He tried to hurry and quickly discovered that she wouldn’t allow it. She laid across his back, dragging him down. When he glared, she reached under his chest plate and twisted his nipple until the glare became a grimace.
She was weird. She was also naturally gifted at hiding from the monsters. She blended with shadows and the light rustle she made was swallowed up by the thrashing sound the zombies made as they waded through the grass. Quicker than he expected, they were outside the ring; then she was up and running for the safety of the town.
Troy was faster and went ahead, waving his arms, silently. “It’s Holt,” someone whispered when he was over the mound. Men started to crowd him and for some reason, it bothered him. He pushed them away.
“Yes, and I brought the Queen.” He pointed. Jillybean had run up the side of the heap of stinking corpses and had stopped on its crest, one foot planted on a skull the size of a pumpkin. A gasp came from the doomed men.
“What can she do?” one asked.
“I can save your lives. Most of you, I should say. There is only one condition. You must obey me without any backtalk.”
Troy stalked up to the mound. “We are not your servants or your subjects. We will not kneel.”
For a second, her eyes were dark and filled with hate. It didn’t last. She slumped, wearily. “A day will come when you will wish you were. A day will come when even I can’t save you. But that is not this day. If you will just listen to me, you might have a chance.”
A discontented murmur arose out of the group. Discontent wouldn’t save them. Troy raised his hand to quiet the whispers. “I will listen. I will not dishonor myself before God, but I will listen.” The crowd of Knights began to nod to this bit of wisdom. Troy turned to Jillybean. The camper was already becoming little more than a smoldering ruin and in the fading light, her white face was ghostly. “What would you have us do?”
“Simple. You have to hide.”
Chapter 44
Knights Commander Christian Walker had been one of the last people to hurry over to see what all the hubbub was. Like everyone else, he had seen the flaming camper rolling at them and he had assumed that it was yet another way to entice the horde into the town. He had let out a silent prayer of thanks when it had crashed.
He was confused as everyone else at seeing the Queen. Was she leading her zombie army in person? That was a level of insanity that was beyond understanding. He was about to order her arrest when she explained her “plan.”
“Ignore her,” he said, in something just short of a bellow. He came stomping up. “Everyone back to your positions. We are Knights. We do not cower and we do not hide.”
“Then you do not live,” she stated, clear enough for everyone to hear. “And neither will your wives and children. So far, I have been thwarted at every turn by spies and my own personal demons. Now, I’m being balked by foolish bravery and asinine attempts at honor. Tomorrow when I walk these streets and smell your rotting carcasses, I will spit on your honor.”
“Tonight, I’d spit on yours if you had any,” Walker answered.
She lifted a hand and Walker was surprised to see a pistol in it. Her face was a mask of fury. Her teeth were bared and a snarl slipped from between them. She’s going to shoot me, he thought to himself. He wasn’t afraid, just surprised that she would kill him in cold blood like that when he was surrounded by his men.
“Don’t do it, Jillybean,” Troy warned. “You’ll just bring the zombies on faster.” Her eyes cut to him and the gun wavered. He went on, “You didn’t come down here just to get ripped to pieces by the dead, did you?”
“No,” she said, but sounded unsure. A second later, she shook her head and said again, “No,” this time with more confidence. “I also didn’t come down to watch you die. I can save this town if you’ll just listen to me. And yes, it involves hiding. If you delay any longer Commander, you’ll get your wish and nothing will keep you or your people alive. So, choose now, but know this, if you choose to fight it’ll be the same thing as suicide. And that child of yours? It’ll be murder when she dies.”
His eyes blazed, and his face went cherry-red. “It’ll be murder, alright, and it’ll be on your head!”
“I’m the one trying to save them,” she said with utmost calm. “And I will, if you’ll just listen to me.” There was a second of intense silence between them which was broken by the roar of a zombie. It echoed through the night. The beasts were coming. Some were now so close that hiding was fast becoming a non-option.
Walker felt a stab of fear in his chest. He wasn’t afraid for himself. He had no fear of death, whatsoever. He feared for his daughter, Ryanne. “What do you suggest?”
Jillybean didn’t answer right away. She stared out over the mass of Knights with their shining spears and their rugged armor. It was impossible to miss the church dominating the center of town. It was windowless, which made it perfect. “I need fifty men to hold this line until I give the signal. Ten to get me supplies and the rest need to fall back to that big building.”
“The church?” Walker asked in surprise.
“That’s your church?” Jillybean hoped no one saw the look of semi-disgust on her face. For a God-fearing people it was decidedly underwhelming. “If so, then all the better. Get in there and keep quiet no matter what. I don’t want to hear a sound from it. Not a prayer, not a hymn; not even an amen. And no lights!”
Troy clapped his hands. “You heard the lady. Let’s go! The ten fastest will remain with the Queen and do her bidding to the letter. The best fifty warriors know who you are. You’ll remain with me. Borga, I’m going to need your spear.”
“No spears!” Jillybean ordered. “You will use guns. Your kills will have to be precise and quick.”
