Angel of Brass by Elaine Corvidae

she could.
If she hadn’t had the element of surprise, it would never have
worked, but the man hadn’t expected to be attacked by a terrified
girl wielding a wrench. The iron length slammed into his skull with
a resounding thud, and he went down like a sack of potatoes.
    She stumbled over him as she scrambled out
the door. If the dead are following me, will they leave him
alone? Walk over him? Kill him?
    Fear kept her feet moving, and she almost
knocked over another man coming in through the outermost door. She
heard him shouting after her as she dashed past into the clear
night air, and she knew that, even if they hadn’t heard her earlier
scream, by now everyone in the building would know something was
up.
    Now what? Hopefully Jin would be able
to stay concealed amidst the treetops, but she would never make it
up into the branches on her own. She pelted in what she thought was
the direction of the gate, but in the dark, with the confusing
lumps of unkempt bushes and weeds, she took a wrong turn. When the
wall loomed up in front of her, the beam of her torch revealed
nothing but a solid expanse of brick, with no gate in sight.
    A shout sounded behind her. Her heart
hammering, she spun and put her back against the brick. Lantern
light stabbed into her eyes, blinding her.
    “Over here, boys!” someone yelled. “I’ve got
‘er!”
    Something large and dark plummeted from the
branches overhead, crashing into the resurrectionist and sending
him to the ground. The lantern fell but didn’t go out; in its
light, she saw Jin roll off the stunned man.
    “Come on!” he shouted, and grabbed her arm.
His smooth metal fingers gripped her tight enough to bruise, but
she was beyond noticing as she plunged after him, back in the
direction she had come. Other men with lanterns were closing in;
one of them ran at Jin, fist drawn back to punch.
    Jin let go of her, evaded the blow, then
lashed out with one hand. The resurrectionist screamed in agony,
and Molly saw that four deep slashes had laid his cheek open to the
bone. The blood on Jin’s claws looked black in the dim light, and
she saw that his lips were drawn back in a feral snarl. A second
man came at him; he twisted lithely aside, kicking his opponent
hard in the flank, sending him staggering. Before he could get his
feet under him again, Molly smacked the man on the head with her
wrench, and he collapsed.
    “Good work!” Jin said. “Now run!”
    She did, and he pelted after. There came a
flash and the sound of a shot, and Molly briefly wondered if she
should be glad they were armed with conventional pistols instead of
ray guns. Then again, if they hit us, we’ll be just as
dead .
    They rounded the end of the long, tangled
hedge, and the drive opened up in front of them, the gate at the
end. For a moment, Molly thought they actually might escape. Then
she saw the forms making their slow, stumbling way along the
drive.
    Even if they hadn’t reeked of death, she
would have known they weren’t alive. Their motions were jerky, like
wind-up dolls whose gears had started to slip. Lantern light fell
across the features of those closest to the house, and she saw the
gleam of teeth where withered lips had shrunk back, the dark stain
of decay on cheeks, the sunken pits of eyes. Yet somehow they
moved, their feet propelling them forward, as they stumbled to cut
off the only route of escape.
    Molly made a frantic sound that was half
scream, half sob of terror. Jin slowed at the edge of the drive,
his metal feet crunching against the gravel. “Saints, are those
shamblers?” he asked, sounding surprised rather than horrified.
    “Wh-what?” Molly stammered.
    “Shamblers. Curse it!” He glanced over his
shoulder at her. “We can outrun them if we get past. If we have to
fight, try to destroy the control mechanism on their backs.
Whatever you do, don’t let them grab you!”
    Oddly enough, the fact that Jin had dealt
with walking corpses before took the edge off her terror.