Sometime over the last couple of years, Zack learned how to throw things.
When World War Zed started, Zack relied on human zombie wave attacks. Some had millions in them, walking toward us with their groans and their smell and their teeth. We had to rely upon heavy firepower to deal with them, because they’re not like people. Zack never gets scared. Zack never gets tired. Zack never sleeps. Zack never needs food, even though he’s always hungry. But Zack couldn’t hurt you if he couldn’t reach you.
Now things are different. Now Zack throws things. I don’t know what they are, but if they cut you, it’s curtains. Whatever it is that makes Zack Zack, it’s in those things he throws at us.
The first time I found out about them we were clearing a couple of houses. When we’re training, we call this “Jail Break”. I don’t know why. Zack had at least a couple in the structures and the yards. We had to get close to clear the houses. You spread out and check behind and under everything you go past, because Zack can be anywhere. Zack doesn’t breathe, so you can’t hear that. Sometimes Zack makes noise, but he can be quieter than any human you’ve ever seen. You keep your weapon up so the muzzle tracks with your eyes. As soon as you see Zack, you’re on target.
We were crossing the field toward the houses when we saw Zack, standing in the right hand yard. I let the right side of the line handle him, but he threw something at Fred. Fred screamed and went down. I had to run forward about 20 feet to get a clear shot across the front of the line. My PDW burped softly as Zack got three in the head. It was hard to hear the silenced rounds over Fred's screaming.
Running forward while you’re clearing ground is dangerous, because you don’t have the chance to make sure of every space when you’re in a hurry. Once you’ve stopped clearing space, sometimes it’s best to just keep moving. I charged the house on the left and circled it. Zack was there too, but looking toward where Fred was still screaming. He didn’t even start to turn until my first round missed his head and hit his shoulder. The burst walked up and across the right side of Zack’s head and he dropped like a puppet without any strings.
I hear the right side of the line running forward toward me, and I called “Crash 3 behind the structures, one Zack down” into my mike so I wouldn’t catch any friendly fire. With my buddies coming in I did a 360 to check the open space for Zack. It was clear.
When I turned back to the first kill I saw Fred leaning over Zack. He was pulling something out of the skull and jamming it into his mouth. Fred looked up at me and started in my direction. There were grey and red scraps hanging from his mouth, and his fingers were bloody. He groaned. That long, low, moaning, growling sound that only Zack makes.
I put three in his head.
Influenced by a game of Zombie Jail Break at North Shore Paintball over the weekend. It was an epic Zombie fail, and just playing the game, much less taking down all the zombies, absolutely made my day.