Virtual Reality
By Littlesilverstar, silverstar222b@yahoo.com
Life (and death) become like a video game for a girl

WARNING: This story contains lots of bad language and LOTS of extreme
violence.  If those things offend you, it is probably best that you not
read this story.

NOTE: This story stars Juanita, who appeared in my story "The Stalker."

Juanita sat on her plush comfortable bed, playing her favorite video game,
"Vixens vs. the Undead." In the game, attractive athletic heroines used a
variety of weapons, as well as hand-to-hand combat skills, to kill zombies
and other monsters.  Playing video games was the muscular 28-year-old's 
favorite way of unwinding after a long hard day at work.  She was an
assistant manager at a grocery store and spent many hours dealing with
rude, irate customers, incompetent subordinates, sneaky shoplifters, and
the money-grubbing solicitors who stood just outside the store doors,
hawking their wares to passers-by.

A month ago, she had also had to deal with a stalker who had ended up
breaking into her house with the intention of raping her.  She had killed
him in self-defense - and kind of enjoyed the feeling of power it had 
given her, using her superior strength, agility, and skill to defeat her
opponent fatally.  She wondered what it would be like to do something like
that again.

Of course, she had called the police after she had finished off the 
stalker, explaining everything to them.  Although the district attorney's
office had filed no charges, ruling it a legitimate case of self-defense,
she had had to go through mountains of paperwork and hours of interviews
with what seemed like every cop, lawyer, and psychologist in the area.  
That alone was enough to make her decide that if something like that 
happened again, she would simply dispose of the body and not tell the
authorities at all.

* * *

FIFTEEN MILES AWAY

Assistant District Attorney Harvey Morris sat in his office, looking at
some files.  He was 37 years old, thin and already balding.  Morris had a
brilliant scientific mind and had wanted to become a geneticist.  But he
also had a disturbing dark side, reflected in his desire to twist science
in the name of experiments that involved cloning and trying to bring the
dead to life.  After no company or university would fund his evil
experiments, he had gone to law school and eventually gone to work for 
the district attorney's office.  But he had never forgotten his original
desires.  Corrupt and greedy, he took advantage of his position to extort
money from everyone he could.  With this money he had bought a large house
in the wealthy city of Malibu and built a fully equipped science lab where
he continued his experiments.  He also employed servants, including a maid,
a gardener, a chauffeur, and two full-time bodyguards named Sam and Rocky.

The files Morris was now looking at were not related to his work at all.
Rather, he was nosy and liked looking into other people's business for 
anything that could help him get more money or further his scientific
experiments.

He opened a file labeled "Martinez, Juanita" and his eyes widened with
interest.  He quickly made some notes, then pressed a button to call his
bodyguards.

* * *

THREE WEEKS LATER

Harvey Morris sat behind his large desk in his downtown office.  Facing
him were his two bodyguards, Sam and Rocky, and his chauffeur, Gary.  He
grinned evilly.

"All right, boys, tonight's the big night," Morris announced. "Is 
everything ready for action?"

"Got the goods right here," snickered Rocky.  He patted a tranquilizer
gun. "The dose will knock her out almost immediately, but there's no danger
of her dying on us before we want her to."

"Everything in the warehouse is ready," added Sam. "The monsters are in
their holding pens and just await your touch of the button to release 'em."

"She comes out of work at ten like clockwork every Tuesday," Gary declared.
"No chance that she spotted us watching her, either.  We're a lot better
than that clumsy stalker who was after her."

Morris glanced down at Juanita's file, which contained all the information
about her encounter with the stalker and had gotten his interest in the 
first place. "That's why I want her so badly.  I've never seen a woman with
such incredible athleticism, strength, beauty, and femininity.  I want to
see just how much she can handle.  But never forget how dangerous she can 
be.  Be damn careful while you're grabbing her."

With that, the three henchmen headed out of the office to begin their 
mission.  Morris leaned back in his plush chair and smiled, looking forward
to having Juanita in his trap.

* * *

AT THE GROCERY STORE

At ten o'clock, Juanita exited the store, locked the doors behind her, and
started towards her car.  Suddenly, there was a flash of movement and the
growl of an engine.  She whirled to look, her senses going on high alert.
A black van was backing towards her.

There was a sudden, sharp pain in her neck.  Juanita looked down and saw 
that she had been shot with a dart.  She felt herself becoming dizzy.
Turning around, she saw two big men, one close to her holding a sack and
another farther away, armed with a tranquilizer gun.

The man with the sack approached her - too closely.  She felt herself going
faint, but she summoned a last burst of strength and kicked him in the face
with all her might.  Just before she lost consciousness, she heard a sharp
CRACK and knew that the sheer power of her kick had broken his neck.  She
fell to the ground with a smile.

"FUCK!" screamed Rocky, looking at Sam's corpse.  At his comrade's shout,
Gary jumped out from behind the wheel of the van. "What the fuck's going 
on?" The chauffeur stared as his eyes followed Rocky's pointing finger to
Sam's dead body.

"I don't know how she had the strength to do that!" moaned Rocky. "I nailed
her with the dart.  She was already dizzy, I saw her stumble.  Then that 
kick came up, so fucking fast! She killed him with one kick!"

Gary paled, but quickly regained his composure.  He looked around and saw 
to his relief that no one was watching them. "Never mind that now.  Help me
get them both in the van."

Rocky holstered his tranquilizer gun, then grabbed the bag and put it over
Juanita's head.  He and Gary loaded her unconscious form into the back of
the van, then put Sam's dead body in.  Gary jumped back behind the wheel 
and drove off into the night.  Rocky, riding in the back of the van, tied
Juanita's hands.

* * *

THREE HOURS LATER

Juanita opened her dark brown eyes and sat up slowly.  Her head was 
throbbing and her limbs felt numb.  She looked around and saw that she was
in a large, dimly lit, abandoned warehouse.  She tried to remember what had
happened.  She had been walking out of the store after closing up, then the
van, and the dart...

As her head cleared, her mind began racing, not with panic, but with 
thoughts of how to get out of her predicament.  She was not like those
stereotypical silly women in horror movies.  

