Green Bay Run

Chapter Nineteen

“Dear God!” Melissa exclaimed in horror. “What do we do now?”

“You shouldn’t take the name of the Lord in vain,” Samson said.

“More to the point,” Yama remarked, “why are the Automatons returning now? The guards weren’t expecting them back to soon.” He closed and locked the gate.

“Automatons?” Samson repeated quizzically.

“That’s what those things are called,” Yama disclosed. He stared at the legion of the dead, now 75 yards distant, and remembered the comment the Technic named Ted had made about the transmitter in the building to the north, the structure next to the strange spire. If the transmitter somehow controlled the Automatons, then perhaps the transmitter could be used to stop them.

“Let’s get the heck out of here!” Melissa proposed.

Yama glanced at the Nazarite. “Can you hold this gate?”

“Until Hell freezes over.”

“Hopefully, I won’t be gone quite that long,” Yama said. He pointed at the building housing the transmitter. “I have reason to believe I might be able to stop them from there.”

“Then go. And may our Lord guide your hand,” Samson stated sincerely.

“What about me?” Melissa blurted.

“You can help Samson hold the gate.”

“Against all of them?”

Samson caught Yama’s eye and shook his head just once, so that Melissa wouldn’t notice. “I’ll hold the gate by myself.”

“Are you sure?”

“Go. Time is wasting.”

The man in blue glanced at the Automatons, nodded grimly, and jogged to the north. “I won’t desert you. I promise.”

“I know,” Samson responded.

Yama held his Wilkinson at waist height and stayed close to the fence, scrutinizing the small structure. On the south side a solitary window, covered inside by a white shade, cast a diffuse ring of light around its rim.

“What do you want me to do?” Melissa whispered.

“Exactly as you’re told.”

“You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”

The Warrior ignored the question, concentrating on a tree that had materialized approximately 30 feet from the transmitter building. He angled toward it, casting a quick look over his left shoulder.

Only 40 yards separated the Automatons from the gate.

Yama speculated on whether the transmitter operator might have seen him dispatch the guards and had ordered the walking dead to return to slay him. He crouched down as he neared the tree, and was gratified to observe Melissa do the same. The woman learned quickly. She had brains as well as beauty, and a feisty temperament to boot. What more could a man ask for?

What the hell was he doing?

Thinking about her at a time like this!

They came to the tree and knelt on the grass.

Yama gazed back at the gate and the road. The lead row of Automatons was just passing under one of the perimeter lights the Technics had positioned at 40-foot intervals along the fence. They were 30 yards from Samson.

“Look!” Melissa declared softly, and indicated the building.

The Warrior swung around and saw a door on the west side. Someone had left it hanging open about an inch. “Stay here,” he directed her, and hastened to the structure. He paused at the corner to survey the campus grounds for troopers, and once satisfied there were none nearby, he eased to the door and stood listening.

“—very dangerous, sir,” a man was saying.

“I don’t give a damn,” snapped a deep voice.

“With all due respect, Director, we’ve never attempted to work them into a killing frenzy before. Only the renegades have killed. If we drive all of the Automatons over the edge, they may go berserk and slay us as well,” stated yet another person.

A five-second silence ensued.

“Now you listen to me, you quislings,” the man with the deep voice declared. “You’ll do exactly as I say, or I will personally report this to the Minister and persuade him to ship you both to work at a worm farm.”

“We have your welfare in mind too, Director,” said the first man. “The procedure is extremely dangerous. What’s to stop the Automatons from killing you?”

“Are you hard of hearing?” the Director thundered. “I want you to increase the power, and I want you to do it now! As the Director of the Science Division, I command you to obey me!”

The Director of the Science Division? Yama peered into the building.

There was only one room. Occupying half of it, and situated against the opposite wall, stood a rectangular metal cabinet containing an array of dials, switches, and meters. Two men, both wearing green smocks, were busily manipulating the controls while a third man watched, an imposing white-haired figure attired in a white uniform, his back to the door.

