by J. X. Evans
All of them, huddled together like that, looked like an ordinary raucous crowd; you see arms and legs moving, heads bobbing to the walking motion, you see a formless mass, loosely resembling an amoeba, moving haphazardly here and there with small groups of people leaving the larger crowd at random, like protruding pseudopodia. When you look at a crowd, your attention is getting pulled by the mass, rarely any observer would notice individual details such as someone wearing his shirt inside out, or a person wearing only one shoe or shocks that did not match one another, especially if they were tired or if they were not paying attention. But if someone would choose to take a good look at even only one person out of this noisy group they would immediately realize that something seemed to be quite out of the ordinary. It happens all the time actually, people focus on the big scale of things when they need to zoom in to find what was wrong with the whole thing, some things are in the details; though, sometimes the opposite happens and people focus too much at a narrow detail and they end up losing the eye gouging giant right in front of them, not seeing the forest for the trees. It happens to people…she did not consider herself ‘people’… it should not have happened to her.
After that, it was rather easy to see it actually, since each and every single one of them was not normal. And not in a subtle way either, and that fact made her even angrier with herself. First of all, they seemed too diverse a group to belong in the same company of people, both male and female and of a wide range of ages, from lanky older teenagers to a couple of really-really old people. Some of the clothes they wore were totally inappropriate for the current place, time and weather conditions, the ones who wore clothes that is; some wore t-shirts and shorts as if it was summer instead of winter, others sported their pajamas, as if they were getting ready to lie in bed, and others were dressed in practically torn rags and tattered shoes as if they were literally just picked up after unpleasant and extended vacation at the side of the road, or under a bridge. Most of them were moving in rigid, spastic movements, their shoulders too stiff and their arms not moving back and forth, others were hunched awkwardly, heads bowed close to their chests and yet others with unnaturally crooked feet, one pointing to the left and the other pointing to the right, their knees bending in awkward, deformed positions. And their faces, their faces were wrong most of all, more wrong than the entirety of the rest of their bodies put together in a tight steel box and repeatedly tossed against a hard wall. Their faces had a sickly pale color, like baby powder mixed with soot and ashes from a dirty furnace, or blue and black as if they had recently been furiously beaten or strangled, eyes sunken and shadowed and cold, and constantly moving, trembling spastically left and right and up and down in their deep sockets, with circles under them, darker than black, as if they had not been able to get some sleep in months; mouths half open, their lips thin and more grey and white than any shade of pink or red, and full of cracks, deep and black as if they were carefully carved by a searing hot knife, and then never managed to heal properly. Some had faint scratches and dents on their skin, or black sunken spots, like skin ulcers or rot on their cheeks and temples and ears as if they had some serious skin disease which they had collectively ignored despite its obvious progression. In Zora’s brief and on the spot professional estimation, whatever they were, they were definitely not human. She could not know what they were at first glance, the list of humanoid undead was long and the differences sometimes small and not evident solely from external characteristics. She had some ideas, but at that moment, it really didn’t matter that much.
She felt excited, elated, intoxicated by the sudden unexpected change of pace in her dull life of routine. She thought the day could not have gotten any worse and that was a fact, barring death of course, any form of death, things had not managed to get that dreary… yet. But she had not expected that things would be taking such a steep turn towards a hell of a lot better! Her whole body started trembling, just a little, her muscles contracting and relaxing slightly on their own, every fiber going through a personal warm up session. She was pumped, an immediate effect of the sudden wave of adrenaline exploding from her suprarenal glands like a bomb, coursing through her whole body in mere moments like an uncontainable torrent and flaring her elation. Her mouth widened in a disturbingly large grin, easily spreading and sticking to her beautiful large eyes, colored green from her contact lenses, widened to a pair of black pitiless wells so that she could better capture every little movement of the monsters opposing her and every little change in her surroundings, space awareness is key in any battle. It could not be helped any more than her trembling body could, it was a natural response, a need that her body needed to satisfy, a vital function like her lungs wanting to breath or her heart wanting to beat. Endorphins were promptly and effectively taking over her brain’s chemoreceptors in a ridiculously advantageous battle against the rest of the unsuspecting neurotransmitters, dominating them and ultimately giving her the high she had sorely missed all this long time away from her beloved mistress, Action. She was so happy she could cry right then and there, but she didn’t, her sympathetic nervous system had given such a blow to her lacrimal glands to send them sprawling into a coma for a week’s time at least.
