by C. M. Lance
Grampa limped up to the arena as Bjørn made a half-pass to the left. A standard Dressage move, the horse advanced in a sideways slant. In battle, it allowed the rider to wield a sword or spear, without having to reach over or around the horse’s head.
As Sig spun him to return, Grampa Thor hollered out. “Well done. Does that critter have any other gears?”
Sig cued Bjørn into a passage, a showy, slow motion, suspended trot that demonstrated control. The horse seemed to float between each stride, as if trotting underwater.
After a circuit demonstrating the passage, Grampa yelled again. “Does he do a piaffe?”
Acknowledging the request with a salute, Sig brought Bjørn almost to a stop. While trotting in place with a slight pause in the suspension of each stride, Bjørn’s front hooves flared high. Steel shod hooves the size of platters sliced through air before slamming into the soil. It didn’t take much imagination to picture what they would do to an enemy infantryman.
Thor motioned Sig over. “Let me look at him.” He felt the horse’s legs, shoulders, and hips. “Yep, I can see Bjørn the bear in him; big, solidly muscled, a heavy haunch but light on his feet. Quite an athlete, made to carry a warrior into battle. A horse this size could carry a large warrior.”
Bjørn stretched out his neck and Grampa rubbed his nose. “Well Sigurd, it looks like you've been practicing and keeping him in shape.” After Sig led him back to his stall, Grampa dumped a coffee tin of oats into Bjørn's feed trough.
“Thanks Grampa.”
“He earned it.”
Sig snorted. “What about me?”
“Why, do you want some oats too?” Grampa looked at Bjørn, snuffling up the oats, before he said, “You can reach your hand in there, but watch out for your fingers.”
Grampa glanced up from under his thick eyebrows. “What are you planning to study in college?”
“Originally Computer Engineering, but the discoveries in magic are coming from Physics. I’ve been accepted at Northwestern to study the Physics of Magic.”
Sig took magic aptitude tests, like most kids whose parents could afford it. Disappointingly, he showed no ability at all. His dream of having magical power wasn't to be.
He gave up daydreaming about it. Like Dad said, we don’t come from a magical family. Nevertheless, he remained drawn to the subject.
Grampa asked, “Have you noticed any magical phenomena, feelings, thoughts…?”
“I wish. I took the MAT, Magical Aptitude Test. I didn't even score in the tenth percentile. I bought magical tricks. I got the top that spins for 48 hours, the disappearing glass, and the flaming toad. They weren't fake; they worked, but not for me. I gave them away to other kids who could make them work.”
He shook his head. “No, I have as much magic as Bjørn.”
Bjørn, finished snuffling up the oats in the trough, turned his head to Sig and, in a deep voice suited to a 1500-pound stallion drawled, “Do you have any more oats?”
Sig would swear that the horse quirked an eyebrow at him.
Chapter 5
Sig's eyes grew large. He turned to his great-grandfather “Did you hear that?” He looked back at the horse apprehensively, as if expecting and fearing it would talk again.
Grampa narrowed his eyes. “I couldn't have. You said he doesn't have any magic.”
“You did it! You used ventriloquism.”
Grampa shrugged and shook his head.
Sig stared at him intently, and then an unpleasant feeling washed over him again. A feeling best compared with smelling a sauna filled with rotting garbage. The hairs on the back of his neck bristled and his nose wrinkled.
Noticing the reaction, Grampa asked, “What’s wrong?”
Sig turned his head towards the barn door. “The Watchers.”
Grampa Thor’s looked in the direction of Sig’s stare, an empty corner to the left of the barn door. He swung back with a puzzled look. “Watchers? What are Watchers?”
“The weird handymen across the road; they’re out there.”
“What do you mean, out there?”
“They’re outside the door.”
“Did you hear something?”
“No. I feel when they’re around, but I never see them clearly.”
Grampa Thor cocked his head sideways. “Never see them?”
“They always look blurry, like 3-D without the glasses. Two images shift back and forth. It hurts my head.”
Grampa frowned. “You say they’re weird. What do you mean?”
