Urban Dead: This Means War
#52
"Yeah," she said with a laugh, remembering how things had been during the midsummer, with the frantic storms and the flooding. Damn, that had been crazy.
"With any luck, though, we can use the washouts to our advantage. Store some rain, hope the cold and wet drives the shamblers inside. If we meet 'em in buildings and they don't surprise us, they're easier to plug. Then we can dismember the fuckers, tie the limbs up in separate plastic baggies, and give 'em the burial they deserve."
"With any luck, though, we can use the washouts to our advantage. Store some rain, hope the cold and wet drives the shamblers inside. If we meet 'em in buildings and they don't surprise us, they're easier to plug. Then we can dismember the fuckers, tie the limbs up in separate plastic baggies, and give 'em the burial they deserve."
#54
"They had just as much of a chance to survive as we did," she said with a shrug. "Survival of the fittest."
Sure, it may have been a bit cold to think of all life in such scientific terms, but Sherry really did believe it. After all, they'd seen evidence of it.
But all of that sat behind her as she spoke to him. They were in the world of the living and god damned if they weren't going to make the best if it. After all, it wasn't as though they had any other option.
Sure, it may have been a bit cold to think of all life in such scientific terms, but Sherry really did believe it. After all, they'd seen evidence of it.
But all of that sat behind her as she spoke to him. They were in the world of the living and god damned if they weren't going to make the best if it. After all, it wasn't as though they had any other option.
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Pcm979
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#55
Mike, valuing his record for never having his nose broken, refrained from mentioning the fact that Sherry had been one of the Zeds only a few weeks ago. Instead, he shrugged.
"Eh, call me an old softy if you want. I suppose the way to look at them is like rabid animals, really."
"Eh, call me an old softy if you want. I suppose the way to look at them is like rabid animals, really."
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#56
"That's kind of the way I see it, too," she said. "Because it's a sickness, not just something that popped outta thin air."
Sherry didn't know much about medicine, but through what she'd experienced hunting zombies as well as being one, there wasn't anything about them other than the same kind of mindless agression that she imagined a rabid dog would feel. Other than that one... But he was an exception, the type that must have been a monster beforehand as well as after...
"But I wasn't talkin' about the zombies. I meant the people... The ones who didn't even bother fighting back like we're doin'."
Sherry didn't know much about medicine, but through what she'd experienced hunting zombies as well as being one, there wasn't anything about them other than the same kind of mindless agression that she imagined a rabid dog would feel. Other than that one... But he was an exception, the type that must have been a monster beforehand as well as after...
"But I wasn't talkin' about the zombies. I meant the people... The ones who didn't even bother fighting back like we're doin'."
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Pcm979
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#57
Mike shrugged again. "We live in a pampered society, even more so than most. Nobody needs to know how to deal with a pandemic or an invasion or crap like that any more." Of course, Mike knew squat about the London bombings, or the U.S. hurricanes. "That's Someone Else's Problem, until, well, it isn't. Then you adapt or you die."
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#58
"Ah," she said, "well that's where you and I have had differences. I've had to prepare for shit like that my whole life, because if it wasn't gonna be a hurricane it was my alcoholic asshole of a father getting us evicted." She shrugged. "So I'm used to livin' like this, you know? Fitting everything I need into a backpack and just takin' off."
She chuckled a bit.
"But that's okay... it helped me to get to where I am now, right? All that matters is tht we're here."
She chuckled a bit.
"But that's okay... it helped me to get to where I am now, right? All that matters is tht we're here."
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Pcm979
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#59
"Granted, you were a mite more prepared, but it's not like those who went to the school of hard knocks were any less likely to get their throats ripped out when this crap started. Bah, let's not start that." He waved a hand. "We can all leap from building to building in a single bound and kick arse now. I never thought the end of the world as we know it would be such a good equalizer."
Last edited by Pcm979 on Sat Oct 01, 2005 5:36 pm, edited 1 time in total.
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#60
She laughed. "Hey, Mike, in case you haven't noticed, the world's doing fine. It's the stuff crawling on it that's panicking right now."
She shrugged.
"But I think we can give 'em a damn good run for their money. Whaddya say?"
She shrugged.
"But I think we can give 'em a damn good run for their money. Whaddya say?"
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Pcm979
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#61
"You know what I mean. And yeah, we'll kick their rotting butts all the way to the underworld of your choice!" He puffed out his chest dramatically.
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#62
She smirked. "Far as I can tell, the underworld ain't under us anymore. It's up here."
It was refreshing to see him returning some of her antics for once. Sometimes Mike could be horribly serious--almost to the point of worrying her that he would stress himself past his own limit. Creature of impulse that she'd always been, Sherry leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
"Just don't overwork yourself, all right?"
It was refreshing to see him returning some of her antics for once. Sometimes Mike could be horribly serious--almost to the point of worrying her that he would stress himself past his own limit. Creature of impulse that she'd always been, Sherry leaned over and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek.
"Just don't overwork yourself, all right?"
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#63
Mike grinned. His self-appointed task of bucking people's spirits up could be a draining and sometimes thankless task. It was gratifying when there were concrete results.
"I'll do my best," he poked her in the ribs, "But it'd help if you lot weren't always getting carved up like turkeys."
"I'll do my best," he poked her in the ribs, "But it'd help if you lot weren't always getting carved up like turkeys."
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#64
"Somebody has to keep you and Ace on your feet," she said with a grin. "And now you're gonna have Melanie workin' with you, too. So be sure to give her a fair share of the business too, eh?"
Clapping him heartily on the shoulder, Sherry grinned.
"And one of these days, it'll be my turn to save your ass, okay?"
Clapping him heartily on the shoulder, Sherry grinned.
"And one of these days, it'll be my turn to save your ass, okay?"
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Pcm979
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#65
"I look forward to it! They always say you should go through with what you have to perform, anyhoo." He checked his watch. "Got the, ah, graveyard shift tonight? The Irregulars had discovered the age-old cameraderie based on bitching about their duties, a technique long ago mastered by militaries the world over.
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#66
She chuckled. "Yeah... yeah,"
With a yawn, she stood and glanced around the mall, realizing that what he was probably trying to say was that he had things to do and sitting around shooting the shit with her wasn't one of them. The girl stuffed her hands in her pockets, smiling.
"Well, I'm glad you accept my apology," she said with finality. "Hate to have shit like that hangin' over my head."
With a yawn, she stood and glanced around the mall, realizing that what he was probably trying to say was that he had things to do and sitting around shooting the shit with her wasn't one of them. The girl stuffed her hands in her pockets, smiling.
"Well, I'm glad you accept my apology," she said with finality. "Hate to have shit like that hangin' over my head."
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Pcm979
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#67
Mike waved it away. "Hey, no fuss. I shouldn't try to psychoanalyse people before my first cup of coffee, anyway."
He got up and stretched. "Just 8 hours longer and I can get some sleep. Visions of hammocks danced through their heads, and so forth."
He got up and stretched. "Just 8 hours longer and I can get some sleep. Visions of hammocks danced through their heads, and so forth."
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#68
She chuckled. "Yeah. If you need a place to rest while I'm out, you know my humble home is always open, right?"
After that, she grinned at him. "After all, my stuff will get lonely if nobody's in there with it, eh?"
As they parted, her hand rose and fell in a friendly wave, and then it was off to save the world again, wasn't it? The Irregulars had gone from a simple strike-retreat guerilla unit to the saviors of the whole bloody populace. Who the Hell would've thought that.
After that, she grinned at him. "After all, my stuff will get lonely if nobody's in there with it, eh?"
As they parted, her hand rose and fell in a friendly wave, and then it was off to save the world again, wasn't it? The Irregulars had gone from a simple strike-retreat guerilla unit to the saviors of the whole bloody populace. Who the Hell would've thought that.
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Pcm979
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#69
Most of the storm had passed, but that wasn't to say that the wind and rain had lessened any. The only difference was that there was more light in the sky and it seemed less hellish to the ears. They'd gone but a few blocks when sudenly, twelve heads--six on one side of the street, six on the other--poked their way out from the ramparts of nearby buildings. Melanie froze, drawing her gun.
Petro already had his shotgun drawn. He didn't wait, hitting the deck and rolling into cover, coming up behind a mailbox and a stone bench.
From right behind him, a smug voice:
"You weren't gonna do that to an old friend, were ya?"
Sherry grinned. "Just seein' how long my young bucks could follow you two without being detected."
"Not bad," he admitted. "Not bad at all."
One by one, through doors and windows and fire escapes and alleys, they emerged. The youngest was only thirteen, the eldest not quite Sherry's age, but they looked by this point like they could eat lead and shit bullets.
"Good job, kids," he admitted, impressed. Not only had they shadowed him, they'd dispersed, gotten ahead, and set an ambush. Nice. He leaned over to Sherry and said quietly. "You'd never actually set one up where they'd be shooting in each other's general direction though, right?"
"They don't have guns," she said, looking a tad worried at that. "We couldn't spare."
"We'll be remedying that as time goes by," he said.
She nodded. "I hope so." And then her expression perked right back to what it had been before they'd left. "We're going to fan out in patrols of four, scout the burb. I'll keep in touch via radio in case something happens."
"You do that," he said, firing off a sloppy-ass gesture toward his head that could vaguely be said to resemble a salute. "Good hunting, Tiger."
She nodded. "Same to you," and then looked to Melanie. "You too. Make sure you take care of him, okay?"
He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.
Melanie smirked. "Will do."
And almost before she'd replied, Sherry was taking off again, calling for the group to disperse. Melanie walked toward Petro and pointed down the street. "If they're fanning out, we should go straight ahead."
"She did that on purpose," he grumbled. "Straight-ahead Petro." He resumed trooping down the street.
"Hm?" she said, not understanding.
"Well, given the choice, which direction do you think I'd prefer going?" he said, shaking his head ruefully.
She laughed. "Girl knows you well. You two knew each other before the outbreak?"
He shook his head. "Long story. We met about a month in." Roughly an eternity ago, of course.
"Oh," she said with a bit of surprise. "All you said was you saved her life... But I didn't figure it was after the outbreak. You two seemed closer than that."
"I saved hers, she saved mine, and we hunted that fucker together. By the way, she gets the cabin next door when we get the fuck out of here."
She nodded. "Fine with me. She seems like she's got a good head on her either way, and if you trust her then that's enough for me."
As they headed down the street, she looked to him and said: "And I'll save the last blow for her, too."
He shook his head. "Nothing fancy. This isn't revenge, this is extermination. Professional all the way."
"Why do I get the feeling that she cares more about this than you do?" she asked. Not accusatory, just cusiosity.
"Not the mission in general..."
"What do you mean, then?"
"But this guy. What did he do?"
"She was attached to the old leader. She's sure that he killed the old leader, murder. So it's all kinds of personal."
