Heroes of the Undead | Book 1 | The Culling

by Meredith, Peter

  The couch was a trim little thing that matched the exactness of the apartment perfectly. Other than a few open cabinets, the six-hundred square foot apartment was bright, airy, perfect and looked like it was ready to be photographed for a magazine spread.

  Bryce didn’t notice the decor. To him it was all a blur of white and silver as he pulled off his backpack and started to make yet another sandwich.

  “Maybe you should wash your hands first,” Maddy suggested. The smell of fear on him had already faded. Now the predominant smell about him was that of the demon.

  He caught a whiff of it too. “Or maybe a shower.” Getting up seemed like a chore, so he put it off for a few more minutes by asking, “Do you want to go first?”

  Her eyes were drooping already. All she wanted was to sleep and yet, following after Bryce in the shower seemed less than ideal. With a groan, she pushed herself up and, after teetering for a second, went to the bathroom, which was just as neat as the rest of the place.

  As the hot water streamed over her, she had to wonder how many more showers she could expect to get in the next few weeks. With the city in chaos, the power wasn’t going to last much longer. Had Magnus thought of that? she wondered. She was sure he had. It didn’t take a genius to chart a path once a zombie apocalypse was unleashed.

  First the law would crumble, looting would become widespread, the power grid would fail, water would stop running, then morality would be replaced by animalistic survival of the fittest.

  But Magnus and his cult of robotic followers would be safe in his steel towers. She pictured his plaza; the seven great skyscrapers set in something of a ring, towering over a little park. It wasn’t hard to imagine his seven-thousand followers toiling like ants, bricking over the first-floor windows and doors.

  “I bet they have tunnels,” she muttered as she soaped up.

  The smell of frying meat struck her, making her stomach growl and heave simultaneously. She stopped the shower seconds later and hurried to find Bryce cooking on all four burners.

  “We don’t want the meat to go bad,” he told her. He was eating a sandwich at the same time as making six others and frying a steak he had found in the nearly empty fridge. “Hungry?”

  She finally was, but only for the steak and some green beans that had been forgotten in the corner of a lower cabinet. They ate in silence, Maddy nibbling slowly, too tired to be enthusiastic about an under seasoned steak. Bryce gorged himself until he couldn’t hold his eyes open a second longer. It could be their death to fall asleep, but they were both too done in to keep going; they had to take the chance.

  Without asking, she took the bed and, after a quick shower, he slept on the couch. He slept deeply as the sun ran its paces overhead. Maddy dreamed of screams and gunfire. She ran endlessly in her dreams afraid that something was coming for her. Something bigger than herself or the demon, or all of them. Something even bigger than the city. Something that could destroy it in the blink of an eye.

  Chapter 25

  They moved slowly in a crouch, their eyes always out. It was mid-morning and yet the sky was dark. The air was filled with dust and ash. Bombs had been raining from one end of New Jersey to the other for the better part of the night. Even miles away, they could feel the explosions coursing up through the ground.

  Although Maddy had the better nose, she was fourth in line. Bryce led the way. He was taller now. Tall and thick with muscle. Everything he ate seemed to either go to building muscle or bone. In his right hand, he carried a sledgehammer. It was a fearsome weapon.

  Maddy carried her climbing axe in her right hand and the garbage can lid in the other. The lid was dented and stained. It was an ugly shield, but it was still a shield.

  “We have to hurry,” she hissed. Time was squeezing in on them. She could feel it in her bones. Death was coming. Death from above. She cast a fearful look up and just then the sky was lit in an unholy radiance. The air screamed in agony and the earth melted under the…

  Maddy’s eyes came open and she found herself staring into a golden death…no. It was the setting sun. And the sound of screaming…those were fighter jets tearing across the sky. And the earth shaking that was really…the earth was shaking. The thunder of explosions rippled in the west and for a moment Maddy felt the same fear of time spinning away that she’d had in her dream.

