Burk’s POV
Another dead bastard down… I fired my revolver at its skull to make it stays down. I can’t help but think why Jack would let some of the undead freaks live among us, they can pass the virus to us. I am grateful they took us in where we had nowhere else to go, after what happened back at home…
“Reliving about the past, brother?” My sister was standing by my side, must have noticed that I was reflecting on the past.
“Nah, It’s nothing.” I don’t need to rehash the past with her, I know she doesn’t have any time for it.
“It’s something, Burk. I know your stubborn ass is too prideful to even admit it.” I narrowed my eyes at her.
“I said it’s nothing, Christie.” She is crossing her arms at me. She gets that from momma who would scold us when we misbehave. Hmm… It looks like our scout came back.
He was rolling fast on the ground with spikes protruding his back; he got out of it as soon he saw me. I don’t enjoy working with any of those undead freaks, but Shandi and Christie insist I need to do in order to deal with undead threats. If it was up to me, I send them back to their graves right now rather than…
“Sir! Been checkin’ the area and they more of the dead than usual.” The man has scars, short blonde hair with him wearing a red cap. He is wearing body armor, but when he needs to hurry, he can transform into a ball and moving around.
“Getting cozy with the undead, eh?” The man frowns the moment I made my comment. “You got bitten and is that supposed to impress me?”
“What in the fuck is your problem? I’m on your side, not with the dead.”
“You are dead, corpse.” I got closer to his face. “I would rather trust the living who are still alive and walking rather than a dead corpse that acts human.”
“At least, I still have a mind of my own. You forget I am still human, too.” I shook my head at him.
“Was human until you got your ass bitten up.”
“Burk, enough!” Christie stepped in between us two “Yeah, you got your issues with the dead, you forgetting that these ‘corpses’ are our allies as well. I rather have them on my side than not.”
“Oh, since when you fell in love with these dead corpses? Or did you forget what happened in Millcreek?!” Christie glared at me for a moment while the scout looked at us like we are crazy.
“Or the time that I cleared you a path when you guys arrived at the outskirts?”
“Oh, you expecting gratitude from us, you dead corpse?” I snapped at him when he open his mouth.
“The dead corpse had saved our lives by mowing down the dead for us to clear a path, Burk.” She gets closer to my face. “Not to mention if it wasn’t for them to arrive in the nick of time when they did. We have been part of the dead by now. Which it was your idea to head to the community of Price. We are working with both the living and the dead that can think for themselves.”
“Think for themselves, huh?” I remembered we encounter one of those corpses when we were in the town of Sandy, looking for supplies to take back to our community. That is when I saw Jason and Samantha , she had simply distracted us by moving like a ghost that dodged our bullets out of thin air.
“That’s that!” She landed on the ground after dodging gunfire from our rifles. “You may need to check on your sister since she still pursing the ‘corpse’.” I clenched my teeth the moment she said it. I continued to fire at her, but she vanished. They didn’t even hit her.
My thought turned to my sister, which I told Jessie to keep watch as I went to look for her. Thankfully, my sister was fighting off a horde of dead and provided cover fire as we made our way back. We had to move quickly and got most of the things that we needed from the grocery store, driving out of Sandy.
“Brother, you alright?” She asked as I remained focus on driving back to our community.
“Burk, come in! Over” I grabbed the radio.
“This is Burk! Has gotten supplies from Sandy and making our way back. Over!”
“This is an emergency! We need all the help we can get. Over!” What…
“What is going on?! Over!” I need to know what happened.
“Oh god… NO!” I heard screams over the radio. The responder was letting a scream that chilled us to the bone.
“Let’s hear it, corpse!” I shook out of my thoughts about the past. I don’t time to think it.
“First off, you are an asshole. Second, the dead around the area are larger than the usual group. And Third…” I stopped him there.
“We’ll take care of it.” I don’t have any time for his shit. “It looks like I’ll have you tell the others.”
“Already did.” I saw Shandi arriving with the others, I saw… 5 others.
“Shandi! I though you would bring more than that.” I saw her frowning at me again… That stare of her’s....
“You got a problem working with us, chump?”
“To be honest, I prefer working with the living.” Shandi walks closer to my face.
“What do you got against folks that are already dead? That we got a better chance to rout them out? You forget that the virus ain’t gonna be touching us again.”
“If they-”
“Brother, we don’t have the time to argue. Me and Shandi are heading to the northern part of the settlement. The large horde is to the west of there and you are gonna need the help of those people.” Christie is pointing to me the group of these dead freaks.
