| Empty Graves Part Eight: Let Evil Recoil The trucks screeched to a halt just 100 metres away from the main barrier where the unruly dead were wailing and clawing at the edges of the defunct automobiles. Nic was the first to leap out onto the street, closely followed by Ash and Dario who were quick to arm themselves with their weapons of death. Ash grabbed a nail gun and several magazines of nails, quickly loading the weighty device and letting it drop down by his side as he grabbed a baseball bat, which he secured on his person by sliding the handle between his belt and his chinos. As the others armed themselves as quick as he, Ash began to pound his way towards the blood-lusting devils that screamed in violent temper on the other side of the life-saving barrier of twisted metal and family saloons. "Time to meet your maker, She-Bitch!" yelled Ash as he leapt onto the hood of a beige Volvo, pointing his nail gun of death at the head of one zombie dressed in all her bridal finery. The nail shot from the barrel and pierced the zombie's head with ease, sending decayed gray matter flying thick and fast through the grimy veil. The noise alerted the attention of the others who were still busy selecting their weapons of choice. Al grabbed some football padding which he skillfully placed over his head and tied into place, suddenly feeling the rush of his high school days he then grabbed a wooden baseball bat he had rammed several nine-inch-nails through making him look as if he was some bastardised version of Conan or some cheesy cartoon super hero, but the image of him being a shoe salesman never wore off for his friends who merely stood and watched Al gallantly stride off towards the front line. John grabbed a blowtorch and then followed suit leaving Nic and Dario to finish their outfits of padding and golf clubs. Ash meanwhile, was going ballistic, firing nails into the heads of every zombie that caught his eye, but he barely made a dent in their strong front line of attack. But on Al's arrival, one particularly wide specimen was quickly plunged into the ground but the mighty strike of his bat of death. As Al turned to face the others who came running up behind him and Ash, a wiry dead-head grabbed hold of his foot and began to draw his teeth closer, but Al noticed and was quick to send his final-point-scoring football foot crush the forehead of the stinking pile of walking puss. Scraping the blood and brains from his shoe, Al stepped back from the lines to take a breather, not being as fit now as he once was, so the others leapt into action, Dario leaping into action, his shoulder length hair flailing in the fray was quick to down three zombies in one single, gore-soaked shot. "It's like picking off cockroaches in a box!" shouted Dario, his now distant Italian accent trembling in the joy of the 'hunt.' "Don't stop now, there's always more to come," replied Ash as he fired three nails into the face of a zombi-fied OAP and the blunt end of his bat into the face of last year's beauty queen. "Ain't so pretty now, huh baby?" he said as his square chin struck itself from his face in pride. "Excellent lads, excellent. That's the spirit, cram their brains out the other side of their diseased skulls!" shouted Romero in joy as he leant over the railing on the balcony of his luxurious office, the smoke of his cigar choking the air around him. The scene below him was one of chaos, blood lust and pure, unrelenting violence. He loved every moment of it and relished the sight of gray matter and blood spraying into the air as his A-Team slashed and diced as many of the dead as they could manage in as little time as possible. Finally, Ash was out of ammo for his nailgun, so he threw the hefty device behind him, the metal living scraping across the concrete sidewalk to his left as it landed. Resorting to his bat, his true crazed nature spilled out after living in this stinking town surrounded by death for so long. "Come on you dumb bastards, come and get 'um!" he shouted in glee as more and more zombies fell at his command. John leapt up onto the Volvo Ash was slaying away on. "Jesus Christ, Ash! Calm it down a notch! Step back a while and let some of us get in there will ya!" he shouted as he pulled Ash back from the front lines, dropping him down to the street where Ash retrieved some more magazines of nails from the back of his truck. As Ash's lack of presence was felt, the situation grew a little tense as a sudden swarm of the dead came from each side behind the surrounding buildings, attracted by the commotion. Some of them managed to clamber onto the hoods of the car, climbing over the fallen bodies of their undead comrades. "Eat this you fuck!" shouted Nic as he thrashed about viscously, crushing as many heads as he could manage. But in his fray, he failed to notice two of the dead bastards he was fighting crawling towards him from his right. The others were deep in combat and so did not notice Nic's impending plight. He pulled himself back a step from his fray, thus noticing the advancing dead who were now just inches from his face, the shock sending him crashed down on the hood of the saloon on which he stood. Screaming in terror, he alerted the attention of Ash who was just reloading his nailgun. Quickly jamming a magazine into the inlet, he was just too late and when he picked his weapon up he saw the first zombie tear off a slice of Nic's face, pulling it off with his teeth as the other took a large chunk out of his leg. "No!" shouted Ash as he lifted the gun to face the first undead marauder. Suddenly, brains and blood spewed into the air as a nail shot through the face of the first zombie and then another through the left eye of the second walking cadaver. Screaming in agony, Nic rolled from the hood of the car and onto the street, but his pain and anguish made him lose his awareness of where he was and he ended up landing on the street the other side of the barrier where the dead surrounded him, sinking their bloody teeth into his warm flesh. Ash leapt onto the barrier once more, firing nails at the surrounding mob of the undead like some over zealous action hero. Blood and guts spraying into the air, but which splatters were those of Nic and that of the dead were almost unidentifiable. "You motherfuckers!" shouted Dario as he and the others noticed the carnage as the last few dead surrounding Nic's dead body fell to the ground leaving an expanse of lifeless zombies around them. Their gung-ho attitude was gone, as was one of their friends. Ash jumped down into the street and grabbed Nic's body from the floor and climbed over the barrier again. "We gotta kill the brain before we can bury him," he said morbidly as the silence of the recently undead expanse behind him filtered into his head. Lifting the nail gun to Nic's forehead, he paused a moment on reflection, but then fired a nail through the skull, destroying the brain. |