Books of the Dead (Book 2): Lord of the Dead

by R. J. Spears

  Chapter 25

  Triple Vision

  When I walked into the infirmary, I got a surprise. Naveen was sitting next to Jason’s bed, secluded in the back corner of the room.

  “How’s it going, Joel?” a voice asked from behind one of the hanging blankets Doc Wilson was using as a partition.

  I looked over and saw Aaron standing beside a bed, carefully balancing on a set of crutches that looked too small for him. He was a big guy and made them look as if they were made for a child. “Hey, Aaron, it’s good to see you up and around.”

  “Doc cleared me for crutches yesterday,” he said. “I think they’ll take some getting used to.”

  “I bet they do,” I said distractedly as my attention was drawn back to Jason and Naveen. She was talking to him, but she must have been whispering because I couldn’t make out any of what she was saying. Their exchanges were slow as she would say something, and he would write out his response on a small dry erase board. As I stood there, they made two exchanges.

  “Hey, Joel,” Aaron said, keeping his voice low and leaning towards me, “Is it true what I heard? Is that guy really immune?”

  Now, he had my full attention. We were hoping to keep this quiet. “He says he is, and I believe he is, but we really have no way to prove it. Doc said he has some bite marks that are clearly human. You really have to doubt that there could be real live humans that bit him, so if you put two and two together, you have to think he is immune.”

  “Is there any way we could use him somehow, like to make a vaccine?”

  “Doc says it’s always possible, but vaccines are usually created in sophisticated labs, and, well, he strongly doubts that there are any facilities with labs anywhere around here, and we clearly don’t have any equipment. Plus, he doubts that a lab like that is still operational with everything going on, but you never know.”

  “So, we’re still screwed?”

  “Yeah, basically, but there’s always hope.” I paused as Naveen and Jason completed another exchange. “Aaron, can you keep this under wraps?”

  “What?” he asked.

  “That Jason is immune. Since we don’t know for sure, we don’t want to create some false hope.”

  “Sure,” he said, “I’m heading out. I need the exercise. Look down at my left leg, will you?”

  I did look, and I could see a noticeable difference between the left and right leg. The left was significantly smaller.

  “That’s what weeks of not putting any weight on it will do. If I had stayed in there any longer, the thing would have dried up and fallen off.” He took two shaky steps away from the bed.

  “You need any help?” I asked.

  “Nah, I gotta get used to things sooner or later.” He made a little wave and tottered out of the infirmary.

  When I turned my attention back to Naveen and Jason, I saw Jason’s piercing eyes looking over Naveen’s shoulder locking in on me. Naveen turned to see what Jason was looking at and waved for me to join them as she smiled from ear-to-ear.

  I made my way over to them as he scribbled away on the dry erase board. When I got beside the bed, he held up the sign. It read, “Hi, Joel. Thanks for saving me.”

  “You must be making a habit of saving people,” Naveen said, grabbing my hand. Her fingers were small and delicate and always made me think of a small bird.

  I don’t know if I blushed or not. “It’s good to see you awake. Doc says you’re recovering quite nicely.” His color was no longer just monochromatic white.

  Jason scribbled again. “Thanks for everything.”

  “It’s the least we can do.” I said, stalling with my real questions. “Jason, I need to ask you something.”

  He looked at me earnestly and nodded.

  “Why did I dream about you?”

  He scribbled, “And I dreamt about you, too.”

  “Yes,” I said, “but why did I dream about you? The way we met in the field?”

  He erased his board and wrote longer this time. He turned the board in our direction. “My dream was about the field and also a battle here at this place.”

  “I’ve dreamt about the battle, too. But my dream is incomplete.”

  He wrote, “Mine, too.”

  “Okay. But why do we share the same dreams?”

  He wrote again and emphatically held up his board. “Visions, not dreams.”

  “Okay, visions, not dreams. But why?”

  He wrote quickly this time. “God, I guess?” Then he held up his finger in the universal “wait-a-second” sign and wrote some more.

  When he held up the sign again, it read, “She saw me, too.”

  “What?”

  Naveen turned and smiled at me and said, “Yes, I did. Jason is a very important person.”

  Chapter 26

  The Fall III

  The mortar launcher looked like a play toy as Rex manhandled it into place with his massive hands. He took a few seconds to dial in the target and launched another mortar on the roof of the church. He smiled broadly when it hit. It exploded in a gout of flame, sending shrapnel and debris into the third floor. Anyone below the direct impact would be toast, he thought, and he was good with that.

  It was like shooting fish in a barrel. They had the church people trapped inside while they rained down mortar shells from above and zombies and gunfire from the street. If he had an ounce of empathy, he would have felt sorry for them, but he didn’t like those sons of bitches anyway. They had ambushed and killed his cousin last year when he had come to town looking for supplies. At least, that’s what his other cousin said.

  Johnny, who stood off to Rex’s left, fired off a quick barrage of shots from his assault rifle from the cover of the back of the truck. The bullets cut into a side door onto the church just after it had opened about an inch.

  “Give’ em hell, Johnny,” Rex shouted. He was near the front of the truck.

