The Halloween extravaganza continues! This time Irk and Char bring you Part 2, complete with zombies, more zombies, and WAY MORE ZOMBIES! Also, you may recognize a few of the new guys in here. ^_^ We had so many people to kill off that this ran long - the third and final part will run tomorrow. Whether it'll be a trick or a treat remains to be seen... until then, enjoy today's portion!
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Edward
***
Stevane isn't there.
I stare down at the bed. It's rumpled, like there was a struggle, and there's blood sprayed around the room. One small handprint stands out in stark crimson against the white infirmary wall, the fingerprints trailing in a smear. There's smudges of blood all over the crumpled-up pillow, and splatters trailing across the floor and out the main door.
"You, uh, you sure you left her here, Jhe Edward?" Erynn says from behind me. I whirl and grab him by the throat, giving it a pretty decent squeeze. He makes the most wonderful little gik sound in his throat, and tugs at my hand.
"What did you do to her?" My voice is even, reasonable. It's one thing to give me the runaround, and quite another to mess with my 'Bit.
"I didn't do any-gak!"
"If you've harmed her..." I say, raising my voice and shaking his head like a rattle. I'm rather enjoying this! Should have done it ages ago.
The prickling of Aim intrudes on my happy little moment. "Jhe Edward, Erynn has not done anything wrong." Jhe Gerude's quiet voice carries undertones of his Father's. I sigh, and release my trainee. Erynn rubs his throat and backs away from me, glaring at me out of the corners of his eyes.
Jhe Gerude gets that constipated Armed look on his face and mutters under his breath. Erynn snorts. "I don't know, man. I think the Judge would hand this one to them."
Ah. Well, I'm simply concerned for the welfare of my favorite niece. Of course I'm going to start losing control a bit if I see blood all over the last place I saw her. Erynn's still looking at me like I just stomped on his favorite kitten, though.
Our mutual staring contest is rudely interrupted by the ear-piercing report of a rather large set of guns. Jhe Gerude startles, somehow managing to bring his Arms up and at ready before he's even done twitching. He immediately lowers them again, and his face splits into a huge grin and he trots towards the door.
"Jhe Brauer! Over here!"
"Oh thank the blessed gods," Erynn mutters.
Just as it's occurring to me that I might want to follow Jhe Gerude, he reappears with a tall, stunning woman bearing the largest set of... pistols I've seen on an Armed. They're trailed by a shorter, meatier-looking man, casually wielding a large hammer of some sort that looks to be near as tall as he is. He gives me a casual once-over, snorts, and grins at Erynn.
"Lightweight! Fancy runnin' into you in a place like this!"
Erynn snorts. "Likewise. Come here often?"
The man shifts his hammer to his other shoulder and chuckles. "Nah, but I should, eh? I hear the ladies around these parts are mighty ta-- OOF." He rubs his forehead where one of Jhe Brauer's pistols rapped him. "'Ey."
"Have you found anyone else?" Jhe Vanessa Brauer looks around the room, one dark eyebrow raised. I open my mouth to answer. She raises that eyebrow just a touch more, but it's enough to freeze me in place. I shiver. "I wasn't talking to you," she says, the frosty contempt in her voice colored with just a touch of amusement. I feel like a mouse being eyed by a sated hawk. It's the kind of expression that says, 'I might make a snack of you yet.'
Gerude snorts. "I found these bozos, and that's it." Then he narrows his eyes. "Jhe Cruxradia managed to lose one of my little sisters in here, so we should at least look out for her. There's nothing on fire in here, though, so she's probably somewhere else by now. Daddy said to check on Jhe h'Logos as well, though he suspected that the Poet King was capable of keeping himself safe. Still..." he sighs. "Look, we'd better get goi-"
There's a crash outside the doorway into the infirmary and then several moans gargle out in unision. Eight Poets crowd into the doorway. Only one looks like he's still alive, and he's already missing flesh as if it's been peeled off of him in strips. I can't really believe I'm seeing him like this, but I'd recognize Jhe h'Logos's son Elam anywhere. He looks up through his glasses and shaggy, bloodspattered hair in panic. His vision begins to go dull, but then focuses again. He opens his mouth to cry for help, clawing along the floor to get himself out of the entwined bass of flesh and bones that used to be seven respectable poets. It looks like an orgy of the dead, with one unwilling participant.
