Chapter 11

Chapter 11 - The Thriller

Everything seemed to happen in slow motion as the door was smashed off it's hinges and flew into the atrium, clipping Friday in passing and bowling Harley over a nearby sofa and into the decorative fountain.  The late daylight outside showed a mass of moving figures crowding the doorway with others behind them.

Alice was the first to respond firing a megido blast through the doorway to knock everything there back before they could surge in.  While the creatures were reeling back she cast Earth Spike to raise a large stone spike which mostly blocked the doorway.

I ran to the fountain to pull a dazed and coughing Harley to her feet and onto dry ground.  Something started pounding on the stone spike and I could see rock chips flying around the sides where they didn't meet the doorframe. 

"Jane!" I called.  "Is there another way out of this place?"

"There are several roof hatches that let out onto the hillside above to access the ventilation systems!"  she yelled over the sound of rock cracking.  "Follow me!"

Harley seemed to have regained her bearings but I held her hand anyway as we raced down the hallway full of offices on Jane's heels.  She turned left inside the lab area and slammed through a door marked Stairs.

We ran up four flights of stairs before slamming through the doors at the top landing.  The cries of the zombabes were drawing closer and as we charged along the upper balcony they began pouring into the lab area.

We were almost out of the lab area when a silvery liquid surged up the wall below and poured onto the walkway in front of us.  It quickly formed itself into a massive woman whose skin had a silver gleam with odd purple streaks running throughout it.  A large tail with a segmented bony blade rose behind her.  A viscous purple fluid was oozing from between the bony plates.

Jane skidded to a halt shouting, "MercuryBlade!"

The MercuryBlade turned zombabe began moving toward us, her movements oddly flowing and her clawed arms reaching toward Jane who was backing away.  I could hear zombabes coming up the stairs behind us.  As the tail lashed around to slice at Jane, Friday leapt to the front with a snarl and suddenly the MercuryBlade was telekinetically flung across the room to smash into the far wall leaving a purple splatter mark.  She dropped to the ground in a liquid puddle but quickly reformed and began heading our way.

"Come on!" Friday growled as she dragged Jane back into motion and we raced away from the horde that was just cresting the landing behind us.

A straightaway led us to a door that opened into the mechanical room for the facility.  We lost some time while Jane used the keypad to enter a long code to open the door and then continued through the maze of pipes and machinery.  Scarlet took the time to spray several strands of strong sticky webbing across random junctures after we'd passed them to hinder the zombabes behind us.  

On the far side of the room Jane started climbing a ladder that led up into a deep well in the ceiling.  Alice fired a light orb up the well until we could see that it led to a metal hatch a long way up.

Then she rose into the air saying, "I can fly up behind you.  I'll hold them off for a bit.  Everyone climb!"  Then she drifted over to where she could see the zombabes who were battering at the door through the porthole.

It looked like it would hold for a while until the front of the crowd was suddenly shoved aside revealing an eight foot tall behemoth of a woman.  Her skin was an odd shiny purple color with what looked like streaks of purple rust.  She drew a massive fist back and slammed it into the door which buckled under the blow and caved inwards.  A second strike left it half bent out of the frame and a third smashed it loose sending it careening into the room smashing through pipes and machinery.  The zombabes surged to follow and a cloud of purple mist began to form as one unfortunate zombabe was knocked over and trampled into floor paste by the straining horde.  

Alice used Gravitation to crush most of the zombabes to the ground but the big one just kept coming.  Friday was almost up to the ceiling well when she noticed it and used Telekinesis to hurl it back through the doorway and down the hall sending zombabes flying left and right.

As I stared up at Friday's ass it suddenly occurred to me that she could have used telekinesis to fly us all up and out the top.  It was too loud for her to hear me with the sound bouncing around the room but I tried to think the message to her.  She must have dropped the mental link though as she just kept on climbing.

