Both O’Reilly and Laudner took that as their cue. O’Reilly made eye contact with his enhanced partner and nodded toward Tin and Marquardt. Laudner knew that he was to help Tin. He turned back to Teeny. “You grab your bat and stay—uughh!”
Robard, who had stayed silent the whole time, slammed into to him at midsentence.
Teeny squeaked as they flew back several yards and slid across the floor toward the door they had come in a few minutes earlier. She ran, grabbed the bat, and then ducked and crouched behind a large cabinet in the corner of the room.
Tin had his ax reared back for a swing at Marquardt when the soldier took one step toward him and jumped up high enough that Tin’s six-foot-six frame plus the extended ax had no chance of reaching him. Watching the enhanced man flip and twist over his head, Tin stopped and turned as Laudner ran at Marquardt from behind. While still looking at Tin, Marquardt turned and side kicked Laudner in the chest and in the same motion spun to aim a roundhouse kick at his head. Laudner barely managed to get his forearm up to deflect the deadly kick. He crouched and spun to sweep the planted foot from underneath the prone soldier. Marquardt rolled several times in the air to land on both feet in his fighting stance. Laudner crouched into his own fighting stance.
Tin watched this exchange incredulously. He had seen the enhanced soldiers do things similar to this in exercises, but nothing that compared to what he was seeing. He ran at Marquardt’s back looking to swing his ax a little more effectively this time.
_______
O’Reilly looked up at Robard sitting on his abdomen and rearing back to punch. He moved his head to the right, avoiding the punch, but another followed immediately. Wiggling his body and waving his head back and forth, he was able to continue his avoidance, much to Robard’s annoyance. Growling, the enhanced soldier stopped and grabbed O’Reilly’s throat with his left hand and reared back again. O’Reilly realized that he had been so busy avoiding the punches, he had forgotten that his arms were free! He grabbed the sides of the shadow armor chest plate and lifted as he kicked with his right leg. Robard flew over his head and hit the wall upside down with a loud thud and slid down to land on his head and neck on the floor. There was a loud crack when he hit the floor, but he immediately spun and jumped to his feet to face O’Reilly, who had rolled into a crouching position. After pushing his head back up into a straight position with a crackle, Robard ran straight at O’Reilly.
_______
Teeny watched as the fights raged on, flinching every time her team took a hard blow, and saying yes every time they were able to do some damage. She hadn’t noticed Leonard sneak across the room, and when he stepped out in front of her to block the view of the fight, she screamed in surprise. “Shit!”
He laughed in his throat as he looked at her with a crazy, glassy-eyed stare of complete ecstasy. He reached down to grab her, but she was quick to swipe at his reaching arm with the bat in her hands and made contact with a couple of fingers. He pulled back his hand and waved the pain away. She squeezed herself farther into the space and crouched more so it would be harder to grab her.
“You little bitch. I’m going to make you scream, and not in a good way! Heh heh.”
He started to reach with his arm again, and when she swung with the bat, he pulled back and kicked out to catch her in the face. Her eyes rolled back, and she dropped the bat. Leonard laughed again and reached in to grab her by the front of her shirt and drag her out of her cubby. She was barely aware of what was happening, but she could smell the gore on his lab coat from Marty and Sanchez. He was giggling insanely just before he punched her again. She saw nothing but stars dancing in blackness and heard nothing but ringing in her ears.
“Aww, I think I broke your nose. Hmm, that’s a shame. I think I can fix it up just fine, though. Heh heh heh.”
_______
In the middle of his run, Tin saw Leonard moving toward Teeny but couldn’t chance stopping before he took advantage of this opportunity to take out Marquardt. He moved quickly but tried to make as little noise as possible. He raised the ax high above his head and swung it at the back of the crouching soldier. Marquardt stepped sideways and caught the ax as it came down where his head had been a split second ago. Yanking the ax out of Tin’s hand, he spun the other direction and slammed the back of his fist against the side of his head. Tin’s momentum kept him going, but his legs folded under him. He fell like a rag doll being thrown down by a child. Marquardt turned to Laudner and held up the ax, grasping it where the head met the handle. He squeezed, and the ax handle splintered and fell to the floor in two pieces, ax head clanking and sliding up close to the wall.
