The blue hair guy gasped audibly and retreated by two steps. His eyes widened like they were about to explode with his lips shivering on each other. "I-I. you've grown more powerful."
Oscar scoffed.
"Oscar!" Finn was equally baffled. "That's so cool!"
While Oscar turned around to him and smiled, the blue guy fired an ice shot which crashed on the hood of the car.
Oscar turned back to him slowly, "You missed."
Suddenly the sound of metal cracking and concrete breaking from afar filled the air. Oscar turned around and caught sight of over an hundred zombies charging towards them with their own shadows escorting them through the darkness. Even the streetlights could not outshine their tenebrosity.
They came out from every corner, every angle, surrounding their prey.
"Finn, go," Oscar ordered his friend.
"What about you?" Finn showed concern.
"Just start the engines and be ready to go," he yelled back at him with his eyes fixed on the blue guy.
Finn concurred and twisted the key. The engine roared briefly and shutdown. He twisted again facing the same result. He tried the third time, but it persisted. The engine of the car was dead at this point.
"You missed," the blue guy mimicked Oscar and chuckled derisively.
Oscar reddened and threw his hand at him which shot a string of fire that blew out his heart, leaving an empty hole.
Oscar then grabbed his wrist and marveled at his palm.
In the next unfolding seconds he rushed to the car and bumped the hood. He looked around one more time to glance the horror that sailed towards their shores.
He placed his palm over the engine and closed his eyes to enhance concentration. Oscar was going to heat up the engine.
Accidentally his whole body flamed up instead of just his hands and the engine melted.
"Fuck!" Oscar yelled in frustration and turned around to the zombies, charging into them sequentially.
Row by row he punched them into ashes, their blood rapidly burning up alongside their bones while their bodies joined the ground as brown powder. Some of them even turning to ash before impact is made.
As Oscar ventured further and further into them, Finn and the little girl's screams echoed in his ears. He turned around and saw the zombies tearing out the car piece by piece.
Oscar fought his way back to them and burnt out the zombies while trying to stay a safe distance away from them.
Even Finn was heroic at this moment, he embraced the little girl tightly with every bit of her body curled into his large torso to protect her from them. A second later Finn could literally feel his shirt burning off his body as the sweat on his skin simultaneously dried up making its surface harder.
"Oscar, you're so hot. You're burning me up."
"What?" Oscar paused and turned to him, "That's gay."
"What!" Finn was just as surprised and mad. "I said the heat from your fire is getting to me."
"Oh, next time start with that," he retreated some inches away.
It was at this moment Oscar realized he had to babysit them without being near them. That means keeping the zombies far away from them as possible while also being away far away from them.
Seeing him back away from his friends, the zombies immediately enshrouded them. In reflex, Oscar clapped his palms together which created a wave of flame that took them out, blowing of the rear of Finn's shirt alongside and giving his back a little scar.
Finn gasped with eyes widened, "What happened? Did they bite me?" he held unto the girl in a mix feeling of fear and suspense. A feeling that made him refrain from seeking answers for himself; from touching his back.
Oscar panted as he realized the risk he took. He could have easily killed them with that move. He fell on his knees in fear of killing his friend, "I can't do it. I can't… I can't."
Suddenly all the zombies turned to dust, over hundreds of them all at once.
Oscar looked around with his mouth wide open in surprise. Finn too had forgotten about his back and was equally puzzled.
"What is a person without another person?" the pale tall man in the black suit and cowboy hat from before, appeared to Oscar again. He stood some inches away from the massacre.
"First you come into this world, then you try to make sense of it. In your early years you find a group of people to have fun with, they make living interesting. In your older years you watch them die one by one, and then your happiness all relies on the memories your young self created. Hello Oscar, we meet again," he stared Oscar in the eyes.
"You know him?" Finn was impressed.
"You're that man from the hospital," he stood on his feet with an aggressive stare. "You're gonna pay for destroying my whip."
"It's not what I want to pay, it's what I want," he walked towards Oscar but he wasn't closing on the distance, as if he was walking on a treadmill.
"I just gave a sermon about friendship. Your friends are going to die today, Oscar. But I'm giving you the keys to make them live a little longer," he stretched his hand towards him prophetically and opened his palm.
"Die from what? You?" he pointed at him with scorn. "I'd have you buried before you get six inches near them."
"A comedian, who would have thought," he balled his stretched out arm. "I'm the least of your problems today right here at this hour."
He opened up his palm and all the hundreds of zombies, even the ones Oscar had absolutely destroyed came back to life instantly and attacked.
"Stay down, Finn. We're not dying today," Oscar stubbornly engaged them.
This time he had quickly come up with a plan, he fought around Finn and the scared little girl in a large circle. However, it was too much of a border for him to defend on his own.
The zombies breached in which gave Oscar only one choice, to try out the wave clap again. But he hesitated out of overthinking, this time it wasn't reflex, so fear pressed him.
Finn closed his eyes tightly, while pressing down the little girl from gaining sight of them either.
Seconds before the zombies would tear Finn and the girl into pieces, the pale man balled his hand again turning every one of them to dust.
"We are creatures of ego, swallowed by pride, we fight for what we call our honor. But bravery isn't always about picking up the sword and cutting down foes, it's about knowing when to ball your fists and when to leave them free. What you do here, is a show of cowardice."
"Oh yeah, watch me fight off your next round of monsters with my fist free… wide open," Oscar demonstrated showing his opponent his wide palms.
"Oscar," Finn called out to him with a terrified tone.
"I've said too much. Let their blood be on your hands," as soon as the last words left his mouth the zombies formed from the dust again.
However, Oscar had made another clever plan. He burned down the zombies around him and offed his flame as he raced to Finn and the girl.
He jumped pass them, simultaneously opening up the door of his aunt's car; she never made it to the car before she died so it was not tempered with.
"Get in," he yelled at his friend with a tone of urgency.
Finn immediately picked up the girl and dived in with Oscar closing the door.
"Go. She always leaves the keys in the car cause she's married to a police man. Get out of here," he briefed Finn while punching away everyone single one of them that approached the car.
"Go, go, go."
In the feel of the moment Finn turned on the engines and started the car in full speed.
The pale man chuckled as he watched them escape. He was quite impressed.
"Now, you face the real me," Oscar started with an explosion and jumped right into the next hundreds of them with a grin. He had begun with his reckless fighting again, frankly it was working perfectly.
But then Oscar spared a moment to look to his side and instantaneously his energy faded alongside his grin. The wheels of the car were rolling on the same spot, denting the road with marks.
Finn could barely escape with car.
It was the same zombies Finn always talked about. They gathered in front of the car and wrestled it to a stop. While some held of the car, the others gathered around it and starting tearing it apart seamlessly, it was only a second before their long claws could be tearing Finn and the girl apart.
"Nooo!" Oscar rushed for them with a resounding scream.
While he raced towards them the zombies all turned to dust again. Oscar fell on his knees with his flames off. His heart skipped a beat. He looked so exhausted, ready to give in to defeat.
The pale man began with a round of applause.
Oscar raised his head to him, "What do you want?"
"We're finally asking the right questions. I want you, Oscar. How did you get your powers? You didn't take the drug. Just as when we first met, I want you."
"You're gonna let them go if I come with you?"
He stretched his hand to him, "I give you my word."
Oscar stood up and walked to him one step per second. He stared at Finn the whole time. Finn stared back, speechless, his mind crippled in fear.
Oscar took the man's hand who disappeared with him the same second.
"Good boy," his voice echoed in the air.