Undead Fleshcrave: The Zombie Trigger (46 page)

Obviously the Sentinels had no interest in leaving this group of agitators with any ability to become reanimated undead freaks gorging on the flesh of any living souls they got their clutching claw fingers on. Almost every member of the initial Subversion group charge gunned down by the wall of Sentinels, were shot, intentionally or otherwise, in some region of the head. No brains left, or thoroughly damaged, splattered grey matter meant none of those headblasted victims would be rising again to switch allegiances to the ever expanding undead squadron.

Heather was the quickest thinking of the three of them standing here in a frozen snapshot of terror. She barrelled into both Mark and Miranda like she was a rugby player, launching a fearsome tackle, being none too gentle about it either. Her principal motivation was to drop all three of them on the ground, and fast, regardless of the blood, human flesh, shit, vomit, dirt, grime, and whatever other atrocities were all over the grass. As bad as it might have been down there, it was infinitely better than suffering the fate of Lizette, the security guard, the Iron Maiden fellow, the short, squat Renegade Master at the head of the party, the others flung forcibly to the befouled ground by cruel bullets.

Again, blood and foul matter splattered against Mark’s bruised and battered face as he hit the deck with Miranda, under the impetus of Heather, his gaze still turned towards that stage, where the death dealers materialised, as if spawned out of the swirls of bloody vapour.

Unbelievably, Tempest still stood, unchecked by the hail of bullets, as though they’d merely washed around him, or by some bizarre twist of fate, missed him entirely. Either way, he wasn’t about to turn tail and abort the mission they’d come this far to complete.

In a flurry of movement that looked as if it defied time and logic, speeding through that fog of slowed down time that was gripping Mark, Tempest brought his tattoo embossed right arm around in a hurling motion that released the sanguinary Funeral Moon formerly gripped in his fist. Though the heavy cymbal weapon was laden with serrated blades, as it scythed through the air it moved so rapidly it became a complete disc, spinning in a lethal trajectory.

From his prone position, his left cheek pressed to gruesome matter in the grass, Mark watched as the Funeral Moon’s revolving motion carried its jagged deadly teeth through the neck of the Sentinel on the end of the row of grey gun toting monsters, decapitating him in a brutal blow. The Moon sheared right through meat, gristle, vertebrae, and continued its deadly path as blood fountained from the gory stump and the dismembered head bounced away in the grass.

Tempest’s deadly propulsion was done with calculated precision and maximum velocity, and severing one Sentinel head was not the single goal.

Before the disbelieving eyes of those splayed on the grass, the Funeral Moon sheared right through a whole line of Sentinels, ripping heads off like a massive guillotine as it powered down the line of bodyguards. The precise throw, summed up by Tempest’s quick eye in a matter of seconds, utilised the side by side formation of the Sentinels to lethal effect, removing head after head from necks in showers of blood, powering more red mist into the air.

At least six of the grey clad souls became headless bodies, shuddering and convulsing before toppling like drunken dominoes under the cleaving assault of the Funeral Moon. Even before the spiralling disc of death’s journey was complete, Tempest was in action again. He ran down the line with his Freezing Moon, this cymbal weapon smooth bladed rather than serrated but as lethally sharp.

From the right hand side of the debilitated group, Blizzard, Scarlett, and now Roxana, were not standing still in shock, pushing aside any immediate despair to launch themselves into the fray.

Scarlett triggered a blast from her pistol, burying lead in the gaping mouth of a Sentinel as Blizzard attacked from the opposing end to Tempest. His long arms swung the Blizzard Beast like some gigantic freakish axe, severing arms, heads, driving the blades into chest cavities, splitting hearts, mangling internal organs. Breaking through bones with ferocious power.

Roxana must have had the foresight to scoop up the shotgun propelled from Lizette’s lifeless fingers, stashing whatever bladed weapon she’d clasped prior, and now she rushed the dwindling Sentinel numbers too, aiming and firing as she ran.

