The human body was amazing in its ability to adapt to circumstances. Light, sound, smell, touch, taste. These five senses allowed us to experience the world, and thus they shaped what we experienced.
Contrasting to how I felt before, the smells of the dead no longer bothered me. I had initially felt terror when I heard the jaws of zombies tearing flesh. Now? I hardly even noticed.
The darkness that used to hide unknown demons became nothing more but a nuance that hid the bodies I needed to put bullets in.
Unlike when I first saw people dying to zombies, I now accepted that it was just a fact of life as a reaper. Thus, when I saw two women in such a dire state against the undead, I felt no pity nor agitation, just acceptance.
"One wounded, female, with a bite wound on the neck. One combatant armed with a rapier and a parrying dagger. Enemies are seven Chuckies, five Bigfoots, and ten Normies. That girl is surprisingly adept at combat, but she will get overwhelmed soon."
"Bigfeet," I quipped.
"Shut it honey, we are not having this conversation again."
The grinding Bella and I did had allowed us to develop what she called a combat doctrine. This would be our set of rules that covered everything from how we fought to how we called enemies. It worked surprisingly well as we massacred groups of undead.
Chuckie was a movie about a murderer that had his soul put in a doll. That movie had scared the crap out of me when I was younger. I blurted it out by accident the moment I saw the child zombies.
Surprisingly, Bella understood both Bigfoot and Chuckie. According to her, some asshole dressed up as Chuckie and pranked bus stops in Brazil, so she hated the little fucker as well.
For normal engagements, the first thing to do was to confirm the situation. Normie was what we called a normal zombie. This meant zombies at or below 5'9''. Anything above that was a Bigfoot. Anything below 4ft was a Chuckie.
Bigfoots were slower than Normies. On the other hand, Chuckies were faster. I almost died to one when one got under me and ripped my foot off. I hated the little shits with a passion.
It went without saying that Chuckie was a child that died and turned. Bella cried the first time we saw one. But this was just Hellsgate. Compassion for an enemy would get you killed faster than anything else.
"So, how do we go about this, Mrs. Code?" I asked.
As a cop, Bella was better regarding tactics, no question about it. Believing I was superior due to video games was just stupid. No matter how OP {Rewind} was, a civilian was still a civilian.
"Chuckies first, then Bigfoots, then Normies. We circle them from the left. The rapier user stays close to her friend. Leave the defense of the injured to her."
"Alright. Let's go."
I jogged towards the little children lurking around the rapier user. She dispatched the undead with a single lightning-fast stab to the forehead. Her dagger in her other hand fended off attackers. The woman had scratches all over, but she didn't seem to have gotten bitten.
"Let's start with the little shits around her, then," I announced.
Different from Normies, Chuckies did not immediately charge for their targets. These fuckers intentionally waited for gaps in your attention and then quietly came for you. I was not sure why they had the ability to think, but Bella told me the undead evolved the lower you went.
Bella and I agreed to run together as we moved, If I sprinted, she couldn't keep up due to having smaller strides. Thus, I would jog, and she would run. This suited me just fine as my stamina sucked, anyway.
"Rapier user, we are here to help, focus on protecting your friend, we will take care of the ones around you!" Bella declared.
The woman looked in our direction and nodded. Even in this lighting, I could see the relief on her face.
"Grazie, reaper. We need all the help we can get."
Grazie? What did that mean? What language was that even? Well, never mind. We had to focus on taking down the Chuckies. As I came near, the Chuckies froze in place. I quickly sent one flying with a push kick to its stomach. This attack was the same one Bella took me down with.
The little fucker couldn't bear the force and got smashed to the ground. Blood flowed out as the back of the child's skull broke open. Not taking any chances, I aimed at its nose and fired.
Behind me, I heard metal stabbing flesh along with the colorful prose of my partner.
"Foda-se você Chuckie!"
After spending a few hours with her, I had learned that Isabella started speaking in Portuguese whenever she got emotional. She called me a racist bigot when I asked her to teach me Brazilian.
Apparently, there was no such thing as Brazilian, and Brazil spoke Portuguese. How was I supposed to know? According to her, foda-se você was fuck you in her mother tongue.
I noticed a Chuckie coming from my right and shifted the 1911 to intercept.
"Yeah, fuck you Chuckie!"
The round I fired tore into the zombie and exploded the child's eye while blowing out the back of its skull. Behind me, the sounds of bodies hitting the ground continued. This melody gave me assurance that my partner had everything under control. I then aimed for the next little bastard behind the rapier user.
"You have a Chuckie behind you, get down!" I shouted.
The woman had long blonde hair and quickly did a lateral lunge in response to my warning. I sent a .45 ACP to the back of the Chuckies head. The bullet created a bloody mist as it exited. Ugh. I didn't even want to know what happened to its face.
Just then, I heard my partner's voice.
"Clear! Ready!" Bella shouted behind me.
This was our signal that the ones behind me were dead and we could move forward. Because we stayed in our formation, we could fight without worries.
"Okay, Bigfeet in five."
"It's Bigfoots you ass! Go!"
In five meant it would take five seconds before the next encounter. While {Rewind} restored our stamina, using it all the time was wasteful. To be economical, we paced ourselves as we fought. Due to using a knife, even though Bella was in better shape she tired faster than I did.
To ensure we didn't over-exert, I always checked if she needed a rest or not. If Bella said go, then we moved forward. Otherwise we stayed in place.
The rapier user continued to take down Normies with ruthless efficiency. I saw her even block a Bigfoot with just a flick of a soft knife. Why didn't she have a soul weapon, though? Was she also Formless?
I took a moment to check the wounded woman and noticed a light green glow on her neck. It looked a lot like Bella's {heal} tablet, so she should be fine for now.
Not willing to distract our new ally, I took aim at another Bigfoot and shot twice, going for its nose. The good thing when shooting Bigfoots was that they had large heads. Headshots were a simple task when you were this close.
Blood exploded and showered me in flesh and bone as I continued my approach. The Bigfoot's corpse dramatically continued to walk a few steps before falling like a tree. Due to the sounds of my weapon, the Normies around the rapier user left her and charged for us instead.
"Two Normies, three Bigfoots," I told Bella.
I expected more, though, but the blond woman probably took down a lot of them along with the Bigfoot I saw her kill. How reliable.
"Go!" replied Isabella.
Whenever I didn't add a number to my declarations, it meant the undead would arrive in the next few seconds. Bella would keep track if we managed to kill everything. Our formation was perfect in my opinion.
I dashed forward and held the 1911 with both hands as I sniped the Bigfoots. Technically, I could just stand and wait for them. But Isabella would be idle if I did.
Since we could handle it, we didn't shy away from fighting in close quarters. As a bonus, getting this close increased my accuracy.
Two Bigfoots went down by the time they reached us. I shoved my forearm into the last one and shot him from below the chin. A Normie ran past me and lunged for Bella. It died the next moment from the sounds I heard.
From the corner of my eye, I saw the Normies who came at me from the sides get dispatched by Isabella. I heard a loud thud from my left and saw a flying knife end the one to my right.
I didn't see any other zombie, so I turned around and noticed a zombie approach from behind Isabella. I quickly kneeled to steady my aim and shot the Normie.
Not even thanking me, my partner abruptly ran towards me and vaulted using my shoulder as a platform. The sounds of bone cracking behind my head told me all I needed to know.
When I looked back, the zombie already died a second time from a broken neck. It looked like Bella had kicked the Normies head full force like a soccer ball. Rest in peace, Normie.
"You were careless, Mr. Code," my partner scolded.
I then heard a female voice speak in admiration.
"Dai grande! That was amazing!"
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