Revenant's Kiss (Chronicles of the Afterlife) (26 page)

She wasn’t sure what she was expecting when she made her way through the front entrance, a
barrage of half eaten dead coming at them in waves. She made it through the door and outside of the
sound of boots on tile, there was silence, she didn’t feel a twinge of panic, at least not until the men
guarding the door barricaded them inside. Calling what she felt in that moment a twinge probably would
have been under playing it but she stowed anything emotional. Since there was nothing currently going
on to cause panic, running back to the door and screaming to be let out wasn’t going to earn her
anything but a permanent boot from ever gaining entrance into one of Tom’s lofty special-ops.

Jennifer was perfectly aware that she had been in this hospital on multiple occasions and had
never once been surrounded by silence. "Where is everyone," she whispered because talking helped
keep her grounded, and still nothing happened. Before she could say anything else, which was probably
for the best, they were motioned forward. Without pause they quickly cleared the front lobby, now that
she thought about it, Tom had taken what was probably going to be the more difficult entrance for
himself, the E.R.. As if the thought of a place where people came in the door bleeding conjured an
endeavor several gunshots went off across the building. Their point-man didn’t let it stop his forward
momentum. Their job was to clear this side of the building and meet Alpha in the middle, if their sweep
didn’t uncover anything they’d meet them at the emergency room, at least that was what Jennifer was
assuming.

With a silent hand motion Whiskey team leader, someone Jennifer didn’t know, motioned for a
halt. She knew the hand motions because they were basically the same ones that Manson had taught
her, so when he motioned for them to break into three groups to clear the separate halls, she wouldn’t
have known what group to go with if Tom hadn’t told her she was glued to Brook. So when he took off
down the hall to the right she was right behind him. Groups of three seemed like too few people to her
but was probably for the best given how narrow the halls were. "We have contact," the man in front of
Brook, another that she’d never seen before, whispered. Then like a normal person might do he
addressed the person that Jennifer had to lean past Brook to see. "Sir," at the sound of his voice the
figures shoulders twitched. "Are you alright, we are here to help," she wondered who’d told him that
because Tom had given her the distinct impression they were here to shoot anything that moved. Then
again she hadn’t really asked him, and he hadn’t volunteered any information, maybe they were here to
save someone.

"Sir," Jennifer knew without a doubt when she heard the sound of teeth snapping shut, in a way
that was altogether unnatural for a human being, that the ‘Sir’ their new point man was addressing was
no man.

"Shoot it," she finally just yelled at him when the thing started stumbling toward him. "Just shoot
it," she ordered again from the back and the sound of the guy talking at the thing became gibberish.
"Brook," but he seemed to be frozen in some kind of stupor as well because he didn’t fire either. She
hoped that this was just one of those moments where shock was incapacitating because she didn’t think
that she could deal with being the only functioning person in the room, she had been so certain it was
going to be the other way around, she found neither scenario comforting. "Move," Jennifer shoved past
Brook, who was standing in front of her like a statue but lucky for the new point-man she didn’t have to
make it past him. The thing was stumbling at him on a broken foot, why the hell wouldn’t he shoot?
"Hey," she called just to throw it’s gait off kilter, her voice did exactly what she wanted, like the sound
drew it in it veered last second in her direction. Hoping her aim wouldn’t go wrong she squeezed the
trigger, she had honestly expected to miss but the shot hit true, a burst of gore sprayed out the things
head before it hit the floor. "That makes two for me now Brook," she looked back over her shoulder
and ignored the surprised look on the Corporal’s face.

"That was a zombie," he finally acknowledged.

"It certainly was," Jennifer admitted, feeling more calm in the situation and more confident with
herself then she had in the last week. "Now that that’s clear I thought you wanted to rack em up," she
looked back at him with a raised eyebrow, "or are you going to let my Rev count get bigger than
yours?"

"No Sir," Brook finally seemed to try and shake off his shock, she could tell he wasn’t
completely over it but for the moment it would have to do.

After a pause she turned her attention to point man, he looked even younger then Brook did, she
was suddenly feeling like the oldest person in the room even if she physically wasn’t, this kid looked that
fresh. "What was your name," she asked calmly, trying to divert his attention from the corpse that had
been within feet of him. Before he could answer gun shots went off in one of the adjacent halls to them
and he nearly jumped a foot. She looked quickly back at Brook and he understood without her having
to ask.

