The Lies (Zombie Ocean Book 8)

by Michael John Grist

  She saw a picture of herself huddled in her father's arms, walking amongst a great mass of white-eyed people, and felt afraid. She saw a young woman that was her too, standing on a yacht with a gun held to her face, facing down a madwoman. She saw herself turned mad, standing atop a mountain of gray bodies and shouting into the sky. Last of all she saw the young man before her, though he was lying on his side with his white eyes gazing into hers for days, in a cold room where all her dreams died.

  She began to cry, as she remembered forward.

  "You are falling, Anna," he said. "Right now, and you're going to die if you don't open your eyes. Two seconds, a hundred feet or so, but you jumped, you made that choice, now we both have to pay."

  She gave a little laugh at that. Yes, she remembered. That was the woman she would become, the woman her father had always believed she would be, braver than anyone. She hadn't stayed up in this room forever, rather she'd left and seen things her mother would never believe.

  She looked into his sad face now, and knew who he was. He was smiling still, like he always had, glowing with an inner good humor. Solitude made some people mad and others cruel, but it had only made him kinder. She'd picked a man of infinite patience, or he'd picked her, and she hadn't yet shed a tear for him.

  Ravi.

  Now she did.

  She held out her arms to him, spindly pale things weakened by a year spent in bed, and he gathered her up. In his embrace the tears barely made a sound, and there at least she felt safe.

  "I have missed you," she whispered.

  "I'm here now," he said. "But so are they."

  There came a scratching at the window, then the heavy velvet curtain burst inward, and a storm of black and white creatures poured in. They flickered in and out of existence, bounced off the walls, and came for her. Ravi wrapped her up and they slashed at his back, and she remembered again when this had happened last.

  RATATATATATAT

  "Not again," she said, her breath hot with tears, "please."

  "Every time, Anna," he said. "Now open your eyes."

  Under their blows he slashed apart, but in breaking apart he came together again as something different, something small and white which hopped between the creatures' arms and out through the door.

  Her White Rabbit.

  She followed while the monsters tore into his corpse.

  This way.

  He said it as a voice in her head, and she ran after him, not on legs but flying now, down the stairs where once a dozen bodies had lain, out through the door her mother had burst through only moments earlier, wheeling into the night.

  The creatures gave chase, but already Ravi was bounding far ahead down the road. Anna flew past her mother, standing with her featureless face open in surprise by the open trunk of a taxi. Never to be seen again.

  This way

  She leaped over a weed-filled swimming pool, garlanded with bad graffiti. She tracked after him through the red lobby of a theater with glass and gold ceilings. He darted into a deep burrow in the floor and Anna followed, into the darkness where he said-

  Here

  And-

  Now

  She opened her eyes and the mountains rushed up to meet her. A second only, solid rock and snow coming like a freight train, and she worked the twisted path Ravi had shown her and-

  Leapt.

  Reality snapped, she glimpsed the final image of a white rabbit running far ahead, so far she couldn't even see it anymore, then she was somewhere else.

  She blinked, standing on her feet.

  She stood on snow.

  The mountains were there, and so was she. Black crackles of energy rippled around her, fading trails, as the leper peeled off her body and fell smoking into the snow.

  Leaving Anna standing alone.

  She looked down. Her legs were unbroken. Her arms were unbroken. She wasn't falling anymore. She remembered the path, and the power, and understood what she'd done.

  She'd leapfrogged, just like them.

  She turned, taking in the majestic panorama. The lepers were still there, perhaps a hundred feet away, and already they were charging toward her. Their bodies crackled like popcorn, fizzing and spitting more angry than ever, but now she understood what that was, and how to counter it. Ravi had shown her the way.

  This was her power now.

  They closed in, but there was nothing to fear anymore. She reached inside and made the same twist.

  There was another flash, a sensation of being stretched and catapulted at the same time, then she was standing in a new place, on a white mountain peak. From above came the distant drone of a plane. She turned.

