After The Apocalypse (Book 2): Church of Chaos

by Griffin, Gen

  “You heard me fighting with him?” I felt confused and betrayed.

  “I did,” Lola acknowledged. “And I told him that he needed to let you go. He asked me to go after you and bring you back. I said there would be no point because he'd made you hate him.”

  “That wasn't your decision to make,” I said. “I don't hate Seth. I'm just mad at him.” I was startled to realize the words were true.

  “I knew I could talk you into walking away from him.” Lola raked her bloody hands through her hair again, leaving red smears against her scalp. “I needed you gone!”

  “You needed me gone?” I was baffled and feeling more than just a little bit betrayed. “You acted like you were my friend. I confided in you!”

  “A lot of people have confided in me, Pilar. A lot of people think that I'm their friend, but it's all a lie. The part of me that was capable of truly being anyone's friend died with Jeremiah.” Lola leaned back against the brick wall. “Seth was being stubborn. I went into his room last night wearing nothing but my underwear and a smile. I offered myself to him. Jeremiah promised me I could be the high priestess of the Church of Chaos. I told Seth that he needed to keep his brother's promises.”

  “You seduced Seth?” I was both hurt and thoroughly disgusted.

  “No, you dummy. I tried to seduce Seth. I tried and I failed. He blew me off. He thinks you would make a better high priestess than I would.”

  “Seth didn't say that.”

  “Yes. He did,” Lola said. “He wants you to be the high priestess of the Church of Chaos. Don't ask me why. I couldn't answer that question if my life depended on it. And I guess my life did depend on it, because now we're trapped on this godforsaken platform and we're going to die. ”

  “You tricked me into leaving Seth so that you could have him?” I was so exhausted that I couldn't help giggling. “All that talk about starting a new life and helping me find a happy future was just a ploy so you could have Seth to yourself?”

  “You wanted to leave him!” Lola screamed.

  “I'm sorry.” I was choking on my own laughter as I tried to speak. “No. Never mind. I'm not sorry at all. You tricked me.”

  “I didn't trick you. You really would have been better off if you'd walked away from this life,” Lola said. “It's not fun when you get caught in the middle of a war that has nothing to do with you.”

  “Clearly not.” I managed to stop giggling as I gestured down at the pit of zombies below us. “You tried to play both sides and got caught. To make it even worse, no one is coming to rescue us because you made sure that the one person who might have actually tried to find us wouldn't come looking.”

  “I really don't understand what Seth sees in you,” Lola grumbled.

  “Welcome to the club. Neither do I. Neither does anybody.” The zombies continued to circle and churn beneath us. “But you're wrong about one thing. I don't hate him. I thought I hated him for killing my mom, but I've been staring down into this pit for long enough to realize that maybe Seth was right to do what he did. She was suffering as a zombie. She deserved to rest in peace.”

  “Well, aren't you just feeling forgiving.” Lola shook her head at me. “Maybe you'll get lucky and Seth will come save you after all. As for me, my luck's run out. Even if Seth does show up, he'll cut my throat when he realizes I betrayed him.”

  “Lola-.” I stopped myself because I honestly didn't know what to say. Seth probably would kill her for betraying him.

  “Good luck, Pilar. I hope life treats you better than it treated me.” Lola took a deep breath, her chest heaving as she launched herself away from the wall. Lola crossed the platform in four quick strides and then jumped over the edge and into the zombies below.

  She didn't start screaming until after she hit the ground. I watched in horror as all of the zombies abandoned the base of the latter and swarmed over her. I could hear her bones snapping below as zombies ate her alive.

  I wanted to stand frozen in horror, but my desire to live was stronger than I had realized. The base of the ladder was clear. If I was going to have any chance of escaping, I needed to move now.

  I kicked off my high heels and stepped hurriedly onto the top rungs of the ladder. It was slick and gritty under my feet. I nearly slipped as I began to climb down towards the ground. I wasn't very careful about how I descended. I skipped two to three rungs at a time as my hands and feet alternated slipping off the metal surface. Ten feet away from the ground, I lost my grip altogether. I fell to the ground with a thud that came very close to knocking all of the air out of my lungs.