Jane reached the top, opened the hatch, and climbed through.  Once the last of us cleared the room headed up the ladder, Alice flew over and used her energy blade to slice the lower part of the ladder from the wall before rising up behind us.  One by one we climbed out the top with the cries of the zombabes echoing from below into one cacophonous roar.  Finally we were all clear and Jane slammed the hatch behind us.

We were standing on a platform extending from the hilltop.  Several large air ducts and chimneys jutted from the ground around us.  As we paused for a moment to catch our breath the hatch burst right off it's hinges, flipping end over end through the air before burying itself in the hillside.  

We all whipped around to see the MercuryBlade zombabe pouring herself out of the opening and reforming on the catwalk.  With a whiplike motion her tail lashed out from behind her and slashed Friday across the belly, spilling her entrails onto the metal plating.  The zombabe quickly bent to feed but was immediately hurled through the air away from the hillside to plummet to the ground a hundred feet below by Seren's telekinetic blast.

Friday dropped to her knees in shock as we all ran toward her.  I quickly helped lay her out flat on her back while Jane cast esuna on her to purge the poison and then Numb to anesthetize her.  Seren handed her a canteen and she began washing off the intestines before carefully stuffing them back into Friday's stomach.  

I held her hand and saw that while her eyes were staring straight ahead she was trying to say something.  I put my ear near her mouth and heard, "Too late...got me..by the stairs...get...away...."  As I realized what she was saying her hand convulsed in mine and then went limp.  Her eyes closed.

"Friday," I cried as I shook and slapped her hand."Friday!  Jane!  She said she got hit by the stairs!  How long does zombabe poison take to activate?"

Jane immediately stopped with the intestines and rolled Friday's other arm over to show a long gash running up the inside.  Ugly dark veins had already spread from the wound up her arm.  Jane shoved Friday's top down to show that the veins had spread past the shoulder and into her chest.

"I'm sorry," she said with a drawn face.  "She must have gotten enough poison in the initial wound to advance the transformation quickly.  My esuna was already too late."

"You mean..." Scarlet trailed off.

"It's too late," Jane said as she stood.  "She'll be getting up very soon.  We need to get rid of her before she turns."

"No," I said.

"There's no choice.  She's going to become a-"

"NO!" I shouted at her.  "This can't happen!  I won't let it happen!  Heal her!"

"But-"

"I said HEAL HER."  

Jane stared at me for a moment and then quickly finished cleaning the intestines before stuffing them back into Friday's belly and casting Heal to seal the wound.  As soon as she was done she cast esuna on herself.  Friday had stopped breathing by now.

"Now cast PhoenixDown on her," I demanded.  

"That won't work with the zom-"

"JUST DO IT!" I shouted her down.

She stared at me for a moment and then moved to stand near Friday's head.  A ray of light seemed to shine down upon Friday's face as a single glowing golden feather floated down to rest on her forehead.  When the glow faded she still wasn't breathing.

"Again," I said.

"Look," she started.

"AGAIN," I demanded.

She repeated the process with no results.

"Sean, maybe it's time-" Scarlet began.

"AGAIN," I said.

Jane and Scarlet exchanged looks before Jane cast it again.  This time as the feather touched Friday's forehead there was a loud crack and we were suddenly engulfed in a brilliant light.

When the light faded Friday was breathing but still unconscious.  Everyone was staring with jaws dropped.  I reassured myself that she was breathing and then looked to Jane.  "Quick, check her for poisons."

Jane shook herself loose and held a hand over Friday for a moment while blue light formed symbols and lines of text above her hand.  "She's...fine...I think."

"Good enough for now," I said.  I stood and returned Friday to her pokeball.  "We need to get the hell out of here and back to our ride."  I walked to the edge of the scaffolding and looked over the side.  The horde of zombabes spread like a writhing carpet across the valley around Nippleblast with more meandering in as I watched.

"Where the hell did they all come from?" Harley uttered, unknowingly voicing everyone's thoughts.

"...Do you think maybe...we maybe...dragged them behind us?" Alice asked.

"Huh?" I intelligently replied.

