by James Axler
Though eminently capable, Brigid Baptiste found herself at something of a disadvantage in using the same tactic as her partners. Kane was a powerfully built man, and Grant’s strength might, in a simpler era, have formed the stuff of legend. Brigid could hold her own in any combat situation, but against an enemy who simply wouldn’t fall, she knew she was best advised to back her plays with more force than her fists. In an instant she scampered back to the stalled truck, pulled herself up over its low side where the khaki paint was chipped and ruined and clambered on the open, flat back. There was a long metal bar on either side that held the dropdown panels in place like a bolt. Swiftly Brigid kicked one of the bolts back so that the side panel dropped down in front of her. As the panel dropped, Brigid felt the truck shake and she saw two figures pulling themselves up from behind her, climbing onto the flat body of the truck with their emaciated, rotting arms.
Brigid turned swiftly, striking the first across the face with a well-placed kick. The zombie lurched backward but clung on to the side of the unmoving truck, making the vehicle shake and sway.
Brigid pulled her foot back and booted the thing again, this time jabbing down with her solid heel and driving it into the corpse-thing’s cavelike eye socket. The creature struggled and fell, dropping back to the dirt path, her awful face fixed in anger.
Before Brigid could move, the second undead thing had pulled himself over the lip of the side panel, and he grasped her other foot in a terrible death grip. Brigid found herself pulled down, and she struck the metal body of the truck with a heavy blow, feeling the force of her landing hammer through her elbows and knees.
Brigid spun then, rolling herself on the bed of the truck as the undead thing pulled himself up her body, tearing at her pant leg. Brigid jabbed the muzzle of her TP-9 into the corpse-thing’s open mouth and held the trigger down, watching the undead creature shake in place as the volley of bullets drilled through his skull, bursting out the back of his head in a rush of bloodless flesh and dry, powdery brain matter.
Yet still, incredibly, the zombie kept coming, even with half his skull blasted to dust. And then, from Brigid’s right, the other undead creature, the one she had only just kicked from the side of the truck, pulled herself up over the side panel and began to stagger toward Brigid again.
Chapter 9
Lying on her back on the bed of the artillery truck, trapped by the weight of the undead form scrambling up her legs, Brigid Baptiste heard a cawing sound. Looking directly up into the sky above her, she saw the dark blur of a crow swooping overhead, its black feathers like the Grim Reaper’s shroud in the light of the balmy day. It had been a day, she thought—hell, it had been a life—of omens and portents.
The undead thing was still clawing up her leg, despite the fact that Brigid had just dispatched a whole clip of ammunition from her TP-9 semiautomatic right into the ghastly monstrosity’s skull. To her right, the second zombie, the one she had kicked from the edge of the truck, clambered over the side panel once again The creature’s movements were jerky, like some terrible stop-frame film, time-lapse photography projected in front of her into the air.
Brigid swung the semiautomatic around, pressing at the trigger as she targeted the thing clawing over the side of the truck. Brigid bit back a curse as she realized the gun was empty.
Then the creature whose head she had almost destroyed with her first salvo grabbed at her chest, one rotting hand mashing against her breast as he pulled his way up her struggling, supine body. Brigid lashed out, driving the heel of her left hand into the thing’s forehead, slamming hard against the deteriorating flesh that clung there.
The undead creature lurched back and Brigid pumped her knee up, powering it into the undead human’s body. The creature flipped off of Brigid, rolling onto the metal bed of the artillery truck with a hideous shriek.
Brigid pushed all her weight back onto her shoulders, arching her back as the second undead thing lumbered toward her across the body of the truck. The first was still moving to her left, trying to right himself where Brigid had flipped him off her body.
With a tensing of her muscles, Brigid drove herself back, then sprang forward to land in front of the second shambling figure in a crouch. Still moving, Brigid drove her left fist into the zombie’s hip, hitting her with such force that the undead figure was forced to turn, staggering backward as she lost her balance.
