Cold Walkers
Chapter 11: Hit the Road
The fetish fell to the ice near the goal, a good distance away from them. Many flesh eaters stood between them and it, and the zombies’ ambition suddenly doubled due to Philippe’s influence. They rushed at the players with a frantic, desperate, hungry drive. Kimberly beat one back with the butt of her gun and glanced at Lecavalier, Quinn, and Killorn.
“We have to get it now, before it gets lost in this madness,” she said. “Quinn?”
Her hunting partner came up beside her, cocking the Mossberg. “Let’s go.”
“That’s insane!” Lecavalier said. “You’ll get bitten in that fray. We’re coming with you.”
“Don’t,” Quinn said, frowning. “If we go down, you guys have to try after us. Here.” She gave Lecavalier her lighter. “If we don’t make this, you light it on fire. It has to be burned.”
Killorn sliced down a zombie with the remaining machete and took the lighter from Lecavalier. “I got this. You go.”
Lecavalier frowned. “Alex, by yourself?”
He gestured to Bergeron, who was close by. “I’ll go with him if things get bad. Just go. Help them.”
Vincent nodded, turning to the girls and nodding. “I’ll cover you.”
Quinn didn’t like it, and her irritated expression showed as much. “Vinny…”
He offered her a smile. “Come on, blondie, time’s wasting.”
She huffed, turning to join to Kimberly, and the two girls began to make their way across the ice toward the talisman. Vincent carried along behind them, gunning down anyone in the way. He felt a zombie grab hold of his arm and something sliced across the flesh. Vincent saw the bite mark, and he ignored it. He had to. He beat the zombie back and focused on running, on keeping under control, and Quinn glanced back briefly—long enough to see the wound. She gasped, but he shook his head and pointed for her to keep running. She did. At the net, Kimberly stood a distance away and waved Quinn forward. “Go. Vinny and I gotcha.”
The smaller girl darted forward, dodging a fat teenage boy as he tumbled to the ground beside her, a fresh bullet wound in his torso. She searched frantically around the ice, trying to find the fetish, before spotting it at a zombie’s feet, being kicked around while it scrambled across the ice. She gestured to the group of zombies around it, and Kimberly and Vincent focused their firing on them.
“Hurry,” Vincent called, and Kimberly looked back to see his eyes paling.
“Oh god,” she said, frowning. “Vinny—”
“Just help her,” he said. “Hurry.”
Kimberly swallowed and dashed forward, using her gun as a blunt object and knocking zombies down. She shoved a large group out of Quinn’s way and pinned them against the boards. “Get it, Quinn!”
The blonde girl wrapped her fingers around the talisman just in time, before a zombie stepped down on her hand. Kimberly cried out in pain, and Quinn whirled around to see her struggling against a younger zombie that had bitten her arm. “Hurry!” she exclaimed, and tossed Quinn her lighter.
Quinn caught it and looked back at Vincent, who had dropped the gun and whose senses were clearly gone. He groaned, either in pain or from his lack of cognitive ability, and moved to attack Teddy Purcell. Hardening her expression, Quinn flicked the lighter on and held the fetish beneath it. The flames engulfed it, and she let it burn a moment before dropping it to the ice. The fire blackened the figure, and it quickly began to turn to ash.
Philippe went rigid in Dean’s grip all of a sudden, staring forward as if lost. “They’re gone.” He began to thrash about frantically. “They’re gone! May you all be cursed! Cursed to lead miserable lives and rot in hell!”
“Oho, buddy, I’ve been there,” Dean replied. “Not very good scenery, let me tell you.”
Sam peered out onto the ice a moment and then ran forward, dragging Philippe to his feet and shoving him. The man stumbled and hit the wall, his legs suddenly weak. “They burned it,” he said to Dean, relief in his tone. “He’s just a man now.”
Dean raised his pistol and aimed. “Good.”
“Wait!” Philippe exclaimed, holding his hands up. Already his body seemed frailer than it was before. “Please don’t kill me. My sister can’t lose her brother. I don’t deserve to die! Without their souls, I am just a sickly, dying man anyway!”