"Well, I mean...we did drive a flying billboard advertising food to get here, and we did come across many groups of them along the way.  Maybe some led and the others, when they saw them, followed."

"...I suppose herd mentality isn't the strangest theory I've ever heard regarding zombabes," I said.  Then I shook myself.  "At any rate, we need to get the hell out of here.  Jane, you see that hill with the graves?  Our boat is about a quarter mile further in that direction.  Is there a way over this hilltop where we can circle around without going through that?"  I ask, pointing at the zombabes.

"Well.." she kibitzed.  "I never did a lot of hiking up here, but if we can avoid drawing their attention we could probably head down the backside of this hill and swing wide to the south.  There's a ravine that runs behind the next hill over.  If we travel down it a ways we can climb back up a couple valleys over and circle from there."

"Sounds like a plan," I said.  "Friday, lead us..."I trailed off remembering Friday was down right now.  "Harley, lead us out.  Seren, once we get the hill between us and the zombabes I want you to fly out far enough to see the ravine Jane mentioned so we can get a bearing.  If you get spotted then let us know which way to go but fly away a different direction to lead the zombabes away from us and don't get low enough for them to spit poison at you.  Keep in mind if there are water types they may be able to fire streams of poisoned water too.  It all depends on how much their bodies have degraded.  Are you comfortable with creating a group link like Friday did?"

"Yes," Seren responded mentally.

"Alright," I thought.  "Let's move out."

We climbed over the hilltop and started descending the other side.  Seren spotted several folds in the land but decided the deeper one was the one Jane meant and directed us to it.  Then she landed to avoid being spotted.

We cautiously traveled south in the ravine for most of a mile before Seren took another look above.  She said it was clear and we were at least three valleys over so we began climbing.  Seren had to telekinetically lift those of us who couldn't fly the last twenty feet over the top as the ground had sheered and dropped away forming a small crumbly cliff.

Once up top we began creeping our way back toward where we thought our boat was while stopping every so often to listen for zombabes.  It was reaching sunset by this point and some cloud cover was rolling in.  I really didn't want to be out here when we couldn't see the zombabes coming.

It was full dark by the time we approached the thicket we had parked in and the cloudy sky had made it nearly pitch black.  The wind had picked up and I was sure I'd felt the first few drops of rain.  As we were about to sprint across the last patch of open ground a cluster of zombabes broke through the brush and stumbled toward Nippleblast.  We all ducked back behind some brush to wait for them to pass.

They had almost left the clearing when the wind shifted.  I saw a doggirl raise her nose into the air for a moment and then turn toward us letting out a coughing growl.  The whole pack paused for a moment and then shifted to follow her.

"Shit!" I thought.  "Let's move!"

I ran for the boat with Scarlet and Harley hot on my tail.  Seren, Alice, and Jane leapt skyward and began peppering the zombabes with attacks to slow them down.  Seren hurled wind blasts at them to throw them off balance and knock them down.  Alice telekinetically picked up a geogal and began using her like a club swinging her across the horde's leading edge to strike legs and bowl zombabes over.  Jane started hurling dark bombs into their midst and launching zombabes in all directions.  After the first bomb landed some zombabes closer to us rather than farther away she started dropping them just ahead of the leading zombabes to blast them back instead.

"Jane," I thought, "do you know Dark Holy? If so try it on them.  Celestiasl energy and fire are the only two things that kill zombabes without releasing their poison."

Jane immediately called down a pillar of black light that enveloped most of the horde.  When the light faded out all the zombabes who had been struck by it lay still on the ground, but if I'd known what the power looked like I would have never asked her to do it.  That beam of light stretched into the sky endlessly and under the moonless sky even black light was probably visible for miles.  We had to gtfo before their friends showed up.  

With the flyers holding back the remainders of the pack we made it to the boat.  While I was slotting the rune keys in Seren caused the boat to release it's roots.  I had us in the air quickly and moments after the flyers landed on the deck we sped away into the night.