The Great War (Surviving the Zombie Nightmare Book 5)

by White, Daniel

  Eric finally broke his silence, “It seems to be our only real option Destiny. Plus, it has been too long since I had zombie blood on my hands. In other words,” he glared at her with a passion that she simply could not easily find within herself at the moment and said, “Fuck yes we want to do this!”

  Destiny could think of about a dozen reasons that they might not want to go all out looking for a group of people that was trying to kill them. Just as she opened her mouth to begin arguing the points she thought of, she saw a truck that looked like it was loaded down with a complete band of O.A. soldiers. Based on the way Eric was shifting in his seat and looking in that same direction, he saw them too. She shook her head and knew that it didn’t matter now why they shouldn’t get involved in the mess right now. All of those reasons were gone.

  “It’s time to bust this shit up!” Eric said like he was getting ready to watch a professional football playoff game instead of getting ready to start a fight that might end his life. He finished in the same manner, “Its go time!”

  She veered their beaten up vehicle into the path of the truck causing it to swerve to one side. The two vehicles came to a stop, after the O.A. truck spun around, within a few yards of each other. Already she noted that the driver was speaking into a comm-link but the passenger-side soldier found himself looking directly at her. His eyes were as big as silver dollars and his mouth was gaped wide open. She wasn’t a lip reader but it sure looked like he said something about someone being alive. That mystery didn’t matter though. Six soldiers were already out of the truck and ready with weaponry directed at them and more were on the way.

  “I hope your telepathic powers are all charged up,” Eric said quietly, “You’re going to need them.”

  Destiny sighed, “Now you start to sound like you’re worried, seriously?”

  Eric glanced at her and smirked, “Let’s go.”

  With a quick thought back to the last pack of stims she took, Destiny was sure she was more than ready for not only this fight but a few more after this one. Even though she thought she was out and ready in a hurry with her sword in hand; Eric was already locked in with three of the group. He had pulled their weapons out of their hands quickly and then pulled the actual soldiers in very close. Before Destiny could reach the front of the car, those three were dead on the ground. Wow, she thought, Eric really was itching to get his hands on someone. That could only mean one thing. She would have to get busy doing some damage to make sure his kill count wasn’t more than hers.

  Three soldiers were already heading towards Eric so Destiny chose to take a running leap towards the group behind them. There were four in all. Those four should just about complete the human portion of the group but she knew there would be more on the way. As she landed in the middle of her four she called out to Eric, “Bayne we’ll have more to deal with soon so we should kill these quickly.” She smiled at the shocked soldier standing in front of her, “What’s the problem big boy? You look like you’ve seen a ghost. No matter,” she pulled her sword to her right hand and struck a defensive pose to protect against the first wave of attacks from the group, “You’ll be a ghost soon enough.”

  No immediate attack came though. Instead the soldier directly in front of her kept his hands at his sides and said, “You, you’re alive.” He looked towards where Bayne was disposing of his second group, “Both of you are alive. They said you were dead.”

  Destiny didn’t relax but she couldn’t believe what he had said. Organic Ascendancy’s high brass really had told the rest of the organization that she and Bayne died. She suspected they might, but to hear that it was true was somehow worse. It certainly made sense from Dr. Cain's point of view. A great deal of the group liked or even loved what she had done for O.A. What better way to jump right over the reaction that turning their back on Destiny would bring than to suggest that she died probably while fighting Bayne. Some might still think of her as a traitor depending on what they were told but that didn’t matter. She smiled a teasing smile and relaxed her stance into one that looked more like a dancer approaching a partner instead of someone getting ready to fight to the death. The poor boy actually smiled as she sauntered up to him.

  Once she was so close she could feel the warmth of his breath she said, “Maybe they were just mistaken.” She shrugged as she quickly flipped the grip on her sword at her side. “Then again, maybe they were talking about you.” In a swift move she lifted her sword and swung it in a wide sweep at neck level of all four soldiers. The blade cut through three of them like a knife through butter but the fourth had enough time to jump back.

  He didn’t stay back long as he then charged forward, likely hoping to catch Destiny off balance. Unfortunately for him, she was more than ready. After planting her feet she surged forward to meet him with a quick, straight kick. The boot caught him directly under the chin and he fell backwards into the side of the truck. Before she could charge forward and end his life, Eric jumped in front of her and sliced the O.A. soldier’s head off with a left-hand grip. He turned to her and smiled, “That’s seven to three I got you so far girly pearly. You’re either rusty or just don’t want to kill your own kind.”

  If looks could kill then the look Destiny gave Eric would have burned him to ash quicker than the light-power of the demons. “You’re going to pay for that bullshit!”

  Eric stepped calmly to one side of the O.A. truck, “Ah, don’t worry about it. This next bunch should give you plenty of chances to even the score. Plus you won’t have to feel bad about killing your O.A. buddies.”

