Heroes of the Undead | Book 1 | The Culling

by Meredith, Peter

  Bryce was slowly recuperating from the non-stop fighting he had endured, but for him it was two steps forward and one back as he was still protecting the little group from the zombies that had caught their scent and were coming up behind. At first there hadn’t been many, but over the last few blocks they were coming hot and heavy, crowding the group.

  He found the hammer to be a great tool for killing. A direct hit would turn a human head to mush. Even a glancing blow was usually enough to drop one of the beasts. But the weapon was so heavy. His arms and shoulders ached, and his legs quivered. He needed a moment of rest and something to eat. It made no sense, but he was desperately hungry again.

  When Maddy came hurrying back, it took only one look and he got the same queer sensation of knowing again. He could sense the danger and the nearness of the demon, but that didn’t stop him from slumping down on a broken curb and pulling out one of his sandwiches. The danger was close, but he had time for a bite.

  As he ate, he only half-listened as Maddy explained what she had seen. The rest of his attention was reaching outward for the demon. Searching for it in a way that felt a lot like listening. He even had his head cocked as if trying to pinpoint the location of a cricket that had scampered into his house and was hiding under the oven. The only thing he could pick up was the old lady’s fear. It was a heavy thing that came in slow pulses, like a heart that had to gather itself before each beat.

  Were those pulses covering the demon? Hiding it?

  It was close, he was sure of that, but not so close that he could pick up its scent. “Or it’s masking its scent,” he muttered around the sandwich.

  Wilkes gave him a tired look. “All the more reason to go around. It makes no sense to walk into a trap when we’re this close.” He pointed south where the smoke was now being blown off to their left. His finger centered on a building not more than two blocks away. The buildings here were of a white granite, wide and stout. Many were on fire and the destruction just in front of them was greater than ever; however, there were buildings further south that stood untouched in all the devastation.

  “The government’s been protecting their own,” Wilkes intoned with deep satisfaction as he gazed at them. In his eyes, this was the way it was supposed to be. A functioning government had to be protected even above its citizens.

  As cold as his words were, everyone perked up. Their journey hadn’t been in vain and at least there seemed to be some sort of plan in place to protect a small part of the city.

  “So, we’re going around?” Nichola made this more of a statement than a question. “I have a better idea. I know a dozen ways we can go through. I come down here all the time and in winter I cut right through half these buildings to stay out of the cold.” She rubbed her hands together which Bryce thought was to emphasize her point. In reality, she was just cold. Everyone was, except for Maddy and Bryce. For them it was only cool, and yet Maddy shivered.

  “We shouldn’t,” Maddy said. “The woman needs our help.” No one said a word to this and none would meet her eyes.

  Even Bryce. He wanted to help this strange woman, only they were finally within sight of their destination and he was overcome by a moment of weakness. Not just physically, but spiritually as well. He was bone tired and the sight of the Federal Plaza standing intact left him with a childish desire. He wanted to run into the building and throw his arms around the nearest adult and cry.

  The desire was far from heroic…but when had he ever been a hero? He wanted to go back to being just Bryce, a person no one had ever turned to when the chips were down. He was more than ready to leave the responsibility for saving strangers or the world in someone else’s hands.

  However, the woman’s terrible fear was too much. That pulse beat on his psyche—just as the demon hoped it would. It had set the woman there as a trap. But why so obvious? Why would it give Bryce a…

  There was a scraping behind them; more zombies. Bryce slumped, his back curving into a worn-down hunch.

  “I’ll get that,” Maddy said.

  Griff pushed himself up. “No. You’ve done enough for now.” His chivalry was as appreciated as it was misplaced. He could be infected by the slightest scratch, while she figured she and Bryce were immune.

  “It’s a small one,” she told him, striding forward quickly. It was actually more of a medium-sized zombie; a few inches shy of six-foot but gangly and lopsided as it was missing an arm. It reached with its lone arm, making it an easy kill for Maddy. She grabbed the arm, which was thrust in her face, and yanked it towards her.

