The Soul Eater (Chronicles 1): The Book of Roland

by James Master

  She looked down the alley and called to her companions, “Roland? Gary? Is anyone here?”

  She looked up the side of the building, the one she had been sleeping on, thinking maybe she fell off the roof in her sleep. She waved off that notion when she thought about it. The fall alone would have killed her, not to mention the zombies. The thought made her stop and look around for a crazy second.

  “Where are the zombies?” She thought, not wanting to say it in case it came true. She brushed off the dirt from her pants and walked into the street. There were zombies, lots of them, gathered at the entrance to a building. She heard gunshots and watched zombies die one at a time until they were all dead again. After a minute the door opened and Roland and Starke stepped out.

  “Roland, over here, it's Ashley! Where are we?”

  She waited for a response; the two men neither heard nor noticed her. She ran towards them but stopped after as she got closer to the pair. The first guy, Starke was exactly how he was when she fell asleep. Roland was not Roland; she realized causing her to stop dead in her tracks. The man looked like Roland, could have been his twin, except for some minor things. He had brown eyes, different clothes, and longer hair. Where Roland's was crew cut, reminding her of an army cut, the other guys’ was shaggier.

  “What is happening, why can't they hear me?”

  The moans started, she watched more zombies starting to pour out of buildings and alleys. She heard another moan and turned seeing zombies running towards her. She screamed as they ran straight into her and then past her. She blinked and followed the zombies that had ignored her just as Starke and the other had. That was when she noticed her hands were transparent.

  “Am I dead or something?” She said to no one in particular, thinking that she might have actually fallen off the roof. She watched the two start running and decided to follow them. After chasing them down a street, she noticed it was named Esther St, she caught up to them, being young and healthier had their perks, and overheard Starke.

  “You know the old riddle, Ed? How do you outrun a Man Eating Bear?” The man looked briefly back at Starke.

  “How?”

  Ashley noticed the man start to run faster. She saw Starke pull out the nail gun and point it at Ed. “You don’t have to outrun the bear. You only have to run faster than the person next to you.” Ashley couldn't believe what happened next. The man fell clutching the leg Starke had shot him with the nail gun. The gun Starke picked up next she knew. It was the same gun he had on the roof with her when they fell asleep. Her vision was getting blurry, but she could hear Ed shout, “Damn you, Starke!” She then heard moaning covering up whatever Starke had started yelling.

  *** 3 ***

  Roland awoke to the moaning of zombies. The moans, he thought as he was still waking up, were closer than they ought to have been. He stood quickly, causing Ashley, who was still sleeping, to cry out in alarm.

  “Roland, I had this crazy dream where” Roland tugged Ashley onto her feet.

  “Roland, I have to tell you...”

  Starke shushed them up. “Hey sleepy heads, come over here and check this out.” Ashley and Roland exchanged looks and crept to the edge of the roof. Starke was on his belly looking down on the street. Roland and Ashley followed suit. Ashley made an example of looking at Starke with disgust and moved over to Roland's side. Roland noticed this, making a mental note to ask her about it later.

  *** 4 ***

  There were two uninfected men walking towards a group of ten zombies. One was armed with two pistols; Roland noted they were police service revolvers, on his hips like a gunfighter. On his back, a thin long sword was strapped onto his back. Ashley nudged Roland and asked.

  “What the heck is the thing on his back?”

  Roland pulled out his binoculars and viewed the nasty looking weapon.

  “It's a samurai sword; a katana. Looks like the real deal too, not just one of those cheap replicas.” He offered the binoculars to Ashley, who passed them back after a couple seconds.

  “Aren't bullets enough? Why does he need with that?”

  “It's pretty clever actually. Pistols and shotguns are loud. Even silencers make a small noise. I wonder where he managed to find one.”

  Starke piped in, “Maybe if they live you can ask him.”

  He considered it, “Maybe I will.”

  The other man was big, but not fat. Large shouldered, Roland thought as he closely examined the man. He stood around six feet, but that was about it from what Roland could see. The man wore a hockey mask over his face and a long sleeve chef's coat, which was covered in dried blood. In one hand he wielded an eight-inch cleaver, while the other hand held a knife sharpener. Roland noticed the end of the sharpener was made into a wicked sharp tip. Starke laughed at the man.