  “Bryce,” she whispered, climbing from the bed. She found him sitting on the couch, yawning and stretching his arms out. He was smaller than he had been in her dream and yet as he stretched, the arms of his hoodie showed most of his wrists. And it was tight across his chest. He was still growing.

  She looked down at herself. After her shower, she’d thrown on the navy blue blouse and had been too tired to even glance at a mirror. Now she saw it hung on her like a sail. Suddenly, her dream and the explosions became meaningless. She went back to the bedroom and stared at herself in the full-length mirror.

  “It’s still happening,” she mumbled in shock. Her heart was still racing at frightening speeds and the fever was still raging. Her body was burning through its fat reserves in a way that was simply not possible.

  Bryce stood in the doorway, practically filling it. His shoulders had broadened and his chest had become thick. He was obviously taller now. “You look…great. How much weight have you lost?”

  Maddy despised scales even more than mirrors. They screamed the truth about how fat she was. She hadn’t been on a scale since her last doctor’s appointment two years before. The scale had read 226 and she had only gotten bigger since then. Now she couldn’t be more than a hundred and forty pounds.

  “A hundred pounds.” She couldn’t stop staring at herself. As great as the weight loss was, a nagging voice kept whispering, What if it doesn’t stop? She didn’t want to think about that. “You’ve grown.”

  He looked down at himself. His feet stuck out like he was growing scuba fins. And they seemed strangely far away, like his legs had been stretched. He went to the mirror and stood next to Maddy. His jeans were high up on his ankle and felt like they were strangling his crotch. Still, it was hard to tell how much he’d grown, especially with Maddy next to him. She hadn’t just slimmed down, she had grown taller as well.

  Absently, Bryce licked his lip only to realize that the cut on it was gone. The same was true of the bruise on his temple. His hands were unmarked as well; no blisters, splinters, cuts or scrapes. He pulled a sock off and found his strangely large foot to be equally healed. How long had it been since he’d been hobbling around barefoot and bleeding?

  Then he remembered the demon scratches and twisted around to see them. They had healed as well.

  “Whatever Magnus did to us, has its upside,” he remarked, still staring at himself. “I don’t even feel the glass feeling. You know, in the joints?”

  She bent her elbow and realized that there was barely even a ghost of pain where before she would’ve cried scratching her nose.

  “That demon might’ve started out like this,” she cautioned.

  “I don’t feel very demony,” he said. He had to resist the urge to flex for the mirror. He’d never had anything to flex before. His arms had always been soft pale tubes that would “plump up” slightly if he attempted to make a muscle. Now he could feel the weight of muscle that hadn’t been there two days before.

  They both stared at the mirror until Bryce’s stomach rumbled. He went for more food. As he did, Maddy cast one last look at herself and then went to the dresser. The woman who lived there was a size eight. Everything was too small for Maddy still, but not by much. She decided to take a pair of jeans and a t-shirt. These went into her pack just in case she continued to shrink.

  By the time she was done, Bryce was onto his second sandwich. She watched him tear through his food while a tingle of fear crept over her. The idea that time was running down was in the back of her mind. It was smart to heed the fear. Nukes were a distinct possibility, and so was being left behind by the FBI. The city was quickly becoming a lost cau
se.

  “We should get going,” she said.

  “Yeah. South still?” He went to a window and looked out. The view was to the south, that was true; however as they were on the third floor they saw next to nothing except yet another street filled with cars. “Do you know if there’s a subway station nearby? I hate the idea of being out in the open.”

  She could only shrug. “The last time I was in New York, they seemed to be everywhere, always a block away.”

  They didn’t seem so prevalent now. Bryce turned and gazed around at the darkening apartment. “We need weapons.”

  Weapons were not to be found, at least not suitable weapons. The best he could find was a big knife that had a good edge on it. She picked up a thin one and pictured shoving it in a zombie’s eye. They also grabbed a few cans of food, just in case, before slinking out of the apartment.

  Bryce went first, moving slowly, afraid to find the demon lurking around every corner or behind every door. If he had healed quickly, it suggested that the demon would’ve as well.