"Shit," Melanie said, shaking her head. As they crept over a washout that had been caused by the recent flooding, she said: "Almost makes me wish some of the bad ones had just died." Stupid, wistful, yes. But Melanie couldn't help it.
"A lot have. But look at this- right now, it's kind of profitable to fuck over your fellow man. Steal his shit, steal his weapons, use him as a decoy while you run? All good. So assholes like him will prosper on the short term. Until people like us kill them."
"Makes me wonder how long ago the part of me that would have objected to that died."
After walking for a good few hours, eyes peeled for signs of human life--things like fresh barricades or fresh corpses, mostly--Melanie pointed to a deserted restaurant.
"Windows are blocked up," she said.
"You cover, I'll take a peek in," he said. He eyeballed, then pointed. "Second floor, fire-escape to fire-escape. That'll work.
"
She nodded, scrambling quickly up the ladder of the building next door and moving back to let him pass. She drew the handgun, realized she'd forgotten to load in a fresh clip from their last outing. /Fuck!/ But it was too late to care about that now, wasn't it?
He stretched out, lightly bouncing to the next fire escape, then crouched down, testing the doorknob.
It opened easily, letting him inside. The second floor of the diner was mostly storage that hadn't been touched: dried foods, some canned goods. A fine layer of dust covered everything, a sign that the upper floor hadn't been disturbed.
He looked around, making a note. This would be a good larder to raid. Every calorie counted, these days.
And then he leaned out to wave her over, establishing some cover and watching the entrances to the room.
She slid in next to him, taking care to step lightly lest they alert anyone down below. After she'd checked the points of attack, she nodded and signaled to him. Clear from where she could see.
He began to slowly make his way across. This is where some of those grenades would come in handy, but they were flat out.
The stairs led to the employees-only area: to kitchen and more storage, as well as some restrooms. Nothing looked disturbed from either of them as well. Melanie watched him go as far as she could, then crept down the stairs and waited at their base for his signal. AS far as either of them could tell, it was deserted,
but that didn't necessarily mean jack shit these days.
He kept slinking through the building, room to room, never letting his guard down. Every sense was tuned for any off-kilter data- sight, sound, scent...
But even after examining the building, it was more than clear to both of them that it hadn't EVER been used, let alone currently.
"A fakeout," she said quietly.
"We've promoted that before," he said. "Shamblers do have rudimentary intelligence. They know that barricades often got brains behind them. If they waste time on barricades, good."
She looked over to him, a tinge of worry flashing momentarily in her eyes before she steeled herself once again. Never one to show any sort of concern on the field.
"Or for us."
He nodded. "Could be. Could be. But... over-fancy," he said. "Straight ambushes work better."
"Maybe I'm just paranoid," she said with a slight headshake. Unless they didn't have the strength to perform a full ambush, that is... there were just too many 'what-ifs' in that situation. "But hey, I'll take paranoia over death any day."
He nodded. "Can't be too careful," he agreed.
"Okay, I'll figure us a way out. Not the way we came in, for damn sure..."
"Why?" she said, curious.
"Because if this is an ambush, they'll have it covered."
God damn, he really was thorough.
"Maybe there's a cellar," she suggested. After all, those had window wells...
"Good idea. Oh, let's go look at the food upstairs real quick. If it's an ambush, let's make 'em wait a while."
She laughed. "You're horrible." Oh, that was the refrain for him, she could sense it. She'd be saying that more times than she could count in the next lifetime or so. But she followed him back up anyway, glad to have a rest at that point, even if the idea that they were resting in a deathtrap was out there.
He looked through the canned food. "Hey, potatos!" he enthused, dumping the can in his pack.
"Don't take too many," she said, "that shit'll get heavy once we're being chased down the block by lurchers." All in jest, of course. She crouched down, prying the top off a dust-gowned, unmarked crate and came up with a gigantic smile.
"You'll never fuckin' guess," she said with a laugh, then held up a bottle. "Home-brewed elderberry wine!"
"Fucking sweet," he said, snagging a bottle. "And you wouldn't believe how many times we've ditched our packs, ran, doubled back and grabbed them again. We have it down to a science."
He went through the canned food with renewed vigor. "Spinach," he said unenthusiastically, but he stuffed it in anyway. "Oh! Chili!"
"Well then I trust you," she said with a thumbs-up sign. "And hey, I like spinach!"
"Your sick and degenerate tastes are of no concern to me, woman. Unless they involve me," he said with mock derisiveness, while snagging another can of spinach.
"I can be just as sick and degenerate as you'd like me to be, Dimples," she fired back, adding a few more bottles of the wine to her pack as well as marking their location on the map in a newly-discovered purple sharpie.
"Do tell..." he said. There was a clang outside... the wind shifting one of the fire escapes? Who knew? He grabbed his shotgun.
She practically leapt to her feet, but somehow managed to take the extra .05 seconds required to set the wine bottle down as she automatically flipped her back to his. Unbeknownst to her, however, that move had put her directly into the line of sight from two of the second floor's windows. The first of the shots rang out and there was confusion all around. Melanie screamed, dropped to the floor with her hands over her neck.
He dove to cover, his eyes darting over to her.
She'd curled as small as possible, trying to avoid the hail of gunfire. And even after the active fire had stopped, her ears were ringing...
He slithered over, grabbing her heel and yanking her out of the line of fire, looking her over.
She scrabbled after him, keeping close but still completely in shock. Everything had happened so god damn quick...
"I'm okay," she breathed.
He didn't take her word for it, quickly and roughly examining her. No blood, good to go. He grabbed his shotgun and darted for the fire escape, grabbing two bottles of wine by the neck with his free hand as he ran.
She grabbed her pack by the strap, diving after him. It was like she could feel a pair of unknown eyes sliding over her, looking for the spots where the blood was most concentrated, waiting to make the kill and what the fuck was she thinking? As they slid down the ladders of the fire escape, her hands screaming in protest as her palms scraped, she ducked into an alley, yanking his sleeve so he followed.
He shook his head, turning back toward the street. There was only one building that could've come from, and he was going to kill that bastard...
"It might not be him," she said. "It could be a subordinate."
"Then he's going to have one less flunky," he snarled. He thrust a radio into her hand. "Sherry's callsign is Cap 1. Tell her where we are, and to vector in around this area. I'm going to go kill the little bastard and anybody else he has with him."
She nodded, shouting the command into the radio almost as soon as he'd given it to her. Sherry responded, saying that they weren't too far away--only a few blocks--and would be on it.
In the meantime, he cleared to the section of the first cover by tossing both bottles one way while he dived the other, getting halfway across the street to the cover of a derelict car. From there, he drew his flare gun.
This was more personal than anything he'd ever done. They'd threatened his woman.
Melanie could only watch, and soon enough he disappeared from her view entirely. She clutched at the necklace that hung beneath her jacket, teeth clenched and hating the fact that the last thing he needed was prayer, but it was all she fucking had.
Meanwhile, Sherry was racing toward their location, keeping tabs on the various groups that she'd fanned out. Some probably wouldn't be able to make it 'til long after the action was over, knowing Petro's means (as well as her own).
"Jimbo, Kasey, you two fall back--only come in if we signal; hopefully this won't take that long!"
He popped the flare through the broken window, then darted toward the entrance. Hopefully some amateur asshole was sizzling up there right now, but that'd be too much to ask. He barreled full tilt into the door and... bounced right off with a painful thud, because stout doors did tend to trump bad intentions. Growling, he blasted the hinges with the shotgun, then dove inside.
Almost immediately as he entered, something knocked him down. Hard. The man wasn't anyone they'd met before, probably someone who'd joined Jaycee's new outfit, whatever they were. He grabbed the end of the shotgun, gloved hands impervious to the scalding heat, and swung the barrel around, aiming to throw Petro against the doorjamb.
He got slammed into the doorjam, hanging onto the butt-end and lashing out with booth booted feet, aiming for his opponent's knees.
The man jumped back, holding tight to the gun and avoiding the attack. A shout from somewhere nearby, "Who the hell--" and a second figure entered, this one unfamiliar. However, Sherry would have recognized him as one of the few that had stayed behind when she'd taken the Blackcaps to the mall. However, he seemed more interested in watching the fight than joining.
He held onto the shotgun, actually swinging his legs back to push forward, jabbing the barrel in with all his weight, as he wrenched around to aim it at the other guy. He wasn't interested in whether or not the guy was entering the fight right now, just that he could. With the other guy still holding the barrel, he pulled the trigger once more, firing at point blank range.
The latecoming man was blown backward as the shot ripped through him, effectively ending any potential he had in entering the fight, whether he died or not. However, the character he'd already been scrapping with took the moment of distraction as his opportunity, rushing forward and slamming Petro up against a wall, shoving a knee between his legs and effectively pinning him as he pressed the burning barrel of the firearm straight into his neck.
His head slammed solidly against the wall. Bad spot to be in, little guy pinned by big guy. He felt his skin sizzle as the barrel pressed into his neck.
Bad spot to be in, but he'd been in plenty like it, stupid as he was about these sorts of things. His arm slithered down, pulling the knife from his belt and jamming it into the man's stomach once, twice, three times...
The man growled, seeming to take the blows with little to no pain, although his grip on Petro's shoulder and on the gun relaxed a bit. Like he was on angel dust or something. He shoved the gun harder against Petro's windpipe, not even bothering to attempt to block the knife jabs until he shoved a knee hard up toward his gut.
The knife clattered away from his hands as his vision started to blacken out.
Well...
Looked like this was the end.
His teeth were bared in a vicious snarl as his breath whooshed out from the knee, and his eyes started to roll up into his head.
In the next few seconds, several things happened, although nobody in the room afterward would ever really be sure in what order. Outside, gunfire broke out and glass shattered. The Blackcaps had arrived. Inside, there was the sound of heavy footsteps, someone running or moving on the floors above them. And from out of nowhere, Melanie threw herself at the stranger--who was easily three to four times her size, as though that was difficult--raking at his face with her nails.
The pressure on his windpipe finally lessened, letting him breathe. He gasped for air, but there was no strength in his limbs...
"Hold the doors!" an unfamiliar voice snarled out, "Boss is comin' down! He says we ain't leavin' until they make us!"
And suddenly he was on the floor, having been dropped. He slumped down, gasping for breath. His throat was on fire, both from being scalded and from being crushed.
Suddenly, someone was thrown forcibly against him, but rose quickly to their feet. The sounds of Melanie and the man scrabbling and swinging wildly at each other were the only things really discernable from the fight outside.
He glanced up... what was Melanie doing here, and who the fuck was that guy? Some coherence was returning... life... fight... death... SHIT... he grabbed the knife, flopped over, and jammed it through the man's foot and into the floor.