“As soon as you have made the proper adjustments, we will join our soldiers who are grouping at the southwest gate,” the white-haired man said, and his voice identified him as the Director. “Colonel Hufford and his men will protect us. We’ll abandon the Research Facility until the job is done.”

One of the men in green glanced around. “And all this for just one man, sir?”

“Not just any man, Epson. We’re talking about the man who has become the greatest threat to the existence of our Technic order since Technic City was founded. One of his colleagues brutally murdered our previous Minister. And he has caused us no end of grief. Well, it all stops here. Now we have him trapped, and I want him dead within the hour.”

Yama had tensed at the mention of the previous Minister. Since Hickok had been the Warrior, the Director must be refer-ring to Blade!

“We’ll draw the Automatons onto the campus,” the Director was saying.

“With the transmitter at full power, they’ll be impelled into a killing rage.

They’ll range all over the university, going from room to room, hunting for victims.” He paused and cackled. “And the only one left on campus will be Blade!”

Yama had overheard enough. He flung the door inward and stepped inside and to the left so he wouldn’t be framed in the doorway, the Wilkinson leveled at the man they called the Director. “Don’t touch that transmitter!”

All three men spun to face the Warrior.

“Who the hell are you?” the Director demanded.

“Raise your arms,” Yama directed, wagging the Wilkinson. The two technicians complied, but the Director simply glared.

“Who are you?”

“I’m the man who is going to put a hole between your eyes if you don’t do exactly as I tell you to do,” Yama warned, and took a bead on the center of the man’s forehead.

Glowering, the white-haired man obeyed. “Do you know who I am?”

“Ask me if I care.”

“I’m Quinton Darmobray, fool. The Director of the Technic Science Division. And you, if I’m not mistaken, must be another Warrior.”

“Yama.”

“Damn! You sons of bitches are crawling out of the wood-work.”

“Where’s Blade?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea,” Darmobray said. “Your giant friend escaped a short while ago.”

Yama looked past the trio at the transmitter, his gaze roving over the bewildering complexity of the controls. “How do you turn that thing off?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” the Director retorted.

The Warrior took a half stride forward. “The Automatons are approaching the southeast gate. I want you to stop them.”

“And if we don’t?” Darmobray sneered.

“I’ll kill all three of you.”

The Director placed his hands on his hips and thrust his chest out. “Go ahead, smart guy! Kill us! But our deaths won’t stop the Automatons from smashing through the gate, and you can’t stop them by yourself.”

Yama pointed the Wilkinson at the transmitter. “And what’s to stop me from simply blowing that thing apart?”

“You do, and you’ll have more trouble on your hands than you can imagine. A sensitive transistor has been implanted in the brain stem of each Automaton. If you shoot up the transmitter, you might cause each transistor to short. If that happens, the pain will drive them berserk.”

“Isn’t that what you wanted?” Yama asked suspiciously.

“Yes, but I wanted their killing frenzy to be conducted under my control. After allotting them enough time to slay Blade, I intended to return and reduce the power output, thereby regaining total domination over my mindless slaves,” Darmobray said. “But your way, no one could control them.”

Unsettled by the news, and distrustful of the Director, Yama mulled his options. The idea had seemed so simple. Destroy the transmitter and the Automatons would drop in their tracks. But now what should he do? He couldn’t risk transforming the creatures into crazed berserkers, not when Samson would be trying to hold them back at the gate.

The thought made him frown.

How was the Nazarite faring?

The advancing legion of the dead were ten feet from the gate when Samson trained the Bushmaster Auto Rifle on the foremost ranks and shouted, “Stop! I don’t want to harm you!”

Unheedful of his warning, their expressions devoid of all animation, the Automatons tramped closer and closer.

For an instant Samson’s resolve faltered. Melissa had been right. There were so many! Row after row after row of zombielike beings who were impervious of injury. He recalled the woman on the road, clawing at that noncom even though her legs had been crushed, and he inadvertently shuddered.

