A Grim Harvest

Wearing her "office lady" attire with brown boots and black overcoat for warmth, Diana had traveled to Haunted Village for a task given to her by the village's chief. She was to search the village and the fields just beyond it and find some farmers who had went missing a week ago. They had stayed out at night to finish bringing in an important harvest of wheat and had not been seen since. It was feared that the farmers had fallen victim to the region's various hostile creatures, but the townspeople were already on edge and did not want to send any of the town guard to find the missing farmers. That was where Diana came in.

She walked through the village outskirts and followed the signs to the chief's residence, which was a two-story home with a thatched roof. She knocked on the door and a small metal viewport slid open. A pair of green eyes stared at her through the slot.

"What's your business here?" A male voice asked. Diana pulled the job notice out of her overcoat pocket.

"I am Diana Winchester. I am here to speak to the chief about a job he has for me." Diana answered politely. She folded the notice lengthwise and passed it through the slot to a pair of waiting hands. The person on the other side read it and a tense silence filled the evening air.

"Why didn't ya say so? Come on in!" He said to her, his tone much more friendly this time around. The slot was closed and the main door opened to show a slender man in a gray jacket with matching pants standing on the other side. He waved her in and shut the door behind them.

-Inside the chief's house-

"So you're Diana Winchester, huh?" He asked as the pair sat in front of a fireplace.

"Indeed I am." Diana replied calmly.

"I heard you've been doing some dangerous rescue work lately." He said to her while sipping tea from a nondescript cup placed on a white saucer.

"What you have heard is true." Diana said to him.

"Good. I have a dangerous task for you, one my people can't handle. You see, some farmers went missing a week ago after staying out to finish the wheat harvest and haven't come back. We're too afraid to send the town guard to look for them because we need the guard for protection. All kinds of spooky things roam the area at night and we're farmers, not fighters." The chief explained to her. Diana kept quiet and let the man talk. She was interested in what he had to say.

"I want you to look for them on our behalf. If they're alive, bring them back to us. If they're dead, let us know where we need to go to get the bodies." The chief laid out the job for her.

[Word Count: 500]
[Total Word Count: 500/3,500]

"I can do that." Diana assured the chief. She had been taking a lot of search-and-rescue missions lately because she was trying to distance herself from her old life of killing anyone her family ordered her to. She was trying to do something to make up for that bloodstained past, but she did not know if she was wasting her time because her hands were stained with so much blood. Diana was determined to try to make up for it all somehow.

Part of her enjoyed the interactions with Andrew, Maria, Veronica, and Jasmine DuClare because they made her feel like part of the living for the first time in four years. They enjoyed being around her and she liked being around them because there were no daggers hiding behind their smiles, no betrayals in their eyes. Diana's countenance of calm almost cracked for a moment. Why was she getting soft now?

"Good. Just be careful out there. You're heading into the fields at the worst time of night, and there's no telling what might be waiting for you." The chief advised her.

"Thank you for the warning." Diana politely thanked the chief for his warning. She knew what she was getting into when she went to a place called Haunted Village. Still, it was nice to see that someone had a small amount of concern for her. The blonde would complete the job no matter what because that was what the huntress did. Whether it was search-and-rescue or standing watch for werewolves, Diana did not stop working a job until it was completed.

"No problem. Good luck out there." The chief said to her. Diana nodded and was walked to the door by the chief. The door shut behind her and the blonde set out for the fields. The hunt for the missing farmers was on.

-In the fields-

Diana decided to start combing the fields closest to the village in search of clues that might lead to the missing farmers. She picked the one closest to the village border and began her search. The moon hovered in the sky and bathed the field in silver light, making her search somewhat easier thanks to the natural illumination. In the field she found a few tools and a wagon, but nothing suspicious because they looked like they had simply been left for the day instead of taken home. There were also no signs of blood or a struggle of any kind, so this field was not likely the one the farmers had went missing from.

