ShowerKrogan

  “Soooo…what’s the pn here?” Sam asked and leaned her hip against the metal railing.

  Twelve zombies were now staring me down. Maybe a little surprised that dinner jumped right onto the pte? If they can even feel surprised, or feel anything at all, for that matter.

  One of the decaying zombies, let’s just refer to them as ‘decayed’, moved first and began slowly shuffling its way over to me. The growling and snarls began, filling the quiet air with the eerie sounds of the undead predators. It stretched out its hands and dragged one of its feet on the ground behind it. Absolutely nailed that cssic zombie look.

  “My pn is simple: parkour punch a zombie right in the face.” I put one foot on the metal railing and pushed myself into the air. As I dropped, I smmed my fist into the face of the decayed who then smacked into the ground. I nded safely on my feet and looked at Sam, a proud smile pstered across my face.

  Man, I’m cool!

  “Remember when you told me not to get bit?” Sam asked, showing no signs of being impressed by my awesome moves.

  “Yeah, obviously. It’s like Zombie 101. Why?”

  “Just making sure. Because you slugged that zombie-looking thing right in the mouth, which is an easy way to get bit. Just wanted to point that out. Please continue.” Sam put both elbows on the railing and her hands under her chin; her face wore a mask of exaggerated interest.

  “Right… good point,” I admitted and scratched my chin. Man, I’m dumb! Not cool at all. Everything sucks. Welp, time to take out the anger from that embarrassment on the zombies.

  Eleven zombies left, and the one trying to crawl under the car. This was a gsses off scenario, so I tucked those bad boys away. The parking lot is big enough that I can keep moving around and avoid being trapped between multiple zombies. I need to keep one between me and any others that get close. Then I could focus on one at a time. That’s the best way to handle a small group of these creeps; I pulled out my knife and took a deep breath. It’s go time!

  I tried to hop to the right of an incoming decayed and hit the ground instead. I looked at my left foot, the culprit of my fall, and saw that the zombie I had punched had wrapped its arms around my foot.

  What a dick.

  I drove my heel into its forehead. Its head snapped back, but it didn't let go. I gnced up and saw another decayed about six feet away, with one more close behind. The two that looked like recently turned zombies were watching from a good twenty-five or thirty feet away.

  Were they watching how I was going to react? Pnning their next move? It was unnerving to see them so still. The decayed are disgusting and horrific, but those other ones are next-level disturbing.

  An excited snarl snapped my focus back to the zombie at my feet and the one bearing down on me. I wiggled around to make my gun accessible and snagged it. While doing that, I kept kicking at the zombie holding my foot to no avail. Like one did earlier to Sam, it got its mouth around the front of my boots but couldn’t tear through the leather.

  I’ll deal with you in a second.

  I raised my gun and fired a shot into the head of the zombie now standing directly above me. His head snapped back, and he fell backward to the ground. Six rounds left. I swapped my gun for my knife, pulled myself to a sitting position and smmed the bde into the forehead of the zombie using my foot as a chewtoy. It released my foot and its head dropped to the ground.

  Thank Christ I was wearing my boots. I could feel the pressure of the bite, but the zombie teeth could not break through. Being zombified by a pinky nibble would be too humiliating. I flipped onto my stomach and pushed myself to my feet.

  I held my knife ready and started pnning which zombie to focus on next, when a bone-chilling sound erupted from behind me.

  Excited screams, snarls, growling, every creepy noise possible made my body freeze and hairs stand on end. I could hear a bunch of zombies, but I couldn’t see any outside of our parking lot friends. I hoped that the gunshot didn’t attract too many more. While also looking for the source of the zombie noises, Sam climbed over the fence and started walking backward with her eyes scanning across the street for any sign of movement.

  One of the decayed took advantage of the distraction and zombie-ran its way to us. It roared and lunged at Sam, who was looking in the opposite direction.

  “Duck!” I yelled at her and she turned in time to see the incoming zombie, but she didn't react. I could see her hands trembling again as fear gripped her entire body. I jumped at her and shoved her to the ground, then ducked down. The zombie that tried to make a meal of her missed when I pushed her to the ground and instead slumped over my back. I gripped its leg and flipped it over me as I stood back up. I dropped to one knee and brought my knife into the side of the zombie's head.

  I pulled on Sam’s arm and brought her to her feet. I grabbed her by her chin and guided her gaze to me. Our eyes met. Her lovely emerald eyes dripped with tears. It seemed that was close to the final straw for her, mentally. She had done well to make it this far with all she had gone through just since I had found her.

  “You are going to be fine. I promise. I will NOT let anything happen to you,” I said. That sure sounded familiar. I hoped this time it turned out better than it did with Mal.

