Hanging Out.... Downtown

Duck and weave, duck and weave. It was great way to box, but it was not so useful if your opponent was only interested in the grapple. Aikido worked wonders in submission and counter holds, but even that relied on having an opponent who was disinterested in hurting himself or herself. Moreover, let us discuss the theory of center mass targeting which states to always aim for the largest target presented by your foe, the chest. ALL of these life lessons instilled through years of rigorous military training proved useless when confronted by an undead sprinter.

Not only did they not mind pain, but also even if you placed fifty rounds into their chest it would not really stop them. Sure muscle damage from bullet wounds affected them fine and dandy, sever a tendon they lost use of a muscle. And if it was say the Achilles Tendon they no longer ran. But since the Blasted little shits didn’t feel pain they could still hobble well enough. And if you placed one in a complete arm lock submission hold the stupid Freak would break its own body to come after you. Obviously based on this simple life altering facts even a highly trained commando could run into errant problems every now and then. This was one such scene.

Backed smartly into a dead end alleyway Reise found himself in an interesting predicament. True he had three rounds still in his shotgun, and even had a hand full left for his Winchester. Sure, any civilian could take those rounds and kill three Zeds. Nevertheless, when two where pissed off Dobermans and the third was a highly busted up sprinter it changed the math, especially when you did not want to use any bullets you might need later. To say, kill yourself when this fight went badly for instance.

Reise knew this was a bad place, in fact he knew he should have drawn a gun and not his knives, but three days without sleep, and no knowledge of any nearby rations had left him a little bit maddened. Therefore, his taunting of the Zeds before him was not as unintelligent as it may seem. Though how he added a badger and drunken donkey into this Zeds heritage was a mystery to any one that might have heard the shouts during the scuffle that happened before the dogs showed up.

As it stood now Reise was holding his knives in the actual tradition style. The one in his right hand held blade up, offensively, and the on in his left blade running along his forearm, defensively. Two dogs would be far harder to fight then normal human Zeds. Thankfully, they did not rush in before he had taken his readied stance. However, as the Zed screamed in Rage, the Dogs barked and charged headlong at the lone lunatic. Both dogs moved in tandem, charging forward with similar speeds. Nevertheless, a full on frontal assault was going to be Reise’s hastily made plan.

While charging forward at the puppies he threw his right hand Kukri at the faster of the two quadrupeds, but not with the accuracy he had intended. His only really saving grace was that he hit hard into the right side of its chest, and the nearly two pound knife had forced it off balance. Moreover the nearly foot long and four inch at its widest point blade did some terrible damage as it sunk in. the beast lost several very important muscles and tendons for controlling its front leg, not to mention the fall it took face first at top speed twisting the long curved blade.

Regrettably, there was no time to survey the damage done to the first mutt as the second took a long jump up at him, instinctively he raised his left arm and let the dog bite down on his remaining blade, and it broke several teeth, but also brought Reise down to the ground with the force of the impact. For a moment, he was jarred and his pressure on the dog laxed, but it was only for that moment, as soon as he was on his back, he grabbed the dog by the back of its neck and pressed his dagger in deeper as it tried to snap at him. Had it not been for the heavy leather jacket he was wearing its claws surely would have ripped gashes in his flesh as it flailed at him with everything it could. As it stood, his jacket was getting fairly close to becoming trash.

Rolling hard while still holding the dog he ripped its head aside using leverage from his knife, a bone jarring Crunch was heard and the dog went limp. However, he knew this was far from over. Taking his knife back he rolled twice to get away from the now dead Ani-Zed on the ground, and using his ears he took pause to find the other two beasts. The other undead dog was quickly shredding its own muscles while it fought to move with a giant knife buried in its chest. Nevertheless, it was recovering and now up on its three working limbs clumsily.

The beaten up sprinter was hobbling towards him at a pace that concealed its former agility. Nevertheless, after a hyper-extended elbow, a deep gash across its hamstring, and a cracked ankle it was expected for it to be slower. Hell Reise was surprised it was not crawling.

Reise moved his blade in a quick fluid motion. He flipped it around so the edge was forward and then changed the hand that it was in so it was back in his dominant right hand, the whole process took only a split second and the blade never left his grip in any flashy Hollywood manner, this was a fight that might end him. So even slightly crazy from lack of sleep he was not taking any truly rash chances, his combat training had kicked in earlier and even though previously he had tortured and tormented, now he was all game face and no time to spare.

A quick flip up off the ground had him back on his feet and facing his fellow combatants. He moved towards the dog as he hobbled his way. And in one motion dropped to his knee while he brought down his blade burying it deep in the foul things skull and ending its borrowed existence. Leaving his blades in the now fully dead animal, he looked at the Zed coming his way.

“Where were we twinkle toes?”

He took a combat ready stance, there was no need for it against a half defeated Zed but he took it out of habit. Once the creature moved in close enough, he reached out and grabbed its right arm. A quick fluid twist and a bone crunch later he had hyper-extended its other arm. But he was not done. His spin continued as he ducked under the broken arm and applied more pressure to dislocate its shoulder. Then he shoved it forward. Obviously it lost its balance and had no way to catch it self any longer.

Yet it still groaned and tried to squirm ever slowly towards Reise. And maybe if he slept the night right here where he was standing the creature MIGHT have been a bother in eight hours. However, probably only because its insistent moaning and flailing would attract of Zeds that were less crippled. With a sigh of depression, Reise moved over and ripped both of his dripping blades free of the Ani-Zed he had just killed and he moved back over to the one trying to crawl with only one arm.

He dropped like a bomb his knee impacted and breaking its middle back as he drove his Kukri knife into its brain. The squirming, groaning, and moaning stopped all at once. and with another final rip he removed his blade and then went to un-tucking the Zeds shirt to clean off his weapons. That was when he found it, the glistening nickel plating calling to his hand to grip and withdraw. It’s cool steel touch and somehow warm wood grips beckoning him to molest it gently with his grimy hand.

Flipping it over to inspect the object let him see the engraved markings on its grip and slide. This caused him to pull the lump out of the back pocket of the now dead Zed and sigh. The police detective badge staring him in the face. With a more polite, but still meticulous search, he went over the body. The concealed holster and the berretta compact nine mil were claimed. So was the spare magazine and folding knife he found. As were a set of cuffs and the all-important key to them.

He double-checked the body afterwards but that was it on this one. So tucking the nine millimeter pistol and holster into his belt, not worrying to conceal it, he stood up with two clean knives and sheathed those next. All in all it was not that bad of a day. At least it hadn’t been up until this exact second.

Regrettably that was not likely to continue. As he popped out his earplugs to get a good unimpeded listen he heard a lot of shuffling. And someone moving fast on their feet towards him. GREAT he thought. Here come the Zombie Calvary……. So he drew the new firearm and moved quickly to the mouth of the alley way to look out. Either it was a runner and a small horde. Or someone in need, and a small horde. Either one would call for a gun it seemed.