False Idols (After The Apocalypse Book 3)

by Gen Griffin

  “For what its worth, I don't think we're going to rot.” Gauge glanced at his own reflection in the mirror. “We can't afford to wait around to see if we're going to start decaying either. Assuming we've only been out for the three days I think we've been out for, Bud's zombies could be to the gates of the city by now. Vera and the rest of the Church ought to be on their way there as well. As for Seth...” He trailed off.

  “We need to find Seth.”

  “If there's anyone who can stop a zombie revolution, it's Seth.”

  “If there's anyone who could start a zombie revolution, that's also Seth too.” I took a deep breath. “I'm going to kill him. I'm going to save his life and then, as soon as we save the city, I'm going to kill him. He infected me with the zombie virus, on purpose, without telling me.”

  Gauge let out a soft laugh. “You can do whatever you want with him, just so long as we save the city first.”

  He and I exchanged a look of perfect understanding and then I smiled. It was the first genuine smile I'd had in what felt like a very long time. “We're going to be okay, Gauge. Everything is going to be okay.”

  “God I hope so.” He walked over the closet and began ruffling through the contents. A moment later he tossed a button down shirt at me. “Get dressed, Pilar. We have to go kill a couple thousand zombies and try to save the world.”

  “And find my Dad?” Waking up alive had renewed my optimism. If I had survived so much, maybe Dad had too.

  Gauge shrugged at me. “Stranger shit has happened.”

  Chapter 17

  I'd expected to have a difficult time tracking Bud Moon and his horde of zombies, especially since he'd succeeded in fleeing the Cube well before we'd arrived at it. I couldn't have been any more wrong. Cruising along the deserted highway that the flesh brokers used to transport human meat from the Cube to the city in a Jeep that Gauge had found buried in a garage and coaxed into operation, we had no trouble following Bud's progress. His zombies didn't seem to be traveling very well. There were body parts everywhere. Literally, everywhere. On the road. In the grass. Hanging from the limbs of trees near the side of the road.

  The most common appendages we found were feet. Bud's powerful but rapidly decaying army was having a real problem keeping their feet. We also found arms, legs, fingers, hands, torsos and even a couple of heads that had been ripped off their bodies. Sometimes we found zombies who were still alive but lacking the means to travel. Gauge had dispatched the first dozen or so with his ax and then decided that it was taking too long to kill them. He'd decided to start running them over with the Jeep instead. It was gory, but effective.

  We caught up with the main horde a few miles outside the city on our second day of traveling. The two zombie guards who were supposed to be guarding the camp failed to notice our arrival. They were too busy trying to rip one anothers faces off.

  Gauge and I sat in the Jeep for a moment, trying to decide the best route of approach. The blonde zombie had the taller, black-haired zombie by the hair. He appeared to be trying to gnaw her nose off with his bare teeth. The female zombie wasn't having any of it. She'd already ripped on the of the blonde's arms clear out of its socket. Blood was leaking everywhere but the zombies appeared oblivious to anything except their own battle. A battle Gauge ended rather neatly with his ax.

  “Now what?” I asked as he walked back to the Jeep. The tents and campfires of their camp were clearly visible roughly 50 feet away. It was amazing that no one had noticed us yet. It was dark, but the night was a bright one with plenty of moonlight. The Jeep wouldn't be hard to spot if anyone bothered looking our way.

  He shrugged at me. “You see any signs that reinforcements from the Church are anywhere nearby?”

  I scanned the horizon and then shook my head. “If they're here, they're hiding pretty well.”

  “They wouldn't hide from us. It's a pretty solid week's journey from the Church to the city if you're traveling on foot.” Gauge leaned against the roll bars of the Jeep. “I don't think we should wait for Vera and the others to put in their appearance. Bud and his flunkies have already held Seth captive for five days.”

  “You think they've killed him?”

  “If they have, it'll be because he pissed them off. He's never going to give Bud what he wants.” Gauge ran his hands lightly over the side of the 4x4. It was almost a loving gesture. “On the bright side, it doesn't look like Bud and his people have succeeded in breaching the gates of the city yet.”

