by Chris Fox
“You possess speech,” the man gasped, giving a delighted clap and a still wider grin. “I can’t believe it. You’re far more advanced than anything I could have hoped to encounter. Give you a few weeks of feeding and you’ll be decent conversation. What’s your name?”
“I- I can’t remember,” he said, voice still rough but marginally more understandable.
“Nonsense,” The man replied, waving a dismissive hand. “It’s in there somewhere. You just need to reactivate that part of your brain, to recover those neural pathways. That will take time and food. Feed on these zombies. Feast on their brains and their spines. Go ahead, that one. The short man with the weasily face.”
He turned to scan the zombies. There, that was the short man with the face like a weasel. He shoved a middle aged woman out of the way, seizing the short man by the neck. He threw him to the ground, dashing his head against a rock. Perfect. He knelt and began to scrape the contents from the skull.
“Excellent,” the sharp toothed man said. He seemed extremely pleased. The nameless corpse continued to feed, scraping until nothing remained. “Now then, what is your name?”
“I- ,” he said, struggling to find a name. A face flashed. Red hair. Freckles. A goatee. He was shaving. That was his face. “I don’t know.”
“Another then. Pick one,” the voice commanded. Sharp Teeth’s voice nearly thrummed with excitement.
The nameless corpse turned to the throng, grabbing the nearest person. It was one of the tourists, a woman in a sun-dress. He slammed her head into one of the thick wooden posts supporting the house’s awning. Then he fed again, gobbling the sticky mass as quickly as he could get it into his mouth.
“What is your name?” the voice thundered.
He considered the question. Something danced just out of reach. A woman with red hair yelling his name. Liz. His sister. What was the name she yelled? “Trevor. My name is Trevor.”
“Wonderful,” the sharp toothed man laughed, throwing his arms skyward. “You may pick three more. I must send the rest south to delay our pursuers. Come, feed quickly. Then follow me. I have so much to teach you.”
Chapter 16- Yukon
The Mother blurred down the narrow alley, severing the spine of a nascent deathless with a wicked slash. This one was an old woman, feeble before death but all too deadly now. The corpse toppled to the rubbish strewn ground joining the bodies of the other dozen she’d just dispatched. Grim work, but necessary.
She leapt three stories straight up, grabbing the lip of the neighboring roof and pulling herself atop it. From her vantage she could see most of downtown Cajamarca, a sprawling city by her standards. The strange buildings sat at the top of a series of rolling hills, stands of unfamiliar trees scattered throughout wide streets. It had probably been a pleasant place before the sun's recent change had woken the deathless. Moon willing, it would be again.
The clash of combat came from two streets over. She couldn’t see Bridget, but had no doubt the growls and metallic clattering came from her. It was joined by the harsh crack of gunfire, something she was still growing accustomed to. The weapons were so impersonal. Even the smell they emitted when fired was horrible.
Yet they were potent, as Jordan had proved. He’d adopted few of the powers that made Ka-Dun so deadly, yet he was nearly Blair’s equal in ferocity. It demonstrated just how potent the weapons could be, though his reticence to embrace the powers gifted by his blood limited him greatly. Blair’s command of shaping grew daily, making him the strongest Ka-Dun still living. Perhaps she should ask Jordan to teach him, and in the process have Blair teach Jordan to accept what he'd become.
Bridget required no such supervision. She was still too timid, but took to her powers with nearly the same ease as Liz. It was too early to tell which would be the dominant Ka-Ken, though she suspected Liz’s determination would eventually overshadow Bridget. The smaller woman spent too much time batting eyelashes at men and not enough honing her ability to kill.
A yipping from somewhere below drew her attention, the cry of a panicked creature. The Mother scanned the street, gaze roaming between motocars and toppled waste bins as she sought the source. There. Several deathless were converging on an overturned boat next to a path leading into a park. A canoe, that was the word. Odd with no visible source of water around. What had the owner used it for?