  “It’s like the Fourth of July,” Johnny yelled back, “except with guns.” He took a moment to laugh at his own joke.

  Rex thought he was stupid, but he put on a fake chuckle just to humor the little guy. Johnny wasn’t much more than five and half feet tall, and a strong wind could blow him over because he was so skinny. Behind his back, Rex called him “Little Shit.”

  They were a good seventy-five yards off the east side of the church, hidden behind an abandoned truck and the backside of the donut shop. The church people had no really good angle on Rex and Johnny, and that inspired them both to excessive displays of bravado.

  Rex had just sent in his platoon of zombies to cover the other exits on the east side of the church. He could see muzzle flashes coming from the second floor windows, and a few of the zombies fell, but he took his rifle and fired into the dark window where the last shots had come from. The window shattered inward and the firing stopped.

  Using his keypad, Rex directed his mob of zombies to a smoldering hole in the side of the church. After stumbling over the bricks strewn about on the sidewalk and street, the first of them started towards the hole when someone inside opened up with an automatic weapon. Blood, chunks of flesh, and bone erupted out of the mob’s spraying onto the zombies behind the first wave and the zombies toppled like dominoes.

  A cloud of smoke rolled across street, obscuring Rex’s view of the zombies, but after it drifted away a few seconds later, he saw more zombies down. He counted nearly a half-dozen entering the gap, but another burst of fire from inside stopped their forward progress since they were torn apart with whatever weapon the church people had. It was certainly heavier than they were expected to have.

  “Johnny, bring up the grenade launcher,” Rex shouted. “We need to cut these bastards down to size.”

  Johnny disappeared behind the donut shop. Rex watched as the flames from the third floor of the church breached into the second floor. The fire ate at the building hungrily as remorseless as the undead devoured flesh, only the fire was hot instead of cold like the undead. It was only a matter of time. I
f the smoke and fire didn’t get them, the zombies would.

  He looked back to see Johnny laboring to carry the grenade launcher forward. The little shit looked as if he were about to buckle under its weight. Johnny was about to get to the back of the truck when he fell forward onto his face. Hard.

  “Hey, you little shit, get back up, and get me that thing,” Rex shouted.

  Johnny didn’t respond at all. In fact, he didn’t move at all.

  Well, shit,” Rex said and crouched to stay out of the way of any shots that might come from the church as he made his way back to where Johnny lay by the back of the truck.

  When Rex got to Johnny, he nudged his little buddy with one of his boots, but Johnny didn’t make a sound. A simmering anger swelled within Rex and he kicked at Johnny’s shoulder, but Johnny didn’t stir at all. It was then that he noticed the dark hole in the center of Johnny’s back between his shoulder blades. The hole was oozing blood and was the size of a bullet.

  Something whizzed past Rex’s head and smacked into the truck with a dull ping. He looked to the truck and saw a similar hole to the one in Johnny’s back. Suddenly the picture became clear, and he fell to the ground, grabbing his walking-talkie.

  “We’re being shot at,” he screamed.

  “Well, we expected that. Now, just fire back,” Anthony said.

  “It’s not from the church people,” Rex said as another bullet slammed into the truck. “It is somebody outside the church, and whoever it is, he killed Johnny.”

  Russell cursed himself for missing the second guy. He was an even bigger target, but the wind blew a curtain of smoke across the street just before he fired. He was afraid the big man would move, so he rushed his shot. He scanned around the truck with his scope but didn’t see any movement. Maybe he shot the man, but he didn’t think so.

  He pulled the gun down and looked up in time to see the large arm push an assault rifle around the corner of the donut shop and fire wildly in his direction. Not one bullet came within twenty feet of him, but he didn’t want to take any chances. He had no idea how many attackers were at the battle. Russell only knew that the Lord of the Dead was on the scene because he saw the control collars zombies attacking the church.

  He pulled down his rifle and backed behind the closest house as another barrage of bullets flew at him but sprayed harmlessly into the night. When he felt safe enough to turn his back on the scene, he moved southward at a slow jog, scanning back to the west to make sure there weren’t more of the attackers ready to react to his counter-offensive. He also was on the lookout for zombies. They were coming to party big time.

  No matter how many men the Lord of the Dead had, if a horde ended up on the scene, things were going to get messy.

  He moved along, hoping any of what he just did made a difference to the people inside the church. He knew he had taken out one of the attackers, but would that have any effect?

  The church looked in bad shape. From his position, he could see the third floor burning out of control, flames leaping twenty to thirty feet into the night sky. Zombies streamed through several major breaches at street level. His mind flashed back to the night when the Lord of the Dead brought his zombies down on his house, and he nearly stopped in his tracks. His chest tightened, and he could barely breathe for a few seconds as he staggered along for a couple steps.

  Panic gripped him as images of zombies entering the house flashed in his mind. One part of him locked in place, while another part of him was screaming for him to run -- fast and far. He closed his eyes and sucked in long lungs full of air, hoping that deep breaths would cleanse the fear out of him. To a degree it worked, and he stumbled forward, gaining his confidence back with each step.