Brigid spun in place, sweeping one long, slender leg around her until she connected with the undead thing’s legs where she struggled to remain upright. The awful creature was knocked from her feet like a skittle in a bowling alley, falling sideways into the side panel of the truck where she lay as if snapped in two. The undead thing groaned, a low, bubbling sound like a man trying to scream under water.
Brigid leaped up, ramming her TP-9 back into its hip holster as she finally grabbed for the boltlike bar that she had spied a few moments earlier. She was standing just a foot away from the other zombie as she yanked the metal rod free from its housing in the side panel. The rod was just an inch in diameter, but it stretched a third of the truck’s length and was made of solid steel. Brigid pulled but the end of the rod was stuck, and she saw a deliberate stopper there to prevent it from being accidentally pulled from the siding. As the undead thing behind her began struggling upward and her colleague lifted himself from the opposing side of the truck, Brigid kicked out with all her might, breaking the rusted old bracket that held the metal bar’s stopper in place.
Freed, Brigid swung the metal rod out in front of her like a staff. It stood almost four feet in length, coming up to the bottom of Brigid’s ribcage as she stood in place on the bed of the vehicle. The undead man with the shot-to-pieces skull was struggling to pull himself up from the floor of the truck, fat flies buzzing around his rotting flesh. Brigid swung the length of metal at the undead man’s head, batting him across a cheekbone whose milky whiteness was visible through the patchy skin of his face, knocking the lumbering figure sideways. Then the beautiful Cerberus warrior raised the steel bar over her head and used it like a club against the struggling figure, slamming the undead thing again and again, like someone swatting a fly. The long length of shining metal whistled as it cut through the air, clunking viciously against the animated corpse.
The second undead figure lurched toward Brigid, arms outstretched in an attempt to claw Brigid’s face. Brigid reared back in disgust, recalling the hideous dwarf thing that had torn at her hair. Then she was swinging the pole once again, this time in a horizontal arc to smash its length against the lumbering thing’s torso. There was a clang of metal on bone, and the zombie fell onto her back, viscous liquid seeping from her open mouth.
For just a second Brigid stood there over the fallen corpse, catching her breath, and once again a movement in the distance caught her eye. She watched as the dark, skeletal figure of Ezili Coeur Noir strode along the dirt path on long, emaciated legs, trotting like a bird in the snow. And all around her, clawing from the ground, figures seemed to be emerging—human figures, each one accompanied by a horrible, bone-chilling scream.
“Shit,” Brigid murmured under her breath before turning and placing her foot against the far side panel of the truck’s rear, even as the zombies on the truck bed shook, trying to right themselves.
A moment later Brigid had leaped over the open side of the truck, the metal pole clutched in both hands, and she hurried to join her two companions as they fought back the undead hordes that waited in the road.
On the dirt-track road, Grant and Kane stood back-to-back, fending off the last of the undead figures. More had appeared while Brigid had been engaged in furious battle atop the truck, and she could see a heap of ruined corpses scattered around the edges of the road, their crumpled bodies stuck at terrible, unnatural angles. Even as Brigid hurried to help, a towering undead figure swung a mighty arm at Grant’s head; it was like a slab of rotting meat hurtling through the air. The ebony-skinned ex-Mag sidestepped, narrowly avoiding that savage blow, and t
hen stepped forward, his arms outstretched.
With a mighty shove, Grant slammed the monstrous figure in the chest and, using both arms, ran forward, his feet powering against the dirt of the road, pushing the undead form back toward the edge of the tree-lined roadway. Before the figure could counteract Grant’s move, he found himself shoved into the side of the road where the low-hanging branches of a tree reached out like the talons of an eagle. With one last brutal shunt, Grant forced the zombie into the sharp end of a low-hanging branch, skewering the undead thing. The towering corpse struggled, the branch poking from his broad chest, unable to get himself free. It spit something the color of dried blood from his dry mouth, desperately reaching for Grant as the ex-Mag stepped back.
Grant turned away, dismissing the corpse-thing that struggled at the branch. Shaking his head, he muttered just one word as he walked away, “Fail.”
