End of Days 10 - Tribute to RE and House of Dead

"Over there!" Shashi pointed to a block of flats in the vicinity, half of it collasped onto the bottom half, which was cracked and crumbling even as he spoke. A few smaller flats around it were also destroyed, the remaining ones on fire, as thick black smoke filled the air, making it difficult to breathe.

"Put on your gas masks!" Samuel Wolfwood instructed. Mikki, Jiacholate and Small Ken obeyed, scurrying to put on their masks. They tried to stay calm, because panicking would only make their breaths come in short bursts, making it even more difficult to filter out the air.

The powerful arms of the mechs quickly removed large chunks of plaster and bricks, while Shashi, Small Ken and Mikki jumped onto the ground to search for survivors trapped beneath the rubble. Soon, they heard the sounds of people crying out for help, trapped beneath layers of concrete. "Shashi was right! There are actually people down there!" Mikki cried out excitedly.

Something screeched, a horrifying high pitched sound which pierced the smoke and flames, causing chills to tremor down their spines.

"Yeah and there's obviously more than trapped people down there!" Ka-chuk!! Small Ken disabled the "safety" button on his carbine and switched on the torch light. Mikki preferred something a little more close combat, and took out an automatic shotgun.

"Don't move in yet! We can't see a thing through the smoke!" Wolfwood commanded. Another terrifying scream echoed out of the rubble. Then, more human screams followed, screams of terror. The survivors were facing more trouble than just collasping concrete walls!

Shashi couldn't wait a moment more and disappeared, moving with agility and speed, down an opening in the rubble, intent on rescuing the survivors. "Ah heck!" Small Ken and Mikki dashed in after him.

"NO!!" Wolfwood yelled, but to no avail. Jiacholate just shook her head and continued removing large chunks of concrete, hoping that her good friends would come to no harm, facing whatever was down there. Suddenly, she noticed that many figures were surrounding the mechs, moving slowly and sluggishly, but some were carrying weapons! At first only a few could be seen, dragging their feet toward the mechs, but soon as the smoke cleared when the eat wind blew, dozens more appeared. And then dozens and dozens more...

*******

Ka-POW!! Blam blam!!

Jordan and Yangshuo took down 3 more zombies as they raced toward Pioneer Mall. Gloria had already crushed half a dozen zombies and opened the doors of the landrover, Jeremiah, George and Shilpa had jumped out. George and Shilpa had standard M-16s equipped with M203 grenade launchers, while Jeremiah had his double-barreled shotgun and 2 magnum dessert eagles at his side. Gloria preferred to remain in her vehicle, and drove around to recce the area for anymore threats.

Jordan simply drove his bike straight through the shattered glass doors of the shopping mall, smashing more pieces of glass and creating a ruckus. He whipped out his own shotgun, looking for anything to shoot. Nothing. The remaining 4 troopers ran in and took up defensive positions. Gloria had already parked the landrover on the roof with one solid leap, and was setting up her AWP rifle to snipe any intruders.

"Alright, let's see if there's anyone home." Jeremiah took out a hand-held heat-tracker. Any living thing had a temperature of around 37 degrees, distinctively higher than the surroundings. "There!! On the second storey. There's a strong heat signal from there. Let's move!"

"Woah!! Watch out!" Rat-tatatatatatt!! Shilpa opened fire at a couple of zombies sneaking up on Jeremiah from behind!

"Oh crap! We're surrounded!!" Jordan fire two rounds, sending 4 zombies splattering all over the wall, but seeing 8 more emerge from other shops in the mall.

"Should we head for the exits??" George asked, while shooting the heads off another 2 zombies.

Blam blam blam!!! "No! We're here for a reason! Let's rescue those civilians!" Yangshuo headed for the escalator, pistols blazing.

RRroooaarrrrRR!!! Zombies cried out in anguish as their food blew parts of their bodies off as they ran past the slow lumbering undead. There were more making their way, drawn by the sound of gun fire and the smell of fresh meat.

"Out of my way!" Yangshuo was an unstoppable battering ram as he charged up the escalators, blasting anything in his path, occasionally punching and throwing a writhing zombie off the escalators onto the concrete ground. The rest followed closely behind, shooting in all directions. None noticed the swarm of zombies entering through the front doors, salivating and panting hungrily, driven by only one factor - the urge to feed.

"More of them!!" Rat-atatatatatatatttt!!! Blam blam blam!! Ka-POW!!

"Eat hot lead you freaks!!" George unslung his GPMG with its 7.62 mm bullets and positioned it at the escalator. He only had about 100 rounds, the rest of the ammunition was back in the landrover. "I'll cover this area. Get the survivors and let's get out of here!!" Rat-atatatatattt!!

