There wasn’t just one. It was a mob of at least ten or twelve and something wasn’t right about them. However, nobody was given enough time just yet to figure out what made them so different from all the others.
Events were simply happening too fast.
Dr. Dane was engulfed by the mob and was now gone from sight. The Black Berets heard nothing out of him—no screams for help, no cries of pain, nothing. Even though there hadn’t been enough time to save him, they should have seen him struggling on his own and at least trying to put up a fight.
But there was nothing.
He was simply gone.
The Black Berets lifted their Socoms and aimed high, the spotlights below the barrels highlighting the ghastly faces of the enemy. Muffled gunshots then zipped through the air, but instead of hearing the satisfying sound of the bullets hitting skulls, they heard the clanking sound of bullets hitting metal.
The zombies continued advancing, spilling out of the VIP room and stepping in unnaturally fast strides and rapidly closing the distance between them and their prey. Bullets from the .45’s were not even slowing them down.
In that instant Courtney began to realize that no zombie should be able to move as fast as these were, nor should any zombie be so invulnerable. She fired four more rounds at the head of one of the approaching ghouls and each shot was equally ineffective.
Then she noticed that the zombies’ outstretched arms seemed to reach about a foot longer than they should. Something fastened at the end of their hands was reflecting the glare of the minilights, shimmering to a sharpened point.
Before her mind could interpret what exactly it was that gave them such an extensive reach, her eyes were discerning something else out of the ordinary. Instead of seeing rotting teeth in the snarling mouths of these creatures, she saw a silver glimmer running across the surface of the enamel. There was obviously something laced over their choppers—something sharp.
Her magazine spent, Courtney dropped it out of her gun and quickly locked and loaded a new one in its place. All around her the rest of the Black Berets were doing the same. One of them—Delmas by the sound of the voice—shouted, “What the hell?!”
Courtney aimed high once more.
The zombies, getting closer now, compelled her to continue stepping back until the railing on the balcony behind her stopped her from moving any further away. The other members of the team were fanning out as the advancing creatures forced them to break formation. More shots were fired, but each bullet was still met with metal instead of skull.
It was then—with a zombie less than ten feet away—that she finally realized why her shots were ineffective. What at first glimpse she thought was hair or a hat or something else normal that a person on a cruiseliner might have been wearing when they died and reanimated, turned out to be some kind of helmet shaped over their scalp and forehead, around their eyes and past their jaw. The metal was thick enough to stop bullets.
Without understanding why these zombies were so equipped or even who equipped them, she shouted, “Go for the eyes!”
A bullet fired from
But only one zombie was felled. There were at least a dozen more.
Bad things started happening then. Shouts and screams echoed through the darkness. She lost sight of the other members of the team as she tried to focus on directing her shots into the eyes of the zombie approaching her. With most of her magazine already wasted simply trying to find their weakness to begin with, she ran out of ammunition before she could train the decisive bullet. She dropped the clip and reached into her belt for another one.
It was too late.
The zombie was already on her.
Up close, she could see that the extensions on its hands were actually bayonets welded into place on steel wristbands. Though the creature had no cognizance to efficiently wield them, this still meant that its fumbling arms were weapons of their own. It wasn’t just the teeth she had to worry about now.
She ducked under the blades as the zombie lunged forward and forced her backwards against the railing. She then fell to the floor, landing hard and awkwardly on the rifle strapped across her back. The zombie fell on top of her, showing its metal-laced teeth as it snarled and drooled all over her visor. From her back, she quickly maneuvered out of the strap so she was free of the hindrance of the rifle, then she rolled onto her shoulders and elevated her lower body in order to plant her knees on the insides of the creature’s elbows.
It was a Jiu-Jitsu technique Gordon had thought relevant to teach her. It was meant to prevent flailing claws, but in this case it worked to prevent the bayonets from reaching her. She knew the zombie didn’t realize it was equipped with blades, so she was able to prevent the uncoordinated creature from slicing into her. There was some kind of thick plating on its chest, legs, and arms and as a whole it was the heaviest zombie she had ever wrestled.