In awe, Mark saw one Sentinel cranium obliterated like something from Scanners, crimson mush and bone fragments visible in a violent storm, and then another was blasted from close range in similar fashion. Roxana looked to be of the same mindset as the Sentinels themselves, seeking to make all her triggered bursts headshots. Considering the grey-suited bodyguards were allegedly impervious to the toxic zombie bites being able to morph them, it was probably unnecessary to try and shoot them in the head, but the Subversion duo, and the pair of lethal ladies acting with them, were neither taking chances nor leaving anything open. They wanted all of the murderous horde deceased and comprehensively so.

Now Heather crawled up onto her hands and knees, and Miranda, startled, snatched at her arm.

“No, wait, what are you doing?”

Ignoring her, Heather shook off her grip and swiftly shuffled forward on all fours, and Mark saw where she was aiming. His fallen pistol lay ahead on the ground, partially obscured by the outflung hand of Iron Maiden. That was where Heather was going.

“Stay down!” He said, attempting not to move too much. He didn’t want to draw any attention from any of the Sentinels who hadn’t been decapitated, eviscerated, or otherwise destroyed, but nor did he want Heather making any moves that would earn a rain of bullets flying in their direction.

Heather either didn’t hear him, or more likely, just as she’d done with Miranda, completely ignored the desperate request to remain still. She scooted across the bloodied mess of ground and closed her fingers around Mark’s relinquished pistol. As Mark fervently prayed to random deities he didn’t even believe existed that her flurry of motion wasn’t about to put him and Miranda in front of a firing squad, leaving their bodies riddled with bullet holes and faces mangled meat masks, Heather clutched the gun and then hauled herself upright.

Screams resonated around in hellish conjunction with intermittent gunfire from various vicinities around the park and the swish of blades cutting through the air, then the violent, meaty thunk of those weapons connecting with, and severing through flesh.

Mark heard sirens as well, uncontrolled shouting, desperate, panicked weeping, the hideous grunting and incantations of the undead hordes, a conglomeration of horrible sounds hammering at his eardrums, but he didn’t hear any more close proximity shots ringing out from the weapons of the Sentinels and he didn’t feel any lead projectiles punching their way into his flesh.

Daring to turn his partially squeezed shut eyes in the direction of the stage, he saw that Heather’s lunge for the gun, obviously to aid in cutting through the myriad of Sentinels was an unnecessary one, a belated and unrequired move.

The deadly pair of Moons, both back in the hands of their master Tempest, the ugly might of the Blizzard Beast, and the guns in the hands of the women and the surviving Renegade Master, had cut a murderous bloody swathe through the bodyguard ensemble, decimating them with an unsurmountable fury. The swift attacks in the wake of the deadly shooting spree came in a wave that hadn’t allowed any more shots to be fired; Tempest leading the charge with his Moons.

Now, scattered grey-clad bodies, drenched in gore, or mutilated beyond belief, segmented, hacked apart, shot down, and bleeding more crimson mess to leech into the sodden earth, sprawled all across the ground, across the front of the stage, and spanning out from it.

The body count was catastrophic on both sides, but the completely annihilated army of Sentinels achieved their aims with ruthless efficiency, regardless of the devastating cost to themselves and total obliteration of their numbers.

The stage of the five piece death metallers Undead Fleshcrave, was devoid of all presence, the band vanished like wraiths under the brutal smokescreen cast by their grey minions.

CHAPTER THIRTY NINE-SCATTERED MEAT SMORGASBORD

Seth barely realised he’d gone into sheer survival mode, a lethal desperado swinging a weapon of massive killing capacity, with gunfire resounding in his ears and terrible thoughts that shit had gone badly awry ahead, where Scarlett was separated from him, until there were a host of ruined undead corpses scattered around in bloody rags.