Elam's plea for help is cut off by a hail of gunfire. In the confusion, I can only note who goes down, note the grotesque level of decay in the living corpses that surround Elam. Jhe Montevallo's neck gets blown out and blood starts gushing out of the hole that now gapes in it. His head yaws to the side when half his neck's supporting tendons are severed. He still continues to chew Elam's shoulder with the dedication that a dog gives to its favorite bone. Jhe Paige's arms explode in a spray of fine red powder, care of Jhe Brauer's guns. She buffets Elam with the ragged stumps that end at her elbows, but she can no longer grip him. That should get Elam free, but his struggles have grown weak. He's in a dazed stupor. "Elam," I roar "get out of there, you're free!"
"I'll fetch the scrawny lad," growls Jhe Gaston. He dashes forward, hammer swinging, just as I hear a clamor behind us in the infirmary. I whirl around, hoping to see Jhe Stevane running to safety - but no. Only more dead. Two corpses, so ruined by now that only shreds of flesh are strung along their bone. They may have been eating each other. I manage to identify the Jhe Miranda's perfume locket hanging from one of the corpse's necks, and can only conclude that she and Jhe Fanton have been devouring each other since they turned. The feast ends when Jhe Gerude cuts them down with more gunshots.
This is absolutely senseless. How are so many Poets unable to defend themselves from a mere trainee exercise? Of course, that only makes me think of the worst part - how am I not able to make this turn out better for them?
We manage to drag Elam out of the mess of corpses. He's frothing at the mouth. The eerie grey cast of his skin is so disturbing that I feel a little sick - or maybe it's the signs of slaughter all around me. There are piles of pulp here that used to be people. I remember talking with them, teaching some of them to write. How could this happen?
It's not real, though - it's just an exercise. I keep telling myself that. Just keep my calm, focus, and everything will be alr--
Elam lashes out at Jhe Gaston, tearing through thick bootleather and gouging into his shin. The surprise in Shawn's eyes is almost comical. Then he kicks at Elam with the damaged leg, sending the turned Poet spinning away down the floor. Jhe Brauer finishes Elam off in a combination of bullets and face that's best left undescribed. The floor under Elam's head is a bloodied crater. Elam's arms flop around limply for a few seconds until he realizes that he's dead. Then, there's just silence.
Tense, awful silence.
Everyone's looking at Jhe Gaston now for some reason, but nobody wants to say why. The stocky man looks off to the side and says in a gruff voice, "Eh. Yeh don't have tah say anythin'. I saw what happened to Jhe Elam, I know how tah put two an' two together." He looks up, locking eyes with Jhe Brauer. "'Ey, 'Nessa, you're gonna cut off my hand when it's over, right? I mean, 'Rude could do it, but I'd prefer it be you that did the rite." He gives her a broad wink. "You're a prettier lass than he is."
Jhe Brauer looks like she's going to throw up, but responds with a curt nod. This is a conversation that all Armed are trained for - they have to take back a piece to Jhe h'Akribastes. That almost consoles me. They can be brought back as long as the pieces are brought to the Judge in time.
"You're turning gray, Jhe Gaston." It's a leaden, emotionless voice. It takes me a few moments to realize that it's mine.
