Martha fingered the longest knife at her hip and narrowed her eyes, watching the small group in front of her. Four, maybe five--it was hard to tell with their peculiar, shuffling gait--but either way it shouldn't take her too long to take them out. Half an hour's fighting at the most; maybe a little longer if they'd fed recently. That, she wouldn't know until she got closer, as the only light she had to go on was streetlamps, and they weren't too common in this part of town.

It started to drizzle and she cursed under her breath, flipping her hood up to cover her head. Then she cursed again as the zombies' attention shifted to the dark opening of a side street. The man wasn't their target, she didn't think--just a convenient snack on the way.

Breaking into a run, she vaulted a low brick wall and came between the zombies and their intended prey, shoving him aside with one hand and drawing the knife with the other, shouting as she did so.

"Run!"

Detective Jake Harrison stared at the paperwork in front of him. It looked atrocious, as it usually did. He recalled what his boss James Meyer had said to him earlier that afternoon.

"Your reward," he said. "For the O'Connell case."

"What are you talking about, Meyer?"

"You told the family of the murdered man that it did not look like the Irish mob had done it. Even though they have already confessed to it. Now the family is asking questions and demanding that the case be re-opened. All because you couldn't keep your big mouth shut."

"Excuse me?" Jake asked, frowning. "My gut tells me that something else is going on here. We're missing something. Some vital part of this."

"You overthink things way too much, Harrison. Now close the case and apologize to the family."

Jake frowned as he remembered the conversation. He had closed the case, but he had not spoken to the O'Connell family. He wanted to tell the family the truth, as he hated lying to people. Jake groaned and then decided he needed some fresh air. He walked into the next room, where he found his secretary Molly Desmond clacking away at the typewriter.

"You goin' out?" she asked. "Oh, oh. Your parents called. They wanted to know if you were going to the Heminingways' party tomorrow."

"I don't know yet," Jake answered, trying not to sound too irritable. Molly was a sweet girl, and he did not want to take out his anger on her. "Tell them 'maybe.'"

"Oh, ok." Molly jotted down something on the many pieces of paper scattered across her desk.

"In the meantime, I need some fresh air."

"Oh, ok."

Jake took his coat off of the rack and then put on his hat. He nodded at Molly and then left the room, going through a few more doors into the open air. It was a cool, drizzly night. He lit a cigarette and then began walking down the street in no particular direction.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/21/12 12:02AM by Faerie Watcher.

Martha plunged her knife into the nearest zombie's back as the frightened man ran away. Fortunately, he was also drunk (a fact that she filed away for future use) and would probably attribute the encounter to a wine-sodden dream.

The zombie gave an inhuman screech as the blade rasped into its toughened hide and lodged under a rib, pulling out of her hand as the creature turned to face her. It had fed recently; some of the blood on its ragged shirt and skirt was fresh. Chances were good that the others had fed, too. This was going to be harder than she'd thought.

An arm blurred in her peripheral vision and wrapped around her throat. She braced her legs against the wall and threw her weight backward, toppling both her and the zombie and using her resulting momentum to flip out of its grasp. She landed in a roll and regained her feet, then used the downed zombie as a step to spring at one of the ones they'd fallen past. She grabbed the standing zombie's chin and the back of its head and twisted sharply, hearing the muffled crunch that signified her success. It crumpled to the ground. She sidestepped the falling body and grabbed the knife still sticking out of the first one, pulling it to the side and driving it up into the thing's heart. She held tight to the handle as the zombie dropped. Two down, three to go.

Just then she felt a blow to the right side of her chest. She noted, whilst flying several yards through the air, that one of the remaining three had managed to sneak up behind her, hitting her as she turned to face it. Her hood dropped away from her face and she landed awkwardly on the hard pavement, but managed to turn it into a roll and keep from banging her head. Unfortunately, however, the fall had knocked the wind out of her. Worse, she was backed into the brick wall of a building. By the time she'd gotten up and drawn two of her other knives, she was surrounded. She dropped into a defensive crouch, planning to put her feet on the wall behind her and launch herself, knives first, at the zombie directly in front of her.