  Destiny walked around the opposite side of the truck and saw exactly what he meant. In the distance there was a group of zombies and all manner of hellish creatures heading in their direction. Apparently they had called in everyone in this entire region to join the fight. This group was at least as big as the one they killed back at the stadium. There were two large enough to be demons behind the big group of undead. The number of zombies or zombie-demon crossbreeds she couldn’t begin to count. Eric was already clinching his fist tightly around his sword and reaching forward with his nub of a right hand. Though Destiny had some telepathic abilities that rivaled his, she knew better than to imagine she had enough to just carelessly use them like he did. All the same, she also knew she was about to have to use the balance of what she had if she wanted to be able to count kills at the end of this.

  **

  Eric was on fire almost literally. His movements were so fast during the short battle that he and Destiny had with the O.A. soldiers he was surprised that he hadn’t burst into flames. As the group of nastier enemies came closer, he began to build his telepathic ability. Eric saw Destiny glancing in his direction and knew that she did not have the bottomless well of telepathic powers that he had. Of course the truth was that it was far from bottomless. When he was as focused and rested as he currently was however, it was damn close to it. That was really good news for both of them because Eric knew Destiny and he were going to need at least one really big shot to make this battle winnable.

  The front group of zombies had so many that he didn’t care to count but he would guess somewhere around seventy-five to one-hundred undead were coming at him. They didn’t all appear to be of the half-breed variety where they were zombies but also had the light-absorbing powers of the demons. Even though they weren’t all that way, there wasn’t much cannon fodder in the group either. He had no idea what the specific plan of O.A. and their new demon friends was, but he knew they planned carefully to make certain that he and Destiny were not around to find out.

  “You ready for something big?” he said with a glance towards Destiny.

  “You bet I am,” Destiny said back, “Big bombs don’t count towards body-count though. Go for it.”

  Eric smirked as he felt the power built inside. Destiny was just about like him in that when there were baddies to kill, she didn’t need much motivation. It made him wonder why she spent so much time working for a bunch of assholes, but no matter.
He didn’t care much about a body-count because he knew before going in that his would always be higher than hers. “Whatever you say girlie,” he smiled at her reaction to his new name for her, “Here comes the boom.”

  Eric started with a slow and methodical walk directly towards the advancing mob. He felt like his hair was standing on end as he kept gathering power with each step. The closer he got, the more extreme his expression grew with his head dropped slightly. He looked directly at the group and walked steadily forward, even close enough that a couple of the zombies started charging in front of the group. Eric paid no attention to them directly and instead took two fast running steps before leaping high into the air.

  At the apex of his flip towards the middle of the crowd of the undead bastards, Eric figured he was probably ten feet above them. One or two looked up towards him as he flipped with his arms crossed in front of him. He closed his eyes as he dropped his feet towards the ground. His boots hit the pavement and at the same time he drove his arms out from his chest and let out a primal scream of pure rage. Eric could tell that the telepathic mini-bomb was a good one. One part of his powers that everyone did not know was that after something as incredibly powerful as what he had just done, he needed a little time to recuperate. Knowing he wouldn’t get enough time without help, he used some remaining power to form a protective telepathic barrier about three feet out from him as he knelt on the ground to regroup and recharge for a few important seconds. He didn’t even see how much damage he did, but he knew it was a lot. Still, this recharging while shielding was always difficult and was clearly when he was in the most danger. He only hoped Destiny had some plan to join the fight.

  **

  Destiny couldn’t believe how confidently Eric walked into the storm of zombies and demons. It was awe-inspiring even for someone like her. There were warriors and then there were gods of war and Destiny realized in that moment that Eric had the ability to be a god of war instead of just an instrument of it. She didn’t have long to admire his ability however. In a rush of unbelievable power he landed and a bubble of telepathic energy exploded out from him.

  The crowd of zombies was thrown backwards in a rush by the resulting shockwave. The first couple of rows were demolished by the zombies thrown out from his powerful blast but some of them were flying directly into her path as they were carried by the shockwave. That led to two problems for her. She would like to kill the ones that were being sent her way defenselessly but she also needed to avoid the remnants of that wave of power.

  When the group flew closer to her, clearly out of control, she used a little burst of energy to force open a path for herself. She successfully opened up a small hole as they began to peel out away from her. The shockwave was within a yard of her when she took one step and leaped into the air. After the wave passed she landed and was in the very center of a big mess. There were zombies all around her and all she could do was scramble. Most of them were not attacking her but rather were trying to find their footing and stop flying away from Eric. That didn’t make it any more pleasant when they slammed into her however.

  Destiny cut a path through two of them with her sword before another slammed into her from the side and took her off her feet. She was able to keep her bearings and sliced through the neck of one on either side of her. Just when she was about to slice through a couple more, her feet struck something and she tripped head over heels and landed hard on something hard and metal.

  For a long moment she was dazed. When she came back to her senses she noticed that the wave of zombies was no longer washing over her. The sounds around her confirmed that wasn’t because the wave was finished as the zombies were still flowing out from Eric’s position although clearly slower. What had happened, she noted looking around her, was that she had flipped backwards and landed face down in the bed of the big Organic Ascendancy truck. It was high enough off the ground that she was out of the path of the zombies. Finally she tried to get to her feet but noticed that she couldn’t move her left foot.

