I'll be honest; it took a bit of effort to resume work on this and some of my other stories for this site. Uni work's been coming on pretty well, with much of it either done or in the process of final drafting. Unfortunately back on the home front things haven't been quite so rosy, and a family member who is very close to me attempted suicide just over a week ago and very nearly succeeded. Without going into too much detail he's alive and stable, but he's unlike himself to say the least, which is causing both me and my family some pretty serious stress.

Anyway, enough about depressing stuff; you didn't come here for that.

The Pelanoi Accounts

Chapter Seven: Encounter

The Survivors

The sound of foetid flesh slapping against iron filled their senses.

It had barely been five minutes since Ryder House had lit up like a firework, attracting every cannibal freak in town. They were under siege, and their already desperate situation grew worse with each second that passed as more and more of the dead began to pile up against the iron bars of the fence and gates.

Tiffany and Kit found most of the group throwing assorted objects against the doors and windows.

'What the hell happened?' Tiffany asked.

'How the hell should I know?' Ethan replied tersely.

'Reserve Generator.'

The group currently present turned to see Nick standing in the doorway, Mary stood behind him, anxiously glancing outside the windows every few seconds.

'Care to explain?' Kit asked.

'This house. It has a backup generator, presumably for when the power goes out. It kicked in only a few minutes ago.'

'Okay, but why now?' Rolf wondered aloud.

'I don't know, maybe it's set to start up around this sort of time? ' Nick shrugged his shoulders.

'Does this really matter now? The gate will hold them for a while but once they get through–'

A great, resounding crash both interrupted Sema and told everyone that the gates had fallen.

'Of course…' Ethan muttered bitterly.

'Throw everything you can find against those windows!' Tiffany cried as she began thinking, 'We need to at least buy some time while we look for a way out.'

She rounded on Nick.

'You've stayed here longer than us, is there a back way out of this place?'

Nick stopped, in deep thought.

'No…' he began, before snapping his fingers, 'wait, yes! I think there's a gate that leads out in the yard, if we hurry then we might be able–'

He was interrupted by a loud thump on the window. A dead man's horrific visage filled the glass viewpoint, his lower jaw was missing and blood coated the nape of his hideous green short sleeved shirt. He was joined by another of his undead comrades scant seconds later, and another, and another.

Rolf swore viciously as a rotting hand punched through the glass. One window a metre away shattered entirely and one of the many corpses pulled itself through.

'Everyone out!' Tiffany barked as she took her weapon and unloaded on the invaders.

Once everyone was out the door was slammed shut and a chest was pulled in front of the door to the living room, which opened inwards. The door shook as the dead began to beat against it, clamouring for the blood of the living.

The sound of more smashing glass indicated that the barricades were failing one by one. The groans of the dead, previously filtered by the frail glass, now drowned out all sound, with the alarm sinking into the background of the infernal choir.

'That noise is going to drive me insane before this is over I just know it,' Rolf said with a snarl.

'Upstairs!' Tiffany shouted, plugging an overweight dead woman through an eye socket as it stumbled out of the study.

'Anyone with a gun form on me and hold the staircase! The rest of you find something to pile on it, stat!' Tiffany barked as she, Sema, Ellen, Cassidy, Leah and Nick lined up with her and trained their weapons on the bottom of the expansive staircase.

As the first of the dead shambled into sight Tiffany hoped the others would hurry. The dead were slow, no question about it but out of six guns she was the only trained marksman and even she couldn't be dead on a hundred per cent of the time. If the dead surged in en masse, they would be overwhelmed in moments.

Coupled with that was the ammo situation. They'd managed to scrounge a few bullets here and there in some down time but even with that she wasn't entirely sure how many rounds they'd expend before they all ran dry, and while the young Marine Captain was confident in her ability when it came to a brawl, she didn't want to risk a bite, especially when the dead never seemed to tire.

'Take your time aiming, they ain't in no hurry,' Tiffany intoned, managing to be heard even over the collective groans of the dead, now back in Officer Mode.

It was Ellen who fired first. The large .357 bullet blew the back of the monster's skull out, adding a fresh, morbid colour to the crisp, pale yellow wall paint behind it.

'Nice shot,' Tiffany remarked, 'but if anyone fires, let the rest of us know beforehand… don't want to waste two bullets on the same target.'

Ellen appeared to bite back a retort, instead settling her face into a grimacing mask as she ejected the cylinder and checked the chambers to see how many fresh bullets she possessed. The deep frown that followed told everyone present that she didn't have many.

'Move aside ladies, one obstacle coming through,' came Rolf's voice as he, Ethan and Kit rounded a corner carrying the mattress of the four-poster bed. The women and Nick moved to one side as the three men unceremoniously tossed it down the staircase.