The man howled this time, not expecting the pain, and staggered forward. From her current position, Melanie had only a few options. She dove at him with renewed energy, her elbow connecting squarely to his jaw as she brought the butt of the pistol down hard on his head. And they were falling... Shit, if this fuck lands on top of me, she thought, shoving herself off of him and blasting two shots straight down through the top of his head.
Petro in the meantime flopped over to his shotgun, weak fingers managing to rack the slide. Okay, who wanted to die next?
Melanie stumbled, still managing to remain on her feet, then looked to him.
"Are you--"
She was cut off as the rifle connected right with her face, sending her crashing against the wall and slumping to the floor.
He rulled and fired at the rifle-wielder.
Their sniper--an older man of about forty or fifty--stared down at him, eyed him through the scope, getting off one shot before being thrown backwards by the blast from the shotgun, his face no longer discernable from the rest of him.
Pain flared in his side as the bullet dug along the side of his ribcage. Automatically he racked the slide, not even registered that he'd fired his last shot, and looked for the next target to kill.
They'd said the boss was coming, but no one else was there. Just a room full of bodies.
"C'mon," he rasped out. "C'mon you SORRY MOTHERFUCKERS! You chickenshit bastard!"
Suddenly, a crackling of static, followed by:
"Petro, Melanie, god damn it where are you! I haven't found him. We're taking heavy fire from the higher floors of the building... have to pull back... Repeat, I haven't seen him anywhere!"
He snagged the radio. "S'okay," he said into it. "Gonna go kill everyone now."
He shook his head, checking the shotgun automatically. Empty. Good thing nobody had come down. He thumbed in fresh rounds, and racked one into the chamber, then looked over at Melanie.
She was crumpled in a useless heap against the wall, effectively blacked out. Bits of blood and skin beneath her nails matched the claw marks down the cheeks and neck of the beefy fellow who'd obviously been their door guard.
But her skull wasn't gushing and cracked open. She was breathing. She'd keep. He rose unsteadily to his feet and started for the stairway.
A few big gunshots on the ground floor would catch his attention, followed by light steps and a familiar grunt of exertion as a door flew open. A scrawny guy with his arms braced against his face, trying to prevent the damage, stumbled back as Sherry leapt at him, slamming him into the wall.
"Where is he!?" she seethed.
"Oh, hey Tiger," he said. "Glad to see you here."
She looked up from bullying the young man, her hand shoved into a gushing wound in his abdomen being the tool she'd been bargaining with.
"Oh, hi," she said, a bit surprised to see him there. Then: "What the fuck is that on your neck...?"
"Hurts," he said. "Anyway, I'll take the upstairs." With that, he started up the stairs, two at a time, shotgun at ready.
There was a sickening crunching sound from behind him as he headed up, and Sherry was darting up beside him.
"We've got everything from here down under control now," she said with a nod. "So it looks like I'm coming with ya."
She shouted into the radio: "If you see anyone bail, shoot to kill, team--this is your fucking entrance exam, all right!?"
There were crackles of gunfire outside, as Jaycee made for the next rooftop. He had sensed the momentum turning from the moment the crazy redheads had charged the building...
Fortunately for him, most of the gunfire was directed to the levels far below him as Sherry and Petro ran their cleaning operation thoroughly through the next few floors, which were mostly empty. The group hadn't been all that large to begin with, and most of them were fleeing for their lives, only to run into the eager jaws of the Blackcaps outside.
His sense started to return to him as he ran. As they cleared the last room, he looked back at her. "Gotta get back downstairs," he said, a panicked expression in his eyes as he darted back down.
"What?" she asked, following him.
"Melanie," he said. The best way to make her safe had been to clear the building, but now... Jesus fuck...
Sherry nodded, understanding. "I'll take after the rest that are running," she said. "We can get him, I fucking feel it okay?"
Before heading off onto the rooftop level, she embraced him quickly and strongly.
He patted her back at the hug and then darted down the stairs. The hunt for Jaycee was in Sherry's hands, freeing him to, well, act like a husband. "Get him, Tiger," he ordered, then dropped to the ground next to Melanie. His throat felt like hell, his voice still raspy, and the pain was throbbing like a motherfucker now that his adrenaline was letting down. He gently reached for Melanie, turning her over.
During the few minutes he'd been gone, she'd come to. Or at least as 'to' as a person in her position could get.
"What...?" she asked, blinking a few times, obviously disoriented due to the blow on the skull.
"Easy," he whispered, pulling her up, cradling her head carefully. "Just take it easy."
She groaned, her eyes rolling back for a moment.
"You're okay," she mumbled, eyes closed.
"Never been better," he rasped. "Easy..."
Then the door banged open, and the zombie strode in.
When it rained, it fucking poured...
He let her go, grabbing his shotgun. The zombie screeched at him, lunging forward. He jammed the barrel into its crotch and fired.
Sherry glanced around on the rooftop level once she'd reached it, finding no one else in the immediate area. From there, she could look down on the battlefield. By the looks of things, they were the sweeping victors, as she couldn't count a single one of her own among the dead. However, there were bigger concerns, as suddenly unwanted bodies were appearing from nearby neighbourhoods...
"Account for your teams and pull back!" she instructed over the radio.
"Got it." "Yeah." "Pulling back." answered her. There was a shot from downstairs...
Naturally, the damned thing fell on top of him, unable to walk, but still quite otherwise ambulatory. Its fangs sank into his bicep.
For a moment, she considered turning back to investigate, but in her heart and head she knew Petro had things under control.
He drew his pistol with his other arm and jammed the barrel into the side of its head, firing and blasting its brains all over Melanie.
However, the woman didn't seem to respond much. She curled against herself, trying to staunch the bleeding from her nose.
"Ah christ," he said, gasping. "Ah christ. Ah christ."
It felt like liquid fire was coursing through his arm.
Unsteadily, she murmured his name, trying to rise on her elbows and managing to crawl toward him.
"... You're..." she said, suddenly clutching her head in her hands. "Are you okay?"
"Never been better," he said, reaching for the radio once more. "Sherry... need help down here... seriously... fucked up."
The girl heard his transmission, frowned. She almost didn't want to. She could find it, she fucking knew she could find where he was hiding... But her loyalties outweighed her thirst for vengeance and she dashed back downstairs, calling on the radio for the available medics.
Head upside down, zombie on top of him, he stared at her boots as they approached. Blood pooled on the floor from the wound on his arm, and his face was already getting gray. "Hey..." he said.
Sherry's heart fluttered in her chest; she dropped to her knees and stared him in the eye. Pupils dilated already... He was breaking out into a cold sweat... "Hey, look at me," she said, not bothering to ask what happened.
He looked at her, his eyes glazed and unfocused. "Wha?" Actually, he was seeing two of her at the moment, but no point in quibbling over that.
"No, Petro, stay with me!" she shouted, taking his hand and holding it tight. With the other, she fumbled for her canteen. Splashing some cool water onto his face and between his lips, she instructed: "Take slow, deep breaths. It'll spread faster otherwise!"
He listened and obeyed. "Hey, s'okay," he said. "Don't look so worried."
"I'm okay," she said weakly, ripping the belt from her jeans and tying it around his arm as a tight tourniquet. She seemed to only notice Melanie then, worry creasing her forehead as she noticed the woman's half-closed eyes and slack jaw.
"Petro," she said slowly, knowing he might not be able to focus, "what happened to her? Is she alive?"
"She's 'live," he said. "Conked on the head..." he nodded toward a broken chair. "Get... wood..." he said. "Twist it through the tourniquet."
She nodded, grabbing a leg of the chair and snapping it in half over her knee. She tightened it via twisting, trying not to look as blood first gushed from the wound--it was already dark and discoloured--then thankfully stopped, its supply cut off.
"Are you sure it's just her head? Can we move her?" Because something about the way she was laying seemed strange.
He rolled, grunting as he squirmed out from under the zombie's carcass, to look at her more closely.
"Stay down!" Sherry rasped. "You'll get your blood flowing too quickly!"
He didn't listen, looking over at Melanie. There were priorities here.
She stared him down with daggers in her eyes. "You're hurt. Fucking stay down. I'll help her."
He flopped back. Okay, her word was good enough. Besides, he was getting dizzy again.
Jaycee stepped from the shadow, swinging his axe. It took Marley in the knee, then the followup stroke took his head. The other Blackcap turned, raising his machete, but the former leader was faster, ramming the axe blade into his stomach.
They had been his closest pursuers, and now, they were taken care of. He crouched down to pick up the radio.
"Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeerry..."
Sherry was tending to the woman on the floor, trying to keep herself from worrying too badly over Petro's condition.
She froze.
"Can't take care of your people, can you?"
"What," she whisipered, then grabbed Melanie's radio and hissed into it. "What have you fucking done?!"
"Jamie's down here and bleeding... oh, and company's coming... here, I'll let you listen in. See you later. Bitch." He clicked the key over to continuous transmit, then chopped the boy's leg off below the knee. The screaming howled through the radio as Jaycee darted back into the shadows.
Sherry cried out, dropping the radio as her hands flew to her mouth, covering it with her hands. Tears welled in her eyes, and she couldn't even manage to say a word back to him. After a few long moments, she whispered:
"Jamie, please..."
There was the sound of zombie growling and grunting. The screaming took on a different tenor as horrid feeding noises were added to the mix.
She threw the radio across the floor, clutching her stomach.
"Oh God... God..."
The militia team burst through the door, finding all of them incapacitated in some form or fashion...
Sherry was on her feet in an instant, somehow shutting herself off to the horror she'd just witnessed.
"Petro's been bitten; he's infected. Take him back to camp immediately, but don't fucking move the woman," she said sternly.
Petro had passed out somewhere along the way. They had something resembling medics, a couple of civilians who'd been given the most basic of training by Ace and Mike. One went with him, the other stayed, examining Melanie.
After directing the others to where they needed to be, she dropped down to her knees beside the other medic.
"There's something wrong with how she's layin'. I don't know medicine... But something's wrong with her..."
"Might be a neck fracture," the man said. "I don't know. I'm not a doctor..."
"No, she could move her neck, I think... Petro said she hit her head, but something else..."
She bent down, carefully shrugging Melanie's coat from her shoulders and checking for breathing. Good, that was normal...
He gently turned over over to examine her more closely.
"Oh shit," Sherry whispered. Her back wasn't broken, but it might as well be. The knife that Petro had used on the man's foot was buried to the hilt just north of her hip. As Sherry's fingertips brushed over the skin of her back, Melanie groaned.
He quickly got to work. Don't pull the knife, staunch the bleeding around the area. "Okay, we're going to have to take her back in," he said. "You'll have to help me."
The recent horrors of what Jaycee had done were still fresh in her mind. She wasn't sure if she could, to be honest. If she fucked this up, if she killed someone that was so dear to him...
"Snap out of it!" he barked suddenly. "We can't bring help to her, we have to get her back in. She might die if we take her back. She will die if we leave her here. Come on!"