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/21/12 12:35AM by ocean cat.

Jake heard a tussle in a nearby alley. Curious, he decided to check it out. Even if it was a romantic encounter or some partying drunk causing trouble. He peered around the corner and saw a figure back against a wall, another figure standing in front and looking rather threatening.

"Hey!" Jake shouted. "Police!"

Martha swore audibly, but executed her maneuver anyway, taking advantage of the zombies' momentary distraction and launching off the wall, past the zombies on either side of her, to go into a handspring with the zombie in front of her acting as the spring part, her knives pounding into it with all of her weight. She landed on her feet, minus her knives, and immediately went into two more handsprings to get some distance between her and the remaining two. She sprinted toward the cop, stopped, and said, "Stay away! You have no idea--" but cut off as she heard her opponents break into a lumbering run. She spun and crouched as they came toward her. "Run!"



Edited 1 times. Last edit at 01/24/12 02:33AM by ocean cat.

Jake was not an aggressive man, but he would never turn down an opportunity to help someone in need. He pulled out his Colt from under his vest and cocked it. "You should run too!" he shouted back.

William's evening had been nothing out of the ordinary. He had been walking throught the night, stopping and speakeasies along the way in lookout for zombies that wanted unsuspecting prey. So far tonight he had dispatched one of the undead. Spare for an entire night, but there were still many hours until dawn.

From the next street over the sounds of fighting were unmistakeable. A fierce grin split his features, as he broke into a run, heading for the nearest alleyway that would connect the two streets. Oh, he knew it could possibly by just a normal street brawl between drunken men, but he tended to think otherwise.

He let out an annoyed noise when he came through the alley to see the scene in front of him. Martha facing two zombies - which had been five zombies not long ago judging by the bodies - along with a man who was obviously not a hunter, pointing a gun at him.

"What in the devil's name is going on here?" he asked loudly, making the two remaining zombies jerk as they were alerted to his presense behind them.

"Oh for heaven's sake," said Martha, rolling her eyes. "What is this, a party? William, help a girl out--take the one on the left. Oh, and they've fed recently, so it might take a few shots." She pulled two knives from the skirt of her coat and circled around to the right, hoping the decrease in numbers made the remaining two stupid enough not to cause any problems. Judging from their movements--jerky, as though they couldn't decide which human to go for first--that was most likely the case. The one on the right looked at the cop, and apparently made a decision. Martha smiled. It would more or less ignore her now, and she took advantage of its single-mindedness. As it ran past her, toward the cop, she stuck out her arm, impaling the zombie with its own momentum. As the body fell, she pulled her knife out, then looked up to see how William was doing.

"Duly noted," William said with a single nod when Martha told him that that the zombies had fed recently. His revolver appeared in one hand, and a long-bladed knife in the other. When she circled right he circled to his right, keeping them at opposite sides of the circle around the zombies, forcing them to keep looking around to keep them all in view.

"Wait. My left or your left?" There wasn't time for her to answer because it was at that moment that her zombie went for the pedestrian that had come along to witness the fight. Taking that as his own cue, he ran towards the other zombie - which unfortunately turned in time to see him coming. However, seeing him wasn't enough for the zombie to stop the bullet coming from his revolver, and at this close range it had no difficulty piercing the zombie's toughened skin.

In it's side it wasn't a fatal shot, but it wasn't enough to slow the zombie while William closed the distance between them, jamming the knife hard up between the zombie's ribs to it's heart. He yanked the blade free as the zombie fell to the ground, once again dead. "Well, that was fun."

Jake fired a non-deadly shot at another figure, not sure what was going on. A gang of some kind? It was too dark to tell what exactly was happening, but one thing was certain: they sure had picked the wrong target. He watched as the girl gracefully moved around, going around the figures.