by Sonhaven, GoozX, Grimm and thedoctor
Inside the courthouse, Monroeville, Pennsylvania:
A sickly pale, massive Priest stumbled though the first floor of the courthouse, bumping into zombies who simply ignored him. They were looking for fresh meat.
"Never felt this helpless. I'm feeling my body move, but I'm not moving it. It's like a movie or a dream..."
He wandered in thought and awareness but without control of anything. He was walking but did not feel the ground. He saw with no control of the direction of his gaze. He didn't feel numb; he felt nothing... nothing except an intense hunger.
Outside the courthouse:
Dirk Bell looked under the seat and the sun visor for the keys. No luck. "No keys... no problem."
With eyes still on the zombies in front of him, he reached under the steering column and connected the ignition wire to the hot wire.
Vrooomm! With a growl, the van made its presence known.
"I'm on my way, bo--" The sight that lay before Dirk as he looked toward the courthouse window stopped him in mid-sentence.
A fire hose, spouting water, was spinning in a circle with a small-framed zombie in tow at its nozzle. The water had knocked about five zombies down and, just about the time they tried to pull themselves up, the hose would make its full rotation and knock them down again. To top that, water was filling the streets, so the undead were slipping and sliding everywhere.
"Heh." Dirk let out a chuckle. "Now that's funny."
Inside the courthouse:
"YOU CAN'T DENY ME!"
Priest felt a wave throughout his body. It was being held back by sheer will power. For a moment he lost control. His eyes glazed over, silver.
"AGGGGGHHHHH!"
Shivers went through Tayden's body as he heard the unearthly cry nearby. This wasn't good.
Jason Hill shot around, looking in the direction of the cry. "That wasn't no zombie!"
"No," Tayden replied, "that is much worse."
"What do you mean?"
"Priest, our teammate. That cry. He's not a zombie -- he's... possessed."
Below the courthouse:
As the black ichor dropped down to the ground between Grimm's steel-covered fingers, he looked up at the being who moments ago had been his ally, now about to strike him again.
Vengeance, having replaced his helmet, no longer seemed concerned about the zombies slowly beginning to surround the two already dead men again. The flaming sword of Vengeance came crashing down onto the ground, just narrowly missing where Grimm's arm had been.
Grimm leaped to his right, slamming into a group of zombies. The mindless, soulless beings tried to claw at him and each other. He fought them off, while attempting to keep them away from his wound, which was healing much slower than usual.
Vengeance battled into the horde of animated corpses, taking off heads with his flaming sword. He looked over toward his bike and concentrated for a moment. The motorcycle roared into life loudly, almost seeming to growl like a large beast. It drove forward, slamming into the army of zombies, attempting to run them over.
All the while, Grimm and Vengeance fought toward each other through the massive undead horde.
Inside the courthouse:
As Tayden and Jason Hill ran through the corridors of the courthouse, they heard a loud, gravelly voice calling out behind them. The voice would stop every now and then and burst out into hideous laughter, like now. "A-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA-HA..."
The man called Priest lurched forward jerkily, arms and legs flailing about like an out-of-control puppet. His right arm swung upward and smashed into a framed photograph of Judge Herbert Melvin, once a respected man of this county, now likely another victim of the zombie horde.
Priest's body continued to move forward wildly, a smile stretched across his pale, sickly lips. His eyes, highlighted by dark semi-circles beneath them, looked on with what could only be described as insanity. His mouth opened again.
"Hello... is it... me... you're looking for... Hello..." He lifted his head back and began to cackle insanely again.
Outside the courthouse:
Zombies crowded around the van. A sea of the undead stretched before Dirk. He put the van in gear and slammed on the gas. THUMP! THUMP! A couple of bodies fell beneath the vehicle as he hit the brakes. He threw the transmission into reverse. THUMP! THUMP! The van accelerated forward. THUMP! THUMP! And back. THUMP! THUMP! Finally, he put the van into drive and stomped on the accelerator without letting up. THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!
Seeing the van heading toward them, Tayden and Hill turned off the water to the hose and began to climb down from the courthouse's second-floor window. They'd rather take their chances with the zombies downstairs than with the crazy Priest -- who, by the way, couldn't sing a Lionel Ritchie song to save his life. Tayden draped Dirk's coat over his shoulder as he lowered himself. They jumped on top of the van as it pulled up and slid in through the passenger window.
Dirk began to drive off and was a couple of yards away when he noticed that Priest had made his way out the second-floor window and down, obviously after the angel and the boy. "Excuse me," Dirk said as he pushed Hill's unconscious body over onto Tayden's area of the bench seat. He put the van in reverse and violently slammed down on the gas.
Priest let go of the hose and turned in time to see the van slam into him. The force pushed him into the wall. Brick and mortar buried him. "Forgot one," the gunslinger said to his passengers, and he took off one more time.
"Now we can get out of the cursed fucking town," Jason Hill said as they made their way from the courthouse.
"Not yet," Dirk said as he drove. "We go to the bookstore first. Then we find Grimm."
"And what about Priest?" Tayden asked, already knowing what Dirk had in mind.
"That's why we need Grimm -- to help take care of Priest."
"I don't think you un--" Tayden was cut off by a sudden jolt. He looked out his window to see an old Chevy truck riding beside them. The driver wore a CAT baseball cap, a denim jacket, and a strip of flesh that hung down from his face. The van once again jolted as the Chevy slammed into its side.
"First climbing zombies. Now we have zombies that can drive." Hill's face became flush with anger. "Fuck you, George Romero, you lying bastard."
"Check the lower-right inside pocket," Dirk said to Tayden. The angel searched the pocket of the gunslinger's coat and produced a grenade. He rolled down his window, pulled the pin, and tossed it into the open window of the Chevy. Dirk hit the brakes as the Chevy continued on and burst into flames.
"That was easy enough," the gunslinger said as he continued on to the Dragon's Den occult bookstore.