_______
Leonard stabbed Sanchez in the eye and pushed him off the table. He rolled Teeny onto his shoulder and then onto the table. He was cinching the last strap onto her leg as she started to wake from his punch. He laughed as he saw Marquardt spin punch that asshole lieutenant who was so much trouble and Robard, on top of the other pain in the ass, punch him in the face.
The door where they had come in boomed and cracked, flying off its hinges to slide across the floor. Leonidas stepped through and howled while beating his chest. “Ahhh ahhh ahhh!”
Blood covered his body. It was obvious that most of it was not his own.
Leonard looked toward the noise and saw his chimp project step through and beat his chest. He froze when Leonidas spotted him standing next to the table where Teeny was strapped down. The ape beat his chest again and howled before running with a rolling stride toward him. It was an awkward run, but very fast. Leonard turned to run but was quickly overrun and tackled.
It was Leonard’s turn to scream. Leonidas jumped on his back and punched down hard on his spine. There was a loud crack and a scream that trailed off into a sob. The ape stepped off of the prone man. Sensing that he wasn’t going anywhere, Leonidas moved over to the table where Teeny was strapped.
She was fully awake now. “Hey, Leo. Don’t worry, buddy. That man will get his due.”
Leonidas gave a couple of ooos and tapped his finger on the straps.
“Can you unstrap me, Leo?”
He started scratching at the strap on her hand, and it loosened enough for him to get his finger underneath.
“That’s it, buddy. You’ve got it.”
He pulled on the strap for a few seconds more, and she slid her hand out. After cupping his disfigured face lovingly, she reached over and started unstrapping the other straps.
There was a loud crash of glass and a crack-crack of gunfire. Leonidas stumbled and fell to the floor. Teeny looked up to see Reed leaning out of the broken window with a pistol in his hand.
She gave him an incredulous look, and he smiled back, waving the gun at her with it hanging from his trigger finger, signaling that he was done shooting. Leonard was pulling himself toward the door with his arms. His legs were obviously not working after the punch from Leonidas. She jumped off the table and ran over to jump on his back. Wrapping her arm around his neck up under his chin, she squeezed with all of her might. He made choking, gurgling sounds as she whispered into his ear, “I told you I was going to kill you, you evil fuck!”
Leonard stopped struggling, and Teeny let him go. After a few seconds, he croaked and turned his face toward her, eyes blood red from choking and glazed over because he was now an animated corpse. He pulled himself across the floor toward her, groaning.
She looked down at him with no pity.
“Yeah, good luck catching anyone without legs, bitch.”
_______
Laudner stared down Marquardt, each waiting for the other to make a move. Looking to his right, he saw the ax handle on the floor. He dove for it as Marquardt rushed him, looking as if his plan was to tackle him again. Laudner swung the ax handle as if he were trying to hit a grand slam in the World Series. Marquardt shrugged his shoulder, and the handle ricocheted up to smack him in the left
ear and glance off without causing any real damage. The blow didn’t slow him, and he slammed into Laudner, knocking him to the floor. He stood over him gloating, thinking the tackle would require a recovery time. Marquardt laughed.
Laudner extended his leg and foot into Marquardt’s crotch. When he bent over from the pain, he got a kick to the face that sent him sprawling onto his back.
Laudner jumped up and grabbed the head of the ax, which was on the floor close to the wall. When he turned, Marquardt was rolling his legs around in a spin move to stand while keeping his eyes on his opponent. His jaw was cocked to one side, obviously broken. He reached his hand up and pushed it back into place with several popping sounds.
