by J. C. Diem
I opened my mouth to protest, but Mark seized on the idea. “I agree. You need sleep. We’ll wake you before the action begins.”
It was useless to argue, so I trudged over to the vehicle and climbed inside. It stank of fumes already and I didn’t want to make matters worse. I slid my shoes off and left them on the ground. Next, I rolled my pants up so the dirt wouldn’t smear the seats. The backseat wasn’t long enough for me to stretch out, so I tucked my knees up when I lay down.
Closing my eyes, I instantly dropped off to sleep and was hurtled backwards into a long forgotten memory.
Looking upwards, I stared in wonder at the objects that floated above me. I was too young to know that it was a mobile of the moon and stars. All sights and sounds were strange and mysterious. A noise had woken me, but I wasn’t sure what it was. A soft light lit the room well enough for me to see a shadow when it moved into the doorway. It stood there for a while, just watching me before it entered the room.
Primitive fear filled my tiny body as the shadow fell over me and pale hands reached down to pick me up. Used to being treated gently and with care, I let out a startled cry when the hands bruised my flesh in a tight grip. A wide, grinning mouth was all I saw before teeth tore into my flesh. Screaming in agony, I struggled uselessly as my blood was drained away and my vision began to go dark. My father appeared in the doorway and I held my hand out to him beseechingly. Bright light flared and a loud noise rang out. It hurt my ears and dampened all other sound.
A hand touched my knee and I woke with a scream. Knocking the hand away, my heart thudded in my chest in terror. Flynn started back in surprise at my reaction. Kala caught him before he could sprawl to the ground. Reece’s face came into view behind them. All three stared at me in concern. My shoulder throbbed. It felt as if I’d just been bitten moments ago rather than when I was an infant.
“Did I hear a scream?” Mark called from his position near the field. The sun was about to go down and we didn’t have time to discuss my nightmare.
“I’m fine,” I called back. “It was just a bad dream.” My hoarse voice was a telltale sign that I was lying, but he let it go.
Kala offered me her hand and I took it. She pulled me upright and I slid to the edge of the seat to don my shoes. “What were you dreaming about?” she asked me curiously.
“I think I was remembering being bitten by the dog when I was a baby.” In my dream, it hadn’t been a dog at all, but something far more terrifying. The dream was already beginning to fade and it would soon be gone. I wouldn’t be sad to see it go.
“Don’t worry,” Flynn said with a grin. “We won’t let any of these zombie beasts bite you.”
It was logical to assume I was dreaming about being bitten because we were about to confront thousands of undead cows, pigs and sheep. I didn’t think our coming battle was the real cause of my nightmare, but I wasn’t sure what had sparked it.
Folding my pants back down, I took the fully loaded flamethrower that Reece handed me and took up a spot beside the others. We stood across the road, waiting for the last rays of sunlight to fade from the sky. A nervous energy spread through our ranks, waking me up a little. Mark stood only fifteen feet from the edge of what would shortly become a killing field.
Our tension grew and I sensed the zombies awaken. “Any second now,” I whispered. A moment after I spoke, the ground erupted and the skeletal horde spilled from their resting places. Mark didn’t hesitate. He sent a burst of flame at the ground. Instantly, a conflagration sprang into being. He was thrown backward as the fiery shockwave spread across the entire field.
Reece dropped his weapon and sprinted across the road. He snatched our boss into his arms and tossed him over his shoulder. He raced to safety before the heat of the flames could ignite their clothing. Reece was lucky his pants and shoes hadn’t caught on fire. If Mark hadn’t been thrown backwards a few feet, they probably would have.
Mark hadn’t exaggerated about the intensity of the fire. Shielding my face from the brightness, I squinted through the gaps in my fingers to see the animals burning merrily. In seconds, the flames had captured every zombie in its greedy clutches. Screams and bellows of agony were drowned out beneath the crackle of the fire that shot a full forty feet into the air.