  “Look, guys, the real Hell's Kitchen.”

  Hell's Chef lumbered towards the ten zombies as they noticed the two warriors. Two fresher zombies started running towards the chef. The rooftop watchers soon found out that the chef wasn't just strong, but fast. One zombie went left while the other went right. The cleaver caught the left zombie under the neck and severed the head from the body. The right zombie turned and was met with the end of the sharpener tearing through his nose into his brain. Hell's Chef pulled the sharpener out, letting the zombie drop to the street, dead once more. He walked up to the still moving head of the one he decapitated and lifted his left leg to his muscular waist. Bellowing deeply, he crushed the head sending brain and blood everywhere. He looked at the other undead and beckoned to them as he sharpened the cleaver.

  Roland heard more moaning coming up from behind the chef. The samurai looked behind him and drew his pistols. Dressed in cargo shorts, white wife beater shirt, steel toe boots, a red and white bandana wrapped around his head, and aviator glasses, the samurai didn't look like a suicidal type of guy Ashley thought.

  The fresher of the zombies started to run at the samurai. He pulled one of the pistols and aimed at the advancing undead. When the first of them came within three feet of the samurai, that's when he started firing.

  He quickly dispatched the closest one with a head shot. The second one was still about a foot away when it was dropped next to its newly dead companion. It was at this precise moment when more zombies appeared from the alley, attracted to the sound of gunshots. A total of seven new zombies shambled onto the street, surrounding the two combatants.

  Starke laughed, to Ashley, it sounded like he liked watching these two men fight for their lives. She looked over to see him absently chewing on a few strands of his ponytail. He noticed that he was being stared at and said, “Those guys are as good as dead. Or I guess undead in this case.” Roland nodded in disappointed agreement. He didn't see these guys winning anything except life after death.

  The chef from Hell was chopping one zombie's head off while skewering another with the sharpener when one zombie came up from behind and grabbed his face. Luck was on the Chef's side. The zombie was only able to grab hold of the hockey mask. The mask was torn from the Chef's face when he whipped around and chopped the zombie's head off. He looked at the mask on the ground and Roland was able to get a good look at the man's face. He wore a goatee and had a long scar that went from his left ear vertically down to his neck. Roland thought it might have been from an old kitchen accident. The Chef paid more attention to the loss of his mask, than the task at hand. He paid dearly for it when an undead bit him on his right arm.

  Roland sighed as he heard the man yell in surprise and anger. He shoved the undead back and was ready to shish kabob the thing when the samurai fired a bullet into its head. The Chef turned to the samurai and stared into the barrel of the samurai's revolver. The Samurai looked at him with a pained look on his face.

  “I'm sorry Deryl. I'll carry on with the quest.” He thumbed back the hammer as the Chef, Deryl, nodded. “It's alright buddy, I'm cooked anyway. So stick a fork in me.” Ashley closed her eyes as the Samurai ended Deryl's zombie hunting. When sh
e looked back to the battleground below her, the Samurai had turned his attention to the undead.

  Two of the new zombies rushed the Samurai from his right. Drawing his revolver from his right holster, he managed to pop them in the head, dropping them to the ground. The Samurai looked at the rest of the new arrivals and found that they were slower and therefore less of a threat. Two of the original undead were shot down a foot from the Samurai.

  Walking up to the two zombies on his right, he emptied his left revolver into them and holstered it. By that time, he was now in the middle of the zombies. With his left hand he drew the machete he wore on his hip and decapitated one zombie, its head moaning as it hit the ground and started to roll away from the fight. He shot two more zombies close range in the head, splattering brain matter and blood all over the Samurai. Holstering his revolver, he buried the machete into the neck of one of them and ripped it out severing the head from the body. Now only five remained, deadly close to ripping the Samurai limb from limb.

