"We no longer have the luxury of being simple civilians. In order to save our families, our city and our way of life, we need to form our own civilian militia. What's left of our military is overwhelmed with the burden of fighting off this ever-growing population of re-ans."
A slender man with sandy colored short hair approached the group. His dirty and torn oxford shirt and tan pants showed signs of a battle. He called out, "Is this were I need to be if I want to help fight those demons?"
Colton glanced over the heads of the other men at the new arrival. "Yes it is, brother. What is your name?"
"Jeremy Larski."
"Do you have any police or military experience?"
"No, I've spent the last fifteen years being parked behind a desk as a data analyst. I've never held a gun or any kind of weapon in my hand, before today, but I'm ready to fight."
John jumped down from the concrete block and walked through the crowd to the recruit. He placed his hand on Jeremy's shoulder and asked, "What brought you out here today, my brother?"
Larsky's face turned red, as he appeared to hold back a tear. "Those devils killed my family. We came home from the store and they appeared out of the bushes. I tried to get everyone inside, but they surrounded my wife and kids before I could get the door open." Two ravens landed on the asphalt behind Jeremy as he continued. "They took one bite out of my wife's arm and wandered away down the street. We tried to clean the wound with alcohol and hydrogen peroxide, but you could see the death spread fast. She asked me to cut her arm off before it spread to her body. No matter how loud the voice in my head told me it was the right thing to do, I couldn't bring myself to get the ax. I sat with her, through the night in my arms, until the sun came up, and it was then that she finally lost the battle. I went downstairs to get a blanket to cover her up, but when I came back, she had already transformed into a re-an, and had bitten both of our kids. Nobody should have to go through what just happened to me. I'm here to fight with you until this curse is gone."
Several of the other men walked over and placed their hands on Jeremy's shoulder to welcome him to the group. Colton said, "We all have similar stories. We have all lost someone. I promise you that we will fight until we rid the world of these monsters."
One of the men in crowd pointed to the far end of the parking lot and said, "Here come some soldiers. It looks like a whole unit."
John turned to see close to forty men in camouflage uniforms walking toward the group. Their clothes looked ragged, dirty and torn. They walked aimlessly, without the discipline of a soldier. As they moved closer, he could see their hazy white eyes, graying skin and dried blood around their mouths. Open wounds allowed the muscle and organs to show.
"They're re-ans!"
Another man in the crowd called out, "Behind us!"
Colton turned to see another group of zombies, entering the parking lot from the opposite end, surrounding his civilian militia. Several of the men opened fire with their hunting rifles. Only, their bullets had no effect on the approaching dead. The men armed with axes charged in all directions to take on the horde by hand. They swung their blades, landing in the bodies of the zombies, only to be overwhelmed by several more. The men armed with rifles used the butt-end as clubs to bash in the heads of the undead, breaking open their skulls and splattering brain matter over the crowd.
The re-an soldiers swarmed the men, biting them in the shoulders, arms and necks. The civilians continued to fight back as a mist of blood filled the air and the asphalt turned crimson. Colton realized it was a losing battle and called for his men to retreat. His militia had to fight their way out of the crowd to the edge of the parking lot. Re-grouped in the street, he scanned the men who had been bitten. The looks on their faces told the story. Jeremy spoke up. "What do we do? Do we shoot them and put them out of their misery?"
Colton stared at his injured men. "Shooting them will not stop them from turning into re-ans. There's nothing we can do for them now."
He motioned his head for all of his uninjured men to follow him away from the site. As they ran off, John forced himself not to look back at the men he had to leave behind.
Chapter 9
Ravens flocked in the cottonwood trees, which lined the banks of the river far outside the boundaries of the city as Prometheus walked along the path with Nemi, Greg, K.C. and Hod. As the sun sat low in the sky above the silhouette of the Rocky Mountains, the twinkle of the distant urban lights appeared like the first stars of the night. The makeshift shantytown constructed from discarded scrap found in the area, stood out in contrast to the peaceful surroundings. Small huts built from multicolored car doors, fenders, sheets of scrap metal and plywood filled the open spaced between the trees. Several fires burned inside metal barrels trickling smoke into the clear sky, giving the appearance of a post apocalyptic village.
Titus walked up and greeted the visitors at the edge of the clearing to keep them from entering. He stood with his arms crossed and stared at the Athenian. "Greetings, brother, what brings you to our new town?"
Prometheus stopped a few feet from the Roman and replied, "Evening, brother. We have ventured all the way out here to your new residence to offer tidings. You are still welcome back at the warehouse."
"You really do not grasp our meaning or why we have come here. We have given into the realization that this is all a punishment, not a gift." Titus circled his hand toward the distant metropolis. "There is no noble reason to continue feeble attempts to communicate with the livings. They do not want what we have to offer. The most rational decision would be for you to join us."
"But, what about the gifts we are to pass from the gods to the descendants? This cause is not our own, but one given to us as an honor. We are duty bound to carry out this mission," Prometheus responded.