They came closer and closer, not too fast and not too slow, they came at just the right pace so that she could better enjoy the moment before the battle began. They came closer, dragging and tossing chairs on the floor, and easily tumbling the round, relatively heavy, tables aside rather than stepping around them. Zora grabbed hold of the two long daggers resting in their sheaths, crossed at the small of her back and drew them out in a fluid, natural motion, her gentle trembling seizing altogether, once her grip was tight on the familiar handles. The group of humanoid monsters exploded in sudden movement and energy. If Zora had not known then could not have imagined that these battered bodies could handle such an outburst of energy, but she knew better than to judge a monster by appearance, and she was always ready for the worst. Figures were darting left and right and straight towards her. Zora charged to meet them head on; she was ready to get bloodied and sweaty and winded and alive and… a thin flaming cable swung at the monsters in front of her in a semicircle, cutting through them as if they were made of butter instead of tissue, arms and heads flying in the air and the cleaved monsters fell to the ground with a series of thumps, their skin and clothes lighting up on fire, the smell nauseatingly awful, like rotten pig on the spit. The fire vanished from the cable and Zora saw that it was not a cable, it was a long thin metal whip and when she followed it up from its sharp, pointy tip to its handle, she saw that it was being held in Pericles’s right hand. Not a widely appreciated weapon, but deadly in the right hands and it certainly has its advantages. It was made of small thin metal links, linked together and somehow Pericles could set it on fire, on will, using his gemstones? But she did not notice any gemstones on the whip. And she now saw that he was wearing two golden chains, one on each hand, both with a full range of gems strung upon them, ruby, sapphire, diamond, citrine and emerald. This was rare, usually Knights could only use their left hands for wielding magical energies, but an ambidextrous magical wielder was not unheard of. She would talk to him later about the whip, for now she did not much appreciate him ruining her fun!
“Let’s get out of here! Where is your car?” Pericles half shouted and half screamed in her ear. There were more monsters coming, descending from the second floor stairs, and ascending from the basement stairs and more coming through the front door in bulk.
“In the alley.” Zora granted as she stabbed a monster right in the center of its forehead, the monsters cranium cracking inwards as the strong, sharp metal penetrated it and dark blood doused the left side of her face. “Behind the shop.” Zora pulled the dagger out and darted to her left in the midst of a crowd of them, stabbing at windpipes and eyes, slicing at throats and bellies, guts falling out on the floor. She was moving constantly, evading grabbing hands and punches, kicking at them with such speed and power that th
eir bones gave way to her legs as easily as if they were made out of plywood. The monsters around her were out of commission before Pericles even had a chance to respond. The brief exchange of blows had left her covered in blood…somewhat, but not even a little bit sweaty and her breath still came at very regular and mild intervals. ‘At least my physical condition seems to still be good enough. Good thing I never stopped training at full effort.’
“Quick, through the back door!” Pericles shouted, swinging his metal whip in front of him again and again, tossing monsters on the floor and slicing them open. Sometimes lighting it up on fire to help him slice through them more easily and sometimes he didn’t.
