Heroes of the Undead | Book 1 | The Culling

by Meredith, Peter

  Maddy sat down next to him, staring like everyone else. “I don’t remember this. That’s good, right?”

  “There’s nothing good about this,” Griff said, easing down next to her. “Nothing.”

  “There’s one thing good,” Wilkes said. “We can be done with this. I told you there was nothing left. Your fucking quest is over, Bryce. The lady’s kid is dead, and I bet your partner is as well Agent Shit-brains, and if he ain’t, he sure as hell isn’t down there.”

  Chapter 44

  When Victoria Deitch came wandering back, looking like she was sleep walking through the rubble, she did not make eye contact with Bryce. She said nothing to the others and stood apart from them. Her eyes were drawn upward, but not to heaven. It was to the tall buildings that her squinting gaze was drawn; to the jumpers.

  Very few of them screamed. They were resigned to their fate. Her lips counted silently how long it took them to fall: four seconds from the roof of a twenty-story building. Four seconds of terror—she could handle that.

  Bryce watched her, feeling her pain. It came off her in waves. No one else cared; they all had their own pain to deal with. They stared at nothing as their minds tried to come to grips with their losses and their wounds. Bryce felt the dull ache of guilt. He tried to force it away. “It’s not my fault,” he lied to himself.

  “We go west,” Wilkes said, hands on hips, staring around as if he were talking to a platoon instead of a group of broken castoffs. “The Holland Tunnel isn’t far and it will be our second option if we have an issue getting a boat.”

  This wasn’t exactly true, he just said it to appeal to the weak-willed among them. Without a gun, he would rather swim across the river than attempt the tunnel, especially since he knew it had been subject to numerous bomb attacks. The Governor of New Jersey had done everything in his power to cut links with the city. Judging by the glow of fires in the west, it hadn’t done him any good.

  The idea that the roof of the pitch-black tunnel could collapse with him in it freaked Wilkes out to no end. Drowning was not his greatest fear, in fact he had heard it wasn’t a bad way to go, all things considered. However, the idea of drowning in utter darkness was appalling to him.

  “We’ll break into self-supporting teams. I’ll be leading with…”

  “Not any time soon,” Bryce interrupted. Although he was drawing on the last of his reserves—he felt the exhaustion in the core of his bones—he knew the others were worse off. Some wouldn’t be able to make it another block.

  Wilkes tried to remain composed at what was more than insubordination. In this situation, he was being stabbed in the back. He could literally feel his blood pressure inching up; he could feel it in his neck which he was sure was swelling. “A word,” he demanded walking so close to Bryce’s jutting knees that he knocked them with his arm.

  Bryce sighed and slid from the car.

  He followed Wilkes to the other side of the street where Wilkes tried more intimidation tactics by standing over him in the gloom, almost within kissing distance. “You’re a scientist, right?”

  They both knew he was. “World-renowned,” Bryce said. It was something of a dig at his own once super-inflated ego. A year ago he had done research on a paper concerning genetic splicing and although his part had been small, there had been enough big names attached to the project that the paper was cited as having been written by “world-renowned scientists.” From then on, those three words were a permanent part of his bio, including on his Facebook page. They embarrassed him now.

  “Then you know about critical mass,” Wilkes stated. “I doubt a quarter of the population of this city has turned zombie. But every fucking hour more and more people turn. Soon, they’ll be swarming the streets like fucking ants. Then what, smart guy? How do we escape when there are five or six million of them all over the fucking place?”

  “Yeah, alright,” Bryce said, knowing that although Wilkes’ use of the word “soon” was deceptive, he wasn’t entirely wrong. By morning, it could very well be death to be seen on the streets. Still they had six or seven hours before the sun rose and the group was in desperate need of a rest. “We need an hour and then we’ll go.”

  “Half an hour.”

  Bryce looked over the group. A half hour would be short for most but too long for a few. He doubted they would be able to will themselves back to their feet if they stayed where they were for even a few more minutes. “An hour,” Bryce insisted. “An hour or nothing.”