Keeping her knees planted against its arms to hold them still, she reached into the back of her belt and took another magazine. She loaded it into the .45 Socom, then put the point of the silencer against the zombie’s exposed right eye.
She pulled the trigger.
The gun discharged with hardly a sound and the bullet ricocheted several times inside the zombie’s skull armor, most definitely destroying enough of its brain to terminate it.
The zombie then collapsed, its dead helmeted face pressed against the other side of her visor and its motionless mass pinning her against the balcony railing. She tried sweeping the zombie off, but it was too heavy and since there was no space between them to gain leverage, it wouldn’t even budge. With her legs spread beneath the creature in a Jiu-Jitsu guard, this compromising position would have been embarrassing if it wasn’t so grotesque.
Another armored zombie was quickly approaching.
Still pinned and feeling suffocated, she lifted her Socom and fired off five shots at the approaching zombie. The first four shots bounced off the zombie’s helmet, but the fifth bullet went into the creature’s eye and through its brain. The zombie fell, motionless in its exoskeleton.
The glow of the minilights from the handguns was sporadic now and not many of them were still elevated. Even with silencers, Courtney knew she should still be able to hear muffled gunshots, but instead all she could hear was the grinding sound of metallic teeth chomping together. She realized that the trylar suits probably couldn’t withstand a bite from the metal teeth in this mob of modified zombies and somewhere in the darkness other members of her team were learning for sure if this was true.
A voice, sounding like Vaughn, yelled, “Who’s still with me?!”
“I’m here!” she shouted. “Get this frankenstein off of me!”
She heard
Courtney forced her head away from the monster on top of her and peered into the darkness of the casino. Fallen Socoms with their attached minilights were casting beams across the floor. Everywhere she looked black and turquoise uniforms were covered in liquid crimson. Most of the people in those uniforms had already fallen and were now being assaulted by at least three pairs of greedy undead hands.
There were only two still standing.
She saw
There was a loud thud and then there was only silence.
She saw Vaughn—the last one standing—with his wakizashi reeled back and ready to strike as he waited for an approaching zombie. His beret and visor were gone, probably discarded sometime during the melee. His rifle wasn’t on his back and his handgun was also missing, all ammunition probably already expended. Courtney lifted her own Socom and fired the remaining rounds at the zombie’s head in an attempt to take it out before it could reach Vaughn.
Her aim was too unsteady in her prone position. None of the shots hit where she wanted them to. She reached for her rifle, but it had been pushed too far away during the scuffle with her own assailant.
Vaughn waited for the zombie and then thrust the wakizashi straight ahead in a technique she first saw performed by Gordon Levi. The point of the blade penetrated the creature’s eye socket and entered its brain. However, as Vaughn wasn’t accustomed to fighting a zombie with an extended reach, the zombie’s outstretched arms allowed one of the bayonets affixed at the end to reach his neck.
Vaughn let go of the sword, which stayed put in the ghoul’s eye, then covered his throat with both hands. Blood spewed from between his fingers as he collapsed to his knees. He sat like this for a few seconds, staring into the darkness, until two more modified zombies fell on him.
Courtney knew that if even cold and calculated Vaughn Winters had been bested, then it was highly likely all the others were gone as well.
Delmas, Mike, Chris, and Leon—gone.
All around her more armored zombies were lurching forward, the splints along their knees giving them greater support and mobility. She struggled to reach the last clip remaining in her belt, but since she was on her back with almost two hundred pounds of weight on her, this attempt proved futile.
She didn’t want to get eaten.
So with no hesitation she lifted her right leg and reached for the little white container in her boot. However, the bulky body of the zombie on top of her prevented her from obtaining it.
The other zombies continued advancing.
But then they stopped.
The terminated zombie resting on her was slowly rolled off. With her view now unobstructed, she looked up to see Dr. Aaron Dane standing over her. He had a satchel bag over his shoulder. In his left hand he held a small handbox with an antenna jutting from the top. In his right hand was a revolver, magnum style.
He pointed the revolver at her and stated, “Do what I say and you’ll keep your skin.”
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