Brigid, meanwhile, was helping Kane with the last of the shambling figures, using her pole like a staff to herd the undead creature away until Kane was in the ideal position to break his legs with two low ram’s-head punches. They left the animated corpse struggling in the mud, dragging his crippled legs behind him.
“Figure it won’t be long until more of these damned things arrive.” Kane spit. “Let’s get moving.”
Brigid turned back to the truck one last time, recalling the dark figure she had seen moving in the swamp. “Wait,” she instructed, slowing her pace.
“What is it, Baptiste?” Kane asked, looking fiercely in her direction, his face red with anger and exertion.
Brigid had stopped in the middle of the bayou path, searching behind her with her clear, emerald eyes. “I saw her,” she said. “Lilitu—or Ezili Coeur Noir or whatever we’re calling her. I saw her.”
“She must have come out of the redoubt to follow us,” Kane conceded.
“Her and her army,” Grant rumbled, checking the immediate undergrowth for further signs of ambush.
“We should keep moving,” Kane reminded Brigid, a note of urgency creeping into his usually professional tone.
“These…dead things are coming from somewhere, Kane,” Brigid said, her eyes still roaming the path that led back to the redoubt. “I think she’s creating them.”
“Creating…?” Kane and Grant responded in unison.
“I don’t know.” Brigid shook her head. “I only saw for a second, just a second. But she seemed to be pulling them out of the ground. Dead people sprouting like weeds all around her—awful, awful weeds.”
Kane reached for Brigid, pulling her around to look at him, physically shaking her out of her reverie. “Come on, Baptiste,” he insisted, “this is no time to get maudlin.”
“Kane,” Grant urged, indicating movement nearby. “We need to get if we’re getting.”
Brigid looked at Kane, her anam-chara, her soul friend, and he saw that her eyes were welling with tears. “What kind of monster would do this?” she asked.
“The kind we make a habit of slaying,” Kane assured his beautiful companion, brushing a stray lock of her red-gold hair from her face. “Now, come on. Let’s get to cover and see if we can’t put all the pieces into the right order, figure us a way to end this horror show.”
Brigid nodded, wiping self-consciously at her eyes with the heel of her hand.
A moment later the Cerberus trio were moving once more, jogging along the dirt road toward the spot indicated in Brewster Philboyd’s communication.
THE CORPSELIKE FIGURE of Ezili Coeur Noir stalked through the sweat-heavy air of the bayou. Her yellow lizard’s eyes were narrowed, their dark slits focused on the warm, living things that scampered away ahead of her and her people. There were three of them, running from destiny.
She smiled at the thought of these fools, running away from death as if death could ever be outraced.
Beneath her feet, the ground was breaking as another figure clambered from his resting place under the earth. Broken fingernails clawed at the sod, dragging against the muddy ground as another undead human struggled to free himself from the soil.
Ezili Coeur Noir looked down, peering at the animated dead thing as he wrenched himself from the moist loam and hefted himself up into a sitting position, damp soil still clinging to his rotted body. This one had no face, just a bare skull without a shred of skin other than at the scalp, where long strands of white hair clung like sap to a tree. When he reached up out of the ground with his other hand, it was clear that he was missing some fingers; just a thumb and the little finger remained, while the others were removed at the second knuckle. The undead thing wore the clothes he had worn in life, a long black coat that had ripped and torn so as to give the appearance now of a bat’s wings. He hunkered down, shaking himself like a dog as the soil clung to his body and clothes. Dry soil fell from his clothing along with the shining black bodies of several beetles, scurrying away from the light, their underground lives disturbed.
Ezili Coeur Noir waved one of her spindly hands across the undead thing’s brow, brushing against it just for a moment, the soil crumbling at her touch. As she pulled her hand away, more of his form seemed to appear, tendrils of flesh budding on his skull as if pulled from the very air itself. The undead thing opened his mouth to scream, but he had no voice box yet, no tongue; he could not cry out at the agony of this unholy rebirth as he felt his body being pulled back from the ether, re-created from the atoms that remained in the soil and the atmosphere.
Ezili Coeur Noir stepped away then, continuing to follow the warm, living things that scurried away down the long dirt road leading from the redoubt’s doors.