  The zombie was already forward balanced and now it fell with its mouth open wide. It lost its front teeth when it hit rock and seemed surprised that it wasn’t chewing on flesh. It died with that surprised look on its face, as Maddy’s ice axe came down and turned off its lights. Everyone wore the same disgusted look as she worked the spike free.

  “I could’ve gotten…” Griff started to say.

  Wilkes rode right over him, “No one cares. It’s dead. The plan raised by Nichola is a good one. She’ll lead this time.” He had been about to add that he would go second, but the talk of demons unnerved him. A flash image of the magenta-headed horror bearing down on him made his heart stutter. The she-demon had taken the brunt of a subway train right to the grill and was still kicking. “Bryce will go second and watch her back.”

  Nichola had looked alarmed at the idea of taking point, but Wilkes had guessed correctly that she would feel safe with Bryce near her.

  Bryce had other plans. He let out a long sigh. “You guys will go around. I will free the woman and deal with the demon.” He could only hope it hadn’t healed all the way and that his hammer would give him the edge. As much as he wanted to deny it, within him had sprouted a tiny seedling of heroism—thankfully, it was as yet too small to overcome common sense. If things didn’t go well, or if the demon was all the way healed, he would run. When it came to the demon, running would always be an option.

  Before Maddy could say anything, Bryce added, “I’ll go alone. This will be its last chance to stop us and with it focused on me, you guys should be able to get through.”

  “Is it trying to stop us? Is that what it’s trying to do?” Victoria asked.

  This was a question that Bryce couldn’t begin to answer. He had no idea why the demons were stalking them.

  Yes, you do. This was a whisper that came from deep within him. He wanted to argue against it, but it would be arguing a lie. Magnus had changed him so that now Bryce was one of the Chosen. The demon was his counterpoint.

  The run of the mill zombies were the unwanted, the discarded, the wretched huddled masses that Magnus did not feel worthy of life. Ruling them were the demons; they were the princes of the undead world. Were they anomalies? Or had they been created specifically by Magnus to challenge his elite chosen ones.

  Knowing Magnus, Bryce figured they had been. Boxers always lose their edge when they’re not challenged and even Olympians grow soft when they sit too long at the banquet table. The demon had been created to do away with the weak among the Chosen.

  “It’s trying to stop me,” Bryce answered. It’s trying to kill me. This was the weakness inside him talking. Weak or not, it wasn’t wrong.

  “Then we take it on together,” Maddy insisted. “That’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Griff nodded solemnly. No one else agreed, not even Bryce. “It makes so much sense that the demon thought of it, too. He won’t be alone.” This should’ve been obvious, but he only just realized it. The zombies would surround him the second he approached the old lady. They would charge in a ring and force him to fight harder than ever. They’d wear him down so that when the demon joined the fight, even injured he’d be more than a match for Bryce.

  Don’t do it. The weak voice again. Go around. Forget the old lady. She’s dead already and you know it.

  His eyes fell to the heavy, long-handled sledgehammer. It was a man’s weapon. It wasn’t made for a weakling. Going
around was what a weak man would do. Griff wanted to fight. There was doubt and fear in his eyes, but he would do the right thing. He was no weakling. He had honor, and he would die with his honor intact if he came with Bryce.

  “I’ll go alone,” Bryce said, without taking his eyes from the hammer.

  “You can’t win this fight alone,” Griff said through lips pressed thin. This wasn’t just a protest for the sake of being heard. He wanted to stand by Bryce’s side.

  “It’s not a fight any of us can win,” Bryce remarked, mostly to the hammer. “Winning is not the purpose. Holding their attention so the rest of you can get through is why I’ll go. Alone. Another person with me would just mean…” Another death.

  Silence reigned among them as they stared at the ground. No one said a word until Sid Pitts let out a low rumbling burp and made a face as if the burp had brought up something green.

  “Then it’s settled,” Wilkes said. Groaning, he got to his feet. They all did. No one but Maddy thought there was any reason for more discussion on the matter.