She dropped silently to the ground, blurring to the top of a blue metal vehicle not far from the canoe. Something moved under it, scooting as far from the grasping claws as it could. The poor creature’s heartbeat thundered.
The Mother leapt to the ground amidst the deathless, snapping bones and shattering skulls as she blazed through their ranks. She grabbed what had once been a child by its feet, slamming the corpse’s head into a middle aged woman who’d shoved her arm under the canoe in search of the frightened animal. Both skulls exploded, showering her with putrid gore. She ignored it, tossing the canoe aside and snatching up the animal in one arm.
It had golden fur and was the size of a large coyote or small wolf. Like those animals it possessed four paws, a tail and a long muzzle. The similarities ended there. This was one of the twisted creatures that mankind had made from the noble wolf, the mongrels they called dogs. She nearly dropped the beast in revulsion, but it gave a timid whelp of pain.
She examined it for the source of the pain. It bore a gash along its side, perhaps caused by scooting under the canoe. Perhaps inflicted by the claw of a deathless. If the latter were true the animal was doomed, but if not it might be saved. She stood in the road, twisted with indecision.
The animal looked up at her with wide brown eyes. They stared adoringly at her, then the beast leaned forward and licked her wrist. The Mother cursed her own weak heart, but she couldn’t leave the animal to die scared and alone. It wasn’t the beast’s fault that it had been twisted by man.
She blurred up the street, cradling the animal to her chest. It was so thin. Not quite starving, but only a day or two away from that plight. It had grown dependent upon human masters and couldn’t feed itself. Such a thing enraged her, but she reserved that for the people who’d created the animal. Not the animal itself.
The Mother leapt onto the roof of a stone building venerating some imagined god. She sank into a comfortable crouch, cradling the poor beast as it gazed adoringly up at her.
I am Yukon. My pack is dead. You saved me.
The thoughts were simple, more so than a wolf’s. Yet they were earnest. This creature had a kindness and compassion that a wolf lacked, though she couldn’t decide if that would be advantageous in this new world.
I am the Mother. Rest, Yukon. I will bring you to a place of safety.
Then she blurred back to the temple where they’d gathered those they had already saved.
Chapter 17- Pursuit
Liz leapt from her rocky perch, bounding thirty feet up the ridge. She seized an outcrop in one furry hand, flinging herself skyward again. This time she landed on top of a granite spur that jutted over the edge of the ridge’s crest. They’d made it to the top, and in record time. Well, record time for a female. Blair could have just blurred to the top in a matter of seconds, but they couldn’t afford to send him ahead. It would take both of them to bring down this deathless.
She could simply have ridden his shadow, but it was still a new power and she wasn’t sure how quickly she could emerge or what potential counter attacks that might expose her to. Given how little they new about this Irakesh playing it safe was the only sensible move. It still sucked. Even if that weren’t true, blurring took a lot out of Blair. What good would catching this guy do if they were too weak to take him down when they got there? She wasn't positive he'd healed entirely from his earlier confrontation with the deathless, in any case.
Blair landed on a neighboring outcrop, dropping into a crouch to stabilize himself. He was majestic somehow, with his silver fur and amber eyes. He glanced in her direction. “I never dreamed we’d be able to do something like this. We just scaled an en
tire cliff face in less than a minute. Sometimes it still catches me off guard.”
She couldn’t help but smile. Despite everything they’d been through he’d somehow retained his enthusiasm, something she needed desperately right now. Everything was going wrong, but there he was in the middle of it keeping despair at bay.
“It still blows me away,” Liz admitted, turning to the moonlit trail threading its way north. She started loping in that direction at a ground-eating pace. Blair fell into step beside her. She glanced at him. “I think what gets me most is not knowing everything we can do. I feel like there are so many surprises still ahead of us. Especially if we’re really going to live for thousands of years.”
“I know what you mean,” he replied, leaping over a fallen tree. “When we first saw Ahiga he’d transformed into a wolf. What else could he do? I feel like we haven’t even scratched the surface. I was hoping the Mother would teach us, but…”
“But she’s too focused on saving the world to give two shits about us?” Liz finished, a deep rumbling laugh welling up from her chest. It felt good.