  I wanted to lay down on the ground, but I knew that I would die if I gave into those urges. I forced my feet underneath me and began running for the far end of the corridor as fast as I could.

  The zombies, worked up from the smell of Lola's blood and already finished with her corpse, chased me.

  Chapter 27

  The pain in my side made me feel like I was being stabbed, but I had no choice except to keep running. I watched the ground ahead of me as best as I could. Tripping would be a fatal error at this point and I didn't want to die.

  The gate that would let me escape from the corridor was less than 300 feet away, but it was 20 feet in the air. I would have to climb up a ladder identical to the one I had just climbed down.

  My breath was coming in fast, painful gulps as I narrowly managed to dodge a zombie that had come lumbering towards me out of the shadows. My feet kept slipping on the soft, muddy ground. I focused on running. One foot in front of the other. Zigzag to the left and then jump to the right. Avoid the legless zombie that's rolling towards me. I jumped over that one and nearly fell when my right foot landed in a substance that was either mud or blood. I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn't risk taking my eyes off of the path that was ahead of me for even so much as a single second.

  The zombies were still behind me. Or, at least, I figured they were still behind me, judging by the noises. I wasn't stupid enough to turn around and try to look for them. If they were going to catch me and eat me, I'd just as soon not see them coming.

  The ladder was maybe 100 feet away now. The platform that towered above it was shrouded in darkness. I briefly thought I saw a figure near the top, but I couldn't focus on it long enough to get a good look. Another zombie appeared in front of me. I got the briefest impression of a gaping mouth and snapping teeth as I flung myself sideways to avoid the monster. I fell, landing hard on my right knee. Pain shot through my leg as a zombie grabbed me by my hair and yanked me backwards.

  I landed hard on my back, kicking and screaming as the zombies closed in around me. I struck out at the zombie that had dug its clawed, ruined fingers into my hair.

  “Let me go! Let go!” I smacked the drooling, rotting undead nightmare hard in the nose as it abruptly let me go. I kicked out at it, a gesture that did nothing except stub my bare toes on the zombie.

  I staggered backwards, well aware that I had cut my leg when I'd fallen. A quick glance down revealed that it wasn't a bad wound. I could feel a thin trickle of blood running down my shin. The zombie I'd just freed myself from was sniffing the air as if he had just scented a tasty steak being cooked over an open fire. I took a step backwards as more zombies caught up to me.

  A huge zombie with its face obscured by a mass of thick, tangled hair made a grab for my arm.

  “Get back!” I screamed.

  Much to my surprise, the zombie abruptly stopped reaching for me and stepped back.

  More zombies approached as the dream I'd had only a few days before abruptly came back into my mind. In my nightmares, I could control zombies.

  “Stay back. All of you. Don't come near me!” I yelled. The horde of zombies were forming a circle ten deep around me. Not a single one came within four feet of me. It was like I had an invisible bubble protecting me from them. I could smell their rotting flesh. I could hear them breathing. My skin broke out in goose bumps despite the humid night air.

  Seth's prophecies sai
d that I could control zombies.

  “Get away from me.” I practically choked on the fear in my own words. “All of you. Get away from me. Leave me alone. Forget I was ever here.”

  The zombies hesitated and then, slowly, the shambling crowd began to break up.

  I watched with a mixture of wonder and utter terror as all but a few of the zombies moved away from me, abruptly disinterested in having my flesh as a midnight snack.

  “Go on.” I looked directly at the handful of stragglers who were still watching me. I tried to make my voice steadier when I spoke again. “Leave me alone. You're not going to eat me tonight. Or ever. Or ever eat anyone again. Go away.”

  One of the zombies let out a low hiss and then turned away from me. He looked like he was fighting against my commands.

  A female zombie in a ripped dress snapped her teeth at me even as she too began to walk backwards away from me. Clearly, whatever control I had over the undead wasn't voluntary on their part.