She walked through it and looked through the field to the east. It had been cleared completely of wheat and had been left empty until something else was planted. She looked for clues and came up with nothing out of the ordinary. However, there was a scarecrow on a stake sitting in the middle of the field like a lonely sentry. She decided to take a closer look.

[Word Count: 500]
[Total Word Count: 1,000/3,500]

Diana looked at the scarecrow and discovered nothing unusual about it. It was a run-of-the-mill scarecrow wearing an old brown button-up shirt and blue jean pants too worn out and too full of holes for human use. She did not see anything out of the ordinary about it, so she quickly moved on to the next field in the cluster. Maybe after finishing this row she should move her efforts to the woods because that would be the most logical place to drag bodies for uninterrupted feeding.

Diana finished searching the field with the scarecrow and decided to search near the woods bordering the field in the northwest corner because the fields were not producing anything of value. She walked through the fields until she reached the one bordering the woods and that was where clues began to present themselves to her. She found hoes and rakes with bloodstained handles along with a bloody sickle lying on the ground. There were also drag marks in the dirt that led towards the woods. The blonde saw where all the signs were pointing, so it was time to go investigate the woods.

-In the woods-

The first thing that Diana noticed was the total silence that blanketed the woods. The second part was a bloody boot with a grisly surprise. The foot of the owner was still inside of it and the bone was protruding from the stump of the foot! Diana looked at the footwear and saw two thin trails of blood leading off into some brush that had been battered aside to clear a path. She summoned her Suppressed Submachine Gun and carefully approached the brush from an angle. She saw four humanoid figures with axes huddled over the body of a farmer missing their head and legs. It was not too difficult to see what had happened to the hapless farmer; his legs had been chopped off to prevent escape and he was dragged off into the bush and decapitated in order to be a meal.

Diana wordlessly aimed her weapon at the heads of the zombies and opened fire with Three-Round Bursts. She killed one with a burst and watched it flop over the corpse of the farmer and aimed at the forehead of another before the remaining three zombies took notice of the mage. She quickly gunned them down one after another, not even giving them a chance to issue a moan. The three zombies did not even get a chance to swing their bloody axes, which was the entire point of ambushing them with a suppressed weapon. She had avenged that farmer, but her work was not yet finished because she spotted more blood trails leading deeper into the woods.

Diana left the deceased farmer behind and carefully followed the crimson trails deeper into the woods. These trails were thin like the previous ones; the zombies must have dragged their kills to a safer place. They failed to reckon with Diana.

[Word Count: 500]
[Total Word Count: 1,500/3,500]

-Deeper in the woods-

Diana followed the trail until she came to a stop in the middle of the path and took a knee. Right in front of her was a trio of crouching zombies feasting on the bloody corpse of a farmer whose body was intact except for deep lacerations where axes had cut into it. His back had numerous chop wounds in it, but his right arm had suffered a few cuts that had almost severed the limb: it was hanging on by only a few tendons that had not been severed. Diana quietly aimed her weapon and fired at the first zombie, hitting it with a Three-Round Burst to the head that dropped it where it crouched. Its fellows spotted her and sounded the alarm with a moan, but she ended their unnatural lives with a Three-Round Burst to the head for each one.

With that encounter resolved Diana walked past the farmer and the zombies to follow another trail of blood that she had sighted just past the group. It led off into a clump of bushes that had been mostly chopped down to clear a path to somewhere. On that path was the blood trail that had drawn her attention in the first place. Diana walked to the side of the trail and followed it to its finish, where she faced a cave that had two zombies standing "watch" and a small pile of severed human limbs off to the left side of the cave entrance.

The blonde crouched down and took careful aim at the first zombie. She was a bit too slow to fire because it spotted her and moaned, spurring its colleague into action as she fired a Three-Round Burst and killed the first zombie. The second one ran at her with human running speed, which caught her off guard for a moment before she quickly adjusted her aim and fired a few shots, hitting it in the head and bringing it down just in front of her. Its head slammed to the dirt in front of her and the zombie began to bleed from the head wound she had dealt to it. The only good zombie was a dead zombie.

