharon. Sharon Morgan,” replied the girl tepidly.

“Well, Sharon Morgan, as you can plainly see, we’ve got our hands full, and we need all the help we can get if we’re going to come out of this thing alive.” Éclair then took the gun by the barrel and held the handle towards Sharon. “I’ll give this back, so please point it at the things that are trying to kill us, and not at me or my friends. Got it?”

Sharon regarded Éclair warily as if expecting some kind of trick. Another Infected crashed against the energy shield, sending showers of sparks sizzling outside the barrier. The creature hissed frantically before Ryan finished it off with a swipe of his gauntlet. Sharon yelped a little as her head swiveled from the Infected around the shield to Éclair and then back to the gun.

Sharon then gave a curt nod as she reached out for the gun. “I ... I got it.”

“Then help Ryan defend the barrier while I wake up your shipmates,” ordered Éclair, already moving to the next patient.

“Perhaps with a little less stimulant this time,” suggested Ryan. “We don’t need any more drama at the moment.”

“You focus on killing, I’ll focus on doctoring, thank you,” retorted Éclair without turning from her work.

That’s my Éclair for you, thought Ryan with a grin.

The girl named Sharon slowly made her way to Ryan’s side while he grappled with three Infected. He managed to push them back behind the barrier wall and dispatched them with a succession of quick jabs to their heads as his iron claws punctured their eye sockets. The creatures fell alongside the other bodies piled around the barrier, and Sharon gave out a squeak of fright as they fell.

“Sharon, right?” asked Ryan.

The girl nodded stiffly, her hands held out in front as if to create her own barrier between herself and the Infected Zombies.

“First time killing Zombies, huh?”

“Um,” muttered the girl uncomfortably.

As she stood facing away from the slain Infected piled on the ground outside the barrier, a lone Zombie managed to poke its head and its arm through the shield. The creature reached out for Sharon and grabbed her by the shoulder. She screamed and tried to break the creature’s grip on her, but it held her fast as it reached its blistered head forward to bite her with half-mutated human/infected jaws. Ryan swiftly severed the creature’s hand from the girl’s shoulder and then diced the hand into several small pieces while it hovered in midair.

“Well, here’s your crash course in Zombie killing,” explained Ryan before executing the attacking Zombie by slicing its head off. “Rule number one, always go for the head.”

The mutated head fell to the ground between Sharon and Ryan inside the barrier. As it lay there, its jaws suddenly snapped open and shut as the head bobbed on the ground, trying to wiggle its way to snap at Sharon’s foot. This time, both Ryan and Sharon yelped in surprise as the attacking head lunged for Sharon’s ankle.

“OH MY GOD!” screamed Ryan in a slightly high-pitched voice.

Recovering from his momentary shock, Ryan kicked the head in the air like a soccer ball and burned it to ashes with a burst of red flame from his palm. Ryan put a hand to his heart while panting, surprised at how scared he got. Sharon put both hands to her mouth as she stared at Ryan with a sickened expression.

“Rule number two,” said Ryan, holding up two fingers dramatically. “Double tap.”

“You’ve got more help coming your way,” called Éclair, still busy at her work.

Three of the crewmen now sat up groggily as they took in their environment with horrified expressions.

“Good,” commented Ryan as he noticed more Zombies making their way at them from the other side of the barrier. “Because more and more of these things are seeping through the cracks!”

“Blimey! What’s all this, then?!” exclaimed one of the pirates, a dark bearded Dwarf with a face covered in crisscrossing tattoos.

“Um ... listen up, mates,” called out Sharon to her crewmates, trying to sound confident. “I don’t have time to explain, but if we don’t help this shiny bloke here defend this barrier, then we’ll be pushing up daisies soon enough!”

Ryan gave a thumbs up as Sharon pointed towards him while simultaneously holding a snapping Zombie back by its throat. The three pirates glanced around uncertainly.

“Argh!” said Ryan as he snapped the Zombie’s neck with a twist of his wrist. “Avast, ye scurvy dogs! Wait, did I say that right?”

“What the bloomin’ hell,” said one of the pirates incredulously at Ryan’s quip.

Sharon balled her fists, and shouted, “Don’t think, just do it! Time to haul ass, boys!”

Hmm. So, she can show a little backbone when she needs to, thought Ryan idly.

“You heard the girl, lads,” said one of the human pirates as he rose to his feet and withdrew his pistol. “Let’s show these buggers what we’re made of!”

Ryan had a much easier time defending the barrier after the pirates joined in. They bolstered his efforts with the use of the energy pistols and rifles. Although, he did have to explain the first rule to them as he had with Sharon. And the second rule when a whole Zombie muscled its way through the barrier with all its limbs intact. Sharon proved to be a competent leader when the situation called for it as she galvanized the pirates to defend the weakest portions of the barrier. She even raked up her fair share of Zombie kills as she delivered headshots with expert marksmanship. Their favors rose even further as Éclair revived more and more pirates to aid in defending the barrier. Unfortunately, some of the crewmates were too far gone to save, and Éclair would shake her head before moving on to the next one. Soon, they had almost the entire crew of thirty roused to the barrier’s defense with only a few lying on the ground who would never wake.

Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan noticed the Horde Mother still hovering high above them near the ceiling with the green mist swirling all around her. I wonder what she’s doing up there. Though I guess I’d prefer it if she stays up there. We’ve got enough trouble with all these Zombies.

“Grafael! Gumar!” called out Éclair. “Get back in here! We’re ready to leave!”

Gumar and Grafael retreated from their assault outside the barrier as they backstepped towards the rest of the group. While they made their way back, Éclair handed out a pendant for each of the pirates to protect them from the green mist. Good thing too, because the barrier had started flickering in and out of existence, allowing small vespers of gas to seep through. As Grafael walked backwards into the barrier, a moaning Zombie lunged for his head. This he vanquished with a quick chop of his hand right down the center of the creature’s head, splitting its skull and popping its eyes from their sockets in the process. Gumar sent out a final volley of energy bolts towards the Infected horde. Then his cannon made a repeated clicking noise and fired no more.