  Nor did I have any idea how long it was going to last. With a quick glance behind me to check that my path to freedom was clear, I hurried to the ladder that would lead me to the unlocked gate.

  None of the zombies approached me as I grabbed hold of the ladder. I climbed up the rungs as quickly as my shaking legs would move.

  I reached the top of the ladder and flung myself onto the platform, not caring how I landed. I wound up on my back, staring straight up at the cloudy night sky. I gasped for breath, struggling hard to draw enough air into my lungs. I felt like I was going to pass out.

  “Well, that was a show I haven't seen before,” a voice muttered from beside me.

  My heart froze in my chest. I turned my head in the direction of the voice, only to see a zombie sitting cross-legged on the platform less than three feet away from where I was laying.

  Chapter 28

  I would have screamed, but I didn't have enough air in my lungs. The zombie laughed as I rolled away from him and nearly fell off the platform to the dirt below.

  “Not having a good day?” The zombie had probably been a good looking guy before he'd turned into the monster that was currently staring me down with oozing, bulging and clearly infected eyes. I frowned at him. Zombies weren't supposed to get infections, and yet this one had pus oozing down the left side of his face.

  His scalp had mostly peeled away, exposing bare skull with occasional tufts of hair poking up like patches of weeds in a sandy lot.

  I swallowed my own bile and tried to think. This wasn't an ordinary zombie. I had absolutely no idea if I could control him with my voice or not. “You came from the Cube, didn't you?”

  The zombie looked startled. He opened his cracked, rotting lips and bared his teeth at me. I abruptly realized the expression was supposed to be a smile. “Well, well. Brains, beauty and the ability to control a horde of zombies. I'm impressed.”

  “The ability to control zombies is new. I think. I don't know. I've never tried before,” I said with a shaky shrug. “How did you get here?”

  “Here as in Ra-Shet or here as in the west gate?” The zombie's voice dripped with sarcasm. “I walked. Either way.”

  “I meant out of the Cube,” I said.

  “Oh. Well. That was fun. I volunteered to be part of an expedition into the outside world. We were supposed to be looking for another structure that could provide more housing and more resources.” The zombie shook his head. “Turns out, Bud Moon wasn't trying to find more housing. He's already got himself a real nice house.”

  “He experimented on you,” I guessed.

  “He did. He tried to sell me for my meat first. Turns out there's a real market for uncontaminated food in this city. These folks aren't interested in eating 30 year old canned beans.”

  “I know. I've seen the meat market.”

  “Really?” The zombie asked. “What's it like?”

  I saw no point in lying. “People in cages. People crying. People screaming. It's horrible and I'm going to have nightmares about it for the rest of my life.”

  The zombie shook his head, making one of the chunks of hair fall off. The little piece of scalp landed on the platform with a barely audible thunk. “I never got to see it. I heard it was bad.”

  “You never went to the meat market?”

  “I tripped and fell down a river bank when we were a few days outside the city. I cut my leg open. It got infected and we didn't have any medicine. Bud promised he'd have medicine for me when we made it into the city. He took me down into that bunker behind his house. He tried to tell me it was his own personal hospital ward, but I didn't really believe him by that point. After all, every other word he'd said to me had turned out to be a lie.”

  “Everything they tell you in the Cube is a lie.” I couldn't keep the hurt or the betrayal out of my voice.

  The zombie laughed again. “I guess I don't have to ask how you got yourself thrown into the pit of hell. You know too much. Back in the Cube, that mouth of yours would be more dangerous than a room full of weapons.”

  “My mouth got me into trouble,” I agreed. “I took a public stand against the Powers That Be. In a roundabout way, that's how I wound up here.”

  “Taking a stand against the Powers That Be is a lot more dangerous than I ever thought it would be,” the zombie nodded. “I wish I could inject all of them with the same 'medicine' they injected me with.”

  “Bud Moon injected you with his zombie serum, didn't he?”

