Stewart watched Max's face and remained quiet as he gave her a progress report, “Tom and the others are at the next house over. They are not getting out of the car, just pulling up in front of the house. I don't sense any zombies over there. One of ours is at the porch steps. He is looking down, almost right at us.” Max sighed in what sounded like relief to Stewart, “He is not a slow one, there is a woman carrying the kid behind him. She is fast too, I think faster than the man.”
“I thought you couldn't tell?”
“They get close, I can tell, I don't know why. The little one looks, weird, fast maybe?”
“What?”
Max raised his finger to his lips and whispered, “It is different than the other two, I get if they were male or female, but the kid is…different.”
Upstairs they heard the door swing open slowly. Then a muffled female voice called, “C'mon, get in here before they see! Hurry it up, don't touch anything and stay away from the windows!”
The voice moved away from the front door and they could hear some muffled movement upstairs, then everything went quiet.
“Well?” whispered Max.
“We do this. They stopped in the living room. I can hear them whispering up there, but I can't make out what they are saying.”
Max shook his head, “How can you hear them? I haven't heard a thing since the woman told the other one to stay away from the windows.”
“I just hear them is all, you can't hear them?”
“Not like that.”
“Well that is where they are and what they are doing, let's try to get them without the guns.”
Max slowly swung the bathroom door open and they quietly moved to the base of the stairs that led up into the kitchen. The stairs were normal wood and neither of them were intimately familiar with the house, they could not recall if the stairs were squeaky or not. Shrugging his shoulders Max started up slowly, with each step he planted his foot, then slowly put his weight down on it before taking the next step. At the top the door to the kitchen was closed, but they had left it unlatched. Catching a glimpse of a shadow in the kitchen Max set his shotgun down on the top step, leaving it upright and leaning against the corner of the wall where the door was.
Amelia's voice loudly spoke into Max's ear, startling him, and almost causing him to fumble the shotgun as he set it down. “Anything? We haven't seen anyone yet.” Max reached down and turned the radio on his belt off, thankful he had at least remembered to put in the ear buds. Up in the kitchen he heard someone moving around, had they heard the noise from the ear bud?
“Charlie?” the female voice called out from the living room, “You see anything?”
“No.” came the slow reply.
“You keep watch out the back, but don't stand in front of the windows or doors.”
They heard Charlie move into the kitchen a brief shadow passed in front of the basement door.
“Him first.” Stewart said.
Max nodded, and wondered how it was he was in the lead. He moved up to the top step, tensed himself and burst into the kitchen as quietly as he could. Standing in front of the back door was a tanned man with scraggly black hair who was about six feet tall. He was of moderate size with more fat than muscle on his frame, nonetheless he twirled quickly enough when the door was shoved open.
Max swung his bat sideways and Charlie blocked it with his forearm, not even attempting to catch it with his hand. A loud crack shot through the basement and it was not the bat which broke. Charlie swung his other hand in a punch that ended at Max's face. Max tried to roll with the blow, but it was coming too fast and he was moving in the wrong direction, the hit knocked him sideways into the kitchen sink and he bounced his head off of it and rebound onto the ground behind him. Stewart leapt forward and smashed the man with the crowbar, it hit him on his upper arm, the opposite arm that Max had broke. The head of the crowbar swung around behind the zombie's arm and smashed through it's ribs. Stewart made one attempt to pull it out then she was tackled from behind by the zombie woman. Both of them crashed into the man, who was pushed into the back door, where the glass shattered out onto all of them. Max bounced back to his feet, shaking his head to clear the stars out of his eyes, looking down he saw the two woman struggling on top of the man, who was just laying there with both arms twitching. The woman would have been five foot seven standing up and perhaps a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet…if she were carrying a ten pound bag of potatoes. The zombie woman was wearing a snuggy, a device designed to carry infants in front of the wearer and leave the user's hands free.
The snuggy was empty, where was the kid? Max found it without seeing in the living room, probably on a chair if his memory was correct. The kid was not moving so he filed it in the 'worry about it later' category and reached down to grab the mother's foot. Once he had a good hold he pulled her off of Stewart, who rolled clear of Charlie and pulled out her pistol.
The zombie woman twisted from Max's hand and scrambled away on her hands and knees, the kitchen was of good size, but she couldn't go far. Stewart was up and had her handgun out, she took a shot at Charlie as he got to his feet, the zombie man shrugged off the bullet and grabbed a cast iron frying pan off of the counter. When Stewart fired again it hit the bottom of the pan and ricocheted through the window of the back door. Aiming lower Stewart shot the zombie in the groin and upper thighs, Charlie bellowed in rage and flung the frying pan at her, she almost blocked the pan in time, it deflected off of her pistol and into her forehead. Stewart took one step back, staggering as her forehead turned red and then blue. Another step toppled her over backwards down the open door to the basement below.
Max had his own pistol out, but he could not get a bead on the woman, he took a shot anyway, doing nothing was more likely to get one or both of them killed. The bullet hit the woman's ankle as she slowed to try and pull herself upright.
She screamed, “Charlie! He is killing me!”
Charlie had just finished tossing the pan at Stewart, he turned around and grabbed the tea kettle from the counter, then swung that in an overhand arc at Max, who lined up his pistol at the same time. The kettle deflected off of Max's arms as he held his pistol, however it wasn't enough to ruin his shot completely, his bullet hit the zombie woman in the neck, just below her skull, she fell into the sink and lay there twitching while Charlie looked for the next pan or pot to throw at Max.
At the same time both of their eyes fell upon the block of kitchen knives on the counter, Max fired as Charlie reached for the knives, the bullet went wide and flew into the kitchen cabinet where there was a sound of breaking glass.
“Fuck, don't you ever get weaker?” Max yelled as the zombie continued making his legs work despite the damage Stewart had inflicted upon him. Something brushed up against Max's leg, he tried to move sideways away from it, fearing it was a zombie toddler. His heel came down upon a squishy bit of flesh that rolled slightly as he put his weight on it, beneath him the zombie baby let out a squall of indignation and wrapped its arms around Max's leg.
“Fuck!” he was standing on one of the baby's feet, the kid tried to bite him, but the small teeth he had could not get through Max's jeans, while he was looking down a knife struck him handle first in his chest, the impact was so soft that he almost laughed. The next knife spun more true and Max blocked it with his left arm, taking a cut in return. “Goddamn it! Enough of this shit!” he stepped back off of the baby's leg and then shook his other foot trying to dislodge the baby.
Charlie yelled, “Leave my baby alone!” and charged at Max with a knife in each hand. Max had one hand bracing himself against the doorway between the living room and the kitchen and one leg up off the floor shaking the baby around trying to get it off of him, in his right hand he still had his trusty revolver.