“Grandfather Edward said they look underfed.” Sig glanced at him out of the corner of his eyes. “Mom says she doesn’t like them because of dreams she had.”
Grampa Thor looked at him for a beat, before he asked, “OK, that’s their opinion. What about you?”
“I get a bad feeling, like a putrid, greasy smell that’s not a smell, when they look at me, even when I don’t see them around.” He shook his head. “That sounds weird. I mean that when I get the feeling, if I look around, some of them are watching.”
“Let’s go look at them.” Grampa limped toward the barn door.
Sig scrambled and grabbed Grampa’s arm. “No, they never come on our property. But now, they’re right outside, near the corner of the barn.”
Grampa Thor looked at him speculatively. Then he pointed, “At the corner there?”
Sig nodded.
“C’mon.” Grampa entered an empty stall on that side of the barn and opened the upper half of the outside door. He peered out to the right.
Sig stood behind him and craned his head to see.
Six of them stood at the corner of the barn. Features rippled in his vision. His head began to ache.
Grampa raised an arm, made an unusual gesture with his fingers, and mumbled something. A light glowed around the handymen and at last, Sig saw them clearly. He wished he couldn’t.
Grampa grunted, rubbed his chest, and muttered, “Zombies… covered in simulacra spells. Get back.”
Decomposing corpses carrying pitchforks, shovels, and axes turned and shambled towards them. Grampa shoved him back and slammed the top of the door. It cut off the vision of rotted and peeling skin that hung and flopped as they approached.
Grampa Thor looked around. “You can’t kill them, they’re already dead. But, they respond to the laws of physics. Hack off a leg and they can’t walk. Lop off an arm and they can’t grab; a head and they can’t see. Is there anything in here we can use, an axe, pitchfork, machete, sledge hammer?”
Sig ran down the central aisle and into the storeroom, emerging with two pitchforks, two small sledgehammers and a machete. Grampa took a sledge, stuck it in his belt, and then grabbed the machete and a pitchfork. “Take those,” he said, leaving Sig with a sledge and a pitchfork.
“Use the pitchfork to keep them away from you. Jab with it; don’t stab. If it sticks, they’ll pull it out of your hands. Use the sledge to break bones; disable arms and legs.
“You can also smash their eyes so they can’t see. Works real well on a zombie that only has one eye. Let’s go out the back. Lead the way.”
Banging erupted from the stall where they had been. Horses screamed in fear. Sig heard Bjørn’s squeal.
Grampa Thor said, “Come on, let’s get out of here. They won’t hurt the horses; they’ll follow us.”
Bjørn needed him; he had to help.
Grampa Thor stepped closer and said calmly, “The horses will be better off if we leave.” Sig hesitated and then sprinted down the aisle to the back of the barn; Grampa limped behind.
Sig stopped at the back door, and then turned to the empty stall on the left. “Come this way. Zombies are outside the back door.” He opened the lower outer door on the stall and halted outside, holding it until Grampa ducked through, and then closed it quietly.
Grampa whispered, “Did you feel them again?”
Sig nodded.
“Do you feel any between us and the house?”
Sig moved his head around
slowly, eyes unfocused. He whispered, “No, they’re over there and there”; motioning to the rear and far side of the barn.
“OK, let’s get to the house. Shotguns can disable them. Do you still have the katana I gave your Dad?”
Sig nodded. “It’s in the den.”
“Perfect.”
Sig ran to the house. On the front porch, he turned to see Grampa limping behind. A zombie appeared from around the barn on the right, lumbering after Grampa, moving almost as fast.
Grampa looked behind and then shouted at Sig, “Go get the samurai sword and shotguns. Don’t wait for me. Have Meredith grab a shotgun and shells. Then come back and help.”
Sig ran into the house shouting for his mother. He found her downstairs in the basement by the gun safe. She handed him the sword, and swung the safe door open. “I heard. Take what you need. I have my shotgun. I’ll guard the back from the kitchen.”