Diana stood up and switched to night vision to get a glimpse of what was hidden in the cave. She soon wished that she had not because she saw a pile of decapitated human bodies stacked on top of one another liked wood near the back wall of the cave. She was no stranger to death, but the sight of human bodies stacked so carefully was more than a bit disturbing. Zombies did not normally stack their prey... they ate it where they killed it. Something was not right here.

The mage carefully stepped through the brush and paused in place because she thought that she had seen something. As her vision focused she saw two zombies standing in the darkness as if waiting for her to get closer before attacking. She quickly disposed of them with her weapon and edged closer to the cave that they had been guarding. It was damp and cool, which were exactly the conditions needed to preserve human bodies or any kind of meat. Diana looked at the bodies and wondered what the farmers had done to incur the wrath of the zombies.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the sound of moaning coming from behind her and the rustling of running feet. Diana spun around and saw four zombies running right at her with their axes raised and gleaming in the moonlight. She killed the first with a Three-Round Burst to the head and blocked the downward arc of the axe with her weapon, catching the axe just below the head and stopping its progress short of her forehead. She pushed up and knocked it back into a fellow zombie, then dropped her Submachine Gun and brought out her Suppressed Handgun since its small size and short length made it easier to aim than the SMG.

She aimed and fired two Full Metal Jacket shots into the skull of the zombie she had shoved back before giving the same treatment into the zombies she had shoved the first one into. The last zombies brought down its axe and hit empty air because the blonde had sidestepped at the last moment. It quickly recovered and brought its axe back up for another swing, this time swinging horizontally and forcing Diana to jump back to avoid being disemboweled. She aimed with one hand and fired two Full Metal Jacket shots to the head, ending the threat for the time being.

Diana dispelled her pistol and picked up her SMG again. She then turned around and walked into the cave to confirm that there were no more undead lying in wait because she did not want to send the recovery team into a trap after the mission was finished. She was wise to go in because on the left side of the cave another zombie was waiting for her. A quick burst to the head and it went down like its colleagues before it. Diana looked around again and spotted another one to the far right; a burst to the head made sure that it would not kill anyone else.

The blonde walked over to the human corpses and examined them. All of them had lacerations from an axe head in their backs and torsos and all of them were missing their heads. She did not know whether the farmers were dead before being decapitated, but now was not the time to dwell on that subject. She had to sweep the immediate area for more enemies. She turned around and left the cave to go sweep the immediate area because more zombies were bound to be nearby and she did not want the recovery team to get ambushed when they went to recover the fallen farmers.

Diana kept her SMG handy as she walked to the right of the cave and spotted a humanoid figure standing in the distance. It turned around and moaned at her, so the blonde knew that it was not a surviving farmer. She took aim at its head and fired, bringing it down with ease. She wondered how many more of them there were out in the surrounding area.

[Word Count: 1,060]
[Total Word Count: 2,560/3,500]

-In front of the cave, one hour later-

Diana returned to the front of the cave feeling exhausted. She had swept the area around the cave three times and had killed twenty-one more zombies in addition to those she had already killed before reaching the cave. She did not feel like she had gotten them all, but she did not know where to begin looking for the remaining undead. Maybe if she headed back to the village she would find some stragglers who had come out to feast on the dead farmers that had been left behind. Lacking any other idea of what to do, Diana decided to head back for Haunted Village and inform the chief of the grim news about the missing farmers.

-In the woods-

Diana retraced her steps through the woods and found two zombies eating the dead farmer who had been left behind earlier. The corpses of the three zombies still lay where they fell and their colleagues were feasting away without a care. The blonde aimed her SMG and killed them with Three-Round Bursts to the head before they could muster a response. She walked past them and continued to look for zombies who may have come out after her first trip through the woods.

