by Carl Hose
Beau joined him, and together they looked down at the imposing river. “Looks like we’ve got some walking to do,” he said.
Before they could set off, a sound began to build somewhere in the distance, faint at first, then growing louder, until there was no mistaking the thundering sound of horse hooves.
The two hurried to the mouth of the tunnel. Beau scampered up an incline beside the tunnel opening, his feet slipping in the loose rock and dirt. He hauled himself up and looked over the top of the hill.
“Oh shit,” was all he managed to say.
He lost his balance and fell back, sliding down the hill, arms flailing as he tried to grab hold of anything that might stop his fall. Justin caught him at the bottom of the hill and pulled him to his feet.
“What was it?” Justin asked. “what did you see?”
“Shhhh, don’t talk so loud,” Beau whispered. “You wouldn’t . . . Jesus, you gotta take a look.” He was shaking and glancing over his shoulder, looking up at the top of the hill, pointing. “You won’t believe it . . . a bunch of soldiers . . . zombies . . . all dead. . . .”
Justin looked at Beau as if he’d lost his mind.
“Take a look if you don’t believe me,” Beau said. “Go on, take a look.”
Justin climbed the rocky slope and peeked over the top of the hill. It didn’t seem at all possible, but Beau was telling the truth. There was a group of Confederate soldiers riding in their direction, but the part that caught Justin’s attention was the state they were in. Thirty, maybe forty soldiers and horses, all of them in various stages of decay.
Justin eased back down the hill on his ass, digging at the ground to slow his descent. He pushed himself up and brushed his hands on his jeans. It wasn’t the time to be thinking about a little dirt on his hands, and he didn’t know why he felt the need to dust them off, but it was all he could reasonably think to do at the moment.
Beau was pacing in circles, ringing his hands, mumbling to himself. “What the hell are we going to do?” he said.
“We’re getting out of here,” was Justin’s answer. “I’m sure as hell not sticking around.”
With that, Justin made his way to the tunnel entrance, but as soon as he tried stepping inside, a brilliant flash of white light exploded around him, knocking him on his ass.
“Aw, shit, you okay?” Beau asked.
He knelt beside Justin, who half sat up, shaking his head. “That hurt,” he said. “An electric charge of some kind.”
The soldiers were closer now, making their way toward the river. The one in the lead wore the uniform of a captain. His gray flesh dripped down one side of the face, exposing the glistening bone of his jaw. The dead soldier looked straight ahead, one eye unmoving, the other rolling in its socket, ever watchful.
The rest of the soldiers followed single file. One horse’s ribcage was exposed fully. A trail of bloody intestine rolled from its belly, dragging along behind it. The soldier sitting on that horse was skeletal, with only a few flaps of leathery skin clinging to his bones.
“Shit, we gotta hide,” Beau said.
He scrambled for cover behind a fallen tree that hung over the edge of the drop off. From his vantage point, he was able to track the progress of the rotting dead Confederates as they wound their way toward the river.
Justin belly-crawled over beside Beau. The boys could see a small boat coming up the river, still a ways off, so it was hard to make out any details.
They turned their attention back to the zombie Confederates and watched them round a curve that took them on a downward slope toward the bank of the Mississippi.
“What do you think they’re up to?” Beau asked.
The boat was their obvious target.
“Looks like they’re setting a trap,” Justin answered.
“And we’re right in the middle of it,” Beau said.
“Don’t forget, this was your idea. Rich and famous, remember?”
“Damn,” Beau said. He suddenly remembered he was still holding his video camera, but he hadn’t been catching any of this on tape. He angled the recorder at the shambling Confederate troops.
“Are you out of your mind?” Justin asked.
“You expect me to let this go? If we make it out alive, I want something to show for it. Dead Civil War soldiers. It don’t get better than this.”