Sig nodded, gave her a strained smile, seized two shotguns, and stuffed four boxes of shells into his shooting vest and six more into a backpack. He heard Grampa’s curses and thumps from outside. He raced upstairs toting the shotguns, sword, and backpack. He paused at the front door to shove shells into the guns.
On the porch, Grampa held one zombie away with a pitchfork and chopped at another with the machete. A third, missing an arm and a leg on one side, twitched where it lay at the base of the steps. Several more advanced across the yard. Others came around the corner of the barn.
Sig remembered Grampa’s words as he raised his shotgun to blast the zombie on the end of the pitchfork in the head. At this distance, the head disintegrated as the blast knocked the zombie backwards. Chunks of brain sprinkled the snow. The zombie slid off the pitchfork, and fell backwards. It thrashed like an insect on its back trying to right itself.
With a last machete chop to the neck, Grampa severed the other zombie’s head. The head thumped as it bounced down the stairs. “Here give me a shotgun.”
Sig handed it over. “It’s loaded. Here’s a box of shells.” Grampa shot the headless zombie in the leg and it toppled over. He pointed at it with the shotgun and said to Sig, “Be careful of it. It might grab if it feels you near.”
Sig pointed his shotgun toward a zombie coming up the steps and blasted it in the head. It stumbled to a stop. It fell over when he blasted it again in a knee. Before he could push more shells into the shotgun, another zombie lurched across the porch at him from the right. He unsheathed the sword. With a single sweep, its keen edge sliced through the zombie’s neck. Its rotten state made the task easier. The zombie stumbled around aimlessly.
Sig reloaded. His next shot knocked the headless zombie over the porch rail. When Grampa bent to grab shells from the box at his feet to reload his shotgun, another zombie attacked. Sig shoved his shotgun toward Grampa. “Here.” Grampa dropped his shotgun, took Sig’s, and shot the zombie.
Sig picked up the shotgun Grampa dropped and reloaded it with shells from his shooting vest.
They stood at the top of the stairs blasting advancing zombies. They continued firing and backed toward the house. The yard around the porch looked like a body part garage sale. Many still twitched, some even trying to rise.
Only two continued to advance toward them. Sig and Grampa rested and waited for them to climb onto the porch.
Sig heard a shotgun blast and looked to Grampa. Grampa looked at him. Neither had fired. Two blasts in rapid succession sounded from the back of the house.
“Mom!”
Sig turned and ran through the house to the kitchen. Meredith stood in the back doorway and blasted again. She glanced back as Sig burst into the room. “I keep shooting and they keep coming.”
“Shoot them in the kneecaps. Then they can’t walk.”
She shoved two shotgun shells into her gun and fired again, aiming lower. “There, that works. Thanks.” She gave him a strained smile over her shoulder.
“Watch out if you get close to them. They can still grab you.” Over her shoulder, he saw a zombie on the ground, one headless zombie wandering aimlessly, and a third with gaping holes through its body trying to mount the steps. He put his hand on her shoulder. “Here let me through. I’ll disable it with this sword. Let’s save ammunition when we can.”
He sliced through a leg on each of the mobile corpses. They both collapsed, but the one with the head still tried to crawl up the steps. Sig severed the head and kicked it to roll erratically across the backyard.
Looking back up at his mother, he realized he didn’t hear any firing from the other side of the house. Carrying his sword and shotgun, he sprinted around the house. Rounding the corner to the front yard, he felt relief when he saw Grampa at the head of the stairs, kicking body parts off the porch.
He looked at Sig. “OK, now we chop them up some more to make sure they can’t move. Do you have axes?” Sig dashed off to get two axes from the woodshed behind the house.
Grampa took a double bladed ax and walked through the litter of bodies, dismembering corpses into smaller pieces. Sig reluctantly followed his lead with the other ax.
Meredith walked out of the house, “That’s all in back. I don’t see any others.”
Sig looked up just as a zombie followed her out of the house. “Mom! Look out behind you!”
She ducked and ran forward down the steps, pursued by the last one. Sig raised the axe and hurled it at the zombie. The blade sliced into its chest and knocked it backward onto the porch. The tip of the blade sticking out of its back pinned it to the porch floor.