'Right… that'll help loads,' Ellen murmured icily.

'It's a start,' Tiffany said, interrupting Ethan before he could say a word, 'and it's at least more of an uneven surface than the stairs themselves. Nice work guys. Keep it up,' she shared a brief glance with Kit before the latter turned with the other two to find more loose items. Sydney and Mary came back lugging a couple of chairs a minute later, by which point two more of the dead had been put down permanently and three bullets had been spent.

The dead trickled in ones and twos at first, and were relatively easily dispatched as they tripped on the mattress or fumbled over various chairs and small desks which were lobbed down the staircase. Ellen however claimed to have run out of shots and left to help find more things to help clutter the stairs and finally the siege began in earnest as the dead began to pour through the doorways, howling for blood.

Tiffany fought to control her rising panic as the tide of dead pushed ever higher. The makeshift barricade had certainly helped but it was futile as so many rotting bodies surged ever onwards, pushing their foremost foetid comrades forwards, and those the survivors killed who weren't trampled underfoot acted as a screen for those behind. In a word, their situation was dire, and she began racking her brain for any possible way out.

'Everyone! Over here!' Kit yelled, drawing their attention. Kit stood just in front of the room to one of the guest bedrooms – the one Ellen had used if she remembered correctly.

'We've got a way out!' he waved.

At that moment, had it not been the last thing she'd ever do, Tiffany wanted to jump him then and there. The Captain took over though and she steeled herself.

'All of you go, run for that room!' she shouted, firing two more shots, punching a dead man off its feet, but not killing it. The group broke formation in a disorderly manner, with Tiffany holding for a few seconds longer, making sure everyone made it before herself withdrawing. As she dashed inside Kit slammed the door shut and threw a bedframe against it.

'So what's this way out then? And where are the others?' Sema asked Kit, noticing that neither Ellen, Ethan, Rolf nor Mary were present.

'They're already outside. You see that open window there?' he pointed towards a forcibly opened window just large enough for a grown man to squeeze through, 'it leads onto the roof. I checked it out, and there's a garage we can all hop onto. We'll probably be able to jump down onto the street and make a run for it from there.'

No one said anything for a moment, all too dazed by the prospect they might actually make it out of what seemed a very dire situation.

'Well? Are we going? We've really not got much–'

No sooner had the words left his mouth when there was a slam on the other side of the guest room door.

'Okay, correction: we've got no time. Everyone out that window,' Kit said hurriedly.

One by one they pushed themselves through the window as the thumping grew ever more frequent. Finally with a great crash the door slammed open a fraction, rotting hands forcing their way through the open gap, their entry denied only by the bedframe which was even now shifting as the seething mass of undead pressed forward.

Eventually it was only Kit and Tiffany left in the room, the former helped hustle everyone through, while the latter had kept her gun trained on the door. Though she wasn't sure exactly how many shots she had left she was certain it numbered no more than five.

'You next,' Kit said, tapping her on the shoulder, his tone brooking no argument.

Tiffany argued anyway.

'No chance,' she said with a shake of her head, 'I'm the one with the gun here, if they break in there's going to be too many of them for you to fight.'

'You can't have all that much ammo left; I'm not leaving you here on your own.'

'I don't but it's more than you've got,' she turned to him and forced a smile.

'Trust me, okay?'

Kit held her gaze for a moment before squeezing his eyes shut and turning around to leave, it was clear for her to see that his decision had taken some willpower. Tiffany hesitated for a moment before calling out to him again.

'Hey…'

Kit turned only to feel Tiffany's lips crash against his own. The kiss was sloppy, and lasted barely a moment before Tiffany withdrew, her face strangely serene despite her raging emotions.

'For finding us a way out…' she trailed off before leaning in for another longer-lasting session.

'And for luck,' she said as she forced herself away. It had been her first and her second but she didn't regret the manner in which they'd come about, even if she wished to hell it might have happened under better circumstances. Kit stared at her in stunned surprise; it almost made the young woman want to burst out laughing.

Then the growling dead filtered back into the atmosphere and Tiffany pushed Kit towards the window, her gun locked back on the door which was now open wide enough to allow a rotting torso to gain entrance. Tiffany shot it through an empty eye socket and the creature dropped. Through her peripheral vision she noticed Kit pull his legs through the window, mere seconds later his head poked through.

'All right I'm out. Now you.'

Tiffany released a soft chuckle and turned, pulling herself through the open space as the door finally crashed open. She felt something scrape the sole of her boot and yelped in surprise, kicking out and shattering a jaw in reflex. Kit pulled her up and the two hared up the roof in the direction of the garage. The gap was roughly just over a half metre wide; everyone else was already on top of the garage, waiting only for the last two.

The pair cleared the jump with relative ease, even on the uneven surface of the roof tiles.