_______
Jax jumped up to the dock, where the two men in scrubs were looking at him as if he were a ghost. He didn’t threaten them with his weapon because they didn’t appear to be threatening toward him. When Rocky jumped up behind him, she immediately went into a fighting stance, causing both men to get startled looks on their faces. Jax glanced at Rocky, took two quick steps, and grabbed the closest one. The man he had grabbed clawed and pried at Jax’s arm, trying to pull away. The other turned and ran. He glanced at Rocky, who was watching him run.
Jax looked back at the man he had grabbed. “Key!”
The guy grabbed the lanyard around his neck and yanked. He held it out to Rocky, and she snatched it from him.
Jax continued. “What’s going on in there?”
“I don’t know, really. We were just told to g-g-give y-you an opportunity to get in. B-but you already went in…th-there has been a lot of noise.”
“He can’t tell us anything, Jaxxy.”
Jax looked at her and then back at the man, who was shaking his head. “N-no.”
Jax pushed him away, and he turned and ran. Turning to Rocky, Jax held up the key card and pointed at the door with it. She nodded.
They passed the key over the pad and opened the door a crack to peer in before opening it all the way. When Jax looked in, the first thing he saw was blood splattered on the wall and the floor. He looked back at Rocky, gave her a “be careful” look, and then slid through the door. When they moved farther down the hallway, they discovered what all of the blood was from. A mangled body in black neoprene and hard plastic armor was lying in a pool of red. There were holes where his eyes should have been, as if someone had pressed in his or her thumbs.
Jax looked back at Rocky to see her hand pressed to her mouth as if she was holding back a scream. He pressed his finger to his lips to keep her from actually doing it and stepped over the body to continue down the hall.
Then they heard shots ring out from down the hall and around the corner. He trotted up to the corner and peeked around to see an open doorway. Through the door, he could see his brother sprawled on the floor, and he panicked. Running through the open doorway, he spotted another black-clad soldier getting ready to finish someone he knew. Instinctively he swung his sword with all the force he could muster.
_______
Robard hit O’Reilly at chest level and drove him back against the wall near the door that Leonidas had just knocked off its hinges. O’Reilly’s breath was knocked from his lungs, and panic showed on his face as he struggled to suck in oxygen. Robard didn’t waste any time. He started pummeling O’Reilly’s torso like Muhammad Ali’s famous “shoe shine” that he used when he had his opponents on the ropes. But Robard’s hands moved as fast as a jackhammer. You heard hollow thumping sounds and bones cracking coming from the blows.
When Robard stepped back, O’Reilly collapsed to his knees holding his abdomen with both hands and wheezing in breaths with much effort. They both knew he was done. Robard waited, smiling and admiring his dominance over his former corporal and smiling like the Cheshire cat.
O’Reilly looked up at the windows to see Reed with a crazy smile too. Robard turned to look up at Reed, who gave him a nod. When he turned back to face his victim, O’Reilly let himself roll back off his feet to sit against the wall, wincing at the pain.
As Robard pulled one foot back to get a good swing at O’Reilly’s head with his boot, a large man with a sword stepped through the door. Robard was stunned by who it appeared to be. He got one word out before the sword cut off his sentence—and his head.
“Lieutenant…”
The man looked down at O’Reilly. “Hey, Tommy, you’ve looked better.”
O’Reilly groaned as Rocky stepped in behind Jax with her samurai sword at the ready. When he noticed her, he managed a half smile between wincing and groaning from the pain of trying to breathe. “Hey, beautiful.”
Jax rolled his eyes. “Still the same old Tommy O’Reilly.”
Jax looked around the room to assess the situation and then ran over to where Tin was sprawled on the floor. A small black woman was kneeling down beside him, checking the pulse in his neck. She hadn’t looked up at his approach.
“So is he alive?”
She pulled her hand away from his throat and started lightly smacking his face as if to wake him.
Rocky walked up behind Jax with her sword still at the ready.
“Hey, Teeny. Long time no see.”
