Empire's End

by David Dunwoody

  “Why me?” Voorhees asked as he followed Casey through the door.

  “Because you saw her better than anybody else.” Except Blake went unsaid.

  Manning’s headless body was strapped to a table in a brightly-lit room. A thin man with a crooked smile stood over her, pulling on latex gloves. “I’m Doctor Zane,” the man said. “Please direct any questions you may have to me, and I’ll ask the deceased.”

  Voorhees let that one go without comment and stood silent while the doctor cut away the twitching subject’s garments. Laying them open, Zane began prodding Manning’s flesh with his fingertips, looking for the bite.

  “Can you tell us how long she’d been infected?” Casey asked. Zane shook his head. “Infection period always varies. Still don’t know why. You know what they say, though, about spiritual constitution. ‘The flesh is willing if the spirit is weak.’”

  “Do you really believe that?” Voorhees asked.

  “It’d make perfect sense,” Zane replied, “if I believed in the spirit to begin with. But since I don’t, no. That’s a load of crap.”

  One at a time, he loosened the restraints of Manning’s limbs and lifted them for examination. “The real question is, if she’d been infected for long, why hadn’t she told anyone?”

  “Simple. She didn’t want to be sealed away in quarantine to die.”

  “Dead is dead,” Zane muttered. “I don’t understand people.”

  “She wanted to settle her affairs,” Casey suggested. “Or maybe she was just hoping she wouldn’t turn. The infected aren’t known for their rationality.”

  “Well I’ll be.” Zane lifted Manning’s hips slightly and called the P.Os over to his side of the table.

  “Fresh puncture to the left lower back,” he M.E. said. “And look at this...”

  He produced a pair of tweezers and carefully removed something from the small wound. “Looks like a bone fragment.”

  “There were bone fragments all over the place out there,” Casey said.

  “But that wound was small, and covered,” said Voorhees. “How did bone get in there?”

  “It was lodged in the meat,” Zane said. “My guess is, it’s part of whatever made that wound.”

  The room started to spin. Voorhees slammed his hands down on the autopsy table. “Wait.”

  He stepped back, taking in the sight of Manning’s nude, twitching body. Then he said, “This was a murder.”

  Casey gaped at him. “How?”

  Voorhees pointed to the tweezers in Zane’s grip. “That bone is infected. It’s from a rotter.”

  “She was stabbed with infected bone?” Casey cried.

  “Not bad,” Zane whistled.

  “You can’t be serious,” protested Casey. “How would the killer have known that Manning would turn on stage?”

  “Maybe that wasn’t the plan,” said Voorhees, “or at least it wasn’t necessary that she turn right there at the amphitheater. She could have turned anytime... at a Senate meeting, for example.”

  “Manning was assassinated,” Casey breathed.

  “And we were forced to destroy her,” Voorhees said grimly.

  “Hey, don’t do that to yourself.” Zane patted Manning’s clutching hand. “Remember—they’re not us. Homo inferis, gentlemen. No longer human.”

  He dropped the bone fragment into a bottle. “I’ll test this for infection to confirm your theory. Good luck finding the sicko who did this.”

  Voorhees already had a suspect. But he knew that neither Casey nor the Senators would like it.

  Maybe this would be their wake-up call. Maybe this would be the end for Meyer.

  Eighteen / Fallen

  Adam awoke in flames.

  He saw his charred arms and hands, black fissures brimming with fire, and began rolling frantically back and forth.

  He was lying in the same street, only now it was empty. Eviscerato had taken the dead.

  It was midday; he must have been smoldering for at least twelve hours. It was upon realizing this that the pain hit him in a blinding wave.

  GOD! He could feel it throughout his entire being. From the yawning open wounds where the heat had split his skin to his very core. He writhed on the broken asphalt and screamed to wake the dead.

  The scythe. The general store.