Some of the men hesitated until Troy started shoving them into compliance. Extra ammo was gathered and just in time, too. The camper had finally gone out as had a brief grass fire that was unintentionally stomped out by thousands of giant feet. The smell of burnt zombie flesh soured the men making them gag silently.
The mass of creatures started to wander and now gravity played a large role in drawing them towards the town. More than one of them fell on the hillside, starting a chain reaction of pushing and jostling and soon dozens were lumbering mindlessly towards Highton.
Troy watched them coming his way as he stood beside the gurgling stream in the exact center of their defensive line. He had said a final prayer and now he calmly checked his weapon and rolled his neck around on his broad shoulders. Without a nasty pile of corpses in front of him to slow the creatures down, it was the most dangerous spot to be and thus it was exactly where Bishop Wojdan expected him to be.
“This is not a scenario I could have ever expected,” he said to Troy with a dry whispering sigh. “Most of us hiding meekly as she gives orders as if she’s already our Queen. She must really be persuasive.”
“I don’t know if I was persuaded exactly, your Excellency,” Troy admitted after a quick kiss of the man’s ring. “She’s just so…energetic? That’s not the right word. Certain, maybe that’s it. But she’s also energetic. She just bowls you over and you find yourself going with it, whatever it may be.”
Bishop Wojdan gave a noncommittal, Hmmm, before asking about Father Amacker. “He should still be alive,” Troy said and then gave a very quick rundown of what had happened. As he spoke, his voice grew fainter. The hill was alive with movement and the moans of the dead were growing in volume. Not far away were seven or eight huge shadowy figures moving slowly towards the gap in the mound.
One paused at the stream, went down on all fours and began to drink noisily. The others bent as well giving Wojdan enough time to sigh again and quote: “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
“Isaiah 65:24?” Troy asked.
“Close. It’s Isaiah 66:24. Be well, T
roy. Your people count on you to remain steadfast.” He turned his portly body around and began to walk slowly away, his hands behind his back, seeming to thrust his belly further out than usual.
Troy breathed a sigh of relief now that he was gone. He couldn’t fight with the Bishop looking over his shoulder. Fighting took a certain level of bestial savagery that he was loath to display in front of anyone, especially the Bishop. Sometimes when he fought the dead, he took a perverse joy in killing them.
It felt sinful.
At the same time, he knew it was right and proper to rid the world of evil, and the creatures were the very definition of evil.
Grimly, he stalked forward in a crouch, placing each foot with practiced care to keep from making any noise. Closer he came, and with each step the desire to kill grew in him until it became almost a hunger. He could satisfy that hunger very easily. As they drank, the undead were basically defenseless. He could kill four or five of them before they really knew what hit them.
With the M4 at his shoulder, he crept along the stream coming closer and closer, until he was so close that he could reach out and touch the closest of the creatures. It was hard to believe the thing had once been human. It was twisted and monstrous and the smell coming from it was that of rotting meat. It was the stench of evil.
Beyond was the army of the dead, looking as though they had just stormed the gates of Hell.
Unafraid, Knights Sergeant Troy Holt faced them. He felt completely alone, one man against the full might of the Devil. But he was not alone. A gunshot from off to his left proved that. One of the thousands of creatures had climbed the berm and was brought down with a perfect shot to the head. With that, the final battle had begun.
Instantly, the army of undead turned as one toward the sound of the gunshot and began to charge. The earth shook, the air trembled and the dark waters of the stream frothed. Whoever had taken that shot was only seconds from being overrun.
Troy wasn’t going to let that happen.
As the nearest beast started to get up, he stepped forward and from a distance of two feet, blew a neat little hole in its head. The bullet drilled through its seldom-used brain, before ricocheting around the interior of its skull, turning its brain to soup. It fell, face-first into the stream. Troy was already moving on to the next, lining up another shot. He was so close that he couldn’t miss.
The bullet hit dead center and the thing went over slowly like a chopped tree. The third closest zombie didn’t bother to get to its feet. It scrambled at Troy on its hands and knees. Even so, it was huge, the size of a bull. It led with its face, opening a gaping mouth that was filled with jagged teeth. Troy didn’t have time to aim; he fired right down the thing’s gullet. A poor choice since blasted-out teeth didn’t faze it a bit and nor did it slow it.
It crashed into Troy and as he went back, he fired twice. Both shots went home, piercing the frontal bone and destroying its brain. Although dead, the zombie’s momentum continued on, slamming Troy down into the thick mud of the river. He was pinned beneath the enormous carcass, unable to breathe, unable to do more than squirm like a bug.
The only thing keeping his chest from being crushed was his tactical armor, but the steel plates across his torso weren’t going to save him from having his face eaten off. Zombies were charging from all directions, screaming in fury. A foot the size of a snowshoe splashed down an inch from his face, covering him in a wave of black mud. It made him more or less invisible to the zombies.
They couldn’t see him, but they could hear him as he began to choke. The sound drove the zombies into a wild frenzy. Some dug mindlessly at the river while one great beast bent down, and with the strength of an elephant, heaved the massive corpse off Troy and flung it as if were nothing. Like a hunk of gum stuck to someone’s shoe, Troy was pulled up as well. He looked like a sloppy hunk of mud that dropped with a slapping sound back into the river.