“Justice is all relevant,” Dean replied flatly. “An eye for an eye, if you ask me.” He pulled the trigger, and a bullet hammered through the man’s skull. Philippe slid down against the wall and hit the floor like a rock, dead and gone. Sighing, Dean holstered the gun and looked at his brother as the roar of growls and groans in the arena dulled to quiet moans. Sam leaned over the railing and saw dozens of people picking themselves up off the ground and holding their heads, clearly in pain—but sensible. A few dozen bodies simply fell to the ground and stayed there, dead. Their souls had not returned because their bodies were broken. They had simply moved on. The next round of cries were from pain and shock.
“It’s over,” Sam sighed.
“Yeah, finally,” Dean muttered. “This sucked. Dawn of the Dead can kiss my ass.”
Kimberly and Quinn walked into the Tampa General Hospital, followed by Sam and Dean Winchester. The place was crowded with dozens of recovering victims and their friends and families. Those whose bodies had survived their attacks were simply healing now, dealing with various wounds and a drastic amount of hunger and thirst. Some had not died from the attacks, but had died from their wounds. The funeral homes would be full in the next week, but what mattered was that it was all over.
“We’re with the CDC,” Dean said to the nurse at the front desk, and the four of them all showed badges. “Checking up on the victims and their healing process. We require full access to all patients.”
The nurse squinted at the badges momentarily before handing them special tags to clip to their clothing. “These will give you pass to see everyone.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, giving her a grateful smile before they filed down the hallway. They poked their heads in various doorways, locating the Rangers and Bolts players and speaking briefly with them. They all thanked the hunters for their help, which the four brushed off (except for Dean, who insisted every one of them owed him a drink). At last they moved on to the larger rooms, where several patients were held at a time. And, when spotting Heather St. Louis and her children, they knew they’d located the right rooms.
“Excuse us, Mrs. St. Louis,” Kimberly said, getting the woman’s attention. “We worked with your husband a while and—”
“You’re the hunters!” she exclaimed, smiling and throwing her arms around the girls. Dean frowned, feeling a bit left out. “Thank you,” she said, pulling away. Marty and the others told us about you guys and how you helped.” She looked at them all, smiling. “It’s thanks to you four that I have my husband back. The bullet wound in his side cleared most of his organs, thankfully, and he’ll be out after one surgical procedure and some recovery.”
“So he’s doing well?” Quinn asked. “And the others?”
“He is in pain, but he’s recovering,” she replied. She gestured toward the room before her. “He, Vinny, Steven, and Malone are in there. The next room over has Victor, Cory, Lindback, and BJ. The rest are in the other rooms—I’m not sure which ones.”
“Can we go in?” Quinn inquired.
“Yes, yes!” she exclaimed. “Please do. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”
The two girls made their way toward the door, but paused when the Winchesters lingered. “What’s wrong?” Kimberly asked.
“We’re gonna head out,” Sam said. “We’re done here, and I’ve already found another job for us in North Carolina.”
“You could stay and say hi to these guys,” Quinn said, frowning.
Dean shrugged and shook his head. “Nah. Even though we were here first, this is your job and your hockey team. We were just convenient backup.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You were pretty convenient, though.”
“Was that a compliment?” he asked Sam, eyebrows raised. Quinn punched his shoulder.
Kimberly held her hand out to Sam, smiling. “Well thanks for helping us out. We wouldn’t have done it without you guys.”
He took her hand and nodded, returning the smile. “Call us if you need us again.”
“Same goes for you guys,” Quinn said, snubbing Dean and holding her hand out instead to Sam. Dean sighed irritably as Sam tried not to laugh and shook her hand.
“We’ll catch you ladies on the flipside,” Dean said, putting his hands in his pockets and shrugging. “Come on, Sammy.”
“See you,” Kimberly called, and as the boys left, they entered the hospital room. Inside, St. Louis looked away from the wall-mounted TV and grinned when he recognized the two girls.