Coughing and gasping for air, Mark sat down on the side of the road and watched the horde burn. “Well,” he said after he’d regained his breath. “I’d say the accelerant worked.” Steam was wafting off him, signaling just how close he’d come to being roasted.
Kala sniggered then I sniggered and even Flynn’s shoulders moved in silent laughter. Reece sent us a disapproving glare that did nothing to dampen our mirth. We all knew we’d come close to losing Mark and this was our way of dealing with the stress.
It only took a few minutes for the herd to turn to ash. With them gone, I picked up the other zombies that had risen with nightfall. The necromancer wasn’t sticking around to watch the bonfire. He and his minions were already on their way back towards town.
“The necromancer is on the move,” I warned the others.
“Which direction are they heading in?” Mark asked and gestured for us to climb into the SUV. It had been parked a little too close to the fire and some of the black paint had blistered.
“Towards town.”
“Of course they are,” Kala scowled. “They need food and they’ll chow down on the first humans that they come across.”
“Then we’d better haul butt and catch them,” Mark said gravely.
₪₪₪
Chapter Thirty-One
Travelling by car meant that we were restricted to following the roads. We lost ground and Reece had to put his foot down. We had to move fast to have a hope of catching up to our targets as they cut across the fields to the industrial area on the outskirts of the city.
Leaning forward, I pointed at a large group of shadowy figures that were clumsily sprinting along the side of the road ahead.
“I see them,” Reece said and the SUV surged forward.
We were almost on them when the necromancer glanced backwards and grinned craftily. He lifted his hand as a signal and his band of merry men and women disappeared beneath the ground.
“They’re like undead moles,” Kala complained. She and Flynn were squeezed in beside me so they could see the action through the windscreen as well.
“Where did they go?” I asked.
“They can only resurface somewhere they’ve already been before,” Mark said.
Flynn had a theory about where that would be. “If I were the necromancer, I’d head to one of the cemeteries and start raising more soldiers.”
“Which cemetery?” Kala asked.
“Weren’t his minions all made at the graveyard where he killed the Zombie King?” I pointed out.
Mark nodded. “You’re right. That’s the only cemetery they’ll be able to reach quickly.”
“How fast can they move underground?” Kala queried.
“They can disappear and reappear almost instantly,” was his disturbing answer. “It’s a phenomenon that has only ever been seen with zombies. We believe it has something to do with the death magic that animates them.”
That was disturbing, yet it was also a relief. I couldn’t imagine facing a wide range of enemies that could disappear at will.
Knowing the city well by now, we headed for the cemetery and parked a short distance away.
“We’re too late,” Flynn said in despair when we saw the telltale signs of green fog beginning to spread out.
“Not quite,” I replied. “The necromancer must still be working on his spell. I can only sense the original hundred or so.”
Kala shook her head as she pushed her door open. “How bad do things have to be if we think that a hundred zombies is a small number?”
Armed with flamethrowers and spare canisters of fuel, we hurried towards the small side gate that wasn’t being watched by cameras. We snuck up as close as we could get to the circle of undead
corpses that were guarding their master. The Cleanup Crew had removed all evidence of our battle from last night, including the body of the Zombie King. I didn’t really care where his remains had been interred, just as long as they were far away from here. It hurt my brain to think of the bokor dying and then being reanimated by the necromancer that he himself had turned into a zombie.
The zombies had snatched up a human on their way to the cemetery. A woman’s crumpled body lay discarded on the ground. Her head was missing. The necromancer had repeated his act with his master and had cracked her skull open. He was flicking blood and brains onto the ground as he walked his unholy circle, chanting his spell.
A sixth sense warned him that danger was near. He looked beyond his guardians and through the misty fog straight at me. The miasma was becoming thicker by the second and it would soon obscure our quarry completely. Knowing he was running out of time, he walked the rest of his circle, chanting faster.
“We need to stop him before he completes the ritual,” Reece said and barely waited for Mark’s nod before he leaped forward.