  A back entrance to the building opened onto yet another alley, this one wet and dim. The sun, a pale disk, was mostly hidden behind mountainous clouds of black smoke, and the shadows were deep. Maddy expected to smell more piss in the alley, but was pleasantly surprised to breathe in the aroma of pumpkin.

  Just down the alley were long wooden boxes set against a brick wall. It was an old urban garden that hadn’t been tended in a year. Two of the boxes were broken and knocked on their sides. The last was filled with worn brown dirt, trash and leaves. Somehow a single pumpkin was growing among the cigarette butts which constituted the only form of fertilizer in the box.

  Right next to it were two old trashcans. One had a bashed-in lid. Maddy picked up the lid and stared at it in awe, her mind going to her dream. There was a handle on top. It was a small loop of metal that fit her hand nicely.

  “A shield,” she said, in something of a daze. Had the dream been prophetic? Or had the idea of being protected spawned the dream, and finding the garbage can lid only happenstance? She hoped to God she couldn’t see the future. As much as she liked the idea, she didn’t want to be around when a nuke went off.

  Bryce grinned as Maddy hefted the trashcan lid. For a moment, she struck him as “cute.” It was disconcerting since they had hated each other since the moment they had met. “It’s nice. We should get some tape or…”

  His words were drowned out as green helicopters flew by. They were spaced out, one per street, heading south. Bryce and Maddy took one look at each other and then ran west down the alley until they came out on Broadway. They had their hands in the air, desperate to wave the copters back. They were about to yell their throats out to be rescued. The yells died on their lips.

  There were zombies among the cars. A lot of them.

  The two ducked back into the alley. “What do we do?” Maddy asked.

  “We should, uh…” Bryce had no idea what they should do. “We should, uh…I don’t know. What do you think we should do?”

  “I don’t know. Are the streets worse? They look worse.”

  It was hard to tell. “They’re not better.” He wanted to scamper back up to the apartment and hide like all the sane people seemed to be doing. The streets belonged to the dead.

  A muffled shriek came to them. It came from somewhere in a building across the street. It wasn’t just their heightened senses that allowed them to hear the cry. The city had become eerily quiet. The constant horns were no more. The sporadic gunfire had trickled away to short bursts. The screams of frightened people had become whispers.

  Accompanying this lone shriek was a thumping and a low growling that grew more intense with each passing second. Then the shriek came again, high and shrill. The zombies on the street turned to the sound and began to congregate against the building. They stared upwards in eagerness, which was rewarded moments later when a third floor window was smashed outward.

  Maddy and Bryce should’ve been using the distraction to hurry off down the road, instead they watched in horror as a woman tried to scramble out onto a tiny ledge.

  “Oh God,” Maddy whispered, pressing her hand to her mouth.

  “We should go,” Bryce muttered, and yet he made no move to go. There was a crack of wood and a shout. Inside a man was fighting and cursing. Then he began to grunt and scream. Sobbing, the woman climbed further out onto the ledge, holding onto the window frame with just one hand. Below her the horde groaned in pleasure waiting for her to fall.

  She did not fall. Smartly, she kept her body plastered to the wall. In seconds, the man went silent, and not long after the first of the dead came to the window snuffling. It was inevitable. Even from down on the street, Bryce smelled lavender shampoo beneath the stench of the zombies and the bitterness of the smoke. The zombies smelled her, too. They had no fear of heights and the first one didn’t just reach for her, it tried to walk out onto the ledge after her.

  It fell head first, crashing down on the dead below. The next dead creature didn’t get a chance to climb out. It was pushed from behind and fell soundlessly down onto the horde. The next creature took Bryce’s breath away. It was the demon. At the sight of it, Bryce pulled Maddy down behind a car. She had seen it as well.

  On the ledge, the girl started screaming. Bryce chanced a look and saw the demon reaching for her, stretching out a long arm. She inched further away, doing everything she could to keep her body pressed to the wall. But its arm was very long. It grabbed her by the wrist. Had she been thinking straight she would’ve hurled herself from the ledge in the hope of either breaking free or pulling it down with her. Instead, she tried to hold onto her perch and fight the grip at the same time.