"There is no honor in stealing a dead body and eating the flesh of the living. This is not the act of any loving gods." Titus motioned his head toward the shantytown behind him. "We have committed to make a new home away from the humans to keep from unwarranted conflict. Out here, where they do not live, the only reason for them to make this venture would be to initiate a fight. I promise you, we will not hesitate to go to war and as we are already dead, the advantage is ours. Their attempts to eliminate us will only make our numbers grow."
"But you are an honorable Roman. You must-"
Titus cut him off. "I am no Roman! I am a Thracia, who the Romans captured and forced into the class of slave. When I arrived here, my first thought was to give the allusion of a Roman in good standing to set myself high in the social order of the empire. When I learned Rome had fallen centuries ago, it gave no consequence. Roman citizenship still brought with it a cubit of respect. The false esteem along with this charge handed down from the heavens is no longer of any bearing. We are now only interested in our existence, until we are allowed to leave this retched world."
Prometheus turned toward the city and noticed Hod wading through the river with a spear in his hand and looking for fish. "For those of us still committed to what the gods have given charge, I fear we may never complete this task if all of the gifts are not handed down. You and the people you lead in this new village hold many of these endowments."
As the debate grew more heated between the two ancient men, Nemi stepped between them. "Not all questions have been answered and there is still much for all of us to learn. Perhaps we can agree to remain as two separate villages with a common truce until we have learned all we need to complete this journey."
Titus placed his hand on Nemi's shoulder. "You speak with words of reason, my Egyptian brother." He turned toward Prometheus. "We are more than two settlements. New arrivals have come from the east. They speak of many villages like our own spreading across this land. There are those who share your opinion and those who see this strange existence as we do. Hopefully, one day, we will have the answers as to how we should exist in this world."
The flock of ravens in the trees suddenly flew off and caught the attention
of the undead on the ground. Watching the birds fly off in the darkening sky, Titus said, "It might be the fight that we hoped to avoid will be upon us sooner than expected."
The crack of a stick from behind a distant bush brought a tinge of fear into the Athenian's already dead body. More rustling from another group of trees gave the impression that the zombie village had been surrounded. Titus motioned with his hand for the visitors to move closer into the shantytown. Prometheus scanned the area for Hod, but could not see him. The undead came out from their huts and formed a circle. From the east, came the strange yell in the untranslatable sound made by the living. Out of the bushes, ran several of the descendants, armed with axes and wooden poles with sharpened tips forming primitive spears and pikes.
Several of the zombies charged the humans and the battle began. The living appeared out of their hiding places from all points surrounding the town. They stabbed and hacked at the zombies with their weapons as the deceased surrounded individual attackers, biting and tearing large chunks of flesh from the men. Greg sliced off limbs and decapitated his attackers with the precision of his Samurai soul. Blood from the living and dead splattered through the air and mixed with the ground forming crimson mud. Not knowing what to do, Prometheus watched the carnage. Should I pick up a weapon? I have no fighting skills.
He saw a human charge at him with an axe held high. With his legs and body frozen in fear, he could only watch as the axe came down toward his head. A spear sailed down from the sky and pierced through the body of the axe wielding man. Prometheus searched for the source of the spear, when he saw Hod jump down from the nearby tree. The caveman picked up the axe and went into action, running through the battle, hacking at every one of the living he could see. As more and more of the living fell, the battle slowly trickled out. With only a few of the living remaining to fight, the greater numbers of undead quickly overran them.
Prometheus scanned the battlefield. In the flicker of the fires, he saw each of the bodies on the ground had several living dead on top of it. They bit, scratched, and pulled flesh off like vultures on a carcass. They ate their victims as if they took part in a celebratory feast holding up organs and body parts like trophies and shoving them in their mouths. Hod ran up to him with a smile and three fingerprint smears of blood smeared across his face. He raised his bloody hand and ran his fingers across the Greek's face to make the same three lines. For the first time, Prometheus wondered if the living really deserved saving.
Nemi approached with Greg and said, "The living captured K.C."
Prometheus responded, "Did they kill her?"
Greg replied, "No, I saw them take her away. They wrapped her in a tarp and dragged her into the bushes over there."
"Why did they want to take her?"
"I've talked to some of the new arrivals from the present. It appears the livings are capturing some of us for experimentation. Even though we are dead, there are rumors the experiments are painful and quite brutal. Unable to die, the torture will only continue indefinitely."
"Where are they taking them?"
Greg motioned to an undead in a t-shirt and jeans. "Tell him what you told me."
The t-shirt zombie said, "I was a cop just a week ago. We were taking our captives to the basement of the courthouse where these government scientists conducted their experiments. They had set up a temporary lab."
Greg asked, "Why the courthouse?"
"All the hospitals are too close to the quarantined areas. The courthouse was far enough into the green zone and even the public wouldn't suspect there to be re-ans in the basement. It was like hiding them in plain sight."
Nemi looked at both Greg and Prometheus. "We will have to assist Gunnar and his troops in rescuing K.C. She holds the prophecy and will play a valuable role if we are to complete our mission."