The rest of us were right behind him. We spread out into a line as the undead guardians hissed in warning and moved to surround us. Bright orange flames shot from our weapons, turning the zombies into screaming torches.
“Lexi,” Mark shouted over the noise. “I need you to target the necromancer. If you kill him, his minions will be confused and they’ll hopefully stop attacking us in force.”
I shouldered the flamethrower and reached for my handgun. Shuffling quickly, the necromancer threw a frantic look over his shoulder and ducked when I pulled the trigger. My bullet just grazed the top of his head and he bellowed in rage and fright.
Ignoring the battle that was going on around me, I tracked his movements and fired again. My second bullet slammed into his head, blowing a large hole out the other side. Rotting brains stained the white marble of a crypt. He screeched shrilly and the mob of walking corpses that were attacking us hesitated and looked around in confusion.
If he’d been human, the wound would have killed him. Since he was undead, it would take a lot more than one bullet to finish him off. He’d neared the end of his spell and the fog had thickened to the point where I could barely see him. I sensed that he was seconds away from raising far more than just a couple of hundred corpses as he began chanting again.
“I have to get closer,” I said to the others and darted into the fog before anyone could stop me.
Cursing, Reece fired at a group of walking dead then raced after me as I dodged the oncoming enemies.
With a last few steps and sprinkling of blood and brains scooped from the dead woman’s skull, the necromancer completed his spell with a triumphant shout. A shockwave of power swept out, nearly knocking me off my feet. Reece stumbled then righted himself. We stood back to back as hundreds of reanimated corpses spilled from their graves. These zombies had been hastily formed and were in a pitiful condition. The stench of decomposing flesh made me want to gag.
“There’s too many of them,” my protector said in a tone that sounded calm on the surface. Tied to his mind, I knew that he was afraid. The Shifter Squad was fierce and powerful, but even we couldn’t take on this many ravenous zombies and hope to live.
“If we’re going down, I’m taking the necromancer with us,” I vowed.
Reading my mind, he smiled in pure pleasure. “I’ve got your back, Agent Levine.”
Spying the necromancer inching away, I sprang into action. Our only advantage over the horde was our speed. We dodged, ducked and weaved our way through the throng until I was close enough to see my target clearly. His eyes widened in terror when he saw my resolve. In mid-run, I lifted my gun and sent four rapid shots at him.
All four bullets hit their mark and the necromancer’s head exploded in a wash of black brains and clotted, noisome blood. Roars of rage issued from hundreds of zombie throats as their master fell. I closed the distance between us to see the necromancer still stubbornly clinging to life.
Kicking him over onto his back, I struggled against the urge to gag again when I saw that only part of his head was still left intact. One eye glared up at me, his other eye was gone, along with most of his skull.
“What are you?” he asked in heavily accented English.
“I’m a werewolf,” I replied truthfully.
Staring up at me, his hands scrabbled at the ground and I wondered if he was in pain. The thought came with no guilt. He was the enemy and it was my job to kill him. “No,” he said feebly. “You are more than that. You are like me.”
Reece was at my back, shooting warning bursts of fire at the approaching army. He sent me a startled look over his shoulder.
“I’m nothing like you,” I argued. “I’m not a zombie.”
“Yet you are not fully alive,” he countered. “It would not take much to turn you into my kind completely.” He turned thoughtful then began to chant in a low, almost hypnotic voice.
His mind began to invade mine, trying to compel me to submit. I had a strong sense of déjà vu, as if someone else had recently tried to bend me to their will. Cringing inwardly at the slimy mental probing, I pointed my gun at his face. “I don’t think so,” I said coldly and pumped half a dozen rounds into what was left of his head.
A sigh went out through the army as their leader became an inert corpse again. As one, they turned to me. Instead of attacking, it almost seemed as if they were waiting for instructions. The echoes of the link that had briefly tied me to the necromancer still remained. Acting on impulse, I address the waiting minions. “Go back to your resting places and return to death’s embrace,” I ordered them.