  It was a losing battle. Eventually, her right foot slipped and she fell, but only for a few feet. Then she dangled, her wrist crushed in its grip. As he pulled her into a room filled with starving zombies she screamed into its grinning face.

  Chapter 26

  The woman’s screams sent the zombies on the streets into a frenzy. Some tried to climb up the building to get at her. Others ran around, screaming in unison with her screams. They pounded the cars and slapped the sidewalk. Most of them, however, surged to the closest door and bashed their way inside.

  Maddy was the first moving. She hurried down the street, doing her best not to look at the building where the screams were lasting longer than possible. It sounded like she was being tortured rather than eaten. Or it’s both, Maddy thought.

  Just as they reached the end of the block, a new scream came from the building. The zombies had found another person hiding. How many more were in that building? How many were unarmed except for a steak knife and a frying pan? Their only chance was to come out fighting. Some would die, but the rest might get away.

  Bryce hesitated, one foot on the sidewalk and one in the street. “Someone has to…” he choked out, but couldn’t go on. The only chance those people had was if a leader took charge and rallied them, but it wasn’t him. It couldn’t be. He was too afraid. He was too weak.

  Maddy guessed the reason for his hesitation. “No. We have a duty. Magnus did something to us, remember? We have a duty to the rest of the country…”

  “I know,” he hissed, angry at himself for even hesitating. A real man would’ve simply done the right thing. Griff would’ve. He had already proven his heroism time and again, while Bryce had done little that didn’t involve saving himself. He stomped away, crossing the street without looking left or right. It was impulsive and stupid, and he paid for it a second later as a creature lunged at him.

  The undead thing had been a high school volleyball player and still had her blonde hair neatly done up in a ponytail. The flesh had been eaten off her face and Bryce could see her gum-line and all her teeth. He grimaced in revulsion as he brandished the knife. Even before the big girl came flying at him, he knew it was a poor weapon. But it was worse than poor.

  She practically threw herself onto it and didn’t bat an eye as it rip
ped into her guts. All she cared about was tearing his face off. Her hands were as large as a man’s and her grip left bruises on his arms as she pinned them against his sides and came flashing in with her lipless mouth stretched wide. Barely, he was able to hold her off. But she was too close to pull the knife and he had to let go of it to save his face.

  Heaving with all his strength, he pushed off the car and thrust her back. He had grown over the last day and a half, and could now be called average.

  Average wasn’t going to cut it against six-feet of blonde fury. She heaved him over a car and he landed with a hard thud. His fighting instincts were those of a toddler’s and he was still rubbing his elbow when she stalked around the car. The blonde woman might have done more damage except Maddy stepped over and stabbed her in the neck with her knife.

  Maddy had the fighting instincts of a fetus. Her stab was more of a poke and drew less blood than the average nosebleed. The blonde zombie spun on her faster than she expected and she only barely got her shield up in time. The zombie grabbed it with both hands. Maddy held on for dear life as she was slung back and forth, slammed into the cars on either side. It didn’t take long before the zombie wrestled the lid from Maddy’s grip, and flung it aside, nearly hitting Bryce who had just gotten to his feet.

  Maddy let out a frightened yelp and ran, dodging open car doors, and the stiff glass-eyed corpses that were strewn about. She found herself running back the way they had come, directly towards the crowd of zombies.

  Without thinking, she dropped down and squirmed beneath a minivan, scratching for the other side before the zombie could reach under and pull her out. It tried and even caught hold of one of her Uggs. Her feet had become narrower with her weight loss and the boot slid right off.

  “Son of a bitch!” she barked. The last thing she wanted was to find herself running around the city barefoot once again. But there was no getting the boot back. She rolled to the other side of the minivan and took off back towards Bryce, Except Bryce seemed to have disappeared. He left me? This was astounding and frightening…and not true.