shoot them in the head and they'd leave you alone, but she knew that those programs were just make-believe. This was real.
'You can't. You just damage them until they can no longer move, but that's difficult when they are still sane and have guns. How many, Lance?'
'Probably twenty undead. I don't know how many alive.'
'More than we can handle,' Heinrich stated with grim finality. 'The Lazarus will whisper to them that the only way to end the pain is to destroy us. Poor bastards don't even realize they're dead yet.' The way the others acted when he said that made Faye certain that the German was their expert on zombies.
The storm of flying debris finally stopped, and everything instantly fell as gravity returned to normal. All of them turned to see who had won, and sadly all they saw was Mr. Madi kicking Mr. Sullivan across the yard like a child's ball. Behind the two giants was a crowd of mangled bodies, running right for them.
The dead men were shrieking and crying, bones visible, flesh hanging off in strips where the slugs had hit, eyes bulging out of shattered skulls, bullet holes fresh and puckered in drained skin, white shards sticking out of broken limbs, and somehow she knew that they could still feel it all, every terrible unending ounce of hurt, and all those dead men held her and her friends responsible. The dead lifted their guns and Faye's insides turned to water.
Madi grabbed Sullivan by the throat and jerked him from the ground. 'Hell, Jake,' his brother said, punching him in the stomach, 'I had this all built up in my head like you were gonna be a challenge. This is just like when we were kids.' Sullivan blinked through the blood and tears. He grabbed Madi by the tie, pulled him forward and rammed his elbow into the side of his head. Madi dropped him and stepped back, rubbing his face, grinning savagely. 'That's more like it.'
Sullivan stood shakily, spit a blob of blood, and raised his fists. 'You always were a bully.'
'You ain't seen nothing yet,' Madi said. He paused as his watch spoke to him with a woman's voice. He lifted it and listened. 'Hell… Fun as this has been. I'm about to fry this whole area with a Peace Ray. You're distracting me from my mission. You seen a piece of a Tesla device around here?'
Sullivan stepped forward, put his weight into it, and swung a big right at Madi's face. Madi dodged it so quickly that the air whistled around him. He responded by clubbing Sullivan effortlessly to the ground. 'Guess not.' Sullivan gasped as a heavy boot slammed onto his spine, pinning him down. There was a popping of snaps, a creak of a leather harness, and finally a loud metallic click as a hammer was cocked.
'So long, Jake. Any last words?'
'Mama always liked me best,' Sullivan grunted, sputtering out a bloody laugh.
Madi aimed the Beast at the back of Jake's head. If he had more time, he'd let his brother know just how much this moment meant to him. He could actually feel. It was a bittersweet victory, and the old, weak, sickly part of him was screaming no, but he pushed that part back down into the deep well where he kept it chained in black poisoned waters. He pulled the trigger.
Then there was a snap of air and a pair of grey eyes shining in the dark as Jake vanished.
The bullet dug a.50-caliber hole in the ground. Madi looked up at the mansion, a snarl parting his ruined lips. 'I'm getting sooo tired of her…'
Hiroyasu's zombies were passing him, charging blindly toward the house. The morons didn't even realize they were dead yet. Some of them were shooting, screaming, bones sticking out their faces, or dragging their intestines behind them in long steaming trails. About damn time.
A few of the living goons approached him cautiously, carrying their new Arisaka subguns, following the zombies. Those were the brave and stupid. The cowards in the ranks had probably bolted and run as soon as they'd realized he wasn't about to waste any perfectly good corpses. He glared at the remaining men. 'What? We've almost got th-' A rifle bullet hit him in the shoulder, tore through his flesh until it struck his collarbone and shattered. He grimaced as the fragments tore a dozen separate wound channels through his flesh and a chunk of bone pierced his heart. 'Damn it.' Even he had his limits, and time was almost up. Toshiko was yelling at him that they needed to fire soon or risk discovery. No matter what, the Imperium couldn't afford to be implicated. It was time to finish this.