She stood up slowly, feeling the return of regular blood flow to her limbs.
As she walked towards what looked like a window, she smiled as she felt her
body returning to normal.  Soon she would be at full strength again, ready
for whatever was coming.

Cupping her hands and peering out the window, Juanita saw that she was on
what she guessed to be the fifth or sixth floor of the building.  No other
lights were visible outside.  She tried the windows on all the other sides
of the warehouse.  No sign of civilization.

She paused to look at her reflection in the window and gasped.  When she 
had left work, she had been dressed in jeans and a white blouse.  Now, she
was wearing knee-high black boots, a black miniskirt, and a lacy black bra
that barely contained her stunning, firm 36C breasts.  In addition, her
hands were covered by long black leather gloves that went up to the middle
of her forearms.

Despite the situation, Juanita couldn't help noticing how sexy she looked.
She stood 5'7" and weighed 140 pounds.  Her waist tapered to a slim 26
inches, while her hips measured a powerful 37 inches.  She had a deep, even
tan from her Latina heritage, and her long, wild dark brown hair went down
to the middle of her back.  

The most stunning thing about her, however, was how her body was 
impressively muscular and sexily feminine at the same time.  Years of
gymnastics had toned and hardened her leg and butt muscles to something 
that was merely a fantasy for most women and men.  Her custom of doing 500
sit-ups every day had given her a set of rock-hard six-pack abs.  And all
those hours of lifting weights, doing push-ups, and walking on her hands 
had given her superbly muscular arms.  Her biceps measured almost fourteen
inches, and even her wrists measured over seven inches around.  Her ultra-
developed forearms looked even thicker than usual with the black leather
gloves covering their lower half.  To top it all off and contribute to her
femininity, her face was elegant and model-like, especially when she 
smiled.

She wasn't smiling now, however, as she wondered who had kidnapped her.
Most likely some twisted fetishist, judging from the way he had dressed her
while she had been unconscious.  Well, he was going to get a lesson in pain
as soon as he appeared.  After all, she might be unarmed, but she was a
highly skilled martial artist, holding a third-degree black belt.  Poor 
dead Sam had found that out the hard way.

Juanita searched the entire floor of the warehouse, finding neither weapon
nor a way downstairs.  But there were many large crates scattered around, 
as well as concealed security cameras in strategic locations.  The cameras
were well-hidden, but Nita's intelligence and trained eye allowed her to 
spot where each one was.  She walked up to a camera and gave it the finger,
then began shaking her breasts at it. "Come on, I know you're watching me!
Come out, you chickenshit, and face me like a real man! Or are you afraid 
of a woman?"

She waited.  No response.  She was just about to kick in the side of one of
the crates to see if there was anything useful inside when a voice suddenly
boomed out over a loudspeaker.  It was a male voice and one that she didn't
recognize.

"Miss Juanita Martinez! For your skills, your strength, the way you 
dispatched that stalker, and your beauty...you have been chosen!"

"What the fuck?" she muttered.

The crate nearest her crashed open, revealing three...

Weird, ugly creatures.  They looked like...zombies?!

Nita pinched herself, wondering if she was dreaming about her zombie video
game.  She felt the pinch.  No, this was real.  And the zombies were coming
towards her.

She went into warrior woman mode, pushing all other thoughts aside and 
focusing on survival.  Her jump kick sent the nearest zombie flying back
into the remnants of the crate.  She performed a spin kick on the second
creature, breaking its neck.  As the third zombie approached her, she did a
perfect standing back handspring, kicking it as she back-flipped.  There 
was the familiar CRACK.  As she landed on her feet she knew she had broken
this one's neck as well.

She looked over at zombie #1, which was still alive.  Before it could get 
up, she had raced over to it and stomped on its skull with her big black
boot, all 140 pounds of her driving the force of her stomp.  The monster's
skull was simply squashed flat, brains, blood, and gore oozing out.

A loud laugh rang out.  It was the loudspeaker. "Good! Very good! I see you
need a bigger challenge."

Three crates crashed open at the same time.  Three zombies marched out of
each for a total of nine. "Fuck," said Juanita.

She was in the middle of the three groups of zombies.  Picking one group,
she launched herself into a fast tumbling pass towards it, starting with a
roundoff and then doing a series of back handsprings.  She finished her
pass with a one-and-a-half twisting layout, a move that allowed her to land
facing forward, directy at the three zombies she was targeting.  She hopped
onto the first zombie's shoulders, her muscular thighs clamped around its
neck.  She killed it by swiftly twisting her hips 180 degrees, snapping its
neck.  Before it could even fall, she backflipped off of it, landing 
between the two other creatures.  She then jumped high in the air and split
her legs, kicking the two zombies at the same time, the force of her kicks
crushing their skulls.

The six remaining zombies advanced on her as a group.  Nita picked up a
broken, jagged piece of wood from one of the shattered crates and hurled it
at the monster in front.  The makeshift weapon impaled it in the center of
its chest, but the creature looked at it as if it was nothing and kept 
coming.  She picked up another piece of wood and threw it at the zombie's
head.  This time, the monster fell dead as the jagged wood impaled its 
zombie brain.  

She picked up another piece of wood and took out a second zombie in the 
same manner.  By then, however, the other four were almost upon her.  She
reached out with both gloved hands and, with her amazing wrist strength,
snapped two zombie necks one-handed.  Ducking a swipe by one of the 
remaining creatures, she tripped it to the floor.  Glaring at the last
zombie, she balled her right hand into a fist and swung it at its skull.
Expecting her punch to merely knock it backward, she was shocked when the
impact of her oversized (for a woman, anyway) fist utterly pulverized the
zombie's head, causing it to explode in hundreds of bloody little pieces.
"Wow," she thought. "I guess these zombie skulls aren't like human ones."

She whirled on the zombie she had tripped.  Raising her left leg high and
doing a 180 degree standing split, she dropped it down with tremendous
force on the zombie's skull, easily shattering it.  She let out a high-
pitched, feminine warrior cry, then glared at the nearest camera. "Is that
all you've got?"

In respone, all the remaining crates on the floor crashed open at the same
time.  At least twenty zombies came out, snarling.  And this time, some of
them were armed with axes and swords.