"We'll come back for you, buddy!" Jeremiah yelled and the remaining 4 ran toward the heat signal. Only to come across a huge obstacle. Somehow the smart humans had piled tons of furniture and barbed wired across the hall, blocking off attackers, but unfortunately blocking off their rescuers as well.

"Anyone there??!" yelled Yangshuo.

"Oh thank God!! We're here!!" a female voice shouted back from behind the barricade. "There's about 12 of us here, a few of us are injured quite badly. Quick get us out of here!!!"

"How do we get past this barricade!" Yangshuo asked in frustration.

"Just use the stairs by the side of the building to come up to where we are! The zombies are too dumb to use the narrow stairway.. At least they haven't tried to up till now. Half of the people here can't walk without help, otherwise we'd have run off long ago..." the woman replied.

"And thank God you didn't! Its worse than hell out there. Just wait there! We'll go to you in a few minutes!" Yangshuo faced his team. "You guys heard her, the only way to reach them is to go up by the stair ways.." "Not unless there's another way! Look, we can go up to the roof and enter the stairs from the roof! I'm not going to risk going out through the front doors again! take a good look down there!!" Shilpa pointed to the mass of zombies struggling up the escalator. George was taking down more than 4-5 with every shot, but still the undead pressed on. Blood ran down the steps of the escalator like a river, drawing even more zombies by the scent of it.

"Good idea Shilpa.. first, we gotta take out that escalator! George, stand back!!" Shilpa loaded a round into the M203 launcher. George ran back, and Shilpa squeezed the trigger. With a gentle "pop!" sound, the grenade flew toward the escalator, causing an explosion which crumbled the top of the escalator, sending dozens of zombies crashing to the ground level.

"Right! Now they can't get us from behind!" Jordan strode ahead confidently.

They ran toward the 3rd level escalator, with little resistance, since most of the zombies were only on the 1st level. Once they got to the roof, however, they were in for a nasty surprise.

Yangshuo kicked the door open. "Gloria! We've got to... oh my goodness, no way!!"

Gloria fired her AWP, punching a melon sized whole in 3 zombies in a row, while dozens more moved toward her. Beads of sweat could be seem dripping down her forehead as she changed to her hand gun, aiming only for the heads of the nearest zombies. Blam! Blam!

"Gloria get down!!" Jordan yelled as the 5 of them opened fire just in the nick of time, blasting the zombies into smithereens. The last one took a bullet between the eyes and in its throat as Gloria fired her last 2 rounds. "Whew! Thanks guys! I couldn't have held out much longer!"

"Where did those zombies come from??" Jeremiah wondered and somehow instinctively looked up and got his answer.

Dozens of zombies were jumping off the 5th storey of the nearest HDB block, trying to get to the roof of the mall. Most didn't make it, turning into mush on the solid concrete below, but the few that did, even with broken bones, limped and crawled their way toward Gloria in hunger.

"Gloria, you stay here with Shilpa. The rest of us will get the survivors back on the second storey." George shouted, and ran down the other stairway. It seemed that this mission was almost a success, with zero casualty rate.

*******

The giant feet of the mech warrior wheezed and clinked their way toward the science lab. Not a single zombie or enemy in sight. So far so good. No bothering to open the door, Vash simply crashed through the lab doors, as security alarms went off. No matter, there wasn't a single security personnel available within a 1000 meters.

After visiting several rooms and taking a lot of equipment, (some still in experimental stage too) Vash felt they had no room for more and decided to head back. it was beginning to get slightly dark, as the sun had began to set. long shadows skated along the walls, forming eerie shapes. No matter, these tough guys don't scare easily, and they turned around to head back. that was when things started to get a little difficult.

Growl!

"What was that?" Turtle asked. More growls followed. He turned his gun from side to side looking for a target.

"I don't know and I'm not about to find out!" Vash pushed a few buttons to increase the speed of the mech, and slowly it began to speed up, taking great strides across the lab, crushing concrete slabs on the floor, sending minor shockwaves in all directions. And it was a good decision to speed up too.

Suddenly, huge monstrous scaly creatures with horrible growls and roars came thundering out from the back of the corridor! Vash could not see his adversaries at all, and could only pray to make it out of the lab into the open space, as Turtle fired his turret guns at the beasts, trying to hit a sensitive spot! RATATATATATATTTTT!!! RRRAATTTATATATATT!! The bullets seemed to bounce off the thick hide of those beasts! And at this moment, the gun jams.

"Oh NO!! Not now!!" Turtle almost screams in desperation, as the nearest lizard notices the weapon not firing anymore, and lunges toward the mech warrior, mouth sprang open showing possibly hundreds of sharp teeth!