He followed the blood trail of the dead mob, murder in his wounded heart.
Francis worked the bolt of his Enfield. He'd plugged Madi square with an.06 soft-point, but the Iron Guard didn't seem to notice. He fired the remaining rounds at the closest zombie as fast as he could work the bolt. He was an excellent shot, since Black Jack had taught him well, and he pulverized the undead body, but it just kept coming. He used his Power to reach out and pick up chunks of concrete as heavy as he could lift, and started hurling them at the undead.
Garrett grabbed him on the shoulder, breaking his concentration right as he put a chunk of rebar through a zombie's face. 'Fall back!' he shouted in his ear. Garrett hefted a BAR and laid down fire as he walked backwards. Francis took up his empty rifle and ran.
Faye and Sullivan popped into existence so close that he almost tripped over them. 'Help me!' she cried. 'He's too big.'
He grabbed one of Sullivan's arms and pulled. Jesus. He weighs a ton. Garrett grabbed the other and they pulled his body further inside. The zombies would be on them in seconds.
The Heavy stirred, his bloody face scrunched up, and then he pushed Francis away. 'We got to get out of here.'
'No kidding. Zombies!' Francis jerked his head toward the front.
He shook his head. 'Peace Ray… Browning! You got to get your people out of here. Madi's gonna fire the Peace Ray at us.'
Jane had just left him and moved to help Delilah. Browning was holding himself up by leaning on the banister, looking pale and weak. 'Are you certain?'
'Yeah. We ain't got much time.'
Browning nodded. 'Lance, get everyone to the tunnels.'
Jane was starting to use her Power on Delilah. 'No time, girl,' Lance said as he leaned down and scooped the Brute into his arms. 'We got to get deep underground. Now! Francis, send out your family's Summoned to slow them down. Everybody follow me.'
Francis complied, twisting his ring. He knew that they wouldn't last more than seconds against maddened undead, but that might make all the difference. 'I-' but then he was knocked aside as something fell from the balcony above and landed in their midst. He scrambled back as a hulking slab of a man turned toward him, half his face a ragged mass of scar tissue, soaked in blood, white eye gleaming. 'Madi!'
His movements were a blur of fists and magic. Sullivan and Faye hit the far wall. Lance and Delilah went flying over a broken couch. Jane was knocked sprawling. Garrett had time to lift his automatic rifle and fire a single round before Madi swatted him down the hallway. Heinrich went grey as he charged, but Madi raised his hands and force exploded outward in a wave. Francis found himself falling down the floor until the wall rushed up to meet him. He bounced off the stone, screaming in pain as his shoulder popped.
'This the best you got, Grimmies?' Madi taunted, drawing a huge revolver from inside his ruined coat. He jerked suddenly as a chunk of meat exploded from his side, then again, as John Moses Browning pummeled him with an Auto-5 shotgun. Madi spun, firing his huge gun once, and Browning fell, crashing back through the banister and onto the stairs.
'John!' Lance's.44 flew out of the holster in a speed draw. He opened fire, slamming six rounds into Madi's chest, neck, and head in a continuous roar. Madi pointed and Lance fell upward, crashing through the chandelier and into the beams of the roof. Madi held him there for a moment, as he rolled something around inside his mouth and spit out a deformed bullet, then he jerked his hand back, and Lance fell, bellowing, until he hit the floor with a sickening thud.
Francis spotted a poker lying by the fireplace, concentrated, and launched it across the room like a spear. It impaled Madi through the bicep and deep into the chest, pinning his gun arm to his side. Francis started looking for something else to telekinetically grab when Madi unleashed another Spike, disrupting gravity again, and Francis found himself crammed upside down inside the fireplace when it subsided.
He crawled out of the ashes, coughing. Zombies were scrambling through the broken walls, screaming with pain that would never end. The servants, in tuxedos and maids' uniforms, collided against the undead, smoke and oil breaking against blood and bone.