  I held Sam's face until she blinked away her tears and regained her composure. She nodded and wiped her face on her sleeve.

  “I’m fine. I promise,” she said. I released her face and turned my focus back to the parking lot. Surviving the horde starts with surviving the nine remaining zombies standing between us and the dealership.

  I couldn’t overthink it. I needed to rely on my instincts and take action; overthinking right now would get me killed. I was going to let my mind go bnk and do what I did best. Violence. But to get into the right headspace for this, I was going to need a little something extra.

  “Becca, please py ‘Static’ by Sleep Theory,” I called out to the mild-mannered AI in my head.

  Becca: HOW DARE YOU?!

  “Becca-”

  Becca: I AM NOT SOME CHEAP UNINTELLIGENT ALEXA FAKE BITCH VIRTUAL ASSISTANT!

  “Hey, you don’t need to take shots at Alexa. That is uncalled-”

  Becca: Get bit you @&#%@&*@*&

  “Woah! Who taught you that nguage?! I think we have to censor it for the book.”

  Becca: Powering down.

  “Come on. Those kinds of slurs are beneath you. And you don’t need to pout, just py the song! Please?”

  Becca: … You’re no better than Dr. Kale. Now pying ‘Static’ by Sleep Theory.

  “Who’s Dr. Kale?” I asked, and in response music started bring in my head. I winced at the initial mental musical onsught. The music was bsting loud enough to physically hurt, but I was too scared to say anything to Becca. I told myself to suck it up, buttercup. Zombie killing time.

  I gnced up at Sam one more time to check on her and saw her staring at me sck-jawed. It was probably a weird interaction to hear from the outside. I really needed to fix the internal communication bug with Becca; people might have started to think I’m a little weird.

  I gave her a small smile that was intended to be comforting. She’ll meet Becca in person soon, and then I won’t seem so crazy. Maybe.

  “Mind if I borrow that knife I gave you?” I asked and now had two knives.

  I held both unsheathed knives and grinned at how comfortable they both felt in my hands.

  “I gotta tell ya, this is pretty terrific.” There was just something about holding a big knife and getting to use it on an enemy that just made me giddy. The zombies didn’t scream like my usual adversary, but they would do just fine.

  I hopped around on the balls of my feet while I let the music build up to the chorus. I was keeping myself loose; plus, I couldn't start the fight until the music hit right. Thankfully, the zombies acquiesced to my musical request and didn't wander too close until I was ready, which I now was.

  The chorus hit, and so did my knife. I took off toward the closest zombie, ducking under its outstretched arms and kicked at the side of its knee. I intended to drop the zombie onto its knees, but my foot kicked right through the leg and the kneecap popped off and stuck to the ground. The zombie fell due to the sudden disappearance of its leg and, while stifling a ugh, I stuck a bde into the back of its skull. Eight left.

  Two charged at me together; I shuffled to my left to put one zombie between me and the second zombie. The first zombie reached out for me, and with a flick of my wrist, its hand dropped to the ground.

  “Aroo?” the zombie stared down at its hand.

  “Ah. Sorry? But you all started it. Actually, did you? I guess you were just standing around.” As I thought back to who attacked first, the zombie reached out to me with its remaining hand. I pushed its arm to the side with ease and shoved my knife under its chin and straight up into its mouth. I didn’t think I put the knife in deep enough to reach its brain, but it slumped over and then dropped to the ground when I pulled my knife out. If it wasn’t dead, then it was smart enough to know when to pretend. Seven left, probably.

  I hopped over that zombie and sprang at the one behind it. I smmed the bde into its forehead, and it colpsed without a fight. Six.

  I started humming along and sliding back and forth; I was feeling pretty good at that moment. A quick look behind killed the fun, movement in the shadows across the street. Something was heading this way, a lot of somethings. I sucked in air through my teeth and held it for a moment as I stared at the shadows waiting for something to emerge, but nothing moved into my sight. After wasting more than enough time, I blew all the air out at once through my mouth, which caused an accidental lip trill.

  One thing at a time. I picked my next target and went right for it. Fighting one on one with a zombie was not too difficult, as long as they didn’t catch you off guard; they were manageable. I finished the next four with little effort. My main concern was my knife going dull from slicing through so many decayed brains. I had to give the knife a good shake to get an eyeball to slip off after killing the st zombie.

  The music in my head came to an end as I finished littering the parking lot with zombie corpses. That left the one crawling under the car and the two fresher ones that were content watching the carnage I inflicted on their buddies.

  “Hey, um, Grayson, this is bad. Like really, really bad,” Sam was looking away from the dealership and was smacking at me to get my attention. I looked back at the street to see what she was freaking out about. I felt my jaw drop.