"Palmer," he supplied the name for her.

"Palmer," Jennifer addressed in her best soothing voice, "why don’t you let me take point." She
looked back to Brook, "can you handle rear?"

"Yes Sir," he nodded and gave her a forced smile, apparently she wasn’t the only one who
wasn’t comfortable with zombies.

"Good," Jennifer took up position in front of Palmer but before she started forward looked the
kid in the eye, "try not to panic Palmer, I’m counting on you," he nodded blankly at her and Jennifer
really hoped she wasn’t going to end up getting shot in the back by accident. The way her luck had
been running this week she couldn’t see that as an impossibility.

Jennifer gave one last fleeting look at the zombie on the ground, outside of the ankle damage
however it had been turned was a mystery, maybe the bite was on the ankle, nothing was impossible.
She supposed she should wait on the verdict of how she was handling the situation until she encountered
a Rev that had it’s face eaten off or it’s guts hanging out, she probably shouldn’t decide until she faced
something that looked like a zombie. She would just keep her fingers crossed and pray that her courage
held out. "Alright boys, let’s meet the Cyborg halfway, wouldn’t want to leave the tin man hanging out
on a limb." Brook laughed, Palmer was probably still in shock, or picturing every Romero flesh eating
zombie scene happening to him. He had in fact come that close, not that she could judge, she’d had the
same problem the night before.

Despite his lack of reaction she motioned that she would take the exam room to the left and that
Palmer and Brook should go right. Could she handle a zombie on her own, she had no idea, but Palmer
didn’t seem competent enough at the moment to be useful and she’d rather let Brook manage him than
herself. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea, but she would rather take the risk of being by herself then leaving
Brook or Palmer hanging. She was just thrilled that Brook was so good at taking orders because he
didn’t even try to argue the point. Jennifer took a breath and kicked the door to the left open, not hard
enough to slam it into the wall but hard enough to get it close, she didn’t like the idea of something hiding
behind it. She took a second to observe what she could see from the outside, giving her a good view of
what was immediately in her line of sight. She was always prone to running in with her aim up and
ready, or at least she had been before Manson had beaten into her the importance of avoiding what he’d
called the fatal funnel. She understood the mechanics of it, didn’t enjoy pointing her 9mm at the floor but
did it anyway. She took the step through the door frame in a way that gave her space, in most cases to
avoid having her gun taken from her or in this case getting her arm bitten into she supposed. She cleared
left first and then swung right again just to make certain she hadn’t missed anything, not that the room
was big enough for that, but she did it anyway just to ascertain there weren’t any convenient closets or
such nonsense to check. "Clear," she called just so that her comrades knew what was happening on her
end, then headed back into the hall and moved to repeat the process in the next room. Before she could
kick the next door in she heard Brook call an all clear and he and Palmer were out in the hall beside her.
She was getting ready to grab the handle on the next door, when more rifle fire rang out from across the
building and didn’t stop, Alpha must have hit the revenant mother-load. "Looks like we’re out of time,
let’s do this quick." Brook gave her a nod, they would do this right because missing anything at this
point could come back to bite them in the ass, literally.

She turned the handle, ignored her initial hope for silence and pushed the door in with enough
force to slam the door into the wall. Manson’s training stuck, a fact she was glad for when she stepped
into the room and a figure out of her line of sight was almost on her in a flash. If she’d stuck her gun in
the door up and ready to shoot it might have managed to sink it’s teeth in her. Lucky for her it was dead
and unlike a vampire it’s reflexes were slow, it lunged, she didn’t get a good chance to look at it.
Enough time to note it was female, sporting a missing chunk of jugular, before her aim swung up and a
round took off half it’s face. Still the gunfire down by Alpha was continuous, "damn it Tom," if he got
himself killed she was going to kill him, and she was pretty certain she wasn’t going to like it. Trying to
force herself to stay focused on her own task instead of rushing off like she wanted to she shouted
another clear and moved unto the next couple rooms. It wasn’t a long hallway, not really, but it felt like
clearing it would take forever like this, why the hell hadn’t Tom brought in more men. She understood
why she was here, in the building, she had people in here, but why the hell hadn’t Tom simply leveled it?
The amount of shooting going on with Tom’s team had her worried, she knew for certain that he
wouldn’t waste ammo and wouldn’t let his people do so either which meant the emergency room was a
mess.