Zora jumped over the bar with a gracious cartwheel. She pulled the door open using her left hand and a torrent of monsters cascaded through the half opened door, several of them falling on the ground in front of her as more of them pushed them from behind. She jumped backwards to avoid getting buried in the pile. One of the monsters on the floor grabbed her left boot and another one, formerly an old lady with white hair, in a pink sweater, grabbed her by the front of her jacket, its mouth of yellow rotting teeth snapping close near her face, its long and purple tongue flinging disgusting spittle to her face. They were stronger and faster than they seemed, the monster tried to pull her down by her jacket. Not fast enough though, both her daggers were through its eye sockets almost instantly, and it was dead even before her small nose could catch a whiff of the acrid foul smelling breath coming from the now dead monster’s gaping jaw. The daggers sunk deep in each eye socket, almost to the hilt, her fingers getting dirtier with blood and eye juices, the point of each blade crowning from behind the creature’s head like tiny spikes. There it was… the smell caught up to her, even she was not fast enough to escape that delightful sensation, something between three-days-old cow dung under the scorching sun and an abandoned warehouse of spoiled meat; it was not all bad though, it added something special to the whole experience, it would not have been whole without it. She kicked the dead monster free from her blades using her right leg, putting such force and weight behind the kick to send it sprawling on the ones behind it. Then she brought her leg forcefully back towards the ground and her heel found the back of a monster’s skull, the one’s that was holding her left foot, hugging it, trying to bite it through the hard exterior of her work boot with its foul teeth. Her right heel met the monster’s skull with terrible, crushing force, the bones and cranial sutures giving way while its soft wiggly brain was getting pulverized to mush. Another monster aimed a swipe at her, she ducked and stabbed it right through its throat, sliding the blade deep in the wood of the door behind it, pinning it there. With her free hand she grabbed the couple of grenades from the inside of her jacket, gently tossed them in the crowded room in a smooth motion, the one farther than the other. She pulled the dagger from the door and the dead monstrosity toppled on the floor. She pushed hard against the floor and did a backflip, jumping back over the bar, the monster’s blood and brain juices dripping from her soiled boots and spraying everywhere in an arc. She landed gracefully in a battle stance just beside Pericles, who was still waving his whip around, trying to keep the crowd of monsters at bay, herding them at a corner and blasting them all up with lances of greenish force from his emerald gemstones. That particular corner of the floor had been covered into a lake of red and black juices, piled with a splattered hip of pulverized bodies. She grabbed him by the shoulder, dragged him to the ground, just as the café’s kitchen room exploded, blood and splinters and limbs and pieces of dusty wall raining down over them.
Zora stood back up, kicking a monster right under its chin, the kick shuttering its teeth and its jaw, sending it flying upward, “We are not getting out that way, there are too many of them!” she half-shouted in his ear, her jubilant grin evident in the pitch of her voice, as if she was surrounded by a group of playful Labrador puppies instead of dangerous, aggressive, foul smelling monsters.
“To the top floor then!” Pericles said. Zora turned to look and found the stairs equally inaccessible. Perry turned, sending a green sphere of force from the both his emeralds one on each wrist, scattering the wave of monsters coming down the ladder leading to the top floor. Some of the monsters at the front exploded into confetti from taking most of the initial energy of the massive blow. ‘This can’t be too pleasant on the wrists’ Zora thought. The force of the blast sent him sliding backwards for quite a few meters, almost slamming into the group of monsters coming up from the basement. His eyes clenched tight, his fingers and facial muscles flexing painfully hard in response to the great amount of pressure that the backlash of the blow must have inflicted on his body. He could not move fast enough, palms were reaching out to grab him from behind and his pain was hindering his reflexes and his movements.
