I winced. This was not beautiful. Richard nearly stabbed himself in the hand.
Sensei stepped forward, close to Richard, and said something quietly. Richard blushed, but he stepped back and said, “Yes, Sensei.”
From the wall, Danny said loudly, “Be back before dark, right?”
Lou held her finger to her lips and Danny laughed, making no effort to keep his voice down. Once an asshole, always an asshole.
We turned away and a minute later I heard the gate shut and the bar drop. Sensei led us on, sticking to the road first, going toward the zombie that Danny had shot from the wall. Ten feet short, Sensei stamped his foot hard on the ground.
The body twitched.
Sensei shook his head and stepped back.
Danny had made all that noise for nothing. The shot had grazed the side of the zombie’s head, tearing away an ear, but the central nervous system disconnect hadn’t happened. It pushed itself up on all fours and looked at us. It was bald and scabby but it had been a woman once. A pearl earring, still shiny in the sun, hung from the remaining ear. Once I saw that I couldn’t help looking for the other earring. Yep, there it was on the asphalt, six feet up the road, still attached to the other earlobe.
“Lou,” said Sensei.
“Hai.” Lou slid forward, feet brushing across the asphalt.
Richard gave her an angry glance but Lou’s attention was focused on the zombie. As she moved closer it shoved up with its arms, coming upright on its knees. Lou drew and cut with one motion, horizontal, her left arm pulling sharply back on the scabbard as the tip cleared.
The sword cut cleanly through the neck. The body dropped down and the head bounced off the payment and rolled to the side.
Sensei nodded.
Lou cleaned her blade with alcohol, put the sword back in its saya, and threw up in the ditch.
Richard opened his mouth to say something but I turned sharply so my saya struck his hip. When he turned, frowning, to look at me I said, “Oh. Sorry.”
Sensei glanced back at us, then pointed out across the soybeans to a figure shambling in our direction. “Yours, Rosa. Richard, you go along and observe.” He lifted two fingers up and pushed them toward his eyes.
“Yes, Sensei,” I said. “Eyes open.”
Richard walked directly toward the zombie but I said, “Walk in the rows. Come winter, we’ll be eating these beans if you leave any alive.” I didn’t look to see how he took that but set off briskly between two rows of plants at right angles to the road. My zombie swung its head toward me and changed course. It was one of the stupider ones, unable to predict an intercept point, so it walked in a constantly changing curve, always turning toward me.
When I was halfway there I saw a dark spot, two rows over. I held up my?hand and looked back at Richard but he wasn’t watching me or the rows; his eyes were on the moving zombie. “Richard!” I hissed.
He jerked to a stop. Ten feet in front of him, the dark spot sat up. It was missing one arm from the elbow down, possibly shot off by one of the wall guards, but it got to its feet surprisingly quick. It had been a man, tall and thin, and it was closer to Richard than I was. When it lurched toward him, Richard, his face white as a sheet, took a step forward, drew, and cut.
Richard’s arm was clenched so tight that the cutting arc was abbreviated, slicing the air in front of the zombie.
I reached it, then, from the side, and hamstrung it, cutting the tendons behind the knees. It flopped down but kept crawling forward, toward Richard.
“Finish it!” I said quietly, and headed back toward my original target.
This one had been a soldier, combat fatigues still recognizable, but too stained to read the insignia. I took a stance ten feet before it, hasso, sword above my right shoulder. As it took one last step I went forward and cut, kesa, upper right to lower left. When I’d finished the stroke, its head and right arm lay to my left and the rest of it lay at my feet.
I turned back, to see how Richard was doing.
He’d managed to cut off the other arm and into the zombie’s spine, mid-back, which had at least stopped it shoving forward with its legs. At that point, finally, Richard had managed the head, though it had been high. He’d cut through even with the ears so the top of the head was on the ground but the lower jaw, tongue extending oddly upward, still hung on the neck.
“Lovely. Clean your sword,” I said, getting out my own baggie of alcohol-soaked rags.
We’d all had the vaccination but it was only seventy-five percent effective. Better to take all precautions.