Sherry quickly sobered herself, standing and nodding to him.
"Right."
Carefully, she leaned forward and lifted Melanie under the armpits, raising her as carefully as she could and hoping he'd get the drift.
He followed suit, carefully lifting from the other end. It was going to be a long walk back, to say nothing of dangerous. But that was the job.
Fotunately for Sherry, there were a few more Blackcaps still hanging around, and she instructed one of them to help with Melanie and the medic as she picked up the radio. There was still business to attend to.
"You there, asshole?" she snarled.
Jaycee was long gone by this point. There was no answer over the radio.
Growling a few choice curses, Sherry pocketed the radio and waited for a moment before following the others out of the building. A part of her wanted to search for the remains of her comrades, but she realized they'd probably be up and wandering around by now. Blinking back the tears, she headed back to camp, tail between her legs.
Petro already had his shotgun drawn. He didn't wait, hitting the deck and rolling into cover, coming up behind a mailbox and a stone bench.
From right behind him, a smug voice:
"You weren't gonna do that to an old friend, were ya?"
Sherry grinned. "Just seein' how long my young bucks could follow you two without being detected."
"Not bad," he admitted. "Not bad at all."
One by one, through doors and windows and fire escapes and alleys, they emerged. The youngest was only thirteen, the eldest not quite Sherry's age, but they looked by this point like they could eat lead and shit bullets.
"Good job, kids," he admitted, impressed. Not only had they shadowed him, they'd dispersed, gotten ahead, and set an ambush. Nice. He leaned over to Sherry and said quietly. "You'd never actually set one up where they'd be shooting in each other's general direction though, right?"
"They don't have guns," she said, looking a tad worried at that. "We couldn't spare."
"We'll be remedying that as time goes by," he said.
She nodded. "I hope so." And then her expression perked right back to what it had been before they'd left. "We're going to fan out in patrols of four, scout the burb. I'll keep in touch via radio in case something happens."
"You do that," he said, firing off a sloppy-ass gesture toward his head that could vaguely be said to resemble a salute. "Good hunting, Tiger."
She nodded. "Same to you," and then looked to Melanie. "You too. Make sure you take care of him, okay?"
He grinned and gave her a thumbs-up.
Melanie smirked. "Will do."
And almost before she'd replied, Sherry was taking off again, calling for the group to disperse. Melanie walked toward Petro and pointed down the street. "If they're fanning out, we should go straight ahead."
"She did that on purpose," he grumbled. "Straight-ahead Petro." He resumed trooping down the street.
"Hm?" she said, not understanding.
"Well, given the choice, which direction do you think I'd prefer going?" he said, shaking his head ruefully.
She laughed. "Girl knows you well. You two knew each other before the outbreak?"
He shook his head. "Long story. We met about a month in." Roughly an eternity ago, of course.
"Oh," she said with a bit of surprise. "All you said was you saved her life... But I didn't figure it was after the outbreak. You two seemed closer than that."
"I saved hers, she saved mine, and we hunted that fucker together. By the way, she gets the cabin next door when we get the fuck out of here."
She nodded. "Fine with me. She seems like she's got a good head on her either way, and if you trust her then that's enough for me."
As they headed down the street, she looked to him and said: "And I'll save the last blow for her, too."
He shook his head. "Nothing fancy. This isn't revenge, this is extermination. Professional all the way."
"Why do I get the feeling that she cares more about this than you do?" she asked. Not accusatory, just cusiosity.
"Not the mission in general..."
"What do you mean, then?"
"But this guy. What did he do?"
"She was attached to the old leader. She's sure that he killed the old leader, murder. So it's all kinds of personal."
"Shit," Melanie said, shaking her head. As they crept over a washout that had been caused by the recent flooding, she said: "Almost makes me wish some of the bad ones had just died." Stupid, wistful, yes. But Melanie couldn't help it.
"A lot have. But look at this- right now, it's kind of profitable to fuck over your fellow man. Steal his shit, steal his weapons, use him as a decoy while you run? All good. So assholes like him will prosper on the short term. Until people like us kill them."
"Makes me wonder how long ago the part of me that would have objected to that died."
After walking for a good few hours, eyes peeled for signs of human life--things like fresh barricades or fresh corpses, mostly--Melanie pointed to a deserted restaurant.
"Windows are blocked up," she said.
"You cover, I'll take a peek in," he said. He eyeballed, then pointed. "Second floor, fire-escape to fire-escape. That'll work.
"
She nodded, scrambling quickly up the ladder of the building next door and moving back to let him pass. She drew the handgun, realized she'd forgotten to load in a fresh clip from their last outing. /Fuck!/ But it was too late to care about that now, wasn't it?
He stretched out, lightly bouncing to the next fire escape, then crouched down, testing the doorknob.
It opened easily, letting him inside. The second floor of the diner was mostly storage that hadn't been touched: dried foods, some canned goods. A fine layer of dust covered everything, a sign that the upper floor hadn't been disturbed.
He looked around, making a note. This would be a good larder to raid. Every calorie counted, these days.
And then he leaned out to wave her over, establishing some cover and watching the entrances to the room.
She slid in next to him, taking care to step lightly lest they alert anyone down below. After she'd checked the points of attack, she nodded and signaled to him. Clear from where she could see.
He began to slowly make his way across. This is where some of those grenades would come in handy, but they were flat out.
The stairs led to the employees-only area: to kitchen and more storage, as well as some restrooms. Nothing looked disturbed from either of them as well. Melanie watched him go as far as she could, then crept down the stairs and waited at their base for his signal. AS far as either of them could tell, it was deserted,
but that didn't necessarily mean jack shit these days.
He kept slinking through the building, room to room, never letting his guard down. Every sense was tuned for any off-kilter data- sight, sound, scent...
But even after examining the building, it was more than clear to both of them that it hadn't EVER been used, let alone currently.
"A fakeout," she said quietly.
"We've promoted that before," he said. "Shamblers do have rudimentary intelligence. They know that barricades often got brains behind them. If they waste time on barricades, good."
She looked over to him, a tinge of worry flashing momentarily in her eyes before she steeled herself once again. Never one to show any sort of concern on the field.
"Or for us."
He nodded. "Could be. Could be. But... over-fancy," he said. "Straight ambushes work better."
"Maybe I'm just paranoid," she said with a slight headshake. Unless they didn't have the strength to perform a full ambush, that is... there were just too many 'what-ifs' in that situation. "But hey, I'll take paranoia over death any day."
He nodded. "Can't be too careful," he agreed.
"Okay, I'll figure us a way out. Not the way we came in, for damn sure..."
"Why?" she said, curious.
"Because if this is an ambush, they'll have it covered."
God damn, he really was thorough.
"Maybe there's a cellar," she suggested. After all, those had window wells...
"Good idea. Oh, let's go look at the food upstairs real quick. If it's an ambush, let's make 'em wait a while."
She laughed. "You're horrible." Oh, that was the refrain for him, she could sense it. She'd be saying that more times than she could count in the next lifetime or so. But she followed him back up anyway, glad to have a rest at that point, even if the idea that they were resting in a deathtrap was out there.
He looked through the canned food. "Hey, potatos!" he enthused, dumping the can in his pack.
"Don't take too many," she said, "that shit'll get heavy once we're being chased down the block by lurchers." All in jest, of course. She crouched down, prying the top off a dust-gowned, unmarked crate and came up with a gigantic smile.
"You'll never fuckin' guess," she said with a laugh, then held up a bottle. "Home-brewed elderberry wine!"
"Fucking sweet," he said, snagging a bottle. "And you wouldn't believe how many times we've ditched our packs, ran, doubled back and grabbed them again. We have it down to a science."
He went through the canned food with renewed vigor. "Spinach," he said unenthusiastically, but he stuffed it in anyway. "Oh! Chili!"
"Well then I trust you," she said with a thumbs-up sign. "And hey, I like spinach!"
"Your sick and degenerate tastes are of no concern to me, woman. Unless they involve me," he said with mock derisiveness, while snagging another can of spinach.
"I can be just as sick and degenerate as you'd like me to be, Dimples," she fired back, adding a few more bottles of the wine to her pack as well as marking their location on the map in a newly-discovered purple sharpie.
"Do tell..." he said. There was a clang outside... the wind shifting one of the fire escapes? Who knew? He grabbed his shotgun.
She practically leapt to her feet, but somehow managed to take the extra .05 seconds required to set the wine bottle down as she automatically flipped her back to his. Unbeknownst to her, however, that move had put her directly into the line of sight from two of the second floor's windows. The first of the shots rang out and there was confusion all around. Melanie screamed, dropped to the floor with her hands over her neck.
He dove to cover, his eyes darting over to her.
She'd curled as small as possible, trying to avoid the hail of gunfire. And even after the active fire had stopped, her ears were ringing...
He slithered over, grabbing her heel and yanking her out of the line of fire, looking her over.
She scrabbled after him, keeping close but still completely in shock. Everything had happened so god damn quick...
"I'm okay," she breathed.
He didn't take her word for it, quickly and roughly examining her. No blood, good to go. He grabbed his shotgun and darted for the fire escape, grabbing two bottles of wine by the neck with his free hand as he ran.
She grabbed her pack by the strap, diving after him. It was like she could feel a pair of unknown eyes sliding over her, looking for the spots where the blood was most concentrated, waiting to make the kill and what the fuck was she thinking? As they slid down the ladders of the fire escape, her hands screaming in protest as her palms scraped, she ducked into an alley, yanking his sleeve so he followed.
He shook his head, turning back toward the street. There was only one building that could've come from, and he was going to kill that bastard...
"It might not be him," she said. "It could be a subordinate."
"Then he's going to have one less flunky," he snarled. He thrust a radio into her hand. "Sherry's callsign is Cap 1. Tell her where we are, and to vector in around this area. I'm going to go kill the little bastard and anybody else he has with him."
She nodded, shouting the command into the radio almost as soon as he'd given it to her. Sherry responded, saying that they weren't too far away--only a few blocks--and would be on it.
In the meantime, he cleared to the section of the first cover by tossing both bottles one way while he dived the other, getting halfway across the street to the cover of a derelict car. From there, he drew his flare gun.
This was more personal than anything he'd ever done. They'd threatened his woman.
Melanie could only watch, and soon enough he disappeared from her view entirely. She clutched at the necklace that hung beneath her jacket, teeth clenched and hating the fact that the last thing he needed was prayer, but it was all she fucking had.
Meanwhile, Sherry was racing toward their location, keeping tabs on the various groups that she'd fanned out. Some probably wouldn't be able to make it 'til long after the action was over, knowing Petro's means (as well as her own).
"Jimbo, Kasey, you two fall back--only come in if we signal; hopefully this won't take that long!"