“I would say we can do a lot of good and we can route them out, if you’ll have us, Burk.” One of them spoke up.
I cursed under my breath… I fought against the dead and their kind. My father had been raising us to be fighters in our community, taught us how to shoot and maintain our guns. He doesn’t play favorites; he taught all of us from the time we were kids on how to fight our enemies, even trained our sister in marksmanship.
Even when the Zombie apocalypse came to pass, I had to step up and lead the militia back at Millcreek. Pa has been always preparing us for when the government collapses, we would be ready to step on the plate. Jamie, Christie, Buck and me, we were fighting these zombies for straight 10 years.
Never thought I would work with these undead freaks that speak on their own. *sigh* I hope I wouldn’t have to.
“Fine.” I looked at the 5 freaks that stand before me. “If you think about trying to have me as a snack…” I took a deep breath before I speak my next words, I know Shandi is going to insist that I need to work with them. They ain’t mindless like the rest of the dead. “Make sure the 5 of you are ready before we move out.”
“You have a problem with us, being dead to you?” One man spoke up.
“As long you have a working brain and not wondering around. I’m good.” The man frown at me, but he said nothing else.
“Burk, give ’em a chance beside we maintain radio contact should we need backup. And with 5 of them, you shouldn’t have no problems dealing with the horde on the western part of sentiment.”
“All right.” I turned to them and nodded in that direction. “Let’s move!”
The Horde on the western side
Okay… I need to take stock of the 5 under my command since we need to rout the large horde and keep them from reaching the city. But in order to do-
“Hey Burk! Do you mind if I ask you something?” A woman turned to me while I was driving us to the destination. “Why do you hate us?”
I didn’t answer. Our mission is to route out the horde, and that is all. I’m not interested in sharing my thoughts with these undead freaks.
“Okay… If you need to know-”
I stopped the jeep; I snapped toward the woman and pulled out my shotgun at her. The threat did not faze the woman.
“Your job, you undead freak, is to drive away or destroy as many of your kind to keep from reaching the city. I don’t need to know what you can do.” I warned her not to push it with me… I despise working with the dead, never had, never will.
“I can scream out fire.” She pulled down the window. The next moment, she let a piercing cry that set the area in front of her on fire. It was a green-sickly sight, looking at it closely: it can even melt the strongest of steel. “Even us, freaks can do this.”
“Or dude. Watch!” The man suddenly teleported out of the Jeep. Now he is outside the jeep… Oh now, he back inside!
“I can also do this-”
“Just… stop. Alright? I know you people have your set of abilities and you are not mindless zombies.”
“I prefer… Numbskulls walking around.” Really?
“Let’s move, we are wasting valuable time as it is.” I started up the jeep as we head to where the horde is.
When we arrived… The scout was telling the truth… There is so much of the dead, as if it numbered them as the grain of sand. Okay… I remembered a trick that my pa has shown me during my childhood. To create a distraction, I would need a decoy, dynamite or any powerful explosive in mind and set it on a timer.
Once that is in place, then it would distract the enemy long enough for you to do what you need and take them out. The dead are too large for us to shoot them down, Thankfully, our tinkerer has made sound bombs, horn and the speakers.
I guess it is time for me to bring these… Soldiers for a quick debrief.
“Okay, freaks. I have a plan.” I looked to see if they can add to the strategy. “You there! Woman that can scream out fire!”
“The name is Nickie and I can scream out fire.”
“How big can you make the fire?”
“The louder I scream, the more powerful the flames are. The thing is, it will make me thirsty afterwards.” I tossed her a bottle of fresh blood.
“I can use my teleporting abilities with the speakers to draw some of the dead away from the area.”
“I can use my bio-electricity to fry or drain their ectoplasm,” A woman with Blonde and wearing a green army jacket.
“Electricity, huh?” It amazed me that the soldier can use electricity. “Then we don’t need to drive them out, we can just fry them.” The woman shook her head at me.
“That doesn’t work like that, sir! I need to consume either fresh human blood, electricity from the corpses, or consume ectoplasm afterwards.”
“Can you absorb electricity?”
“I can, but I can’t sense it.”
“Rolling derby!” I know already the man who can curl into a ball. “How many of these freaks can you mow down?”
“A dozen of them, sir. Only if I can get enough speed to do.” I also recall that he can speed up even faster once he gets moving. I saw one time spikes protrude from him once he’s fully heated, like he came out from the oven.
