The boat had beached. The Fore priests disembarked without interrupting their song.
"This is it, people." Chester's voice was loud but calm. "Everyone do their part and we'll get through this. Shift!"
The Garners moved. Before the zombies reached them they had formed a wedge, with Mary-em at the peak. They moved toward the rocks at quick-march.
They stopped and turned when the animated army was ten paces away. Chester raised Gina's staff. His fingers ran across its keyboard. Ruby spirals ran down its length, and light flashed from the tip to bathe the front line.
Felicia caught fire. The zombie screamed a wavering wail that would have torn meat from a human throat, and she fell, smoking and throwing sparks. The two to either side were incinerated as well, but Chester's beam was flickering.
S,J.'s zombie had lurched behind one of its undead fellows, sparing him from the initial blast. In another second the rest of the force had passed the smoking corpses and were on the Garners.
The dead Engineer went straight for Margie. She almost stepped out of the circle to meet him, restraining herself at the last moment. She met his downward stroke and growled menacingly.
Griffin kept a measured distance from Holly, and went to work. The blows were coming in a little faster, a little more elusively, and before three minutes had passed two small new patches of red flowed on his limbs. He set his teeth and sent a zombie to the sand with a diagonal crimson wedge creasing his head.
Chester's voice rose above the din. "Keep moving!"
Mary-em screaming and chopping at the cutting edge, the Garners clove the ranks of the Undead. Slowly at first, then with increasing speed the besieged Gainers won their way toward the Fore priests. The eight defenders were roused to frenzied heights now, as they saw the priests back away and move toward their boat. Mary-em swore foully and burst through the zombie wall, breaking formation to do it.
Her short legs blurred as she charged across the sand, diving at the closest Fore and cutting him down at the legs. He fell to the beach at the edge of the water, and rolled in. The surf foamed red.
The second priest paused a fatal instant to gape at his fellow's fate, then sloshed through the water, pushing the boat away from shore. The undead oarsman sat passively. It had received no new orders.
Tony threw his machete.
(Somewhere outside the world, a computer chose among random numbers-)
The blade made a single revolution and slashed into the Fore's shoulder. He screamed as he clawed back at the evil growth; then kept going, pulling the boat one-handed.
Ollie splashed out with Lady Janet behind him. The Fore tried to stop Offle's sword with his bare hand, and failed. While the other Gainers held off the zombies, Janet pulled the boat back toward shore.
Ollie joined her. They had nearly beached the craft, dead passenger and all, when S.J. splashed in and cut Ollie down from behind.
Ollie's aura flashed red. He spun around, and zombie S.J. swung again. In the moment Ollie died, he parried and chopped, and S.J.'s head went black.
Chester shoved Lady Janet into the boat, and helped Margie in
after her. The oarsman did not protest as they tumbled it out. Tony piled in and pulled Acacia up, then fended off a slash from a zombie wading in the surf.
After Holly squeezed in, only Griffin and Mary-em were left out, and there seemed to be no remaining room. "Griffin!" Acacia yelled, indicating her lap. Alex yanked Mary-em toward the boat, and she hissed at him. "Get out of here. You have to survive, Griffin." She butted him toward the boat with her shoulder.
He pulled at her belt. "Idiot! Swim and hold onto the boat!"
She nodded. They backed into the waves, then swam for it. The boat was moving out as Tony and Holly took the oars; they paused long enough for Griffin and Mary-em to grip the stern.
The terrible minions of the Fore waded into the water now, until it rose above their mouths. And even then they marched on, dead eyes blazing as they vanished beneath the lapping waves.
Margie touched a hand uneasily to her chest as the boat pulled out from shore. She watched the zombies vanish. "They almost made it all the way-"
Mary-em yelped and sank.
"Alex! Into the boat!" Acacia wasn't waiting; she pulled him over the stern by main force. A greenish-black hand fastened on his ankle and he yelled. Tony slashed; the hand glowed red and sank. Alex sprawled into the boat, onto the knees of the other Garners.
Now glistening dead hands gripped on both sides, and grinning dead faces surfaced, eyes unblinking and filled with hunger.
As Tony and Holly rowed, Griffin scrambled off Acacia's lap and chopped at heads and hands. The boat rocked unsteadily as he fought for balance, swinging his sword from a crouch.
A joyful scream cleft the air as they reached the Spruce Goose. Tony tied the line in and helped Holly up. She nodded briskly and pulled herself up the rope ladder and through the open door.
They heard her jubilant shout. "Cargo!"
Behind her Tony yelled, "Look out!" She turned as a gibbering Fore priest hurled a snake at her.
Her hand blurred as she whipped her short sword into a tight S and dropped to the floor. The snake separated into halves and flopped to either side. "Hear me, 0-" she had to interrupt herself to roll away as the priest threw another snake. She chopped off its head as it hit the floor.
Her roll took her ankle close to the first snake's severed front end. Dying, it bit.
"Drown you!" She stomped at it and stood, lurching toward the priest, who bared filed teeth and hissed vilely. Her aura was blackening from the ankle upward. "Hear me 0 Gods," she cried, "give me fire!"
The priest gestured defensively. The flames from Holly's fingertips veered to either side. Holly's wakizashi stabbed through the flame and caught the Fore in the throat.
The Fore fell. Holly, her aura quite black, collapsed gracefully on top of him.
Chester was the last Gamer through the door. He shut it hard behind him. "All right, let's see-" His eyes found the sprawled bodies, and he winced. "Oliver, Mary-em, Holly... Christ, what a Game." Then he saw further. "She was right. This is it."
The shadowed walls seemed to curve up and up forever, meeting at an indistinct ceiling. The hold was piled impossibly high with Cargo. Packages of all shapes and sizes filled the hold, in fact blocked it to the very roof.
"Margie. Is your rating good enough to fly this thing?"
She pursed her lips thoughtfully, but didn't answer directly. "Let's find the cockpit."
The cockpit was at the top of a stairway. Its door was slightly ajar, and Alex poked his sword ahead of himself cautiously, then entered.
Footing was unsteady in the relative darkness, but there was light ahead, streaming through the dusty windows. The cockpit was musty with disuse, but nothing seemed to be broken. There were panels filled with antique meters and dials.
Margie followed him in and pointed to the pilot's and copilot's chairs. "That's what I need," she said, and pushed gently past him, swinging around the pilot's seat.
She jumped back, stumbling, and steadied herself against Alex. He turned snarling, blade at the ready, then relaxed.
A mouldered skeleton slumped in the chair. Pieces of cloth stuck to the bones.
"Whew." Margie edged closer to it and nudged it with her toe. "All right. I don't think it's going to be moving around much, now that we've killed the priests." She carefully turned to the other chair, and sighed as she found another skeleton. "Gary...riffin, would you help me get this out of the pilot's seat, dear?"
He trundled it back out of the cabin and to the cargo sections. Bones fell loose; he went back for them.