  Wilkes started to swell in indignation, which Bryce ignored. He looked around hoping to see a hospital or at least another pharmacy. The group needed any medical help they could find. New York seemed to have a pharmacy on every block, but there were none right around them.

  Food was next on Bryce’s mind. They were next to an oyster bar, which he turned his nose up at. In the last day, he had eaten ten monstrous sandwiches and had gone through six pounds of lunch meat, another five of cheese and a half gallon of mayo; he couldn’t imagine lugging around forty pounds of what were essentially rocks to come away with a pound of slimy oyster mucus-meat.

  Next door was a “European” furniture store. None of it looked European. The beds were beds, the dressers were all dull black, but otherwise looked like dressers. Like every other store in sight, its windows were blown out but its cage was down. His eyes swept across to the other side of the street where there was another New York favorite: a pizzeria. Bryce was all about pizza when it was fresh and hot. Pulled cold and smushed from his pack three hours from then was not something he was looking forward to.

  Bryce’s stomach rumbled when he saw a sign askew where the window had been: Heroes Cold and Hot!

  Its cage was down but not completely intact. There were no parks in the area and yet a scorched park bench, having been hurled an unknown distance by an explosion, was embedded in the metal slats. The cage itself had held, but had been pulled from its runner on one side, just far enough for a small man to squeeze through.

  “One hour,” Bryce said again to Wilkes before crossing to the pizzeria, where he discovered he no longer fell into the small man category. He had to take off his filthy pack to force himself through, managing to catch the hood of his now ridiculously tight jacket on the metal. The cloth held him tight until, in fury, he tore it almost in half ripping into the store.

  Tossing the remains aside, he went to the counter, laid his sword across it and leapt easily over. The owner of the pizzeria had taken the time to close up his shop properly and Bryce had to search through sticky, sauce-flecked cabinets before he found everything he needed. The zombies and the rumbling jets faded into the background as he began making a sandwich that was roughly the size of a newborn.

  “Only you would be thinking of your stomach,” Maddy said as she eased through the gap in the gate. It was an even tighter fit for her but once through, she looked down at her torn sweater with satisfaction instead of anger. For once in her life, her clothes had torn across her bust instead of her stomach. Grinning, she turned and realized that Bryce was making the sandwich, half-naked. The grin faded away as she stared at his broad shoulders, and sculpted pecs, and his bulging biceps…

  Her cheeks went past pink and right to a medium rare red. Quickly, she turned away. She didn’t see Bryce that way. Or she shouldn’t see Bryce that way. For as long as she had known him, he had been an annoying dweeb who wouldn’t stop chattering in her ear—like a little brother. Yes, a brother, not this muscular, chisel-chinned man.

  She picked up a menu and studied it in the non-light, forcing her eyes down at the useless words. “Wasn’t there a television show called the Naked Chef? Did he really cook naked? Must’ve been dicey when he made bacon.”

  “Hmm, bacon,” he mumbled. He hadn’t thought of adding bacon to the sandwich, but now that the idea was planted in his head, he dropped down to sniff in the chilled cabinets. “Ah yes!” he whispered, plunking a plastic container on the knife-scarred breadboard. Excitement turned to disappointment when
he opened it and found what appeared to be bacon-flavored cat food.

  He shrugged. Bits of bacon were still better than no bacon at all, and he rained them down across the length of the sandwich. When he glanced up, he caught Maddy looking at him. For some reason she turned away.

  “What’s wrong? You okay?”

  She was flushed and nervous. It seemed odd, though Bryce had to admit it was an improvement over how she had been acting since they fought their way from out of the tunnels. Unlike everyone else who acted like they were being born again, she had come out like a baby deer, timid and shy.

  “Yeah, I’m good,” she said, without looking him in the eye. She pointed vaguely behind her. “I…we, Griff that is, wanted to let you know that we’re setting up across the street in the furniture store.”

  For Bryce, the intense dark was more of a soft grey light and he could see the outlines of people shuffling into the store. With the dust they looked wizened and bent with age. Even the children with them seemed ancient.