  “Hold on! I’m…”

  “Going with the others,” Bryce said, speaking over her. “We have to prove that Magnus has a vaccine. You and I are the only real proof of that. One of us has to get through.”

  She sucked in a breath to argue the point. It was second nature to her, after all, only she knew he was right.

  “Ah shit,” she whispered. It made sense that someone drew off the demon and it made sense that it would be Bryce. Of the rest of them only Griff could realistically challenge the demon, except the demon didn’t want him. The trap wasn’t for him.

  She found she couldn’t look at Bryce and didn’t know what to say to him. It was astonishing, but she suddenly realized that she had feelings for him. Even before he had “changed”, he had changed. Back in Magnus’ conference room, days before, he had risked everything for her. He had been called gallant by Magnus and she remembered almost laughing at the idea. Bryce Carter, gallant? That would’ve been a joke back in their college days. There was no laughter in her now. There were tears that wanted to come pouring out of her. She held them back, knowing that although Bryce was now actually gallant, he was also newly so.

  Tears could undercut him. They could weaken his resolve, and freeing the old lady and taking on the demon was all but impossible already.

  They stared at each other and she knew she had to say something. “Be smart,” she ended up saying.

  He barked out a laugh. “If I was smart, I’d run the other way.”

  Then came an awkward silence with everyone watching. She felt she should do something, kiss him perhaps, but what if he didn’t want to be kissed by her? What if his feelings for her hadn’t changed at all? What if he still found her mouthy, bossy and annoying?

  While all this was going through her head, he reached and grabbed her hand. He gave it a warm squeeze. “You be smart. Get through and keep the bombs from falling. Unless…” He broke off, his face twitching from a smile to a grimace.

  “Unless what? There’s no way we can allow them to nuke New York City.”

  “There’s one way. If they have a real plan. A workable plan to contain all this. If they do then I say fuck Magnus. Let it happen. I trust a properly aimed nuke over Magnus.”

  Griff came up out of the gloom. “We have to go. The others are getting restless.” He nodded once to Bryce and then paused to give them time for a hug or some other sentiment. Again, the two could only lock eyes. Maddy allowed Griff to pull her away.

  “I’ll give you three minutes,” Bryce whispered to them through the smoke. He sighed when they were gone, wishing he had said something more to Maddy. The way she had looked at him had been very much a surprise. “I think she likes me,” he said, fishing sandwich fixings from his backpack.

  No. That was impossible. She had always been his sworn enemy, though she had clearly grown to… “Tolerate me? No, it’s more than that. She does like me, she just doesn’t like me, like me.” With that out of the way, he concentrated on his sandwich and tried to ignore the shaking in his hands.

  His death lurked somewhere in the dark smoke.

  That didn’t stop him from finishing his sandwich. It took him only eight heroic bites and when done, he felt better with his full belly; stronger than ever, but nowhere near as strong as the demon. Its strength was so fantastic that even with it not in sight, Bryce got a queer thrill up his back.

  “I’ve stopped it twice,” he told himself. You’ve gotten lucky twice. “And maybe I will again. Third time’s the charm.”

  For you or for the demon?

  He ignored that and, after a deep breath in which the trembling in his chest intensified, he strode forward, gripping the hammer by the neck. His steps were feather-light and somehow, despite the rubble underfoot, he ghosted along in near perfect silence.

  As he went, the fear-scent of the old lady intensified and as it did his own fear was replaced by an unpleasant sensation of disgust and embarrassment. The sweat that made his brow shine was a source of shame and he used the cleanest part of his filthy shirt to wipe it away. His disgust was for the old woman. Her weakness cut across him, reminding him of the fear he felt when he first saw the zombies. He had wanted to cry.

  Everything had changed since then. The world was crumbling around him and mankind was failing, and yet he himself had grown. He was powerful now and growing stronger by the minute. His minutes were numbered; however, and he did not dawdle to draw them out.

