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Chapter 38- Battle With The Dead
Part 1 – Battle With The Dead
“What are you doing you, idiots? If you die this close to the city you’ll become just like them! Don’t be stupid and get back up here!” General Barker demanded.
“Guess we’ll just have to not die then,” Grumbled Edgar
“We’ve spent our whole lives not dyeing, after all, don’t see why this is any different,”
Calem continued as he reached around to his back and unclipped his weapon.
He held the T shaped stick out in front of him with his right hand and began slowly unwrap it.
“Looks like you’ve got quite the mess on your hands here… but don’t worry...”
Calem fully unwrapped his weapon letting the cloth float away on the wind and revealing an intricately carved wooden broom beneath. He took up a fighting stance, holding his broom out behind him.
“… The clean-up crew has arrived.”
Calem sprung forward towards the approaching horde. He raised the broom up above his head as he dropped back down to the ground. As he grew closer to the ground, the head of the broom collided with the leader of the hordes head letting out a loud squishing sound as it's head collapsed in on itself. Splats of blood and viscera went flying all over the ground as Calem landed. The group atop the wall looked down in shock of the skill on display in front of them. Two more of the creatures approached him from his right. They reached out towards him as they approached letting out a pained groan as they got closer and closer. Calem quickly stood back up, swinging the broom over his shoulder before launching it to his right. The broom collided with one of the monsters heads letting out a loud crack as its neck snapped. The creature's head exploded into a puddle of gore. the Lifeless body of the creature collapsed, colliding with the others knocking it off balance. both of the creatures dropped down to the ground with a loud thud. The second creature slowly began to pull itself back off the ground before being stoped as Calem pierced its head with the back of his broom. Calem looked stoicly over the approaching horde letting out an uninterested sigh.
“This is going to take forever…”
“ Look out!” Came a loud cry from the wall.
Calem turned around to see one of the creatures stumbling its way towards him. It reached out its arm towards him mere inches away from his face. Calems eyes filled with panic as he swiftly moved his broom to push the creature away. Before he made contact with it Edgar Jumped into action, coming out of nowhere holding a large black bin bag. He wrapped the bag around the head of the creature before pulling the straps tight. He removed the bag revealing a bloody stump where the monsters head had once been. Edgar stood at ease as he turned to face Calem who let out a brief puff.
“Geez… thanks that was a close one.”
Edgar glared daggers into Calem before letting out an irritated grunt.
“Yeah… you’re right, ill start taking things a bit more seriously,”
Calem raised his broom above his head before quickly slamming it back down to the ground. A large plume of dust puffed up from the head of the broom filling the air, almost completely obscuring the pair. Calem quickly sliced his broom through the air causing the dust to consolidate and gravitate around it. The group atop the wall looked down in confusion at the unfolding scene.
“What is he doing?” Questioned Bip.
Calem raised his broom over his shoulder, smiling cockily as he waited for the approaching horde to get closer. He swung his weapon like an ax out in front of him. The broom flew in front of the monsters missing them by several meters. As it passed, the cloud of dust trailing behind the broom detached launching towards the creatures, passing over them before gently settling to the ground. The group atop the walls confusion continued to grow
“What the hell was that?” General Barker exclaimed.
“Look,” Alex replied pointing down to the pair.
The group of monsters now stood completely motionless in front of Calem and Edgar. One by one the top half of the monsters began to slide off of the bottom revealing a bloody hunk of dark red gore beneath. The bottom half of the creatures collapsed. Calem turned around to look up to the group, a proud smile still stretching across his lips.
“Now.. let's talk…”
Part 2- New Allies
Alex and Liz sat on one side of a large circular table in the dimly lit room with Bip hovering behind them. Calem and Edgar sat opposite them With General Barker and Captain Young sitting in front of the two groups underneath a large monitor. Calem gestured towards himself and Edgar as he began to open his mouth.
“As I said before my name is Calem and my companion here is Edgar. I'm the founder of The
Cleaners Guild and Edgar Is my right-hand man. we came here to help out with the crisis we heard the city was facing.”
General Barker slammed his elbow down onto the table and rested his forehead in his hand as he slowly shook his head.
“What is with you guilds and not giving any notice. Seriously even if you just sent a pigeon or something.” General Barker complained.
“What the general is trying to say is we're glad to have you all on board,”
“Us all? We did all the work out there if I remember,” Edgar muttered under his breath.
“What the hells that supposed to mean,” Grumbled Alex.
“Oh apologies, don’t be offended, it's just that your being here is completely superfluous. What with you being amateurs and whatnot,” Calem clarified, smiling kindly as he did.
“That just sounds even worse,” Liz muttered.
“Please everyone we don’t have time to fight, we’ve got to discuss our next moves,” Captain Young chimed in.
“To right,” General Barker added. “ Now as we explained, before there are three walls making up the quarantine of the city, were currently stationed in the second however for your first mission we will be sending you to the first,”
Alex raised his hand into the air as he turned to face General.