"Oh, FUCK," said Nita. "Me and my big mouth."

She regained her composure, however, and went to work.  She started by
gathering several jagged pieces of wood from the broken crates and hurling
them at the advancing zombies.  Her throws were powerful and accurate.  In
her spare time she enjoyed playing tackle football with men, and her arm
made her a great quarterback.  She could easily throw a football 50 yards.

She concentrated on the monsters in the middle, eliminating half a dozen 
in the span of a few seconds.  Their bodies crashed to the warehouse floor,
sharp pieces of wood sticking out of their foreheads as if they were some
kind of scruffy unicorn.  With her well-aimed slaughter she separated the
surviving creatures into two groups.

Juanita launched herself at the nearest zombie in a flying kick.  The
zombie was carrying an axe and it drew the weapon back, preparing to swing
at her.  The muscular beauty was too fast for it, however.  Before it could
begin its swing, Nita's kick had landed, the toe of her right boot impaling
the zombie's head.  Blood and gore dripped from her boot.  She snatched up
the dead zombie's axe and slammed it into another creature's skull.  She
pulled the weapon out with a squishing sound, then whirled on the next 
zombie and used her axe to decapitate it.  She felt her heart rate increase
as she watched the head fly through the air.

Suddenly, three zombies hurled their axes at her in unison.  Two she 
ducked.  The third was coming right at her chest, very fast.  With her
gymnast's reflexes she caught it by the handle a split second before it
would have crashed into her.  Now with an axe in each hand, she threw them
both, taking out two of the zombie axe-throwers as the sharp ends of each 
of her weapons buried themselves in a pair of zombie skulls.  The third
zombie snarled and lumbered at her.  She moved to meet it, along the way
snapping the neck of another creature with her gloved hands and picking up
the sword it had been carrying.  When she got to the snarling, lumbering
zombie, she kicked it in the chest, knocking it to its knees.  She finished
it by standing over it and driving her sword straight downward into its 
head.

Only the last group, consisting of seven zombies, remained.  Nita performed
a front tuck somersault to take her closer to them.  She decapitated the
first zombie with her sword and roundhouse kicked the second in the neck,
breaking it.  When the third zombie approached her, she positioned her 
sword under its crotch, holding the weapon straight out in front of her.
She then swung the razor-sharp blade upward, slicing the creature in half
from crotch to skull.  Blood flew everywhere as the two halves collapsed.
She let out a scream of raw battle lust.

An axe-wielding zombie approached her.  She ducked under its swing and
destroyed its head with a massive punch.  Catching the axe as it fell, she
threw it into the back of the skull of a zombie that had foolishly turned
its back on her.

Two monsters were left, both armed with swords.  Juanita attacked, deftly
parrying their blows and landing attacks of her own.  The cuts she 
inflicted, however, had no effect on the undead.  Stepping back slightly to
prepare herself, she suddenly delivered two lightning-fast sword swings,
slicing off both zombies' sword arms.  She killed one by stabbing it in the
eye.  She then cut off the last zombie's other arm and both of its legs.  
It fell to the floor, helpless, unable to move, and unarmed (pun intended).
She looked at the now-harmless zombie, shrugged, and turned away.  Looking
at the carnage she had inflicted, she did a standing full twist, an 
extremely difficult gymnastic move, to celebrate her victory.  Thanks to 
her training and athleticism, she landed perfectly on her booted feet.

Juanita suddenly felt something trickle down her right arm.  She looked 
down and saw a small cut on her muscular forearm.  One of the zombies must
have cut her with its sword in the heat of the fight.  Shrugging again, she
simply wiped the blood off on her black miniskirt.

"Lucky you," came the voice from the loudspeaker. "Just a cut from a sword.
If a zombie had bitten you instead, you'd have about three minutes before
you turned into one of them." There was an evil chuckle. "Well, Nita, I 
have to congratulate you.  You've done better than anyone else who's taken
this little test.  No one before you has been able to get past that mob of
twenty zombies.  You're quite the killing machine.  But remember, just one
bite.  That's all it takes.  Then it'll be over."

"Who are you?" Nita yelled. "What do you want?"

"Isn't it obvious what I want?" came the voice. "I want to test your combat
skills.  I want to see just how far you can fight your way through this
before you're finally defeated."

"You fucker," she said, her Latina temper flaring up.

The loudspeaker voice just laughed. "Now now, Nita.  Be a nice girl.  I'm a
fair man.  The next level will be harder, but I'll give you a sporting
chance."

A mechanized hum was heard and a small box rose out of the floor near
Juanita.  Another hum and the box slid open.  Inside was a small black 
pistol and a spare magazine of ammunition.

"Ten rounds in the pistol, ten more in the spare magazine," came the voice.
"Don't waste them.  Good luck." 

She picked up the pistol, glad for the knowledge that she had learned about
firearms from her time in the Girl Scouts.  She checked to make sure it was
loaded and ready and flicked the safety off.  The spare magazine she put in
her skirt pocket.

A much louder mechanized hum started up.  Part of the floor slid away,
revealing a set of stairs that led downward.  Loud snarls came from the 
floor below.  Nita gripped the pistol in her left hand and her sword in her
right, heart pounding.  She began descending the stairs slowly and 
cautiously.

A lone zombie, carrying a spiked club, approached her at the bottom of the
stairs.  She started to aim her pistol, then decided to save her bullets 
for bigger threats.  She walked up to the zombie and performed a powerful
backflip kick on it.  The kick landed with such strength that the zombie's
head flew off.  She looked down at her sleek, well-muscled legs, impressed
by her own strength.  Then again, it shouldn't be too much of a surprise, 
she thought to herself.  After all, her legs were strong enough to kick a
soccer ball 60 yards.

Pausing at the bottom of the stairs, she looked around at the level before
her.  The ceiling was very high, at least eighteen feet.  Zombies were 
everywhere, at least fifty of them.  Then she heard a growl...a different 
kind of zombie growl.  It sounded almost like a dog.

Whirling, her long dark hair flying behind her, she saw a zombie dog 
looking right at her.  It was large and powerful-looking, with bloody flesh
and razor-sharp teeth.  Many more zombie dogs appeared, snarling.  Then
they all charged her at once.  She counted thirteen.

