the little children raise their open filthy palms

chapter four

Chapter four

Phil has checked and double-checked everyone’s outfits. Over and over he’s gone over their plan in his head, calculating and careful and terrified. Even Techno is visibly nervous right now, bouncing slightly on his toes every time he stands and obsessively checking his body for weaponry at any moment. Tommy and Tubbo haven’t left each other's sides, and even Dream and George and Sapnap have been visibly on edge.

“Ready?” Dream asks from his position in front of the group. They’re at the town square now, the sun high in the sky. If Phil had to guess, he would say it’s around noon. He’s warm, under all the layers of clothes he’s wearing, but it’s necessary. He’d rather be sweaty than dead.

“We’re good, big D!” calls Tommy from behind. Tubbo’s voice follows, nervous laughter.

From behind them, there’s George’s shout and Wilbur’s from a building a bit farther away. They’ve got crossbows and bolts for ages, safer up in the buildings and ready to cover from above.

“Ready,” says Techno, bouncing.

Sapnap just nods.

Phil’s hands are shaking.

“Ready,” he says, and Dream nods quietly before heading up toward the mass of bodies in the center of the plaza. Phil grips his axe tight and prepares himself.

He cannot lose any of them today.

It takes a second for the world to explode. In fact, it actually happens much slower than Phil had been expecting. Dream chops the head of one of the dead off without preamble, the sound of flesh and bone cracking as the body falls with a thump, head rolling. Phil follows it for a moment with his eyes, then glances up again.

The mass of bodies is shifting.

It starts with a few that break off from the outside first, seeking them with clicking noises and terrible screeches. They’re easily silenced, one by a bolt that goes right through the eye. Above them, George cheers triumphantly. Dream gives him a thumbs up, and they spread out slightly. Phil’s starting to think maybe this won’t be as bad as they had prepared for-- if the zombies keep coming at such a slow rate, beating them will simply be an exercise in patience, not skill.

Then all hell breaks loose.

Once, Phil had stood on the edge of a lake in summer. He’d tasted rain in the air-- he had all day, in fact. Lightening and thunder was thick on his tongue, yet he didn’t bother to go inside just yet where his family waited. Instead, he’d stared across the water and watched as the rain slowly came towards him. He could see it approaching across the flat surface of the pond, from his spot on the dock. Instead of running back, he stood, and waited. When the rain hit, it was like a sheet of water-- thick, plastering his hair to his face. He’d felt alive in that moment, rain filling up his mouth and ears and eyes and coming with such spontaneity it was almost like a flash flood he’d read about in books.

This is like that moment, come again to haunt him.

Instead of rain, however, it’s decayed human bodies and the smell of rotting flesh. They break from their formation around the center of the plant life and reach out with terrifying fingers, their only goal to rip and kill and pass on the deadly disease, to protect whatever was at the center of their hive. They come in waves, breaking through their carefully crafted lines and ripping the plan from the notebook to step on it. Their plan, which had been to stay together as much as they could-- drifts into oblivion as mindless monsters tear through their formation and surround them each.

Phil doesn’t think anymore. He just does. He falls into a rhythm of defense, slashing and hacking and hitting all the vital spots he possibly can. It’s still a team effort yes-- he’ll see bodies go down around him as they’re killed from the sky, either Wilbur or George-- but physically he’s alone. It's not ideal, but somehow, he makes it work.