  She had the same sensation, except hers came with the unpleasant thought: They’re all as old as they’ll ever be. “Wilkes said you demanded an hour to rest? We can’t wait that long.”

  Bryce was just in the process of crushing down on the enormous sandwich to make it manageable. He looked like he was giving it CPR. Pausing in mid-compression, he saw her fear was just below the surface.

  Why? Where was this fear coming from? It was different. Sharper, more specific. His exhaustion limited his curiosity to the one look. Letting out a sigh, he leaned back from the sandwich.

  “If you rush them, you’ll lose more than you save,” he told her. Her eyes shifted away; she didn’t believe him. Too tired to argue, he sat on a flour-dusted box and tore a huge chunk of the sandwich off with gleaming white teeth. “Needs pepper,” he said around the bite. It needed pepper to be perfect. He was too tired to care about perfect and the pepper sat on the counter untouched.

  “Them?” Maddy asked. “You’re still going on?”

  He took another bite before answering. “It depends on her. I made a promise, but…” He took another bite. “But I think she’ll be reasonable. Hmm. Maybe reasonable isn’t the right word. Accommodating. That’s the word. She’s starting to realize her kid’s dead and there’s nothing we can do about it. She’ll probably kill herself soon.” But not yet. Moving like an eighty-year-old, she had followed the others into the furniture store. Bryce sighed around another bite.

  Maddy had no comment about Victoria. Killing herself seemed reasonable given the circumstances.

  Besides, she’ll be dead soon one way or the other, Maddy thought, her mind going to the fiery image from her dream.

  As he ate, she struggled with the entire idea that she’d had a vision in her sleep. If she mentioned it, he would laugh at her and she would deserve it. Their spurts of ESP were completely explicable. Their intuition was likely the result of their subconscious picking up on clues that were otherwise overlooked. It was entirely possible they had caught the smallest scent of the demon before entering the tunnel, and it was this that had triggered their “something bad was about to happen,” feeling. And the oncoming train must’ve signaled its looming presence through the rails themselves.

  Yes, at the time it had felt like true precognition, when in reality, it was simply a response to external stimuli.

  The dream could be explained away just as easily. The nuclear option had to be on the table. It would be foolish if it wasn’t. And a dream was a valid expression of that concern. And yet, Maddy knew it was coming. She knew it in her bones. She knew it with every fiber of her being.

  It made sense to tell Bryce, to warn him of the danger that was coming their way, except he would give her that look of his, the one that always made her feel as if she were his inferior. He had given her that look for years, all through school. Whenever they butted heads, which was always, out would come the look. Back then she kept ready-made insults and acid-hot retorts at the ready to spit back in his face to make the look dissolve. She had none of these this time.

  Fortunately, there was no reason to tell him. The great smoke mountains to the south had made it unnecessary. He would go west and she would make sure he hurried. “I’ll go talk to Victoria. I agree with your assessment, she’s beyond the denial stage.” She started to leave, but turned back suddenly. “Make me a sandwich, will you? Just make it like a third that size and no mayo.”

  “No mayo?” This seemed like sacrilege.

  To her as well, however the thought of a layer of gelled fat on her meat made her newly shrunk stomach turn over. “No mayo.”

  She left him shaking his head. “No mayo?” he said again as his hands flew. He sawed open a new hoagie, layered two thirds of it with more mayo than ever and left the last third distressingly dry. Next he began to apply meat to the sandwich as if he were roofing a house. Now four types of cheese.

  When he got to the cheddar, he began to hum, happily, thinking this sandwich would be even better than the last one. “The good half that…”

  He stopped suddenly, a cold feeling sweeping him. The hair on his arms stood on end. Something was coming. “Or it’s already here.” Leaving the sandwich, he leapt over the counter, grabbing his sword as he did. There he stopped and closed his eyes. This allowed him to concentrate on his other senses; he heard the back door open with the tiniest of creaking sounds. He caught the scent of cologne; it was being used to mask the thing’s real scent. He felt the tremor under foot; something big approached.

  Bryce tensed, raising his sword, crouching, ready to spring. There in the darkness of the backroom was the demon, taller than ever.

  Chapter 45

  The desire to run swept over Bryce and before he could stop himself, he had taken three steps towards the broken metal gate. Only the realization that the demon would catch him as he was desperately trying to squeeze through the crack kept him from running away like a coward.

  Spinning back around he caught the demon’s white grin shining from its dark face. It was already laughing at him.

  Furious at his cowardice, Bryce slashed the air with his sword, whipping it up and around so that it sat poised slightly above his head and parallel to the floor. It was a classic kung fu movie move and he couldn’t have said why he did it.

  “Come on,” Bryce snarled.

  Instead of attacking, the demon, which only appeared as the outline of a shadow, paused in the darkness. It stood thirty feet away in a long windowless hallway that smelled of sour cheese and mouse droppings, and from there it appraised Bryce before coming forward, slowly, step by step. Just as it entered the cluttered front room, Bryce saw that its eyes glowed silver.

  That was new.

  It also seemed to have grown at least three inches in the last couple of hours. It filled the doorway.

  Against it, Bryce had little more than his sword. It was better than the hunk of wood he had laughably called a spear, but not a lot better. His eyes flicked to the blade poised over his head. It was crusty with old blood and there were nicks all along its edge; though edge was a word that was grossly abused in this case. Whatever sharpness he had managed to bring out of the blade was long gone.

  The sword suddenly seemed wholly inadequate.

  A second later, when the demon drew its own sword, Bryce realized that the sword was far worse than inadequate. It was useless.

  The demon had its sword slung on its back. It was a huge blade, five feet in length and a hand’s breadth in width near the hilt. It gleamed with silver fire. The sword boggled Bryce’s mind. Where had it come from and how did a zombie come to have such a weapon when Bryce only had this pathetic hunk of…

  Bryce sucked in his breath as he realized that this was not his demon.

  It…no, he stepped fully into the room. He was no demon, at the same time he wasn’t wholly a man. He was huge, just a few inches shy of seven feet. And he was strong, his shoulders were even more massive than the demon’s. Stranger still, his ey
es were metallic silver and his scent wasn’t that of cologne as he had first thought. He was simply aromatic in a way that was beguiling and pleasant…and weird.

  Everything about him was weird.

  His flesh was a dark brown, which was normal, but it was utterly smooth, completely without wrinkles or blemishes. He had the skin of a baby. His shoulder length hair was straight and dark. It wasn’t black though. It was a dark forest green. To add to all of this, he wore grey clothing: boots, pants, shirt and cloak.

  He’s wearing a cloak, Bryce thought. Who the hell wear’s a cloak?

  His clothes, including the cloak, were made of light silk and rippled as he moved. Like Bryce, he was unaffected by the cold night.

  “Who are you?” Bryce asked, sounding both rude and crude in his own ear.

  “Who?” The question seemed to bring up old memories and he hesitated. “I am Fifteen-Zero-Three, but you may call me Grae-zier. I’m looking for Twenty-one-Six-One.” His silver eyes glittered and Bryce read condescension in them. “You can’t be him.”

  Bryce lowered his sword. “My name’s Bryce. I don’t know anyone named twenty-one whatever.” Was Wilkes Twenty-one-Six-One? Was that his nickname or his call sign? Had this man been sent by Magnus to find him? If so, why? Bryce was afraid to ask, guessing that the answer wouldn’t be good.

  Grae-zier studied Bryce for an uncomfortably long time before he smiled. “I’m being foolish doubting him when he’s proven correct time and again?”

  “Magnus?”

  “Of course, Magnus! He knows.”

  After a few seconds when Grae-zier didn’t go on, Bryce sighed and asked, “He knows what, exactly?”

  “Everything. Even about you and your defects. You’re Twenty-one-Six-One. I thought you’d be more than this.” He gestured at Bryce like he would a runty red-headed stepchild. “But you and that laughable excuse for a sword are perfect.”