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Stories from the Verse
In Version
Chapter 12: Beam 162
Table of Contents
Previous chapter: Slade 216
As the pursuers approached, Beam finally got a look at them. He decided that the best word for them was zombies--they appeared to be dead, corpses decaying, stumbling forward in a barely coordinated manner, varying degrees of rot visible, in rags that were once clothing. Something in the back of his mind said it would help to know what kind of zombies these were, whether they were the result of necromancy, or some kind of psychic generation, or a cybernetic implant of some sort, or a drug or disease or parasite. However, at the moment he did not see an easy way to answer that, and he did not really have time to consider the question.
He supposed that he should try to talk to them. He dismissed that as not an option, focused his aim on the one on the right end, and when he was confident of the shot, he took it.
The bullet apparently hit the creature in its right shoulder, as it twisted the body briefly; he saw a splash of dirt beyond it, suggesting that the bullet passed through. The creature did not slow.
He heard the explosion of Bron’s shotgun, and was for the moment distracted by the attacks of his five companions. His brain processed them from left to right, rather than in the order in which they impacted their targets.
The shotgun was a decent shot, ripping away part of the target’s side under its left arm, and part of that hand. Sophia revealed another hidden talent, as a flicker of flame struck her target and burst into a contained conflagration. Dawn was very accurately placing slugs into the center of mass in rapid succession. Bob was using that trick he had used against the attacking mechanoids, lifting his target high in the air and dropping it from above the height of the house to the hard ground below. Ashleigh was firing with both pistols, most of the shots finding targets. He pulled the bolt on his rifle and loosed another bullet into their shared target.
The situation was serious. Not one of the five approaching monsters had been stopped. The flesh had been burned away from Sophia’s target, but the charged bony form kept advancing; Bob’s target picked itself up and seemed a bit less mobile, but it still stumbled forward. The two being hit by bullets were slowed slightly by each impact, but seemed relatively unharmed by the assault.
The shotgun fired again, and this time Bron had managed to hit the creature’s head, dead center, blasting it open like a melon. The brains within were dried and dead, crumbling rather than splattering, but as the head disappeared the body collapsed.
Shouting the obvious, Beam cried, “Remove their heads!” Even as he said it, he realized that he carried no weapon with which he could do that, other than the claymore which would require him to get outside and engage them in the field. However, his companions rose to the occasion. Dawn launched what must have been a grenade, hitting the monster in the chest and so blasting off its neck. Bob’s target suddenly seemed to be grabbed by the head and twisted until the head tore free from the body. For Sophia, a speck of fire extended into a flaming line very like a blade, which slashed at the creature; she hit it several times, missed a few times, severed an arm, and finally managed to get what he thought was the third strike on the neck, dropping the head.
He looked at Ashleigh. Theirs was the only target still standing. He had no weapons suitable for this; the shake of her head told him she had nothing, either.
He was about to call for Bob to finish the fifth target, but of course Bob anticipated this, and it went down to the same twisted neck head removal as the other.
“Let’s go join the others,” he said to Ashleigh. Still carrying her pistols, she followed him to the other bedroom. He scanned the group before speaking.
“Thank you, you all did well.”
Letting that sink in for a moment, he continued, “We learned today. We don’t know how many of those are out there, but can’t for a moment assume that we are not greatly outnumbered by them in this world; and since our food won’t last forever we are going to have to go out there eventually. We now know that they are very tough, very hard to kill--but that they are not invincible, and if we manage to separate the head from the body the creature collapses. The life seems to be in the head. Whatever animates these corpses needs that; headless zombies don’t appear to move.”
He looked around the room. “Let’s close the windows. We believe they can’t climb, but that’s only because the people who lived here before us fortified the windows downstairs and not these, and the downstairs windows show signs of having been attacked but these do not. But we don’t want to invite them to try to get up here. We will do better next time, because we know their weakness; for now, let’s settle in and plan to stay here for at least a few days. Soph, let’s go look at the kitchen and see what we can whip up for supper.”
There is a behind-the-writings look at the thoughts, influences, and ideas of this chapter, along with eleven other sequential chapters of this novel, in mark Joseph "young" web log entry #476: Versers Deduce. Given a moment, this link should take you directly to the section relevant to this chapter. It may contain spoilers of upcoming chapters.
As to the old stories that have long been here:
