Pt. 1

“Fuck!”

The Katters ran up the basement steps, taking them two at a time.

“Fuck fuck fuck fuck! Fuck!”

She burst through the basement door, slamming it behind her. She pressed her back against it. “Fuck!”

Zebra sat at the dining room table. His chin rested on his entertwined fingers. There was a radio on the table, and Zebra stared at it.

“Um,” the Katters said with a grimace. Something thumped against the door, prompting another swear from her. “Zebra,” she said. Her voice had an air of forced calm about it.

Zebra continued staring at the radio.

“…now only $19.99 for a limited time!” the radio enthused.

The Katters took a breath, finding her composure. “Zebra,” she repeated. There was another thump. She ignored it.

“This just in,” the radio said. “The dead have risen. We repeat, the dead have risen.”

Zebra turned to face Katters. The Katters chuckled nervously.

“Katters,” Zebra said.

“The end is nigh,” the radio said.

“Yes,” the Katters said. “About that.”

Zebra sighed. “What did you do?”

“Nothing!” the Katters held her hands up. “Just, um.”

“What. Did you do?”

The Katters flipped the lock on the basement door and stepped away from it. She moved carefully, with her hands up in a placating gesture, like she was worried the door would fall over. She ended up next to the table, with both Zebra and the radio between herself and the basement. “Well,” she explained, relaxing. “See, the thing of it is that Sor gave me a vial-“

“A vial?” Zebra asked.

“Yes. A vial. A magic potion, if you will.”

“What sort of magic potion?” Zebra asked, eyes narrowed.

“Oh, you know, a potion, it does magic stuff, who cares?”

Zebra sighed through his nose. “Fine, you got a magic potion from a sorceress. And then?”

“Ah, well, yes, you see, before I tell you what I did I first want it known that I had only the absolute best of intentions. I did it for science, you see, and how was I supposed to know it would raise the dead?”

“For the last time, Katters. What did you do?”

“I experimented.”

Zebra waited, then waved his hand impatiently for Katters to continue.

“I experimented on one of the corpses. With magic. And also science.”

“You mixed magic with science?”

“Yes,” the Katters said, ears drooping.

“You really should know better.”

“I really should. Yes.”

Zebra thought a moment. “So,” he said. “The radio said the dead were rising.”

The Katters nodded.

“But you only just came up from the basement. How did it spread so fast?”

The Katters shrugged. “It’s magic. It does weird shit like that.”

Zebra stood. “Well. I guess there’s only one thing for it, then. Let’s go kill zombies.”

***

Gabriel had been very insistent on having an actual day off, one where he didn’t get called at eleven AM by a hung-over Alis asking for the key to the shop, or threatened into closing so Hyde could go carousing the streets. In an uncharacteristic show of aggression, he had very calmly explained to everyone living in the house that he was going to have the entire day off, and if any of them called him or tried to find him, he would break their legs.

Hyde had started to comment, which prompted Gabriel to reveal a handgun he had obtained somehow and shoot it into the wall next to Hyde’s head. The steadiness of his hand said very clearly that he didn’t have to have missed.

“I think that can be granted.” Sor said slowly. “Take two or three days off, hell.”

“One will be fine.” Gabriel replied, and as quick as it appeared, the pistol vanished. “This Saturday then. Have a nice night.”

***

Saturday had proven to be one of those busy days, where customers kept actually coming in and wanting to buy things. Sor had roused both Hyde and Al earlier than they were supposed to be up, and given a thrilling speech about everyone doing their duty by the shop and making it a success for them all. It was interrupted by Alis throwing her pillow through the doorway and Hyde trying to punch her. There had been water thrown on everyone, and perhaps a bit more coercion on Hyde’s magical leash than was strictly necessary, and Sor had her help in the shop.

“We really could use Gabe.” she mentioned to Alis during one of the rare slow moments. “He’s actually good at all that customer service bullshit.” Sor was slumped dramatically over the counter, her hair pulled back in a very messy braid. She suddenly stood bolt upright, her ears pointed out like radar dishes and twitching slightly. “What the hell…” she muttered softly under her breath.

“What’s up?” Alis asked, absentmindedly taking books from a patron and ringing them up.

“Just got a lashback from some magic, but I don’t think I’ve cast any time-delay spells recently.” Sor took the books from Al and bagged them, then thrust the bag at the patron with a mumbled “niceday.”

Hyde leaned over the railing, “Could it be a-”

The door slammed abruptly open, cutting Hyde off. Gabriel was standing there, his pistol out and eyes wild.

“I thought you weren’t coming in today. Hell or high water, broken legs…” Al snarked.

“Yes, well, hell and high water are very different things from the dead walking the streets.” Gabriel growled. “Does anyone have a better gun? Mine appears to be out of bullets.”

Pt. 2

“Spike! Brutus!” the Katters shouted.

Zebra emerged from the bedroom. There was a machete strapped to his belt and a rifle in his hand. “Should we clear out the basement?”

“Probably. Spike! Brutus!”

Spike trotted over to her from the living room. Brutus was nowhere to be seen.

“Dang it,” the Katters muttered. Louder, she addressed Zebra: “Have you seen Brutus anywhere?”

Zebra shrugged. “He’s a dinosaur. I’m sure he can take care of himself.”

“Still. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when dealing with zombies, you know.”

Zebra shrugged again. “You should have thought of that before you caused the zombie apocalypse.”

“God!” the Katters groaned. “Are you just going to keep bringing that up? That was like half an hour ago, okay? I said I was sorry.”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Well, why should I when you keep getting on my case?”

“Look,” Zebra said. “Can we get on with this? Brutus will be fine.”

Katters clipped a lead to Spike’s collar. “Yeah, okay. You got everything?”

“I think so. If I’ve forgotten anything it must not be important.”

“Yes, that line of thinking has never gone wrong in the past.”

“What about you?”

“Great Prejudice and a shotgun,” the Katters said, hefting a chartreuse and fuscia sledgehammer. There was a gun strapped to her back. “I suppose one of us should do that basement thing.”

Zebra nodded. “Yes. No need for us both to go.”

They paused a moment, apparently deep in thought.

“Roshambo?” the Katters suggested.

“Yeesss,” Zebra said, drawing the word out. He crossed his arms and tilted his head to one side. “Sure, roshambo. Let me just…”

He crossed to the basement door and unlocked it. The Katters followed him, ears twitching.

“Zebra?” she asked. “What are you doing?”

“Just,” Zebra said. “Hold on just a…”

He eased the door open. The Katters looked over his shoulder. The basement was dark and the stairwell was empty.

“What?” the Katters asked.

Zebra grabbed her shoulder and shoved her down the stairs.

***

There was a long pause in the shop, one of those moments where everything went horribly silent.

“Very action movie.” Hyde said finally. He unwound from the balcony bannister and began to walk to the staircase, his voice ringing clear in the empty shop. “Very impressive. Needs more declarations of” -and his voice took on a mockery of a Texas drawl “motherfucker, but other than that, very impressive.” One hand out against the central post of the helical stairs, leaning his body against it precariously. “I was almost intimidated.”

Gabriel shut his eyes slowly, counting under his breath. It wasn’t in English.

“Sweetie, really though. The dead walking the streets?” Alis had fluttered out from behind the counter, and laid a hand on Gabe’s arm gently. He started, and his eyes popped back open.

“Yes.” he said softly, just to Al. He scooped up her hands in his. “Alis, you have to believe me. The dead have risen, and they’re angry about it. There’ve been attacks all throughout the city. I was down by…I was out and they attacked me.”

“Gabriel, it’s Snowtown! They were probably…” she trailed off.

“Too many ideas to articulate?” Hyde suggested.

“Basically, yeah. But the point, honey, is are you sure that it was the dead? I mean, dead people don’t just get up and…”

“Oh shit.” Sor interrupted. All three of her employees turned to look at her, and she blushed slightly. “Erm, nothing. Nothing. Oh hey look at that, a zombie, guess Gabe was right.”

The infant carcass pawed at the glass door of the shop, its eyes distressingly absent. A dark gurgle emitted from its mouth, drool and blood spilling over its cheeks. It pawed again, harder, clearly trying to get in. A moment later, there was a thump, as though something had fallen twenty feet, and another infant began to crawl into view. This one was missing its legs. A moment later, a third, and this time they saw it fall, directly in front of the door.

“Hyde…” whispered Alis, looking not entirely steady.

“Not. Me. I do not deal in stray children, too messy. Not fun enough.”

“Not fun enou-” Gabe started, then shook the image out of his head. “I told you.”

“Oh shut up.” Al snapped. “I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable -why are you pointing a shotgun at me?!” The last was yelled at Sor, who’d gathered up one from somewhere, complete with a tidy green ribbon tied in a bow ‘round the barrel.

“‘cause you’re between me and the door. Be a dear and open it?” A fourth and fifth baby hit the pavement with wet smacks, and joined the babbling horde. These two were sewn together. Sor started. “Oh son of a priest, by the dead are rising you mean fucking all of them? God fucking dammit, do you have any idea how much work I had invested in these fuckers already?” She dropped the gun and vaulted over the counter, stalking to the door and rapidly looking out to count the babies. “Seven-eight-ni-goddammit, I only had nine! And I needed like thirty!”

“If I ask why Sor has just implied she owns dead babies, will I get an answer that makes any sort of rational sense?” Alis asked weakly, leaning heavily against Gabe.

“Probably not, but I want to know anyways.” There was a touch of admiration in Hyde’s eyes, and Gabe shook his head angrily.

“It’s for a project, and I’m just not thinking about it, and she’s promised it’s not evil and no, I don’t know. She’s building something out of innocent corpses. You know, trash-heap babies, like there aren’t supposed to be because there are ‘safe’ houses?”

“How the hell do you even kn-”

“Because I stumbled across…look, nevermind. Do we need to…” he careened his head around Al, trying to see what Sor was up to.

“Nope! I got ‘em! Let’s figure out what the hell happened so they’ll go dead again.” Sor was holding a burlap sack that smelled faintly of magic and faintly of flesh. She heaved it over her shoulder and tossed it into the elevator. “Remember not to use that. Now!” she whirled and faced her staff. “Shall we find some weaponry? It appears to be “shoot everyone with no repercussions” day, and I don’t intend to miss out!”

Pt. 3

The Katters landed at the bottom of the stairs with a yelp and a thump. She’d dropped Great Prejudice on the way down and she could hear it come to a stop a few steps above her.

After that, all she could hear was her own breathing.

It was dark. The Katters was likely to be eaten by a zombie.

Something was wrong. The Katters felt around herself. She was about two-thirds of the way down the stairs, sideways, with one leg up against the wall and the other bent at the knee. She’d made quite a racket during the fall and now her breathing was very loud. It should have attracted the zombies. She should have been neck deep in living dead by now.

The Katters felt above her for Great Prejudice’s handle and got slowly to her feet. She leaned against the wall, guiding herself down the rest of the stairs with her shoulder, and retrieved her shotgun with her free hand.

The floor came unexpectedly and the Katters put her foot down too hard. The thud of her shoe hitting tile echoed around the basement and the Katters winced. She put Great Prejudice down and fished for the lights.

The basement smelled like decomposing bodies. The scent was carried to the Katters by a cold breeze originating from the open freezer. The room felt cold, and empty. The Katters’ breathing had lost its frantic nature and now the Katters could feel her own heartbeat. The darkness had taken on a three-dimensional quality. It was rather like being the last living thing on the planet.

The Katters moved her hand lower in the search for the light-switch.

Something growled at her.

The Katters jerked to her right, away from the noise, readying her shotgun. She couldn’t sense the thing - couldn’t feel its warmth, couldn’t hear it moving, couldn’t smell it over the putrid decay surrounding her. The something growled again, closer, and the Katters whipped the gun toward the noise.

Suddenly, there was a hand grabbing at her shirt and the Katters fired. The shotgun blast illuminated the area for an instant and the image of a corpse, one eye missing, mouth opened far too wide, streamers of bloody saliva hanging from its jaws, was burned into her retinas.

The Katters couldn’t tell if she’d hit it or not. She pressed her back against the wall, clutching her now warm gun and cursing the ringing in her ears.

The Katters waited. Nothing happened, and nothing continued to happen for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, she began edging toward the almost forgotten light-switch.

Something grabbed her arm. The Katters yelped, but couldn’t hear it, and lashed out at the thing with the butt of her gun. She felt it connect with something that had some give. The thing let go and the Katters spun, facing the wall, and pawed frantically for the lights.

The lights came on and for a moment the Katters’ panicked mind told her that she had gone blind, but then the dazzling white dissolved into the more usual white of the basement walls. She glanced briefly over her shoulder, then dove for her sledgehammer.

The thing with one eye also had one arm. The other shoulder terminated in what the Katters thought was very likely a shotgun wound. Some feet away, a disembodied arm lay on the floor, oozing a thick, black liquid.

The Katters swung at the thing with Great Prejudice. The sledgehammer connected with the thing’s head and a crunch reverberated down the shaft to the Katters’ hands. More black sludge spattered against the wall, and the thing collapsed to the floor, re-dead.

***

Sor gave them fifteen minutes to pack survival gear and weapons, whatever they could carry and nothing more.

Approximately thirty seconds after they had all scattered to their separate rooms, there was a roar of an engine. Sor scrambled to the window just in time to see Hyde riding down the street on his motorcycle. He swerved around a zombie, clotheslining it with his cane as he passed, and then he was down a side-street and out of sight.

She shrugged. The sociopathic serial killer would probably do pretty well for himself, to be perfectly honest.

When she made it back down to the center of the bookstore, she found it was very dark. All the bookshelves had been dragged from their proper places and set in front of the windows, blocking them. The door had a 2”x4” wedged horizontal across it, keeping it tightly closed, and Sor could see the beginnings of a shambling mob beyond it.

”Whoa.” Al said, her tread cat-silent on the staircase. “Nice redecoration job.”

”Wasn’t me.” Sor turned, and raised an eyebrow at the sight of her head-in-the-clouds dilettante. Alis was dressed such to be almost unrecognizable, with her hair braided back and put up, and no make-up. She was wearing jeans, and a brown bomber jacket that was surprisingly scraped up.

”You look…good.” Sor tried. “I think I approve. Weaponry?”

”Most of mine is ill suited, but I have guns. Some other stuff that might prove to be helpful. Where’s Gabe?”

”Coming, coming.” He clattered down the stairs. His hair was pulled back in a sloppy ponytail, just brushing the handle of a sword slung over his back. His pistols were holstered against his legs, and he had tied a dark green bandana around one arm. “I’ve got medstuff, rope, and some food. What about you guys?”

Sor hefted a chainsaw with a malicious grin. Her shotgun was holstered at her hip, still tied with the pretty ribbon. “My pack’s pretty much all magic stuff. Alis?”

”Just…whatever might be useful.” Al shrugged, noncommittal. “Shall we?”

”Actually, may I make a suggestion? The bookshop is defensible” Gabe nodded at the barricade. “We don’t actually have to leave, now do we?”

Sor walked over and set a heavy hand on his shoulder “Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. If we don’t leave, then how do we get to kill hundreds of malicious beings without any guilt whatsoever? Think of it as a holiday!”

”You’re not British.”

”Shut it and come on. Unless you’d rather stay here alone?”

Gabe rolled his eyes and walked to the door warily, looking both ways through the glass. He jimmied the 2”x4” out of place, and set a hand on the handle. “Ready then?”

”Open it, and duck.” Sor ordered, and he complied. Two shotgun blasts rang out over his head, and he shuddered slightly. But it worked, the nearest corpses fell to the ground, leaving a space for the three of them.

”Where is our resident British asshole anyways?” Gabe asked as they stepped out in the street. He turned casually and locked the door behind him.

”Did you even flip the open sign?” Alis’s voice had more than its usual trace of skepticism.

”We’re not! We can’t be expected to go out hunting *and* tend shop!”

”If only all my employees were so delightfully dedi-look out!” Gabe ducked on instinct, just in time to catch sight of a zombie lumbering towards them. It got a faceful of shot, and fell over, black bile splattered out behind it.

”What is this st…”

”Science later! Zombies now!” Sor was skipping down the street, yanking the pull-cord of the chainsaw as she went. It roared into life and she cackled with glee. There was a sudden movement as the zombies converged on the noise. There were about thirty or forty close enough to hear, and they moved with an alarming speed. “Oh yeah.” Sor grinned. “Come at me, fuckers!”

Gabe sighed, and twined his hand in Al’s. “Shall we go save our boss?” His other arm was moving fluidly, unsheathing the sword.

”Oh, naw, she looks fine.” The first wave of zombies hit her, and Sor swung her chainsaw in a wide arc, splattering blood everywhere. “Look at her, she’s happier than she’s been since Christmas!”

”Didn’t she spend Christmas attempting to kidnap reindeer?” Gabe was scanning up and down the street with a practiced air as they talked, slowly bringing Alis towards the horde.

Al tossed a grenade casually up and down in her free hand. “Yeah, I think that was before the part where we all got massive drunk. Do me a favour love and drag Sor out of there?” She lifted the grenade and grabbed the pin with her teeth.

Alis was polite enough to wait until Gabe and Sor ran past down the street to hurl the explosive into the crowd of zombies. She was running with them when they were all thrown forward by the shockwave, and laughed hardest of all at the rain of body parts descending around them.

Pt. 4

When the Katters got back up to the house, she found Zebra and Spike laying under the dining table.

She slammed the door. Zebra jerked up, hitting his head on the underside of the table. He crawled out from under it, glowering at the Katters. He looked her up and down.

The Katters was spattered with black sludge. Zebra said something.

“What?” the Katters said. “I can’t hear you!”

Zebra said something else.

Katters ignored him. “There were three of them down there!” she said, checking her shotgun. Satisfied, she put it back in its holster. “I took care of ‘em though. Weren’t no thing.”

Zebra grabbed the Katters’ ear and shouted into it. The Katters could hear the sounds, but not make sense of them - it was like being shouted at under water.

“Ow! Leggo you jerk!” The Katters shoved him away. “It’s no use, you’ll just have to be patient until my hearing comes back.”

Zebra said something, throwing his hands up in exasperation.

“And no insulting me while I can’t hear you. That’s cheating.”

Zebra stuck his tongue out at her.

“At any rate, we should get going,” the Katters said. She turned away from Zebra and walked toward the front of the house. “Those zombies aren’t just going to kill themselves!”

Zebra grabbed her shoulder. She turned, eyebrow raised, and Zebra put a finger to his lips. He pointed toward the front of the house, where the pie shop was.

Spike took three steps forward, ears cocked forward. The Katters watched Zebra.

Zebra stalked toward the door, moving low. He held a hand up, telling the Katters to wait. The Katters did.

Zebra pressed his ear to the door. After a moment, he waved the Katters over. She gripped Great Prejudice and slunk to his side. He pointed at her, then the door, then held up three fingers, his other hand resting on the doorknob. The Katters nodded, and Zebra lowered his upraised fingers one after the other. When there were no fingers left, he opened the door and the Katters rushed out. Zebra followed her.

The large, glass windows on either side of the shop’s door were broken. Two teenagers were standing behind the counter, surprised looks plastered on their faces. One of them, a white woman, had shaggy black and blue hair. The other, an asian man, had a purple mohawk. They were wearing a lot of leather and wielding baseball bats.

The man had his hand in the cash register. The Katters glared at him.

The woman said something. The Katters could just barely make out the vowels. Zebra replied, and the man took a step backwards. The woman’s grip on her bat tightened.

The Katters hefted her sledgehammer horizontally and rammed the head into the woman’s chest. The woman stumbled backwards, doubled over. She dropped her bat.

The man took another step backwards, glancing from his companion to the Katters, before rushing forward with his bat raised over his head. The Katters swung Great Prejudice into his left knee and he dropped. He clutched at his knee, which was bent the wrong way. The Katters could sort of hear him screaming.

Zebra grabbed the man by his hair and jerked his head back. Zebra drew his machete and, with a couple of whacks, chopped the man’s head off. The Katters caved the woman’s skull in with Great Prejudice.

***

They had slowed to a walk, a meander really, though the streets of town. Occasionally Sor would let off a blast from her shotgun, and once Alis lobbed another grenade over a low fence into a mass of (probably) undead teenagers, but the way was largely quiet.

“Man, where are they all?” Sor sulked.

“Well, we’re walking into the nicer part of the city. You want corpses, you go to the parts where people don’t travel alone.” Gabe was completely matter-of-fact, almost bored. “Of course, that’s also gonna be the parts with more…” he flinched “competition for your sick murder-fetish.”

“It’s not a fetish.” Sor muttered. “I just like getting to indulge my urge for mindless violence! It’s like videogames, only even better.”

“I do apologize.” drawled Gabe. Sor decided it was a fine time to slap him on the arm, which led to a mild scuffle between them. Gabe had just gotten Sor into a headlock, when Alis let out a low hiss and flapped her hand at them insistently.

“Shut up shut up shut up.” she whispered urgently, and pointed. Half a block ahead was the Ramsey General Hospital, and more zombies than one could easily count. A goodly number of which had caught wind of the fight, and were now moving rapidly towards the trio.

“Look, it’s not my fault you didn’t bring anything but grenades.” Sor muttered darkly. “Which is awesome, but only in the theoretical sense.”

“I didn’t just bring grenades.” Al bickered. “I’m just used to ano…I have a gun. And a crowbar, which I will use to bash in your witchy brain if you don’t hurry up and start shooting them.”

“Why don’t you use the crowbar to bash the zombies?” suggested Gabe, drawing his sword and taking up a proper fighting stance. “Hell, Sor picks off bunches of ‘em at a time, when they get too close or she has to reload, I shred them, and you cover our backs by bashing in their brains.”

“That sounds suspiciously like strategy. I thought I was supposed to be the leader here.” Sor was sulking again.

As was Alis, “Why am I on ‘cover backs’ duty? You make me sound like I’m not competent to do any real killing!” Gabriel and Sor shared a look that utterly failed to be covert. “Oh screw both of you assholes.” Al hissed, and unattached a crowbar from her belt. She hit Sor in the leg as she passed for good measure, and stalked towards the crowd of zombies, who were quite close now, and swung her makeshift club at the closest. There was a wet snap, and its head flew off like a golf ball.

“That’s a hell of a swing she’s got with that thing.” Gabe commented mildly, wandering after her.

“Fucking fuck that hurt.” Sor was limping heavily, her hand clutched to her wounded leg. There was a hissing sound, as a sickly green glow surrounded her hand. “I am revising you assholes’ lease. No more keeping cold iron in my house, you renegade fucks.”

“Not listening. Busy killing the dead!” Al called over her shoulder. “You should help.”

“I will stab you in the eyes!” Sor yelled back, but she was looking less pained. She pulled the cord of her chainsaw and grinned maliciously as she waved it over her head. “It’s on, you primitive screwheads!” With something that might’ve been a battle cry, and might’ve been a scream of pain, she joined the fray.

“Oh Gabriel.” Gabe muttered in a falsetto “Wouldn’t you like to come work for me? I’ll give you a place to stay, a regular salary, a boy as smart as you needs a good job! It’ll be just the kind of work you like, quiet, simple, hardly involve killing zombies at all!” There was a sudden pressure on his leg, and he lashed out in a rough kick. “You are ruining my monologue.” he told the zombie in his normal petulant tone, and slashed out with the sword. He got the zombie clean at the wrist, which had no effect except a splash of black bile getting on his second favourite pair of pants.

“Here ya’ go, babe!” Alis called out merrily, and conked the zombie on the head, rather hard. Its head split open, and the undead ceased its movement. “Aim for the brain, m’dear. Anything else and you’re only delaying their attack, not ceasing it.”

“I know how to deal with zombies!” he argued back, lunging past her to catch one in the neck. He sidestepped, and the sword slid straight across to the next zombie, catching it as well. A quick flick of the wrist, and it too was re-dead. “Touche.”

“Jerkass.” Al rolled her eyes, but she wrapped her arm around Gabe in a quick hug as she passed. “C’mon then, you can cover my back.”

Pt. 5

The Katters and Zebra dragged the dead teenagers into the house.

“The zombie apocalypse has been on us for, what, an hour?” the Katters said, and her voice was raised only slightly louder than was normal. “And these fucks are already looting the local stores.”

Zebra opened the basement door. They shoved the bodies down the stairs.

“Obviously the zombies were just an excuse,” the Katters continued. “These punks would have taken any opportunity to rob us.”

“The world’s better off without them,” Zebra agreed. His voice, to the Katters, was still somewhat muffled, but if she concentrated, she could understand all his words. He closed and locked the basement door, then rested his back against it. “Now,” he said. “I believe we were on our way out the door, when we were so rudely interrupted by a pair of hooligans.”

The Katters picked up Spike’s leash and tied it to her belt-loop. “Yes!” she said. “We should give that another go.”

Spike’s ears perked toward the front door, again, and he let out a low growl.

“Fuck,” the Katters said. “More looters?”

Zebra stood. “At this rate, we may have to stay here and guard the shop.”

“Like fuckery,” the Katters grumbled. She headed for the door. “You can stay here if you want. I’m going to kill all the zombies.”

Zebra followed her. “All of them?” he asked.

“All of them.”

They stepped back into the shop. Street-lamps cast light in through the broken windows and threw long shadows across the floor. Katters, Zebra, and Spike appeared to be alone.

“You can’t kill all the zombies,” Zebra said. “I’m sure there’s other survivors out there. I mean, this is Snowtown, there’s probably some sick freaks out there looking for zombies to kill.”

“You don’t know that,” the Katters said and continued walking. By now her hearing was back to normal, and she didn’t need to watch Zebra speak to understand him.

“Anyway,” he continued. “I’ll be killing some of the zombies.”

The Katters stepped through one of the broken windows. “We were speaking of a hypothetical situation in which you stayed here to protect the shop,” she said. “In which case, I would kill all of the zombies.”

“You don’t think even one zombie would show up at the shop?”

A loud screech came from behind them, like a man impersonating a mountain lion. Zebra whirled and embedded his machete into the skull of a leaping zombie. It crashed into him, and Zebra lost his grip on his weapon. The zombie was missing its lower half, and it fell to the ground. It lifted itself onto its hands and tried to escape, but twitched, tripped, and fell again.

Zebra grabbed the handle of the machete, put his foot on the zombie’s shoulder, and yanked. The machete came free, though a strand of thick, black sludge connected it to the zombie’s wound.

Zebra hacked at the zombie’s skull until it stopped moving.

“Are you done?” the Katters asked.

“Almost,” Zebra said and cut off the zombie’s head.

The Katters rolled her eyes. “Come on, we need to get to Ramsey.”

“What’s in Ramsey?”

“A certain magic-user that might be able to fix this.”

***

The three wound their way through the horde, making a general mess of the street outside the hospital, but no substantial dint in the mass of rotting flesh. Sor finally ran out of gas for her saw, and chucked the empty machine at a zombie, scrambling backwards wildly. “Fall back fall back fall back!” she hissed, and dove out towards the empty street, dodging grasping zombie arms and teeth.

“But I’m having fuuuun!” Al whined, then squeaked as Gabe grabbed her around the waist and hefted her onto his shoulder. He managed to stagger a grand total of six paces before a zombie latched onto his leg, and he fell over in a heap.

Sor was laughing too hard to help them up.

***

Two well placed grenades gave them enough of a lead that they weren’t in danger of being overwhelmed anymore. There had been a brief argument about whether to stay at a distance and kill the zombies (which Sor argued was less fun), or dive back into the thick of things (which Gabe argued was bloody dangerous). Alis won the argument by pointing out that they could get more ammo back home, and sneak up on any zombies they passed along the way, which mollified both parties.

Their resolve doubled when Gabe spotted a couple of looters breaking into a trendy sunglass shop en route. Sor managed to scare them off with her shotgun, and now had three pairs of appalling sunglasses propped on her head.

“You’re ridiculous.” Gabe had muttered, after the girls had finished their quick loot of the shop. Alis was wearing a pair of candy pink sunglasses, which clashed impressively with her hair.

“You’re boring.” Al retorted. “C’mon, every shop in town must be a free-for-all. It’s the zombie apocalypse, the end of the world, if we’re gonna go out, let’s do it in style!”

“And that’s why we’re headed back to our shop, right?” Gabe’s tone was almost begging. When Sor slowed down to study a shop window manniquin, he grabbed her arm and growled. “Because it would be responsible to keep it free of freeloading jerks, now wouldn’t it?”

“You’re cute when you don’t cuss.” Sor tweaked Gabe’s nose and skipped ahead a few paces. “Come awwwn, Gabe! It’s a bookshop! Who’s gonna steal from us? End of the world, you want practical or bling, we’re so neither.”

“Sure, but what about the rest of the house? We do have some positively swanky stuff, or I do at least. Not to mention your magic supplies…”

Sor blanched at that, and started forward with a notable increase in resolve. They arrived at the shop a few minutes later, pausing only to shoot a lone zombie off a third floor fire escape. It looked just as abandoned as when they’d left, and all three breathed sighs of relief.

Gabe unlocked the door and they walked into a room which bore evidence of what appeared to have been a small tornado. Shelves were knocked over haphazardly, with books strewn about. There was evidence of the congealed black bile the zombies had emitted, leaked in droplets across the floor. And most damning of all, a zombie appeared to be stuck in their staircase.

“I’d like to hear the Department of Health whine about leaving the stairs open now.” Sor muttered darkly, and crossed the room to it. Not wanting to attract attention, she beat the zombie to re-death with a hardbound Stephen King novel, then dropped the brick of a book back on the counter. “How the hell did it get in?”

“You’re the one with the babies.” whispered Alis,”Any other ‘projects’you forgot about?”

“No, I’m not ready for full sized humans.” Sor hissed back, studying the zombie. It was missing most of its entrails, and both eyes. Cuts and contusions covered what was once a probably very attractive female body, though the hair had been hacked away awkwardly. Sor turned her sleuthing towards the rest of the shop, but the door was still in fine condition, and the windows barricaded. “How on earth did she get in?”

There was a sudden crash as Alis fell into one of the few still-standing bookshelves. Sor whirled to chide her, to find her curvaceous redhead struggling with another curvaceous redhead, this one decidedly deceased. Its hair was in beautiful full curls that cascaded around its face, and except for the pallor to its skin and empty eye-sockets, looked as though it had been alive very recently.

Al managed to shove the beast off and punch it heavily in the face. It rocked back, which was enough space for a whooshing arc of the crowbar. Her head caved in like an overripe melon, and the corpse hit the ground.

“Where the fuck did that even come from?” Al panted, taking a fighting stance with her makeshift club.

Gabe nudged her arm, and pointed. Through the gloom of the shop, they could see a trapdoor in the corner had been broken open. A hand was struggling to pull itself up, clearly another zombie. “I mean, I don’t know when we got a basement, but…”

Sor walked over and slammed her heel into the grasping fingers. The zombie fell down with a gurgle and she sighed.

“Remind me, when all this is done, to have some stern fucking words with Mr. Edward Hyde about cleaning out his toybox when he’s not using it.” She glanced down, and sighed. “Looks like we’re gonna have to do it for him.

Pt. 6

Westchester drive was abandoned, save for the two figures (and their dog) heading east. The street-lamps dotting the road cast lonely circles of light on the pavement. Most of the houses looked untouched, but every so often, the Katters, Zebra, and Spike would pass a house with boarded up windows. At a glance, one could never have guessed that the city was being overrun by zombies.

“It’s quiet,” the Katters said.

“You think Sor will be able to fix this?” Zebra asked her.

“Probably! I mean, it was her magic what done it, right? Magic-users got to have some way to, I don’t know, ruin magic that’s gone awry.”

“If she could fix it, though, why hasn’t she?”

The Katters’ ears flicked back. “Um,” she said.

“And, I mean,” Zebra continued. “You really think Sor could survive the zombie apocalypse? Sor?”

“Hey now,” the Katters frowned. “Sor can hold her own in a fight. I’m sure she’s fine.”

“But if she’s fine, then why are there still zombies? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Um,” the Katters repeated.

“There’s really only one conclusion to be drawn, here. If you really think that Sor could put a stop to the zombie apocalypse, then…”

“Shut up!” the Katters said. “Look, just. Let’s get to Sor’s and we’ll deal with whatever’s there when we come to it.”

Zebra smirked. “If you say so,” he said. “I just want you to be prepared for this, given how likely it is and all.”

The Katters punched him in the arm. Zebra laughed.

“Look, right,” the Katters said. “We haven’t seen any zombies in a while. Maybe she did take care of it.”

There was a groan behind them. They turned, and discovered that they were being followed by ten or fifteen zombies.

“Shit,” Zebra said. “Maybe we shouldn’t have buried all those bodies out in the woods.”

The Katters unhooked Spike’s leash from his collar and rehooked it to her pants. “Too late to worry about that, now. Sic ‘em, Spike!”

Spike ran forward. He could modestly be described as a large dog, and he easily knocked the nearest zombie to the ground before tearing its throat out.

The Katters ran after her dog. She took Great Prejudice to the fallen zombie’s head before running past and attacking another. She kicked it in the chest, spun, and took the zombie’s head off with her sledgehammer.

Meanwhile, Zebra hung back and picked off the farthest zombies with his rifle.

“I don’t think Sor’s taken care of it,” he shouted.

“Shut up!” the Katters replied.

***

The steps to the basement were an austere cement, curving slightly as they followed the wall. Sor dropped a witchlight down, but the stairs terminated in a wooden door, heavily damaged.

The three careened their necks, but the view through the door was unhelpful at best. Their investigation was not aided by the zombie girl staggering back up the staircase, and lunging at Gabe.

He took her out with a single shot to the head, a sliver of red blood dripping from the perfect round hole. “Huh.” Sor commented, edging down the steps to take the girl’s chin in her hand and examine the wound. “She’s rather fresh now, isn’t she? The ones at the hospital were leaking black.”

“How is it you can tell how recent a corpse is by the colour of its blood, but you constantly have to ask me if bananas are safe to eat?” Gabe wondered aloud.

“Bananas are confusing fucks.” Sor retorted. “And all that nonsense where you put them in the freezer for months at a time. Why do you even do that? Do you think I find it funny when they fall out of the freezer and go thump? Bananas aren’t meant to go thump, they’re meant to go squish! When bananas go thu-AIEE!”

The witchlight cast a sickly green glow over the scene, as Sor was hauled backwards through the remains of the wooden door. Her legs cast long strange shadows up the staircase as she flailed, and with a dull crack as her head hit the door jamb, she was gone.

“Just to check, our boss has just been dragged away by zombies into a basement I didn’t know we had?” Gabe and Alis were moving rapidly down the stairs, chasing after Sor.

“Check.”

“And this isn’t just some sort of horrendous dream we’re somehow both having, probably due to Sor testing psychotropic magic in our dinner again?”

Alis pinched his arm, and he yelped. “Check!”

“Right then. Just making sure.” Gabe bent and scooped up the witch-light, holding it up and through the remains of the door. It cast a light over a small mass of rotting flesh, surrounding the flailing katter. “Okay, so I’ll take the left side and you…” Gabriel realized he was speaking to empty air. Alis had dove into the fray, shoving zombies aside bodily as she lashed out with the crowbar. She grabbed for Sor, who dodged suddenly out of the way.

“Don’t worry babe,” Sor said, “I’ve got this one right…three, two, one, EYES.”

Gabe’s arm barely made it in front of his face in time, there was an impossibly bright flash of light accompanied by a vast crackling that came from the edge of the world. He blinked several times, trying to make sense of the world again, but with only the meager witchlight, the room seemed impossibly dark.

Alis hadn’t been so lucky, she was sitting stupefied and babbling a sing-songy chant about merry-go-rounds in autumn. Sor winced, and reached over to lay a gentle hand on her head. There was the barest flash of green, and Al collapsed, asleep.

“Is she going to be…”

“Yeah, she’ll be fine. The lightning was only after dead flesh, it wouldn’t have touched her.” Sor stretched out on the cement floor. “Cor I’m tired. That hurt.”

Gabe sat beside her and pulled her head into his lap, rubbing his boss’s temples lightly. Sor noticed his pistols were still cleanly in reach, and the sword ready in the sheath. “What the hell was the range of that, anyways? It felt like it went past me.”

“Enough.” Sor’s eyes were closed, and she nestled against Gabe’s leg drowsily. “Severed the brainstems of any undead within…mmm…at least the whole house, in every direction?”

Gabe whistled. “You didn’t use a big magic on this, did you?”

“Course not. While you were moving all the fugging furniture around, I took a mo’ to prepare a couple things. Just had to reach it…” She snuggled closer, and her ears drooped. “sleep now? You’ll keep safe from stragglers?”

Gabe bit the inside of his cheek. “No, no honey, no sleep. Wait, stragglers? What?”

Sor waved a hand vaguely. “Zombies notice light and noise and stuff, even wifout eyes. Any locals that were out of range’ll be at the shop soon. ‘sokay, doors all locked.

“Sor the door is glass. Sor!” Gabriel was trying not to panic, this was not his ideal crisis. He really would’ve preferred something with more organization to it, and perhaps less shooting. If he was being perfectly honest, perhaps a bit of parkour.

Sor mumbled something that might’ve been helpful, and the last scrap of consciousness slipped out of her. The witchlight went out with a ting.

Gabriel was alone, in the dark, in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, with his two best friends helpless and unconscious. He wished very hard he was better at swearing, it seemed the appropriate response.

Pt. 7

The Katters, Zebra, and Spike were nearing the Ripton/Snowtown border when the Katters stopped walking and cocked her head. “I smell smoke,” she said.

Someone shouted, “Fire in the hole!” and something flew over the Katters’ and Zebra’s heads. It crashed to the ground, burst with the sound of shattering glass, and exploded into short-lived flames around the feet of the four zombies which had been stalking our heroes.

The zombies charged forward. The Katters swung low with Great Prejudice and broke three legs, knocking two of the zombies over. Zebra knocked a third back with the butt of his gun, then spun it and fired. He fired again, dropping the fourth zombie.

While Zebra took to stomping the heads of the Katters’ felled zombies, they could hear someone running up behind them. The Katters spun, Great Prejudice readied.

The man stopped, hands raised. He, like the Katters and Zebra, was covered in spatters of black liquid. He was wearing a canary yellow, button-up shirt with several tears in it, and a pair of brown slacks held up by white suspenders. He had very short, carrot-orange hair, red eyes, and a long nose. He was grinning and breathing hard.

He had a large bag that clinked a little when he moved it, and a bent, metal pipe.

“Sorry!” he said. “I didn’t mean to startle you!”

The Katters considered killing him, but ultimately lowered her weapon. “Harry,” she said. “What are you doing here?”

“Journalism!” Harry said. He looked everywhere as he talked with wide eyes. “What about you? Where are you going?”

“Ramsey,” Zebra said. “We’ve got to see a magic-user about a horse.”

“Long way,” Harry said. “Why didn’t you go north, through the park?”

Zebra shrugged. “More zombies on the roads.”

Harry frowned.

“And where exactly are you going?” the Katters asked. “What journalism brings you into Ripton?”

“This is where the undead are going!” Harry grinned again. “It’s very peculiar. They all sort of gravitate in this direction.”

The Katters and Zebra exchanged a look.

“Or, at least, most of them do,” Harry continued. “And not very quickly. It could be a coincidence, but it was as good a lead as any. Can I come with you?”

“What?” the Katters said.

“Can I come with you to Ramsey?”

“Absolutely not,” the Katters said.

“Hold on,” Zebra said. He pulled the Katters aside.

“You cannot be serious,” the Katters hissed.

“You heard him,” Zebra said. “The zombies are heading this way. We could end up overpowered, and having an extra weapon is never a bad thing.”

“But he’s Harry,” the Katters whined.

“And we could need him for bait later.”

The Katters sighed. “Fine,” she said. She stepped back over to Harry and glared at him. “Fine,” she repeated.

***

The first thing Gabriel did was shut his eyes very tightly, and count backwards from ten. He did this in as many languages as he could think of, which was about forty, and so he sat there for six minutes, just reciting numbers backwards in his head.

When he had run out of languages, he took a deep breath and opened his eyes. It was dark here. He hoped very hard he was not likely to be eaten by a zombie.

It was very difficult, forcing his brain to calm down over the shout of “zombie zombie zombie zombie!” He absentmindedly stuck the side of his hand in his mouth, biting lightly, not realizing he was parroting Sor. He ran his other hand through his hair wearily, and hit the strap of his backpack.

“Okay, Gabriel.” he said aloud, not liking how the words echoed. “You’re being stupid. Let’s stop that.”

“Problems,” he started, vaguely recalling that talking through a situation was known to bring solutions. “There are zombies everywhere. Sor is unconscious due to magicdrain. Alis is unconscious due to…Sor knocking her out. Oh dear, I hope that’s not one of the ones that has to be broken by the spellcaster, because I don’t know when Sor’s going to get up, that really was rather powerfu-“

“H-hello?” the voice was weak, and raspy, and Gabriel screamed. He actually scrambled backwards for a moment, until he ran into Sor’s form, and fell over.

There was a whimper in the dark, somewhere above him, and Gabe closed his eyes again. He had gotten as far as “sechs” when the voice called out again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, is someone there?”

It sounded like it was crying. Gabe straightened, and peered up into the darkness, trying to make out anything. No, he decided, it sounded like it had been crying, and had run out of the very ability to cry, from some overwhelming fear or loss or hopelessness.

“Hello?” he called back. “Hello, no, don’t apologize, yes someone’s here. Where are you?”

“Up. H-he put me up, and told me he’d be back later and I don’t know when, and then all the other girls, the d-dead ones, they came to life and there was another girl alive and she screamed as they ate her.” the voice started sobbing. “She screamed.”

Gabriel pulled the backpack off and into his lap. “I’m going to find a light, okay? And then I’ll…get you down.” He was rummaging through, looking for the maglight he knew he had tucked into the pack somewhere. He found it, and with a triumphant click, turned it on and flashed it around the room.

He immediately wished he hadn’t. The room was filled with clunky furniture and strange devices that awoke feelings of revulsion without even an adequate explanation of what they did. At least two of the machines he saw still had flesh attached -you couldn’t really call that little of a human being a corpse.

There were bloodstains on the floor and walls -far more than could have been left by the recent attack- and a huge wooden cabinet covered one wall. Most of the doors were closed, what few were open revealed devices Gabriel had only seen in museums, or piles of unworked rope, or wicked blades.

Gabriel managed not to vomit on the Sorcyress, but it was a close call. Finally, he managed to bring himself to shine the light up.

Up was a maze of chains and hooks, suspended from a cast-iron grid of pipes. There were three or four cages hanging from the grid, one filled with bones -far more bones than would fit a single human. The smallest cage held a cramped silhouette, clearly the owner of the voice.

She gasped at the light, but couldn’t maneuver enough to properly shield her eyes. “Sorry, sorry.” murrmurred Gabriel, averting the light. “How did you even get up there?” He swiveled the lamp back and forth, looking for a lever or switch, any way to lower the occupied cage.

The girl whimpered. “I told you, he put me up here. He put me up here and told me I was never going to escape.”

Gabriel paused for a moment to connect the dots. Hyde always joked about his sinister predilections, but Gabriel had never considered him serious in the matter. Yet Sor had called this his toyroom, and Hyde did have the tendency to disappear for hours and then reappear at a moment’s notice.

Gabriel took the opportunity to be quite sick again.

Pt. 8

Harry pulled a bottle from his pants pocket. “You know, most people ran for shelter,” he said and took a drink.

“And?” Zebra said.

Harry took another drink and put the bottle back. “And nothing, just most people aren’t out looking for undead to fight.”

“We’re not looking for undead to fight,” the Katters said. “We’re on our way to Ramsey. We’ve got an errand to run.”

“You said you were taking the main roads because there were more zombies.”

“True,” the Katters said, shooting Zebra a glare. “We did say that.”

“So what’s up?” Harry said. “Why are you fighting undead? What errand is so important it’s worth risking your lives?”

“Someone has to,” Zebra said.

“What?”

Zebra shrugged. “If everyone’s hiding away in shelters, then no one’s fighting the zombies. And if no one’s fighting the zombies then the zombies won’t die.”

“One has to take a proactive approach to this sort of thing,” the Katters said. “Or the zombie apocalypse will never end.”

“That’s,” Harry said slowly, “one way of looking at it, I suppose.”

“You’re not in a shelter,” Zebra said.

“I’m a journalist,” Harry said.

“You’re not the only journalist in Snowtown,” the Katters said. “If fighting zombies is so intrinsic to journalism, where are the rest of them?”

Harry shrugged. “Snowtown-proper? Wilmington?”

“In hiding because their lives are worth more to them than their jobs?” Zebra suggested.

“So, Ramsey,” Harry said. “What’s in Ramsey?”

Spike barked twice, ears perked. He was facing a cream coloured house with a large yard.

“Houses, usually,” the Katters said.

“No, really,” Harry said.

“Yes, there really are houses in Ramsey.”

“We know someone over there,” Zebra said. “Katters wants to make sure she’s okay.”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Ah, of course,” he said.

The Katters frowned.

Spike turned to his right, now looking somewhat behind them. He barked again.

Harry glanced down at the dog. “Should we be worried about that?”

“What’s to be worried about?” Zebra said.

The cream coloured house had a tall, brown fence separating the front yard from the back. Something leaped over it, ran across the yard, and disappeared behind a hedge.

“What the fuck was that?” the Katters said.

“I don’t know,” Harry said. “It’s too dark. Was it a zombie?”

“It’s the fastest zombie I’ve ever seen if it was,” Zebra said. He checked his rifle.

Harry opened his bag and pulled out a bottle of grain alcohol. He soaked a rag with it, then plugged the rag into the mouth of the bottle.

The Katters punched Zebra in the shoulder. “You just had to tempt fate, didn’t you?”

“Shut up and let me concentrate,” Zebra said.

“Don’t tell me to shut up.” The Katters punched him again. “Next thing you’re going to be asking ‘What’s the worst that could happen’ or ‘Could be worse.’ or, fuck it, I don’t know, ‘Macbeth.’”

“God damn it,” Zebra said. “I told you to shut up. We’re kind of in the middle of something, here.”

“Screw you!” the Katters said.

Harry looked nervously from the Katters to Zebra and back again.

Zebra flipped his gun and bashed the butt of it into the Katters’ forehead. The Katters staggered backwards, caught her balance, and narrowed her eyes. She set Great Prejudice down then tackled Zebra.

She and Zebra fell, and Zebra dropped his gun. He raised his arms to defend himself as the Katters clawed at his face.

“Uh,” Harry said.

Zebra kicked upwards, getting his knee in the Katters’ stomach. She lost her breath, and Zebra pushed her over. He stood and kicked her in the ribs.

The Katters groaned.

Zebra bent to pick up his rifle and the Katters grabbed his ankles and pulled. Zebra fell, landing hard on his palms. The Katters got on his back and got her hands around his throat.

“Christ,” Harry said.

Zebra slapped the ground. “Mercy!” he choked out.

The Katters let him go. They stood, and Zebra kicked her in the shin for good measure.

“Ow,” the Katters said.

***

The girl made vague sympathetic noises as Gabriel grimaced and rubbed his mouth on his sleeve. He took a deep breath and looked back up, trying to get a better look at the girl. “Hello, yes. Look, I’m going to try to get you down, but I’ve no idea how you were even put up there in the first place. Any ideas?”

“There was…he put me in the cage and then went over there?” She was pointing vaguely, Gabriel followed the path of her hand with the light, and found himself illuminating a large junction box. He pulled himself to his feet and walked over.

Edward Hyde was apparently meticulous in his labeling. There were two dozen switches, each with a small handwritten label beneath it, identifying its purpose. Gabriel selected “Lights - All” and flicked it, breathing out a sigh of relief as the room was suddenly properly illuminated. Then he looked up and caught his first glimpse of the torture-dungeon in its entirety. His breath caught rather rapidly back in his throat.

“What else is there?” the girl whimpered, bringing Gabriel back to the crisis at hand. There was a series of switches labelled “cage 1” through “cage 4”, and he flipped them on and off until the girl’s cage began to descend.

Once she was at ground-level, he was able to force open the lock and pull her out of the cage. Her muscles were cramped, making it hard for her to stretch out, and Gabe rubbed her arms in a reassuring manner. She was petite, with a very round face, and hair that must’ve once been bright pink, before the dye had faded. There were very old scars on her arms, masked by very new cuts. Her eyes were grey and very big, with the starts of wrinkles at the corners.

“I’m Gabriel.” he offered, feeling suddenly awkward. The girl was shivering -of course she was, she was barely dressed- and looked hungry. “The redhead is Alis, the green-haired katter is Sor. Are you any good at killing zombies?”

“I don’t know what you heard, but I don’t kill anyone. I’m not that far gone.” Gabe put on a quizzical expression, and she started, guilty. “I’m Cyd.” She held a trembling hand up for Gabriel to shake. “What do you mean zombies?”

Gabriel frowned. “The living dead? Reanimated corpses? Those things that Sor was fighting?”

Cyd shrugged. “I was dead asleep. Woke up when I heard you talking. Was there a fight?” She stretched her legs out in front of her slowly, wincing as she moved.

“There were quite a lot of zombies in here. Sor managed to…” he paused, not sure whether to admit the interference of magic so brazenly. “defeat them.”

“Mm.” Cyd was clearly uninterested, she managed to push herself in a crawl and move across the room until she came to a bag, dumped unnoticed in the corner. She rifled through it for a bit, then did something, hunching her back to prevent Gabriel from a clean view. When she straightened back up, her eyes were clearer, and she was trembling less. She scooped up the purse, and pulled herself to a standing position.

“Well thanks. Good luck with your zombies.”

Gabriel stared. “What do you mean? You’re not just going to leave, are you?”

“You didn’t meet the man, I’m not sticking around. If he says he’ll be back, he’ll be back, and I want no part of it.” She looked around absently, not flinching at the blood or bodies. “Where’s the door?”

“It’s over…but you can’t leave! There are more zombies coming, and if you go through the shop, you’ll wreck the barricade. It’s not safe!”

Cyd gave him a withering look, taking in Gabriel’s lack of muscle and dirty hair. “I’ll take my chances with the zombies. Have a nice night.” She stepped through the remains of the door, and started up the cement stairs.

Gabriel actually whimpered aloud, and was immediately very glad that none of his coworkers had been conscious to hear it. His eyes darted from the two unconscious women in his charge to the one who had just left, and with a final wince, he dashed up the stairs after Cyd.

She was in the middle of the shop, beating a zombie with her purse. It was a rather ineffectual attack, but it was at least startling the beast enough to keep it from latching onto her. Gabriel reached for his gun, winced when he realized it was still downstairs, and grabbed the nearest bestseller, flinging it at the zombie with all his might.

It was a lucky shot, catching the zombie by the ear and making it stagger back a pace or two. Gabriel dove through the wreck of the shop, grabbing another hardcover as he went, and brought it down firmly on the zombie’s head. Twice, three times, on the fourth blow the skull cracked and the corpse stopped moving.

“See, it’s not safe.” He tried explaining to the former prisoner, but she just laughed darkly.

“Good trick with the book, but I think I’ll stick to Ol’ Betsy.” She dug through her purse until she came up with an eight inch length of pipe, which she held menacingly in one hand. Then she picked her way through the rubble, until she reached the broken door, and stepped through it. Gabriel was only slightly mollified that she looked both ways before continuing, he did not paint the girl’s chance of survival particularly high.

“But then again,” he thought, “the door to the shop is now wide open, and both my comrades are unconscious. And the zombies are coming here, according to Sor. Maybe if she gets far enough away, she’ll be alright.” Ever the optimist, Gabriel dragged one of the upended bookshelves and used it to sloppily block the front door. He was just dusting off his hands when he heard a metallic bang from the basement.

Face pale and palms sweating, Gabriel tore back through the shop to the trapdoor, nearly falling down the steps in his rush. There was a second bang, and a third, echoing through the dungeon. He stumbled into the room to find everything exactly as it had been, every detail identical.

There was a fourth bang. It was coming from the corner with the lights.

There was a fifth bang, and a crash. The previously unnoticed backdoor fell in off its hinges, followed closely by three members of the living dead.

Pt. 9

Zebra picked up his rifle and re-checked it.

“What the heck was that?” Harry asked.

The Katters raised an eyebrow at him. “What was what?”

“That,” he waved his hand at the ground. “That fight.”

“It was a fight.”

“But,” Harry said.

“What, you don’t ever get into fights with your friends?”

“I don’t try to strangle them to death.”

“Well,” the Katters said, and something burst out of the shadows, grabbed Spike, and ran away. “Shit!” the Katters said.

Zebra fired a half second too late.

“Fuck!” The Katters spun. “Where’d it go?”

Somewhere to their left, Spike yelped.

“Damn it! Spike!” the Katters said. She pulled out her shotgun and ran toward the sound.

“Katters!” Zebra shouted.

The Katters ignored him. Spike yelped again, and the sound turned into a pained whine. The Katters ran faster.

She followed the noises to a sky blue house with a well sculpted, arboraceous yard. When she reached the fence, she hesitated. She glanced over her shoulder, but Spike whined from somewhere over the fence and she hauled herself up, over it, and into the back yard.

The back yard was just as arboraceous as the front, and it was like dropping into a small forest. The Katters crouched, ears perked.

Spike continued whining, and something else growled. It was a low, rough noise, unlike the sound a human or zombie would make. The Katters crept forward, and saw two shadows moving between the trees. She moved closer.

Spike was wounded and crouched on the ground in the middle of the yard. His left legs were bleeding. He whined.

Above him, two dinosaurs were circling each other. They were roughly three and a half feet tall at the shoulder, and while it was too dark to make out the colours of their hides, they were mottled in a way that made the Katters lose track of them from time to time as they moved. They had long, toothy jaws, three fingers, and one wicked looking, raised claw on each foot.

At a glance, an educated person would assume they were deinonychus, if said person could ignore the lack of feathers. However, everyone just referred to them as the velociraptors of Snowtown.

One of the velociraptors snapped at the other. The other screeched at the first, bird-like.

The Katters slowly raised her shotgun and tracked one of the dinosaurs with it. She bit her lip.

She fired.

One of the dinosaurs fell backwards, its face splattered over the grass behind it. The other hissed in surprise and turned to face the Katters. It lunged forward.

The Katters managed to get her shotgun wedged between the dinosaur’s jaws, preventing it from biting her face off. It pushed forward, jaws working around the gun. The Katters pushed against it, but wasn’t as strong as the dinosaur, and was slowly forced backwards.

Abruptly, the dinosaur pulled back, releasing the Katters’ weapon, and the Katters stumbled forward. The dinosaur kicked at her, slicing her chest open. The Katters fell to her knees, but readied her shotgun. She fired.

A large hole, and several smaller holes peppered around it, appeared in the velociraptor’s stomach. It jerked back. The Katters shot it again, and it fell.

She sat, dropping the rest of the way to the ground, breathing heavily. She just sat there for a long moment, until a fat drop of blood landed on her hand from her chest, jerking her back to reality. She got to her feet and stepped over the dead dinosaur to her dog.

Spike whimpered at her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “Shh, you’ll be fine. Let’s have a look at you.”

His hind-leg was worse than his foreleg, but neither wound appeared life-threatening. Less than hurt, Spike looked scared. He got clumsily to his feet and the Katters gathered him into a hug.

***

Gabriel whimpered aloud, and dove for the Sorceress, shaking her shoulder abruptly. “Wake up, please wake up, please wake up!” he whined, as the zombies thrashed against each other trying, and failing, to stand. There was no response from the comatose katter.

Gabriel swallowed nervously, and turned towards the threat, assessing what the hell was going on. He was still alone, in some sort of torture dungeon. The person who was competent at this sort of violence was out cold. Alis was between him and the zombies -Alis was between him and the zombies!

He scrambled forwards and scooped her up, dragging her back to where Sor lay. He set the two side by side, and picked up his sword. Okay. Now he was between his friends and the zombies. All he had to do was keep them safe. When the zombies attacked, he would attack back. He just had to wait for them to get up and attack. Which would be any moment now. Soon the zombies would just get up and…

He stared at the zombies, who were still trying to untangle themselves. He took a few cautious steps towards them, then laughed. It was almost cute how pathetic they were.

The least entangled of the zombies lunged forward and grabbed his ankle. Gabriel screamed, and stabbed wildly with his sword, not being particularly mindful or careful. After a minute of flailing, the tension subsided and he took a few scrambling steps backwards. The other two zombies were on their feet and staring towards him with mindless eyes. Gabriel could see past them and out the door, the trademark shuffling movement catching his eye. Of course there were more on the way.

Carefully, he readied his sword, watching the zombies closely. He took a step forward and nearly fell to one knee. A rapid glance down revealed that his ankle was bleeding. Gabriel could feel the blood drain from his face as he returned to face his foes. There was fresh blood on the end of his sword, he must’ve nicked himself when stabbing at the zombie. Surely that was it.

One of the zombies lashed out at him. He dodged backwards, being sure to favour his good foot, and feinted. The zombie paid no attention to the sword, instead reaching forward again, accompanied by its friend. Gabe fell farther back, and felt his good foot hit Al’s shoulder. This was non-optimal.

Gabriel took a deep breath, and launched into a full attack. It managed to be very impressive long enough for him to take out the closest zombie, at which point his sword caught awkwardly against the zombie’s half-severed spine and Gabe fell forward indelicately. He wrenched the sword out just in time to get it between him and the other zombie, as it fell atop him in its frenzy for flesh.

“Ow.” he complained darkly as the sword edge bit into his stomach. He got his knee into the space between and heaved upwards, knocking the zombie to the side. While the zombie clawed towards him, he rolled, and brought the sword down in an ungraceful arc. It slammed onto the zombie’s head, and managed to function as a club, rather than an edged weapon, bashing in its brains. Everything was quiet for a moment.

Remembering the other zombies outside, Gabe heaved himself to his hands and knees, then collapsed again, clutching at his wounded belly. A quick investigation yielded blood, but no other bodily fluids -good, he hadn’t hit anything vital. It didn’t feel that deep, he could probably patch it up with bandages even, as soon as he was safe.

Gabriel tried again to hoist himself up, this time getting safely to his knees. Glancing over at the doorway, he could see one inquisitive head looking inside, drooling slightly. Gabe winced, and flung himself upwards, stalking to the door with sword in hand. “Not a chance.” he growled at the zombie, and hacked away. Black ooze sprayed over his face, and for a frantic moment, he was blind and lashing out wildly. He wiped the congealed blood from his eyes hastily, just in time to see the zombie inside his sword, lunging straight at him. He threw out his good arm and just pushed, as hard as he could. The zombie clawed into his arm, but it was enough space to finally get the neck, and sever the spinal cord. He dropped the re-dead corpse outside, and found himself panting as he surveyed the dark streets. Good. Nothing close enough to be an immediate threat.

Ducking back into the basement, he surveyed the fallen door. It was made of some sort of heavy metal, too heavy to easily get back into place. He settled for leaning it against the doorway at an awkward angle, and dragging over the closest piece of furniture he could find. He continued doing this, creating an awkward maze of torture devices, and ocassionally stabbing the zombie that would interrupt. Grimly, he decided that their fallen bodies would make a particularly nice outer layer of the barricade.

He was so busy with his work, he didn’t notice the zombies coming in the other doorway until a shot rang out. He jumped and whirled just in time to see Alis shoot twice more, each time catching a zombie in a vital enough area to make it collapse. His ears were ringing painfully, but it didn’t matter, Alis was awake, and thank god, that meant he wasn’t alone. Everything would be perfect, if only his ankle and stomach would stop aching.

Looking down, Gabe noted that he was still bleeding sluggishly, and the skin he could see through the rip in his shirt was ghost-pale. “Oh yeah.” he murmurred, and took Al’s newfound consciousness as a well-deserved chance to faint.

Pt. 10

The Katters jerked away from Spike at the sound of a gunshot from the street. She got to her feet, winced at the pain in her chest, and put her shotgun back in its holster.

“Come on, Spike,” she said. “We still got work to do.”

She jogged for the fence, found a gate, and swung it open. Spike got to his feet, paused to lick his left foreleg, and trotted after her.

***

Zebra and Harry were standing back to back in the middle of the street. The Katters jogged toward them, and was promptly knocked down by a third dinosaur. The velociraptor jumped off her back and ran off into the shadows.

“What the fuck?” the Katters demanded, getting back to her feet and re-joining the group.

“They’re circling us,” Harry said. “They’ve got us surrounded.”

“Of course they do,” the Katters said.

A velociraptor ran toward them, at an angle, and Zebra fired his rifle at it. The raptor ran back into the shadows.

“They’re testing the perimeter,” Zebra said.

“Don’t you dare start referencing Jurassic Park,” the Katters said.

“Screw Jurassic Park,” Zebra said, not looking at her. “We have a Cretaceous crisis here and our defences, they ain’t great.”

The Katters picked up Great Prejudice. “What do you think? Make a run for it?”

“Make a run for where?” Zebra asked.

Harry shuddered.

The Katters glanced at him. “What’s up with you?”

“Nothing,” Harry said. “You’re bleeding.”

The Katters looked down. “Oh. Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

“That’s,” Harry said. “Yeah. Great. Glad to hear it. Can we, do we have a plan?”

The Katters peered at him, eyebrow raised.

Zebra fired off another shot. “A plan would be good.”

“Okay, okay, shut up for a minute,” the Katters said. After a moment, she asked: ”Do you know how many raptors these are?”

“No,” Zebra said.

“Shit. Okay. All we need to do is get out of their territory and they’ll leave us alone,” the Katters said.

“Really?” Harry asked.

The Katters bit her lip. “I think so.”

“How are we supposed to do that?” Zebra said. “They’re velociraptors. They’re faster than us.”

“You’ve got me there,” the Katters said. “If you and Harry can keep the raptors off our backs long enough they might decide we’re too much trouble and go find something else to snack on.”

“And what will you be doing during this?”

“Clearing the front,” the Katters said, hefting Great Prejudice.

Zebra shook his head. “This is the worst plan.”

“I’d like to hear you do better.”

A screech came from behind Zebra and in front of Harry. Harry lit a molotov cocktail and threw it.

“What’s going on back there?” Zebra asked. “Are they attacking?”

“Sure are,” the Katters said. “But not us.”

The brief flames from Harry’s molotov illuminated a group of five or six zombies, surrounding two velociraptors. The other velociraptors were rushing to their pack-mate’s aid.

While the zombies were no match for the velociraptors, the velociraptors seemed unable to grasp the concept of “Remove the head or destroy the brain,” and the fight was attracting the attention of other zombies in the area.

“My plan is to use the zombies as a distraction and get the hell out of here,” Zebra said.

“Good idea,” the Katters conceded.

They ran.

***

Gabriel was out for less than a minute before his mind swam back into consciousness. Alis was bent over him, investigating the cut on his stomach. It looked weird, the red blood sharp against her french manicure.

“First aid kit is in your bag, right?” She had pulled his shirt almost to his shoulders, when he tried to push it down to preserve his modesty, she slapped his hand. “None of that.”

“Yes, in my bag. It’s not really that bad though, honest. ‘Tis but a flesh wound!”

“Gabriel, it’s bleeding, and judging by your shirt, it’s been doing that a while. Stay there.” she dug through the pack, and pulled out the bright red kit. “Keep an eye on the doorway, okay? Yelp if you see any zombies.”

Gabe whimpered as she began roughly cleaning his wound with an alcohol pad. “Hush,” she whispered, and lay a finger on his lips. They locked eyes for a minute, and Gabe nodded finally, turning back to the door. Alis finished sanitizing the wound as best she could, and sewed it shut with quick little stitches. She was interrupted twice by zombies before Gabe demanded she hand over his gun so he could shoot them himself.

Once he was patched up, Al rocked back onto her heels and looked around. “Dreary place. Fill me in? Last I remember is the eternal madness of endless nightmares.”

Gabe filled her in while they rearranged the furniture, creating a proper blockade at either end of the basement. It was easier to move things with two people, and they wound up with a space that Alis commented “was either thoroughly secure, or an utter death-trap.”

He looked up nervously at that. “Utter death-trap?”

“Sure.” She leaned against the barricade and examined her nails. “Zombie apocalypse never ends. We starve to death. Zombies break in from both sides. We get caught in the middle. Looters take over our shop, and torch the upstairs. We suffocate.”

“Technically, the smoke would go up. We’d probably be okay.”

“Fine, looters torch our shop and the ceiling falls in. Point is, Gabity-Gabe, this is all just a stop-gap. We really can’t sustain this location.”

Gabriel rubbed his ankle absent-mindedly. “I suppose you’re right. Where else would we go, though?”

“Considering this was supposed to be a quick pit-stop to get ammo, I’m all for going back out there. Shooting the fucks is fun, and I’m not nearly out of grenades yet.” she glanced at the form of their third teammate. “Just need to get Sor to wake up.”

“She’s in magiccoma, she’ll be back up when she’s recharged.” he muttered darkly, and Al turned, raising an eyebrow. “Believe me, I tried to wake her. No dice.”

Al sighed. “Any idea how long? Don’t those things last days?”

“Yeah, but that’d only be if she completely drained herself. She was talking for at least a minute after she cast -hell, she managed to put you out, being able to cast more magic’s a good sign.” He crawled over and checked her pulse, subtly letting a hand linger on her temple. “Probably not more than another hour. Healing’s her first discipline, she self-repairs quickly.”

“Wow. I never paid half that much attention when she was babbling in school.” She paused to glance up the cement steps, searching for any sign of attack from the shop above. “Got anything to eat? I’d kill for a sandwich right now.”

“PB&J or egg salad?” He reached for his bag and rifled through it.

“Egg salad? Seriously Gabe? Survive the zombies, die of food poisoning?”

He threw the plastic baggie containing the sandwich at her. “Dude, it’s been like…three hours. Egg salad doesn’t go bad in three hours.”

She threw it back. “What, and you were planning for us to eat by now?”

“I figured you guys would’ve gotten bored by now, yes. Picnic seemed like the best diversion. I’ve got some chips in here too.”

“You are such a dork.” She crossed the room and sat next to him. “PB&J, and chips, and whatever else you’ve got ferreted away in that sack of holding.”

“It’s not a sack of holding, those are lime green.” He pulled out a bandana, on which he lay a sandwich, bag of chips, and an apple. “There’s cookies if you finish your real food.”

“Finish my real food. Gee, thanks mom.” She unwrapped the sandwich and took a hearty bite. “Aren’t you gonna eat?”

“Not really hungry.” He replied. “And you can give me lip all you want, but at least I remembered to bring food. What’s in your pack? Extra mascara in case yours runs?”

“You d-bag. I do, in fact, know how to be practical.”

He reached for her bag. “Oh yeah? Prove it.” Al slapped his hand out of the way, and scowled darkly.

“I will cut you. I thought you were a gentleman, don’t you know it’s rude to look in a lady’s bag?”

“Eat your stupid sandwich.” he retorted. There was a period of silence, broken only by the crunching as Al ate. “I wish Sor would wake up.” he said finally. “She’s good at making plans.”

“Yeah. And I need to punch her for sending me to the nightmare realm.”

Gabriel glared at her. Al wiggled her nose, and took a bite of apple. They sat in the basement, and wondered if the world was ending above them.

Pt. 11

“This is the place,” the Katters said. She led Harry, Zebra, and Spike up a cement path to a seemingly abandoned bookshop. It was five stories tall and had a tree growing out of an upper balcony.

“I think I’ve been here before,” Harry said.

“Books and et cetera?” Zebra asked. “What’s the et cetera?”

The Katters shrugged. “Stuff, whatever, who cares. Let’s get in there and see what’s up.”

***

Zombies kept straggling towards the basement, in ones and twos. It was child’s play to pick them off, even with the handicap of only using melee weapons, so to preserve ammo. Between attacks, they would sit in the middle of the room and play crazy-eights, with a deck of cards Gabe had revealed from his pack. Alis had glared at him when he’d brought it out, and made disparaging remarks about wasting space that could be used for something useful, until Gabriel argued that if he hadn’t brought something to keep themselves entertained, they would probably go stir crazy and attack each other. Alis conceded the point.

The worst was the space between zombies getting into the shop and making it to the trapdoor in the corner. They could hear the steps shuffling above, but there was simply no line-of-sight until the zombie actively made it down half the steps. At least with the outside door they could peer out into the alley.

Gabriel was rubbing his leg absently, as he played three twos and an ace. Al scowled darkly, but froze as soon as her hand touched the deck. “Shhhhhhh” she let out softly, and raised her eyes upwards. Gabriel followed suit, and a moment later, heard the soft scrape of movement from above. As one, they rose and slunk over to the barricade, hefting weapons. Alis frowned suddenly, and peered up the steps with renewed urgency.

“Do you hear voices?” she whispered to Gabe, her mouth inches from his ear.

“You don’t suppose it’s looters, do you?” he replied.

“Gonna find out.” Al dragged the closest piece of furniture out of the way with a loud scraping sound, and charged up the stairs, her crowbar at the ready.

***

The store was a mess, with books and upturned bookshelves everywhere. Three zombies stood on the far side of the stop, staring at a corner. Zebra picked them off quickly and the three survivors entered the store to check for any more stragglers.

“This room’s clear,” the Katters said.

Zebra poked his head over the railing of the upstairs balcony. “Found out what the et cetera is,” he said. “And this area’s clear.”

“There’s a barricade up here,” Harry said from further upstairs. “Looks like we’re safe. Ish.”

“So where the hell is Sor?” the Katters muttered. She checked behind the counter, then found her way to the corner with the three recently re-dead zombies. There was a hole in the floor.

Her ears twitched. Somewhere beyond the hole, something was being moved - sounded like wood. Another barricade? More zombies?

A red-haired head popped out of the hole and the Katters kicked at it, surprised. Her shoe connected with the red-head’s forehead, knocking it back against the edge of the hole.

“Ow!” Alis said.

“Oh shit,” the Katters said. “Sorry, I didn’t - you surprised me. What are you doing down there? Where’s Sor?”

The Katters gave Alis a hand out of the hole.

“What’s going on down there?” Zebra asked.

“We’ve got survivors!” the Katters said.

“No shit?” Zebra came down the stairs. “Anyone you know? Do we have a magic-user?”

“She’s downstairs.” Alis muttered, rubbing her head. “According to Gabe she overextended herself and passed out. Oh!” She turned to holler down the steps. ”It’s cool, Gabriel, it’s only the pie shop freaks.”

“Whazzat?” mumbled a bleary female voice. A moment later, Sor poked her head out the doorway, and grinned lopsided at her friend. “Zup. Having fun with all the zombies?” Gabe appeared at her side, providing support as she half-staggered, half-crawled up the basement stairs.

The Katters reached down and lent Sor a hand, which Sor turned into a warm hug. “You look like death.”

“Fuck you, I feel like death.” Sor let go of her fellow katter in order to stretch, then set her hand on her face in a deliberate pattern. There was a spark of green, and Sor heaved a sigh of relief. “Goddess bless focus spells.”

She turned to face Gabe and Alis. “Minions!” she barked. “Report! I see that Agent Gabriel didn’t let any of us get eaten by a zombie, excellent job, agent.”

“I’m not your damn minion.” Alis said, and leaned against a bookshelf. “Woke up and found Gabe had barricaded half the freaky-torture-dungeon. Why do we have a freaky-torture-dungeon?”

“It’s Hyde’s. May I presume that you came-to just in time for a dramatic rescume, and that’s why there are so many damn corpses on the stairs now?”

“Indeed.” Gabriel said dryly, and rubbed his thigh. “At any rate, we’ve set up a sort of safe-house down there, but we figured it was only a temporary measure until you woke up and could come up with some sort of real plan. Did you know there was a girl down there? Still alive, and trapped in a cage. Why in hell’s name are you letting Hyde do that? In our damn shop!”

“Excuse me,” the Katters interrupted. “Kind of pressing matters, here. Can we chat?”

“Sure!” Sor said. “What’s up?”

“Well, I don’t know if you’ve noticed all these, you know, zombies running around but Zebra and I figured that maybe you could do something about it, what with it being caused by your magic and all.”

“It what?”

Zebra nudged the Katters in the ribs and she sighed. “Look, it’s my fault, I admit that. But I did it with your magic, and it’s probably about time someone -”

“That was supposed to be used on Zebra!” Sor said. “Er,” she continued. “I mean.”

Zebra glared at her.

“Shut up,” Sor said.

“Anyway!” the Katters said. “Make with the fix-it, please?”

Harry came down the stairs. “Hold on,” he said. “I have questions.”

“Shit,” the Katters muttered.

“What was that about a torture dungeon?” he asked. “And magic? And this all being the Katters’ fau…” he trailed off, staring at Alis. “Er,” he continued, looking back to Sor and Katters. “Katters’ fault?”

The Katters glanced between Harry and Alis, eyebrow raised.

Alis too-casually averted her eyes from the red-headed reporter, and waved a hand airily down the stairs. “It appears that we have a torture-dungeon beneath the shop. I’m sure it’s used for only the finest of consentual kink affairs. But do go on about the magic, boss.”

Sor shrugged. “I have no idea. Every once in a while, I brew test potions and send ‘em off to Kat to play with. Even I don’t know what they do, she can usually figure it out, and she’s pretty good at making sure the harmful ones go to Zeebs or Pie-…” she cast a sudden curious glance at Harry. “Pie-ruiners.” she finished firmly. “But I’ve only sent her one in the past, like, month and there’s no way it could’ve raised the dead.”

“What if she mixed it with ‘science.’” Zebra said dryly.

Sor bit her lip, pondering the question for a moment. “A’yep. That’d likely do it. I knew it was gonna do something with copying traits, lemme guess, used it on a corp-ow!”

She yanked her foot away and glared at the Katters, lacking all subtlety.

“Let’s not debate the how it started.” The Katters muttered darkly, “And instead, get with the fixing! I don’t want there to be zombies everywhere, they’re encouraging looters.”

“Stop whining.” Sor ordered crisply. “All you need to do is bring me to the co… to the first zombie, and I should be able to reverse the spell, no problem. Hell, I have some neutraliser in my bag and everything, really should’ve tried that first.”

“Shit.” The Katters grinned. “No problem at all. Killed that sumbitch straight off so it should still be in the basement.”

“So we just have to go all the way back to the pie shop,” Zebra said. “May I remind you that there are zombies and velociraptors out there?”

“Velociraptors?” Gabe asked.

“May I also just put on the table that the zombies and velociraptors are solely the Katters’ fault?” Zebra added.

“Oh, bite me, Zebra,” the Katters said.

“The velociraptors are…” Harry said. “How?”

“Long story,” the Katters said. “It’s not important.”

“Velociraptors?” Gabe said again.

Alis clapped a hand on Gabe’s shoulder. “We’re burning night,” she said. “Can we talk about this on the road?”

“Better yet,” the Katters said, “let’s not talk about it on the road.”

Pt. 12

As they squeezed through the forlorn barricade at the front of the shop, Harry felt something heavy drop into his coat pocket. The redheaded girl, the one he’d met out hunting vampires had skipped ahead a few steps, then turned and winked. The “something” turned out to be a bottle of scotch, a clear message: “We’ve never met”.

Harry winced inwardly. While he would never argue with free booze, it was only so easy to mask his own part-vampiric nature. Due to inattentiveness or stupidity the girl hadn’t yet learned, but it was only a matter of time, especially -and his eyes darted for a moment to The Katters- if there kept being so much fresh blood around.

He had half-convinced himself to turn tail and run, when he caught the tall white-haired man arguing about the irresponsibility of starting the end of the world with the two katters. Right. The zombie apocalypse.

Harry steeled himself. He was a journalist, after all, and this could be the story of a lifetime.

Gabriel was feeling woozy. He had been arguing with Sor about not putting proper warnings on her magic, but the words had started feeling clumsy, and he was slowing down. He blinked, and found himself sitting in the middle of the street. The rest of the party was ambling on, but Al doubled back and leaned over him, concerned.

“You okay?” She rested a hand on his forehead, testing for fever. “Told you not to eat the egg salad.”

“I feel ‘ike…my foot hur’s.” he slurred, and collapsed.

“Yo, Whimsy!” she shouted, and Sor turned. “Something’s wrong with Ga-AAAGH!”

Gabe had launched forward, clawing at her frantically. She battered him off and scrambled backwards, holding the crowbar between them like a shield.

Everyone else turned, too, and the Katters’ face lit up into an enormous grin. “Oh my god,” she said.

Zebra raised his rifle to take Gabe out, but Alis noticed and dove between them.

“Get out of the way,” Zebra said.

“Guys, shut up,” the Katters said, taking a step toward Gabe.

Gabe was still crouched in the middle of the street, snarling at Alis. His eyes were blank and lifeless, and his skin was quickly losing its colour.

Sor looked at the other katter quizzically.

“I mean, shit, this is fantastic.”

“Fantastic?” Sor asked.

Alis shot the Katters a glare, then resumed staring down Zebra.

“The zombies transmit the virus through wounds!” the Katters said. “It’s a virus! How does - the magic turned into a virus!” she waved her hands around. “Isn’t that amazing? I mean, nevermind the whole coming back to life thing, this is fantastic!”

“Fantastic?” Sor said, “My best worker just turned into a zombie!”

“But science!” the Katters countered.

“You can science later,” Zebra said. “We’ve got zombies to kill.”

“Zebra,” Alis warned.

“Including this one,” he continued. “Get out of the way.”

“Oh, come on, Zebra,” the Katters said. “Can’t I study it?”

“No,” Zebra said. “I have a no-tolerance policy on zombies.”

“Vitalist,” the Katters muttered. Zebra shot her a look.

“No one. Is shooting. Gabriel.” Alis said through gritted teeth. The zombie in question swiped at her again, and she countered his hand with her crowbar. “Stop that.” she said at him quite fiercely. The zombie Gabe gave no indication of listening.

“Don’t be ridiculous, it’s a zombie! Any semblance of your friend is dead and gone, and the sooner you can get your head around that, the sooner we can get on our way and fix the damn problem in the first place.” Zebra was trying to aim around Al as he talked.

“What?!” she squawked. “Sor, you said something about needing the first zombie to reverse the spell. What would that do to Gabe? It would fix it, right?”

Sor shrugged, attempting to look non-committal. “I guess? But I mean, honestly, Alis, he’s a deranged monster hungry for flesh, you can’t keep hitting him to keep him in line. Zombies are very fragile.”

Alis glared darkly at her boss, “What, like you don’t have any sort of taming spell? What’s that thing you always do to Hyde, when he gets too annoying? Just…slap one on Gabriel!”

“What I do to Hyde is totally besides the point.” Sor would not elaborate further. “Besides, I’d need something to cast that kind of spell on, like an article of clothing or something, and I’m not going anywhere near-”

She was interrupted by Spike barking loudly. “Huh.” Sor contemplated the dog. “Hey Kat, can I borrow Spike’s leash? It’s not like you’re using it.”

Further discussion was interrupted by the groans of an incoming group of zombies.

Zebra grinned. “Looks like you’ll have to defend yourself,” he said to Alis.

“Nope,” Alis said, and smirked. She pointed behind Zebra.

He frowned, then his eyes widened and he spun. A zombie had managed to get up to him - he shoved it away and shot it.

There were four others. Spike launched himself at one of them, ripping its throat out, and Sor shot the rest.

Zebra turned back to Alis, eyes narrowed, but rifle lowered. “You can’t watch him all the time,” he said.

“Do you think,” Harry said. “Maybe we could save the, uh. I’m going to go with ‘banter.’ Can we save the frankly terrifying banter for after we’re out of danger?”

“Wuss,” the Katters muttered.

“Also, I heard something about the undead possibly no longer being undead after the, uh,” he made air-quotes. “Magic wears off?”

“Right,” Sor said.

“So these undead we’re killing,” he said.

“What about them?” the Katters asked.

“What if they’re not previously dead?”

The Katters looked confused.

“You know,” Harry said. “What if they’re like Gabe?”

To her credit, Alis actually went pale at the thought, but Sor just shrugged. “Then hopefully they won’t be dumb enough to attack us. It’s a zombie apocalypse, strange man! You can’t expect to get through it with no fatalities!”

“Gak!” Alis was grappling with Gabe, whapping at him ineffectually in an effort to keep from harming him. “Sor! That spell?”

“Ohright!” Sor grabbed for Spike, and divested him of his collar. She muttered something that sounded like the chiming of churchbells in a graveyard, and the collar crackled green. Sor swayed dangerously for a moment, but stayed upright, the colour slowly returning to her face. “Just slap this on ‘im.”

“Could you bring it over? I’m a little -dammit, stop that!” Alis hissed.

“Again, I have no interest in going near the zombie.” Sor replied, and held it out. “Fetch.”

“You are such an asshole.” Alis started, but she was interrupted by the Katters.

“I’ll bring it!” She snatched the collar and leash from the sorceress and scampered over. “Well hello there!” she chirped at Gabriel, holding her hands out in a gesture of peace. “Just let me…ha!” The collar snapped around Gabe’s neck, causing him to suddenly stop clawing at Al’s face and stand there dumbly.

Katters’ hands lingered on his neck a moment too long, and Alis firmly yanked the leash from her hands. “Thank you.” she said darkly.

“He doesn’t have a pulse!” The Katters’ grin was wholly inappropriate for being in the middle of a zombie-infested street during the end of the world. “He really is dead!”

Alis kicked her in the shin. “Bitch. Let’s just go fucking fix this, okay?” The Katters scowled darkly, and punched Alis solidly in the face. Al retaliated with a leg-sweep, which the Katters easily dodged, and an attempted left hook, which clipped the edge of the Katters’ ear. They stopped when a shot rang out, and both turned to glare at Zebra.

“What? It’s a zombie! Of course I’m going to try and kill it.”

Alis returned to keeping herself between Zebra and Gabriel. “Oh look, he’s harmless!” She slid the leash through a belt loop, and tied it off. “Come.” she said simply to the zombie and started forward.

She got three steps before stumbling. Gabriel hadn’t moved. “Oh for fuck’s sakes, Sor, you didn’t include an obedience spell or anything?” she yelled.

Sor yelled back, “I was rushed! There are zombies! We have to get all the way to Ripton!” Alis glared at her until the sorceress stopped shouting. “Also, I’m pretty sure the spell is keyed to whoever puts the leash on him.

Alis buried her face in her hands. She just wasn’t willing to look at the expression of glee across the Katters’ face.

Pt. 13

There was an explosion, deeper into Snowtown, which briefly lit the horizon and shook the ground.

"Fuck," the Katters said. "What was that?"

Harry frowned. "Someone must have noticed the zombies."

"Someone with explosions?" the Katters said.

"It's Snowtown."

To the northwest, they could hear gunshots. It sounded like an automatic.

"Fuck," the Katters reiterated. She sighed. "We'd better fix this before these fuckers wreck the place."

She tugged on Gabe's leash and started walking. Alis hurried after her, falling into step next to Gabe, and the rest of the group followed suit.

Zebra jogged until he was next to Katters. He turned to glare at Alis, then turned back and spoke in a low voice.

"You remember what Harry said?"

"What, about the unpredead?"

"Unpredead?"

The Katters shrugged.

"No," Zebra said. "About the zombies converging on Ripton."

"Yeah, what about it?"

"Well," Zebra said, waving his rifle in the direction they were walking. "Where would you say we're going?"

"Ripton."

"And the zombies are...?"

The Katters rolled her eyes. "What," she said. "You think a couple dozen zombies will be too much for us?"

Zebra shushed her. "Keep your voice down. We don't want to instill panic in the ranks."

"Oh my god," the Katters said.

"All I'm saying, Katters, is that there's a lot of dead people in Snowtown. And they're all going the same way we're going. And we have limited ammo and limited manpower and one of us has already fallen to the plague. You know how this goes, once one falls, it's only a matter of time before the rest follow."

"Oh my [i]god,[/i]" the Katters said.

Zebra shushed her again, a finger laid over his lips. "My point, if I may be allowed to elegantly sum up my concerns -"

"Yes, for fuck's sake, do that. Sum up, already."

Zebra was unperturbed. "We may need some strategy in the very near future."

"And you couldn't just say that?"

"Just, when we reach that point, Katters, don't go running into battle with Great Prejudice. We both know you're not exactly one for strategising, so perhaps if you could leave that particular aspect of our campaign to me..."

"You have my word, Zebra, that if we come upon two dozen zombies, I shall dutifully wait until you're done crying into your shoes before I charge into battle."

Zebra missed a step, and Alis almost ran into him. "Into my shoes?" he said.

***

Alis had objected, loudly, but none of the party seemed particularly interested in listening to her. Sor eventually stepped in to "mediate", which consisted solely of her telling the Katters not to take Gabe apart (for SCIENCE!) until they got to the shop. Alis was not pleased.

She had fallen into step beside Gabe, now the slowest member of the party. She was unsure about her newfound position as rearguard, but it seemed to be the only way she could keep an eye on both the Katters and Zebra at once. The traveling had slowed down some, but at least the redheaded reporter had started whining every time the group stopped to argue. It hadn't earned him any points with the pie shop crew, but Alis was grateful.

The zombies were starting to get thicker here, and Al decided to divest Gabriel of his weaponry --he certainly didn't seem likely to need it. It was comforting, holding guns. She tried to use them sparingly, but the alternative involved trusting her well-being to several sociopaths, at least two of whom wished bodily harm upon her best friend.

She took aim and fired at another zombie. It was almost satisfying to watch it fall over in a mess of blood and limbs, until she remembered what the reporter had said about more of the zombies being infected undead rather than dead undead. Shuddering, she shouldered up alongside Gabriel and scanned the area around them again.

***

Sor sidled up alongside Harry. "So who the hell are you, anyways? I thought I knew most of Katters's crowd, but I think she would've mentioned if she was slumming around with vampi--mmph!" Harry had shoved one hand over her mouth and was waving the other in a frantic sort of manner.

"Please don't." he hissed. "Please don't tell h-anyone. There's enough on our plate right now with the zombies, just please don't." Sor studied his desperate face for a moment, and grinned.

"What's it worth to you?" she teased, and he glared at her. "Naw, don't answer now, I'm sure we'll work something out when there's more time. It's nice to meet you, Mr..."

"Wilhelm. Harry Wilhelm. I'm a journalist. It's just sheer bad luck I ran into those two again." He hesitated. "How did you know?"

"Magic, usually." she replied vaguely. "Oh look, more zombies!" She leveled her shotgun forward suddenly and shot just past Zebra's arm, causing him to yelp. Two zombies staggered sideways up ahead, and he lunged forward, hacking at them with the machete. "No fair!" Sor yelped. "Kill-stealing!"

"Then don't try to shoot me." he retorted. "Besides, I thought we agreed to save our ammo until we got closer to the shop."

"Dunno about you, but I've got plenty of ammo!" She slunk up to poke Zebra in the ribs with the butt of her gun. "I grabbed loads extra before we left the shop. I only wish I had known Gabe would go all uncomplaining, I would've set him up as a packhorse." Sor looked guiltily behind her at that, but Alis did not appear to have overheard her irreverence.

Katters grabbed her shoulder suddenly, and Sor stumbled. "Hang on." the katter whispered, her ears low to her head. "Do you hear that?" The motley crew had almost reached a cross-street, they slowed their pace enough that they could edge their way up to the corner and peek around. About three blocks down the road, there was a roaring fire going, serving as a barricade between the zombies and a number of people collected atop a low brick building, firing wildly into the undead mass. The zombies were attempting, and largely failing, to climb through the fire up to the living.

Sor gave a low whistle. "What do you think? Let it serve as a distraction, and leave zombies behind us, or join the fray, and take all the fun away from those fellas?"

“That’s a lot of zombies,” Katters said. She propped Great Prejudice on her shoulders, thinking. “I’d call it an even hundred.”

“You’d be wrong,” Sor said.

“Whatever,” Katters shrugged. “I don’t know, I think we can take them.”

Zebra rubbed his chin. “They are distracted. At the same time, we don’t want to waste any resources.”

“They might have food in there,” Harry said. He looked wistful.

“We don’t need food,” Zebra countered, and Harry looked like he rather did need food thank-you-very-much, but Zebra ignored him. “We need to get to Ripton and undo this mess before it gets out of hand.”

Everyone paused at this, and thought about how it seemed that things had already gotten out of hand.

“I like food,” Katters said. “Good for morale, food is.”

“We can’t even be sure they won’t just kill us and take our stuff after we clear out the zombies for them. Zombie apocalypses make dogs of any man.”

Harry gave Zebra a sceptical look. “You’re being paranoid,” he said. “It’s been the apocalypse for all of six hours or thereabouts. I’m sure the people in that fort are perfectly nice.”

“In Snowtown?”

In the distance, Katters decapitated a zombie with Great Prejudice. She had gotten bored of the argument and wandered off — and made their decision for them.

“God damn it,” Zebra muttered, and raised his rifle.

Katters felled a cluster of zombies, beating them to death one after another. The survivors in the barricade, watching safely from well above, cheered after her.

Gabe trailed behind. He was tied to her belt and obediently kept himself between any other zombies and Katters’ back, performing admirably as a semi-human shield. Alis trailed behind [i]them[/i], picking off the zombies that got too close to Gabe with his pistols, and swearing. She was having troubles — keeping too many things in mind at once — as she tried to keep Gabe intact, herself alive, and herself between Gabe and Zebra, just in case.

This last was less difficult than it could have been, as Zebra did his usual (cowardly) thing of staying well away from the action and headshotting the zombies from a distance. Harry stuck near him, not out of any amicability for the kid, but because molotov cocktails happen to require one keep a certain distance from the enemy to use effectively. A wall of fire grew between Zebra and Harry, and the zombies.

Sor strafed around the pack of zombies, keeping them penned in. She herded them as close to the barricade as she could alone, driving them back with her shotgun, and very occasionally with a bright flash of illusory magic.

The zombies fell, one by one and two by two, and the survivors rooted them on from above, taking cruel glee in the bloodsport below them. The shouts drew the attention of the zombies — dividing them between the barricade and the people murdering them.

By luck, skill, or coincidence, the zombie horde fell. Katters, Alis, and Sor stood among the bodies, breathing heavily and covered in an unfortunate array of undead bodily fluids. Zebra and Harry waited for the last of the fire to die down and joined them.

"Well, that seems to be the last of them!" Sor reached up to shove some loose strands of hair back behind her ears, then grimaced as she realized just what was being wiped onto her face. "That was a lovely fight, don't you think? How's everyone holding up for ammo?"

"That was great!" There was a smattering of applause and whooping noises from the survivors above them, and Sor looked up, shielding her eyes from the fire to see better. "You kicked their asses! Get your crew together and come grab some beer!"

"Beer's good for morale, I suppose." The Katters said. "What do you think, they seem nice enough."

"And we did save them." Sor turned to face the rest of the group. "Shall we go take advantage of their hospitality?"

"No." Zebra was scowling. "For all we know, this could be a ruse! They know we have weapons --probably better than their own, judging by what a shit job they were doing before we came along. They have time to organize. This could all just be a trap!"

"A very effective trap, considering they could pretty easily shoot us while we stand here arguing." Alis said drily. "I could use a damn beer. Today sucks."

"You were having fun, I thought." Sor tried to look like a good employer. "You know Alis, if you want to go home, you can. No one will think the less of you. Might be good to have someone covering the shop."

"If I go home, there is only one question left about Gabe's survival: which fuckass is gonna be the one to murder him. No thank you. Now, beer?"

"And possibly food?" Harry suggested.

"And certain trapped death. I'm not going in." Zebra crossed his arms stubbornly. Unfortunately for him, no one else in the group seemed the slightest bit concerned about the idea of leaving him behind. Sor and Alis each figured their life would be easier if the zombies ate him, and the Katters and Harry figured he'd probably take care of himself. Gabe did not have an opinion.

The rest of the group picked their way over to the door of the building, which was heavily reinforced, waving their acceptance to the survivors as they did. After a few moments, it eased open, and a dark-skinned man with a backwards baseball cap poked out his head. "Come on up, bros!"

Zebra weighed his options, then glared at his traitorous stomach as it began growling. He grabbed the edge of the door just before it slammed shut, and slipped in behind Alis. "If we get shanked, I get to say 'I told you so'" he hissed up at her.

"Ugh, no one cares." she hissed back. "We're gonna get beer, we're gonna try and get sandwiches, and if any of them try to shank us, you can shank them first, okay?" She paused on the stairs a moment, and Zebra almost ran into her. "That is not permission to start shooting them willy-nilly, okay? Give them a chance?"

"Oh no, I don't have permission from you to do something! That's just terrible, given that you're the overwhelming authority in my life these days." The stairs emerged onto a flat roof, about three stories up. Six dudes with polo shirts and improvised weaponry were standing or sitting around two coolers packed full of bottles of beer.

"'Sup." said the young man who'd let them in. "I'm Eric. That's Drew, Kit, Topher, Alex, and Roger. There's other people in the apartments, but they didn't feel like coming up and helping.

"More beer for us, amIright?" Kit grabbed a bottle out of the cooler and popped it open, taking a healthy swig. He was interrupted by a strangled shriek, and began coughing heavily.

"DON'T LOOK NOW BUT THERE'S A ZOMBIE RIGHT THERE IT GOT IN SOMEHOW." Topher had grabbed a chunk of wood and was waving it wildly in the direction of Gabriel.

"Oh, Christ, leave him the fuck alone, he's harmless." Alis snatched the two-by-four away.

"Yeah, I witched him tame." Sor squatted down and began poking through their coolers. "No cider?"

Kit smacked her hand. "Whoa man, get away from our drinks. Who do you think you are, bringing zombies up here?"

"And what do you mean, "witched" him. You're not using," Drew swallowed nervously and leaned close to Sor "magic?" he whispered.

"Did you miss her flashing those illusions out there?" Harry ignored Kit's protective hand and pulled out a bottle for himself. After hesitating a moment to see if anyone was really paying attention, he pulled out a second bottle and slipped it into his coat pocket.

"We figure we're gonna see what we can do about fixing the problem. That's why we got a tame one, so we can try some SCIENCE." The Katters leaned forward towards the rooftop crew and tapped Great Prejudice threateningly on the ground. "You boys aren't opposed to science, are you?"

"Yeah, but...what if he breaks free!" Roger had flattened himself against a chimney, staring at Gabe with wide eyes. Gabe continued to stand still, swaying slightly, with his head tilted at an angle. A line of drool was beginning to leak out the corner of his mouth.

"I really don't think that'll be a problem." Sor said breezily, and stood. She waggled her fingers mysteriously "Now, why don't you nice boys go get us something to eat. The sooner we're satisfied, the sooner we'll be out of your hair and the less likely I will be to turn anyone into a toad." She twitched an eyelid and smiled manically. "After all, you know how [i]unstable[/i] magic users are. You know how [i]likely[/i] we are to [i]snap[/i]."

The six young men nearly trampled each other in their rush to get to the stairs. Sor laughed, and called down behind them "And no mayonaise, ya hear?"

“I found food,” Harry said, nudging a second cooler with his foot. It was half-full of seran-wrapped subs and fun-sized bags of chips.

“That was lucky,” Zebra said. “It could have turned out much worse.”

Katters rummaged through the cooler. “But it didn’t,” she said. “It turned out pretty great, all things considered. We can restock, rest a minute, and then be on our way — all healed and shit.”

“But it could have ended with us outnumbered and surrounded by a group of well-prepared survivors —” he said the word in a way that made it clear he had already divided the world into a new set of groups — us and them, the survivors and the [i]survivors[/i] — “who, quite reasonably, are suspicious of us for toting a pet zombie around.”

“Gabe hasn’t done anything wrong but get sick,” Alis said.

“Sick?!” Zebra barked. “He’s not sick — he’s a zombie. He’s dead, he’s gone, except for the part where Katters’ science and Sor’s magic combined to create an unholy and [i]dangerous[/i] abomination! Am I the only god damn sane person here? If someone gets bit during the zombie apocalypse, you shoot them. End of story!”

“He’s my friend!”

“He’s. A. Zombie!”

Zebra and Alis were nose-to-nose, now, shouting into each other’s faces.

Harry resumed looting the ice box. Katters began stuffing sandwiches and chips into Gabe’s pockets.

Zebra snarled at Alis, teeth bared and eyes narrowed. Alis glared right back, but her focus flicked down to his mouth before returning to his eyes. She pressed her lips together into a determined and thoughtful line.

“We’ll cure him,” Alis said. She wasn’t shouting, but there was a sharpness to her tone that made it difficult to consider the fight over, or even defused. “Sor said it was possible, I’m not giving up on it.”

“It’s dangerous,” Zebra insisted. “What if he bites you? What if he bites Sor? Who’ll turn him back then?”

“Okay!” Sor came between them, pushing them back. “Fascinating debate. Good points all around. But we should really get moving. We can continue this on the road.”

“Or,” Katters said, “you know, never.”

“Yes, or that. But we’re all rested up, now, and I’d rather not give the resident assholes a chance to prove Zebra right. Let’s skedaddle.”