He popped the flare through the broken window, then darted toward the entrance. Hopefully some amateur asshole was sizzling up there right now, but that'd be too much to ask. He barreled full tilt into the door and... bounced right off with a painful thud, because stout doors did tend to trump bad intentions. Growling, he blasted the hinges with the shotgun, then dove inside.
Almost immediately as he entered, something knocked him down. Hard. The man wasn't anyone they'd met before, probably someone who'd joined Jaycee's new outfit, whatever they were. He grabbed the end of the shotgun, gloved hands impervious to the scalding heat, and swung the barrel around, aiming to throw Petro against the doorjamb.
He got slammed into the doorjam, hanging onto the butt-end and lashing out with booth booted feet, aiming for his opponent's knees.
The man jumped back, holding tight to the gun and avoiding the attack. A shout from somewhere nearby, "Who the hell--" and a second figure entered, this one unfamiliar. However, Sherry would have recognized him as one of the few that had stayed behind when she'd taken the Blackcaps to the mall. However, he seemed more interested in watching the fight than joining.
He held onto the shotgun, actually swinging his legs back to push forward, jabbing the barrel in with all his weight, as he wrenched around to aim it at the other guy. He wasn't interested in whether or not the guy was entering the fight right now, just that he could. With the other guy still holding the barrel, he pulled the trigger once more, firing at point blank range.
The latecoming man was blown backward as the shot ripped through him, effectively ending any potential he had in entering the fight, whether he died or not. However, the character he'd already been scrapping with took the moment of distraction as his opportunity, rushing forward and slamming Petro up against a wall, shoving a knee between his legs and effectively pinning him as he pressed the burning barrel of the firearm straight into his neck.
His head slammed solidly against the wall. Bad spot to be in, little guy pinned by big guy. He felt his skin sizzle as the barrel pressed into his neck.
Bad spot to be in, but he'd been in plenty like it, stupid as he was about these sorts of things. His arm slithered down, pulling the knife from his belt and jamming it into the man's stomach once, twice, three times...
The man growled, seeming to take the blows with little to no pain, although his grip on Petro's shoulder and on the gun relaxed a bit. Like he was on angel dust or something. He shoved the gun harder against Petro's windpipe, not even bothering to attempt to block the knife jabs until he shoved a knee hard up toward his gut.
The knife clattered away from his hands as his vision started to blacken out.
Well...
Looked like this was the end.
His teeth were bared in a vicious snarl as his breath whooshed out from the knee, and his eyes started to roll up into his head.
In the next few seconds, several things happened, although nobody in the room afterward would ever really be sure in what order. Outside, gunfire broke out and glass shattered. The Blackcaps had arrived. Inside, there was the sound of heavy footsteps, someone running or moving on the floors above them. And from out of nowhere, Melanie threw herself at the stranger--who was easily three to four times her size, as though that was difficult--raking at his face with her nails.
The pressure on his windpipe finally lessened, letting him breathe. He gasped for air, but there was no strength in his limbs...
"Hold the doors!" an unfamiliar voice snarled out, "Boss is comin' down! He says we ain't leavin' until they make us!"
And suddenly he was on the floor, having been dropped. He slumped down, gasping for breath. His throat was on fire, both from being scalded and from being crushed.
Suddenly, someone was thrown forcibly against him, but rose quickly to their feet. The sounds of Melanie and the man scrabbling and swinging wildly at each other were the only things really discernable from the fight outside.
He glanced up... what was Melanie doing here, and who the fuck was that guy? Some coherence was returning... life... fight... death... SHIT... he grabbed the knife, flopped over, and jammed it through the man's foot and into the floor.
The man howled this time, not expecting the pain, and staggered forward. From her current position, Melanie had only a few options. She dove at him with renewed energy, her elbow connecting squarely to his jaw as she brought the butt of the pistol down hard on his head. And they were falling... Shit, if this fuck lands on top of me, she thought, shoving herself off of him and blasting two shots straight down through the top of his head.
Petro in the meantime flopped over to his shotgun, weak fingers managing to rack the slide. Okay, who wanted to die next?
Melanie stumbled, still managing to remain on her feet, then looked to him.
"Are you--"
She was cut off as the rifle connected right with her face, sending her crashing against the wall and slumping to the floor.
He rulled and fired at the rifle-wielder.
Their sniper--an older man of about forty or fifty--stared down at him, eyed him through the scope, getting off one shot before being thrown backwards by the blast from the shotgun, his face no longer discernable from the rest of him.
Pain flared in his side as the bullet dug along the side of his ribcage. Automatically he racked the slide, not even registered that he'd fired his last shot, and looked for the next target to kill.
They'd said the boss was coming, but no one else was there. Just a room full of bodies.
"C'mon," he rasped out. "C'mon you SORRY MOTHERFUCKERS! You chickenshit bastard!"
Suddenly, a crackling of static, followed by:
"Petro, Melanie, god damn it where are you! I haven't found him. We're taking heavy fire from the higher floors of the building... have to pull back... Repeat, I haven't seen him anywhere!"
He snagged the radio. "S'okay," he said into it. "Gonna go kill everyone now."
He shook his head, checking the shotgun automatically. Empty. Good thing nobody had come down. He thumbed in fresh rounds, and racked one into the chamber, then looked over at Melanie.
She was crumpled in a useless heap against the wall, effectively blacked out. Bits of blood and skin beneath her nails matched the claw marks down the cheeks and neck of the beefy fellow who'd obviously been their door guard.
But her skull wasn't gushing and cracked open. She was breathing. She'd keep. He rose unsteadily to his feet and started for the stairway.
A few big gunshots on the ground floor would catch his attention, followed by light steps and a familiar grunt of exertion as a door flew open. A scrawny guy with his arms braced against his face, trying to prevent the damage, stumbled back as Sherry leapt at him, slamming him into the wall.
"Where is he!?" she seethed.
"Oh, hey Tiger," he said. "Glad to see you here."
She looked up from bullying the young man, her hand shoved into a gushing wound in his abdomen being the tool she'd been bargaining with.
"Oh, hi," she said, a bit surprised to see him there. Then: "What the fuck is that on your neck...?"
"Hurts," he said. "Anyway, I'll take the upstairs." With that, he started up the stairs, two at a time, shotgun at ready.
There was a sickening crunching sound from behind him as he headed up, and Sherry was darting up beside him.
"We've got everything from here down under control now," she said with a nod. "So it looks like I'm coming with ya."
She shouted into the radio: "If you see anyone bail, shoot to kill, team--this is your fucking entrance exam, all right!?"
There were crackles of gunfire outside, as Jaycee made for the next rooftop. He had sensed the momentum turning from the moment the crazy redheads had charged the building...
Fortunately for him, most of the gunfire was directed to the levels far below him as Sherry and Petro ran their cleaning operation thoroughly through the next few floors, which were mostly empty. The group hadn't been all that large to begin with, and most of them were fleeing for their lives, only to run into the eager jaws of the Blackcaps outside.
His sense started to return to him as he ran. As they cleared the last room, he looked back at her. "Gotta get back downstairs," he said, a panicked expression in his eyes as he darted back down.
"What?" she asked, following him.
"Melanie," he said. The best way to make her safe had been to clear the building, but now... Jesus fuck...
Sherry nodded, understanding. "I'll take after the rest that are running," she said. "We can get him, I fucking feel it okay?"
Before heading off onto the rooftop level, she embraced him quickly and strongly.
He patted her back at the hug and then darted down the stairs. The hunt for Jaycee was in Sherry's hands, freeing him to, well, act like a husband. "Get him, Tiger," he ordered, then dropped to the ground next to Melanie. His throat felt like hell, his voice still raspy, and the pain was throbbing like a motherfucker now that his adrenaline was letting down. He gently reached for Melanie, turning her over.
During the few minutes he'd been gone, she'd come to. Or at least as 'to' as a person in her position could get.
"What...?" she asked, blinking a few times, obviously disoriented due to the blow on the skull.
"Easy," he whispered, pulling her up, cradling her head carefully. "Just take it easy."
She groaned, her eyes rolling back for a moment.
"You're okay," she mumbled, eyes closed.
"Never been better," he rasped. "Easy..."
Then the door banged open, and the zombie strode in.
When it rained, it fucking poured...
He let her go, grabbing his shotgun. The zombie screeched at him, lunging forward. He jammed the barrel into its crotch and fired.
Sherry glanced around on the rooftop level once she'd reached it, finding no one else in the immediate area. From there, she could look down on the battlefield. By the looks of things, they were the sweeping victors, as she couldn't count a single one of her own among the dead. However, there were bigger concerns, as suddenly unwanted bodies were appearing from nearby neighbourhoods...
"Account for your teams and pull back!" she instructed over the radio.
"Got it." "Yeah." "Pulling back." answered her. There was a shot from downstairs...
Naturally, the damned thing fell on top of him, unable to walk, but still quite otherwise ambulatory. Its fangs sank into his bicep.
For a moment, she considered turning back to investigate, but in her heart and head she knew Petro had things under control.
He drew his pistol with his other arm and jammed the barrel into the side of its head, firing and blasting its brains all over Melanie.
However, the woman didn't seem to respond much. She curled against herself, trying to staunch the bleeding from her nose.
"Ah christ," he said, gasping. "Ah christ. Ah christ."
It felt like liquid fire was coursing through his arm.
Unsteadily, she murmured his name, trying to rise on her elbows and managing to crawl toward him.
"... You're..." she said, suddenly clutching her head in her hands. "Are you okay?"
"Never been better," he said, reaching for the radio once more. "Sherry... need help down here... seriously... fucked up."
The girl heard his transmission, frowned. She almost didn't want to. She could find it, she fucking knew she could find where he was hiding... But her loyalties outweighed her thirst for vengeance and she dashed back downstairs, calling on the radio for the available medics.
Head upside down, zombie on top of him, he stared at her boots as they approached. Blood pooled on the floor from the wound on his arm, and his face was already getting gray. "Hey..." he said.
Sherry's heart fluttered in her chest; she dropped to her knees and stared him in the eye. Pupils dilated already... He was breaking out into a cold sweat... "Hey, look at me," she said, not bothering to ask what happened.
He looked at her, his eyes glazed and unfocused. "Wha?" Actually, he was seeing two of her at the moment, but no point in quibbling over that.
"No, Petro, stay with me!" she shouted, taking his hand and holding it tight. With the other, she fumbled for her canteen. Splashing some cool water onto his face and between his lips, she instructed: "Take slow, deep breaths. It'll spread faster otherwise!"
He listened and obeyed. "Hey, s'okay," he said. "Don't look so worried."
"I'm okay," she said weakly, ripping the belt from her jeans and tying it around his arm as a tight tourniquet. She seemed to only notice Melanie then, worry creasing her forehead as she noticed the woman's half-closed eyes and slack jaw.
"Petro," she said slowly, knowing he might not be able to focus, "what happened to her? Is she alive?"