  While decapitating one zombie, another pulled the Samurai to the ground and was wrestling with him. Roland stood suddenly and walked off to where he had slept the night before. Meanwhile, the Samurai had managed to draw his pistol from its holster and shoot the monster in the head. It now was dead weight lying on top of him, leaving him vulnerable to the other three remaining. With his right hand pinned underneath the dead zombie, he dropped the gun on the pavement and reached for his machete.

  The first of the zombies started to fall on top of the Samurai, lunging for his neck. Thrusting the machete up towards the zombie, he was able to slide it up through the bottom of the monsters mouth and into the brain, rendering it dead once again. Grabbing the pistol, the Samurai aimed carefully and fired. The second to last zombie dropped to the ground as it uttered its last moan. The Samurai finally pointed the pistol at the last monster and squeezed the trigger.

  Uttering her own moan, Ashley realized that the gun was out of bullets. She didn't need to hear the dry click the pistol gave, she knew because the zombie didn't drop dead. Starke shook his head. “Too bad, he was a great fighter. He almost did it.” The Samurai pulled back the hammer of the pistol and squeezed the trigger again this time the loud report of a gun went off, not from the Samurai's pistol but from Roland’s rifle. Ashley looked up from her vantage point to see the smoke rising from the M1 Garand. Heading towards the door of the roof, he slung the rifle on his back. Starke rose from the rooftop.

  “You know that you cheated. He was supposed to die. He was out of luck and bullets. Why did you do that?” Roland ignored him while he took the ladder off the door. Ashley followed Roland and Starke down the stairs.

  Roland opened the door to the hardware store and stepped out onto the street. The Warrior was not under the pile of lifeless zombies. Starke finally came out, looking up and down the empty streets in search of the Warrior. “Where did he go? He couldn't have possibly gotten out from under those zombies. The one looked like he was a Big Mac short of a heart attack.” Roland scanned the street and found a set of bloody footprints leading into the city interior.

  Ashley walked out into the street preparing to meet a fellow survivor but was disappointed. Looking up both sides of the streets, “Where did he take off to? At least he could have thanked you for saving his life.” Roland shook his head, “Maybe he disappeared because he thought that we were raiders. Smart thinking really, you never know who you might be dealing with. He is either smart or suicidal. I mean really, taking on all those zombies and winning? Huh, now that’s something you don’t see every day,”

  “You know Roland, that man could have been psychotic. Why did you save his life?”

  Roland turned and glared at Starke, “No one deserves to die that way. No one does, not even Hitler.” Starke laughed, “Hitler? What the hell does he have to do anything with death by zombie?”

  Ashley was walking down the empty street with Roland and Starke but wasn’t listening to the conversation that they were having, she was too preoccupied with the thought of zombies running out of the surrounding buildings. She heard different pieces about Hitler and the creation of zombies, but she was not all that interested in history. It was her worst class in school. The teacher was mainly the reason, due to his monotone voice and dry humor. She doubted if her grade in history would matter much anymore seeing how the school was probably infested with her undead peers.

  That made her laugh in a morbid kind of way, thinking how her friends always told her that most of the school were mindless sheep. She inwardly laughed thinking about her friends had been right all along. There was one difference: the mindless sheep didn’t have a murderous appetite. Keeping her eyes focused on the sidewalks, she was prepared to run in case of zombies.

  Roland was trying to track the bloody footsteps but was having difficulty. Mostly because Starke was trying to disprove Roland’s Hitler Undead conspiracy that they had been debating for a good couple of minutes. Roland was having second thoughts about telling Starke about it when he heard the sound of crunching footsteps on gravel. He flashed his hand in the air to silence Starke, simultaneously dropped to the ground behind an abandoned car for shelter.

  Starke also hearing the sound dropped behind a mailbox, the big blue ones that are around the city. Ashley didn’t hear what the other two heard and stayed where she was for about a moment before Roland yanked her down beside him. She was about to complain about it, but his hand on her mouth, silencing her.

  Slowly moving his head to the window, Roland peeked out and tried to see if the sound was from either the living or the undead. Although Roland couldn’t see anything, he knew the sound had to have come from an uninfected person. The footsteps were coming towards them in a steady pattern, not the irregular shamble the undead usually moved in.