“Well look who it is,” he said, and the other boys turned to face them. Malone’s girlfriend immediately stood and rushed to the girls, hugging them tightly.
“Thank you so much for saving them,” she said, near tears. “I got lost in the crowd and somehow got pushed outside away from the attack, but Bugsy was still trapped inside and I just—” she let go of the girls and backed away, smiling gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” Vincent Lecavalier said from his hospital bed, smiling gratefully at them both and especially at Quinn. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Both girls smiled back awkwardly and Kimberly shifted on her feet, embarrassed. Quinn headed over to Vincent’s side and put a hand on his shoulder, sending him a warm glance before turning to face the others in the room. “So, are you guys up for watching Warm Bodies or something once you’re all released?”
A loud chorus of groans erupted from the men, and the hunters laughed. Kimberly, on the other side of the room, gave Steven a smile. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he replied, and gave her a lopsided grin. “Why d’you ask?”
She laughed. “Just checking up on you.”
Outside, Sam and Dean piled into the Impala and the elder brother cranked the engine. The car roared to life and ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man” began blaring on the radio as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot and hit the road.
“Zombies, man,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I’ll be damned if I watch The Walking Dead again.”
Sam chuckled, settling back comfortably in the passenger’s seat before saying, “So, Quinn wasn’t too hard to work with, huh?”
Dean frowned. “Yeah, she was fine. I told you it was fine.”
“Dude,” Sam said, smirking. “I can see why you two didn’t ‘work.’ She dumped your ass.”
“She did not!” Dean exclaimed, scowling. “We parted on mutual terms.”
His brother scoffed. “Yeah, sure you did. After the veritable smack down you received the other day—”
“Sammy,” Dean said, sending him a warning glance. “I swear I will drop your sorry little butt by the road and go to North Carolina without you.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam pulled out a map from the glovebox and began to trace their route toward Georgia. Dean cranked up the radio and began obnoxiously singing along as they cruised onto the main highway, on their way to their next job along the East Coast.
End
“We have to get it now, before it gets lost in this madness,” she said. “Quinn?”
Her hunting partner came up beside her, cocking the Mossberg. “Let’s go.”
“That’s insane!” Lecavalier said. “You’ll get bitten in that fray. We’re coming with you.”
“Don’t,” Quinn said, frowning. “If we go down, you guys have to try after us. Here.” She gave Lecavalier her lighter. “If we don’t make this, you light it on fire. It has to be burned.”
Killorn sliced down a zombie with the remaining machete and took the lighter from Lecavalier. “I got this. You go.”
Lecavalier frowned. “Alex, by yourself?”
He gestured to Bergeron, who was close by. “I’ll go with him if things get bad. Just go. Help them.”
Vincent nodded, turning to the girls and nodding. “I’ll cover you.”
Quinn didn’t like it, and her irritated expression showed as much. “Vinny…”
He offered her a smile. “Come on, blondie, time’s wasting.”
She huffed, turning to join to Kimberly, and the two girls began to make their way across the ice toward the talisman. Vincent carried along behind them, gunning down anyone in the way. He felt a zombie grab hold of his arm and something sliced across the flesh. Vincent saw the bite mark, and he ignored it. He had to. He beat the zombie back and focused on running, on keeping under control, and Quinn glanced back briefly—long enough to see the wound. She gasped, but he shook his head and pointed for her to keep running. She did. At the net, Kimberly stood a distance away and waved Quinn forward. “Go. Vinny and I gotcha.”
The smaller girl darted forward, dodging a fat teenage boy as he tumbled to the ground beside her, a fresh bullet wound in his torso. She searched frantically around the ice, trying to find the fetish, before spotting it at a zombie’s feet, being kicked around while it scrambled across the ice. She gestured to the group of zombies around it, and Kimberly and Vincent focused their firing on them.
“Hurry,” Vincent called, and Kimberly looked back to see his eyes paling.
“Oh god,” she said, frowning. “Vinny—”
“Just help her,” he said. “Hurry.”