“Unfortunately,” Blair conceded, shaking his head. “I get the sense that she expected Ahiga to prepare me and with him gone, she doesn’t have a contingency plan. Which leaves me on my own. At least she treats your opinion with something approaching respect. A little less for Bridget and Cyntia, but still more than she gives Jordan or I.”
“Her whole culture centered around the divide between the sexes,” Liz replied, bounding over a rise. A wide valley stretched below her. The trail led that direction, toward a ramshackle town nestled in the valley’s farthest corner. “I have to admit I do like that they were a matriarchy, and it’s kind of nice being the stronger sex for once. But it’s also interesting seeing her casually dismiss you as useless. I half expect her to tell you to get in the kitchen and make her a sandwich.”
“You know I’d get in there and make it,” Blair replied, grinning wolfishly as he started down the trail into the valley. The wind surged for a moment, then faded to a low keen as they descended the ridge. “I’m actually okay with the way she treats us. I’m sure our culture must baffle her just as much as hers confuses us. Besides, shaping is pretty amazing and I never really cared about being bigger and stronger. I think men made out all right in this deal.”
“Yeah, I’m pretty happy with my end of of it, too. Makes you wonder where the deathless come down on split powers. From the little the Mother’s told us, they came first,” Liz said, sending up a cloud of dust as she slid down the trail. “If that’s true, then they were the prototype for this virus. She may have modified it based on what she’d learned with the deathless. The culture she built here must have come later, along with the werewolves.”
“That would make sense,” Blair allowed, dropping thirty feet to the next switchback. She leapt after, landing in a crouch next to him. He still seemed to be chewing on his ideas. “We need to know more about the deathless. The beast says their shaping is different. How? What exactly can they do? The green bolt Irakesh hit me with was agonizing, and the wound was difficult to heal. I’m wondering if there’s a theme to their powers, just like there is to ours.
“Theme?” Liz asked. The possibility that their powers had one hadn’t even occurred to her.
“Shaping seems to focus on two primary areas. Mental powers, like fooling and controlling the minds of others,” Blair explained, sliding down the hillside to the next switchback. “The second is altering DNA. Changing my physical appearance, becoming a wolf. Possibly even altering the DNA of others.”
“Whereas females focus on ferocity and stealth,” she added, landing next to him in a crouch. “I guess there are themes.”
Conversation dwindled as they picked their way from switchback to switchback. Blair seemed focused on the village below, though she couldn’t say why. He seemed apprehensive, as if he expected to find something bad there.
“Do you see that?” he asked, pausing on a switchback near the valley floor. He stabbed a finger towards the edge of the village.
Something moved in the darkness. A lot of somethings. Dozens upon dozens of zombies shambled in their direction. A horde of ravenous corpses, all moving with the same driving purpose.
“They haven’t acted like this before,” Liz said, flexing her claws.
“They’re coordinated, like a swarm,” Blair growled, pacing restlessly as their foes approached. “This isn’t accidental. I can control minds, so it stands to reason that Irakesh might be able to do something similar. He left them to stop us. Doesn’t make a lot of sense, though. We can just go around them.”
“We can’t, actually. If we circle around, they’ll head back to the Ark and trash it,” Liz said, suppressing a sigh. “He out maneuvered us like children. They’re a threat and he knows it. This is a way for him to get ahead of us.”
“So I guess we deal with them,” Blair said, leaping to the next switchback.
There were perhaps two hundred zombies. Not insurmountable, but a definite drain on their energy. Exactly what this Irakesh had intended, no doubt. Damn the cunning bastard.
“We’re going to be too weak to pursue him if we cut them all down,” Blair said, with a frustrated sigh. “We’ll need to retreat to the Ark and tell the Mother what happened. Maybe she’ll have an idea.”