He hardly acknowledged that it was he, Black, and Nate alone, staving off the flood, with SternBitch, RunningWild, and ClumsyGirl caught terrified between their singing blades as they slashed with a frenetic speed that belied definition.

He’d gone to wrestle Thomson away from Dax, then that plan was cut short as pallid faced, blood dripping undeaders lurched out of the bloodmist, and the feuding pair managed to cease their grappling. The gun they’d both sought was lost under the feet of myriad zombies gnashing hideous teeth, and weapon-less, the duo would have been fucked had Black, Seth, and Nate not reacted with pace borne of fear.

As it was, even Black wielding his deadly katana, its blade running with blood, Seth whipping Mother North around so savagely every muscle in his arms screamed in agony, his shoulders a blaze of pain and his chest feeling as though it were about to explode, and Nate trying to make his shots count, couldn’t completely stem the tide.

True death heads who’d swarmed to this festival in droves were now swarming every living soul they could find, and their toxic brains wouldn’t allow them any fear from weaponry. If any still retained the ability and cunningness to remember the peril presented by swinging blades, Seth saw no sign of it in the plague waves coming for his besieged group.

What was more, he could faintly see through the horrendous red hue that wafted persistently in the sky, that they were also converging on distant shapes and figures ahead of his party, those who’d already reached the Undead Fleshcrave stage to be greeted by a crescendo of gunfire. And if they hadn’t already been blasted apart by the gunfire, which Seth knew with terrible cold clarity, hadn’t come from the bunch led by Tempest and the Renegade Masters, then Scarlett, Mark, Miranda, all the others not caught in this shitfight back here were going to be swamped by the undead freaks too. Trapped in this escalating slaughterfest where the undead just kept coming, he was useless and powerless to save Scarlett from anything.

“We’ve got to haul ass!” Black backed up a few steps, closer to where Seth gripped Mother North’s neck just above the headstock, her body and blades completely awash with bloody gore, ripped off sections of flesh, and other atrocities. A couple of torn off zombie fingers were ensnared in the strings, as if they’d been wrenched from the fingers of a guitarist playing so insanely fast his digits were removed, there was even a gruesome eyeball lodged between pickups, other things sheared from undead bodies adorning the wicked beauty’s form. “We can’t keep this shit up, standing still and swinging. We have to move, pronto!”

Seth could only agree. Hearing it stated aloud was music to his tormented ears, among the screaming, shouting, sounds of death and dying blending with sirens and undead vocalisations. The longer they tried to hold off the masses, just the three of them, with their other companions unable to assist much, the more likely their chances of dying, or becoming one with the undead nation increased.

“Move!” Black suddenly blared, this time addressing Dax, SternBitch, Thomson, ClumsyGirl, and RunningWild.

Dax didn’t require any prompting, he was up and on the move in an instant. He didn’t look as terrified as the others, he merely looked pissed that he was unarmed, somehow lacking the Jungle Primitive he’d made his own. Seth couldn’t quite recall when that might have eventuated, but in any case, Dax didn’t have it now, otherwise he’d have taken his scarily effective zombie killing efforts to the hordes of death metal demons that continued in waves. In actual fact, Seth realised they weren’t all strictly death metal meatseekers now, there were folk who must have been Blackwater Park residents prior to this calamity, coming with gaping maws and clawing finger hooks.

Evidently not all of them were so comprehensively torn to shreds by hungry teeth that they couldn’t morph as well and further swell the ranks of the epidemic.

“Come on!” Black railed at the other four as Nate fumbled in his pockets, seeking to reload what was now an empty gun in a window of opportunity so narrow it was a mere sliver of space.

Finally, SternBitch broke into a run too, on the heels of Dax, who hurried her on in agitation.

The other three tarried too long, struck by a horrified freeze. Their reluctance, or inability to immediately move when prompted was costly—and deadly.

The humanivores which struck like a hideous and terminal plague of undead locusts were not those of death metal orientation, they were those turned by the toxic bites and flesh scratching nails of the death heads, and they came not as slow lurchers, but as dangerously rapid meatseekers.