He filmed the rotting gray corpses as they took up positions at river’s edge. One of the things looked his way, causing Beau to nearly crap his pants. The soldier’s face was framed perfectly. Its teeth were nothing more than rotted yellow and black stumps, its flesh was as gray as clay, and its tongue hung limply from one corner of his mouth. Beau couldn’t be sure, but he was almost positive the dead soldier had seen him, even though it was doubtful at this distance.
He dropped down behind the fallen tree again, just to be on the safe side, but he kept the video recorder up high enough to keep the scene filming. “You’ll thank me later,” he said when he saw Justin roll his eyes and shake his head in disbelief.
“Sure thing,” Justin said.
“Look,” Beau said, pointing at something moving along a trail on the east side of the woods, directly opposite the dead Confederates.
“What is it?” Justin asked.
Beau swing the camera around and took a look. Three men were making their way down an incline. Two of them were African-American. The third was Caucasian, dressed in dark trousers, a jacket, and a sailor’s cap.
“Henry Sinclair,” Beau said. “I’d bet my left nut.” He jockeyed for a better view. “You remember what the old man said, right? We can release Emma Sinclair’s spirit if we bring Henry home. I bet that’s the only way we can get through the tunnel without getting knocked on our asses too.”
“How do you propose we do that . . .” Justin asked, throwing a thumb over his shoulder . . . “with them around?”
Beau glanced at the soldiers, then over to where Henry and the two big black men were nearing river’s edge. “They don’t see the soldiers. We’ll have to stop them before it’s too late.”
“Again, how do we do that?”
Beau handed over the video recorder. “You keep filming. I’ll try and reach them before the Confederates see them.”
“How are you going to get Henry to come back with you?”
Beau shrugged. “I’ll figure it out.”
He bolted off, cutting through dead brush, jumping over fallen tree branches, and tearing through patches of bramble. He made a lot of noise, but it couldn’t be helped. He only hoped the sound didn’t carry to the Confederate troops, and if it did, that they wouldn’t pay attention.
Henry turned in Beau’s direction just as Beau burst through a stand of trees. Before Beau knew what was happening, he was face to face with the business end of Henry’s Colt.
Beau threw his hands in the air. It was the first time he’d looked down the barrel of a gun, and he didn’t like the feeling.
“I’m a friend,” he said quickly, praying silently that Henry didn’t shoot him where he stood.
“You don’t look like no friend,” Henry said.
Beau was a good salesman. Everybody said so. He always knew just the right things to say. “Emma sent me,” he said now, thinking on his feet.
Henry’s arm went slack. He lowered his gun. “What are you talkin’ about?” he asked, not fully dropping his guard.
“She wants me to bring you home, Henry,” Beau told him.
“Home?” Henry said. “She knows where I am, and she knows I’ll see ’er when I’m done here.” He wrinkled his brow. “How do you know my name?”
“I told you already, I’m a—”
“Beau!”
Justin’s voice carried across the distance between them. Beau turned and saw Justin was standing in plain view, waving his arms frantically.
Henry brought his Colt up again, pointing it at Beau.
“They’re coming,” Justin yelled. “They’ve seen us.”
“Who’s c
omin’?” Henry demanded.
“The Confederates,” Beau said. “Come with me now, back to the tunnel. We don’t have time—”
It was too late. Three dead Johnny Rebs came over the hill on horses. The beasts limped along on narrow, half-rotted legs. They weren’t moving fast, but they were coming at a steady pace.
Henry followed Beau’s line of sight and brought his Colt up and around. He didn’t ask questions before he fired at the Grays. He hit one in the chest. The soldier tumbled backward from his horse, but he was up on his feet almost at once, shambling in Henry’s direction.
“What the—” Henry started, his words ending abruptly in confusion.
“The head,” Beau said. “You have to shoot the fuckers in the head.”
Henry fired again, hitting the walking Confederate soldier between the eyes. The soldier’s head exploded in a spray of maggot-infested flesh.
“Let’s go,” Beau screeched. He started back the way he’d come.
Henry took aim at another one of the rotting soldiers. This time he went for the head right off, and sure enough, the soldier rolled off his horse and didn’t get up again.