He laughs. His posture's lurching a bit, though, and his breaths are coming slower and slower... shaky gulps and gasps. "Hraurgh...faster than I thought. Nasty things tah fight, aren't they? Good luck teh ye all in fightin' em." He pauses, his eyes lose their light for a moment, and then he shakes his head. He hocks up a great wet wad and then spits it onto the floor. The slimy ball of yellow pus sits there, steaming. "Better get to it, then, right Harvey?" He hefts the hammer, grinning at it. "Yeh always wanted tah clobber me since the day I got yah. Righ--"
He still seems normal at that moment, but then everything changes. He drops the hammer and lunges at Jhe Blackirons. The trainee squeals and tries to dart away, but it's obvious he's going to get pinned to the wall. I'm too far away to do someting about it, but I'm a Poet - if I will it, I can move people like chesspieces. I almost think that it's a bit funny, Erynn's own trial doing him in, but the sad fact of it is that we lose a lot of trainees that way.
Jhe Brauer's closer, and on my cue she acts with the reflexes of a tiger. She springs at Jhe Gaston, swinging one pistol in a sideways arc that clocks Jhe Gaston to the side and knocks him off-course from Erynn. Then she raises her other gun to finish him off. The end is quick, though not clean. Or at least, it should be - but through some swivelling acrobatics that should be impossible to any living human, in a ripping of tendons and a twisting of bones the wrong way in their sockets, Jhe Gaston catches Jhe Brauer's wrist in his teeth. I hear bone snapping as Jhe Brauer screams.
Then the back of Jhe Gaston's head explodes outward, and I see Gerude has his pistols raised and ready to fire again. Jhe Gaston lets go of Jhe Brauer's wrist and stumbles backwards a bit, mouth working as if he's trying to excuse himself. The words begin to come out, then - an eerie echo of his earlier ones:
"Hrungh... 'Nessa... when it's over..." His voice is that of gravel and mud, but somehow still sounds sad. I wonder if he still has some intelligence or humanity left in him, even now.
The great hammer he wielded, Harvey, shifts on the floor, then through some unseen force it hurtles through the air. The hammer impacts into the upper half of Jhe Gaston's body, the bowl of it so huge that when it meets with the floor, there's only a bit of forearm, hamds, and then the lower half of Jhe Gaston left. Oozing from under the hammer there's nothing but glistening red jelly. It quivers a little.
His own Arms took him out when he turned. Good to remember.
There's a deadly click. Jhe Brauer looks back without moving her head. Gerude's pointed one of his pistols at it as he stands behind her. She snorts, says "Fine, then." She raises one hand very slowly. It's the unbitten one. "Shoot it off now, before I start turning all gray. After all there's no telling if Jhe Gaston can be brought back, with his remains looking as they are."
Indeed, Jhe Gaston's limbs are already decaying. The earlier corpses were already in advanced states of expiration. Who knows what can possibly recovered from the dead now?
"Now. Do it," she says.
There are two gunshots, one from each of Gerude's Arms. One takes off Jhe Brauer's hand, the other takes off her head. Her stump-necked corpse falls to its knees without any great show or flair, and then slumps to the floor. On the whole, she made it out easy.
Gerude collects the hand, then looks over at Jhe Gaston. There's no flesh left on his bones anymore. "There's blood on his boot. I wonder if that'll work."
"I wonder if touching it is a good idea at all," I say. "Who knows how easily this stuff can spread?"
He glares at me. "Chicken. No wonder you stayed Pure Poet." He reaches down and cuts away the boot leather from where Jhe Gaston was bitten, then wraps it in a handkerchief. He wraps Jhe Brauer's hand in another handkerchief, then stows them both away. "Let's get out of this hellhole."
I don't like what that insinuates - that I'm just a Poet who can't do anything about all of this. But how can I deny that when my attempt to save Erynn took out Jhe Brauer? I don't want to dwell on failure, but with the wretched moans around us growing louder and louder...
"You're right. Let's get moving. You said they're outside the Poet Hall as well?"
He nods, casting glances in every direction, looking out for more invaders. "Swarming. It's no man's land out there. We're better off in here, if we just stay alert. Besides..." he blanches a little. "We've still got to look for survivors."
