Title: Said Death to the Maiden
Rating: PG-13
Fandom: Criminal Minds
Universe: Zombie Cantos
Characters/Pairing: Ensemble - gen
Genre: Horror/Drama
Summary: Spencer Reid wonders when he stopped being just "resident genius" and started being "resident Zombie exterminator."
…
Change
Said the sun to the moon,
You cannot stay.
Change
Says the moon to the waters,
All is flowing.
Change
Says the fields to the grass,
Seed-time and harvest,
Chaff and grain.
Change – Kathleen Raine
.
We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves.
Lynn Hall
…
Thirty-one and a half Months after the zombie apocalypse
The amount of pressure it takes to kill a zombie depends on a number of things. It depends on the kind of weapon you're using, it depends on whether you're trying to decapitate, or cause skull fracture. It depends on how hard-headed your enemy is. Decapitating zombies with a machete isn't something Spencer Reid had practiced to any extent in his old life, but an encyclopaedic knowledge of physics and biology make this his forte.
He wonders when he'd stopped being just "resident genius" and started being "resident zombie exterminator." It's unsurprising, though, when he thinks about it; Hotch, Rossi and Morgan had been those most inclined to leadership and fieldwork, and now they're gone. JJ's too busy trying to protect Henry, and sometimes he wonders whether Emily's still with them at all. She's by his side when it counts, though – like now, for example, decapitating the zombie that's about to take a chunk out of his arm with one swift strike.
'Thanks,' he says, his eyes wide. It's a long, long way from his first time on a raid, where his hands had been shaking as he'd held his gun, staying to the back while Hotch, Morgan and Gideon took the lead. It's a long, long way from missed targets and getting pinned to the mat by Morgan, and the not so silent whispers that maybe he just isn't cut out to be an FBI agent.
After all, what kind of FBI agent has PhDs in Math, Chemistry and Engineering? He often doubts that he would have even considered the option, had it not been for the intervention of Jason Gideon. Some days he resents that, but today is not one of those days. Today he's a little too worried about the fact that they're fighting down hordes of zombies to find one potential survivor.
It's a few words on a radio, and there're thousands of zombies standing in their path, but the BAU is in the business of saving people, whether it's from murderous unsubs, or the walking dead.
Thousands might be something of an exaggeration, but it's in the hundreds at least, and it's not as though they're without back-up. Even if the back-up is essentially two technical analysts, a coroner and JJ, who is a crack shot, but refuses to leave Henry's side. Jack's there too, but they try to keep the boy as much out of the action as possible, even if he doesn't like it that much. None of them will ever forgive themselves if Jack dies. As though there's some final, unspoken promise to Hotch. Reid is pretty sure that keeping that promise will be difficult, considering the fact that it's the end of the world, but he's going to try his hardest.
'They're clustered up ahead,' Emily points out. 'If we hit them with a grenade, then we can pick them off while they're still disoriented.' When it comes to zombie hunting, "disoriented" is something of a nebulous term, but they'll be blustering enough that it won't be so difficult for Jean to get a few shots off with the rifle, half a mile away.
The most effective long-range rifle round is the .408 Chey Tac, working from distances of up to 2350 meters. The bullets fire at around 1000 meters per second, and deliver a maximum of 63,800 pounds per square inch of pressure. Of course, in times like this, finding the best equipment isn't easy, so they're forced to work with something with a much shorter range. Thanks to the terrain, the vantage points are limited, which means if they get overrun outside the line of fire, they'll be forced to deal with the attack solely on the melee front.
'Fire in the hole,' Emily calls out, as she tosses the grenade, and a second later, it explodes in a ball of heat and shrapnel. They've got their fingers on the trigger almost immediately, bullets cracking through the air in quick succession. The smell of gunpowder reminds him of the firing range, only he doesn't have any eye or ear protection, and instead of firing a pistol at a single stationary target, he's firing a semi-automatic rifle at a series of moving targets.
Desperation will do wonders to your aim.
Emily empties her magazine and drops behind him as she reloads. His is spent too, but there's still a handgun in an unclipped holster. The moment Emily's finished, they swap. 'Watch your six, Spence. I can't get a shot off,' he hears over the radio, and he turns swiftly, shooting from the hip. By some amount of luck, it hits the zombie in the neck, which isn't a brain shot, but it'll hopefully damage the spinal column, so it isn't a complete loss. In any other town, this might have been a complete death trap, but this place has been cleaned out fairly well, aside from the obvious flock. There's someone here, picking off the undead, and he's willing to bet that it's the person that they'd heard on the radio.
Sure enough, it's Garcia's voice that he hears next. 'Hey, cowboy – two blocks north, and then one west. You think you two can make it that far without dying?'
Emily gives a grunt. 'We've made it this far, haven't we?' she asks, but there's no malice in her voice. There's nothing of the dry humor that had once been omnipresent. Just another one of those changes.
They clear their way through the undead, going back to the machetes once they start to thin out. His rifle's within reach, though, and the holster is still unsnapped. Spencer Reid, fastest gun in the west.
It takes the better part of an hour to make it to the location Garcia had given them, and it would really, really suck if this turns out to be an ambush. As they stand outside the building, it occurs to him that they've just managed to take out a couple of hundred zombies in a little over an hour, without sustaining any losses. There's something to be said about wearing bite-resistant clothing, because it's not as though they haven't tried. There'll be bruises, but no infections.
It seems almost surreal, the thought that there might be a survivor – someone new, someone that hasn't succumbed to the infection – after over two and a half years. It's theoretically possible, but Reid's still curious about the specifics.
The man they meet is wary, but that's nothing new. They're all a little wary, thanks to everything that's happened. Nobody moves, until a zombie interrupts their Mexican standoff, and three bullets sound almost simultaneously.
His name is Simon, and he doesn't want to talk about it. From the body language, Reid gets the idea that he's lost someone fairly recently, which might explain the sudden desire to join up with them, but he doesn't ask, and Simon doesn't tell.
They'll get out of dodge, and get as far away as possible before settling down for the night. Soon they'll hit the coastline, and who knows what drama that's going to bring.
Just another day at the end of the world.