Zombie Road: The Second Omnibus | Books 4-6 | Jessie+Scarlet

the stairs, the walls and anything he could see that was moving above him. The warriors should have stopped. They should have retreated. They should have tried to find cover but they kept coming. The brainwashed masses were as intractable as the undead but the bullets stopped them. They didn’t take a hit to the chest, have half their insides blown out and shrug it off. Grunts of pain and shouts of anger mixed with the explosions of gunfire. Bodies fell and tumbled down the steps, bodies spilled over the railing and flailed all the way to the basement. Jessie kept firing until the magazine was empty. His hands flew to reload but a woman in gauzy silks slammed into him, screeching and clawing for his eyes. He slapped her aside, sent her smashing into the wall and he heard the air whoosh out of her. Scarlet grabbed a handful of hair and sent her head over heels tumbling down the stairs. There were no black clad guards, they were sending down the unenhanced. They were ordering the weak to their deaths. The servants were flooding the stairwell at the bellowed commands of someone on the main floor. They were easy to break, easy to hurt and easy to kill. Jessie let the borrowed rifle fall and started slicing his way through the crowd. They didn’t have weapons except for their fists and their rage but they had no hesitation. They ran to the slaughter clawing for eyes, trying to kill with their bare hands. It was almost as if they were screaming and attacking in slow motion for the enhanced teens. They saw every angry face, each grasping hand or swung fist and blocked them. They tried not to turn it into a massacre, tried to fling people over the rails or toss them down the stairs behind them but sometimes there wasn’t a choice. They wouldn’t stop attacking, they wouldn’t stop trying to pull them down. It was a thousand times worse than killing the undead because these people could be saved if they had the time.

They fought their way upward, being slowed by the sheer number of cooks and cleaning girls and maintenance men blindly throwing themselves at the pair. Occasionally a knife or club would flash towards them but they were easily avoided. The two knocked the servants aside and fought their way up, the stairs behind them was littered with broken bodies and moans of pain. Automatic gunfire erupted above them and Jessie felt the impact against his shoulder, felt something slam into his collarbone and felt Scarlet shove him aside almost as fast as the bullets poured down into them. His hand dipped for his gun and the bullets found the shooter, sending him screaming away from the landing with a shattered rifle and a shattered hand with most of the fingers missing.

A fat man managed to get his hands in Scarlets hair and pulled a bloody hank of it away as he screamed and beat at her. Jessie had enough trying to be gentle to people who were trying to kill them and shot the man in the face. He aimed his gun and sent round after round into the servants and slaves. His finger danced on the trigger and bodies splashed all over the walls. Blood, lungs, livers and brains painted gory patterns on everything and his fingers slid a new magazine home and continued to kill. They knew the ways of war. He tried to get his left arm to work but it hurt, it screamed out in agony when he tried to move it. The Kevlar had deflected the bullet, kept it from punching through skin and bone, but didn’t stop the sledgehammer blow that came with it. His whole arm was numb and throbbed and he had a hard time making it do what he wanted, move like it should.

The last of them tumbled and fell, dying or dead and they stood alone on the landing. The door slammed shut above him as he watched and waited for a few beats to see if it would open again. To see if more suicides were coming for them. He breathed deep with the pain then realized she wasn’t at his side. Jessie spun but she was there, leaning against the wall. He sighed with relief until he saw the spill of black running over her hand and dripping to the floor. She’d taken one of the bullets to the chest.

She smiled at him, at the look of surprise and shock, and her teeth were darkened with blood.

“It doesn’t even hurt, really.” she said, her one dull green eye shining in the dim light. The other black and dead.

She stood, moved away from the wall and the patch of dark liquid oozed down the concrete. Her nostrils flared and she forcefully pulled a hungry gaze away from the bleeding pile of corpses at their feet.

“I feel it, Jessie.” she said and shuddered.

He grimaced and tucked his nearly useless hand into the pocket of his jacket.

The black blood was dripping down her leathers, oozing slowly out of the hole instead of spurting. She was standing instead of on the ground writhing in pain. He touched her face. He leaned in and kissed her, tasted the venomous poison on her lips.

“Our job is almost over.” he said. “We can both rest soon.”

She smiled a sad smile and started up the stairs. He could hear the sound of her broken ribs grating together over the squelch of their boots in the puddles of tissue and blood. They crouched low and listened at the door. There were sounds of chaos, not the orderly assembly of another wave of attackers. Jessie had feeling back in his hand, flexed his fingers and pulled his other Glock. Scarlet shoved the door open and he spun out, both guns up and throwing lead into anyone wearing black. Bullets flew back at them but they rolled away and Scarlet moved