"Shit, these fuckers are FAST," said Nita out loud.  She opened fire with
her pistol.  Her aim was deadly accurate.  Ten bullets.  Ten dead zombie
dogs.  She quickly and expertly reloaded.  The dogs' speed was incredible,
much faster than the fastest living greyhound.  Ten fresh bullets loaded -
she had time to get off one last killing shot before the last two dogs
reached her.

Her sideways aerial cartwheel allowed her to dodge the dogs' attempted 
bites.  Swinging her sword, she slew one dog by cutting off half of its
head.  The last dog charged her again.  She waited until the last second,
then performed a powerful drop kick on the creature, breaking its neck.

She then went to work on the zombies.  She was like a whirlwind with her 
sword, slicing off heads, arms, and legs.  Zombie after zombie fell to her
swordswomanship.  Most of the monsters were armed with swords, axes, or
clubs, but Nita's speed allowed her to dodge most of their attacks easily.
She took two more minor cuts, one on her left arm, the other on her right
thigh, but neither slowed her down, and she avoided getting bitten.

The zombies tended to cluster in groups of six or seven, allowing her to
fight one group at a time.  Once, however, she was surrounded when three
groups suddenly clustered together, forcing her to kill five zombies with
her pistol in order to thin out the herd enough to make her escape.  She
started the task of slaughtering the big group from the outside, mostly
using her sword, but occasionally dispatching a zombie with a punch or
kick.  She kept her pistol tucked in the back of her skirt when she wasn't
using it.

Finally, there was only one zombie left.  She calmly walked up to it and
backflip kicked its head off.  She stared into the nearest camera. "Now
what?"

"You certainly are talented, my little Nita," came the voice. "All the 
other women I kidnapped and put in here died too quickly.  They just didn't
have your fighting spirit."

"I'm not yours, and I'm not little," was all she said in response.

"You are compared to this," said the voice.  With that, the wall at the far
end of the room opened.  There was a THUMP, THUMP sound that came steadily
closer, as if something very large was approaching.

A moment later, an enormous zombie, at least fifteen feet tall, strode into
the room.  In its right hand it carried a gigantic mace.

"Motherfucker," was all Nita could say.

She whipped out her pistol and fired two shots.  She showed impressive
markswomanship, as each bullet hit one of the monster's eyes.  But the 
bullets didn't even slow it down.

"I'm afraid that nine-millimeter bullets aren't going to be much help with
that," came from the loudspeaker.

"No shit, CNN," she muttered.  She looked at the pistol in her hand. "Girl
gun," she sighed.  She tucked it back into her skirt and readied her sword.

She attacked, charging in and out, slicing the monster's legs repeatedly.
Green zombie blood poured out of the wounds she inflicted.  All the time,
she had to dodge attack after attack from the giant.  One hit from that
mace, one stomp from the massive feet, and she would be a stain on the 
floor.  She couldn't afford to make a single mistake.

The huge zombie tried again and again to crush or smash the feminine little
creature that was one-third its height.  But she was amazingly agile and
danced out of the way each time.  And the cuts from her sword were slowly
but steadily weakening the monster and making it harder to keep its 
balance.

Nita began concentrating her attacks on one leg, specifically the monster's
ankle.  Her razor-sharp blade made progressively deeper and deeper slices
into the flesh.  Finally, she saw the giant zombie stumble.  Tossing her
sword behind her, she did a series of standing back handsprings to take her
away from the creature.  As she went backflipping away, the monster began 
to fall, its tendon sliced through.  It fell to the floor with a huge CRASH
that shook the entire warehouse.  Its mace flew into the air - and the 
spiked ball landed right on the monster's head, finishing it.  Green zombie
blood sprayed everywhere, including on Juanita.

"Gross," she said, trying to wipe it off.

The loudspeaker boomed again. "Amazing! I really thought that monster would
turn you into a big red stain."

"I'm so sorry to disappoint you," Nita replied in her most sarcastic voice.

Another mechanzied hum.  Part of the floor slid away, revealing a set of
stairs leading down to the next floor.  She started down the stairs.  At 
the bottom, however, she stopped abruptly.  Facing her, less than twenty
feet away, were at least a hundred and fifty zombies, waving axes and 
clubs.  They were so densely packed that there was no getting through or 
around them.

"A sporting chance, you said?" she called out.

"Under the stairs," came from the loudspeaker.

She looked under the stairs and found a submachine gun.  She picked it up,
liking the feel of it in her hands.

"No spare magazines for this one," said the voice. "Use it well."

Nita took aim and opened fire, letting loose a long burst from her powerful
new weapon.  That burst killed at least twenty zombies.  The rest surged
towards her.  Another long burst.  Twenty more dead zombies.  The beautiful
woman pumped bullet after bullet into the horde, slaughtering zombies by
the dozens.  Finally, there was a click as the weapon ran out of ammo.  She
looked at the gory carnage and guessed that she had eliminated about half 
of the monsters.  There were now gaps between the survivors, dividing the 
zombies into groups.  With a shrill shriek, she picked up her sword and 
started in on them.

Five minutes later, only a few stragglers were left alive.  Her sword was
completely covered in green zombie blood.  Nita was only slightly worse for
the wear.  Her most serious injury was in her left thigh, where a spike 

from a zombie's club had driven into her flesh, leaving a painful but 
superficial wound.  She ripped off part of her skirt to create a makeshift
bandage to tie around it.  Walking, then running, she found that she could
move without limping.

Nita finished off the stragglers, trying moves on them that were more and 
more exotic as fewer and fewer were left.  Noticing that the last zombie
was standing directly in front of one of the cameras, she decided to try
something especially fancy for the benefit of whoever was watching.  She
ran at the zombie and launched herself into the air, landing in a 
handstand position on the creature's shoulders.  She then snapped the
zombie's neck from her handstand position and backflipped to the floor.

This time, the loudspeaker voice didn't even bother to say anything.  A big
box rose up from the floor next to her and slid open.  Inside was a pump
shotgun and a box that contained plenty of spare shells.  She picked up the
shotgun, made sure it was loaded, then pumped it with one hand like several
action heroines in movies had done.