  “On the downside, that means all the zombies are still out here with us,” I pointed to the two zombies he'd just dispatched with his ax.

  He eyed them thoughtfully. “I shouldn't have killed them.”

  “Why not?” I hadn't expected him to feel remorseful over the zombie deaths.

  “Because they might have known where Bud is holding Seth.” Gauge drummed his fingers on the Jeeps hood. “But don't worry, I have another plan.”

  “Which is?”

  “The camp is pretty busy, don't you think?”

  “Yes.” I had no idea where he was going with this.

  “Think they're going to notice a couple more zombies wandering their way into camp?” He grinned at me.

  “You mean us?” My shock must have shown on my face because Gauge laughed.

  He ran his hands through his shaggy hair, slumped his shoulders dramatically and staggered a few steps to his left with his mouth hanging open. He let out a soft moan as he came towards me. I put both my hands on his chest and shoved him backwards.

  He stumbled and nearly fell on his butt in the middle of the road.

  “Sorry,” I said meekly. “I'm still not used to this whole super strength thing.”

  Gauge smiled again. “None of the other zombies have super strength. Not Bud's zombies. Not Seth or any of the rest of the Changed. I have a suspicion that this new development of ours is going to make for a hell of a game changer.” He flexed his huge muscles and his smile broadened.

  I wasn't about to argue with him. We'd come across a downed tree in the road yesterday that the Jeep hadn't been able to go around. Faced with the very real possibility of having to walk the rest of the way to the city on foot, Gauge had picked up the Jeep completely off the ground and set it on the opposite side. I wasn't quite as strong as Gauge was, but in the little bit of experimenting that we'd allowed ourselves, we'd discovered I could lift Gauge off the ground easily with one hand. Impressive didn't even begin to accurately describe the phenomena.

  “I just hope we've made it here in time,” I said. “Won't do much good to show up with super powers if the party is already over.”

  Gauge cast another glance towards Bud's camp. A lot of shouting and hooting was going on from somewhere near the middle. It looked like an arena of some sort had been set up. “Oh, I'm pretty sure that the party has just begun,” Gauge said.

  Chapter 18

  “Zombies don't have good hygiene, Pilar.”

  Gauge ripped my shirt so that it hung in shreds across my torso. He then rubbed dirt into my hair and threw my shoes into the river. I wasn't pleased with the makeover but I did have to admit that I looked significantly more like a zombie after he had finished dusting a fine layer of dirt onto my arms and legs.

  I pursed my lips at my reflection. “I feel disgusting.”

  “You look it too.”

  “You're not looking much better yourself,” I pointed out. If anything, Gauge looked worse than I did. He was concerned that his size and otherwise good condition would draw unnecessary attention to him once we entered the camp. He'd tangled his blonde hair into unruly dreadlocks and cut several oozing wounds into the very meat of his chest. His jeans were in shreds on his legs but he'd kept his boots. I was envious of the boots, but he'd been right when he'd said my own footwear had been too nice for a zombie.

  Our weapons had been carefully worked into our outfits. I had several small knives tucked into the waistband of the shorts I was wearing. Gauge had strapped his ax to his back an
d then draped a loose jacket over the weapon in hopes of concealing it.

  As we approached the camp on foot through the fading darkness, I hoped that our disguises would be good enough to get us close to wherever Bud was keeping Seth.

  “It's mine!”

  “No. I saw her first.”

  “Mine!”

  “No!”

  “Miiiiiiiinnnne!” The first zombie slapped the second across the face, making her drop the furry little bundle that she was holding.

  The second zombie hissed viciously and pounced on the first zombie, knocking him to the ground. “Find your own meal, you bastard!”

  Gauge and I exchanged a look as we walked carefully past the grappling zombies. The little furry bundle had rolled a few feet away from the zombies as they fought. I looked down at it and discovered that it was a rabbit which had been dead for at least two weeks, judging by the smell. I nearly gagged but was able to stop myself.