She kept walking until she came across the crude path where the four zombies had been eating the dead farmer and found another pair continuing where their four colleagues had left off. Diana killed them, turned around and walked back onto the main path. She was not having much success finding undead to kill. Either there were not many of them to begin with or they were somehow smart enough to avoid her because they knew she had been sent to kill them. It did not matter because she would kill any that she saw and warn the village to be alert for more undead incursions.

Diana walked down the main path until another zombie shambled out in front of her while facing forward. It saw her and quickly spun around, issuing a moan before charging at her with killing intent on its rotting face. Diana quickly raised her weapon and dropped it with a quick Three-Round Burst to the head, but that was not the end of the fighting because the sound of moaning sounded from somewhere behind her. She spun around and saw eight more enemies looking for a late-night snack. They had come looking for a snack, but they had bitten off more than they could chew with Diana.

She began to fire as the rotting mob charged at her. She fired Three-Round Bursts to the heads of two zombies, downing them as their friends rushed on. They were closing the distance fast, but she had time enough to kill another one with a burst to the head before they got close enough to engage her with their weapons. She blocked the downward swing of an ax with her SMG and pushed back, buying her enough room to bring out her Suppressed Handgun and shoot the zombie she had shoved back twice in the head with Full Metal Jacket rounds. Its friend shoved off the corpse with its momentum, retaking the offensive and forcing the blonde to dodge for her life.

Diana jumped back and avoided a downward swing, then ducked under the horizontal swing of a second zombie. She took advantage of a breathing space to aim her pistol upwards and quickly shoot the third zombie in the head with two FMJ rounds, causing it to pitch forward and slide face-first on the ground in a parody of a plow turning up earth in a field. The remaining two continued to fight on and forced her back with another series of downward chops that demonstrated the tireless tenacity of the undead. She jumped back and shot one twice in the head before having to sidestep another downward chop and ducked under a horizontal swing that almost gave her a haircut.

The last zombie charged her and slammed into her with its rotting body, almost knocking her down from the impact. The jostled mage recovered and held her ground, dispatching her aggressor with two shots to the head. It fell to the ground and the fighting was over. No more zombies had appeared, so it was time to get back to the village and hope that it did not come under attack from any zombies that she had missed during her trek through the woods.

-In Haunted Village, the Chief's house-

"Welcome back, Miss. You look like you've had a hard time out there." The chief said to Diana.

"I will admit that things got a bit... rough." Diana calmly replied in an understatement. The job had taken a rough turn near the end, but it was nothing that she could not handle. She had been through much worse.

"I take it that the news isn't good?" The chief asked her.

"No. Not at all. All the missing farmers are dead. They were killed by zombies with axes." Diana told the chief the unvarnished truth. There was no way to sugarcoat her findings and she did not bother doing so. He deserved to know the truth about what had happened to his people.

"I thought so. Where can I find their bodies?" He inquired while looking into her eyes.

"In the woods. I saw two on the path and a concentration of bodies in a cave deep in the woods." Diana reported her findings. The chief sipped from his tea cup before speaking again.

"I see. I feared the worst and you confirmed what I had feared. You did your job. Now I'll have to do mine and organize a recovery team." He said to her.

"I killed as many zombies as I could find, but there may be more in the woods that I did not account for. I would suggest arming your team and sending them in groups." Diana firmly suggested to her client. He stared into his tea cup for a moment and then faced her.

"I'll be sure to do that. I'll also have the town guard watch for zombies at night." He replied to her suggestion. He then spoke again after a brief pause.

"Like I said earlier, my people are farmers, not fighters. I'll need you to escort my team to recover the bodies. Would you go with them if I hired you again?" He asked her.

"Yes, I would go with them." Diana calmly replied. The chief nodded in thanks and handed her a bag of Jewels.

"Thanks for taking this job for us. I'll send for you when I get the team together." He said. Diana thanked him and exited the chief's home. She had done her job for tonight. She had a feeling that she would be back soon enough, but she did not mind. The work paid good money.

[Word Count: 1,168]
[Total Word Count: 3,728/3,500]