double-bladed sword at him.
When Vine sees the weapon spinning toward him, he launches his left wire at it, catches it in the air. Then he spins in a circle, whipping the sword back in her direction. Zombie torsos are sliced into halves as the wire circles toward Nemesis. She ducks out of the way, narrowly missing the blades of her own sword on the end of Vine’s wire.
The wire continues cutting through the zombie crowd, green and black fluids splashing into the air. It hits Mr. T. Catching the central handle of the sword with his steel fist, Mr. T looks over at the merc punk.
“We should be fighting her,” he yells at the punk. “Not each other.”
The merc punk pulls the wire, ripping the sword out of Mr. T’s grip, cutting a gash into the gold plating of his hand. When he looks at his gold-stripped palm, Mr. T’s eyebrows curl.
“Now you’ve gone an made Mr. T mad,” he says.
The horde of zombies spill onto the rooftop. Junko places the lawn gnome on the ground between them, and revs up her chainsaw arm.
“We’ve only got a few minutes left to wait,” Junko says. “Let’s just hope the roof can hold the weight of all those zombies.”
“You mean this whole place can collapse if they get too close?” Rainbow Cat says.
“Let’s try to hold them back as far as we can,” Junko says.
Scavy raises the solar-powered shotgun and unleashes a barrage of blasts onto the crowd. He doesn’t realize the gun has nearly unlimited ammo, but he fires as if deep down he knows it does. Zombie meat splatters across the roof with each shot. With every body that topples over, it holds back three more trying to get through.
As Mr. T clobbers zombies out of his way to get to Vine, Nemesis flies through the crowd and punches him with an open-handed palm. Mr. T’s face lights up in surprise as he finds himself flying backward into the side of the building.
Mr. T’s body becomes immersed halfway into the brick wall of the building. He leans his head forward and shakes the powdered brick out of his mohawk.
“Damn,” he says. “That bitch is strong.”
Running so fast she looks as if she’s teleporting, Nemesis flies at him. She stops right in front of his face, staring at him with her cold black eyes. Then she raises her hand back, with her fingers pressed together in the shape of a snake, as if she is going to drive her fingertips all the way through to the back of his skull.
Stuck inside of the brick wall, Mr. T can’t protect himself. He just watches as her fingers come toward him.
No matter how many times he fires, even with unlimited ammo, the zombies get closer to Scavy. They surround the perimeter, pushed back by the gnome’s sonic wave. The ground below them begins to crack.
“Fuck,” Junko says. “The roof isn’t going to hold us for much longer.”
The sound of the helicopter fills their ears. They look up and see it coming across the city buildings toward them.
“There it is!” Rainbow cries.
Scavy continues firing the shotgun, only glancing up for a second to see how close it is.
The helicopter hovers over the hospital for a few moments, but finding no place to land it continues on.
“Where’s it going?” Scavy cries.
The helicopter flies low over the parking lot, over the horde of zombies, and finds a clearing on the far end of the street. Then it slowly descends.
“We have to get you over there,” Junko says.
Scavy nods, then continues blasting.
As Nemesis drives her fingers toward Mr. T’s face, Vine shoots his wire at her. Nemesis’ arm is severed at the elbow and rolls down Mr. T’s chest. Then Vine shoots his second wire and it hooks onto her bony spine. She flies backward through the air, as Vine’s wire reels into his wrist. Then he spins her in a circle around him, the razor-sharp wire decapitating zombies as he twirls her through the air.
“Now throw her against a wall,” Xiu’s voice tells Vine. Vine nods and aims her flying white body toward the wall of the hospital.
As the reptilian woman is thrown toward him, Mr. T breaks out of his brick encasing and says, “Time to play a game of bitch baseball.”
Mr. T flexes a fist and charges forward. Like a tetherball, he punches Nemesis in the chest. Her eyes widen as her torso caves in around his fist, blood spraying from the sides of her ribcage. Her body flies off of Vine’s wire, over the zombie horde, and rolls across the pavement.
“Homerun for the T-2000!” says Mr. T.
A camera ball watches Nemesis’ body as it lies still on the ground, blood pooling beneath her. The camera zooms in on one side of her ribcage. The ribs are split open in a messy crevice below her armpit. She isn’t breathing.
On the other side of the camera, miles away from the Red Zone, Dr. Chan watches Nemesis from the
Wayne “The Wiz” Rizla comes up behind the doctor and pats him on the back.
“Looks like your ultimate soldier wasn’t good enough after all,” Wayne says.
He laughs in the doctor’s face, then takes a bite of a chocolate cruller.
The hospital rumbles as the roof begins to collapse under their feet. Junko falls to her knees, nearly landing on her chainsaw. Scavy holds his balance, continuing to fire his shotgun at the reaching limbs.
Rainbow Cat looks down at the lawn gnome behind them. Then she looks back at the other two contestants. Their attentions are elsewhere. Rainbow decides to take advantage of the opportunity.
As Junko gets to her feet, she doesn’t see it happen. Rainbow grabs the lawn gnome, then charges into the zombie crowd. By the time Junko notices, it’s too late.
“Stop her!” Junko cries.
Scavy fires at Rainbow’s back, but the zombies close in behind her. Without the lawn gnome holding them back, the zombies fill in the gap, staggering toward the two unprotected contestants.
The zombies open up a path for Rainbow as she charges through the horde, the lawn gnome under her arm like a football. Her dreadlocks flop through the air, leaping over crippled zombies that can’t get out of her way fast enough. When she goes through the doors into the hospital, she looks back to see Junko and Scavy aren’t chasing after her. They are back-to-back, shooting and slashing at the undead closing in on them, the ground cracking wider at their feet. Rainbow smiles at the sight.
Droplets of rain sprinkle over Nemesis’ white naked skin. A thundercloud moves in, drizzling on the horde of zombies. Her eyelids flash open, and she stares into the camera ball with her cold black eyes.
On the other side of the camera, from the control room of
“It’s going to take more than that to defeat her,” says Dr. Chan.
Wayne shoves the rest of his chocolate cruller into his mouth and goes to the monitor. He sees Nemesis standing up. Her crushed ribcage expands, the split down her side disappears. Then she raises her severed arm, which is growing nerves and tissue. Wayne’s eyes light up as she grows a completely new hand.
“Like a lizard’s tail,” says Dr. Chan, “she can grow new limbs, only a million times as fast. Her regenerative powers surpass all living creatures on this planet.”
“Fuck…” Wayne says, coughing up bits of donut.