I think of Stevane. I left her in that infirmary, sick. Her skin was already turning gray. When we came back, blood was everywhere. Did she survive? Even if the plague didn't kill her, just a little cut from one of these guys would make her one of them. One of these guys? I knew all these people, once. I've taught so many of them.
But my 'Bit is a clever girl. I'm sure she's all right.
* * *
We decide to look on the second floor for survivors. It's not so much a conscious decision as a necessity. A flood of corpses swarms up the flight of stairs behind us as we flee from their onslaught. Gerude stops at the top of the stairs, holding them all off with his two Arms and a hail of gunfire and grit. Erynn and I keep a safe distance, watching in case more dead try to sweep in on us from up here. The floor seems clear, though.
Erynn catches my eye. I inspect the young student carefully.
He looks scared.
I snort. "Nice work," I say, gesturing to the whole Hall. Even up here there's blood smeared across the tiles, footprints scattered here and there. A few doors are swinging free on their hinges. Upon further inspection, there's not just blood on the tiles. There's a stray hand, attached to a forearm that stops going anywhere right around the time it should reach an elbow. I don't want to think anymore about it, but I can't help but spy the charm bracelet on the wrist. It was Jhe Harte's favorite.
At least the flesh on the hand isn't gray or decayed. That might mean there's some hope for Jhe Brauer's revival. But it also might mean something for Jhe Harte's revival - Armed aren't the only ones who can be brought back. I walk that way so I can go pick it up and put it with Gerude's collection, but then there's a commotion behind me.
I turn towards the stairs. Gerude's cursing as the flood of dead just keep on coming.
There's a scream from upstairs, possibly from someone who was still alive. Then, several answering cries. The voices sound liquid, as if their owners are gargling while trying to shout. It sounds like a lot of them. They're coming from up there, now - down the flight of stairs. Down the hall, with Erynn and I between them and Gerude. There's nowhere to go.
"EVERYBODY GET DOWN!" roars Gerude. He keeps one of his Arms Aimed toards the corpses crawling up the stairs from the first floor, then swings the other pistol to aim down the hall. Before we know it, gunshots are ringing over our heads and people who should really learn to stay dead are exploding on top of us. At one point, something grasps for me and catches my ankle, and I shriek while flailing to escape its necrotic grip. Except that's really just Erynn, that idiot of a trainee.
He grasps for it again, and I just roll my eyes until I feel drool on my skin. A short struggle later, I'm missing a shoe and Erynn and I are scrambling away from a corpse that's missing its shins and forearms and is thus hobbling around on the floor like a dog. Gerude then takes it out with little fanfare.
Everything is quiet. They've stopped coming. There's not a spot of floor or wall that isn't covered in blood or worse - and the same can almost be said for us.
"Blood of Theos." I look around, shaking bits of wet flesh off my hands as I survey the ocean of gore before us. Behind me, Erynn whimpers, then vomits. I have to choke off my own nausea. I refuse to lower myself to his level. It's difficult, though. At least battlefields offer the comfort of having soil to soak up the blood. I feel at least a small spark of gratitude that the building is perfectly level. I'd hate to think what it would look like if the entire mess ran like a slow river.
There's a low snapping sound somewhere. Gerude fires, kicking up a small geyser of ick near the stairway, and blessed silence falls over the Hall once more. I look around anyway, making sure I don't see anything twitching.
Erynn's nervously scanning the room as well. "Think that was all of them?"
Gerude grimaces. "No. The boys say that there are more on the upper levels of the building. They're concentrating on the top floor." He bites his lip, then gags and spits. Yeah, it's probably best not to do anything like that. I bet my face is a mess, too.
... Top floor?
Erynn must have had the same thought, as he's looking at me with growing horror in his eyes. "I'm sure he'll be alright," I say, doing my best to avoid contemplating the alternative. "Jhe h'Akribastes surely would be seeing to his safety personally, and I sincerely doubt anything would get past him."