"She's 'live," he said. "Conked on the head..." he nodded toward a broken chair. "Get... wood..." he said. "Twist it through the tourniquet."
She nodded, grabbing a leg of the chair and snapping it in half over her knee. She tightened it via twisting, trying not to look as blood first gushed from the wound--it was already dark and discoloured--then thankfully stopped, its supply cut off.
"Are you sure it's just her head? Can we move her?" Because something about the way she was laying seemed strange.
He rolled, grunting as he squirmed out from under the zombie's carcass, to look at her more closely.
"Stay down!" Sherry rasped. "You'll get your blood flowing too quickly!"
He didn't listen, looking over at Melanie. There were priorities here.
She stared him down with daggers in her eyes. "You're hurt. Fucking stay down. I'll help her."
He flopped back. Okay, her word was good enough. Besides, he was getting dizzy again.
Jaycee stepped from the shadow, swinging his axe. It took Marley in the knee, then the followup stroke took his head. The other Blackcap turned, raising his machete, but the former leader was faster, ramming the axe blade into his stomach.
They had been his closest pursuers, and now, they were taken care of. He crouched down to pick up the radio.
"Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeerry..."
Sherry was tending to the woman on the floor, trying to keep herself from worrying too badly over Petro's condition.
She froze.
"Can't take care of your people, can you?"
"What," she whisipered, then grabbed Melanie's radio and hissed into it. "What have you fucking done?!"
"Jamie's down here and bleeding... oh, and company's coming... here, I'll let you listen in. See you later. Bitch." He clicked the key over to continuous transmit, then chopped the boy's leg off below the knee. The screaming howled through the radio as Jaycee darted back into the shadows.
Sherry cried out, dropping the radio as her hands flew to her mouth, covering it with her hands. Tears welled in her eyes, and she couldn't even manage to say a word back to him. After a few long moments, she whispered:
"Jamie, please..."
There was the sound of zombie growling and grunting. The screaming took on a different tenor as horrid feeding noises were added to the mix.
She threw the radio across the floor, clutching her stomach.
"Oh God... God..."
The militia team burst through the door, finding all of them incapacitated in some form or fashion...
Sherry was on her feet in an instant, somehow shutting herself off to the horror she'd just witnessed.
"Petro's been bitten; he's infected. Take him back to camp immediately, but don't fucking move the woman," she said sternly.
Petro had passed out somewhere along the way. They had something resembling medics, a couple of civilians who'd been given the most basic of training by Ace and Mike. One went with him, the other stayed, examining Melanie.
After directing the others to where they needed to be, she dropped down to her knees beside the other medic.
"There's something wrong with how she's layin'. I don't know medicine... But something's wrong with her..."
"Might be a neck fracture," the man said. "I don't know. I'm not a doctor..."
"No, she could move her neck, I think... Petro said she hit her head, but something else..."
She bent down, carefully shrugging Melanie's coat from her shoulders and checking for breathing. Good, that was normal...
He gently turned over over to examine her more closely.
"Oh shit," Sherry whispered. Her back wasn't broken, but it might as well be. The knife that Petro had used on the man's foot was buried to the hilt just north of her hip. As Sherry's fingertips brushed over the skin of her back, Melanie groaned.
He quickly got to work. Don't pull the knife, staunch the bleeding around the area. "Okay, we're going to have to take her back in," he said. "You'll have to help me."
The recent horrors of what Jaycee had done were still fresh in her mind. She wasn't sure if she could, to be honest. If she fucked this up, if she killed someone that was so dear to him...
"Snap out of it!" he barked suddenly. "We can't bring help to her, we have to get her back in. She might die if we take her back. She will die if we leave her here. Come on!"
Sherry quickly sobered herself, standing and nodding to him.
"Right."
Carefully, she leaned forward and lifted Melanie under the armpits, raising her as carefully as she could and hoping he'd get the drift.
He followed suit, carefully lifting from the other end. It was going to be a long walk back, to say nothing of dangerous. But that was the job.
Fotunately for Sherry, there were a few more Blackcaps still hanging around, and she instructed one of them to help with Melanie and the medic as she picked up the radio. There was still business to attend to.
"You there, asshole?" she snarled.
Jaycee was long gone by this point. There was no answer over the radio.
Growling a few choice curses, Sherry pocketed the radio and waited for a moment before following the others out of the building. A part of her wanted to search for the remains of her comrades, but she realized they'd probably be up and wandering around by now. Blinking back the tears, she headed back to camp, tail between her legs.
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
-
Pcm979
- Adept
- Posts: 1306
- Joined: Fri Jun 24, 2005 5:22 am
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- Location: Command Deck, the UMSC Pillar of Awesome.
#70
Ace was working quickly. Transfusion. Some of the precious stock of antibiotics. Petro was already running a 102 degree fever, and had drifted away from consciousness a while before.
Every so often, he would moan or mutter. Names, usually, members of the Irregulars, or 'Melanie'. Ace was just standing back, conceding that there was little else to do at this point, when Melanie arrived.
The colour had drained from her face, a stark contrast to her blood-red hair. Her lips had paled from blood loss as well, and while she'd never been conscious fully after the attack, now she was utterly down.
"Looks like the puncture's between two of her lumbar vertebrae," Ace was saying, "Don't know if there's any spinal damage yet...."
But he was mostly speaking to himself. Sherry sat on a nearby bed, watching the scene play out with tears in her eyes.
"Melanie," Petro murmured helpfully. "Angel..."
Sherry shook her head, moving to his bedside.
"She's here," she whispered, smoothing back his hair.
"Tiger," he mumbled, a faint smile on his face, before he drifted back off.
Sherry looked to Melanie with a stare that could crack granite. "If you die," she murmured, "I don't know if he can handle it."
She moved back toward Petro's bed, grabbing the washcloth that laid in the basin on his bedside table. Wringing it out a bit, she slid the cool material across his forehead, dabbing up the clammy sweat that clung to his face.
And so it went. Ace worked steadily, methodically. Petro roused briefly, incoherently, then drifted off again, only to rise up once more. It made for a long day.
But Sherry never left them. She tended to the Blackcaps who'd been wounded, gathered the small group outside the infirmary for a brief address on what had happened, but not once did she leave them to suffer alone.
Petro was half-awake when she came back. "R'port," he ordered.
"When you're well," she said, her strange eyes glistening with what she didn't want to say.
"Did we get him?" he demanded.
"No," she said, her voice breaking. She told him what Jaycee had done, what she'd heard over the radio. "I... I didn't get him. I failed."
"Happens," he informed her. "Y'r people'll need you. Go take care of 'em..."
"I have been," she said. "Some of them are in here, with you."
He grimaced. "Not your fault...mine..." he said.
"No," she said, "I didn't kill him. End of story. Just... Just make sure you end up okay."
"Fuck you... my fault..." he said, drifting off again.
He was glad that she didn't see the look on her face. It would have hurt, undoubtedly. She grabbed the tube of burn ointment that rested beside him, dabbing a bit onto his neck.
"Just keep waking up," she whispered.
That he didnt*
And so it went. Ace closed Melanie up, a grim look on his face as he went to clean up.
"How bad?" Sherry asked as he passed, not wanting the sugar-coated version.
"Impossible to tell until she wakes up," he said. "That's when we can test for lower body function. She'll live. That's all I can promise right now."
She nodded, knowing she'd have to tell Petro the news sooner or later and not looking forward to that at all.
"Thanks," she said to Ace, then passed on the report to Zimmerman.
Zimmerman had been loitering nearby. "I told Steve to keep up his patrol. If Petro doesn't recover, he can come back and formally take command."
And so it went...
Sherry nodded. "Then I'll take up the First."
And although it hurt so, so badly to be saying these things, they'd have to plan for these contingencies either way.
Suddenly, there was a tug at her sleeve. She looked down to where it came from and was shocked to see the blind kid, Jared, staring up at her.
"Petro and Miss Melanie... They're going to be okay, right...?"
Zimmerman, who had missed most of the associated drama with the boy, smiled comfortingly. "They'll be fine, young man," he said in his typically unconvincing, dry style.
She wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, hugging him to her.
"I'll make sure they're okay," she said with forced optimism. "They said they wouldn't leave you."
Jared leaned against her, whimpering a bit.
It had been a bloody, brutal day's work. Technically they'd 'won', on the basis of sheer body count. But nobody involved had any interest in celebrating. Ace and Mike tended to the wounded Blackcaps while Sherry and Jared waited. And waited.
After putting Jared to bed, whispering carefully to him that if he needed anything, all he had to do was ask, Sherry had returned to the intensive care area and had sat at Petro's bedside for hours. But she was too tired, too worried, and eventually she simply slumped over across his chest, deeply asleep.
And for her concern, she was rewarded by a sudden purgation of the contents of his stomach into her hair.
She awoke with a start, looking to him with revulsion. Were it any other moment on any other day, she'd have slapped him and let off a string of profanity that would drive sailors from the room, but he would be thankful now. She rose, stumbling toward the fountain and ducking her head beneath it.
Mike jumped quickly to tilt his head to prevent him from aspirating the vomit. Petro opened his eyes, giving a foul belch. "The fuck..." he say dopily, before passing out again.
After she'd finished cleaning up, Sherry returned to the infirmary with a bit of a grimace. And despite how nasty it really was, she returned to her vigil, refusing to let him believe that she'd abandon him in any way.
Dawn came, with Ace dislodging her so he could take some vitals.
"He seems to be fighting his way through it," he said.
"Of course," she said, and asked almost on auto-pilot: "And her...?"
"No change yet," he said wearily.
She looked down. "All right."
"And you can get that bed in the corner over there," he said, pointing. "And somebody will wake you up if anything changes."
"Thanks," she said quietly, smiling at him with more appreciation than she'd shown anyone in the past few hours. Staggering toward the bed like a mad drunk, she collapsed into it and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
The fever had finally broken. The sheets were sodden, but his color was coming back. His eyes fluttered open, and one of the attendants went to rouse Sherry as she'd been told.
: The girl was at his side in only a few seconds flat, sinking to her knees and watching him appear to regain consciousness. This time for good, she hoped. Gently, she ran a hand down his cheek, speaking quietly, "Hey..."
"Mouth... tastes like... somebody shit in it..."
"And you got it all in my hair," she said with a smirk.
"Oh," he said, misunderstanding. "Whose shit? Zim?"
"You puked up everything you ate in the last week," she said, fiddling with his bangs.
"Oh," he said. Suddenly, his eyes widened. "Mel, where's Mel?" He started to sit up.
"Stay down," she said, shoving him forcefully in the chest and keeping him down. She held his hand tightly, unable to meet his eyes.
"Petro..." She said softly, running her other hand down his arm. "I'm going to tell you the straight truth, okay? But you have to promise to keep calm."
He closed his eyes, visibly bracing himself. He took a breath. Then: "Get me a fucking smoke."