Kimberly swallowed and dashed forward, using her gun as a blunt object and knocking zombies down. She shoved a large group out of Quinn’s way and pinned them against the boards. “Get it, Quinn!”
The blonde girl wrapped her fingers around the talisman just in time, before a zombie stepped down on her hand. Kimberly cried out in pain, and Quinn whirled around to see her struggling against a younger zombie that had bitten her arm. “Hurry!” she exclaimed, and tossed Quinn her lighter.
Quinn caught it and looked back at Vincent, who had dropped the gun and whose senses were clearly gone. He groaned, either in pain or from his lack of cognitive ability, and moved to attack Teddy Purcell. Hardening her expression, Quinn flicked the lighter on and held the fetish beneath it. The flames engulfed it, and she let it burn a moment before dropping it to the ice. The fire blackened the figure, and it quickly began to turn to ash.
Philippe went rigid in Dean’s grip all of a sudden, staring forward as if lost. “They’re gone.” He began to thrash about frantically. “They’re gone! May you all be cursed! Cursed to lead miserable lives and rot in hell!”
“Oho, buddy, I’ve been there,” Dean replied. “Not very good scenery, let me tell you.”
Sam peered out onto the ice a moment and then ran forward, dragging Philippe to his feet and shoving him. The man stumbled and hit the wall, his legs suddenly weak. “They burned it,” he said to Dean, relief in his tone. “He’s just a man now.”
Dean raised his pistol and aimed. “Good.”
“Wait!” Philippe exclaimed, holding his hands up. Already his body seemed frailer than it was before. “Please don’t kill me. My sister can’t lose her brother. I don’t deserve to die! Without their souls, I am just a sickly, dying man anyway!”
“Justice is all relevant,” Dean replied flatly. “An eye for an eye, if you ask me.” He pulled the trigger, and a bullet hammered through the man’s skull. Philippe slid down against the wall and hit the floor like a rock, dead and gone. Sighing, Dean holstered the gun and looked at his brother as the roar of growls and groans in the arena dulled to quiet moans. Sam leaned over the railing and saw dozens of people picking themselves up off the ground and holding their heads, clearly in pain—but sensible. A few dozen bodies simply fell to the ground and stayed there, dead. Their souls had not returned because their bodies were broken. They had simply moved on. The next round of cries were from pain and shock.
“It’s over,” Sam sighed.
“Yeah, finally,” Dean muttered. “This sucked. Dawn of the Dead can kiss my ass.”
Kimberly and Quinn walked into the Tampa General Hospital, followed by Sam and Dean Winchester. The place was crowded with dozens of recovering victims and their friends and families. Those whose bodies had survived their attacks were simply healing now, dealing with various wounds and a drastic amount of hunger and thirst. Some had not died from the attacks, but had died from their wounds. The funeral homes would be full in the next week, but what mattered was that it was all over.
“We’re with the CDC,” Dean said to the nurse at the front desk, and the four of them all showed badges. “Checking up on the victims and their healing process. We require full access to all patients.”
The nurse squinted at the badges momentarily before handing them special tags to clip to their clothing. “These will give you pass to see everyone.”
“Thank you,” Sam said, giving her a grateful smile before they filed down the hallway. They poked their heads in various doorways, locating the Rangers and Bolts players and speaking briefly with them. They all thanked the hunters for their help, which the four brushed off (except for Dean, who insisted every one of them owed him a drink). At last they moved on to the larger rooms, where several patients were held at a time. And, when spotting Heather St. Louis and her children, they knew they’d located the right rooms.
“Excuse us, Mrs. St. Louis,” Kimberly said, getting the woman’s attention. “We worked with your husband a while and—”
“You’re the hunters!” she exclaimed, smiling and throwing her arms around the girls. Dean frowned, feeling a bit left out. “Thank you,” she said, pulling away. Marty and the others told us about you guys and how you helped.” She looked at them all, smiling. “It’s thanks to you four that I have my husband back. The bullet wound in his side cleared most of his organs, thankfully, and he’ll be out after one surgical procedure and some recovery.”