Five of the walking dead came to the gate and took hold of the metal bars.

Grant me strength, O Lord! Samson prayed, and squeezed the trigger, going for the head in each instance, his rounds drilling through craniums and felling the five where they stood. But as soon as they fell, there were five more to take their place. He shot them, and on came more, seven this time, and even as he fired at them a sobering realization sent a chill down his spine.

What would happen when he ran out of ammo?

Samson’s lips compressed. He saw the Automatons fan out, going to the right and left of the gate, and several started to climb awkwardly up the barbed-wire fence, oblivious to the sharp barbs gouging their hands and tearing into their bodies. The sight filled him with a peculiar, and totally uncharacteristic, dread. They were like persons without souls! For an awful moment he imagined himself to be battling the soulless legions of the Evil One, alone against the Hordes of Hell.

He fired and fired and fired.

At the first sound of the Bushmaster, Yama tensed, recognizing the distinctive chatter.

The Director also heard the shots. “That’s not a Dakon II,” he said, and his eyes narrowed. “It must be one of your friends. Is the fool trying to stop the Automatons?”

Yama knew he had to do something! If he couldn’t wreck the transmitter, then he might be able to locate an off switch. He stepped to the left-hand wall and motioned with the Wilkinson. “Line up against the right wall,” he ordered.

Darmobray and the pair of technicians did as they were told, lined up with the Director nearest the doorway. “Have another brainstorm, did we?”

The Warrior sidled to the transmitter and scrutinized the dials and meters. One of them must shut the damn thing down! To his consternation, he discovered that none of the controls were labeled. The Technics were thwarting him at every turn. But then, the bastards always were plotting and scheming and conniving to outwit and subjugate innocent people who only wanted to be left alone to live their lives as they saw fit. Just as Alicia and he had wanted to do.

But no.

The Technics could never leave well enough alone.

They were power mongers determined to impose their beliefs on everyone else, no matter the cost in human suffering.

A cold, simmering fury gripped Yama and he swung toward the trio.

They were no longer in front of the transmitter and he didn’t have to worry about accidentally hitting the cabinet. “How do you switch the transmitter off?” he asked once more, his tone flat and hard.

The two technicians blanched. Darmobray only snorted.

“Suit yourselves,” Yama said, and shot the technician on the left, three quick rounds through the man’s green smock high on the chest. The force of the slugs propelled the technician into the wall, and he slumped to the floor trailing crimson streaks on the white paint.

“Having fun?” the Director joked.

Yama turned his attention to the second tech. “How do you switch the transmitter off?”

His eyes widening in abject terror, the second technician trembled and blurted out, “I’ll tell you! I’ll tell you anything you want to know!”

“You’ll do no such thing!” Darmobray barked.

“He’ll shoot me!” the tech wailed.

“Don’t tell him!” Darmobray hissed.

Yama took a step toward them. “Show me how to turn the transmitter off,” he instructed the technician.

“Gladly,” the man said, and went to comply.

Yama glanced at the Director, expecting Darmobray to try and stop the tech, and it was well he did. He saw the scientist look at the doorway and perceptibly stiffen, and the Warrior instinctively threw himself backwards and pivoted.

A Technic trooper stood just outside the doorway, a noncom sporting four black stripes on his uniform, a Dakon II held firmly against his right hip. He had already activated the Laser Sighting Mode, and the red beam of light was centered on the Warrior’s torso when his trigger finger began to squeeze. He thought he had the man in blue dead to rights, which made him all the more astonished when he missed. The Dakon II, on full automatic, sent 15 of its 30 rounds into the transmitter before he could check is fire.

Yama snapped off a burst, the Wilkinson booming in the small building. His shots were accurate, catching the noncom in the neck and head and knocking the man to the ground. He heard a loud crackling and fizzing and glanced at the transmitter, appalled to see the outer casing fractured and smoke wafting toward the ceiling. Tiny reddish-orange sparks and flames sparkled inside. In the moment he was distracted by the sight, he glimpsed movement out of the corner of his right eye.

