This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
"Where is the last corpse?" Inquisitor Ricci asked.
"Hmm?" Bautista replied.
"There is supposed to be one more cadaver. One couple, the delivery man, and the Officio Medicae official on duty at the morgue. That leaves an additional plague zombie."
Ricci nodded curtly. In a flash, Rafferty and Rostislav were moving, sweeping the morgue.
"Major, to me."
The Inquisitor turned to follow his men, green robes billowing out behind him.
Bautista sighed, looking back at Stephenson's corpse, and shuddering. Almost every part of her was a burned husk. But not those eyes. Not those damned, accusing eyes, that seemed to still stare directly at him, no matter where he moved.
With one last shudder down his spine, Bautista left the room, following Inquisitor Ricci.
Rafferty sighed, finally lowering his shotgun;
"It isn't in the morgue, wherever it is. I reckon we ought to start sweeping the town."
Inquisitor Ferdinand Ricci was covered up in the folds of his green robe now, green hood pulled low to obscure his face, his arms crossed in front of him, hands within his sleeves. The golden pendants of the aquila and Inquisitorial insignia around his neck were clearly visible.
"Indeed. Let us go."
The small team turned, heading back for the main door to the morgue. When they arrived however, the door was hanging open. A hunched form stood in the doorway.
Rafferty raised his shotgun, Bautista his las-pistol. The igniter on Rostislav's flamer switched on.
Moaning, the creature lurched forward, obscured by the shadows of the doorway momentarily.
When it passed into the light, it became clear that whoever it had been in life, it had not been the rancher wife Ms. Bee. It was huge, and male, large muscles rippling along its body, its flesh gray and rotting. A long tear mark was clear along its throat.
"By the throne..." Bautista muttered to himself, raising his weapon.
"Emperor be damned, the infection has spread! Major, dispatch this beast, we have no time!"
A single beam of red light from Bautista's las-pistol tore through the creature's chest. Another in its throat, and the third hitting home, just between the eyes.
Quickly, the corpse was consumed by Rostislav's flamer. But by now a many-thronged chorus could be heard in the night air. A requiem of low, long, groans. The groans of the hungry dead. Hungry for the sweet, warm, flesh of the still living. Hungry for the flesh of Major James de la Bautista.
Hurrying to the double doors, Ricci flung them open. What he saw was a seemingly endless army of shambling, groaning, corpses. Bautista's truck was sitting amongst them, at the bottom of the flight of stairs leading up to the morgue. It was only a few feet. It seemed a world away, now.
Ricci slammed the door against one of the creatures as it shambled towards him and turned back.
"Major, we will have to get to your truck. That is going to require quite a firefight. How long do you think it will take you to get into the truck and get it started?"
"A few seconds, five or ten, tops."
"Seems like a short amount of time in here. Out there, it will not."
"Very well then. Let's go."
The double doors burst open and Rafferty's shotgun rang out in the clear night, blasting two of the monsters away. Gouts of flame poured forth from Rostislav's weapon as the two troopers cleared the way, Bautista coming up behind with the Inquisitor, snapping off shots from his las-pistol. The reanimated corpses that had been James de la Bautista's friends and neighbors swarmed in, maws open and snapping, hungry for the flesh of the living.
Kicking a creature in its abdomen, Rafferty shot it in the chest as it bowled down the stairs, taking a number of the plague zombies with it.
They were halfway down the stairs, now. Rostislav's flamer and Rafferty's shotgun taking out swathes of the infernal creatures of Chaos, filling the night air with the stink of burning flesh and coagulated blood.
Rafferty slammed six more shells into his weapon, pumping buckshot into the creatures. Suddenly, a man Bautista recognized as the owner of the local general store lunged forward, jaws open to tear out the pale man's throat.
"Rafferty! Look out!" Bautista cried, raising his las-pistol.
He managed to send a las-bolt through the monster's left temple, but when it tumbled to the ground, it hit the trooper in the shoulder, knocking him over. The hungry dead were on him in seconds. Bautista nearly wanted to vomit, watching them tear apart his carapace armor, ripping out intestines and inner organs. He felt bile fill his throat as he saw one of them biting down into Rafferty's eyeball.
"There is no time! Get to the truck!" Ricci cried out, pulling Bautista forward as he hurried down the steps, making use of the zombies' momentary distraction.
Getting to the truck, Bautista fumbled with the keys while Rostislav continued to create a wall of fire between them and the handful of zombies which had followed them. Finally getting the key in the lock, Bautista jumped into the truck.
"Get in!" he cried out to the other two. Inquisitor Ricci leaped into the passenger's seat and Rostislav clambered up into the bed, dropping his flamer in favor of the heavy stubber pintle-mounted in the back.
Turning on the ignition, Bautista slammed on the pedals, screeching over the bodies of multiple plague zombies and off into the night, leaving behind the tiny hamlet in favor of the dark fields of the night. It wouldn't be long before they were followed. Followed by the hungry dead.
Hive World Terra