Sure, the sword itself had done damage to those I’d petrified, and maybe that would be enough, but…damn this transformation. Why couldn’t it come with a handy-dandy set of rules, like the Gremlins. “Don’t feed after midnight” and all that jazz. But, oh no, I had to learn as I went. For all I knew, I was one bean burrito away from paralyzing an entire taco joint with a gas cloud. My brain did its little digression dance as I tried not to see the bodies and parts the zombie army had left behind…a hand here, an ear or gristle or something absolutely unidentifiable there. Down the hall there was a zombie left behind, trying to pull enough of itself together to lunge at us. It was half in and half out of the elevator. That’s what had kept it from closing and coming when called. The zombie’s back had been crushed by an overhead light that had been pulled down on top of it. It was a pitiful sight—trapped, broken, bloody, but still trying to rise. One that made me wonder whether it was kinder to put the thing out of its misery.