Henry went after Beau, waving for the two black men to follow. Beau was halfway up the hill to Justin when Justin started running down the hill.
“Stay there,” Beau yelled to Justin, but Justin kept coming. Pretty soon, Beau could see why. A whole bunch of dead Confederate grays were chasing behind Justin, effectively cutting off their path to the tunnel.
“Shit,” Beau said. “What the hell are we going to do? We have to get back inside that tunnel.”
Henry came to a grinding halt next to them.
“You boys mind tellin’ me what we’re up against here? Those Confed’rates look a little gray, if you’ll pardon the pun.”
“That’s because they’re dead,” Beau said. “And you’re dead too. Only difference is, you’re a ghost and they’re stinking, rotten corpses that don’t know how to stay down.”
“You wanna say that again?”
“There’s no time for chat,” Beau said. “We need to get to the tunnel. You have any more guns?”
Henry shook his head no, but then he pointed to the boat Beau and Justin had seen earlier. “There’s guns on the boat,” he said. “They’re s’pposed to be pickin’ these fellas up and takin’ ’em somewhere safe.”
The boat was just a little ways offshore now.
“Think we can make it?” Justin asked Beau.
“It’s our best bet,” Beau said. “If we can get our hands on guns, we can fight our way back to the tunnel.”
A twig snapped behind them. A Confederate corpse on a tattered horse came up over the top of a beaten trail. He was slumped forward, a glinting saber clutched in his bony fingers.
“Blast the son of a bitch,” Beau said.
Henry shot once and hit the zombie in the shoulder, spinning him sideways and off his horse. The soldier’s horse continued its advance. Thick, bloody strands of black mucus rot dripped from the animal’s mouth. One eye dangled from its socket, flopping against the horse’s face with every step. The beast’s chest cavity gaped wide, exposing a mass of fatty red flesh and squirming maggots.
“Damn me,” Henry muttered. “I never saw the likes of such a thing.”
“Lordy,” one of the negroes exclaimed. He looked skyward and began to sing a soothing hymn, hands linked together in pleading reverence.
Henry squeezed off two shots at the horse. One of the bullets struck the big mare in the head, thank God for that blessing. Her knees buckled and she fell on her side, hopefully dead for the long haul.
The negro who wasn’t singing began to scream. The corpse Henry had blasted off the horse was up again, and it now the putrid thing had hold of the negro, biting into his neck and tearing away a chunk of flesh.
Beau picked up the saber the dead soldier had dropped. He felt the weight of the blade as he raised it in a two-handed grip and swung with all the strength he could muster, slamming the business end of the blade through the zombie Confederate’s neck. He hadn’t expected the blade to go clean through the zombie’s neck and the negro’s neck too, but that was exactly the way it happened.
“The boat’s leaving,” Justin pointed out.
“Pilot musta saw the soldiers,” Henry said.
“Speaking of which . . .” Beau added, pointing to a line of the Confederate corpses making their way from the tree line.
Henry reloaded. “Guess we’re makin’ a run for it,” he said.
The Confederates were well armed, dead or not. Some carried Enfields or Remingtons, a few carried Springfields.
Gunfire erupted. Miniballs whistled through the trees and kicked up dirt all around Beau, Justin, Henry, and the remaining negro.
Beau, armed only with the confiscated saber, charged into the fray, swinging the heavy blade like a madman. He swiped the head of one horse completely off. The animal traveled another few feet before tumbling to the ground and pitching its zombie rider off. Before the zombie reb could get up, Beau slashed the blade of his saber down the middle of the dead soldier’s head, embedding the blade in its skull.
The boat was back again, unloading several men who were now engaging the dead Confederate troops. More gunfire erupted. The Confederate forces seemed to be growing. Pretty soon the men from the boat began to fall, and the zombies closed around the fresh meat, ripping their bellies open and dragging out bloody entrails that looked like raw sausage. They occupied themselves for the time being by stuffing the steaming human meat into their gaping, rotting maws.