'Okay, now what?' asked Ethan, eyeing the streets with trepidation. His fear appeared to be justified, as while the greatest concentration of the dead lay in front of the manse, the streets still bustled with the terrible creatures.

Tiffany chewed her lip, deep in thought. No matter where they looked the dead were everywhere and more arrived each second, an unending wave of moaning, bloodthirsty bodies.

The Mercenaries

Felix lay on his belly on the bell tower of a small Catholic Church. He didn't think much of shooting from places such as this – they were too obvious – but in this instance the foe wasn't going to be shooting back, and as far as he was aware the dead couldn't climb. Elias had offered his assistance as a spotter but Felix had declined, in all his years as a marksman he'd never needed anyone to mark his targets for him.

He'd been surveying the manse for a good twenty minutes now, watching through his scope as the undead forced their way inside. More arrived in front of the building with each passing minute, making the sniper wonder exactly how many people had died in this town. He was about to take a quick nap when suddenly movement caught his eye. Adjusting his scope's magnification he zoomed in and raised an eyebrow when he saw the group of survivors they had been hunting scurry across the roof of the manse, leaping onto the garage.

'I'll be damned…' Felix murmured in his native tongue as he saw two other survivors join up with the group and begin surveying the streets. The house was likely overrun and the poor bunch were likely trying to figure up a plan of escape.

'Sorry boys and girls… not while I'm around,' Felix breathed as he settled into a more comfortable firing position, adjusting his aim so that his rifle pointed naturally at his intended targets. He leaned further towards his scope, taking care that he wasn't so close that the recoil would bring the scope crashing against his eye when he fired.

'Wind speed… negligible. Humidity… pfft. I could do this in my sleep if I wanted to,' he muttered to himself. Judging that he was all set, he raised his forefinger to the trigger of his sniper rifle and squeezed…

The Survivors

'We're just going to have to run for it,' she said.

'Through all that? I don't feel much like dying,' Ellen responded, folding her arms.

'Amen to that. I say we wait it out up here,' Rolf agreed, 'gap's wide enough and I don't think they can jump.'

'Not the point,' Tiffany said, explaining herself, 'eventually they'll figure out dinner's moved, and when they do they'll disperse in all different directions. It's better we run now while most of them are concentrated in the house. I'm not saying it's not dangerous but it's better than just sitting here–'

She was interrupted when a bullet zipped past her face, grazing her cheek.

Silence gripped the group before finally the crack of another shot reverberated throughout he town and another bullet whipped through the air. Everyone dropped.

The Mercenaries

Felix snarled like an animal as the shot went wide. The wind had suddenly picked up. Stupid, stupid, stupid. He adjusted his aim, reviewed the distance between him and the targets, and squeezed again.

The Survivors

'What the fuck?!' Ethan snarled.

'Someone obviously can't aim to save their lives,' Rolf muttered.

'Two shots…' Tiffany murmured, to herself, a hand pressed against her cheek, her eyes wide in disbelief.

'What is it GI Jane?' Ellen asked, 'I'd have thought you'd be used to being under fire.'

The words seemed to snap Tiffany out of her momentary stupor.

'Under fire... they're firing at us.'

'Why the hell would anyone be shooting at us when there are so many other targets to practise on?' Rolf groaned. Another shot and a bullet grazed Rolf, who yelped in surprise and pain.

'I don't know but staying up here's no longer an option. Everyone on the streets, now!' Tiffany barked. The group crawled towards the edge of the garage, each survivor warily eyeing the dead congregating in the street before their previous shelter as more bullets trailed overhead.

The dead closest to the garage noticed the dropping survivors and stumbled towards them, their distinctive moans drawing the attention of those close by.

'Hell,' Cassidy groaned as she landed awkwardly, pain flaring up her ankle. She pushed herself up, forcing herself to ignore the pain. The sniper fire stopped as Nick caught Mary who jumped off the roof of the garage, presumably he had to reload.

'Move! GO!' Tiffany shouted, and then everyone jumped off the garage, landing on the street below.

'Through the streets, avoid them if you can!' She called as she powered on through the bustling streets. The rest of the group followed her lead, dodging and weaving through any gaps they could see, avoiding grasping hands and vicious snaps. Kit and Ellen gained a lead shortly after, the former forcing undead aside with his crowbar while Ellen slipped through gaps like a natural, stabbing with her knife at anything that got too close.

Eventually they broke through the thickest concentration of undead, and while a collective sigh of relief was released, they didn't stop, for the dead were never far behind.

The Mercenaries

'Damnit!' Felix growled, slamming a fist against the cold stone floor of the bell tower. He thumbed his comms after mastering his temper.

'Hawkeye to Grey Lead, targets have left the house, they're moving…' he paused, recalling the layout of the map of the island, 'South-West, towards Ghost.'