  He forced himself to his knees, new pain knifing through his legs and back. It spiked through him and exploded in his brain. He couldn’t see. He could only smell his burning flesh.

  He fell and rolled again, rolled over and over until there was no way the flames couldn’t have been extinguished; but the heat persisted, gnawing at every nerve in his body, rushing over him in waves that made his fingers splay to their widest point and his toes curl into his feet. He was a brittle, blackened shell of a being. Why hadn’t they just torn him apart?

  Because they were thorough. Humans always burned the undead to ash. It was the only way to be sure.

  He got up again, throwing himself to the sidewalk. He just needed to get inside the store... if, in fact, they had left his scythe there.

  But they couldn’t touch it. It would kill them. Had they found some other way? Had the huge man pulverized it with his hammer?

  Pushing through the door, Adam crawled across the floor, stopping every few feet to scream as renewed pain washed over him. Would the pain ever end? Was he capable of healing? He didn’t know! I wish I were dead!

  No. No! He couldn’t think like that. This couldn’t be the end, a smoking husk lying on the street in some godforsaken town that would never see life again. He had a mission. He had purpose. And he had will.

  He willed himself across the floor, feeling for the blade. His fingers found it. He let out a defiant roar, channeled the pain into his throat and forced it from his lips until the walls seemed to shake.

  Adam was able to stand. He limped across the store and stumbled through the door into the sun.

  The Omega stood at the end of the street, shovel planted in the asphalt.

  Adam pulled the straps over his arm and secured the blade as best he could. The heat still crawled through his nerves, blurring his vision. But he stood and faced his nemesis.

  The Omega pulled the shovel free. Adam ran at him.

  He was knocked back with a blow to the head that made his ears ring. The world spun and swam around him; he tried to regain his bearings, but-

  The Omega slammed the shovel into his back and, as he doubled over, brought it down on his neck like an executioner’s blade. He felt it bite into his flesh and moaned.

  The rotter grabbed the crisp tatters of Adam’s suit and flung him headfirst into the ground. Asphalt buckled. He was wracked with pain, paralyzed. He could only lie there and feel the shovel raining new agony down on him.

  Then the Omega rolled him over and stood on his abdomen. He placed the shovel against Adam’s throat. He was going to cut his head off. It was the end.

  Adam summoned every bit of strength he had. It wasn’t enough to move his arm, to move the scythe. The shovel pushed into his clay-like skin. It met resistance in the charred, hardened flesh. The Omega placed both hands on the back of the shovel handle and prepared to shove it through into the street.

  Staring into the undead’s eyes, Adam saw something. He saw something inside, something distinct from the rotter, something old and hateful and familiar. It terrified him, and that terror gave him the strength he needed.

  He swept the shovel away from his throat and shoved the scythe through the Omega’s gut.

  It did nothing.

  The rotter pulled the blade from his innards and cast Adam’s arm aside. He raised the shovel over his head.

  Adam threw his legs out and knocked the Omega off balance. He got to his feet and ran.

  Every footfall blinded him; every wisp of wind touching his open wounds nearly crippled him. Still he ran. Greater than the will to continue fighting, there was the will to survive. And fear was flooding his limbs to match every stab of pain.

&nb
sp; The shovel struck him between the shoulders. He crashed into the corner of a building and rounded it, fleeing across an overgrown field. The dry grass scratched his burnt flesh and rocks dug into his bare feet. He felt the shovel graze his arm and tried to quicken his pace. Then he was falling.

  He tumbled down a steep hillside and landed on a heap of scrap metal. Jagged points tore through him, skewering him there, and then he no longer had the will to do anything.

  The Omega stared down at the former Death, an unmoving ruin, and was not satisfied.

  Is he really dead? How can we be sure?

  If not, we shall take great pleasure in breaking him again. Yes, we will make his death last days; yet still he will not know a fraction of the suffering we have endured!

  First, we need to feed. We need to find undead.

  His time will come...