  This area of the city was not empty after all; the zombies had just been avoiding the main road. But the sound of the gun must have grabbed their attention after all. Close to one hundred zombies came forth from the shadows between houses and businesses and spilled out onto the street, moving slowly towards us. My first horde.

  Thank God, I saved six bullets for this moment. I would be in a lot of trouble against one hundred or more zombies if I didn’t have these six bullets. Six bullets, one hundred zombies, basically equal. This is going great. I’m not panicking, it’s fine.

  I looked over at the two non-decaying type zombies in the parking lot. They were… smiling? It looked as if they were smiling. Not a huge, toothy grin, but the sides of their mouths were raised ever so slightly as their attention was on the emerging zombie army. To say that was unnerving would be an understatement. I tried to picture myself fighting through the mass of decayed, that was not a fight I would win.

  “We need to get into the dealership. Now,” I said through a clenched jaw. Sam nodded, eyes still locked on the overwhelming march of zombies.

  “Do you two want a turn?” I asked them and tried to clean my knife on my pants, but they were covered in so much blood that I think I made them dirtier. I was going to smell like a graveyard after this.

  They didn’t react to my question for several seconds. Then they simply scooted out of my way, giving us an opening directly to the dealership doors.

  “Let's go, Sam,” I wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth. If they were fine letting us pass, then I was fine letting them be. I could feel Sam pushing up against my back, urging me forward. I kept my eyes on them as we moved toward the dealership. I could feel the tingling sensation of my hair-raising on my skin as we walked by. They never moved, but my body was hyperaware of the threat these strange monsters posed.

  Once we were out of surprise attack range, I started jogging to the dealership doors, holding Sam's arm so she stayed close until we were there. We reached the gss doors, and I peered inside to see if there were any obvious signs of the decayed lurking. Weirdly enough, it seemed like the dealership cleared everyone out before anyone had died in there. Totally empty. I pushed on the doors to head inside, and the doors shifted slightly but were stuck in pce.

  “Damn, they locked them,” I started looking around for something to use to break the doors.

  “Um, no- it’s…” Sam gave me a pained smile and pulled on the doors. They opened without protest.

  “Right. Makes sense,” I said. Look, I was tired after everything from today. Give me a break. I looked back to see the horde was tripping over themselves as they crossed the metal fencing around the parking lot. “Well, I’m too embarrassed to live any longer, so I’m going to walk into the horde.”

  Sam barked a quick ugh and hugged my arm as I started to walk toward the small army of the zombies.

  “You’ve saved me so many times in the st hour alone, you’re allowed some judgement free mistakes,” Sam tried to pull me inside with her, but I slipped my arm out of her hold. “Grayson?”

  “Sorry, I almost forgot about the car. You start checking out the inside, let me take care of this one and I’ll meet you there. Start searching for things to barricade the door,” I started running to the car, monitoring the progress of the incoming horde.

  Sam was right behind me as I approached the zombie under the car.

  “I’m not letting you run off alone, I’m going wherever you go,” Sam said, and I heard Becca scoff.

  Ha! Jealous robot. She wishes she had legs.

  We made it to the car and were standing over the legs of the zombie that was making progress squeezing under the vehicle. The high-pitched whine was still happening sporadically, so whatever this thing was after was still there.

  “You wanna pull the legs or do the stabbing?” I asked Sam.

  “I can tug it, I’m good for that at least,” she said and got a grip on his boots.

  Don’t say anything; it’s not appropriate timing. Don’t ugh. Stop it.

  “I don’t mind tugging it for you if you would like,” I said and bit my lip to keep from ughing. Bad Grayson. Very immature.

  Becca: You sicken me.

  “No, it’s fine. I got this, I just needed to find my grip but I’m ready when you are,” she said and smiled up at me. She had a good, strong grip on the zombie’s shoes, bent knees, and was ready for my signal to pull. I don’t know the deal with her family, but it was clear from pretty much every interaction with her that she was a sweet woman. I needed to add her family to my ‘hunt down list’ whenever I got the urge for a little stabbing or an itchy trigger finger.

  She was a sweaty, bloody, filthy mess after all we had gone through. She was covered in God knows what; torn clothes and hair were frizzy and disheveled. Despite all of that, I couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was, even amid all this zombie nonsense. Stop it. Bad. Bad Grayson, again. Focus. Get to safety first. My mind was failing me by getting too easily distracted by the pretty girl. I was not a teenager; I had self-control. Barely, but it was there.

  “Ready,” I gave her a head nod, and she tugged the zombie from under the car.

  “Haroo?” The zombie voiced its surprise as it was suddenly face to face with us. I smiled down at it.

  “Hey buddy.” A quick jab and my knife ended his pitiful existence. I went around to the other side of the car and got down onto my stomach to see what the zombie was trying to snack on.

  Huh. This was not what I had expected.