  “Zombies don't gag,” I muttered under my breath. Gauge shot me a look and then made a 'be quiet' gesture with his hands.

  We were trying not to attract any attention to ourselves as we made our way into Bud Moon's zombie camp. So far, we were doing pretty well. It helped that the zombies were all pretty much completely self-absorbed. I had a suspicion that higher intellect and the ability to reason logically were among the first of the higher functions to go after people were infected with Bud's modified virus. While these zombies weren't the mindless corpses that had been shambling through the woods for the last 28 years, they weren't human anymore either.

  Gauge said that our current situation reminded him of being in the center of a pack of rabid dogs. I'd never had that experience, but the description sounded fairly accurate.

  We'd been wandering the campsite for almost two hours already. We'd started out on the far outskirts but had gradually ventured inwards as it became apparent that no one had enough brain cells left to notice us.

  “If Bud is going to make his move on the city, he needs to move pretty quick,” I whispered to Gauge. “His zombies aren't holding up too well.”

  Gauge skirted wide around a sleeping zombie that had apparently decided to lay down and take a nap in the middle of a mud puddle. “Do you remember that arena we saw earlier?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  “I think we need to go see what's going on inside of it.”

  “There's a really large crowd. Do you think that's a good idea?”

  “We've been searching for Seth for two hours and we haven't seen any sign of him or any other prisoners. I think we're running low on options.

  I sighed and then nodded. The moon was high in the sky as I followed Gauge across the camp. Most of Bud's zombies were apparently sleeping on the ground inside the camp. Only a sparse handful of tents had been set up around the numerous campfires that were dotting the otherwise barren landscape. The zombies had, for whatever reason, torn down all of the trees in their camp. It made no sense to me, but then I wasn't a zombie.

  Not really, anyway.

  The cheering, jeering and arguing got louder as we approached the arena. My skin started to crawl as Gauge intentionally elbowed his way through the steadily thickening crowd. The smell of hundreds of rotting zombies packed together in such close quarters was horrendous. I kept my eyes on the backs of Gauge's heels, staying in his shadow as he parted the horde.

  Up close, it was easy to see what all the fuss had been about. A fenced off circular arena had been set up in the center of what had probably once been a sports field of some sort. A line of fenced off cages, similar to those that were set up in the meat market, lined one side of the arena.

  Human beings were being kept in the cages.

  “Oh god,” I whispered. I reached out and clutched Gauge's arm without thinking. “Are they going to eat them?”

  He shrugged worriedly. His normally tan skin had faded to a slightly greenish gray color.

  Two men were currently in the center of the arena. One of them was young and thin with reddish-brown hair. He was wearing a green shirt and carrying a large stick.

  The other man was my Dad.

  I tightened my grip on Gauge's arm.

  Dad appeared to be faring pretty well for himself in the midst of this second zombie apocalypse. His balding salt-and-pepper hair was a bit on the long side and he'd pulled it back into a stubby ponytail. He'd lost the few pounds around his middle that Mom had been nagging him to lose before they had both disappeared. His blue denim shirt showed a tough and muscular physique that was impressive for a man who was closer to sixty than fifty.

  It felt strange to see him after so much time apart. My heart filled with unexpected joy. My Dad was alive!

  The man in the green shirt ran at my Dad with his stick. Dad moved quickly out of the way and then used an even longer stick of his own to trip Green Shirt. Green Shirt went flying through the air and landed on his face in the dirt.

  A few of the zombies laughed. More jeered. Someone threw what appeared to be a disembodied arm into the arena.

  “Shit,” Gauge muttered. “I don't see Seth-.”

  “My Dad is in the arena,” I informed him.

  Gauge didn't even try to hide his displeasure. “Blue shirt or green?”

  “Blue,” I responded.

  “Well, double shit.” Gauge scowled.

  “What are we going to do?” I asked. “We have to get him out of there.”