  The lepers were further off, confused by their own chaos. She laughed. She'd wrought havoc on them. She'd turned their own madness on themselves.

  This shit was just beginning.

  She looked at her hands, where crackles of black and white light were rippling like her skin was a thundercloud. The lepers started for her again, but it didn't mean a thing. This would be her training now. This would be turning them into the yacht that would sail her across the ocean.

  She took a step forward, raised her hands, and sent out bullets of control that stopped them flat in their tracks.

  17. LITTLE SISTER

  Lara left the White House in dignified, ordered silence, not because that was how she felt inside, but because that was how Witzgenstein forced her to be.

  Inside she was a jumble of confusion, anger and fear. It was too soon. She wasn't ready. She worked the deft fingers of her mind at the bridle, but even the most subtle blade could not chisel a way out of a stone dungeon. Witzgenstein's grip was rock, and she couldn't break it.

  She couldn't scream, or drop to the floor, or resist in any way.

  "You'll be my martyr," Janine whispered in her ear, standing in the portico while the crowd ahead craned to see her. So many faces she knew, looming from the dark. "What the people were denied in New LA."

  Lara burned already, inside. Witzgenstein's touch on her arm repelled her.

  "You talk about Jesus," Janine went on, savoring each word. "But we're in Old Testament times now. We need a foundation stone, and you will be it. But I won't be your Pontius Pilate." She chuckled, low and throaty. "Rather, I will be your greatest disciple, spreading your message far and wide. They will see you climb the pyre of your own volition, Lara. They will hear the recitation of your crimes in your own voice. They will see me beg you to turn aside. But you won't. Your performance will be epic. I've rehearsed it, believe it or not. For so long."

  The disgust in Lara heaped up. She could not vomit, but her throat gagged continually. Janine stroked her neck delicately. "Let's stop that, shall we?"

  The gagging stopped.

  All Lara could do was breathe, while the world wrenched inside. It couldn't be real. At least on Drake's stage she'd had a choice. She'd gone up there with no plan but the desire to sacrifice herself to break her people out of their shells, she'd been ready to die for it, but now even her death would be stolen.

  "Your audience is waiting," Janine said, her voice whispery with transparent passion. She gave Lara a little shove in the small of the back. "Lead on."

  Lara led on; a stately, measured stride.

  She wore no shoes. She wore only a gossamer white gown Witzgenstein had brought for her, concealing nothing. The gravel was warm, then the hastily cropped grass was damp and cool. She couldn't turn her head, but she couldn't miss the eager faces circling the dark, looming pyre, mixed in with blank-eyed children in the thick embrace of the dark. They carried burning torches, lighting the bloodlust in their eyes.

  Witzgenstein's bridle of control was strong in the air, lying thickly upon each person, though it wasn't a seed on barren ground. Lara could feel a part of each person reaching up to meet her touch, and it scared her. This was something that had always been inside them, something barbaric and primal but already there before Witzgenstein ever tapped it.

  Her guts turned to acid.
She walked on slowly, with every stride perfectly measured out for her; the gait of a woman walking to her willing death, responding to the needs of her people. She tried to move her head, searching her peripheral vision for her children, but as she grew closer it was hard to see anything but the dark levels of the pyre.

  "Steady now," Janine said quietly. "They're here, but you won't see them. Don't shame yourself further, Lara. Let it be."

  Let it be. How could she shame herself further?

  She moved forward, up to the edge of the pyre, where Witzgenstein stopped. The crowd fell silent, as Lara set her bare foot on the lowest plank of the pyre, on the first crude step. They gasped. They couldn't believe it was happening either.

  The edge of the wood was sharp and hurt her heel, but that pain was nothing compared to what was coming. It was hard to imagine how bad it would be, hard to think through the fear. It was all happening so fast.

  "You don't have to do this, my child," Witzgenstein said from behind, loud enough to be heard by all. "Please. The great God forgives, even those such as you."

