Lord of the Dead
Page 20
“Very good,” Anthony said, “but we might have some trouble from above. Are you prepared for the rain of fire?”
“Ready and waiting,” Rex said, his breathing heavy.
“Don’t get over excited, Rex,” Anthony said.
“Yes, sir,” Rex said, from the other side of the church. As the lead, he had command of Team Two and was charged with attacking from the east.
“Okay, it’s time to make it rain on these poor folks.”
“Yes, sir,” Rex said. Before he took his finger off the transmit key, he yelled to his compatriot, “Johnny, light’ em up.”
Five seconds later, the roof of the church exploded. The intensity of the blast nearly seared Anthony’s eyes as he failed to get the night vision goggles off before he looked away. He pulled off the goggles and tried to blink away the bright spots that danced in his eyes. It took nearly ten seconds before they diminished, and when he looked up, he saw an explosion of flame coming from the roof of the church. A second after he looked up, another mortar shell exploded on the roof, and a man flew over the side. His scream was brief as he fell, ending abruptly as his body smashed into the pavement with a sickening crunch.
“Well, scratch that advantage,” Anthony thought.
The fire on the roof spread quickly into the third-floor, and Anthony could see flames dancing behind the third floor windows. Shouts and screams carried from inside the church as the people inside scrambled around, fleeing the spreading flames and the zombies that streamed inside. Shots could also be heard. Since the church people had no clear targets outside, they were forced to focus their attention on the undead.
A small part of Anthony felt sympathy for the people inside. They were genuine and caring people from what he could see, but they never gave him the time of day before the Outbreak. Even when he was a child and his aunt took him to their summer Vacation Bible School, he never really felt welcome. One woman even went out her way to make him feel like an outcast because of his condition. He thought her name was Hatch or Hatcher, but that had been years ago, and a lot of water had gone under the bridge. Plus it didn’t help that his father came to the church drunk one night to pick him up. No, that didn’t go over well.
He also knew they would never surrender the town to him. They fought tooth and nail with the soldiers, and he was sure they’d do the same to him. They would never fall under his command. They would do everything in their power to resist him, and that wouldn’t do.
Whereas the soldiers had attacked the building were concerned with the structure and integrity of the building because there were precious supplies inside, Anthony didn’t have the same concern. He had his supplies, and leaving any of the people alive would only mean trouble. Better to take the whole building down around them.
The town had to be his. If they stood in his way, then they had to go.
“You couldn’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs,” he thought, chuckling a little until he saw Wendy watching him with a strange look.
“What are you looking at?” he shouted his question.
“Nothing,” she said looking down.
“Get your rifle,” he said, “they’ll be coming out soon. You’ll need to shoot them.”
“But….” she said.
“We talked about this. It is us against them.”
“But….”
Before she could say anything else, his fingers danced across his chest-mounted keypad, and she screamed, clutching at her neck. He intensified the current, and she went to her knees. The pain was so intense it stifled her screams while her body convulsed. After about ten more seconds, he stopped the current, and she went to all fours, gasping.
“About now, you’re probably thinking you’d want to shoot me, but as I’ve told you, if something happens to me, then my control system’s fail-safe will kick in. If I’m not alive to shut it off, then that collar will come on and fry your pretty head like a raisin.” That was a flat-out lie, but it worked.
Her gasping subsided to raspy breaths as she rocked on her knees.
“So, let’s try this again,” he said. “What are you going to do when they come out?”
It took her a few seconds, but she finally said, “Shoot them.”
“Very good,” he said and looked over his shoulder. A man with an assault rifle burst out one of the side doors, firing back into the church as three zombies surged out the door behind him. “Ah look, there’s one.” He looked back to Wendy who still looked unsteady on her feet.
It took her a moment to recognize his tacit command, but it took her even longer to react. Meanwhile, the man took down two of the zombies, and then he fired on a third one stumbling towards him. She looked to the man and then to Anthony. He nodded his head and held his finger over the button that sent an electronic shock to her. That was all the prodding she needed, and she whipped up her rifle and targeted the man who was now firing on the approaching zombie.
She was weak from being electrocuted, and her aim shook, but she took a breath and pulled the trigger. A burst of fire shot forth with most of the bullets flying into the wall of the church, but two of them hit home, and the man went down.
“Good shooting,” Anthony said.
Wendy looked as if she was about to cry.
The explosions rocked Russell out of a sound sleep. He bolted upright, his pulse racing as he instinctively reached for his rifle with his right hand, but pain thundered in his shoulder. It was so intense he was forced to yank his hand back. As the pain rolled through his shoulder, he cradled his bad arm to his body, waiting for the pain to subside. The sounds of a battle raged off in the distance, and it brought back all the horror of the house being attacked and the loss of his brother and all their friends.
Sweat broke out in pinpricks of moisture on his forehead as he waited for his breathing to settle back down. The throbbing went down to a dull ache, and he got out of bed. Two more explosions went off, followed by sporadic gunfire as he pulled on his coat and shoes. He was at the window of his house on the hill in less than a minute and saw flames lighting up the night sky from the direction of the downtown.
