Ken and Hector threw the assorted items they held in their arms on the ground while Fatima and Sarah threw down their buckets. They ran to the other side of the cars, hearing sprinter after sprinter hit the ground as they tripped over everything.
“What the hell?” Ken asked Cecilia as they reached the other side. “You some sort of genius zombie now?”
Cecilia took a handkerchief from her blazer and wiped her face. Greenish-gray makeup smeared onto it, revealing her normal brown skin underneath. “Not exactly.”
“It is a relief to see you,” Fatima gasped. Ehsan agreed. He felt like a child lost in a grocery store who’d finally been found by their parent.
“So what’s the plan?” Deon asked Cecilia before Ehsan or anyone else could express their joy.
“I imagine Fatima already had one. I shall go wherever I am needed.”
Fatima blinked in surprise. “Very well. Our plan was to have Hector fight the lieutenant while Deon and Sarah run around to distract the majority of the herd. Ehsan, Ken, and I were to pick off the officers and stragglers, then fight the leader.”
“Excellent.” She signaled for Deon and Sarah to fulfill their part, as the herd had finished tripping over itself and almost reached the car. The two of them obliged, running toward the horde while clapping and yelling. “Now that I have joined, shall Ken and I take care of the officers? You and Ehsan can distract the rest of the stragglers until we rejoin you.”
Fatima nodded. The five of them waited a few seconds for Deon and Sarah to draw the attention of the herd before moving. Before they could go out, however, Ehsan heard a slam on the hood of the brown minivan. He turned around to see the Viking zombie leering at them from the minivan’s hood.
“I think I got this,” Hector offered. “Go take care of the rest.”
Ken hesitated. “Are you sure you don’t-”
“I got this.”
Hector stared down the Viking zombie as Ehsan, Fatima, Cecilia, and Ken went to go fulfill their roles. While Hector doubted the ability of the group to defeat the entire herd, he felt less certainty of defeat against the Viking zombie. He preferred a one on one match, even against an opponent as terrifying as this, rather than a crowd of sprinters. He got into his boxing stance.
The Viking zombie jumped off the minivan and came at Hector. It swung its right hand wildly at him. He dipped his head to the left while punching the zombie straight in the gut. It didn’t react, but Hector knew with enough punches to the gut any foe would fold. It swung at him with its left, which seemed far slower than it’d been earlier that day. Hector leaned back to avoid it before throwing a hard left hook to its side. It lunged at him. Expecting this move after their last fight, Hector side-stepped to the right while uppercutting its stomach. He circled away as it tried once more to grab him.
Hector no longer felt ambivalent about this fight. He knew he would win.
Ken and Cecilia ran around the car with Ehsan and Fatima. The two surviving officers waited only a few feet away. The trenchcoat zombie had retreated behind the twenty or so intelligent zombies, who still watched Ken and the others, while the rest of the herd either ran or stumbled toward Deon and Sarah.
“We will stall the intelligent ones while you take out the two officers,” Fatima instructed. “Once you finish them, we will work together to get to their leader.”
Ken went in without hesitation. He ran up to the closer of the two officers, its hands already raised to defend itself from punches, stopping just before he came within arm’s length of it. The zombie reached for Ken, but Ken pivoted to his left while punching it in the arm. By itself, without its other officers to use tactical formations to assist each other, it only posed the same threat as other intelligent zombies: still dangerous, but not impossible. Ken decided he would wear down its arms so that, in the event it did grab him, it wouldn’t have the strength to do anything. Ken threw a hard left hook to the zombie’s right tricep, followed by a hard right to its left. He stayed mobile as he did so, aware that footwork was his biggest advantage. This would be a long battle.
Or so he thought. To Ken’s surprise, the tip of a knife suddenly rip through its throat. It dropped to the ground to reveal Cecilia standing behind it, blade in hand.
“Excellent job distracting it. Now we must help Ehsan and Fatima.”
Ken’s pride felt a sting of disappointment. He looked over at the other officer zombie. It laid face-down with two stab wounds on the back of its head.