"Yeah, you're probably ri--" The rest of Erynn's words are cut off by a sudden mental shout that nearly knocks me back on my ass.
- E'WAR! E'WAR HELP! THEY GONNA GET ME! E-
I'm running towards the stairs before I've even thought of moving. Someone grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me back hard enough that my feet lose traction. I twist around, my shirt hiking up and tightening around my chest. Gerude frowns, keeping a firm grip on my shirt. "Edward?"
My voice gives away my panic, and I give up on trying to keep a calm face. "Jax is upstairs. He's trapped."
Gerude drops my shirt like it was weaved of acid. "Where?"
"I don't..." I concentrate, pushing everything I have into making that connection, praying it doesn't drop. "Got him. He's on the fourth floor." My office, in fact. Makes sense; Jax knows where it is, and next to the playroom, it's the place he spends the most time in while at the Hall. Gerude nods, and I take off up the stairs, not bothering to wait for the other two.
That proves to be a near-fatal mistake once I hit the landing on the third floor. One of the corpses grabs my foot, and I do a clumsy faceplant right into the floorboards. There's a painful crunch in my nose and a brilliant flare of pain. I try to pull my foot free, but it's held fast in the supernaturally hard grip of the creature. I start kicking at it with my free foot, forgetting that I lost my shoe downstairs and catching the damned thing in the teeth would be fatal. I hear Gerude's shout a split second before my legs are bathed in lukewarm tissue, and I can't entirely choke back a sob of relief.
Erynn hauls me up and inspects my face. "That all yours?"
"What?" I gingerly probe my nose. My fingers come away wet with blood. "Yeah, I just busted my face. I don't think it broke, though."
He squints, then shrugs. "Like I could tell either way. C'mon, we're almost there."
The floor below was dormitory rooms as well as the first. This one held rooms for older Poets who were getting post-graduate training. Offices start on the fourth floor. Considering the colossal wave of dead that flooded down on us and were subsequently dispatched, the emptiness here on the third makes sense. No, all the danger's surrounding our King and my brother...
I can't believe Erynn's gall. I can't think which is more brazen - threatening my little brother or threatening Jhe h'Logos. This has gone beyond too far. What a fucking mess. I'll just have to clean up what I can. We reach the next flight of steps, then head up to the fourth floor.
There are just a few corpses to dispatch here. Jhe Alder and Jhe Rose, I will miss you both. We reach my office, skidding to a stop and almost slipping on the blood that's puddled across the floor. Seeing the entryway to my usual hermitage damaged like this makes me sick in my gut. The door's closed. Gerude motions for us to stay back, readies his Arms, and then charges forward as his pistols roar. The door explodes into shrapnel. There's a few shrieks inside, two of which have that drowning gargle to them that's becoming far too familiar in my life. They're quickly silenced. Then there's another shriek.
"Sorry Jhe Averseen! I thought you were one of them!" There's a pause. Considering my brother is in there, it's the longest pause of my life. "Was that all of them?"
Jhe Averseen lets out a sob. "Yes! Oh thank you Jhe Gerald, I thought I was gonna die!"
I don't pay attention long enough to hear Gerude correct her on which twin he is. I'm already inside and searching for Jaxie. For some reason I can't sense him now, and I'm starting to really panic. I call out for him, then back it up with a mental yell. I can't fucking tell if I'm broadcasting, though. It's like trying to see through a damned brick wall.
"Jaxie? JAXIE?"
"E'war?"
I fall to my knees in relief. Jaxie's blue eyes peer kitten-like from under the heavy desk and widen. "'E'war!" I'm thown backwards from the impact of solid four-year-old-boy to the chest, and for once I don't care that his death-grip on my neck is making me see stars. He's sobbing so hard I can't make out what he's saying, but he's alive and unhurt and that's all that really matters right now.
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