“I’m tired, Scar.” he whispered. “I’m through hurting. I’m through fighting. Let’s rest. Let’s move on to whatever is next.”
“No.” she said. “We have to finish. My father still lives. Ricketts still lives. They’ll rebuild.”
A few more shots rang out over their heads and they heard more soldiers gathering. Jessie sighed, pulled a rifle out of the debris and checked it. Empty.
“I take care of guards.” Scarlet said with difficulty. “Don’t let. Father escape.”
It took her a moment to form her next sentence, the words were hard to find. Her mind was growing darker by the minute. Fading. Erasing.
“Promise me that.” she finally said.
Jessie stretched over to grab another rifle and a bullet spanged off the floor. He jerked his hand back and cursed. They were pinned down behind a stone coffin. They were inching closer. It would only take them a few minutes to start flanking.
“You can’t walk, let alone run.” Jessie said. “When they get close, I’ll roll out. I’m fast, they’ll probably miss. They’re lousy shots, if you haven’t noticed.”
She smiled up at him, both eyes black.
“Mother is in here.” she said and patted the jewel encrusted sarcophagus they were using for cover.
“You finish me.” she pointed to her heart.
“Me and mamma, we finish them.”
Jessie thought he was all cried out. Thought he was ready for the end. They’d go down together with guns blazing. They’d die side by side and he was good with that. Ready for that. Hell, he wanted that. He wasn’t ready to sink a knife into her heart then watch her turn into a full-fledged zombie. He’d already killed her once when he poisoned her with the serum. She wanted him to kill her again and then once more after she was dead. He couldn’t do it. Wouldn’t do it. She was asking too much.
“Hurry.” she struggled the words out as they heard Ricketts giving orders, sending men to both sides of the enormous room. It was getting harder to breathe.
“You must.”
She pulled his hand closer, the one still wrapped around his blade.
He tried to smile, the grim scar on his face tightening.
“I only wish we had more time.” he whispered and gripped the knife tighter, her hand wrapped around his. “But we’ll be together again in a few minutes, as soon as we finish this.”
Her eyes got wide and one cleared a little, a hint of green coloring it one last time.
“We do, Jessie. The time machine. Bring me back.”
Gunfire erupted as the guards lay down suppressing fire and men scrambled to new positions. Scarlet tightened her grip on his and plunged the knife under her ribs, aiming for her barely beating heart. He held her, felt the cool blood ooze over his hands, felt her go limp. She’d come back in another moment and he couldn’t see it. He couldn’t kill her again. Jessie laid her aside and released the hasp on the coffin. He shoved at the cover and the thing inside erupted into movement at the first hint of light, sending the lid flying off. The long-imprisoned mother sprang to her feet with a snarl and a keen of hunger then leaped from the prison she’d been in for nearly a year. Gunfire rang out and someone yelled a warning. She sprang towards the men, claws outstretched and ignored the bullets. She felt nothing except hunger as the rounds tore through her.
Jessie started crawling for the stairs in the confusion. Every gun turned toward the day one zombie as she leapt from one victim to the next with inhuman speed and ferocity. Arms were slashed, necks ripped open, faces bit as she grew more frenzied with every new taste of blood. Gunfire filled the room and bullets were sprayed in panic. The soldiers blindly shot everything that moved and at every sound they heard. Thick black smoke from the plastic columns and palm trees hung in the air making it hard to breathe and impossible to see. The curtains hung from the ceiling were engulfed in flames and dropped burning materials into the room below. Automatic gunfire filled the casino all around him as men tried to kill the screaming and leaping thing. It moved so fast it could have been two or three of them, it was impossible to tell with the fire and smoke filling the room. Panicked shots punched through other black clad bodies, sent gouts of blood and bone splinters sizzling in the flames. The leaping wraith tore out chunks of fresh meat and sprang for the next one, hands extended, broken bones ignored. The red frenzy was in her, the black eyes were merciless, her speed unmatched and her strength was savage grace. Smoke from the fires was thick as they spread and small flames found fuel then blazed into infernos. There was no ventilation, no open windows, nowhere for it to escape. In the booming of gunfire and screams of pain, during the snarling and tearing of flesh, amid the cries of terror and panic, he slipped away from the carnage. Chaotic gunfire continued behind him as Jessie crawled under the smoke haze for the stairs. It became more sporadic and random as more of them died and came back as monsters. Some tried to run. Some fired blindly. Some tried to fight. All of them died.
Jessie stayed low until he made it to a tumbled statue blocking the exit. Coughing and choking, he squeezed into the stairwell. His eyes burned and watered and the tears didn’t stop even when he was out of the smoke and struggling up the stairs.
131
Jessie
The men darting from the lavish conference room, the ones with the flowing robes and bejeweled fingers, had ran for the stairs and Jessie followed. He coughed as he pulled himself up, trying