Ehsan and Fatima circled around the twenty two intelligent zombies staring them down, occasionally rushing in to take a potshot at the nearest one. Ehsan had never used an ax before, neither as a weapon nor tool. His swings lacked any sort of precision or stability. He settled on distracting enemies while Fatima used her machete for actual attacks.
The two of them made little progress. While Fatima landed a slash here and there, she had no time to throw any finishing blows before others stepped in to try to grab her. She decided to attack strategic targets like hands, shoulders, and knees while they waited for Cecilia and Ken. The trenchcoat zombie, who stood at the center of the pack, watched carefully each time they engaged with its soldiers.
Ehsan sprang forward, faking an ax swing at the nearest zombie while Fatima snuck up on its side to attack its shoulder. The zombie, a former woman in her twenties with a labcoat and punk rock hair, didn’t react to Ehsan’s fake attack. It turned around as Fatima snuck up to try to grab her. Fatima jumped back.
“You are becoming predictable,” the trenchcoat zombie informed Ehsan. “You can only fake an attack so many times before your threats carry no weight.”
Something about his mortal enemy criticizing his fighting strategy pissed Ehsan off. “How about this?” Ehsan retorted as he swung with the ax at the zombie’s leg. It sank into its leg just above the knee.
The zombie’s allies closed in on Ehsan and Fatima before either could land a follow-up blow.
Suddenly, Ken ran from behind Ehsan and started attacking the zombies in front of them. His footwork looked better than ever as he glided around the pack, occasionally weaving between them. The zombies kept their arms up as Ken moved about, though they had neither the reflexes nor strategic minds to keep up with him. Cecilia walked up next to Fatima as Ken fought.
“Ehsan, you draw them out. Fatima and I shall pick them off.”
Ehsan nodded. His palms tingled with the anticipation of reaching their leader. He didn’t love the idea of facing it, but he relished the idea of ending everything once and for all. He swung his ax at the raised arms of a nearby zombie, a tall one in workout clothes who looked like it’d been a teenager with a promising basketball career, then at the last second redirected the attack to its calf. Fatima stepped in to finish it off. The one next to it, dressed like an office worker but with a Black Sabbath tattoo poking out from under its left sleeve, tried to stop her, but Cecilia grabbed it by the wrist, thrust the top of her foot into its ankle to trip it, pinned it with her knee as soon as it fell to the ground, and stabbed it in the neck. Two next to it tried to grab her, but Ehsan swatted them away with Nimbus.
The three of them reset, two of the zombies now destroyed. Ken, meanwhile, continued his own rampage through the intelligent zombies. He had also taken out two. Only eighteen remained between them and the trenchcoat zombie.
Sarah and Deon led the horde almost a block away from the initial ambush site. They had well over sixty zombies following them, perhaps even seventy, among them Manuel and Josue, still bound with their iron chains. Only thirteen could sprint, however; the rest stumbled forward, Sarah or Deon occasionally running back to keep their attention while the other kept distracting the sprinters. They focused on distraction over destruction, though they still took out the occasional zombie when circumstance allowed. Sarah’s legs ached from the events of the last few days, but she drew extra energy from knowing this was it. The conflict had switched from a marathon to a sprint.
Hector ducked under another hard pun
ch. The zombie’s hits had slowed noticeably, though Hector’s reflexes slowed at almost the same rate. Hector’s body shots had paid great dividends, though the act of constant evasion and counterattacks had taken a toll as well. The zombie threw another right hand, which Hector leaned back to dodge. This time, however, it stopped its attack halfway through to pounce on him.
Hector had no time to react. Getting caught leaning back meant he was off balance, and therefore unable to move out of the way. The zombie landed on top of him and took him to the ground. Hector’s back cracked as he collided with the street. His head bounced off the asphalt. He felt groggy and couldn’t see straight. Suddenly he felt a devastatingly hard hit to the side of his head. He went from disoriented to groggy and dizzy, losing track of which direction was up and which was down, blood pooling in his mouth. He spat out the blood and covered his face with his hands. More punches rained down upon him. Though his arms helped lessen their strength, he had no idea how to get it off of him. Each additional punch only further clouded his mind and vision.
