Ascension

nothing, while he was watching he noticed the slightest of pulses, a merest trace of their dead, bluish energy that raced from one of them to the slower shamblers off to Max's right side. The dead on that side stopped, just inside the tree line and out of sight from normal vision.

'What the fuck.' Max said softly while continuing to watch. He noticed several more pulses until all the shamblers to his right all stopped in a line parallel to the tree line. With growing excitement he realized what he must be seeing was the 'leader' giving the lesser zombies orders. Redoubling his efforts to break into the super zombies mind didn't get him inside its head, but when the next pulse came out Max felt it clearly, it said, 'Move'. The order sprang from the super zombie and raced towards the waiting zeds to the right. Max grabbed the message, and time seemed to slow down as he disseminated it. Then he changed it.

It was a gut reaction, nothing Max would have done had he had time to think about it. He changed the message to 'Move further right'. The shamblers all headed off that direction along the inside edge of the woods. Max was really excited now, he thought he had unlocked a way to force the zombies back and proceeded to issue them new orders, to head back into the woods, to attack the supers, to stop…it all amounted to nothing. No little blue data packet flew from Max's head out to the shamblers. He couldn't create a message on his own.

The super realized something had gone wrong and sent another pulse along to his minions; the second time around Max snagged it easily and reinterpreted it to 'Move back into the woods'. He was disappointed that he could not send out orders of his own, but this was new, and useful. It came as a complete shock when the padlock flew up from the gate and belted him in the side of the head.

'Holy fuck!' Max yelled, thinking, 'one of them is telekinetic!' It took him a moment to realize that no one had flung the lock at him using telekinesis, the lock had merely been shot with a rifle and bounced into the side of his head. While he was so busy keeping an eye on the super zombies messages one of them had moved forward far enough to take a shot at him with a rifle.

Over at the fuel pump, the others were running towards the fence closest to the woods raising their rifles and firing randomly into the trees.

'What?' Max wondered, then he heard Stewart yelling at him to get down. Max fell to the ground out of sight as another bullet whizzed by in the place he had been standing a moment before.

A volley of gunfire rolled out of the woods, forcing his friends to take cover behind the equipment in the work yard. Max had thrown himself down behind a pile of what looked like rail road ties sitting just inside the gate. Reaching out he intercepted yet more orders for the shamblers and twisted them to his own end. The orders were coming so frequently that Max didn't have time to do more than change them to basic marching orders, he settled on directing the zombies to head back into the woods away from his position. Max safely watched the rest of the physical fight unfold while constantly shifting the super's orders to the shamblers.

The return gunfire was more accurate than Bill liked, it must be true that the zombies could see the living through obstacles, not that he had doubted Max's word. He looked over at his companions, then beyond them for a moment to where Max was laying with his eyes shut forty feet away. No one was hurt yet. Thoughts of how to proceed were spinning through his head when he heard Stewart swear.

'Fuck. I liked that water bottle you assholes!' her hip was dripping where a bullet had caught the bottle in her belt pouch. 'Indestructible my ass.' Stewart muttered looking at the broken piece of plastic. She caught Bill's gaze and nodded, 'So? Ideas?'

'Get in the cars and drive?'

'We need to fuel up.'

'Oh shit.' Bill said, looking behind them at the fuel tank and the three squad cars. The pump was not powered, it was a simple gravity pump and he had left it in the tank of his car, as he watched the fuel filled the tank and then started to pour out onto the ground.

'Go fix that cowboy, I'll run interference.'

'Wait! Stewart!' Ruben cried, a moment too late.

The woman took a short leap to the top of what looked like a blue delivery van, it was an impressive jump from a kneeling position and she didn't stop there, she ran down the length of the van and vaulted over the six foot high chain link fence and into the woods. Bullets tried to catch her as she flew, but they were microseconds too slow. Bill paused to watch Stewart's progress open mouthed. Ruben was more practical; he ran back to the overflowing car and shut the pump off.

'C'mon Bill!' the old man yelled shutting the fuel tank. He ran around to the driver's side and pulled the car twenty feet forward. Bill was still staring at him open mouthed when he got out.

'Bill, move the other car up!' Ruben yelled.

Spurred to action Bill raced towards the second cruiser and hopped in, the keys were still in the ignition and he pulled it forward until Ruben could slot the nozzle into the tank to begin filling it up. After getting the pump open he ducked down to the pavement taking cover from the sporadic bullets flying out of the woods. He still couldn't see anything to target.

Bill shut the car off, engaged the emergency brake and ran back to Stewart's cruiser. Thankfully, she had left the keys in the ignition. He moved her car up until it was touching the bumper of the cruiser being fueled. With any luck Ruben could fill this one up without having to move either of them again.

From the woods the gun fire was intensifying. No more bullets were flying their way, Bill looked at Ruben and yelled, 'You think you can handle this?'

'Sure, go help her.' Ruben yelled back.

Bill ran towards the exit where Max was lying, stopping just inside the gate and using the thick square-cut logs as cover. 'What are you doing?'

'I'm concentrating. I can…do things to them Bill.'

'What are you talking about?'

'I can change what they say to the shamblers. I am making the weak zombies go away. It's hard to explain. I kept trying to do what Aubrey said, just kept looking at them and I can see them when they talk to each other.'

'Ah, yeah, okay. That's…good?'

'It is. There is more to it than that, I can change it sometimes. I think I made it so the slow zombies won't eat us.'

'Max, can we talk about this later? I need to know where Stewart is.'

'She's in there. With them.' Max said, gesturing, eyes still closed, to the woods.

'We should go help her.'

'I am helping her!' Max said, exasperated.

'So she is alive?'

'She is thriving.'

Chapter 28 — Stewart

The jump to the top of the van had come as a shock to her. Stewart didn't think she could go that high, she had been aiming to hop on the sloping hood and then jump up to the top from there. The idea had been to use the van to get over the fence, instead of running the long way past Max. After her injuries she had felt slow as if treading through molasses. She hadn't tried to use her speed and strength since being hurt, she was afraid the abilities were gone, that maybe she had just been hyped up on adrenaline and was suffering from mis- remembering. She hadn't shared her fear with the others either. 'Trial by fire. Don't abuse it. Conserve.' Those were her thoughts.

Now she wondered why she had waited so long. Like Max her abilities had a conscious element to them. There was a constant vibe that beat through her body, just begging to be tapped into. When she dipped into it she felt so much more alive, so much stronger, she felt invincible. For these reasons Stewart tried to rein in what she was feeling. She tried to ride the beast, instead of letting it ride her. She remembered the fight with Ella. More importantly she remembered Ella. The woman had been alive and had been taken down by an old man with a