“How far away is he?” she asked, grinding her teeth. The last thing she wanted to do was face the Mother and tell her how badly she’d failed.
“He’s farther north by at least a couple miles and moving quickly. We could probably match his pace if we followed, but I don’t know if we could narrow the gap,” Blair said, clearly as annoyed as she was. “How do you want to handle this?”
Liz dove into the approaching zombies, rending and crushing a path. She vented her frustration, ripping off limbs and crushing skulls with powerful blows. Blair followed, cutting down any that got behind her as she tore a path through their ranks.
Chapter 18- Suspicious Behavior
Director Phillips clasped his hands behind his back, watching dispassionately as the room echoed with amplified gun fire. The wall screen showed the perspective of a helmet cam, its occupant manning the side mounted gun in a DC-16 Mohn chopper. The weapon streamed death at a young tourist in a floral print dress. Her auburn hair was matted with blood, and her pale shoulder bore long jagged scratches.
The woman took a half dozen fifty caliber rounds to the midsection, which tossed her body back like a toy flung about by a retriever. Yet she rose to her feet, giving a screech of rage despite the hideous wounds. She began limping towards the camera. The gun fired one more time, this time obliterating everything from the neck up. The body toppled to the ground and lay sill.
Then the camera tilted crazily, turning until it was focused on a soldier with a thin black goatee and haggard brown eyes. Yuri Filipov, Commander Jordan’s favorite subordinate. “Is shit, command. Cut them down, but zombies just keep coming. Don’t have many rounds left.”
The Director was silent as he considered. So many unanswered questions, but the man was in a firefight.
“Corporal Filipov, I know you’re in the thick of it, but we need a status. Where are you?” The Director said, arms falling to his sides. His fists clenched as he suppressed the urge to take a step closer to the screen.
“Is Panama,” the Russian replied, glancing over his shoulder then back at the camera. “Peru status unknown, but bad when left. Werewolf tore off Yuri’s leg.”
“Acknowledged. Yuri, is the package secure?” It was amazing that the man was still conscious, much less manning a heavy weapon with that kind of injury.
“No. Is still in hangar,” Yuri replied. His head turned and the camera spun wildly. There were a flurry of gunshots, then his face returned. “Cannot breach perimeter. Is impossible. Have enough fuel to make Houston, but need extraction from there.”
“Acknowledged. Get back in the air and get as much footage as you can in Panama. We’ll dispatch another te
am to secure the package,” The Director ordered, face dispassionate despite his roiling emotions. It was all going to shit so very quickly.
Yuri gave a tight nod. Then the screen went black. The Director spun to face the room. “Get me viable extraction options. I want that package back in our hands and I don’t want to lose anyone doing it. Estimates and full brief in two hours.”
Mark turned on his heel and strode up the center aisle, not pausing as he stepped through the automatic doors. He knew their timing to the millisecond and had made every motion as efficiently as possible. Many people would have laughed had they known it. Such a small thing, passing through a door at the optimum speed.
Yet it was from the simplest actions that one’s core self arose. The standards you set. If you held yourself to excellence in the little things, you quickly realized that big things were just an accumulation of all those little things. So Mark made the little things count.
He ducked into an elevator moments before it closed, eyes widening as he identified the car’s other occupant.
“Heading to your quarters?” the Old Man asked. That nickname was most definitely at odds with Leif Mohn himself. He wasn’t an old man so much as he was eternal. His platinum hair and stern face hadn’t aged in the entire time Mark had known him. The bastard was even more timeless than Patrick Stewart.
“Yours actually. We just received a live combat report from Panama,” he said. The Old Man always liked knowing as soon as data was obtained. “Peru sounds bad. The package was never delivered.”
Mohn stabbed the button labeled 24 for Mark then 26 for his own quarters. Mark had always wondered why he kept an entire level between himself and the senior staff, but he’d never asked. He wondered what the Old Man would say if he did. The man clearly valued privacy, but when the world ended that kind of paranoia was just too expensive.