Teeny looked up at Rocky and caught a glimpse of Jax. Doing a double take, she fell back onto her butt. “Holy shit!”
“Ha. I take it your boy didn’t tell you he had a better-looking brother.”
“Uh, no” was all she was able to get out before she was interrupted by shots ringing out. There was a crack, crack, crack followed by ricochets sounding off of the floor around the group standing over Tin.
_______
Laudner and Marquardt were in a standoff, Laudner with his hand full of ax head pulled back and ready to use as a weapon if Marquardt rushed him. He had been aware of all of the activity in the room but was unable to look away from his situation. When he caught a glimpse of Jax moving up to where Teeny was helping Tin, he was startled enough to risk a look.
When he looked at them, he also saw Reed point his gun in their direction. Instinctively he drew back the ax head and threw it at Reed. His aim was true enough that the ax head clacked against the gun and misdirected the shots.
The ax head ended up point first in the forehead of Dr. Abraham, who had been standing behind Reed. The blow pushed his head back, and when it recoiled forward, he had a blank stare. He fell backward as if he were participating in a trust fall at a corporate outing.
Reed heard the thud behind him, which sounded like someone hitting a pumpkin with a hammer, and looked back to see Abraham fall backward. Pointing the gun back at Laudner, he pulled the trigger and got only clicks. Looking at the gun, he tried to pull back the slide, to find that it was jammed.
Marquardt ducked away from the throw, not realizing that it wasn’t aimed at him. Hearing the shots, he turned to see what had changed. What he saw was a mirror image of Tin standing with a sword that still had blood and gore hanging from it, with the other bookend standing up rubbing his neck.
While Marquardt was still dealing with the shock of seeing Jax, he forgot Laudner behind him—until he was tackled and body-slammed. When he hit the floor, he didn’t have time to realize that his breath was knocked out before Laudner punched him three quick times. He straddled Marquardt, waiting for him to react. But the soldier in black didn’t budge.
Everyone in the room and above the room was watching this exchange in stunned silence.
Laudner looked up at the crowd watching him in the middle of the room only for a moment before changing his attention to Reed, Michael, and the two men in the office above. Everyone turned and looked at them now.
Michael, who had been silent the whole time, stepped back as if he expected them to fly up and attack them.
The two men in the room turned to Reed, and one spoke up. “I don’t know if we are ready to buy this yet, Mister Reed.”
Reed popp
ed the magazine out of his gun and pulled the slide back to expel the stuck cartridge. He slammed the magazine back in and pulled the slide back, and the gun was now operational again.
When Reed looked up, he wasn’t looking down into the lower room. The Russians now realized the danger and stepped backward. Reed pointed the gun and fired.
Crack, crack. Crack, crack.
Both men fell with tiny holes in their heads.
When he turned back to the lower room, Teeny and the rest of the antagonists were lifting their injured to escape. He pointed the gun straight at her and pulled the trigger.
Click!
He pulled the slide back and saw that there were no bullets left in the chamber.
He watched them disappear out the open doorway. He then turned his attention to Leonidas, who had risen and was tearing the flesh off of Leonard’s animated corpse. He turned and looked at Michael, who was also watching the scene on the pathology lab floor with a disgusted look on his face.
PART IV
The Cure
Claudette was fast approaching the South Carolina coast, but most people were unaware. Society had broken down into small groups of people “bugged in” and barricaded into their homes and buildings. The lucky ones had stores of food. The unlucky ones would starve or have to resort to going outside and dying horrible deaths at the hands of the wandering animated corpses.
Military units were stretched to their limits. Police and firemen were left to deal with looters and out-of-control vigilante groups turned gangs. Anarchists were killing living people along with the wanderers that they had originally banded together to destroy.
In South Carolina a new breed of wanderer had appeared on the scene—fast and brutal, with a much higher level of cognition than the walkers. They didn’t just go after you because you got close enough for them to smell you. They actually hunted, setting traps and lying in wait for weak targets.
Origin Z Page 20