  The Omega took leave of his nemesis. He, rather they, were right—they had all the time in the world to make the Reaper suffer. Even after the world was gone, they would still have precious time.

  Tales from the Badlands / The Woman in White

  Many years ago, an Army private named Briggs was separated from his unit. He spent two days wandering in the wrong direction before realizing his mistake. By then he was half-dead from exhaustion and fear.

  He finally collapsed in a ravine, under a copse of trees, and lay on his back watching the sky through the leaves and waited for the end to come.

  He passed in and out of consciousness, each time thinking that he was finally dying; and then the scene changed.

  He was lying in a bed, a comfortable bed in a small bare room. There was a window beside his head, looking out on a well-kept lawn with a garden. He was propped up on several pillows. Glancing down, he saw a bowl of warm broth in a lap, and a spoon in his hand. Had he been eating? How long had he been here? What—

  She entered the room with a pleased smile. She was wearing a hooded cloak, white as snow, and she was the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.

  Long dark hair framed delicate, soft features. Her skin was fair, flawless, and she had deep brown eyes that captivated him, rendering him speechless. He sat, frozen, as she filled the spoon, raised it to his lips and told him to swallow.

  Briggs realized his tongue was no longer swollen and sore. He didn’t ache of thirst or hunger at all. The tightness in his upper body was gone, and feeling had returned to his tired legs. In fact, they weren’t tired at all—he felt like he could get up out of bed at that very moment.

  The woman in white sensed what he was thinking and placed a hand on his chest. Warmth flowered there, spreading through his body, and he suddenly felt tranquil.

  “You need more rest,” she said. Her voice was like cool water. He nodded, lying back on the pillows. Not only had he been physically restored, he was also rid of the nagging fear that was a part of every man’s life in these Last Days—and so, unafraid, he slept.

  It was hours or perhaps days later when he awoke again. She was sitting in a chair beside the bed, prodding gently at his legs with her fingertips. “You have a lot of injuries,” she said. “Some old, some new. This will take time.”

  “What are you doing?” He asked.

  Tilting her head slightly and encircling his ankle with her fingers, she said, “Healing you.”

  “Are you an angel?”

  “Maybe I was once.”

  Maybe once... but no longer, no longer cold and unreachable. Instead he was lying in her bed while she tended to a lifetime of suffering.

  “I guess there is a God,” he breathed.

  “Of course,” she answered. “He’s not always here, but he’s always there.”

  “Heaven?”

  “I suppose so.”

  “What do you mean, suppose so? And maybe you were an angel?” He sat again, still amazed at his strength, and stared at her until her soulful eyes met his.

  “I’m here, you’re here,” she said, as if it were just that simple. “I know He’s there, but I don’t know where there is.”

  He had already accepted that she was possessed of some sort of magic, but it didn’t seem that either of them knew its origin. As he sat silent and watched her work on his legs, then his arms, he thought that her ability almost seemed like the antithesis to the corruption of the plague. And so he had to ask.

  “Do you know about the virus? Where it came from?”

  “It wasn’t always a virus,” she said. “It’s simply an energy. It has many forms. In each, it sows only ruin because it is the very essence of chaos, and impurity—you see, it is not our God who visited this upon us—even His best-laid plans were always vulnerable to chance. A long time ago, before this universe existed, there were other gods, old ones who had never conceived of light and were only darkness. When Creation came into being, these gods fled to places unnamable—in doing so, they cast off dark energy that became ensnared in the developing existence. But even then it was not by design—it was mere chance that the energy settled here, in our world. And what is God to do?”

  “What are you saying?” Briggs stammered. “That the plague is just something that happened? How can you say that?”

  “We give ourselves purpose and significance, but we are as fleeting as any thought in all the cosmos,” she told him. “Existence is existence. A cloud, a pebble, a person. To think that you and I are more than that is arrogance. God’s love is only that—love, plain and simple. Where we end up all comes down to chance.”