Behind her, the revived-and-once-dead thing stumbled forward, unused to moving his legs after so long at rest, his scarred boots too big to comfortably accommodate still-fleshless feet. The flesh was re-forming there, too, reknitting between skeletal toes, and suddenly he found he could lift his feet once more. For a moment he lurched in place in a spastic, uncoordinated dance, his mouth still open in a soundless scream.
Around the moving corpse, other undead things walked, keeping pace with their mistress. The one-eyed corpse walked in something approximating a stride, his eye patch a mirror of the dead socket it was strapped beside. The others followed: Dreadlocks and Walking Stick and the little one whose face was a spectral mask of bone, two glass shards clutched in the fleshless fingers of his dry hands.
Suddenly the newly reanimated corpse made a shrill noise. His throat had finally regrown and at last he could give voice to the agony of his rebirth. His screech sounded like nails on a blackboard.
Ezili Coeur Noir smiled at the noise, enjoying the terrible, familiar song of death reversed. All of the corpses had done this when she had revived them; each had sung a beautiful note of pain. It was so pure, so absolute, she wished to one day make an orchestra of these corpses, killing and reviving them to create the music she heard echoing in her black heart.
Already she was walking on down the road, instinctively searching for another dead body, feeling herself drawn to it as she repopulated the Earth with her army of the undead. But soon she would not need to search. Once the Red Weed batch was completed by her lackeys, Ezili Coeur Noir would have an endless supply of the dead to reanimate, a perfect orchestra to scream her beautiful songs of death. And prized among those singers would be the three humans she had found in the underground bunker of the redoubt, the three who had challenged her with the brightness of their living souls.
KANE, GRANT AND BRIGID HURRIED along the dirt road, keeping to the middle of the path and away from the dense foliage, wary of whatever it might now be hiding. As they jogged toward the distant road, Brewster Philboyd’s voice came over the Commtact once again, giving Kane the information he dreaded.
“Production of Red Weed was very limited,” Philboyd confirmed. “It was still at test stage when the initiative was abandoned, probably a funding issue. Donald here has done a back-door hack to find us the location of the supplies that exist and—well—you won’t like it.”
“It’s in Redoubt Mike, isn’t it?” Kane huffed as he jogged along the dirt track beside his two companions.
“It is,” Philboyd confirmed. “It was stored in one of the lower levels of the underground bunker for safety. Essentially the place became a secure dumping facility once the redoubt itself was abandoned. But if the catalyst is released into the atmosphere there, it will travel through the air vents and could potentially set off the Red Weed, turning the virus live.”
“And once live,” Brigid observed, “no one else will be. Not for very long, anyhow.”
“That’s about the sum of it,” Philboyd agreed dourly.
“What about a counteragent?” Brigid asked as she jogged beside Kane and Grant. “Is there something of that nature that we could employ to halt the chemical reaction, stop the virus?”
“Got nothing showing up in the file,” Philboyd said slowly as he scanned the information he had pulled up on screen at the Cerberus base. “I’ll see whether anyone here has any ideas. Because once that thing’s loose, there won’t be much time to do anything.”
Kane bit back a curse as another shambling corpse came staggering out of the bushes beside the track. “Thanks for the heads up, Brew,” he said. “Keep on it.”
Then Kane he cut the com link and turned his attention to the rotten human figure approaching his team from the distance. Before Kane could react, another rotting figure came crashing out of the undergrowth. Brigid dispatched him with a flick of the metal pole she had ripped from the truck, flipping the figure on his back and mashing his skull with a second, savage blow. Another undead man had appeared as they jogged past, and Kane had simply urged they pick up the pace, outrunning the shambling figure and leaving him behind them—it beat getting slowed down by another pointless scuffle during which the zombie’s comrades could well appear.
The Cerberus field team reached the end of the dirt road and found themselves on the verge of an old highway. The blacktop was scarred and cracked, with weeds growing from holes in its surface, but it still looked pretty durable. The field team were breathing a little harder, sweat glistening on their skin from the heat of the bayou as much as their exertions, but they were otherwise intact.
