yourself and your opponent.
Washington holstered his weapon and took a slow breath through his nostrils. A quiver of apprehension caused the muscles in his stomach to tremor, but he pushed the fear aside as his hands gripped either side of the rod that barred the doors. He lifted it so slowly than a casual observer might have assumed it was wired to some sort of IED. Taking care that the metal didn’t scrape against the wood and brass of the doors, he began sliding the pipe free.
Next he laid the rod against the floor so gingerly that there wasn’t so much as even the smallest clang. He paused and listened at the door again. This time all seemed quiet on the other side. If anything was rushing toward the door, it was doing so with a stealth that the undead simply didn’t possess.
With his ear pressed against the door, Washington studied the hinges on either side. All of them looked fairly new. Shouldn’t be any issues with them creaking.
He placed one hand on the stock of his pistol and the other on one of the door handles. Holding his breath, he depressed the little lever with his thumb slowly. The bolt slid out of the catch as silently as a cat in the darkness, without even a soft click to announce that the doors could now be thrown wide open.
Washington opened the door as if in slow motion. Every muscle in his body had tensed and his heart hammered within his chest so hard that he was surprised his dog tags didn’t jingle in response.
Finally, there was a crack just large enough to allow him to peek through. Squinting one eye, he leaned his head forward and peered into the room that had so captured his imagination.
For a moment, he felt as though he had nodded off and slipped into some kind of dream.
Moonlight streamed through the skylights and he could see tables and folding chairs in the room, most of them overturned on the plush carpet amid scattered pamphlets, books, and papers. Broken glass seemed to be everywhere and the toile wallpaper was streaked with what had to be blood. All of this, though, had been expected; what caused all of his thoughts to stop as abruptly as a car slamming into a brick wall were the occupants of the room.
There had to be between thirty to forty of them stumbling about the convention hall. They bumped into one another like bit actors in some silent comedy, tripped over their own feet, and shuffled aimlessly back and forth. But these didn’t appear to be people. No, they were all…
Six foot tall rabbits with glossy, plastic eyes brushed against bushy tailed skunks; what appeared to be a Panda ran its paws over the far wall as if it could somehow scratch its way through the other side while a red fox lost its footing on some loose paper and tumbled to the floor. Squirrels, dogs, and even what looked to be a giant jack-a-lope, of all things: all walking upright, all seeming confused and lost. Most of them had fur matted with blood and large, dark gashes around their necks and stomachs.
It was like catching a glimpse of cartoon Hell.
On the far side of the room, a woman in a form-fitting, leopard print leotard pushed her way through the crowd. Round, furry ears peeked out through a tangle of dark hair and a long tail hung limply from her hind side. Unlike the others, her face looked as if it had been painted to resemble the features of a jungle cat: the tip of her nose was as dark as coal and a thin line connected it to lips that, even in death, looked full and pouty against the dark spots that covered her face. Washington knew that red smears on her chin, however, had not been part of the original costume.
For some reason, he found it nearly impossible to take his eyes off this woman. Maybe it was the way the tights clung to the shape of her body, perfectly contouring to the swells of her breasts and the soft curves of her hips and ass. She had to be completely naked beneath them, as there wasn’t even the slightest hint of pantyline around her camel toe.
This time it was his mother’s face that shrieked through his imagination.
“Julius Tyrone Washington! You dirty,
His face and chest grew warm and he suddenly no longer felt like a highly trained and efficient soldier; he was twelve years old again and withering beneath his mother’s caustic glare. Tears clouded his vision and he wanted to shrink into himself, to simply curl into a ball so small and tight that he simply winked out of existence.
Her words echoed through his memory, gathering strength with each shameful repetition.
His stomach churned with bitter acids and he was trembling now as images of the clothespin snapping shut flashed through his mind.
Perhaps he whimpered. Or maybe he choked back the sob that felt like a bubble rising through his chest. Whatever the cause, the end result was the same: every plush head in the convention hall snapped toward the door simultaneously, as if connected by some invisible rod.
“Son of a bitch.”
Most of the human-animal hybrids were slow and lumbering, as could be expected. The leopard woman, however, was surprisingly quick. Maybe the tightness of her costume had somehow slowed down deterioration, for she moved almost as quickly as the freshly dead. She shouldered her way past her fellow occupants with no regard for decorum, breaking into a slow run as she extended her arms as if she could somehow magically extend their reach.
Even though twenty or more feet still separated them, he could see the long, black nails that tipped each finger and they clawed at the air as she ran like the animal she was pretending to be.
For a moment, all of Washington’s training went AWOL. He stumbled backward as his hand fumbled for his weapon, struggling to remove the pistol from a holster that now seemed more complicated than it had the right to be.
Before the others had crossed even half the distance, Leopard Woman had burst through the double doors. She was close enough now that Washington could see a film of dust on the green contacts that made it look as though her pupils were dark slivers of almonds. Those unblinking eyes were focused entirely on him as she rushed across the few feet that still separated them, her teeth already gnashing at the air in hopes of finding flesh.
His holster finally gave up its prize and he brought the barrel up as his finger squeezed off a round. The shot echoed through the lobby as if it had been fired from a weapon of much higher caliber, seeming to be three times as loud as it would have been out in the open. At that exact moment, Leopard Woman’s feet rolled over the rod that had previously barred the door.
Her body pitched backwards and Washington’s bullet ripped through the fabric of her prosthetic ear, exploding it into a shower of fluff and stuffing.
She landed on her back with her legs spread wide but no sooner than her head had cracked against the stone floor, it snapped up again, eyes still fixated on her prey.
A second shot caused a spray of dark blood and pink gristle to explode like a geyser from the back of her head. Bits of bone peppered the wall behind her and her lithe body went limp as the sulfuric cloud of smoke released from the gun dissipated like a soul that had found release.
The rest of the anthropomorphic crowd hadn’t made it close enough to the doors yet to be an issue; however, Washington knew that if he took the time to try and re-secure the door he’d be pushing his luck. Instead he bolted for the stairs, taking them three at a time and diving for cover once he’d reached the second floor landing. He pressed his back flat against the wall and concentrated on his breathing, trying to ensure that he was as silent as humanly possible; at the same time, he fished a small, rectangular mirror from his shirt pocket and angled it around the wall so he would be able to monitor their movements without revealing his position to the enemy down below.
In the reflection, he could see that the giant animals had just begun filing through the open door. Some of them walked across the now-still body of Leopard Woman as if she were nothing more than a bulky rug while others seemed to skirt around her. However, none of them seemed to be heading for the stairs. A more intelligent hunter would have looked around and tried to pick up the trail of their prey through any means necessary; with the living dead, however, it was a different story. As long as he remained completely silent, as long as he stayed hidden from view, Washington simply did not exist. Chances were they’d already forgotten the brief glimpse they’d caught of him.
He wasn’t sure exactly how long he sat like that, watching these
