She nodded which was enough for Ron, he then stepped back behind her, saw the little kid still pistol whipping Nuke and then stab his another dagger into Nuke's head. Nuke's back arched lifting the whole motorcycle off the ground momentarily, then he stopped moving. Dave got pissed, Nuke was his, his, well just his, no one else got to kill him. Only Dave got to do that. Leering he moved up towards Whitney, 'You'll handle me? You'll handle me? What makes you think so? You cocky, young bitch?' Gripping his sword in two hands Dave strode forward on unhealed legs and started beating on Whitney.
For her part she managed to dodge some of his blows and took the rest on her small shield, until the shield started to come apart in her hand. Then she realized she was going to have to fight back, not wear her opponent down, she went on the offense and Dave was amazed, where as the young men were all brute strength and force, she was agile and did not telegraph her moves, making it harder for Dave to dodge her blows. They traded blows, with Dave nicking her thigh and Whitney opening up Dave's stomach, his entrails spilled out over his legs and almost by mutual consent they both spun away to drier ground. Guts hanging around his legs like an obscene kilt Dave and Whitney fought on. Dave started to get tired, Whitney was also breathing heavily. Dave knew any breaks in the fight would only serve to give her time to rest and, if she had told the truth, make him slower as his body healed up any damage he had already taken. He kept the fight up, jumping right back into combat with her, at a pivotal moment Whitney and he crossed blades. Dave pressed in close, both hands on the hilt of his weapon and his body pressed up against hers. His strength was winning the contest, pressing her downward, seeing an opportunity he swept out with one foot sweeping her off of her feet, at the same time she 'gave', shoving the hilt of her weapon into his face, breaking his nose and causing him to lose vision in one eye, both stumbled and fell backwards to the ground. He was quicker to regain his feet and slashed his sword across her torso as she rose. The blade did not seem to penetrate her chain armor shirt, but it threw her back to the ground, as he raised his sword over his head for a possibly killing blow he felt a sword slash to the side of his head, clipping the bottom of his ear off. As he had raised his own sword it had inadvertently blocked the blow from Ron, who had sneaked up behind him.
As he fell sideways away from the blow Dave snapped his foot out, catching Ron in the groin with enough force to actually lift the young man off of the ground. Rolling sideways Dave sat up on the ground and got his bearings. He still held onto his sword. Ron was throwing up off to one side, Whitney was climbing wearily to her feet, the bow woman had an arrow drawn and pointing toward him, but was not firing, that left…..
'Ow! Goddamn it!' the kid hit him over the head with the Glock, the pistol shattered as it hit Dave's head. Dave reached back and grabbed the kid as he was trying to backpedal. 'No, fucking no! Sonny Jim! I have about had it with you guys.' Holding the boy with on hand clamped like iron around his leg, Dave struggled to his feet. As he stood up he pulled the boy's leg with him, jerking him easily off his feet. He pulled the kid up through his guts and used his other hand to lift the kid above his head. Once he hand him there, he took an arrow in the chest, wheezing he threw the kid at Whitney, knocking them both down hard, plucking at the arrow he turned towards the young woman with the bow.
'You missy, are getting on my fucking nerves!' Dave stomped towards her as she calmly drew arrows and fired at him, Dave ducked the arrow that would have hit his head, knocked one aside with his sword and took one to his thigh before he reached her. Stepping on top of the guy he had shot as he made his way towards her, Dave continued his tirade, 'I mean come fucking on, how many zombies have you killed with your goddamn bow?' she continued to fire as he stepped off the guy, 'For fuck's sake girl, his gun' he pointed at the slightly moving body on the ground, to the ax and revolver laying beside it, 'is right fucking there!' She had spunk, Dave had to give her that, she fired another arrow almost right into his face, he barely deflected it with the sword hilt. Swinging the sword around viscously, she blocked with the only thing she had in her hand, her bow, which was cut into two parts. Panting heavily, Dave yelled into her face, 'His gun is right fucking there!', he then pushed her backwards trying to knock her over.
The young woman took two quick steps backwards but managed to stay standing, she then pulled out a long dagger. Dave spat at her, 'Oh Jesus fucking Christ! Don't you know when you are beat? look at 'em! All your friends are down bleeding, unconscious or dead and you wanna pull out another toad sticker and go mano-a-mano with me? I mean if you had ran I might have let you go. Now I changed my mind you stupid little cunt!'
Dave took a step forward and his back leg was swept out from under him, he spun around seeing sky then pavement then sky again. He did keep enough presence of mind to roll over and foil anyone's shot on him, when he finally stopped and sat up he was about fifteen feet away from the kid with the ax, the one he had shot, who was sitting up pointing his revolver at Dave's head.
The bow girl rushed to his side, trying to hold his armored bulk up. The kid had blood pouring out of his mouth, however the gun in his hand was rock steady. Dave noted that his foot had not made the journey with him, and was still standing upright not two paces in front of the kid.
'Dammit, I liked that foot!' he shouted, then twisted sideways as the first bullet tore into his body. Several confused seconds passed before Dave realized that he was still alive. He was on his belly crawling away from the ax guy, his arms were not moving right, not quite right, one of those bullets must have come close to taking him out, he awkwardly put his right hand on the ground and tried to push himself up, looking back over his shoulder he saw a grim faced bow girl striding towards him with the ax. She jumped and landed on his back, forcing him to the ground once again, Dave felt the strength draining out of him, he tried to scream that it was all a mistake, the last thing he felt was the blade of the ax entering the top of his head.
Chapter 26
They were lucky they were so close when Dave jumped them, otherwise the kid would have died. That's what Hank thought anyway. Still, he reflected, the kids were lucky any of them had made it. He was surprised to see them alive and knew they would have a story to tell, he would get the rest of it after he finally figured out what the hell was going on at the Sky Ridge facility. The electronics still worked, which surprised Hank, he thought they would have been destroyed by the nuclear bomb, he seemed to recall that nuke's messed up electronic devices, destroyed batteries, that sort of thing. When the power went off, shortly after the bomb had burst, he was sure there would be no more television, cell phones, cars, anything. Doc said something about the EMP, electromagnetic pulse, only knocking out electronics close to ground zero. Doc also conjectured that the bomb had been a tactical nuclear bomb, designed to take out a small, compact force, not rain down destruction over a broad area. Doc seemed to know more about it than Hank, all Hank really cared about was the radiation, were they all going to die? Did they need to move? He was in the middle of these questions when Michael and his group trickled in and Doc had been called away to try and save them.
The answers Doc gave were heartening, no they probably were not going to die of radiation, Doc thought the zombies were far more likely to overwhelm them, as he doubted the bomb had got them all, and they made more where ever they went. Doc also said 'No' to moving too, at least until someone who knew about the weather patterns could them which way the winds blew. Doc thought the winds blew kind of south easterly, which should mean not directly at the club. The one thing Doc was really concerned with was radiated zombies, if some of them were exposed they could spread the contamination to whomever they contacted. This was something Hank was not going to worry too much about, if a zombie got close enough to give you radiation poisoning you probably had other, more important, things to be worrying about.
Picking up the phone the other board members had given him, Hank put call through to Juan. The phone rang a few times, then it clicked as someone picked up, 'Amigo?' Hank asked, 'You there Juan?'
'Si.'
Ah just like old times, Hank thought, ' How're things going? Ya'll see the blast this morning? Well of course you did, everybody okay?'
'Si, well sort of Hank. Don't know 'bout Mary, she is alive, but bitten. Charlie ain't letting visitors in, he seems worried. You okay at the Club?'
'Er, yeah mostly. Say Juan you remember those kids at the clinic right? The ones with the swords and the