  Maneuvering around Ashley to the front of the car, Roland tried to get a better view of where the footsteps were coming from. Just as he was about to peek around the headlights he heard a voice, “Alright then, I know you're there so stand up nice and easy. Oh aye, I have a gun so don’t try anything, wouldn’t want to waste the bullets.”

  Roland stood slowly from where he was hiding and raised his hands. Surprisingly it was not the Samurai Roland was expecting. Instead, it was a burly man with a sawed-off shotgun in one hand and a desert eagle in the other.

  Roland kept his hands in the air as he spoke, “Hello, I’m Roland, pleased to make your acquaintance. I was just passing through on my way to Manchester. I don’t mean any trouble so if I could just be on my way.”

  The man laughed, “Do think I was born yesterday boy? My father used to say ‘Son, one thing you never do is bluff to a man with a gun pointed at you.’ I saw two others chasing that weird dude. So where are they? I believe one was a teen and the other was another feller that looked like a hippie. I wouldn’t want them to miss the party. I mean, I made the fruit punch myself.”

  Roland nodded to Ashley and Starke to come out from their hiding spots. Ashley stood but kept her head lowered looking at her feet. Starke, ever the coward, remained behind the mailbox. Roland glared at Starke and gestured with one of his hands. Roland noticed with some pleasure that Starke was looking like death itself was near.

  “Mister, it looks like my hippie friend here is too afraid to move, wouldn’t surprise me if he pissed all down his pants. Maybe lowering those weapons would calm him down?”

  The man laughed a deep and hearty laugh, “Maybe shooting that there mailbox would be a better option. I give the coward five seconds.” At the third count, Starke stood up and raised his hands. The man stopped counting and walked a step towards Roland.

  “Are you this man’s friend?” Roland noted heavy hostility in the man’s voice when Starke appeared, “We just meet him last night at the pharmacy down the street.”

  The man nodded and turned towards Ashley. “Roland, you and that young lady there get along to Manchester now. This bastard and I have a score to settle and the girl doesn’t need to see a grown man
cry. If you can call him that isn’t that right you back stabbing hippie douche bag!?”

  Ashley flew to Roland’s side. Ignoring her for the moment Roland looked at the burly man, “I know it’s not any of my business, but why are you so pissed off at Starke?” The man walked towards Starke without looking away from Roland.

  “This bastard betrayed my entire party. He made it sound like there was going to be a rescue helicopter on the roof of the hospital. You know what was waiting for us? Sure as shit wasn’t a helicopter, it was death. My buddy Mark and I were the only ones out of twenty that made it out alive. He was bitten at the hospital. I had to shoot him myself. You knew that we were walking into a death trap so why in God’s name did you say there was a helicopter on that roof?”

  Starke shook his head, “John, I had no idea that that many zombies would have been in there. It was the start of the outbreak. I heard from another guy that there was going to be a helicopter on the rooftop. I swear I meant no harm.”

  John, the burly man, grabbed Starke by the hair and threw him to the ground. “NO IDEA?!?! You FUCKING LAUGHED when you saw them attack us! Deny all you want Starke, it’s my time to laugh.”

  Placing the sawed off shotgun an inch from Starke’s head, John turned his head towards Roland and Ashley. “Be off now you two. No need to see this.” John started to turn his head when he heard the sound of a hammer click back.

  “Put the shotgun down John. We can talk about this, just the two of us. I think there has been enough death.” John tried to turn his head toward Roland, but the cold steel of Roland’s revolver stopped him. “You don’t understand man; he murdered my family, friends, and innocent people. He can’t be allowed to live.”

  “Killing Starke would only create another Starke. I won’t let that happen. Do what you have to, but know that I’ll do what I have to. Make your choice.”

  Silence surrounded the street as the two men stood, each waiting for the other to make a move. Noticing the silence first, Ashley started to panic. She hadn’t heard absolute silence since the outbreak. Something had to be wrong she concluded. Drawing the pistol from her pocket, she tugged on Roland’s sleeve. He batted her hand away with his free hand. Ashley tried again to get his attention, but once more Roland swatted her hand.