Zora darted forward, kicking monsters out of the way, slicing at bony hands, which ended in long, yellow, broken fingernails wrapped tight all around Pericles’ torso and shoulders, neck and hair, pulling him into their midst. She caught him from one hand and pulled with all her strength. She tore him free from the loving embrace of two monsters who would have been fat middle aged guys in their previous lives, tossing him towards the empty space he had created moments earlier at the stairs, before more monsters could reach them and fill it again. She planted her feet hard on the floor and squatted. She jumped high in the air, as high as she could by springing her legs in a quick flexion, before the noisily blabbing monsters could land a strike at her. She concentrated on the small emerald dangling from the golden chain around her left wrist, the emerald started trembling and it shone brightly, the green tinge on their face’s somehow managing to make them look even more disturbingly ugly. She aimed her left palm towards the wooden floor of the café and let the energy that she had gathered release. A transparent greenish lance of force exploded from her open palm striking the wooden floor. It connected with a loud crack, the supporting beams stressed to the limit and gave way, splinters flew and planks cracked and monsters got blown away, leaving pools of blood behind them. A big, gaping hole appeared around the space were the force had landed, swallowing every monster standing on it, both those alive, and those that exploded along with the floor that they were standing on. The hole started expanding outwards as the weight of the large crowd of monsters could no longer be supported by the unstable floor and more of them followed their allies in the basement to have a nice party with the frozen minotaur. Zora felt the familiar crushing pain emitting inward from the chain, like heavy steel beams driving into her wrist from every direction and especially the parts closest to the glowing emerald, and from there expanding up and down her arm. She was flung even higher into the air from the force of the blow, almost slamming on the ceiling during the high point of her arc. She had to do something or she would fall awkwardly and possibly injure herself or maybe get pinned down by monsters when she was on the floor. She forced herself to ignore the pain and tucked her knees straight into her chest, as if she wanted to ram herself with them. She flipped around twice as she fell back down, landing almost gracefully at the base of the stairs in front of Pericles who was just now coming out of the shock of pain that accompanied the backlash of the massive force he tossed at the massive group of monsters earlier.
Zora steadied herself with a hand on the wall and turned around, her grin larger than ever, never even minding the throbbing pain on her left wrist and arm. She was now sweaty, getting sweatier and her chest was heaving from the effort. ‘Was I getting that winded so easily ten months ago?’ She glanced up the stairs, more of the same monsters were coming down them at a run, a fat woman with long black tangled hair leading the charge. Zora started making her way up, shoving a dagger upwards through the lower jaw and through the upper jaw of the woman, so that her dagger was now tickling her no longer useful brain. She tore the dagger back out, shoving her down the stairs and continued her ascend one step at a time, stabbing and elbowing at throats and stomachs and temples, kicking and breaking legs and kne
es with painful speed and accuracy, leaving piles of the things behind her. A punch grazed her left brow and she leaned right, kicked the bastard on the side. Sent it flying off the stairs, its ribcage cracking audibly. Using the momentum from the kick, she smashed another monster, a short slim man with patchy facial hair against the wall, using her shoulder, then she span a dagger in her hand and stabbed it in the monster’s kidney, one, two, three times before she let it drop down the stairs. She was near the top, but she still had a number of steps left that she needed to clear. Another monster jumped on her from the top of the stairway, screaming all the while. She ducked as low as she could get and plunged her blood soaked daggers into its stomach, and tossed it forcefully backwards with an easy fling of her arms. It landed heavily near Pericles who was slowly moving up the stairs while facing towards the entrance of the shop, continuously waving his whip in front of him, any monster stepping into its way immediately regretting it. The monster was not dead, it grabbed his leg and moved his mouth to bite him. Pericles had seen the monster, he placed his left palm directly above the monster’s face and let out a burst of green force. Its face caved in and it stopped moving. ‘An efficient strike, a bit weaker than that and the monster might not have died, it might have taken a chunk out of his calf, stronger than that and it would have been energy wasted.’, Zora could appreciate efficiency, she loved it almost as much as she loved action.
For a brief moment the monsters seemed like they had stopped moving and spitting their gibberish screams, only for the briefest of moments though, and Zora took the chance to effortlessly dispose four of the foul creatures that where standing in front of her. It is no fun if they are not moving, if she wanted stationary targets she would fight against wooden mannequins in the training room, but you don’t show mercy on the enemy, when a chance presents itself, you grab it. There was a painful cry that came from behind her, she instinctively ducked and turned and Pericles flew above her head, and almost landed on top of her. There was a slim black man at the base of the stairs. He was bald with dark serious eyes, he was wearing a sparkling polished metal armor with intricate gold designs on the breastplate which seemed both light and durable, and he was holding a gigantic claymore in one hand. He was not one of the monsters, but he was not a normal person either, definitely not. Her grin grew even wider.