"This one's going to be bad, isn't it?" she said, mostly to herself.

A second later, a wall slid open and a gigantic spider, the size of a bus,
entered the room.  It was followed by dozens of baby spiders, each about
two feet across.  Nita's elegant mouth opened but no sound came out.  She
paled.

"Courage," she said to herself.  She swallowed hard and tossed her hair.

They came at her.  The little spiders were faster and approached her first.
She opened fire with the shotgun, blasting them into pieces.  Sometimes she
could nail two spiders with one shell.  Each time the gun clicked empty, 
she reloaded as fast as she could.  But soon they surrounded her.  She 
began killing them with kicks to their ugly little heads, or simply by
stomping them flat.  She had to be careful, though.  A single bite from one
of them and she would be poisioned, and God knew what the effect of their
poison was.

Finally, the little spiders were dispatched - and the big one was almost
upon her.  Nita looked at her weapon and the box and estimated that she had
about thirty shells left.

She began shooting the huge spider, trying to find where it was the most
vulnerable.  Shots to its face would cause it to flinch slightly, but only
for a second.  She thought about trying to shoot its legs off and prevent
it from moving, but stopped after discovering that its legs were covered by
some kind of super-hard armor that a shotgun shell couldn't penetrate.  The
creature's back was also covered by the same hard armor.  Its soft 
underbelly seemed like the best target.  It was hard to position herself to
take aim at that, but she took her shots when she could.  Each time her 
shots impacted the spider's belly, it would let out a high-pitched squeal,
but it would keep coming.  Its endurance seemed limitless.

Whenever the monster got too close, Nita would backflip to a safer distance 
and begin shooting again.  One stomp from the spider's large, ugly, hairy
legs and she would be skewered.  And the creature's mouth was big enough to
bite her head clean off.  She shot it again and again, but it kept coming 
at her.  She lost count of the number of times she had to backflip away.  
It was only because of her superhuman stamina that she was still alive - a 
less fit person would have stumbled once, just once, and would have been
impaled, or bitten in half, or died some other horrible death.

Finally, she was down to her last six shells.  After loading the shotgun 
for the final time, she held it in her left hand and blasted away at the
spider, alternating between shots to its head and belly.  She pumped and
fired the weapon with one hand.  In her right hand she held her sword.

Nita fired her last round into the monster's belly, then raised her sword
and screamed a ferocious battle cry.  She charged at her opponent, nimbly
dodging its legs as they tried to step on her, and its huge fangs as they
tried to bite her.  She swung her sword, hacking at anything she could hit,
trying to find a way to attack its soft belly without getting crushed.  And
she wondered how long she could dodge its attacks.

But was it just her, or did the spider's attacks seem to be getting slower
and clumsier? And there was black blood pouring out of the wounds she had
inflicted with the shotgun.  Was the monster finally getting weaker from
her attacks?

She backflipped away, wanting to see what the creature would do.  It came
at her again, fangs dripping with venom.  But it was definitely slower than
it had been earlier, she could tell.  

She swung at a leg.  The ultra-sharp blade actually sliced through the 
spider's armor, at least partway! She swung again, trying to aim for the
same spot.  And again.  Finally, the leg fell off.  The spider stumbled,
then advanced on her on seven legs.  But it was considerably slower this
time.

Four more swings of her sword cut off a second leg.  Three additional 
swings cut off a third.  The spider could still walk on five legs! It came
at her, stumbled, and actually fell down! It got up again, but Nita's heart
was now pounding fast with excitement.  

She ran directly at it, slid down low, and drove her sword straight up into
its belly.  A horrible howl of pain came from the monster.  She stabbed it
several more times, dodging the spider's remaining legs all the while, then
backflipped to safety to give herself a few moments to recuperate.  Large
amounts of black blood oozed out of the monster's wounds and onto the 
floor.

Nita moved in again, cutting off a fourth leg.  The spider was still up!
She stabbed it in the stomach six times before a near miss from the 
monster's venom-soaked fangs motivated her to backflip away.

The spider was now having trouble moving, falling down frequently.  It
howled in pain almost continuously.  Nita drove in for the kill.  With a
primal yell, she ran at her opponent and with four swift sword swings cut
off a fifth leg.  The monster could not stand on three legs and toppled
onto its side, its remaining legs kicking aimlessly.  She attacked its now
exposed belly furiously, driving her blade into flesh again and again.  The
spider's giant fangs and legs were now useless, as neither could reach her.

She finally stepped back after stabbing it at least fifty times.  Black
blood flowed freely, spreading all across the floor.  The spider twitched
and squealed.  Gradually its twitches grew slower and weaker.  Finally, it
stopped moving entirely.  It was dead.

Nita fell to her knees in gratitude - then felt something bite her right
boot.  She looked down and saw that she had missed one of the baby spiders.
Screaming in rage, she sliced it into pieces with her sword.  She then took
off her knee-high boot, slowly, heart thumping.

She looked at her skin, then at the inside of the boot.  The fangs had not
gone through the leather.  The skin was unbroken.  She sighed with relief,
then put her boot back on and looked around to make sure no more spiders 
had survived.

The voice came over the loudspeaker, startling her.  She had almost 
forgotten about it.  And the voice no longer sounded as arrogant as it once
had. "I have to say, you're a unique woman, Miss Martinez.  I've never seen
anyone like you.  And I certainly never expected that anyone could kill
Lady Macbeth."

"Lady Macbeth?"

"That giant spider, of course."

"You named it *Lady Macbeth*?!" Nita said, shaking her head. "Sheesh.  
You're screwed up in the head in more ways than one."

"Irrelevant," said the voice.  Some confidence returned to it as it went 
on, "You are certainly to be congratulated, Miss Martinez.  You've 
demonstrated skill, strength, and courage beyond anything I've ever seen.
But, of course, I'm still the master.  I'm still in control.  I'm afraid
nothing gets past my final level.  You'll be dead in a few minutes, but
before you die I want to thank you for the great entertainment you've
given me."

It paused.