  Her eyes glistened. “This is why I became what I am—to love as He does. Thank you for letting me do that.”

  She pointed out the window. “Your unit is a few miles in that direction. A storm is coming, and they’ve made camp. You can reach them tonight if you start now.”

  “But wait,” he protested. “There’s still so much I don’t understand.”

  “You’re not meant to,” the woman said. “And neither am I.”

  She led him out onto the lawn, giving him his equipment and helping him pull on his jacket. “What you know now is enough for you to fulfill the purpose you’ve given yourself,” she said. “Now go.”

  He turned to her, looked into her endless eyes. “I don’t know how to say this...”

  “I love you,” she said, and kissed him softly on the mouth.

  He turned back. There was a small town visible on the horizon. From it, down a long dirt road leading to the woman’s cottage, shambled a lone rotter. Briggs went for his knife.

  “Don’t,” the woman in white said. She stepped past him and extended one hand, palm out, toward the creature.

  A light bloomed in her hand. Briggs had to turn away, but for one split-second he felt the heat, hotter than all of Hell; and when he looked back the rotter was gone, only a glassy streak in the road to mark its passing.

  He made it back to his unit.

  He rose swiftly through the ranks, known far and wide for his strength and fearlessness. Few, though, were ever told about the woman in white, and those who heard the story from others dismissed it as a fanciful rumor. Except for those others whom she had loved.

  Nineteen / Nerves

  “There’s a panic spreading through the streets,” Casey said, hands folded on his desk. “People think there’s been an outbreak, that infected are everywhere. Senator Gillies tried to reassure them in his weekly broadcast, but I don’t think anyone was even listening.”

  “What did he say?” Halstead asked. “Surely he didn’t tell them Manning was assassinated.”

  “No. There hasn’t been an official explanation for her infection. What I’ve heard is that, about a month ago, Manning went outside the Wall on a fact-finding mission. She could have been bitten there and concealed it.”

  “And you’re all right with that lie being passed off as the truth?” Voorhees asked.

  Casey sighed. “Would you rather that the unrest in the streets becomes full-blown pandemonium? Do you want riots? Do you want to see what it’s like when crime really gets out of hand?�
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  “And what about the killer?”

  “We’re increasing security for the city admins. You’ll be pulling double shifts over at the administration building. I might be forced to deputize some new men—”

  “Whose men? Meyer’s?”

  “Don’t be a fool,” Casey snapped. Voorhees didn’t buy it.

  “We’ll be devoting nearly all of our resources to this investigation,” Casey went on. “When the results of that bone fragment test come back, and we’ve confirmed our weapon, we start there.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “There’s no way someone could have smuggled that into Gaylen. It had to have already been here.” Turning to the map behind his desk, Casey pointed to the hospital. “There’s a lab where they test infected tissue. It’s the only source I can think of.”

  He turned back to Voorhees and Halstead. “You’re excused. Send Killian in.”

  She was a wreck—red-eyed and sallow-faced from lack of sleep, her uniform rumpled. “Are you sure you’re fit to work right now?” Casey gave her a sympathetic frown. “Blake was your partner—you can take bereavement leave.”

  “No,” Killian said. “I can work. This is the job.”

  “Well,” said Casey, opening his file cabinet, “I have something for you. You can work this one alone if you like. It’s a priority case—it’d be our number one case if it weren’t for what happened yesterday.”

  He spread a file open on his desk. “Missing girl. Here’s her description. She was downtown with her parents and they lost her—think maybe someone grabbed her. Name’s Lily Calvert.”

  * * *

  Voorhees stood at the edge of the market and watched as a stone-faced Becks worked behind her counter. If only she hadn’t been Blake’s, if only she weren’t grieving—he wanted to ask her about the layout of the amphitheater. Could there have been a passage that the killer used to slip in and out, past security? If there was, who else knew about it?

  “Sorry to hear about our friend Blake.”