Quinton Darmobray was ignominiously fleeing through the doorway.

And the second technician, his features contorted by a look of maniacal desperation, bunched his slim fingers into fists and leaped at the Warrior.

Blade’s outstretched fingers were six inches from the Bowies, and the distance might as well have been light years for all the good it did him.

Hufford and Perinn, both of whom wore side arms, were already going for their weapons. In a twinkling, he whirled and sprang, executing a flying tackle, his boots leaving the floor, his body arrow straight.

“You—!” Colonel Hufford blurted.

And then the Warrior plowed into them, angling his body between the two Technics, his broad shoulders ramming into their hips, his huge arms encircling their waists. The momentum drove them backwards, into the double doors, and all three crashed down in the doorway with the soldiers bearing the brunt of the impact.

Blade reared to his knees and whipped his right fist in an arc, his knuckles striking Captain Perinn on the chin just as the officer lifted his head, flattening the trooper.

“You bastard!” Colonel Hufford snarled, scrambling from under the giant and shoving to his feet. His right hand clawed for his pistol.

With all the swiftness of a rattler, Blade jabbed a punch into Hufford’s abdomen, doubling the man over. He surged up off the floor, his left arm rigid, his palm vertical, and raked the heel across the colonel’s face, drawing blood from the mouth and the chin.

Grunting, Hufford staggered rearward, out the partly open doors, still endeavoring to unholster his gun.

Blade went after the Technic, not letting up for an instant. He delivered a right to Hufford’s ribs, then a left, and with each blow the stocky colonel gasped and tottered, spittle dribbling from his mouth. Hufford bent in half, wheezing, and Blade snap-kicked the tip of his right boot into the soldier’s head.

As if struck by a ball peen hammer, Colonel Hufford catapulted onto his back.

“Nice moves.”

The Warrior spun, startled to behold Captain Perinn standing five feet away, a pistol in the Technic’s right hand.

“Damn, you’re fast!” Perinn said, the words distorted by the blood rimming his mouth and flowing out the right corner. The Warrior’s punch had crunched his teeth together, and caused his upper central incisors to tear into his lower lip.

Blade tensed, waiting for a sign that the Technic intended to squeeze the trigger, intending to launch himself at the proper instant.

“The Director buzzed just a few minutes ago,” Perinn said, dabbing at his mouth with his left sleeve, and nodded at a portable military field radio resting on the desk. “He told us you’d escaped and ordered the colonel to collect all the man together at the southwest gate. We were on our way there when the colonel remembered he’d left your gear in the closet.” Perinn paused and grinned. “He didn’t want you to get your hands on your weapons, so we came back.”

“What now?” Blade asked, inching forward slightly.

“The Director wants you in a bad way. He’s got something special planned for you, but I don’t know what it is.”

Blade assumed the trooper must be referring to the implanta-tion. He prepared himself for a headlong rush, wishing for a distraction and getting his wish.

Unexpectedly, Colonel Hufford gurgled and started to rise.

Captain Perinn glanced down at his superior officer for a fraction of a second, and perceived even as he did that the giant was in motion, coming right at him. He automatically fired.

The Bushmaster Auto Rifle went empty and Samson tossed it aside.

He’d used the last of his spare magazines, and now had to rely on his Auto Pistols. His hands swooped to the swivel holsters strapped around his waist, holsters he had designed himself and the Family Gunsmiths had constructed. He took hold of the synthetic pistol grips and swung the barrels up. Both breakaway holsters parted at the seams, and he immediately snapped off rounds at the walking dead, felling six in rapid succession.

But still they came on. The Automatons had now spread out in a 40-foot line along the fence and were attempting to scale the fence in their slow, methodical fashion.

So far Samson had been able to hold his own and keep the ghouls out.