She nodded, handing him the pack and the lighter after she'd wriggled them out of her jeans pocket. As he lit up, she sat down beside him, skimming her hand over his back and then down his uninjured arm.
"Things... Aren't looking too good for Melanie."
"Put me next to her," he ordered, lighting his cigarette. "What happened?"
She still wasn't able to make eye contact.
"Well, she's got a pretty bad concussion, but that's okay... But... There was a knife--your knife--in her back. Guess she fought with someone, twisted it up pretty badly..." She grimaced. "Ace says her back's broken..."
He grimaced. "Is she...?" Going to make it? Paralyzed? He left it open, taking a drag on his cigarette.
Sherry closed her eyes, shaking her head. "He says she'll live... But... Anything other than that..."
He relaxed visibly. "She'll live." That was all that mattered. The rest... he'd made his promise, he'd drawn his line, and it was to her soul, not her body. Fine.
"And... What's happened with her head... she'll wake up, but we're not sure exactly when... She's sedated now while she recovers... So we haven't had the chance to check her for anything."
He closed his eyes once more. "Why the fuck couldn't it be me..." he muttered. "Why the hell'd she follow me in there?"
"I met up with her outside..." She looked down at the floor. "Told her to wait outside and see if she could tend to some of the wounded... And she was okay with that for a while, but..."
He grimaced. "Any sign of Jaycee?"
She shook her head, couldn't remember if he knew about what had happened over the radio, told him again if she'd told him once already.
He'd remember that, but he hadn't been entirely sure if he'd dreamed it. One fight with Jaycee had landed them more losses than a month of regular operations. It was a sobering reminder of just how much more dangerous the human animal was. "He'll be back," he said.
She nodded. "And when he comes, I'm going to kill him."
He nodded. "If I don't see him first," he told her, glancing over at Melanie. Personal for him too, now.
Sherry winced visibly, looking up at him. "I don't want to say this now, but it has to be addressed." Clearing her throat, she continued: "If she doesn't pull through, we're going to have a hell of a mess. She's the founder of the fucking Emerald Guard..."
"We pin it on the psychotic little fuck. It's the truth anyway," he said. He could put it aside, though the words kicked his heart like a hammer. He put it aside. She was going to make it. "Put me next to her," he ordered again.
"It doesn't matter who we pin it on," she said, "it won't change the fact that if she dies, there are about three hundred people out there without their leader." Standing, she shoved the empty bed beside Melanie's out of the way and pushed Petro's over, having little difficulty with the light display models.
Oh christ, that was a whole 'nother nightmare. And she didn't have a replacement. They'd pull who they could in here, but... fuck, what a mess. He was out of it, for damned sure. "Okay," he said. He turned toward Melanie, wincing as it put his weight on his wounded arm, and reached out with his other hand to take hers.
Her pulse was light, thready; her skin was cold.
"Hey Angel," he murmured softly. "I'm here..."
There was no response, whether she heard him or not. Sherry watched from a few feet away, although it felt like miles, and finally announced that she was going to depart to go scrounge up Mike, then wandered off.
He tugged himself closer, until he was right next to her ear, and murmured to her.
Again, there was no response. The only time anything similar had happened was that night when they'd disputed the occurrances with Jared, how she'd simply shut herself off.
He didn't care. He lay there, talking, cajoling, murmuring, until Ace showed up, observed the blood on his sheet, and bitched him out for bursting his stitches. Then he got moved over to her other side, so he wouldn't be laying on the wounded arm anymore. The stitches were redone, and back he went...
A few hours later, there would be a small pull at the sheets covering his bed as the boy crept up to him in the silence, having taken some time to feel his way around but drawn by the noises he was making.
He'd dozed off, but the motion drew him back to wakefulness. He rolled over, looking in the dim light. "Jared...?"
She boy nodded, the silver charms in his hair jingling quietly, sparkling in the fading light.
"Mr. Petro, you haven't stopped whispering all day..."
"C'mere," he said, taking the boy's hand. "Get comfy." He guided him around to where he could sit down. "No 'Mr'," he said. "Just Petro."
He sat, stiff as a board on the bed as he wasn't sure where was an empty spot to really lounge. "Sorry," he said, "'s just how I was raised." There was a long pause, then he looked vapidly into the dark, glad that he couldn't see some things. "Miss Melanie hasn't come by in a while," he commented.
"She's right here," he said. "She's hurt. We don't know how bad," he said. He tugged the boy along a bit further to a more comfortable spot, then put his hand on his shoulder.
"Oh," he said in a tiny, wounded voice. He leaned against Petro as his blank eyes seemed to seek out just where she slept.
"She's asleep?" he asked.
"Here," he said, taking the boy's hand and putting it on Melanie's. "Yeah, she's out cold. Don't know when she'll wake up just yet." He refused to allow for the 'if she woke up at all.'
The bow gulped, his hand recoiling from Melanie's as though it was a snake.
"The Smilin' Man... He did this?"
"It was his people. We never did get to him personally," he said wearily. Some time to reflect on his stupidity had really sobered him. What the fuck had he been thinking? If he'd had the Irregulars, they would've surrounded the building and taken a guess at what was inside. But instead, he'd charged the place solo, and nearly gotten them all killed... fucking stupid.
And then the kid looked straight up at him, eyes seeming to connect with Petro's although it was impossible.
"It was her decision," he said. "Not yours."
"It was me charging in when we could've cordoned the place off tight and caught them all..." he said. Or not, the rooftop escapes were hard to block. But still. He reached out and took her hand again. Just wake up. He didn't care if she was half-paralyzed. That, they could deal with.
The kid wasn't about to argue. It wasn't his place, after all. "She came to see me this morning," he said, remembering fondly.
"What?" he said. They'd left over a day and a half before. There was no way...
Oh christ, not again...
"I think it was in a dream," he said. "And she didn't really even say anything... I just remember feeling so good..."
"Yeah," he said. He let go of her hand long enough to squeeze the boy's shoulder. "Why don't you try talking to her for a bit?" he suggested. "They say people who are under like this can hear what's going on around them."
Every so often, he would moan or mutter. Names, usually, members of the Irregulars, or 'Melanie'. Ace was just standing back, conceding that there was little else to do at this point, when Melanie arrived.
The colour had drained from her face, a stark contrast to her blood-red hair. Her lips had paled from blood loss as well, and while she'd never been conscious fully after the attack, now she was utterly down.
"Looks like the puncture's between two of her lumbar vertebrae," Ace was saying, "Don't know if there's any spinal damage yet...."
But he was mostly speaking to himself. Sherry sat on a nearby bed, watching the scene play out with tears in her eyes.
"Melanie," Petro murmured helpfully. "Angel..."
Sherry shook her head, moving to his bedside.
"She's here," she whispered, smoothing back his hair.
"Tiger," he mumbled, a faint smile on his face, before he drifted back off.
Sherry looked to Melanie with a stare that could crack granite. "If you die," she murmured, "I don't know if he can handle it."
She moved back toward Petro's bed, grabbing the washcloth that laid in the basin on his bedside table. Wringing it out a bit, she slid the cool material across his forehead, dabbing up the clammy sweat that clung to his face.
And so it went. Ace worked steadily, methodically. Petro roused briefly, incoherently, then drifted off again, only to rise up once more. It made for a long day.
But Sherry never left them. She tended to the Blackcaps who'd been wounded, gathered the small group outside the infirmary for a brief address on what had happened, but not once did she leave them to suffer alone.
Petro was half-awake when she came back. "R'port," he ordered.
"When you're well," she said, her strange eyes glistening with what she didn't want to say.
"Did we get him?" he demanded.
"No," she said, her voice breaking. She told him what Jaycee had done, what she'd heard over the radio. "I... I didn't get him. I failed."
"Happens," he informed her. "Y'r people'll need you. Go take care of 'em..."
"I have been," she said. "Some of them are in here, with you."
He grimaced. "Not your fault...mine..." he said.
"No," she said, "I didn't kill him. End of story. Just... Just make sure you end up okay."
"Fuck you... my fault..." he said, drifting off again.
He was glad that she didn't see the look on her face. It would have hurt, undoubtedly. She grabbed the tube of burn ointment that rested beside him, dabbing a bit onto his neck.
"Just keep waking up," she whispered.
That he didnt*
And so it went. Ace closed Melanie up, a grim look on his face as he went to clean up.
"How bad?" Sherry asked as he passed, not wanting the sugar-coated version.
"Impossible to tell until she wakes up," he said. "That's when we can test for lower body function. She'll live. That's all I can promise right now."
She nodded, knowing she'd have to tell Petro the news sooner or later and not looking forward to that at all.
"Thanks," she said to Ace, then passed on the report to Zimmerman.
Zimmerman had been loitering nearby. "I told Steve to keep up his patrol. If Petro doesn't recover, he can come back and formally take command."
And so it went...
Sherry nodded. "Then I'll take up the First."
And although it hurt so, so badly to be saying these things, they'd have to plan for these contingencies either way.
Suddenly, there was a tug at her sleeve. She looked down to where it came from and was shocked to see the blind kid, Jared, staring up at her.
"Petro and Miss Melanie... They're going to be okay, right...?"
Zimmerman, who had missed most of the associated drama with the boy, smiled comfortingly. "They'll be fine, young man," he said in his typically unconvincing, dry style.
She wrapped an arm around the boy's shoulders, hugging him to her.
"I'll make sure they're okay," she said with forced optimism. "They said they wouldn't leave you."
Jared leaned against her, whimpering a bit.
It had been a bloody, brutal day's work. Technically they'd 'won', on the basis of sheer body count. But nobody involved had any interest in celebrating. Ace and Mike tended to the wounded Blackcaps while Sherry and Jared waited. And waited.
After putting Jared to bed, whispering carefully to him that if he needed anything, all he had to do was ask, Sherry had returned to the intensive care area and had sat at Petro's bedside for hours. But she was too tired, too worried, and eventually she simply slumped over across his chest, deeply asleep.
And for her concern, she was rewarded by a sudden purgation of the contents of his stomach into her hair.
She awoke with a start, looking to him with revulsion. Were it any other moment on any other day, she'd have slapped him and let off a string of profanity that would drive sailors from the room, but he would be thankful now. She rose, stumbling toward the fountain and ducking her head beneath it.
Mike jumped quickly to tilt his head to prevent him from aspirating the vomit. Petro opened his eyes, giving a foul belch. "The fuck..." he say dopily, before passing out again.
After she'd finished cleaning up, Sherry returned to the infirmary with a bit of a grimace. And despite how nasty it really was, she returned to her vigil, refusing to let him believe that she'd abandon him in any way.
Dawn came, with Ace dislodging her so he could take some vitals.
"He seems to be fighting his way through it," he said.
"Of course," she said, and asked almost on auto-pilot: "And her...?"
"No change yet," he said wearily.
She looked down. "All right."