It was as if each person subsequently effected by the original Trigger-switched souls, reacted in entirely different ways, mutated with the toxins or adapted, and while a host of the initial zombies were of the slower variety, those bitten by them and infected appeared to have evolved into something else.

From the ruins of one of the multiple food stalls they burst, a ten or more strong contingent of freakish beasts, some with incongruous hairstyles like towering Mohawks or swinging plaits, some in the expected costume of Blackwater Park townsfolk, others in mundane ordinary clothing, some comprehensively plastered in tattoos. All with the same crimson facial embellishments which definitely weren’t from slurping on ketchup or other food substances obtained from the stall supplies.

The temporary stall was destroyed, torn apart by the hungry horrors as they ransacked the place and obviously feasted upon the proprietors and staff, trapped inside before they got a chance to run. Now the group swarmed and swamped RunningWild, ClumsyGirl, and Thomson, their speed unexpected and blindingly quick.

The self-centred rent-a-cop was quickest off the mark as the trio were faced with the assault and he grabbed ClumsyGirl in both hands, gripping her by the shoulders. As she screamed in terror, realising what his agenda was, he thrust her out before him, shielding his figure from the immediate onslaught, and grey, flaking skin covered hands snatched her, hooked fingers digging deep into her flesh. A punk zombie with a towering purple Mohawk, resplendent in safety pin piercings, chains swinging from ripped leather clothes, clamped onto one of her breasts with a gaping snaggletooth maw and wrenched forcibly, shaking its head like a pit-bull with a mouthful of meat. Blood fountained in a gory spray that pitched more red vapour rain into the sky, and the shrill shrieks of fear ramped up into a terrible high-pitched keen that lanced Seth’s ears.

She was fucked, well and truly, there was nothing he, Black, or Nate could do for her. Thomson let her bleeding body fall away from him, into the clutches of more undead freaks, her breast completely ripped away from her body, a fleshy sac in ripped fabric hanging from the mouth of UndeadPunk. Snarling mouths closed around her throat, buried into her abdomen, chewing right through her clothing as she went down under a torrent of feeding frenzy zombies.

Horribly mesmerised, RunningWild reacted far too late. They got him as well, snaring him in myriad deadly grasps, so many teeth and finger claws ripping into him that he was just a mass of bloody torn flesh, meat for the insatiable beasts being torn from his bones.

Nate had his pistol reloaded now. He lifted it and took aim. He didn’t fire on any of the undead monsters, he didn’t hope to have any impact on quelling that hideous tide. He squeezed the trigger and smashed a bullet into the skull of Thomson, dropping the cowardly sonofabitch down among the hordes of rapid feeders.

“Don’t want that motherfucker getting a second chance at reanimation,” he said laconically to Black and Seth, both of whom nodded, Black with a malicious twist curving the corner of his mouth.

Then they acquiesced with the command made by Black. They hauled ass.

Seth was beside himself with panic and gut-churning fear, desperate to be on the move and getting the fuck out of this general vicinity. He needed to be up there, where the vague bulk of the stage they’d all been aiming to reach was just visible amidst air heavy with blood spray and scent, other pungent, foul odours like vomit and shit hanging around rancorously as well.

Avoiding the throngs of humanivores wasn’t a difficult task right now, not when there was fresh meat sprawled on the bloodstained grass for the hungry fiends to tear into, though some still loitered upright, gauging whether to attempt an attack on the running trio.

There were still abundant undead freaks present all through the Park, but Seth noticed that the army didn’t really appear to be expanding and growing as rapidly as he might have expected. Perhaps they’d exhausted the majority of their meat sources in the region, or maybe they were now spreading out onto the surrounding streets, searching further afield for new blood.