They were ridiculously easy targets as they came to the top of the fence or the gate, and he picked them off one after the other. The dead littered the ground. For a brief moment he believed he had overreacted, that the Automatons weren’t that much of a threat.

And then it happened.

All of the walking dead inexplicably stiffened, their entire bodies going rigid, their eyes wide as saucers. For seconds they stood perfectly still.

Suddenly, incredibly, they began to jerk and twitch and flail their arms, walking in small circles, their heads rocking from side to side. Those on the fence fell off.

Dear Lord! Samson marveled. What was happening? He lowered the Auto Pistols, confounded. What could have caused them to act so bizarrely?

The grotesque dance of the dead persisted for a full minute, and ended as abruptly as it started. Reeling or swaying, the Automatons stood in place, their facial features locked in outlandish grimaces.

What now? Samson wondered.

And the very next second he received his answer when the creatures, as one, turned toward the campus and renewed their assault on the security fence. Only this time their attack was different, this time they went about their task with a vengeance, striving to pull the fence down and batter through the gate, their countenances reflecting a feral madness, an unquenchable bloodlust. Despite the wounds they had sustained, they ripped and tore at the barbed wire, their blood spraying the ground.

The Nazarite opened up with the Auto Pistols, slaying foes as swiftly as before, but now they were moving faster and making more progress, and even though he killed and killed, they succeeded in breaching the fence, in tearing down a six-foot section to the left of the gate.

The instant the fence crumpled, the Automatons poured through the gap.

They were inside!

Samson retreated a few yards, firing as he did, emptying the left Auto Pistol and then the right. Before he could hope to reload, they swarmed upon him. He was forced to discard the Bushmasters and resort to his malletlike fists, slugging every Automaton that came within reach of his steely sinews. Every blow produced a resounding thud and sent an Automaton to the ground. He swung to one side, then the other, to the rear and the front, always in motion, a human whirlwind endowed with the power of a dynamo.

But even dynamos have limits.

Because Yama had tried to bring the Wilkinson to bear on the fleeing form of the Director, he was unable to compensate and train the barrel on the second tech before the man reached him.

The technician uttered a piercing scream, perhaps to spur his flagging courage, and swept both of his fists at the Warrior’s exposed throat.

Yama deftly blocked the man’s arms, using his left forearm to batter the technician aside, then smacked the barrel across the man’s temple, staggering his foe. He brought his right knee up into the tech’s crotch, and the man screeched at the top of his lungs. Using the Wilkinson stock, Yama clubbed him twice.

His eyes rolling upward in their sockets, the technician collapsed.

An acrid odor filled Yama’s nostrils, and he rotated to find the transmitter in flames and bright ribbons of electricity arching between several of the internal components. He remembered the words of the Director: “If you shoot up the transmitter, you might cause each transistor to short. If that happens, the pain will drive them berserk.”

Samson!

Yama spun and raced from the building. He sprinted toward the tree, wondering what could have happened to Melissa and why she hadn’t warned him about the noncom. When he reached the tree, he understood.

The sight he beheld transfixed him and stirred him to the depths of his soul.

The walking dead had breached the fence and were swarming around Samson in a frenzied effort to bring the Nazarite down. They punched and clawed and tore at his camouflage fatigues, a crazed pack of rabid jackals striving to slay a mighty lion. But Samson was proving to be the equal of his namesake. He rained a torrent of blows on the Automatons, his fists steely pistons, his bony knuckles thudding into foe after foe after foe.

Dozens upon dozens were already down, the majority never to rise again, their foreheads caved in or the skulls split open. Yet still they came on, and it was clear the Nazarite was beginning to tire.

A scream tore from Yama, a scream that originated in his gut and tore from his throat unbidden, a scream of commingled rage and affection for one of his few, true friends, a scream the likes of which he hadn’t voiced in more years than he could remember. “Samson!”