  "This is my forgiveness," Lara answered, not her own voice, and took her second step. She teetered briefly, almost losing her balance, and the crowd 'ahhed'. Every step was a tease, now. The lust in the air felt medieval, dark and cruel. Witzgenstein's touch only lay lightly atop it, riding a surge from within. They wanted this. They needed this.

  More steps. She climbed on broken wardrobes, on ancient chopped logs left drying for a decade, on fence slats and sawn loading pallets, climbing the great pyre. Upon this she would burn. It stank of gasoline. At the top the air was heady with the gas smell, and she felt light-headed.

  No ropes will be necessary, will they?

  Witzgenstein's voice came in her head. It wasn't really a question.

  Hold the stake, there's my girl.

  Lara's body did as it was told. There was a narrow platform constructed in the wood for her to stand on. Her back pressed clean against the stake and her hands wrapped behind it. None of it felt real now, like she was locked in a nightmare that she would wake from at any moment.

  But it was real.

  She felt the scrape of the stake's cut branches through her thin gown, pressing against her skin. She felt the rising burn in her cheeks as the shame rose up. She saw the faces she knew circled in a glowing nimbus of torchlight, leering with some nameless thrill. She saw Cynthia. She saw Alan.

  This was it. The air was thick with emotion, ready for a cleansing storm. This was something all her efforts at community building had never offered in New LA. Her coffee shop the John Harrison had made people cry, had offered a gentle bandage of kindness, but it had never satisfied this aching need for violence and revenge.

  In New LA they'd never punished anyone like this, not even Julio. They'd never humiliated anyone. When justice had been done, it had been done in careful measures, sensitively, certain not to breed more violence.

  This was the opposite of that, and the people responded on an unconscious level, like peasants watching gladiators die in a Roman coliseum. Two thousand years had passed, and they hadn't changed at all.

  In the face of that her fear slipped, making room for grief. Tears leaked gently down her cheeks, and down below Janine nodded approvingly. This was the moment of transcendence, after all. They would believe it was shame, or perhaps heavenly forgiveness. Witzgenstein could turn these tears to whatever purpose she wanted.

  In truth, she wept for them. For what lay in their futures, what Witzgenstein would lead them to, and do to them, and all the ways she would sicken their minds. It was an easy thing to fall backwards, it just took a pyre and a leader willing to watch it burn. People could be bonded in rage without a moment's thought, worked like clay into any shape desired.

  So these people would be worked. Lara saw their civilization spreading out into the future, marked with the red bridle steering them down a bloody path. So Witzgenstein would reshape them until she found the perfect form to serve her bitter, damaged heart, and then lock that system into stone; turn it into a religion, make it a matter of faith, and punish all who would not obey.

  She and Amo had always tried to appeal to something higher; to build something better, calling on the parts of their people that aspired to make a world in line with the highest ideals of the United States, with liberty and justice for all. Not an authoritarian dystopia, not a dogmatic religious state.

  Pretty thoughts.

  Witzgenstein said.

  They will go unsung.

  Then her own voice rang out abruptly, as Witzgenstein pulled her strings from within.

  "My name is Lara of the New USA, and I make this confession of my free will."

  The crowd hustled closer to hear. They craned and shoved each other to see her beautiful, sacred face.

  "Stop this, Lara," Witzgenstein called, "I beg you."

  But Lara did not stop. She went on, launching into a long recitation of all the usual lies: the murders Amo had committed that she had covered up, the way they had manipulated every person in New LA to follow their satanic bidding, their long-plotted destruction of Janine Witgzenstein's good name and subsequent exile, leaving their people unprotected and exposed to the dark excesses of Amo's dreams, how that in turn had led to the destruction of New LA, as punishment from a righteous God above.

  Witzgenstein began to weep. It was a captivating performance, scored with the soundtrack of Lara's confessions.