"And you can get that bed in the corner over there," he said, pointing. "And somebody will wake you up if anything changes."
"Thanks," she said quietly, smiling at him with more appreciation than she'd shown anyone in the past few hours. Staggering toward the bed like a mad drunk, she collapsed into it and was asleep before her head even hit the pillow.
The fever had finally broken. The sheets were sodden, but his color was coming back. His eyes fluttered open, and one of the attendants went to rouse Sherry as she'd been told.
: The girl was at his side in only a few seconds flat, sinking to her knees and watching him appear to regain consciousness. This time for good, she hoped. Gently, she ran a hand down his cheek, speaking quietly, "Hey..."
"Mouth... tastes like... somebody shit in it..."
"And you got it all in my hair," she said with a smirk.
"Oh," he said, misunderstanding. "Whose shit? Zim?"
"You puked up everything you ate in the last week," she said, fiddling with his bangs.
"Oh," he said. Suddenly, his eyes widened. "Mel, where's Mel?" He started to sit up.
"Stay down," she said, shoving him forcefully in the chest and keeping him down. She held his hand tightly, unable to meet his eyes.
"Petro..." She said softly, running her other hand down his arm. "I'm going to tell you the straight truth, okay? But you have to promise to keep calm."
He closed his eyes, visibly bracing himself. He took a breath. Then: "Get me a fucking smoke."
She nodded, handing him the pack and the lighter after she'd wriggled them out of her jeans pocket. As he lit up, she sat down beside him, skimming her hand over his back and then down his uninjured arm.
"Things... Aren't looking too good for Melanie."
"Put me next to her," he ordered, lighting his cigarette. "What happened?"
She still wasn't able to make eye contact.
"Well, she's got a pretty bad concussion, but that's okay... But... There was a knife--your knife--in her back. Guess she fought with someone, twisted it up pretty badly..." She grimaced. "Ace says her back's broken..."
He grimaced. "Is she...?" Going to make it? Paralyzed? He left it open, taking a drag on his cigarette.
Sherry closed her eyes, shaking her head. "He says she'll live... But... Anything other than that..."
He relaxed visibly. "She'll live." That was all that mattered. The rest... he'd made his promise, he'd drawn his line, and it was to her soul, not her body. Fine.
"And... What's happened with her head... she'll wake up, but we're not sure exactly when... She's sedated now while she recovers... So we haven't had the chance to check her for anything."
He closed his eyes once more. "Why the fuck couldn't it be me..." he muttered. "Why the hell'd she follow me in there?"
"I met up with her outside..." She looked down at the floor. "Told her to wait outside and see if she could tend to some of the wounded... And she was okay with that for a while, but..."
He grimaced. "Any sign of Jaycee?"
She shook her head, couldn't remember if he knew about what had happened over the radio, told him again if she'd told him once already.
He'd remember that, but he hadn't been entirely sure if he'd dreamed it. One fight with Jaycee had landed them more losses than a month of regular operations. It was a sobering reminder of just how much more dangerous the human animal was. "He'll be back," he said.
She nodded. "And when he comes, I'm going to kill him."
He nodded. "If I don't see him first," he told her, glancing over at Melanie. Personal for him too, now.
Sherry winced visibly, looking up at him. "I don't want to say this now, but it has to be addressed." Clearing her throat, she continued: "If she doesn't pull through, we're going to have a hell of a mess. She's the founder of the fucking Emerald Guard..."
"We pin it on the psychotic little fuck. It's the truth anyway," he said. He could put it aside, though the words kicked his heart like a hammer. He put it aside. She was going to make it. "Put me next to her," he ordered again.
"It doesn't matter who we pin it on," she said, "it won't change the fact that if she dies, there are about three hundred people out there without their leader." Standing, she shoved the empty bed beside Melanie's out of the way and pushed Petro's over, having little difficulty with the light display models.
Oh christ, that was a whole 'nother nightmare. And she didn't have a replacement. They'd pull who they could in here, but... fuck, what a mess. He was out of it, for damned sure. "Okay," he said. He turned toward Melanie, wincing as it put his weight on his wounded arm, and reached out with his other hand to take hers.
Her pulse was light, thready; her skin was cold.
"Hey Angel," he murmured softly. "I'm here..."
There was no response, whether she heard him or not. Sherry watched from a few feet away, although it felt like miles, and finally announced that she was going to depart to go scrounge up Mike, then wandered off.
He tugged himself closer, until he was right next to her ear, and murmured to her.
Again, there was no response. The only time anything similar had happened was that night when they'd disputed the occurrances with Jared, how she'd simply shut herself off.
He didn't care. He lay there, talking, cajoling, murmuring, until Ace showed up, observed the blood on his sheet, and bitched him out for bursting his stitches. Then he got moved over to her other side, so he wouldn't be laying on the wounded arm anymore. The stitches were redone, and back he went...
A few hours later, there would be a small pull at the sheets covering his bed as the boy crept up to him in the silence, having taken some time to feel his way around but drawn by the noises he was making.
He'd dozed off, but the motion drew him back to wakefulness. He rolled over, looking in the dim light. "Jared...?"
She boy nodded, the silver charms in his hair jingling quietly, sparkling in the fading light.
"Mr. Petro, you haven't stopped whispering all day..."
"C'mere," he said, taking the boy's hand. "Get comfy." He guided him around to where he could sit down. "No 'Mr'," he said. "Just Petro."
He sat, stiff as a board on the bed as he wasn't sure where was an empty spot to really lounge. "Sorry," he said, "'s just how I was raised." There was a long pause, then he looked vapidly into the dark, glad that he couldn't see some things. "Miss Melanie hasn't come by in a while," he commented.
"She's right here," he said. "She's hurt. We don't know how bad," he said. He tugged the boy along a bit further to a more comfortable spot, then put his hand on his shoulder.
"Oh," he said in a tiny, wounded voice. He leaned against Petro as his blank eyes seemed to seek out just where she slept.
"She's asleep?" he asked.
"Here," he said, taking the boy's hand and putting it on Melanie's. "Yeah, she's out cold. Don't know when she'll wake up just yet." He refused to allow for the 'if she woke up at all.'
The bow gulped, his hand recoiling from Melanie's as though it was a snake.
"The Smilin' Man... He did this?"
"It was his people. We never did get to him personally," he said wearily. Some time to reflect on his stupidity had really sobered him. What the fuck had he been thinking? If he'd had the Irregulars, they would've surrounded the building and taken a guess at what was inside. But instead, he'd charged the place solo, and nearly gotten them all killed... fucking stupid.
And then the kid looked straight up at him, eyes seeming to connect with Petro's although it was impossible.
"It was her decision," he said. "Not yours."
"It was me charging in when we could've cordoned the place off tight and caught them all..." he said. Or not, the rooftop escapes were hard to block. But still. He reached out and took her hand again. Just wake up. He didn't care if she was half-paralyzed. That, they could deal with.
The kid wasn't about to argue. It wasn't his place, after all. "She came to see me this morning," he said, remembering fondly.
"What?" he said. They'd left over a day and a half before. There was no way...
Oh christ, not again...
"I think it was in a dream," he said. "And she didn't really even say anything... I just remember feeling so good..."
"Yeah," he said. He let go of her hand long enough to squeeze the boy's shoulder. "Why don't you try talking to her for a bit?" he suggested. "They say people who are under like this can hear what's going on around them."
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#71
Around the fountain where Sherry and Mike had shared a few moments of laughter just a few days before, there were now bodies. Not of the dead, but of the living and the disillusioned. The worried. A sort of vigil outside the trauma centre where members of the Blackcaps, the militia, and a few nonafilliated individuals all waited nervously for medical attention, for news of the battle, for news of their leaders. Hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, the sleeves of her Scorpions shirt rolled up to her shoulders as she paced nervously.
She'd spoken with Ace not minutes ago regarding the condition of their "Royal Couple," but that hadn't put her any more at ease than had he said they were both dead already. Looking at him and seeing Petro's eyes glazed over as they had been... although she hated to admit it under any circumstances, she'd been damn near terrified.
But eventually, the need to know, to be able to tell these miserable people that their general was not in fact ready to chomp ont heir brains, won out over her decency at leaving the couple some privacy. Upon arriving, she was ushered out by Ned, Ace's up-and-coming medical assistant, who explained the situation to her.
"Oh shit," Sherry said, worry wrinkling across her forehead.
And, leaving Ned to deal with the worried masses, she tore off like a marathon runner in search of Mike, first checking the most logical location: her room.
She'd spoken with Ace not minutes ago regarding the condition of their "Royal Couple," but that hadn't put her any more at ease than had he said they were both dead already. Looking at him and seeing Petro's eyes glazed over as they had been... although she hated to admit it under any circumstances, she'd been damn near terrified.
But eventually, the need to know, to be able to tell these miserable people that their general was not in fact ready to chomp ont heir brains, won out over her decency at leaving the couple some privacy. Upon arriving, she was ushered out by Ned, Ace's up-and-coming medical assistant, who explained the situation to her.
"Oh shit," Sherry said, worry wrinkling across her forehead.
And, leaving Ned to deal with the worried masses, she tore off like a marathon runner in search of Mike, first checking the most logical location: her room.
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Pcm979
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#72
Mike, having worked on the graveyard shift all night, was getting ready to catch some zeds when Sherry burst in.
"Is something wrong?" He stopped midway through shrugging his coat off.
"Is something wrong?" He stopped midway through shrugging his coat off.
"Are you trying to give me a spasm?" ~The Necrontyr Messenger
#73
"It's Melanie and Petro," she said urgently, "Ned's got an update on their status..."
Her eyes said a hell of a lot more than her mouth did.
"He's going to be all right, but... fuck... she's got some shrapnel in her... they're going to have to open her up and Ace has been working for almost thirty hours straight on no rest..."
She didn't have to spell it out for him.
Her eyes said a hell of a lot more than her mouth did.
"He's going to be all right, but... fuck... she's got some shrapnel in her... they're going to have to open her up and Ace has been working for almost thirty hours straight on no rest..."
She didn't have to spell it out for him.
Last edited by Caz on Sun Oct 02, 2005 6:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
#75
Thank you, her relieved look said as she rose to follow him back to their meteoric ER. As they walked, she explained more closely as to what had happened, how the injuries had occurred. And when she reached a certain part, she trailed off, not sure how to word it.
"Mike, there's something you should know," she said as though distracted, not wanting to look him in the eye directly. "Ned says we can't sedate her, because we have to check the nerve endings after we remove the blade... the way things sit right now, Ace isn't even sure if her fucking spinal cord isn't severed."
"Mike, there's something you should know," she said as though distracted, not wanting to look him in the eye directly. "Ned says we can't sedate her, because we have to check the nerve endings after we remove the blade... the way things sit right now, Ace isn't even sure if her fucking spinal cord isn't severed."