Something big and bad was happening, and he had to decide to let it go on without him or to, at least, check it out. A silent war waged on inside his mind with fear fighting a pitched battle while curiosity sent a swarm of soldiers against the fear. When it came down to it, it was self-preservation more than anything else that motivated him to get up and get on the move. If it were another group of soldiers fighting the church people, there was a chance they would scour the town to find more survivors. He could bug out or investigate.
So, curiosity won out, but before he left, he collected the new rifle he had come across while foraging. He also grabbed his bag of essential items, including lots of ammo if he did have to get out of town in a hurry.
He had stashed a bike alongside the house in case he had to get anywhere faster than running. He deemed it would be safe enough to get at least halfway to the scene of the firing before he would have to abandon it to walk safely to the battle. If that’s what it was.
Even though it had warmed up, the cold night air cut into him like a frozen knife, chilling him to the bone as he rode. The physical exertion of pedaling took at least five minutes until it offset the cold. As he rode, he heard more shots fired and a couple more explosions. The closer he got to the action, the greater of the intensity the flames got as they lit up the night sky.
His heart sunk when he saw the source of the flames. It was the church, and flames covered much of the third floor.
While he didn’t know any of the people in there, he knew they were good people. Cody had weighed the decision to link up with them after the shit hit the fan, but he elected to stay at their uncle’s house. That hadn’t turned out well, but it was no longer looking like the people at the church would make it either.
But still, they had fought back and won against the soldiers, so there was always a chance. At least that’s what Russell told h
imself as he pedaled closer to the action.
He stopped pedaling and coasted down Waller Street, the wind whipping across his face like a cold slap. He was moving along at a good pace when a figure moved onto the road in front of him. It was a zombie, but its attention was on the sound and fury of the battle in the distance as it shambled in that direction. At the speed he was going, Russell didn’t have any time to react other than to steer around the undead thing. He whizzed by it, a dark phantom, and left it reaching futilely in the air.
The railroad tracks came up fast, and that would leave him three blocks from the church. He could see that flames raged on the roof and in the windows of the third floor. Sporadic gunshots were being fired. He thought he saw muzzle flashes from the second floor windows, but he couldn’t tell what they were targeting.
Russell scanned the street and yards along the street and didn’t see any more zombies, but he knew they would be heading towards the church soon. In droves. The battle would be a beacon for them.
He slowed down before he got to the railroad tracks and steered the bike off the street and behind a small one-story building. He dismounted and laid the bike down in knee-high grass, then slowly crept out into the street. There was a lot of open ground for him to cover on foot when he crossed the tracks, but he thought and hoped that most of the attackers would be focused on the church.
He collected himself for a good minute and then sprinted across the two sets of railroad tracks and into the parking lot of an auto body shop. His heart pounding in his ears, he stopped for a moment, catching his breath and then moved out around the abandoned cars in the lot and into the street. His next stop was the back of the high school. Fear ate at the back of his mind, but he fought it off and took off running, keeping the high school locked in his vision.
He made it there without incident, and his breath came in hitches as he cautiously moved along the side of the building. While the high school was great cover for him, it completely blocked any view of the church. When he finally made it around the building he almost lost his breath again, but this time out of shock.
Zombies clamored into the church in a steady and controlled stream. He saw more muzzle flashes from the second floor windows. A few zombies fell, but many made their way into the smoking holes in the side of the building.
Without warning, he saw a bright flash at ground level just to the west of the church, and the window where the shots came from exploded inward in a fiery burst of light and fury.
“What the hell was that?” Russell asked himself but then remembered the attack on the house and the man with a bazooka or grenade launcher. (He was never sure except it was extremely effective at opening a gaping hole in the house.)
A few seconds later, he heard a distant whomp, and another plume of fire and light appeared on the roof of the church. This attacked seemed to be coming from the east.
It was a concerted attack! And it included zombies. It had to be him, his Lord of the Dead, and this time he had help.
Russell peered back the way he had come, and a voice inside him cried out for him to go back in that direction. The pull to break and run was almost magnetic. He had survived these past months by keeping his head down. He was one man against a small army of zombies and humans. What could he do?
Then the counter argument slammed into him from another angle, locking his feet in place. How could he just walk away? Could he just let the Lord of the Dead have his way without a fight?
But people who played it safe survived. His guts churned with the possibility until he finally made up his mind.
He could do something, he resolved. Something was better than nothing. What turned his tide of doubt into a wave of action was the possibility that maybe he could get back at the son of a bitch that killed his brother and their friends.
But just what could he do?
Things were going so well. Anthony’s plan of attack was getting the results he wanted. He was going to own this town, lock, stock, and barrel. He would be on top for once.
When the world started sliding off the plate and onto the floor, Anthony knew that the rules were changing. People didn’t believe that this Outbreak would sweep across the planet so quickly, but he did. The police had their hands full with protecting people from the undead. So he used this opportunity to make things right with the world, starting his mission at home.
