Chapter 2
"What do you mean he was already cremated?!" Seras shrieked into her phone.
Before the poor mortuary attendant could attempt to explain, she cut the woman off, "I know for a fact, that there was nothing in my fathers will about being cremated! How could this have happened?!"
Seras didn't know if she was bordering on murder or hysterics. Even with a bullet in his head, she'd hoped that the wound wouldn't be too gruesome, and that maybe she would get to see her father again, even if he was dead. And now there was no chance for that, none at all. They had gone and cremated him just like that. She could feel her anger returning and pinched the bridge of her nose in aggravation. Sure Seras expected a few small problems to pop up, but nothing like this.
"I'm sorry Miss Victoria, there must have been a mistake when the body was passed to us, a mistake in documentation or something..."
Calming down at the attendants somewhat shaky words, Seras realized that it was unfair to take her anger out on the woman, who likely had nothing to do with this mistake. And now it was done... Well, there wasn't really anything that could be done about it. 'Okay Seras, you can handle this, just another hiccup along the way... What does it matter if it's a coffin or an urn anyway? At least an urn is lighter, and less costly...'
Scrunching her eyes shut Seras took a deep breath before finally responding. "When can I take him home?"
The attendant seemed greatly relieved at Seras' change in mood, "There are only a few pieces of paper for you to sign, and then you are free to collect his ashes. You can come by any time during our open hours."
Seras nodded, then recalling she was speaking on the phone, replied with a simple "Thank you, I'll collect his ashes tomorrow."
A week later...
Seras stared in horror at the civilians currently approaching her unit. They had been given orders to go to a small village called Cheddar where a cult of some sort had begun to form. Given permission to use lethal force if they had to, their mission was to take out the leader of this cult, the church minister.
She shuddered at the thought that someone who was supposed to protect and help people instead lead them astray, to the point where they would no longer even listen to reason.
'That minister must be one really charismatic guy.'
As her unit watched the civilians advancing, Seras scrunched up her nose, 'What is that awful smell?' she thought before a man shambled into the light of their camp.
And that was what brought her to her current state. Horror. Were those people... rotting? Seras fought the urge to gag at the sight of gaping wounds and dripping flesh.
'Urgh, I'm going to have nightmares for the rest of my life.'
Distantly she heard the other members of her unit shouting out warnings to the civilians, ordering them to stop where they were. Of course none of them did.
'No, that would have been far too easy.' Seras quipped sarcastically to herself.
A shot rang out through the clearing, a warning shot since all verbal warnings had failed but they just kept advancing. Seras bit her lip and forced herself to stay calm, she breathed deeply-
'Urk! Better not do that again.'
Wincing at the odour that seemed to have grown even more pungent now, she guessed that it was coming from those who were currently approaching.
Another shot, this one hit the closest target in the leg, aiming to disable. Surprisingly the villager kept moving forward, though Seras noticed a nauseating crunching sound coming from his leg every time he stepped on it. 'Must have hit the bone' , her brain grimly pointed out as more shouts barkedin warning.
'Must stay calm... It's just a bunch of rotting villagers approaching us and ignoring any damage we do to them. Nothing wrong with that...'
Suddenly Seras recalled all those horror movies with zombies and all manner of bizarre and gruesome creatures in them. 'Now that I think about it, they do look awfully hungry' she thought giddily, 'I wonder who the main character is?'
Then time sped up.
In what seemed like only a second shots began firing upon villagers, the sharp smell of gunpowder drifting hazily through the air. This didn't appear to hinder the efforts of the villagers in the least however. Still on the verge of panic and half lost in her thoughts, Seras recalled that to kill a zombie you had to shoot it in the head. She pulled the trigger.
Bang!
In that instant the shouts of the men around her got louder, gun shots were still being fired, and everything just seemed to be going far too fast...
Determined to not be a weakness to her unit Seras aimed and fired again, and again, and again. Soon her clip was empty and she replaced it with another one, unloading bullets into the closest villagers. She tried not to focus on the gaping wounds of the poor woman, or the body that fell to the ground a few feet away from her.
Bang! The creature 'Yes, creature, it's easier if I don't think of them as human. I'm just having a bad dream. Do you die in the real world if you die in your dream?' swayed a little from her shot, before lumbering towards her again.
Click.
That had to be one of the most ominous sounds Seras had heard in her life, she tried again. Click. Click, click, click, click!
'Damnit!' Seras cursed, what a time to run out of ammo.
Even if her mind felt as though it were trudging through goo, her reactions were still in full swing as she backhanded the creature with her gun before sweeping a leg under it and hopping back as it fell it the ground.
There were screams around her now, full of terror and she shuddered to think of what was happening to the men attached to those screams as she backed away further.
A hand landed on her shoulder, And Seras almost gave Jack a black eye before realising that the threat was in front of her, not behind. Now she noted that their unit had shrunk remarkably since the arrival of the... former-villagers.
"Kitten!"
Seras snapped her head up, expression changing from alert to confused at the clip in Jack's hand as he held it out to her.
"What-" she began hesitantly.
"You're the fastest among us, so you have to go to the church and take out that minister! I don't know if that will stop these monsters, but it's worth a shot!", he thrust his hand towards her again.
Seras would have liked to point out then that zombies in horror movies usually didn't have a leader, and even if they did, killing that leader wouldn't stop the zombies themselves. Instead she looked down and noticed the bite wound on Jacks arm, the desperation in his voice. Before she knew it her hand had taken the clip and snapped it into her gun.
"Okay kitten, run north and you should come to a road, then follow it to the left and you should get to the church. It's... ah... in a graveyard. So you might wanna be careful there."
Mind now filing with visions of decaying corpses crawling out of the ground, Seras slowly nodded her head, "You can count on me, I'll be back before you know it!". She tried to give him a smile, but it ended up being more of a grimace. He understood though.
Seras turned and fled into the forest.
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A/N: Hmm, not much I can think to say about this chapter. In response to Rose d'Ombre: This fic is set in the anime universe. I've seen bits and pieces of the manga, but never read it unfortunately. Though I did know, and completely forget about what happens to Seras' parents in the manga. Thank you for bringing it up, it gives me something to think about.
Thank you to Rose d'Ombre, DaysOfTheNight, Ludifer, and alucardgal for your reviews!