“We need to hurry and get this done, everyone.” I turned toward the horde. We need to reduce some of their numbers and direct them elsewhere.
“Also sir, I can detonate within a area-”
“What is your name?” I walked up to the man.
“Yancy Monroe,” the man spoke, it almost sounds like a girl’s man. “I prefer you call me, Monty! I don’t like being called Yancy.”
“Yancy, you are with me. Jessica, Artie, cut down the numbers down. And Nickie and Kevin, you will lead the dead elsewhere. Can you use your teleportation and distract them, Kevin?”
“Yes, Sir! I can keep them busy long enough.” I nod, I hope I ain’t making a mistake. “Move out!”
Into the horde
With the team knowing their objectives, me and Yancy will go front of the horde to reduce their number. Yancy mentions to me he can detonate objects in a vicinity, the reason I need him to come with me because he is ability will be useful in clearing a group of these freaks.
I also have Jessica and Artie flank them from both sides to ensure none of them reach Price. Artie can also move at high speed, he’ll give me updates if they are more of them or we are missing stragglers. Then again Jessica can fry a score of them but I notice their powers have drawbacks they will need to work around.
As soon as we got near the horde, I took aim using my revolver and shoot one of them in the head.
“Yancy! You’re up!”
“It’s Monty!” He doesn’t like it if anyone calls him that. I was just having some fun calling him that.
Yancy sprinted toward one of them and grabbed one of them by the throat. It heated his arm like an oven, lifting the corpse as it helplessly growls and trying to claw its way out. He fling the corpse toward the others with it being primed for detonation, it would explode in a fiery inferno that took the-
“Whoa!” It lifted off my feet as soon it’s wind hit me.
The explosion is powerful… It is enough to take out a large group itself. I saw Yancy was unaffected by the explosion, as if the flames didn’t touch him but he was already fire-redundant.
As I stood to my feet, I heard a growl to my side. I dodged the swipe and jammed my knife to its skull. I drive it deeper to make sure that fucker stay down; I heard another explosion from over there, I can feel it from there with the winds blowing there.
I used some of the corpse’s blood on myself to make my way there; it is a method that we used to disguise our scent since these creatures rely on smell and sound. However, they headed toward him since that noise drawn their attention… Damn it, Yancy, what were you thinking?!
“Sir!” He waved me over, making my way over there. One of the freaks leaped on top of me, You ain’t getting a bite off of me. I raised my knife to block the corpse from trying to take a bite of me.
To my surprise, Yancy yanks the corpse away from me and primed for detonation.
“Move!” I sprung to my feet, I heard its wail as it exploded in a wide radius.
“Yancy or… Monty, as you wanted to be called!” I felt the wind blowing from my face… from the explosions that Monty made. “Can’t you make them quieter?”
“No, Sir! I can control the size of detonation but the noise I can’t control, I’ll just draw the dead to where the noise is at.”
I let a deep sigh… I should have let him join with Kevin instead of Nickie. Wait…
“I have an idea!” I rose to my feet and pointed to him on where he needed to go. “Detonate a bomb in that direction.” I’ve reloaded my rifle. “I’ll provide cover fire!”
With a nod, Monty wasted no time running through the horde of the dead. He touched the 1st one, and it exploded behind him. Some of the horde turned and moved toward the direction of the noise. Then Monty detonated another bomb on the NW direction and the third on to the NE.
It was enough to get most of the horde to turn in the other direction.
Clean up the Undead Horde
I saw Jessica jumped into the horde, firing high voltage of bioelectricity with Artie bulldozing the dead like they are nothing. Nickie lets out an ear-piercing scream that roasted up the dead, I hope it doesn’t wear her tonsils as she will need to consume more fresh blood afterward.
“Burk, we got control of the horde. Orders?” Kevin asked me for further instructions.
“Tell Monty to blow up all the dead.” His eyes widen up the moment I gave the order. “And get the others out of there so they don’t get caught in the blast range. Can you do that?”
“I’ll try…” He looks down on the ground, he is not sure if he can get the out of the blast range.
Monte has targeted several weaknesses in the horde, Kevin also helped speed up the process by teleporting him on where he needs to go. I took aim and shot several of those corpses, Monty detonate, that took out the rest of the horde. Jessie and Artie can handle the rest of the stragglers should they survive.
“Sir! Most of the undead horde is routed and we can redirect the rest of them away.” Kevin suddenly appears behind me.
“I need a freaking drink.” I can use a beer right about now.