  She confessed to numerous sexual deviancies; the same ones Witzgenstein had confessed to her. She spoke of her unnatural desires and witchcraft; her unseemly skills, the ways she had poured poison into people through her coffee shop 'brews', her mind-control that posed as displays of caring. It was laughable, but the people weren't laughing. Their eyes bugged. Their jaws tightened. Where before some had been uncertain, they now worked themselves into fountains of outrage.

  They were ready, like a tinder keg, for the spark.

  And the spark came.

  It wasn't just one torch, but all of them. The first was thrown from somewhere at Lara's back and others followed; dozens, perhaps half of everyone present, driven to become part of this cornerstone of the new world.

  The gasoline caught all around her with a flood of gusting whuffs, sending orange flames flickering up through the lower reaches of the pyre. The heat was instant and ferocious, forcing a slick of sweat up through her skin that made the gown cling to her body. Yells came from below, insults, calls for shame. In seconds she felt herself wilting against the stake, her legs becoming greasy and thin.

  Bitter smoke poured up to engulf her, the fire raced upward, and she stood there in the midst, waiting for the worst to come. The true pain wasn't there yet but could only be seconds away.

  Hold your breath

  Came Witzgenstein's voice, and Lara felt her lungs suck in a breath.

  I can't have you dying from smoke inhalation. We need the screams to be real, Lara.

  She already would have collapsed, if not for Witzgenstein holding her up. Her legs bowed and her shoulders sank but Witzgenstein held her up. Already she couldn't think for the heat, pressing down like the demon's fist. Sweat streamed into her eyes and thickened with the smoke, mercifully obscuring this new world of ogling faces. Bright red flames leapt around her like teeth, like jaws closing in, and throughout only one detail from the South Lawn remained clear; Janine Witzgenstein's eyes, as hungry as the fire, sucking this moment down.

  Thank you for this.

  She said.

  Thank you for all you've done, Lara. Now let the people see God's forgiving love.

  The red bridle slipped a little, and finally the scream building in Lara's chest was released.

  She screamed, then smoke rushed into her lungs, and she screamed again. She felt the people recoil, then lean in, pumping like a bellows, raising the flames higher and faster until they were everything, a suffocating soup that broiled her body inside and out. Her arms fell limp by her sides, no longer able to clut
ch the stake, and she wavered, held up only by Witzgenstein's will.

  She drifted and screamed, as figures whirled in the flames and smoke; Anna in the mountains surrounded by monsters, Amo in a room with a dead man and a great black eye, but these were quickly swallowed by the flames.

  No one's coming to help you, child. This is the end.

  The first lick of fire touched her foot, and any remaining sense was driven from her mind. She screamed. The fires bit higher and at last the bridle pulled away, leaving her alone atop the pyre, with nothing to reach for and no one to help, and begging for someone to come.

  But nobody came, because there was nobody left.

  Then somebody did.

  Something shifted beneath her on the line, surging hard in a burst of electric purple that charged straight up to her, battering a clear path through the bridle and ramming head first into Lara's body.

  Come, little sister.

  Said a voice she recognized, then she was flying up and out through shifting gray images in the smoke, lofting a second in the air before falling and hitting hard at the edge of the pyre, snapping blazing branches and rolling away over the grass.

  The crowd exhaled. The fire burned on. The purple blaze died and Lara coughed.

  She was on fire still, still burning. She rolled and thrashed at her body, at her hair, putting out the flames even as she struggled for breath, there on the close-cropped grass, in full sight of all. The pain was all over her, sinking down through the layers of her skin into lasting, permanent damage, but there was no time for that now, there was only time for-

  She lifted her head, and the crowd lurched back. She could barely see them for sweat and smoke, but their faces didn't matter now, her exhaustion didn't matter, what mattered was the line and she saw that as clearly as she felt the fire's touch. Around them the bridle was broken, torn by the purple blaze, chopping away their lust at the head, now replaced by a surging fear.