  Green Shirt got to his feet and charged Dad a second time. This time, Dad walloped his opponent over the head with his stick. Green Shirt stumbled and fell. Dad moved in on him and bashed him in the head twice more.

  Zombies cheered.

  Zombies boo-ed.

  Green Shirt didn't get up this time.

  Gauge scanned the crowd for a minute and leaned down to whisper in my ear. “We can't do anything until the fight is over. Hopefully they only eat the loser.”

  “Eat the loser?” I stared at Green Shirt with a dawning sense of horror. The man wasn't making any move to get up. A man with a beard had stepped in between Dad and Green Shirt. He held his hands high in the air.

  “Annnnd I now present to you tonight's winner. For the third day in a row, our champion is King George!”

  More cheering.

  More booing.

  More dismembered body parts thrown onto the ground near Dad's feet.

  I felt sick.

  A group of decidedly eager looking zombies were approaching at gate near the far end of the arena. Green Shirt was being drug to the same edge of the arena.

  “We can make our move as the excitement dies down.”

  “I don't think I can watch,” I said, still watching.

  Gauge removed my hand from his arm and then laced his fingers through mine. He began pushing and shoving his way through the crowd, going in the opposite direction from where the man in the Green Shirt had woken up and begun to scream.

  It took us awhile to work our way back around the arena to the cages, largely because the zombies surrounding us kept trying to eat one another.

  The good news was that we had managed to get within 20 feet of the cages without being noticed. The bad news was that I had no idea what to do now.

  We watched as my Dad was lead back to the cages and shoved roughly through a small door. A skinny woman with gray hair ran to him and threw her arms around his neck and planted a kiss squarely on his lips. If I hadn't just watched him fight a battle to the death, the kiss alone would have been enough to horrify me. Now it was just the icing on my nightmare cake.

  Several others appeared to be crying. I watched as Dad went around to each of them, speaking in soft tones to reassure them.

  “Gauge, we-.”

  Gauge clapped his hand over my mouth and yanked me into his chest. He stepped back into the dark shadow that was being created by one of the few tents in the area as the bearded man who had announced my Dad's victory over green shirt came walking hurriedly past.

  “Bloody damned savages,” the
bearded man was saying to himself. “They'll be tearing one another two pieces by the end of the week. We'll never be able to take the city.”

  “Have some faith, Ronald. We've gotten this far.” A chubby man was scurrying behind bearded Ronald. I abruptly realized that I recognized these two. Ronald was Ronald Malls, another one of the Powers That Be. The chubby man was Gregory Halliday. He'd been the official secretary to the Powers That Be during assembly meetings and all other official functions.

  “We're locked outside the gates with no way to breech them except for swimming up the river. Do our people look like they're in any shape to swim?” Ronald asked angrily.

  Neither Ronald or Halliday appeared to be turning into zombies. Evidently Bud hadn't infected everyone with the virus.

  “I'm not sure they could swim before they were infected, sir.” Halliday was practically having to run to keep up.

  “Probably not. I'm going to go have another word with Bud. Either we make our move tomorrow or we give up. That's what I'm going to tell him. Make our move tomorrow or give up.”

  “I think that's wise,” Halliday replied. The two men continued past us.

  “They're going to see Bud Moon now,” Gauge whispered. “We should follow them.”

  “I can't walk away from Dad. Not now. I'll never forgive myself if I lose him after being this close.” I took a deep breath as Gauge removed his covering hand from my mouth. “You go after them. I'll stay here and try to break my Dad and the other prisoners free.”

  Gauge hesitated and then shook his head no. “We stay together. I'm not risking getting separated in this mess.”

  “These zombies aren't that smart. I'll be okay.” I tried to reassure him even though I agreed that separating would be stupid. We needed to take Bud Moon down.

  “The zombies may be losing brain function at a rapid rate but there are still a hell of a lot of them. Five days ago they ambushed us and kidnapped Seth.” Gauge chewed his lip and cast another glance at the cages. “We'll break into the cages and get the prisoners to safety and then come back for Bud.”