Embedded Files
“It’s not that I think you’re doing a bad job,” Alestor said, reloading his Colt. “Its just you’re not doing a good enough job for the pay you want.” Leo was glaring at him, despite the fact his gun was in the opposite direction and shooting undead. “You asshole.”
“Hey, don’t take it out on me,” snapped Alestor, turning to the advancing undead to assist. “You wanted your performance review. I gave it.”
The walkie-talkie crackled to life. “Hey, Al, honey.”
It was Yoko. She was probably on the other side of the cemetery, at some crypt, trying to make their undead problem go away.
Leiland Memorial was one of those nice cemeteries, with wide walkways, benches under willows, and small koi ponds that dotted the vista. The dead slept peacefully under nicely tended green plots and the groundskeepers were meticulous of discarding dried and dying flowers from the headstones.
Rather, they had been sleeping peacefully, until some teenage whack-job and his posse of Goth-Emo wanna-bes said the right spell with the right pronunciation (which was pretty rare these days; the forgotten languages were just that) and gave the deceased their unneeded wake up call.
Said group of teens were now huddled near Leo’s van, shocked that, for once, someone actually listened to them, chanting zombie resurrecting spells notwithstanding. Their leader, a one Cale “Demonspeaker” Johnson, was more concerned with what the others (Alestor’s group) were going to do with his undead army than fearing that said army wouldn’t hesitate to tear him limb from limb.
Yoko was reading over, not a thick book bound with the skin of tortured sacrifices, but a print out from a website called “DarkArts and Spells dot com. She’d confiscated it from Cale when Leo made like an assassin and ambushed the group. If not for Alestor, there was no doubt Leo would have started shooting and continued to shoot before he stopped to ask questions. This was about the time they were jumped by the newly risen undead and Leo asked for an informal performance review. “Yeah, Yoko, go ahead,” Alestor said into the walkie. Leo was switching to a shotgun now. “So, the print out says nothing about a return-the-dead-to-the-ground, but I can do what I can from here. By the way,” she said her voice fading a bit when she turned her head to glare at Cale when he tried to make a bid for freedom. “Mei is on her way with Henri and they should be zeroing on your location. “I’m telling you this because,” Yoko said, then she raised her voice loud enough for Leo to hear. “I don’t want them being shot on sight by Mr. Shoot-first-shoot-some-more-shoot-till-everyone’s-dead-then-try-to-ask-questions Griffin.” “Shut up, Yoko!” shouted Leo as he deprived a zombie of a head and left shoulder with one shot. “’Kay,” Alestor responded, chuckling to himself.
It wasn’t long before Mei’s screaming came to the guys’ ears. She was pursued by a group of lumbering undead, but she had a pretty good head start on them. Behind her, pausing every now and again to throw a stick, an empty pot, a vase, was Henri. The fourteen year old’s legs were longer than his but he was able to keep a good pace with her until they came to Alestor and Leo’s barricade of a golf cart and a fold up table.
Mei vaulted the table and crashed into Alestor, who caught her effortlessly. Henri followed but climbed over instead and picked up one of Leo’s discarded guns, a Smith and Wesson Sigma and started dispatching their pursuers. “‘Ello, Mei,” Alestor said with a broad smile. “How’s your first day of work?” She stared at him with frightened eyes. “Are you kidding?! Zombies, Alestor! Zombies!” “Its always zombies,” growled Leo, who turned to the other side of the barricade and re-lit their torches. In keeping the zombies occupied here, Yoko could go about her business in making them stop rising. “I can see that,” Alestor replied to the girl as she shivered. “You didn’t think a paranormal investigation group was solely about ghosts, did you?” “You didn’t say we were going to deal with zombies!” she yelled, waving a finger at the lumbering undead. They offered no other comment other than to moan and gurgle. “Well, next week, we were thinking of visiting Mexico,” the elder man said, still grinning. “They have chupacabra down there.” Mei finally realized something. She pointed to Henri and said, “Wait, how long has Henri known how to use a gun?” Henri reloaded his gun with all the smoothness of someone who’d done it before, not quite expert, but savvy enough to be efficient. “Why is Henri using a gun?” “Leo taught me,” Henri said a matter-of-factly. “I’ve been learning since I was eight.” Leo grinned proudly as he turned to help Henri with dispatching zombies. “Pretty good for a 13 year old, huh?” Mei’s look of horror melted into a look of horror, mixed with “why is this world like this”. Yoko’s voice crackled over the walkie. “Ok, Al. I’ve got it. Keep shooting and—” Her voice cut out and was replaced with white noise, faintly screaming teens, and the moaning-roars of a zombie attack. Mei’s eyes grew to the size of dollar coins, but Alestor sighed and fiddled with the walkie impatiently, as if he was on a cell phone and was getting bad reception. The attack was followed by an explosion-like sound, and just past a tree line, in the direction of the parking lot and their van, a reddish-orange glow lit the sky. “Sorry, love, bit of an attack. I got them though. And the kids here are fine too.” She added the word “unfortunately” under her breath, but Alestor heard it anyway. “I was saying that you should hold these guys off and I’ll be done in a bit with the spell breaking.” Mei turned her confusion to Alestor after Yoko signed off. “What? What happened?” “I think she’s gonna chant these guys back to their coffins,” Alestor said, off-handedly. “So we’re gonna sit tight and make sure we keep distracting.” “How does she do that?” “Oh, Yoko? She’s a witch. She knows how to blow things up with her mind. And exorcisms.”
Mei’s eyes glazed over with blankness. “Are you serious?”
“Sure. You’re psychic, why can’t she be a pyro too?” It was obvious, wasn’t it? It was to Alestor.
“Maybe we should have hired the other applicant,” Leo said, turning back to his barricade-mates. The onslaught of gunfire seemed to thin out the horde. “The one with the split personality and the three-foot scissors.” Alestor wrinkled his nose. “The psychopath? I’d rather hire a monkey with a grenade launcher.” Henri said, “I like Mei. She knows a lot about ghosts and urban legends.” Mei gave him an appreciated smile. Henri continued. “And she’s not crazy like the rest of you.” Mei’s face dropped. She glanced at both Leo and Alestor, both of who were giving her smile they thought was reassuring, but to her made them look more insane. “I should have joined TAPS,” she moaned, her face in her hands. Yoko said over the walkie. “Hang on, here we go.” The rest of her static was filled with chanting in tongue. The advancing horde stopped advancing. In fact, the zombies were now standing, swaying and with a deadened perplexed look on their faces. “They stopped,” Henri said. He was peering over the barricade, head cocked. “Is that Russian?” asked Leo, staring at the walkie. The zombies shuffled around, neither coming towards the fresh meat of Alestor’s team, nor away from them.
Mei was massaging her temples. “I never thought joining a paranormal group like this would have me being chased by zombies.”
“Paranormal research isn’t all EVP monitors and infra-red cameras,” Alestor said with a smile.
“Hold on to yer butts,” Leo said, punctuating his comment with a lobbed grenade.
“Wait--!” cried Alestor, but it was too late and the grenade was airborne. He snatched both Mei and Henri and used his body to cover them as Leo hit the dirt next to him. Seconds later, the grenade exploded and dirt rained from the sky, followed by a leg here, a finger or two there, and a few chunks of headstone.
“You ass!” snapped Alestor, smacking Leo’s head. “Damn it, you could have killed us!”
The radio and Yoko’s voice crackled to life. “That’s why you don’t get a pay raise, Leo! Damages are coming out of your pay!”
--Dio (10/25/10)
(art, story, and characters belong to Dio Maxwelle)
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