Sarah ran back toward the slower zombies to keep them distracted, alternating between claps and shouts like usual. She picked up a rock and threw it toward them. She turned around to see that three sprinters had escaped Deon’s purview and charged for her. She gritted her teeth and looked around, trapped on both sides of the street by zombies. She ran toward the nearest front yard with the hope of evading each group closing in on her and reuniting with Deon, but the sprinters closed in quickly.
She looked to Deon. He’d somehow ended up on the ground, though he got back to his feet just as Sarah saw him. The remaining eight on his tail came within just a few feet of him. Sarah’s blood went cold upon seeing it, though Deon ran at normal speed and seemed okay after his spill. She returned her attention to those in front of her. Her eyes darted about desperately as she tried to figure out how to escape without any opening.
Ehsan swung Nimbus at the neck of a zombie as Fatima distracted it with her machete. He struck the shoulder instead of the neck, but Fatima stepped in to finish it off. Another zombie stepped in to grab Fatima, but Cecilia threw it over her shoulder and slashed its throat as it hit the ground. They looked over to Ken, who threw a powerful hook to a zombie’s jaw after repeatedly punching it in the stomach. Ken threw three more powerful punches and it fell to the ground.
The four of them regrouped. Ehsan scanned the scant remains of the intelligent zombie group in front of them. Only seven left, as well as the trenchcoat zombie. The seven zombies formed a heptagon around their leader, though he commanded the two standing in front of him to move aside.
“You have all done well.” He looked at Ken. “Your performance in particular pleases me. Everyone else at your clinic was so weak.”
Ken’s eyes narrowed angrily. “Fuck you.”
“Your response is irrational. You should take pride in being stronger than them. Of the three bases I brought down, the clinic was by far the easiest.”
“Ken,” Cecilia began, not taking her eyes off the trenchcoat zombie, “do not let-”
Before Cecilia could finish her sentence, Ken charged. The trenchcoat zombie stepped forward to meet his challenge. It beckoned its followers to step back. As Ken got within range, the leader raised its sabre. Ken raised his right hand to strike the zombie. He didn’t stop; all technique and strategy had gone out the window. The leader cocked back its weapon, ready to meet Ken’s strike. Or so it appeared. As Ken threw his punch, the leader side-stepped at the last second and let Ken stumble right past it, off balance from the power of his missed punch. The leader quickly pivoted around and thrust its sword into Ken’s right shoulder. His right arm went limp and his shoulders tensed as he howled in pain. The zombie pulled its sword out as Ken lurched forward, grabbing the wound in an attempt to cover the blood trickling out. It stabbed his shoulder once more.
The sprinters to Sarah’s left and normal zombies to Sarah’s right closed in. She had to do something before they formed an impenetrable wall. With around fifty normal zombies to her right, she decided she had no choice but to try her luck with the sprinters. She ran as far left as she could, attempting to escape their formation before they could cut her off entirely.
She ran as fast as her tired legs allowed, the life or death stakes giving them extra zeal. She eyed the zombie furthest left, a man who had a gentle, friendly smile frozen on his face that sent shivers down her spine, though it had probably comforted many during his lifetime. She pulled out her machete, just in case she had to fight it. She came within a few feet of it. She prepared herself to dart out of the way.
Before she could do so, a sprinter behind her got close enough to grab her shoulder. It didn’t get a good grip, but it surprised her so greatly that she turned around. She collided with the sprinter in front of her. The collision knocked the wind out of her. Before she could come to her senses, she felt a piercing pain in her right wrist. She stared in horror at the back of the zombie’s head over her arm.
The Viking zombie continued to punch at Hector as it kept its weight on top of him. Covering up helped lessen the damage, but Hector still felt dizzy to the point of barely knowing where he was, and he had no idea how to get the zombie off of him. He tried pushing it off, but that only freed up his head as a target. The zombie got in another couple punches while Hector’s pushes did nothing. His lip split with one of the zombie’s hits. He returned to covering his face.