"Goodbye, Nita," it finished softly, using the diminutive, familiar form of
her name again.  The now-familiar mechanized hum came and a hole opened in
the floor, revealing the ubiquitous set of stairs.  At the same time, a box
rose out of the floor next to her and slid open.  Nita peered inside, 
seeing a powerful-looking crossbow.  With it came a quiver of a dozen 
arrows.  She picked up the items and expertly loaded an arrow.

Crossbow at the ready, she advanced cautiously down the stairs.  Looking at
the floor below her, she saw some zombies - maybe thirty or forty.  A lot,
but she had dealt with and defeated greater numbers.  And these looked like
just ordinary zombies.  No exotic monsters.  She could see another set of
stairs leading down from that floor.  This had to be the second floor, and
those stairs had to lead to the first.

Was this all the unbeatable final level had to offer? Was there some huge 
monster waiting to jump out at her? She tilted her head, puzzled.

One zombie turned and looked at her - and that's when she saw the crossbow
in its hands.  She looked at the others and realized they were all armed 
with crossbows too. "Oh FUCK."

She fired, her arrow nailing the zombie that was looking at her right 
between the eyes.  As it fell dead, she sprinted back up the stairs.  
Arrows flew through the air as the other zombies noticed her and began
shooting.  Some of them missed her by only a few inches.

The zombies began coming up the stairs after her.  Nita slew the first two
with quick but experly aimed shots to the head, but was forced to retreat
as the others advanced en masse, firing their arrows.  She raced upstairs
to the next level.  There was one more level after that, and after that...?
There was nowhere else to run.  And the zombies were coming.  30, 35 of 
them probably, all armed with crossbows.  She could never defeat them all.
She had only nine arrows left, anyway, plus that pistol, which had only two
bullets left.

She ran up to the top level, where it had all began.  She wondered what to
do.  Find a quiet corner and spend her last few minutes alive in prayer?
Shoot herself with the pistol? Jump out the window to her death? If she 
only had more time...but the zombies were coming, and those cameras were
on her, watching every move she made...Her eyes traveled to the wood from
the shattered crates.  She could barricade the stairwell with that, but the
cameras would see, and whoever was watching her would do something to take
the offensive...

A sudden thought struck her.  When she had gotten the first gun, she had
thought about shooting out the cameras with it, but she couldn't afford to
use up bullets she would need to fight the zombies.  Now, however, she had
a weapon with ammunition that could be reused...

She remembered that there were eight cameras on the top floor.  Taking aim
with her crossbow, she began shooting them out one by one.  The targets
were tiny, but she made sure not to miss, as she knew any miss would cost
her precious seconds.  But her markswomanship held true, and she hit every
target.  In less than thirty seconds she had destroyed all eight cameras.
The kidnapper couldn't keep tabs on her now!

The zombies were coming closer, she could hear them.  No time to waste!
Nita began dragging the largest pieces of wood over the opening in the 
floor.  She had almost finished covering the opening when the first three
crossbow-wielding zombies appeared at the bottom of the stairs below her.
Whipping out her own crossbow, she drew the one remaining arrow in her
quiver and loaded and fired it, killing the first zombie.  The other two
raised their weapons, but she drew the pistol from the back of her skirt 
and emptied the last two bullets into their skulls before they could fire.
She quickly finished covering the last of the open space with pieces of
wood, then began dragging the zombie corpses onto the wood to form a more
solid barricade.  

The rest of the zombie army arrived on the floor below and began firing
their crossbows at the wood.  The arrows were launched with impressive
force and some penetrated the wood, embedding themselves in the top floor's
ceiling.  A couple of arrows narrowly missed Juanita.  She hurried to 
finish covering the wood with bodies.

Nita retrieved her eight remaining arrows from the cameras they had 
destroyed and put them back in her quiver.  She then thought about what to
do.  The zombies below had stopped shooting and were now trying to break
through the barricade.  It was solid, but it wouldn't last forever.  At any
rate, she had no food or water, and the kidnapper would want to come up to
finish her off.  Ironically, the zombies that were banging on her barricade
were also protecting her in a way.  Were they not there, the kidnapper 
could simply send three or four men, armed with guns, up to finish her off.
But now, the kidnapper would need at least eight or nine men armed with
machine guns to defeat the zombies, and she guessed that he didn't have
those resources at his disposal, not right here at least.

She knew, however, that it would be at most a few hours before either the
kidnapper stormed in with reinforcements and came up to finish her, or the
zombies broke through the barricade and finished her.  She had to find a
way out.

The window had always been in the back of her mind.  But it was at least a
70 foot drop to the ground below, and there was no way to climb down 
safely.  If only she could make a rope! But what could she make it with? 
In the movies there were always bedsheets conveniently available for that
purpose, but there were no sheets here.  The only cloth here was clothes,
and her little miniskirt and bra could hardly...

A sudden thought struck her.  She looked over at the dead zombies piled up
over the stairs.  They were all shirtless, but most of them were wearing
pants! Thirty pairs of pants were up here!

She quickly began pulling the pants off the zombies, trying to ignore the
horrible smell.  She tied them to each other to make a crude rope.  When
she thought it was long enough, she walked over to the window.  It was
securely locked, so she prepared her big black boot and drove it into the
window in a powerful kick.  Although the glass was reinforced, her leg
strength was enough to shatter the glass with a single kick.  Hoping that
the sound of the glass breaking hadn't carried to the ground floor, she
secured the rope at the top, then tossed it down, letting it out.  It
reached sixty-five feet down, ending only five feet above the ground.

Nita smiled, then swallowed nervously.  Now she would see if her makeshift
rope was strong enough to hold her weight.  Strapping the crossbow and
quiver of arrows onto her back, she gripped the rope tightly with her
gloved hands, the muscles on her big forearms standing out as she flexed to
grip.  She took a deep breath, then began making her way down.

She had made it almost all the way and was just twelve feet from the ground
when she heard a sharp ripping sound, then the rope gave way! She began
falling, but as she fell she launched herself into an athletic backward 
tuck somersault.  The somersault broke her fall and she landed safely on 
the ground, uninjured.  She sighed with relief.  Someone who didn't know
gymnastics would have landed hard and probably broken both of his or her
ankles.