Yama ran toward the battle, realizing he couldn’t use the Wilkinson because he might accidentally wing the Nazarite. He took ten strikes, and only then did he spot Melissa, not 15 feet in front of him. She was on her knee, holding the Smith and Wesson with both hands, apparently ready to fire. “Melissa! Don’t!” he shouted.

She glanced around as he sped to her side.

“You could hit Samson,” Yama told her before she uttered a syllable.

“But—” Melissa began.

“Here. Take this,” Yama ordered, and shoved the Wilkinson at her.

“What? Why do—”

“Take it!” Yama snapped.

Startled, she grabbed the weapon. “What are you going to do?”

“Stay here. If the Automatons come after you, head for the west side of the campus. You might be able to sneak out without being spotted by the Technics.”

“But what about you?” Melissa asked, too late, because the man in blue had dashed off and was now rushing toward the southeast gate. She glanced at the machine gun in her left hand, perplexed. How was he going to fight the walking dead without it?

Her answer came a few moments later.

With her heart pounding in her chest and her blood pulsing in her temples, Melissa Vail saw the silver-haired Warrior whip his scimitar from its scabbard and, without breaking stride, hurtle into the midst of the walking dead. The flashing blade gleamed in the glow from the perimeter lights, and in the space of six seconds, a half-dozen Automatons were sent to the turf with their necks nearly severed or their faces split asunder.

The scimitar seemed to be in perpetual motion as Yama ripped into the horde of ghouls, spinning from one side to the other, always spinning, his keen blade biting deep and drawing blood with every stroke. His unexpected onslaught temporarily stemmed the inhuman tide, and he actually succeeded in fighting his way to Samson’s side. The Automatons checked their attack, disoriented.

“What kept you, brother?” the Nazarite quipped, panting from his exertion, a grin twisting his lips.

“I was darning my socks,” Yama quipped, and took up a position behind his friend, his back almost touching Samson’s.

“Seen Blade?”

“Nope.”

“Figures. Maybe Hickok is right after all.”

“About what?”

“About us doing all the work and Blade goofing off all the time.”

And then there was no more time for words. The Automatons renewed their bestial, mindless assault, pressing in from all sides, reaching for the two Warriors, their sheer force of numbers creating a living ring of impending death around the man in blue and the Nazarite.

To Melissa, watching the unequal conflict in impotent despair, the outcome could never be in any doubt. Yama and Samson were felling the walking dead in droves, but for every two they killed there were four more to take the place of the dead ones. Sooner or later, the Warriors would be overwhelmed. She rose, intending to aid them in whatever way she could.

That was when she spied the four Automatons coming for her!

Blade saw the Technic’s finger tighten on the trigger and he twisted a millisecond before the pistol discharged. He felt a stinging sensation in his right side, and then he had his hands on Perinn’s neck and his right knee drove up and in, sinking into the captain’s ribs. There came a loud snap, and the officer gasped and doubled over, the pistol pointing at the ground.

Colonel Hufford had collapsed again.

With his right thumb extended and rigid, Blade swept his right hand in a tight loop. He buried the thumb all the way to the knuckle in Captain Perinn’s throat.

The Technic’s eyes bulged and he clutched at his neck.

Aware that more soldiers might arrive at any moment and thwart his escape attempt, Blade grabbed both sides of Perinn’s head and wrenched his arms in a vicious twist.

Another snap sounded, louder this time, and Captain Perinn slumped and sprawled onto his stomach.

Blade never bothered to examine his handiwork. He hurried inside and over to the closet, and within a minute had the Bowies in their sheaths, the Dan Wesson in its shoulder holster, and the Commando in his hands.

Now let the Technics try to stop him!

He stepped from the building and moved to the right. Off to the southwest, visible between two trees and illuminated by perimeter lights, was the gate through which he had entered the campus. Amazed, he watched a convoy of Technics preparing to depart. Evidently, every trooper assigned to the Research Facility was leaving.

But why?

Blade surveyed the university, studying the stately structures and the surrounding grass. No more Technics were in evidence. Thoroughly puzzled, he happened to glance to the southeast.