  She could feel it just fine and it took looking down to see the zombie that was holding tightly to her leg. Destiny twisted in the bed of the truck and kicked the undead punk in the face hard enough that he released her foot. The light around her started to dim as the thing’s head remained buried and she knew that it was a cross-breed trying to gather strength for the light-absorbing power. A quick flip and swipe of her sword ended that plan in the quickest way possible. With that zombie taken care of she was finally able to focus on what her surroundings were really like. Her eyes popped open wide when she saw what she was standing next to and she formed a wicked smile, “Thank you for always being over-prepared Peyton Terry.”

  **

  All things considered, Eric found himself extremely pleased by the situation. Every single zombie that had been around him was gone. They had been cast away by the shock-wave resulting from his enormous use of power. He had no idea what had become of Destiny but he figured she found some way to take advantage of the situation and kill a bunch of the survivors of his little telepathic outburst. At long last he let his protective shield fall and he was able to open his eyes to the direct and real situation around him.

  There had only been two baddies that were strong enough and far enough away to be able to avoid his telepathic mini-bomb and both of them were staring at him. In most cases, Eric still had the advantage in a two on one situation but this was quite different. The two were both fully powered demons. Though Eric didn’t know how highly ranked or how capable they were among their own kind, he certainly knew that they were powerful enough to cause him trouble and even death; death was unacceptable he decided.

  Just as he stood up and readied a strong telepathic push in the direction of one demon his feet flew out from under him. One of the two had beaten him to the punch. That by itself wasn’t all that bad. He had landed on his backside and easily rolled over to stand up ready for another attack. Eric even produced a push of his own to shield himself from another demonic attack. The real problem was that the area was quickly growing darker. That could only mean that the demons’ plan was to keep him busy blocking and fighting one demon while the other readied for the most devastating power that the demons possessed.

  Eric continued battling the telepathic-styled attacks that came his way while trying to figure out how to get the other demon to stop his light-absorbing. The first chance was when he pushed the first demon back off balance far enough that he had a few seconds free. He swung his sword quickly and guided it with his telepathy but before it reached the second demon a force blew him off of his feet once again. He rolled through once again and came up in the same stalemate that had occupied him before.

  He knew the demons’ tactics were working and worst of all he couldn’t think of anything he could do to stop them. Finally he thought of one final plan that would make use of his still weakened powers and a little bit of trickery. The area was getting darker and faster now and a glance at the second demon showed him that light was beginning to ooze out from cracks in his armor. Eric knew he had probably no more than a couple of minutes before the power would be unleashed.

  Quickly he charged back towards the first demon. Just as he suspected, the demon shoved him backwards. This time however, instead of trying to fight against the shove, Eric jumped into the momentum and allowed himself to be shoved farther backwards. Not far behind him he had seen the body of a zombie-demon crossbreed still moving. He remembered something he saw Destiny do where she sliced the head off of one of these things and blew away several other zombies with the light that surged out.

  Still moving very quickly, Eric drug the body of the crossbreed along with him. Augmenting his somewhat drained ability and power with a touch of telepathic strength and speed made it faster but he wasn’t sure if it would be fast enough. Finally when he was within close enough range of the demons, he dropped the crossbreed zombie-demon and pulled his sword to his left hand. Copying what Destiny did, he sliced the thing’s head o
ff. Just like when she did it, light surged out but not nearly as much. What light did come out was sucked directly into the demon who was clearly too powerfully built up by the light absorbing power to be attacked by light.

  It was completely dark when the demon looked towards Eric with eyes full of light. His lips parted and light began to surge outward extremely quickly. All Eric knew to do was to build the best and strongest telepathic barrier that he could manage to build and hope for the best. He refused to close his eyes as he chose to meet what could be his ultimate end like the rebellious bastard that he was. He knew what was coming but did not know exactly how it was going to happen and refused to be afraid of death; whatever the method of delivery might be.

  An enormous explosion blew Eric harder backwards than he could ever remember being pushed by anyone or anything. Finally he dragged to a stop and was absolutely stunned to still be alive. The blinding light had taken away his ability to know exactly what had happened but for that moment he saw no demon near him. He saw only light and dust which was a very odd mixture. When the dust settled and the light subsided enough, he saw one figure standing about ten feet to his left.

  Standing tall and strong with the biggest hand-held weapon Eric had ever laid eyes on was Destiny. She turned towards him and smirked but otherwise said nothing. As she began to walk towards him he looked at the massive cannon she held. It would have been impossible for her to hold with one hand and Eric was shocked she was holding it with two. The grips were massive enough for two hands to hold each of them with the trigger on the rearmost grip. The end of the thing was about the size of a small cannon ball and it ballooned out to that size from a barrel about the size of a grapefruit. There were lights and wires on the side of the thing and it was smoking. Eric noted that both demons were gone, not down or out but completely gone; apparently turned to dust by the explosion of their own light-power. It was good to know that the radius of the explosion wasn’t as large when they just popped. That kind of information would come in handy.