Genesis - Keith R. A. DeCandido [67]
She may not have remembered everything, but her famous moves had apparently risen to the fore. Ass-Kicking Alice knocked one zombie down with a neck-shattering chop. Then she jumped up to the ceiling, grabbed one of the heating pipes that ran parallel to the floor, wrapped her legs around the neck of the next zombie, and then twisted with her thighs, killing it.
A nice move, to be sure, but somehow Kaplan didn't think she'd be able to do it five hundred more times.
Neither did she, for her next words were: "Up on the pipes—up on the pipes! Quickly, everyone, up on the pipes!"
Kaplan looked up. There was no way in hell those pipes were going to support the weight of five people.
Then the zombies surged against the mesh, and Kaplan realized they weren't exactly overburdened with choices. Besides, these things weren't agile—they probably weren't capable of climbing up after them. Hell, they could barely walk. So far, it was the only real advantage they had.
"It's a way out!"
"Move it!"
They let go of the mesh. Kaplan unholstered his Beretta and started shooting. Next to him, Rain did likewise with her Colt, while Alice kept up her end with hand-to-hand.
Unbidden, the image of an "Ass-Kicking Alice" action figure in her likeness popped into Kaplan's head. "With zombie neck-snapping action!"
Focus, Kaplan. He shot another one in the face.
Spence, of course, was the first one to scurry up the pipes.
"Get over here!" Matt cried to Alice. "There's too many of them!"
"Go, go, go!" Rain cried as Matt helped Alice up, then climbed up himself.
That just left him and Rain to hold off the hordes.
"You're all going to die down here."
Fuck you, bitch. He shot another one.
It fell down and then bit him in the leg.
Kaplan screamed.
Twenty-Two
THE ONLY GOOD THING TO RAIN ABOUT HOW much the utility tunnels stank was that they knocked out how bad the zombies smelled.
Their breath was especially bad—which was weird, 'cause they didn't seem to be breathing, but damn if they didn't all have halitosis fucking overload.
She turned around when Kaplan screamed, saw the thing biting him, then shot it.
Kaplan, the fucking wuss, kept screaming.
Addison reached down and yelled, "Grab my hand!"
That shook Kaplan out of it. He grabbed Addison's hand and let himself be pulled up.
That just left Rain.
Another zombie jumped her, and she dropped her Colt into the piss-wet gunk on the floor.
She grabbed the zombie by the head, twisted, then dropped the zombie to the floor. Bending over, she picked up her Colt, and pointed it right at the next zombie.
Just as she prepared to pull the trigger, she realized who it was standing in front of her.
"J.D.?"
His face was covered in blood. Scars lined his face. His shirt had been ripped open, and there were cuts and dried blood on his chest.
The first day Rain and J.D. went to the firing range, J.D. couldn't stop talking shit about what a crack shot he was. That was why the CIA stole him from the SEALs, because they valued his skills as a sniper.
"You know why I think Oswald acted alone?" he had asked then. " 'Cause one guy could make the shot from the book depository window—if he's got the shit. Me, I got the shit."
To prove it, he put on his goggles and earmuffs, grabbed the six-shot revolver the firing range had provided, and fired it into the target, which was thirty feet away.
When he pulled it in, all six shots were to the head.
Kaplan had been impressed. Warner's eyes had gone wide. Drew kept saying, "Fuck me," over and over again.
But Rain just said, "Not bad."
That drove J.D. nuts. "Not bad? Not fucking bad? What, chica, you can match that?"
"No, I can't match that." Then she grinned. "Unless I fire left-handed or something. Otherwise, no, I couldn't shoot that badly."
Warner laughed. "I think she's calling you out, my friend."
"Fuck you, Warner. And fuck you too, Melendez. Put your money where your foot is."
Rain took the space next to J.D., put on the goggles and earmuffs, moved her target back fifty feet, and grabbed another revolver. "Only place