“So he’s doing well?” Quinn asked. “And the others?”
“He is in pain, but he’s recovering,” she replied. She gestured toward the room before her. “He, Vinny, Steven, and Malone are in there. The next room over has Victor, Cory, Lindback, and BJ. The rest are in the other rooms—I’m not sure which ones.”
“Can we go in?” Quinn inquired.
“Yes, yes!” she exclaimed. “Please do. I’m sure they’ll be happy to see you.”
The two girls made their way toward the door, but paused when the Winchesters lingered. “What’s wrong?” Kimberly asked.
“We’re gonna head out,” Sam said. “We’re done here, and I’ve already found another job for us in North Carolina.”
“You could stay and say hi to these guys,” Quinn said, frowning.
Dean shrugged and shook his head. “Nah. Even though we were here first, this is your job and your hockey team. We were just convenient backup.”
Quinn rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You were pretty convenient, though.”
“Was that a compliment?” he asked Sam, eyebrows raised. Quinn punched his shoulder.
Kimberly held her hand out to Sam, smiling. “Well thanks for helping us out. We wouldn’t have done it without you guys.”
He took her hand and nodded, returning the smile. “Call us if you need us again.”
“Same goes for you guys,” Quinn said, snubbing Dean and holding her hand out instead to Sam. Dean sighed irritably as Sam tried not to laugh and shook her hand.
“We’ll catch you ladies on the flipside,” Dean said, putting his hands in his pockets and shrugging. “Come on, Sammy.”
“See you,” Kimberly called, and as the boys left, they entered the hospital room. Inside, St. Louis looked away from the wall-mounted TV and grinned when he recognized the two girls.
“Well look who it is,” he said, and the other boys turned to face them. Malone’s girlfriend immediately stood and rushed to the girls, hugging them tightly.
“Thank you so much for saving them,” she said, near tears. “I got lost in the crowd and somehow got pushed outside away from the attack, but Bugsy was still trapped inside and I just—” she let go of the girls and backed away, smiling gratefully. “Thank you.”
“Yeah,” Vincent Lecavalier said from his hospital bed, smiling gratefully at them both and especially at Quinn. “We wouldn’t be here without you.”
Both girls smiled back awkwardly and Kimberly shifted on her feet, embarrassed. Quinn headed over to Vincent’s side and put a hand on his shoulder, sending him a warm glance before turning to face the others in the room. “So, are you guys up for watching Warm Bodies or something once you’re all released?”
A loud chorus of groans erupted from the men, and the hunters laughed. Kimberly, on the other side of the room, gave Steven a smile. “How are you?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” he replied, and gave her a lopsided grin. “Why d’you ask?”
She laughed. “Just checking up on you.”
Outside, Sam and Dean piled into the Impala and the elder brother cranked the engine. The car roared to life and ZZ Top’s “Sharp-Dressed Man” began blaring on the radio as he pulled out of the hospital parking lot and hit the road.
“Zombies, man,” Dean said, shaking his head. “I’ll be damned if I watch The Walking Dead again.”
Sam chuckled, settling back comfortably in the passenger’s seat before saying, “So, Quinn wasn’t too hard to work with, huh?”
Dean frowned. “Yeah, she was fine. I told you it was fine.”
“Dude,” Sam said, smirking. “I can see why you two didn’t ‘work.’ She dumped your ass.”
“She did not!” Dean exclaimed, scowling. “We parted on mutual terms.”
His brother scoffed. “Yeah, sure you did. After the veritable smack down you received the other day—”
“Sammy,” Dean said, sending him a warning glance. “I swear I will drop your sorry little butt by the road and go to North Carolina without you.”
Rolling his eyes, Sam pulled out a map from the glovebox and began to trace their route toward Georgia. Dean cranked up the radio and began obnoxiously singing along as they cruised onto the main highway, on their way to their next job along the East Coast.
End
@CanadaHockey Can't*
12/30/13