In any case, the folk who were evidently Blackwater Park residents seemed to be simply vanishing. If they hadn’t already been eaten so comprehensively they couldn’t rise again as reanimated corpses, or had indeed been morphed into legions with the undead, they were gone. Possibly, many of them also made it outside the killing grounds, flooding the city streets, seeking sanctuary in the city they knew and dwelled in.

It was a conundrum, but it wasn’t one Seth let his worried mind linger on; he’d bigger concerns, namely finding Scarlett and the others alive up ahead. He was already leaving behind a tangle of broken bodies being savaged and mauled by feral undead and he sure as fuck didn’t want to run into a similar knot of bloodied tragedy, particularly with Scarlett, Mark, and Miranda counting among the meals for the monsters.

All the same, the fears constricting his bowels, knotting his stomach, and thumping his heart, burst free in hideous reality when they arrived. The ground was a field of slaughter, and one where it wasn’t easy to identify who comprised the multitude of bodies, either being ripped apart by lurking undead, or those already picked at by the zombie vultures.

There were so many dead encompassing the bloodied grounds here that the appearance of Seth, Black, and Nate barely created a stir among the packs of zombies feasting on the spoils, dining at this sumptuous banquet of raw flesh laid out for them. They were hardly noticed at all, and even if they were, it was virtually without interest, as if ripping at the meat already available was a far more viably easy option, and there was no immediate need to launch any attacks at the newcomers.

“Jesus fucking Christ…” Even the big, unflappable Renegade Master, Nate, was taken aback by the carnage strewn across the grass, so much blood and death in sight even the most hardened of souls couldn’t have remained unshaken.

There seemed to be a disproportionate amount of severed heads, most of them largely ignored by the sanguinary savages which were displaying their preference to delve inside the cavities of the bodies, digging for succulent innards and more fleshy segments than whatever meat could be gleaned from the myriad decapitated craniums.

His gun cradled out in front of him in a two-handed grip, one meaty paw clasped under the butt, the nose aiming diagonally down, but ready to snap shots off, Nate’s expression abruptly went grim. He nodded brusquely at one of the shapeless masses of bloody meat on the ground, and whilst the person formerly comprising this raw hunk of human beef was totally unrecognisable, the Renegade Masters jacket backpatch still identifiable in the mire was unmistakable.

Which one of the three bikers it was from the main body of the pack was anybody’s guess, but without doubt, it was one of Nate’s buddies here, in a slump of blood and chewed flesh.

Then Seth saw what appeared to be a female body and he froze instinctively, fear clubbing him with cruel fists. Though he could tell it wasn’t Scarlett just from the attire, it was the clothes the faceless victim was wearing which immediately made him acknowledge that it was one of theirs. The visage of this woman was obliterated; it was nothing but a raw slab of beef, bleeding profusely, almost looking as though it had somehow been skinned or had some giant industrial disc sander grind all the features away.

Black saw this figure too and actually hunkered down alongside it, reaching out a cautious hand, not to see if the person was still alive, for clearly they weren’t; merely a last sombre gesture of farewell.

Seth realised that it was the girl Lizette, the one who’d borne him such animosity over the death of her girlfriend at his hand, and he felt sharp pangs of sadness, grief, and regret stab into him. About a heartbeat later he realised who, or rather what, all the headless figures were. Those who hadn’t been extensively mauled and mangled were wearing a uniform style of attire, clothing that, though bloodstained and shredded, exhibited enough to show they’d all been dressed virtually identical.

Sentinels.

“Black...” Seth said quietly, not wanting to draw any attention from the ensembles of feasting zombies with volume to his voice, his mind racing almost too fast to keep up with. He hoped what was only slightly more audible than a murmur would carry to the Subversion boss and that there would be no need to repeat it louder.

Black wasn’t so overcome with emotion by the sight of Lizette’s ruins, in fact he seemed, as usual, completely impassive, with the usual threat of violence and fury simmering beneath his surface, that he didn’t hear his name and he turned his gaze to where Seth stood.