Despite the action going on around him, his mind drifted back over the months. It was one of those memories he savored.
The old man lived in a low rent studio apartment on the west side of the town. By the time Anthony got there, Troy was already half lit up with cheap whiskey, and it was only 9:30 in the morning.
“Well, hello, princess,” the old man said, that hateful light shining behind his eyes. “I haven’t seen you in months.” His gray, dingy t-shirt rode up across the folds of skin on his flabby belly. The apartment stunk of booze, cigarette smoke, and the old man’s farts.
“You here to read me a bedtime story?” the old man asked and chuckled.
“It’s 9:30 in the morning,” Anthony replied, his voice flat.
“I’m retired,” the old man slurred, “I can go to bed whenever I want.”
He wasn’t retired; he was unemployed. He hadn’t worked in over a year, and there was little chance he would ever work again. His belligerent attitude made him virtually unemployable unless a job opened for a junkyard dog.
“I thought I’d check in on you,” Anthony said.
“That’s precious,” the old man said with a shit-eating grin.
“Have you been watching TV?” Anthony asked.
“You mean all this crap about zombies? That’s just some government hoax.” The old man waved his hand in the air and changed the channel on the TV. “Isn’t there a ball game on?”
“It’s not,” Anthony said, getting in front of the TV. “It’s very real.”
“Well, we don’t have to worry about it here.”
“I’ve seen them.”
“Seen who?” Troy tried to look around Anthony to see the TV.
“The zombies.”
“Bullshit. Get the hell out of the way. It’s all a left-wing conspiracy.”
“What would you say if I said they were outside?”
“Double bullshit.”
Anthony walked around behind the broken down rent-by-the-month Lazy Boy rip-off recliner that Troy laid splayed out on, in all his decadent glory.
“Where the fuck are you going?” Troy asked, swiveling his neck and trying to get a look at what Anthony was getting up to do behind the chair.
Anthony let the old man squirm around in the chair for a few seconds. “You know I’ve never really liked you. Ever.”
“Well, the feeling’s mutual, you little shit. What don’t you get the fuck out of here and leave me alone?”
“I’ve got something to take care of before I leave.”
“Well, take care of it and scram,” Troy said, clicking the remote angrily from channel to channel, trying to find something to watch other than news coverage of all these damn zombies.
Anthony pulled a small stun gun out of his pants pocket and jammed it viciously into the side of the old man’s neck. Troy nearly jerked out of the chair as the shock went through him like lightning. The shock was such an insult to his system that his bladder let loose, and he soaked his pants and the crappy recliner. His body rippled with convulsions that slowly subsided, leaving him mostly paralyzed in the chair.
“You should have treated mother a little better,” Anthony said leaning down by the old man’s ear. He wrinkled his nose at the stench of the urine. “Looks like you pissed yourself, old man.” He stood back up and walked around to the front of the recliner. “You should have treated me better, too. If you had been even an ounce nicer, my brother might still be around.”
Despite being half drunk and stunned, that angry light still burned behind the old man’s eyes. It seemed to say, “You wait for me to come to, little white princess
, and I’ll whip your ass.”
But Anthony didn’t wait. Instead, he reached over, took the remote from his father’s hand, and pressed the volume button. He turned it all the way up to ten. Even though the TV was a cheap Korean piece of crap, it still put out the sound, more than filling the room with the voices of the announcers on TV. It was so loud that the glass in the cheap windows shook.
Anthony dropped the remote back into the old man’s lap and walked out of the apartment, leaving the door wide open. He might have been a little too casual as a zombie swiped at him as soon as he got out the door. The zombie’s arm grazed his shoulder, but he ducked under it and ran for his car, which was parked right in front of Troy’s apartment.
Once he got inside, Anthony scanned the parking lot and saw three more zombies at the edge closest to the street. They hadn’t noticed his little skirmish with the zombie who was now clawing at the side window of Anthony’s car. It left blood smears everywhere its hand touched.
“One wasn’t enough,” Anthony thought. He needed more. So, he laid on the horn. The blaring immediately caught the attention of the trio out in the parking lot, and they started at a fast shamble in his direction. About thirty seconds later, they joined their comrade in his efforts to get inside the car.
Any mental deficit the zombies had was more than made up for with their tenacity. Since he was the only meal visible, the zombies locked in on him as they clawed and lightly pounded at the windows. Anthony began to think that his dad might come out of it soon if the zombies didn’t break away from the car. A commercial with loud shouting came on the TV, and that got their attention. One of the zombies at the back of the car turned in the direction of the apartment and then broke away and went inside to investigate.
It was in the door in about twenty seconds when Anthony heard the screams. He hadn’t thought it possible to hear anything over the ear-splitting volume of the TV, but Troy’s screams cut through the sound of the commercial.
While they weren’t smart, in any definition of the word, the other zombies around the car recognized the sound of a human scream and broke from their efforts to get in on the action and headed inside to join their undead comrade as he ate.