  His plan was to circle around to the back of the church and see if he could spot the Lord of the Dead and take him out. Only then would he allow himself to leave.

  The wind blew out of the northwest pushing thick clouds of smoke down to street level, making it nearly impossible for him to see more than ten feet ahead, but he figured if he couldn’t see them, then they couldn’t see him. He forged ahead until a thick cloud of choking smoke enveloped him. His eyes felt as if they were on fire as he blinked his way along, his arms held out in front of him like a blind man groping in eternal darkness. A strong wind opened a hole in the smoke, and he surged towards it, but as quickly as it opened, it closed again like a shrouded black door. Still he decided to force the issue and head for where the opening had been. He sensed he was just about out of the smoke cloud when he ran into a set of arms that knocked him to the ground.

  He went down hard, and his rifle bounced away into the darkness. The thing that had knocked him down, stumbled into his shoulder, and fell down on him before he could react. He felt its hands gripping for some purchase on him as he struggled to roll away. While its hands didn’t seem all that strong, he couldn’t shake it as it moved in for the kill.

  He reached down to his holster and tugged at his pistol, hoping against hope that he could get it up fast enough to get off a shot, but his right hand was still weak, and the thing collapsed upon him, pushing him flat against ground. He sensed its face coming toward his shoulder, and he felt its hot breath on his neck. He imagined the teeth tearing into him and knew he’d never get the gun up in time.

  More and more of the undead were coming onto the scene, and Anthony knew that their window of opportunity was starting to close. The church people had held him and his soldiers off long enough so that the rogue zombies were going to become an issue for him and his crew. He so wanted to finish them off with a coup de grâce. One big blast, but he knew he had dealt their deathblow even if he wouldn’t be around to see it.

  He looked down the street and saw more than a dozen rogue zombies shambling towards the church. When he turned and looked in the other direction, another dozen were coming their way.

  He brought the walkie-talkie up to his mouth and said, “Rex, come in. Rex, come in.”

  It took a few seconds, but Rex finally replied. “I’m here, but I can’t see the shooter. I do see a lot of zombies that we don’t control on their way.”

  “It’s the same here,” Anthony said. “I think it’s time to make our departure.”

  “But we haven’t taken these bastards completely out yet.”

  “Yes, but with this party, it’s probably better to leave early, rather than be caught here until it closes down.”

  “But....” Rex said, trying to protest, but not getting the gravity of the situation.

  “We are leaving,” Anthony said. “If you stay, I promise you I won’t have to lift a finger, and you’ll not make it out of here alive.”

  “What about our troops?” Rex asked.

  “There is an endless supply out there. It’s time to go. Exit the way we planned.”

  Anthony turned back to the church as a large section of the roof collapsed, smashing onto the third floor. The force of the impact brought down large sections of the second floor roof, sending cascades of flame throughout the entire floor.

  “It’s time to pack it in, Wendy,” he said. “Withdraw whatever soldiers you can.”

  “Yes,” she said, her face nearly black with soot.

  Slowly, a few of the controlled zombies plodded their way away from the church as it burned behind them.

  Russell waited for the teeth to tear into him, to take an ounce of flesh, but instead he heard the thing started to cough. It jerked violently as the coughing racked its body. He used the momentary distraction to his advantage and bucked his hips off the ground as hard as he could, and the thing, lighter than he suspected, spilled off of him onto the asphalt.

  He rolled in the opposite direction just as a gust of wind blew away the thickest smoke, but he still had trouble seeing where the thing was. When he felt he had enough clearance, he jumped to his feet, whipped out his pistol, and aimed at the thing that was still coughing on the ground.

  Just as his finger hit the trigger, the thing spoke through the choking
coughs, “Please, don’t shoot me.” Then it started to cough again.

  Chapter 27

  Omens

  “So, you’re having dreams, too?” I asked.

  “Visions,” Naveen said in a slightly chiding tone.

  “Okay, okay, visions.”

  “Yes, I keep having the same one. I see Jason, and he’s in a lab. I think it was my father’s lab at the university.”

  “What did your dad do?” I asked.

  “He was a scientist, I think,” she said. “He took me to his lab once when I was younger, but I have forgotten a lot of what I saw.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me or Kara?”

  This was the first moment she failed to meet my eyes. “I don’t know. At first, I thought they were just dreams, but really I knew better. Deep down. But I told myself they were just dreams. I didn’t know who this Jason was. I thought I might be a little crazy. Now, he’s here, and I know I’m not crazy.” Any doubt or fear disappeared from her face as she smiled broadly as she patted Jason’s hand.

  “What about you Jason? Do you see the lab?”

  He wrote and turned the board to face us. “I’m not sure I see the lab, but I have seen Naveen in my visions.”

  “How do you see her? Where is she?”

  He hesitated a moment, gave Naveen a concerned look, and then wrote. “I’ve seen her here. Just snapshots. She smiles a lot.”

  “But you’ve seen her somewhere else, haven’t you?” I asked.

  If he looked concerned before, he was looking frightened now. Any color he had gained over the past few days of his recovery bleached out of his face. Still, he wrote. “I’ve seen her. She is in danger. Chased. By them.”