  There was the old lady just as Maddy had described, except now there was blood dripping down from her neck. The cord was biting deep as her legs gave out on her. Bryce ran forward, leaping onto the hood of a barely recognizable Mini Cooper.

  He stopped steps away from the woman, his hammer at the ready, his senses perfectly attuned with his surroundings. He was able to tune out his own quick breathing and the woman’s frantic whispered pleas to save her. His entire body was a spring, ready for the demon’s attack. Ready.

  Ready.

  However, the demon did not attack. A minute went by and still there was nothing to sense except his own growing realization that the demon was far more devious than Bryce had given him credit for. The old lady was not the bait. In a sense, she was little more than a hunk of stone in a river, diverting the water.

  Bryce had not walked into the trap. Maddy and the others had.

  Chapter 50

  Just as the realization struck him, Bryce heard a muffled scream. He knew that screamer. It was Victoria.

  A picture formed in an instant: his friends slipping through a maze of a building, filled with dark corridors and black doorways where anything could be hidden. Eyes began to gleam in the shadows; hundreds of them.

  Sudden frantic fear gripped him and before he knew it, he spun on the hood of the car, ready to race west.

  A single whispered word stopped him.

  “Please.” It was the old lady. The word echoed in his mind and he only just realized that she had been begging nonstop since he had appeared in front of her. He had no time to spare for her. Every second counted for Victoria and the others; they were the ones in true danger.

  “Please help me.” The words cut into him.

  She was weak and terrified; he couldn’t leave her like this. It went against something newly sprung up inside him and he leapt at her from the Mini Cooper, drawing the knife from his belt loop in midair. One slash freed her.

  Her knees buckled and he caught her before she fell completely. Setting her back on her feet, he spoke quickly, his face an inch from hers, “Go south to the Federal Plaza. Find the FBI. Agent Plinkett. Tell him Magnus has a cure. Go!”

  “But…”

  He left her and her whining behind. He ran west to the sound of shouts. One of you has got to get through! the weak voice screamed in his head, trying to stop him. He had said these exact words to Maddy only minutes before. They had been true then and were just as true now. Then turn around!

  Perhaps he would hav
e except that voice did not care about saving New York, all it cared about was getting to safety. “No.” It was the safety of cowering in some giant building, protected by federal agents while others died—while his friends died.

  The city will be turned to ash. Millions will die.

  Somehow, he doubted that. Magnus was too smart to let that happen. There was no way he would rely on a nobody like Bryce Carter. No, he would cover his bets and Bryce was sure there were secondary assets in place. Either that or Bryce was the secondary asset. “Or the third or fourth.” Besides, he had sent the old lady on. For now that would have to be good enough.

  Ignoring the weakness inside himself, he kept running towards the sound of battle, which was the only direction in which a man should run.

  A block to the west, he saw the remains of one of the squat white granite buildings. This one took up the entire block, or at least it had. Half of it was a ruin. The other half was crawling with the dead. They were going through windows and smashing through the front doors by the dozen. A side door remained locked and was holding against four that were using their bare fists to club it down.

  Bryce was on them in an instant bringing a hurricane of violence. The heavy hammer struck twice, killing the first two before the other two even knew he was there. The third grabbed his arm and pulled him close, too close for a proper swing with the hammer, but not too close to smash in its teeth with the end of the handle. Brain dead as it was, it didn’t notice its missing teeth, however the crashing blow knocked it back and it tripped over one of the cooling bodies.

  The fourth attacked Bryce teeth first. Like humans, zombies really were not built like wolves. They needed their prey held down or stationary to get within proper biting distance. Bryce jerked back and the teeth snapped shut an inch from his cheek. As he continued to fall back, he brought the hammer around one-handed, holding it by the neck. The weighted, blood-stained head smashed into the jaw of the creature, knocking its mandible out of joint and sending it reeling down the steps. This gave Bryce enough room to swing the hammer properly this time. With his arms extended and putting his back into the swing, he whizzed the hammer around. The metal head was a black blur before it blasted the zombie’s head open, spraying blood and curdled brain in an ugly rain.