He thought back to the few times had watched UFC fights on TV. Coach Alfredo had always talked about MMA looking like ‘two dudes hugging instead of fighting’ whenever the topic came up, and dismissed their boxing ability as horrendous. He told Hector any time spent watching MMA would’ve been time better spent watching boxing. Because of that, Hector avoided it. Still, he saw the occasional fight on TV. He tried to think of what they did whenever they got pinned underneath another fighter.
He vaguely remembered a commentator saying something about moving your hips. He placed his right hand on the zombie’s hip while he wiggled his own hips around. He felt himself scooting out slightly, though not nearly enough. The zombie continued to attack Hector’s head, though Hector’s left arm negated some of the damage.
All of a sudden, he heard Deon’s voice in the distance. “SARAH’S BEEN BIT!”
Hector looked through bloodied, blurry eyes to see fuzzy blobs that resembled Ehsan, Fatima, Cecilia, and Ken react to the news. Fatima held Ken, who clutched his shoulder. Cecilia ran in Deon’s direction, looking for something in her blazer.
A hard punch snuck past Hector’s defending arm and hit him full force. Hector spat out more blood. His friends needed him. He placed both of his hands on its hips and thrust his hips as far back as possible.
He had escaped. He lay on his side as the zombie tried to punch him more, but he kicked its head. He used the opportunity to stand up, gasping and disoriented. He landed a hard uppercut to its mouth. His punch forced its dried up tongue against what remained of its top row of teeth, chopping the tongue off. He threw a left hook with every ounce of strength he could muster to its left temple. It fell to the ground. He punched it six times in the throat as hard as he could. It stopped moving.
Hector took a knee, gasping for air, his head spinning. He lost his balance and fell over. He tried to catch himself with his left arm, but it felt numb and feeble from all the punishment it’d taken. He hit the ground with his left hand crumpled underneath his body.
He gazed over to Ehsan, Fatima, and Ken. Ehsan swatted in vain at the intelligent zombies approaching them as Fatima ripped off part of Ken’s shirt to use as a tourniquet for whatever wound he had. Had he been bitten too? Hector took a deep breath. He tried to get to his feet, but he lost his balance and fell once more.
Ehsan swung hard at the arm of a zombie reaching for his weapon. He chopped off its hand. He stepped back as others closed in on him. He wished he had Dragon Hair, or any sort of shovel. He’d started getting used to the ax, but like an immigrant getting used to a
new language, he still longed for something more familiar.
“Okay, your wound is covered,” Ehsan heard Fatima inform Ken behind him.
“Thanks,” Ken replied curtly. “I’m no use in a fight right now, but I’ll join Deon in distracting the herd.”
“You are in no shape to do anything but rest,” Fatima objected as Ehsan swatted away more zombies.
“I did this to myself. Even if Cecilia gets the medicine to Sarah in time, Sarah’s still out. Deon needs my help.”
“Fine. But if you start to feel light-headed, get out of there.”
Ken ran to join Deon as Fatima rejoined Ehsan’s side. Ehsan breathed heavily. It was getting hard to raise his arms, though now only five zombies stood in front of them. Their leader waited about ten feet behind them.
“You look tired,” the leader observed. “Once you turn, fatigue will no longer be an issue.”
“Shut up,” Ehsan spat back. He raised Nimbus and chopped at the zombie with the severed hand. It raised its arms to block. Ehsan hated to admit it, but he’d taken the trenchcoat zombie’s words about fake attacks to heart. This time he threw a fake attack, but because of the last attack being real, the zombie tried to block this one. Fatima came in from the side to chop off the arm that didn’t have a severed hand. She jumped back as the zombie next to it reached for her.
Ehsan took a deep breath. Without Cecilia to help cover them, they had no hope of moving through the remaining zombies before their energy burned out. Ehsan could feel the weight of each ax swing now.
Suddenly, he heard shuffling feet behind him. It sounded like a zombie. His heart raced as he glanced over his shoulder. Hector, dragging himself over to join Ehsan and Fatima, grinned as blood dripped from his mouth.
“Thought you could use a hand.”
Ehsan grinned in return. “You look like you could use one, too.”
The Human Spring Page 34