What was that?

He took several paces, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make sense of the bewildering jumble of swirling people. They were too far off for him to identify any faces. It looked as if a general melee was in progress. Were the Technics involved? He listened for gunshots, but there were none.

What in the world?

Blade advanced farther, and his eyes detected the glimmering flicker of a long, bladed weapon, a sword perhaps, or a— scimitar! He darted forward, his legs flying, a feeling of foreboding arising and lending speed to his limbs.

Dear Spirit!

Let him be in time!

He covered the ground with a speed belying his size. The scene he observed when he finally came close enough to distinguish details confirmed his worst fears. The pair of stalwarts in the middle of the conflict were unmistakable.

Samson and Yama were laying about them with all the lethal expertise at their command. Automaton bodies lay in piles. Some of the zombies were convulsing and thrashing, waving the stump of an arm or trying to secure their head in place when they had been almost decapitated.

Blade was about to toss the Commando aside and join the fight when motion off to his left drew his attention to a solitary woman who was about to take on four Automatons. She was fumbling with a weapon, Yama’s Wilkinson, and if she didn’t fire soon they would have her. “Get down!” he bellowed.

She looked up, saw him, and instantly flattened.

The giant aimed carefully and squeezed off a burst, aiming high, going for the heads of the Automatons. His rounds smacked into them from an angle slightly behind and to the left, propelling them forward onto their knees or flat on their chests. One of them almost hit the woman.

Blade placed the Commando at his feet, drew both Bowies, and sprinted toward his fellow Warriors. The automatons were concentrating on their intended victims, and none of them realized a new menace had arrived until he flew into them, the Bowies slicing right and left, impaling them from the rear or the side, taking them any way they came, never still for a second, always slashing, slashing, slashing. He towered over them, a veritable colossus, his rippling muscles splattered with their blood and gore.

Samson saw the head Warrior first. His arms and shoulders ached from his continual barrage of blows, and his reflexes were slowing. “Hear your servant, O Lord!” he prayed. “Grant me the strength of twenty!” With the thought came a surge of power to his limbs, and he fought on, crushing Automaton after Automaton to the earth. He spun to the left, and a thrill ran through him at the sight of Blade, not ten feet away, pressing toward them, cutting like a madman with his prized Bowies. Samson let out a whoop and flattened an adversary.

Yama heard the yell, and in the back of his mind he was astounded that the Nazarite would vent a cry of delight when they were being pressed upon on all sides by the walking dead. He arced the scimitar into the neck of a burly Automaton, then pivoted to slice his blade into the head of a deranged woman. As he tugged the scimitar loose, he found himself facing to the west.

And there was Blade.

“Back to back!” the giant shouted, and fought to their side in an awesome display of primal savagery.

“Glad you could make it,” Yama yelled.

Blade, Samson, and Yama formed into a triangle, their wide shoulders within two feet of one another, leaving just enough space for the giant and the man in blue to wield their blades effectively and for the Nazarite to employ his fists. They took on all comers, rooted in place, refusing to be budged despite the dozens who charged each of them. The Bowies, the scimitar, and those malletlike fists downed Automatons with staggering rapidity. The corpses formed into heaps around the triumvirate of death and destruction, and the walking dead who tried to clamber over their slain comrades found themselves at a fatal disadvantage. All the Warriors needed was the slightest opening and their enemies were doomed.

Stupefied by the sight, Melissa Vail knelt on the cool grass and witnessed a tableau the likes of which few mortals had ever laid eyes on.

She saw the trio slay Automatons by the score, saw them stab and thrust and punch until they were covered with crimson and bits of flesh and hair, saw them kill and kill until there were no more Automatons left to slay, until the Warriors stood triumphant on the field of battle, upright amidst a sea of vanquished zombies. Only then did she speak, an innocent, inadvertent comment that summed up all she had been through since encountering Yama, and at the same time a poignant question concerning her future.

“Dear God! What have I gotten myself into?”