  “I think the answer to that question is obvious,” the zombie said snidely. “He told me it was an antibiotic.”

  “He injected my mom too,” I spoke the words so quietly that I was surprised he even heard me. Especially considering that his left ear appeared to have fallen off quite some time ago.

  “Who was your mom?” The zombie asked.

  “Carolina Augustus.” Even saying her name made my heart hurt.

  The zombie frowned. “The name rings a bell, but I don't remember her. Not that my mind is what it used to be. She may have come to the bunker either before me or after me. I don't know. I seem to be losing my ability to keep track of time. The days have all run together since I wound up in this pit.”

  I swallowed and cast a glance at the gate that opened out into the woods outside of the city. I could see the latch quite clearly. “The gate's not locked.”

  “Where would I go?” The zombie asked with a shrug. “My family would be terrified if they saw me like this. The infection that started in my leg has turned my bones to jelly. I can barely move. Sure, I could go through the gate like the rest of them did, but then where would I go?”

  “The rest of them?” I couldn't help repeating his words.

  He nodded again. “Our batch of serum didn't have the results Bud was hoping for. He's trying to create zombies that don't rot at all. We rotted within days.”

  “He told you that?”

  “No. He was screaming at the doctor who he has working on concocting his serum. I happened to overhear him telling the man what a total failure he was as a scientist. Personally, I almost wonder if the sabotage wasn't intentional. I didn't exactly get the impression that Bud and the good doctor were on the same page.”

  “Oh wow. Every time I think this mess couldn't get any worse, I find out about something even more horrible.”

  The zombie snorted back a choked laugh. “You think you've got it bad?”

  “My friends and I are trying to stop Bud Moon,” I explained.

  “Doesn't look like you're doing a very good job of it,” the zombie commented. “Seeing as how you're stuck between me and a horde of mindless monsters.”

  “I need to get out of here,” I told the zombie. “Please. Let me get past you and out the gate. My friend Seth, he can stop this whole nightmare. He'll take Bud Moon down. He'll take the Powers That Be down. No one else will have to suffer the way you have.”

  “You have a lot of faith in your friend,” the zombie said softly.

  I thought about what he'd just s
aid and realized he was right. “I trust Seth. I don't always agree with the way he does things, but he always gets the job done.”

  “Well, I suppose that's something.” The zombie looked vaguely thoughtful. As thoughtful as a zombie could manage to look at any rate. “He won't be able to stop Bud peacefully. The only way to stop Bud Moon will be to kill him. Your friend got the stomach for killing monsters?”

  I blinked and then nodded, remembering what Seth had done to my mother and Drake less than 24 hours ago. The events of this morning already seemed like they had happened such a long time ago. “Have you ever heard of the Church of Chaos?”

  “Not until after I left the Cube.” The zombie rubbed his chin with his rotting fingers. His nails had all fallen off. “Supposedly they're all half-zombies of some kind, but no one knows how they succeed at only partially changing. It's the mystery Bud is trying to unlock. The members of the Church are supposed to be pretty dangerous. Bud doesn't think that the Powers That Be can take control of the city or the land surrounding it unless they find a way to beat the Church at its own game.”

  “Seth is the high priest of the Church of Chaos.”

  “I see.” The zombie smiled and waved one hand towards the gate. “I'm not stopping you from leaving. I haven't stopped anyone from leaving. Oddly enough, I have no desire to eat human flesh. It's the one part of being a zombie that doesn't seem to have kicked in yet. Technically, I don't think I'm actually dead yet either. I might start to eat flesh after I die. I don't know. I'm not looking forward to finding out.”

  “That's horrible. I'm sorry for what happened to you.” I meant the words.

  “Me too,” the zombie said. “When your friend catches up with Bud Moon, ask him to do me a favor, will you?”

  “What kind of favor?” I asked.

  “Tell him to make sure that Bud dies slow.”

  I swallowed the lump in my throat and then nodded. “I have a feeling that Seth will take great pleasure in making sure that Bud feels the pain of everyone he's ever tortured.”