Juanita raised her arms in a silent celebration of victory.  She was free!
She looked over at the warehouse and saw that lights were on on the ground
floor.  She unstrapped her crossbow and loaded an arrow, a scowl appearing
on her pretty face.  Now, her thoughts were focused on revenge.  Now, she
would find out who this kidnapper was.

She skulked cautiously from window to window.  She saw no one.  Turning a
corner, she noticed a black van parked beside the warehouse - the van from
the parking lot at the grocery store.  Suddenly, she heard voices.  
Flattening herself against the wall, she crept closer and listened.

"The zombies are still up there, boss," came a rough voice that sounded
like it belonged to a big man. "No way the three of us can get past them.
We'll have to send for a squadron of mercs if we wanna do that."

"She found every camera and nailed them all with her crossbow," said a
different voice, smoother and more refined than the first. "If she had
missed just one we could see what she's up to.  But she found them all!"
Nita smirked when she heard that.

"It doesn't matter," came a third voice.  This one spoke with authority
and had to belong to the boss. "Either the zombies will break through and
finish her off, or she'll starve to death up there.  There's no way out."

"That's what you think, asshole," sexy Nita thought to herself.

"At any rate, I think it's time to cut our losses and abandon this place,"
the boss's voice continued.

"I don't like the idea of leaving loose ends," said the smooth voice.

"Yeah, should I call the mercs?" came the rough voice.

"That won't be necessary," declared the boss. "We have enough explosives in
the van to blow this place sky-high.  We'll rig this whole place up and set
the explosives on a timer.  After it goes kaboom, all the evidence and the
one living witness who could bust us will be destroyed.  And no one will 
ever trace the explosion to us.  I rented this place under a fake name and
paid for it with cash.  Rocky and Gary, go get the explosives from the van.
I'll start clearing out the office."

Nita's heart beat faster.  Now was her chance.  She readied her crossbow.

A few seconds later, a door opened and two men walked out - a big man and a
smaller man.  She recognized the big man as the one who had shot her with 
the tranquilizer gun.  The smaller man, who was wearing a chauffeur's 
uniform, was walking a few steps behind his companion.

She aimed at the chauffeur and fired.  The arrow silently left her crossbow
and impacted his skull, causing it to erupt in a spectacular display of
blood and gore. "Wow, this is really powerful," she thought. "No wonder 
those arrows went right through that wood."

The big man reached the van and unlocked the back door.  Suddenly realizing
he was alone, he turned around and called out, "Gary, where the fuck are...
uh-oh." Suddenly noticing Gary's corpse on the ground, its skull mostly
destroyed, Rocky whipped out his tranquilizer gun.  Before he could do 
anything else, however, Juanita had shot him in the chest with her crossbow.
The arrow went all the way through his chest and pierced the van door,
pinning Rocky to the door.  He was no longer capable of speaking, but his 
eyes seemed to be saying, "Who?"

Nita stepped forward. "Me," she said softly, holding up her deadly crossbow.
"You shot me, now I shot you.  Payback's a bitch, and so am I." She smirked
at him.  A second later, Rocky expired.  His corpse was still being held
upright by the arrow pinning him to the van door.

Leaving the two dead henchmen behind, she loaded another arrow and silently
walked through the open doorway.  She turned into a hallway, then came to
the open door of an office.  Morris was there, his back to her, gathering up
files.  She gave a whistle.

Morris turned around...and gasped in shock when he saw Juanita standing 
there, pointing a crossbow at him. "What the fuck?! Rocky! Gary!"

"Oh, they can't help you," said Nita casually. "They're dead.  I killed 
them.  And now I'm going to kill you."

"How the fuck did you get out of the attic?!" sputtered Morris.

Nita pointed her crossbow directly at his head. "All right, asshole, here's
the deal.  First of all, you don't get to ask any questions.  Second, 
you're a dead man.  But I want to know who you are and why you kidnapped me
and made me go through all that torture.  If you cooperate and answer all
my questions, I'll give you a quick death.  But if you don't, I'll torture
you until you talk, then torture you to death."

Morris wet his pants.  Nita rolled her eyes at his cowardice. "All right, 
all right, I'll talk!" he squealed. "My name is Harvey Morris.  I'm an
Assistant District Attorney.  I found out about you because I had access to
your file, about that incident where you killed that stalker."

"Why did you kidnap me?"

"It's like I said over the loudspeaker.  I wanted to see how well you could
fight against those zombies."

"But why me in particular?"

"Well...er...um...I like seeing muscular, athletic women in combat.  And 
you fit the bill perfectly.  Amazingly perfectly.  Beyond any of those 
other women..."

"Other women, huh? How many other women were there? How many innocent young
ladies did you and your henchmen kidnap and murder?"

Morris hesitated.  Nita tightened her grip on her crossbow.

"Twelve before you," he admitted. "You were number thirteen."

"You fucker," said Nita. "All right, I've heard enough.  Now it's time for
you to die.  Slowly and painfully."

Morris's mouth dropped open. "B...but you p...promised..."

"I lied," said Nita simply. "Besides, giving you a quick death would be
letting you off too easy for what you've done." With that, she shot him in
the left hand with her crossbow.  The arrow impacted his hand with a
sickening THWACK, pulverizing his hand bones. "AAAAHHHHHHH!" screamed
Morris.

Nita laughed sadistically. "This is just the beginning, asshole," she
snarled.  She tossed the crossbow aside and flexed her big muscles, then
walked right up to her still-screaming opponent and punched him in the nose
with her big, leather-gloved fist.  She smiled in satisfaction as she felt
his nose break.  She slammed her other fist into his right eye, blackening
it.  She pimp-slapped him in the face several times with her gloved hands, 
then grabbed the arrow and roughly yanked it out, making it as painful as 
possible.  She looked at the blood coming out of the wound. "Don't worry, 
you're bleeding slowly enough that you won't bleed to death before I'm 
finished with you." She stepped back slightly and kicked him in the chest 
as hard as she could, sending him flying to the far corner of the room and 
causing him to land in a heap.  