He was dazed and battered, fighting to suck in a breath, but when one of the beasts peered down at him, he shot it in the eye. It almost fell on him. Just in time, he staggered out of the way, backing into another zombie which was just turning. Troy spun and shot upwards, the bullet blasting up through the soft flesh beneath the thing’s chin and popping up out of the top of its head.
Black blood fountained for a brief moment before the creature’s log-like legs buckled. It fell into another zombie as it turned on Troy. He shot that one as well and another and another after that.
Soon everything became a blur to him. He stood defiantly in the breach in the low mound and fired his weapon until he was half-night blind and more than half deaf. He built his own mound of corpses. It dammed the river which was just as well since the water was now black with blood. He gave ground slowly, killing as he went, mumbling over and over: “I will fear no evil. I will fear no evil.”
Time lost meaning. The dead kept coming. Mud and sweat dripped from his brow and when it struck the barrel of his M4 it sizzled. For some reason, he could hear the sizzle with perfect clarity while the screams of the dead and the explosions of his gunshots seemed far off. They mixed with the sounds of fighting that were going on up and down the line.
Only there was no line. There had never been one. They had built the mound in an arc and now that arc was bending and bending. Some of the gunshots sounded almost like they were coming from behind him.
The defensive arc was crumbling from the sides!
A horn began to blow far to the rear a few seconds before Commander Walker’s voice rang out, “Fall back! Fall back!”
When Troy turned, he was shocked to see fires burning in the town and for a moment his heart quailed. Had the city fallen already? It seemed like the fight had just begun and yet there were two houses in flames on either side of the main street into town. Standing between them was the Queen waving a burning torch.
“She’s mad again,” Troy said as he turned back to the undead pressing in from every direction. He fired in a long burst before running for the town.
“Form a line here!” the Queen shouted. “Come on! Stop your dawdling, Troy. Let me have the first…” She counted the survivors emerging from the dark. “Damn. Let me have the first twelve right here. The rest of you fall back with me.”
Although Troy was not one of the first twelve, he got in line with them. With the fires burning on either side of them, he could see the men in line and they could see him. He looked thrashed and they weren’t much better, except for tongueless Chris Baker. The right side of the mute’s face was mostly torn off and torrents of bright blood glistened in the firelight.
The quick glances were all they had time for. The horde was bearing down on them. “Yea, though I walk in the valley of the shadow of death,” Troy said, switching to a new magazine.
The ragged line took up the psalm: “I will fear no evil for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me…”
Their own guns drowned out the rest. They had light to shoot by and they opened fire at thirty yards. These were the best of the best. Their bullets wreaked havoc and the dead went down by the score—in vain. They faced an avalanche of zombies and the bullets did less to slow them down than did their own eagerness. Zombie battled zombie to be the first to kill.
Although Troy was the ranking man on the line, there was no reason for orders. The Knights fought bravely, but were thrown back at first contact. The sheer mass of the creatures attacking them meant they would fall back or be buried. They backed up, firing as they went. Amazingly they made it three blocks before the first man was lost.
All it took was a couple of missed shots for a zombie to be on them. The seven-footer was faster than the average and had a Knight by the head and was biting his face before anyone could do anything. Chris Baker ran up and put two holes in its temple. When the creature dropped, it fell on the Knight.
The other Knights made an attempt to save him but were driven back, each man engaging two or more of the beasts. Troy was fighting a trio of zombies. He managed to k
ill two of them, but the third seemed unfazed by the bullets blasting into its head. The creature grabbed Troy, pinning his arms to his sides and took a ferocious bite out of his shoulder. What sounded like fragments of glass shattering was its teeth breaking on the metal plates. It reared its head back to try a second time and as it did, Troy was able to bring his feet up. He thrust out with all his strength, putting enough room between him and it, that someone was able to stick a pistol up to its face and shoot it between the eyes.
“What did I say about dawdling?” It was the Queen, a wild smile on her face. She was firing nonstop. “Let’s go. We’re retreating.” She didn’t wait for him. She sprinted towards the next thin line of Knights who were standing a few blocks off between two more burning buildings.
Troy raced after her, noting there were only seven Knights running with them. They darted through the next line. Six went on. Troy did not. His place was on the line come hell or high water. Even if he was the last man left, he would not leave his town defenseless.
The Knights were firing even as Troy turned to face the next onslaught. Nothing seemed to have changed. Together they killed hundreds of the creatures and yet, it looked like the same horrible grey demons were screaming out of the dark. A few of the men were backing away as they fired, and that was okay with Troy. As long as they didn’t run and as long as they kept firing.
It made sense to back away. There was no question that their pathetic defenses would be crushed if they stopped for more than a second. It was better to be elastic, to absorb the shock of the attack instead of being shattered by it.
When they came to an intersection, the men on the edges would turn and fire into the howling, screaming shadowy masses on either side. It was something to see as the river of undead collided at these intersections; the fights between the juggernauts were epic and more died in these bursts of violence than fell from the Knights’ bullets.
Generation Z (Book 4): The Queen Unthroned Page 43