Grampa hollered, “Good throw.”
Sig looked over at him. “Dad and I used to practice axe throwing. That’s the first time I’ve done it since…” He picked up the sword from where it leaned against the porch and walked over to chop the zombie on the porch into manageable pieces before it could free itself from the axe pinning it.
Meredith stood watch with her reloaded shotgun while Sig and Grampa continued dismembering barely mobile corpses.
Sig looked around and said, “Are we done? There are a lot more here than I thought worked across the road. There’s well over a dozen. Maybe fifteen or twenty.” Weird, all these bodies chopped up, and no blood on the snow.
Grampa said, “Count the feet and divide by two to figure out how many.”
Sig looked over at him, shook his head, and collapsed to sit on the porch steps.
Grampa walked over, plopped down next to Sig, and said, “What’s wrong? We just saved our bacon and wiped out more than a dozen zombies. You should be happy, not despondent.”
“I always wanted to have magic. Now this.” He waved at the body parts littering the yard. “This is terrible. It makes me feel like I’ve fallen into a septic tank. I’m glad I don’t have magic.” Sig looked at him. “But you have magic don’t you? You made Bjørn speak and you made the zombies visible.”
Grampa sighed. “There’s magic and there’s magic.” He nodded toward the zombies. “That’s black magic, evil magic… Necromancy. No, you don’t want that kind of magic.”
He gave Sig a measured look. “Yes, I have magic. I planned to let you know in a less dramatic fashion when I talked to you about your magic.”
Sig said. “I told you I don’t have any magic.”
Grampa clapped him on the shoulder. “Let’s check the inside of house before we clean up this mess out here. We can talk about it later.” He put a finger to his lips. “Don’t mention my magic to your mother.”
Chapter 6
Sig drove the pickup truck with the hydraulic dump bed into the yard. Grampa used the pitchfork to pile body parts together. Mom watched from the porch as Sig pulled the front-loader out of the equipment barn. He scooped up the piles with it, and poured them into the dump bed of the pickup.
While he did that, Grampa spoke with Meredith. She went inside and Grampa hobbled over with a pitchfork and flipped the few left over parts into the dump bed. Sig asked, “Is Mom going to call the police, Grampa?”
“I clean up my ow
n messes. Besides, chopped up zombies would ruin the police routine in this nice little town. I don’t want to put the police through that.”
“What are we going to do with all these body parts?”
“Isn’t this the land of 10,000 lakes?”
“Yeah, and all the lakes are frozen. They started thawing but this freeze hardened them again. Were you planning on dumping them on the ice and bet on when they fall through, like we do with old beater cars?”
Grampa got into the passenger seat of the dumper truck. “Take me to a good size lake that’s still well frozen; one with a public launch.”
Sig got in and started the truck. “What happens when someone finds them?” He received a snore in reply. Grampa’s chin rested on his chest. How can he sleep?
Twenty minutes later Sig eased the truck down a snow covered launch ramp at the biggest lake in the area. After Sig shook him awake, Grampa took the samurai sword and walked ahead of the truck. Sig followed for one hundred and fifty yards across the glistening white before Grampa signaled him to stop and turn the truck around. No lake cabins were visible through the leafless trees.
Sig turned the truck around and got out to watch. Grampa used the sword to etch a ten-foot circle in the ice. Then he scratched strange figures inside the circle. He held the sword out while he gestured with the other hand. Sig heard him mutter foreign sounding words
White haze, like steam, rose from the etched area. The fog intensified. When it drifted away in the light wind, Sig saw dark water where the circle had been. Grampa groaned and dropped to his knees, clutching his chest.
Sig rushed to his side. Grampa shook his head and pushed him away. “Dump the zombies in there before it freezes again. I’ll be OK. Look it’s already starting to freeze. Hurry.”
Sig backed the truck close and lifted the dump bed. Parts slid, splashed, and disappeared into the dark water. Those that missed the hole, he flipped into the water with a pitchfork. Through the pitchfork, he felt that some parts still twitched. They made crackling noises when they broke through the rime forming in the opening.