Silence answered him for a moment before his earpiece squawked into life.

'Copy Hawkeye, we're in pursuit. Sending Brooks over to you. Advise you keep in that tower and keep an eye out but if you feel it's useless link up with the rest of us. RV at Ghost's location. Jäger… don't fuck up again. Grey Lead out.'

With that the link was cut. Felix bit back a curse, feeling his lips curl in distaste.

'Don't fuck up again he says. Where the hell was he then? Useless bastard. Probably couldn't hit the broadside of a barn if he stood next to it… damned Officer types.' Felix muttered under his breath as he shifted himself in the direction of their quarry and settled back into his firing position.

Elsewhere in the town, Jake settled uncomfortably behind a low fence of a private estate, praying nothing dead and hungry came too close and found a potentially free meal. His dark gear helped him blend in with the shadows but like all camouflage it would only help him so much if something stumbled in his face.

Grey Lead – Elias – had told him that the poor bastards they were hunting were headed his way. He felt nervous, twitchy. Even when he'd served as a part of the UBCS the worst he'd had to deal with was patching up a scrape caused by a loose BOW or help put it down, he'd never had to lower himself to the level so many others had. Hunting civilians – people just trying to survive… it didn't sit right with him.

Oh well, he thought to himself, the town's pretty large, chances are more likely that they'd miss him entirely. His train of thought was interrupted when a sudden movement close by caught his eye. Instincts kicked in and he squeezed the trigger, unleashing a tirade of bullets. The muzzle flash ruined his night vision and he took a moment to let the device adjust, finding, to his surprise, that there was no body. His gut started buzzing and with grim determination he leapt over the fence and snapped his weapon up.

Before him in the street was a group of eleven rag-tag individuals, each of them appeared exhausted and haggard, some in worse or better condition than others in terms of their dress. Some appeared to be wielding handguns, but it was clear that his sudden appearance had taken them by surprise even in spite of his ambush mere moments ago.

A stand-off ensued. Neither party moved so much as an iota for what felt like aeons until one of the shambling dead stumbled around the street corner, presumably following the group of survivors. In an instant Jake switched target and put three holes in the thing, the third shot punching through the skull. No sooner had he acted than his gun was trained back on the group before him.

The closest survivor, an attractive young woman in a black tank top and camouflage trousers, fixed him with a strange look before furrowing her brow in confusion.

'No doubt about it, you're Special Forces or something… so why are you trying to kill us?'

It took a moment for the question to register in Jake's head. He barely stopped himself from shaking his head like a rookie.

'I… don't know what you–'

'Not very convincing when you're pointing a gun right at us,' another woman intoned, this one had a frosty gaze and several scars on her face.

Jake closed his mouth, entirely unsure of what to do. His orders were to simply gun them down here and now and that would be it. He'd be off this crazy island with the crazy zombies and even crazier monsters. For a second, his finger lingered on the trigger.

Then movement near the back caught his eye, and a young girl stepped into view, hiding behind a burly adult with a crooked nose.

He knew then that he wouldn't fire. Couldn't fire. He just wasn't the kind of person who could so casually toss aside his humanity and gun down a young girl and ten other unarmed civilians in cold blood and chalk it up as a hard day's work. He knew he'd catch hell for it if Elias – or anyone in Grey Team – found out, but he knew he was doing the right thing, and in the end, that was all that mattered.

'Get on out of here,' he said, motioning to a side alley. None of the survivors moved at first, caught off guard. Some of them tensed, suspecting a trap.

'I'll mislead them as best I can. Get out of here before the rest of my team shows up…'

Still, no one moved.

He loosed a burst at a small cluster of undead converging on them. The sudden shots snapped the survivors out of their daze.

'Go damnit!' Jake bellowed, taking more careful aim and dropping a couple of the oncoming dead.

The woman in the tank top moved first, stopping after a few steps to gesture for the others to follow her. Each of them watched him warily, and before they stepped into the alley Jake called out to them once more.

'I can't promise they won't keep pursuing you… but if I can help it I'll see you out of this alive. Trust me,' he said, sounding much braver than he actually felt.

They paused a moment longer before disappearing into the alleyway. Barely moments after Jake released the breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding. He realised he was shaking, part out of fear of what Grey Team would do to him if they found out about the encounter and partly because of what he'd very nearly done.

The groans rose in pitch and Jake looked up to see that the cluster of dead had now become a sizeable crowd. Changing the magazine of his weapon, he racked the slide and took aim.

'Always wanted to help people…' he murmured softly, calming himself down as he sighted the closest zombie.

-X-

That's all for the moment. Keep your loved ones close folks, and make sure they're feeling ok from time to time.

Cheers