She cleared the hall with Brook and Palmer always only a room behind her to the right, she
suspected that was only because Palmer was slowing Brook down. But she was glad to see that the
sound of gun fire was motivating them past their own zombie fear, she thought she heard shots from the
rooms they were in but it was hard to tell with the continuous shots from Alpha and the neighboring shots
fired by Whiskey down adjacent hallways. Clearly the act of actually clearing the entire building was
going to prove an exhausting endeavor. Jennifer wanted to get to the tenth floor, that was where Clive
was and certainly where she was hoping Manson had been moved. Between here and there stood nine
floors, that could take the better part of forever at this rate. She could have slipped in, gotten to her
floor, checked to see if her people were dead or alive and been back out by the time they reached the
floor she wanted. She knew better then to think that Tom wasn’t going to burn this building to the
ground, so what was he doing, clearing the floors one at a time.

When she reached the last door on her side of the hall she twisted the knob pushed the door in
and had a revenant nearly stumble out into her. She barely had time to lift the 9mm up to aim, didn’t
have the space for it, on instinct she whipped the gun up toward the things face and because it was taller
then her the grip of the Beretta slammed hard into the things nose. She moved to strike it again in the
face and was almost shocked when it fell over and didn’t move. She had not used any sort of precision
in the blow, but apparently her Beretta had smashed the things brains in. She stared at it’s downed
corpse for a second before putting a bullet in it’s head anyway, she wasn’t sure if you could stun a
zombie, she wasn’t taking any chances. She stepped into the room and found a mess, it was the first
room that was covered in gore so far, it was also the closest to where Alpha was. Jennifer saw the
mangled corpse lying on the floor behind the exam table, it wasn’t moving and she didn’t have a clear
shot for it’s head, she cleared the room before making her way to the body. There wasn’t much of it
left, or at least, not much in one piece, guts, and what she was pretty sure was the inside of the bowels
was all over the floor. Jennifer tried not the breath in the smell to keep her gag reflex in check, she
stayed long enough to put a round in the scalped skull and made her way back into the hall.

She waited for Brook to emerge from the last room on the right with Palmer at his rear before
she peeked out around the corner of their hall. No one and nothing was there to make a grab for her so
she did the only thing she could think to do, "CLEAR TO THE RIGHT!" She waited a beat to see if
there would be any following calls, she was rewarded with the three man team who’d taken the left
shouting the all clear. When the center gave no reply she looked back at Brook, "I take that to mean
we go down the center?"

"Your call Sir," Jennifer rolled her eyes but gave another quick peek around the corner, the first
point-man from before they’d split ways rolled out from around his corner and motioned for her to
follow suite.

"Yup looks like we’re up," Jennifer stepped away from the wall and cleared her corner,
knowing well enough that Palmer and Brook would follow. She raised the Beretta in case anything that
wasn’t Whiskey’s missing members came rolling out of the center hall but kept her finger off the trigger.
She reached about a distance of five feet from the center halls corner and motioned for Palmer and
Brook to stop, immediately they both plastered themselves to the wall. Jennifer followed suite and gave
her attention to point-man number one, he was team leader after all so she would take her next cue from
him. After his team was lined up and waiting he started to motion that they were going to enter down the
center when, to what Jennifer was sure would have been a beating offense from Manson, the barrel end
of an M16 came protruding out of the hall, the person aiming it clearly pasting themselves into the
shadows. Maybe it was unnecessary but it was on Jennifer’s side of the hall, she grabbed the barrel and
shoved the aim to the floor before giving a yank and dragging the moron out into the hall. Whoever he
was he swore, she didn’t care she swore right back, it looked like maybe Tom should have had Manson
teach his boys a thing or two. Seemed like Manson knew what he was talking about after all, fatal
funnel come to bite someone in the ass, she supposed it was lucky he had an M16, the barrel was long
so it gave him some chance to avoid getting a chunk out of his arm for the mistake. "Don’t they teach
you morons anything," Jennifer finally spat when the guy she’d nearly disarmed and dragged into the hall
was done swearing.