Orpheus Read Online Free PDF

enough to do a cursory check of the body. There were no obvious bite marks.
    You died as yourself. Good one on you, pal.
    He gave Orpheus a thumbs up and walked over to the small window next to the projector. He looked below into the seating area but couldn't make out a thing. He pulled out a compact set of night vision goggles and switched them on. The room below was immediately bathed in a green glow...
    Red light, green light, it's like Christmas...
    ...and he started counting zombies.
    He counted twice and got eight both times. He flashed five fingers then three more to let Orpheus know the count.
    Orpheus said, “We're safe to talk right now. Hand them over.” He held out his hand to receive the goggles. He looked through them for a few seconds and said, “Training opportunity. Let's say I wanted you to go down there and put them down. How would you do it?”
    Tim wasn't sure if it was a test or a trick question or some other kind of setup, so he decided to just answer the question honestly and hoped that Orpheus approved. “I wouldn't. First thing I'd do would be look for a way to avoid them. Barring that, I'd slide open that window and shoot them from up here.”
    “Not bad. But this one time, we're going to take them head on. You need to bust your cherry in a semi-controlled environment before you step in some real shit. Understand?”
    “Yes, sir.”
    “Lead the way.”
    Tim took point and motioned for the others to follow him. When they got to the entrance to the theater Tim was about to request some light when two high-powered beams flared behind him. His own shadow startled him for a second, but he thought that went unnoticed. He hoped so.
    Orpheus and Mutt were the two who weren't holding flashlights, and they had their weapons raised and ready. Mutt put his free hand on the door and said, “Don't freak. You got backup,” and opened the door much faster than Tim would have liked.
    Tim dropped the first one with a clean shot to the head before any of them had turned around.
    After that, things got a little tense.
     
    * * *
     
    When the first one dropped, Tim thought it might be a piece of cake. When he dropped the second, thought he may have given the zombies too much credit to rise to the level of piece of cake. They were sloooow, and too uncoordinated to even figure out a way to get to him because of the obstacles that the rows of seats presented.
    To punish him for being cocky, a Sprinter who had been shambling only seconds before started down the aisle at him. A second one actually began climbing clumsily, but effectively, over the seats.
    I had no idea they could do that.
    Rationally, Tim knew that the zombies, regardless of how old or new, lacked the higher brain functions involved in deceit. They simply reacted to the new stimulus.
    However, his paranoid mind believed that the bastards had been playing possum.
    Thankfully, his body reacted faster than his mind did, and he took the Sprinter in the aisle with two shots to the chest. It wasn't dead, but it did get tangled up under the seats when it fell, and Tim felt extremely lucky for that as the second one vaulted over the last two rows separating the two of them.
    Only one thought flashed through Tim's mind as the airborne zombie closed in on him: I don't have time to shoot. He instinctively thrust his hands forward, dropped his weapon in the process, and used the zombie's momentum to propel it safely past into the seats several rows away. Tim heard something crunch when it landed, but he was under no illusions that whatever had broken in its body would stop it from coming again.
    Tim scrambled for his gun and knocked it further under the seats. He looked over his shoulder and, as he'd feared, the zombie had righted itself and was coming towards him again, its arm bent at a weird angle at the elbow.
    Tim heard a pop and the Sprinter dropped where it stood. A few more followed and the rest of the zombies, most of which Tim had forgotten about