Nita walked over to the opposite end of the room. "This is how I won so 
many gymnastics awards!" she called out.  She launched herself into a long 
tumbling pass directly at him, starting with a front handspring, then doing 
a roundoff, back handspring, kick-full, two more back handsprings, a whip 
back, and finally finishing with a full twisting layout.  As she went 
through her full twist, she crashed into her opponent, kicking him in the
head with both feet.  She landed neatly and laughed. "Get up, cocksucker,"
she sneered, kicking him in the side so hard with her steel-toed boot that 
she broke one of his ribs clean through.

Morris climbed slowly to his feet, in horrible pain in many different parts
of his body.  He looked over at his opponent.  They were about the same
size, but she was stunningly muscular and easily two or three times 
stronger than him.  Her perfect six-pack abs looked like they could stop
anything.  Her muscular thighs looked like they could crush a skull with a
single quick squeeze.  Despite being on the receiving end of a beating, he
began to get hard.  After all, he was being beaten by an unbelievably hot
woman dressed in bra, miniskirt, and knee-high boots.

He swung a punch at her pretty face with his good hand.  She caught his 
feeble punch easily, grabbing his arm. "Fuck, you're slow AND weak," she 
taunted him. "Your arms are so thin and girly compared to my nice masculine 
ones.  And you're supposed to be the man." She began clenching and 
unclenching her fists, causing the muscles on her massive forearms to 
ripple impressively.  Releasing his arm, she made a big show of drawing her
right fist back as if she was going to punch him with it, then suddenly
punched him in the face with her left fist, opening a nasty gash on his
cheek.

Stepping back slightly, she smiled at him brightly. "This one's going to 
hurt," she announced.  She kicked him in the jaw, breaking it and loosening
a couple of his teeth.  She laughed as he cried in pain. "I didn't even use

my full power on that kick," she mocked him. "Your friend the kidnapper
found out what my full-power kick to the jaw can do.  It broke his fucking
neck."

Still smiling, Nita punched him in the jaw, shattering the bones further
and knocking loose a few more teeth.  She gave him several more brutal,
ultra-powerful punches to the same location.  When she was finished, more
than half of his teeth had come loose and his jaw bones were utterly
pulverized.  She smashed a fist into his left eye to blacken it and make it
match its companion.

She punched him in the gut, causing him to double over in pain.  Grabbing
him by the shoulders, she made it worse by ramming her knee into his
already crippled gut.  She then moved her aim a little lower and kneed him
in the crotch.  She laughed as he fell, clutching his wounded testicles.

Nita kicked Morris in the groin several times with her steel-toed boots.
The first kick alone was so powerful that it instantly erased his ability
to reproduce.  By the seventh or eighth kick, Morris's nuts had been
turned into nothing more than messy paste.  For her next act, Nita pulled
Morris up by the neck to a kneeling position, then began kneeing him in the
face.  Her knee slammed into his face again and again, releasing blood each
time.  When she finally stopped, his own henchmen would not have recognized
his face.

Still not finished, Nita let his face flop to the floor and began kicking
his ribs with her boots, breaking them and sending little shards of bone
into his lungs.  Through it all, Morris was still conscious, but helpless,
and in the worst pain of his life.

Finally, Nita used her amazing strength to haul her opponent to his feet
with one hand.  She grabbed him by the shoulders, then brutally headbutted
him, knocking him out.  She picked him up and slung him over her shoulder
in a fireman's (or firewoman's) carry, hauling him upstairs.

Morris woke up and saw that he was on the third floor of his warehouse.
Nita was standing over him, and her crossbow was in her hands.

"By the way, while you were out, I set up this building with the explosives
from your van," she told him. "My Girl Scout troop leader taught me all
about explosives.  Outside of official Scouting time, of course.  I'm going
to blow this place up because I don't want any of the zombies to escape.
But don't think you'll get a quick death out of it.  You're going to die
the same way you made those twelve young women die.  By being eaten alive 
by zombies."

Morris gasped in horror, but before he could say anything Nita had shot him
in the left kneecap with her crossbow.  Laughing, she reloaded and swiftly
shot him in his right kneecap too.  He screamed in pain and rage.

"Scream all you want, honey," she cooed. "No one can hear you.  Guess 
that's why you picked this place, huh? So no one could hear those girls
screaming.  Poetic justice, huh?"

"Zom-bies!" she called upstairs to the horde that was still on the fourth
floor. "Dinner's ready!" A second later, the sound of zombies beginning
their shuffle down the stairs was heard.

"Goodbye, Morris," said Nita simply.  She started downstairs.

"Please," Morris begged. "Mercy."

She stopped and looked at him. "The same mercy you showed those girls," she
said calmly.  She walked off down the stairs.

Morris, who had already peed his pants, now shat in them.  The zombies
approached him, crossbows at the ready.  Once they saw he was no threat,
however, they lowered their weapons and came right up to him, opening their
mouths.

It took five minutes for him to die.  His hopes for the explosion granting
him a quick death went unfulfilled, as Nita had set the timer for fifteen
minutes.

Nita, driving away in the black van, smiled as she heard the explosion in
the distance.  After she had relieved Gary of his car keys, she had
thoughtfully dragged his and Rocky's corpses into the building to make
sure they would be destroyed when it blew up.  When she got to the edge of
town, she would abandon the van and catch a bus or taxi home.  All
evidence destroyed, no link to her, no cops to question her.  She smiled as
she looked down at her gloved hands on the steering wheel. "I should thank
Morris for dressing me like this," she thought. "So easy not to leave
fingerprints.  Guess it was lucky that he had a fetish for chicks wearing
long black leather gloves.  Heh heh heh."

* * *

BACK AT THE SITE OF THE EXPLOSION

Smoke rose from the ruins of the warehouse.  Small fires were still 
burning.  A single zombie stared at the rubble with its empty, soulless
eyes.  It had happened to wander downstairs and outside after eating its 
share of Morris, and had consequently survived the explosion.

The zombie, still carrying its crossbow, turned away from the ruins and
started walking on the road towards town.  There would be plenty of
humans to kill and eat there.

* * *

THE END

Comments, compliments, and constructive criticism encouraged.

silverstar222b@yahoo.com