I was astonished and relieved when they turned and began making their way back to their crypts.
“Do I even want to know how you did that?” Reece asked.
“I wish I knew,” I lied. I wasn’t ready to confess that I was tied to the undead just as I was linked to him, if far less strongly. It was a wonder that he couldn’t sense them through me.
“Wait here,” he instructed. “I’m going to check on the others.”
Clearly, he wanted to put some distance between us so he could think about what he’d just seen. I nodded again and leaned back against a crypt. Stinking of gas fumes, ash and roasted zombie, I was drained of energy and was ready to sleep for a week.
Sensing eyes on me, I turned my head to see a pale woman standing only a few feet away. There was something familiar about her, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.
“At last, we are alone,” she said. The green mist and shadows worked together to hide her face from me, but I knew I’d heard her voice before. Her accent was foreign, most likely European.
“Do I know you?” I had a sense of déjà vu again. It was even stronger this time. I tried to back away when she reached for me, but I was trapped by the crypt.
“Oh yes,” she said with a tinkling laugh that was jarring to my ears. “You might say that we are very close. Or once were.” She put one hand on my left shoulder and pulled me towards her. “I hope that we will soon be closer than ever before.” I was helpless to resist her when she tugged my shirt and jacket aside and bit into my right shoulder. I made a sound of pain, but she had control of my mind and commanded me to be silent.
I heard a voice calling my name and blinked in confusion. “Alexis?” the voice called again. It was Reece and he sounded concerned.
For a moment, I had no idea where I was. Then I saw that I was surrounded by graves and remembered that we’d been hunting the necromancer. Turning, I stumbled and had to catch myself on a crypt. “I’m here,” I croaked.
Hearing me, Reece ran to my side. “Are you alright?” he asked, searching the area for a threat.
Clammy and feeling faint, I shook my head. “I don’t feel very good.”
“What happened?” He took my hand and some of my strength returned just from his simple touch.
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
> “I was worried when I suddenly couldn’t feel you again.”
“What do you mean?” I was having trouble concentrating on his words.
“Something happened to the bond,” he explained. “I felt it growing weaker and weaker until I couldn’t sense you at all. This is the second time this has happened.”
I had no idea what he was talking about at first, then realized what he meant. I could feel him, but the connection was faint. I’d wanted the bond gone, but I had no idea what was causing it to weaken like this. Whatever it was, it was making me feel weak as well. “When was the first time this happened?”
“When you took a bathroom break in the restaurant.”
I vaguely remembered feeling disquieted at the time, but couldn’t recall why. Before I could ponder on the puzzle, the others caught up to us. Mark sent me a sharp glance. “What’s wrong?”
“Lexi isn’t feeling well,” Reece replied. “We should get her back to the base.”
“You’re very pale,” Kala said as she slipped my arm over her shoulder. She and Reece helped me back to the SUV.
Mark had already called the Cleanup Crew and their van arrived just as we were leaving. I still wasn’t sure how I’d managed to make the corpses return to their graves, but the Crew wouldn’t have the laborious task of disposing of quite so many undead now.
I fell into a semi doze once I was inside the SUV. My head lolled on Kala’s shoulder and she put her arm around my waist.
Flynn took my hand. “She’s so cold,” he murmured and then I blacked out.
When I woke, it was morning and I was in my room. I was dressed in a t-shirt and panties and I didn’t remember putting them on. I couldn’t remember much of what had happened the night before, which was frightening. Something strange was going on and I didn’t know what it was.
I took a long, hot shower and toweled my hair dry. Staring at my reflection while I ran a brush through my hair, the scar on my right shoulder caught my eye. It looked different somehow and I leaned in close to see it. Instead of the old, faded teeth marks, it looked almost new. My blood ran cold when I realized that I’d been bitten by something and that I didn’t remember it. Then I was confused because hadn’t I already had this thought before?