* * *
Dr. Towers stared at the red blood cells moving across her monitor. After months of running the same tests, she finally saw the pattern emerge. She flipped through the pages of a file next to her keyboard and ran her finger down a data table until she found the numbers in question. Behind her, Daniel walked out of the large walk-in freezer and stacked several Petri dishes in his hand onto a table.
"Sample 1628 is showing the same pattern as samples 1439, 1011, and 956."
Daniel placed the dishes on the shelf of the glass cooler as he pondered what she said. "Are you talking about the transfer between red blood cells when exposed to radiation?"
"Yes, it is not acting like a virus at all."
Daniel walked over to Lisa and glanced over her shoulder at the screen. She pointed to the one of the cells. "Look here. When the infected cell is irradiated, the contagion is not only not affected, it transfers to the closest non-irradiated cell."
"You mean-"
She interjected, "That's right. I don't think we're dealing with a virus at all. This looks and acts more like a parasite as we earlier suspected."
Daniel walked over to a pile of files on a nearby table. He searched through them until he found one close to the bottom of the stack. As he scanned the pages inside and said, "This would explain, why two months ago we started to show results with serum 461, but failed with the next three."
"That's right. We were trying to kill a virus which only transfers to the next cell by mitosis. If we vaccinate all the cells against the parasite, when it transfers to what appears to be a healthy host cell, the serum will stop it before reproduction occurs."
Daniel smiled and walked back over to Lisa. While staring at the screen, he placed his hand on her shoulder, and said, "This is the breakthrough we've been looking for."
She placed her hand on top of his to hold it in place. "With this data, we should have a beta version of a re-an vaccine as early as four or five weeks from now."
The sound of breaking glass from a distant room startled both scientists, causing them to turn toward the disturbance. With a loud bang, the door to the lab burst off its hinges and fell to the floor. Several people dressed in black clothes, black hats and sunglasses poured through the opening. They swung baseball bats wildly through the room, smashing equipment and knocking over files.
Daniel stepped in front of Lisa and called out, "Stop!"
Hellion, with her dreadlocks pouring out from under her black knit cap walked up to him pressing the end of her baseball bat into his chest. "We are here to protect the Second Lifers. You're going to stop your torturous experiments and let them live."
As her crew continued to destroy the lab and all their work, Daniel pressed his palms into his forehead. "You have no idea what you're doing. We were weeks away from a cure."
Hellion replied, "You can't cure a life."
Pink walked up to her and said, "We gotta go. The police are on their way. You've already worked you way to the FBI's top ten. I don't think you need to move to number one."
As Hellion backed away from the two scientists, she pointed her bat at them and said, "If you continue your research, we'll continue to destroy it. We are here to protect the Second Lifers and will continue until they are allowed to live free with the rest of society."
She along with her crew quickly disappeared through the door leaving the lab in ruins, as the strobe of police lights flashed through the windows.
* * *
Still wearing her orange jumpsuit from the jail, Hellion sat behind the table next to Pink and watched Judge Patterson look through the file and then he handed it back to the bailiff. An open window near the front of the room, allowed the only airflow into the old building. "I'll allow this to be admitted," the judge said.
Chris Schring, their attorney, pointed to his defendants and said, "Your honor, these women are not international terrorists. They're simply activists who are exercising their freedom of speech. The event of two nights ago at the Collins Institute Lab was a protest which got out of hand. The prosecution's motion to deny bail is unwarranted."
Judge Patterson took off his glasses, set them down, folded his fingers
together and glanced at the raven, which landed on the ledge of the open window. "Counselor, your clients are not being charged with trespassing by chaining themselves to a tree. They have some misconstrued sense to defend these creatures that are intent on killing us. The destruction of the Lab is the least of their worries. The magnetic spike they allegedly planted within the military's network along with this laundry list of charges brought up by the FBI, Homeland Security, the ATF and the U.S. Marshals, means that I will be hearing their case until long after I retire. They seem to have a vast web of friends to help them with all these unscrupulous plans. I'm not taking the chance of letting them out of my sight where this network will help keep them hidden. And, don't try to use the, these creatures have rights defense. I fully support the military's intent on wiping them off the face of the planet. They are an abomination and scourge to civilization."
Chris replied, "But your honor-"
Screams, commotion and gunfire from the hallway interrupted his rebuttal. Hellion along with the rest of the courtroom quickly turned toward the doors as they burst open. Several zombies armed with primitive weapons, swords, axes and clubs, poured into the room. The observers tried to fight them off, but a black zombie with a samurai sword quickly sliced off hands and thrust his way through the crowd. Several more of the undead, including a man in a blue dress, swung axes and bats, taking down all the living that stood in their way. They continued to call out in their strange moans, as they pointed to different people in the room.
Two of the undead pounced on the judge and brought him to the ground next to his bench. They bit into his face and shoulder pulling out strips of bloody flesh with their teeth. He tried to fight back, but his wounds proved to be too severe and Patterson died as his blood ran across the marble floor.
The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel Page 9