“ Actually I was wondering something about that.”
The groups eyes were all drawn to Alex as they waited for him to explain himself. He lowered his hand and cleared his throat.
“If we are in the second wall and there's another further into the city then how did those creatures we sore earlier get here?” Alex questioned.
“hey yeah, surely they should all be behind the first wall right?” Liz reiterated.
“yes well that is actually part of your first mission,” Captain young chimed in once again drawing the group's attention to the front of the room. “Five days ago we lost contact with all of the checkpoints in the first ring, since then we haven’t heard a single peep from them. It was only a couple days later that the first group of the undead turned up at the wall, at first we didn’t think much of it, it merely confirmed that the first wall had been breached, however, we soon realized something strange. We were the only checkpoint coming into contact with the creatures.”
General Barker reached out to a small remote sitting on the table. He pressed the red button on the remote causing the room to light up as the Tv flicked to life with a diagram of the city surrounded by three walls. He stood out of his chair and walked over to the Tv grabbing a pointer stick by his chair as he did.
“Given where the flow of the creatures was coming from we determined that checkpoint One A had been breached,” The General explained, gesturing towards the screen with his pointer. “ However given that no other checkpoint have come in contact with the creature, it is our going theory that this is the only checkpoint that has been breached.”
“But that doesn’t make sense?” Liz said her eyes narrowing in confusion. “If that’s the only one that’s been breached then why would they all not be responding?”
“We don’t exactly know for sure and we could always be wrong but it’s the best theory we got. For your first mission, you and Alex will be heading to One A to clear out any of the creatures there and patch up the barrier. That place is bound to be crawling with those monsters so you’ll have to be careful.”
“What about us… what’s our mission going to be.”
General Barker looked across the room to the other pair. He lowered his pointer from the screen before walking back to the table. He reached out to a small square piece of paper sitting on the table. He pulled the item up traveling it to be a polaroid with a man wearing think rimmed glasses and traditional looking robes.
“This is Marleth, a magical expert hired by the military to study and help us figure out what exactly we were dealing with. He was working hard to try and figure out the source of all this so that we could stop it, it seemed like he was getting pretty close to. That was until we lost contact with the first ring.”
General Barker took a brief pause as he placed the photo back down and walked back to the screen. He once again raised his pointer to the Tv to a spot on the first ring directly opposite where he had previously pointed.
“Marleth was located here and is of course presumed dead. Your mission is to go to the checkpoint and turn it over completely looking for any research he might have been working on. As well as try and figure out just what happened there and why we lost contact with the checkpoints.”
A silence came over the room as the two groups thought on there respective missions.
“ You have your missions. Tonight rest up well and we’ll move out first thing tomorrow morning, good luck,” General barker continued as he headed for the exit.
The rest of the group stood up out of there chairs and followed in the general's footsteps.
Part 3- An Uneasy Nights Rest
Liz was suddenly jolted awake by the sounds of shouts and gunfire. She grabbed her chest as she let out a series of deep huffs before remembering just where she was. The sounds slowly died down calming Liz nerves down.
“Having trouble sleeping hey?” came Bip's voice from the darkness.
She turned to see Bip laying at the foot of the bed beside her with Alex stretched out taking up most of the space.
“Guess so,” Liz replied, rubbing her weary eyes.
Bip stood up on all fours and stretched out his back like a cat letting out a series of loud cracks.
“I know what you’re thinking, looking at those things out there was pretty unsettling, the thought of facing them up close is pretty nerve-racking.”
Liz looked down to the ground as the image of the decaying corpse slowly shambling towards her continue to flash through her mind. the figure started to shift in her mind beginning to resemble The Anvil. The creature reached out towards her as a long sharp pillar of ice began to shoot out of its chest. She shut her eyes tightly, pushing the images to the back of her head.
“Its not just that…” muttered Liz under her breath.
“Huh what was that?” Bip replied.
“Oh… ahh nothing,” Liz said as she looked back across to Bip.“So how come you seem so calm then?”
Bip looked back at Liz with a smile.
“Well, whatever happens I know I trust you guys…” Bip replied, turning his head to look at the sleeping Alex. “I’ve been with Alex long enough to know that as long as we're together everything's gonna be ok, cause we're family you know.” Bip continued before turning back to face Liz, still smiling kindly. “And you’re part of our family now to, so as long as we’re all together we’ve got nothing to worry about right.”
Liz returned Bips smile as what was left of her nerves began to fade. Bip once again stretched out his body as his mouth widened into a yawn. Liz laid back down onto the bed.
“Come on… we should get some rest.”
“You’re right… night Liz,” Bip replied as he closed his eyes and returned to sleep.
Liz laid awake staring at the roof smiling as she felt a sense of confidence overcoming her before closing her eyes and going back to sleep.