Justin relieved a fallen Confederate of his Griswold and Gunnison. The pistol felt good in his hand. He checked the cylinder. Only two bullets remained. He searched the corpse and found three more rounds.
“You boys wanna give me a hand?” Henry said, pausing between shots. “Them things are comin’ at us mighty damn quick now.”
Confederates corpses were everywhere. Justin loaded his pistol and joined Henry. The two of them dispatched as many of the walking dead as they could, but the dead troops seemed to multiply with every shot.
One dead soldier came ambling toward Henry and Justin, almost all skeleton except for a few bits of tattered, leathery flesh. The remnants of intestine slithered between the Confederate’s ribcage. The soldier walked with a limp and tried several times to raise his gun, but his mangled gun arm was only hanging by a thread of stringy flesh, so all the thing could manage to do was shoot itself in the foot.
Justin didn’t see the zombie until it was nearly on top of him. He had two shots left. He fired once and hit the bony Confederate in its ribs, spilling lumpy entrails onto the ground. He fired again, this time with the zombie arm’s-length away. The corpse’s skull exploded in a shower of dry, dusty bone fragments.
The mouth of the tunnel was close. Beau was in the lead, still swinging the saber, dispatching one rotten corpse after another. Henry and the negro were close behind, with Justin bringing up the rear.
“Damn Confed’rates know where the tunnel is now,” Henry said.
Beau tossed the saber and pushed Henry into the tunnel, intent on getting away from the bloody nightmare as fast as possible. The negro followed right behind Henry, with no prompting, but as soon as he was in the tunnel, his body stiffened and screamed. Something happened to his skin then. It began to rot away, dissolving and dripping away from his bones until all that remained was his skeleton. The bones dried up soon after, cracking and crumbling to dust.
Justin went into the tunnel next, pausing long enough to look at the spot where the negro had been only moments earlier, then he turned back and called for Beau to hurry up.
Beau took one last look at the Confederate zombies, then turned and disappeared into the tunnel. It dawned on him that he no longer had his video recorder or his backpack, but it was too late to worry about that now. All that footage was lost. No fame and fortune. Who would ever believe this story without proof?
The corpses were outsid
e the tunnel now. Beau didn’t wait around any longer. He took off down the tunnel, his feet slipping on wet stones as he plunged through black, stinking water. Henry and Justin weren’t too far in front of him. He could hear them sloshing through the water. He ran faster, falling in and out of the nasty-smelling water, but giving it everything he had left to get as far away from the other end of the tunnel as possible.
Something brushed his face . . . Oh, Jesus . . . spider webs, that was all.
There was a flash of light ahead. He wondered if it was Justin’s flashlight. Why wasn’t Justin waiting for him? He made a mental note to kick his ass when this was all over.
He stumbled out the other end of the tunnel, back in the old stone house. Justin and Henry were there too.
“Let’s get Henry upstairs,” Justin said.
Henry was looking around. He recognized his house, but its state of disrepair confused him.
“What’s going on here?” he asked.
“No time for explaining,” Justin said. “Follow us up to the light room.”
Henry didn’t follow anybody. He led the way. It was his house, after all, and as far as he was concerned, nothing had changed since his departure earlier that morning. Nothing except the fact that his home looked like it had been abandoned for a very long time.
“Emma,” Henry called, rushing toward the stairs leading to the light room. “Where’s are you, Emma?”
The door to the light room was padlocked.
“What now?” Beau asked, sighing with frustration.
“Let’s bust it down,” Justin said.
“That door’s solid,” Beau replied. “There’s no way—”
“It’ll take the three of us,” Justin said, then to Henry, “Listen, Emma is in this room. She’s going to hang herself unless we get inside.”
“Emma?” he said, tears welling in his eyes.
Together the three of them rammed the door. The wood was old and weak, which was a blessing. It groaned and cracked under the impact of their forceful weight. After several attempts, the hinges ripped away from the frame, and the door flew open in a shower of splinters.
