Judgement

by Eric A. Shelman

  Garland reached the dark corner where he’d left Lester. With the eye plate down, the zombiegator wouldn’t attack anything and he wouldn’t make any course corrections when he hit a wall. He wasn’t much for turning around, and that’s what Garland counted on.

  He hadn’t known how he would use him before; now he did. But he had to hurry, and Lester would slow him down.

  For the moment he left Lester there and hurried to the cave opening. Something caught his eye on a small ledge inside the cave on the left side, and he trotted over to have a look.

  It was a small box, open. Two empty vials of some kind were inside. Lifting one, he eyed the cave entrance for a moment, then turned on his headlamp.

  “Blood,” he muttered, smelling it. He wrinkled his nose, then put the bottle down. “What the hell is that crazy fucker up to now?”

  He crouched down by the left-behind box and trained his eyes on the low alcove where he’d parked the big gator. It wasn’t visible at all from there, which is why the old chief hadn’t seen him. Unless presented with the sights and smells of bloody or rotting meat, the creature wouldn’t make a sound.

  Thank God for small favors, he thought.

  He hurried out the cave door and scanned the ground outside, looking for any clue of where the old man had gone.

  Seeing only hundreds of footprints in the dirt, some barefoot, some missing digits, others shoed, all heading directly into the cave, he finally found one set of prints heading off to the left of the cave’s mouth.

  Flicking on his headlamp, he saw them disappear around a rock ledge.

  Garland walked forward, focusing. There! A trail!

  It wasn’t clear; there were weeds growing up through the center, but it was different, newer growth than the rest. When he got closer, he saw clear footprints. Not dozens and dozens like the ones the rotters had made behind him.

  A single set.

  Garland ran. He charged up the path and kept up a steady jog as the relatively smooth, sandy trail curved around craggy rock outcroppings, insets and into brief, shallow gullies.

  He moved for another five minutes before it began to taper and level out. Looking around, he realized he was high up. In the silver moonlight, he could more feel, than see the distance and the nothingness below him if he were to tumble sideways and fall.

  A low sound came from ahead. It began as a humming, but soon turned into a chant.

  Garland moved forward slowly. Another rocky ledge was just ahead, and beyond that, it appeared the dark sky met the mountain – or hill, or whatever he was climbing.

  He lay down on his stomach, then pushed himself up until his eyes and nose crested the ridge.

  A person sat very close to the ledge of what had to be a sheer cliff from what Garland could see beyond it.

  His back to Garland, the moonlight shone on the colorful feathers of a large headdress that draped down his back and to the dirt behind him.

  Unable to tell what he wore besides the large headdress, Garland watched the man he assumed was the old Indian Chief Qaletaqa. His arms were out of view, but his shoulders were moving as though he were weaving or manipulating something. He chanted some strange words that rose and fell, crescendoed, then faded almost to an inaudible level.

  A backpack sat beside him, the top partially collapsed, but the bottom still stuffed fat with something. It looked like something trailed out of the bag toward the old man, but no matter how he squinted, he could not tell what it was.

  He’d seen enough. He knew where his enemy was, and what he had to do.

  Garland turned around and snuck back down the path.

  Ω

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Cave

  “I don’t know how many there are, but it sounds like a thousand!”

  It was Tank’s voice from way back, and I figured that didn’t help much when we were trying to get clear of an oncoming horde.

  I didn’t know what became of Garland; we hadn’t seen or heard from him since our radio transmission broke apart. Albert had told us he was going to try something.

  Tala stopped. “Please, bring me one of the torches.”

  “Hey, torch,” I whisper-yelled. It was passed forward. She had been using a headlamp I gave her. It wasn’t good enough for what she needed to do, I guessed.

  She took it, then held it up. There were two tunnels before her, and now, as she held up the torch, the flame flickered hard and fast to the right.

  “This is it. It is not far. Come, hurry.”

  She moved down the right-side tunnel that had to have been eight or nine feet in diameter, though not perfectly cylindrical. It appeared to have been cut through with water a million years ago, but if so, it was long dried up.

  A course silt ran along the bottom of the tunnel, all that remained from an ancient, underground river.

  Tala was moving fast now, and we all hustled behind her to keep up. She practically ran, and when we all did the same, I’m not sure if I’m the only one who was amazed at how easy it was.

  It was effortless. I felt twenty years old again. My legs felt strong; my arms felt like pistons and my lungs took in what felt like cubic feet of oxygen.

  Beginning to analyze myself, I realized I could see clearly in the dim light within the cave. Tala had not needed the flame to see; she needed it to determine where the exit was.

  I turned to Georgie. “Dr. Lake, are you feeling … young somehow?”

  “God, how did you know? You? I feel exhilarated!”

  “Same. Whatever happened back there, I hope it never goes away.”

  “She never said this was one of the side effects,” said Georgie. “But think about it; she was just a girl when she was changed. She was already full of energy and vibrant, just starting her life. Even if she did notice the change back then, surely she’s grown so used to it, she forgot how it felt at first.”

  “Damned good point,” I said.

  “We’re here!” said Tala, her voice low. I couldn’t figure out why she was whispering. The zombies were behind us in the cave, which meant her father was probably there, too, escorting them in.

  “We have been moving fast,” she said, as she turned around, probably to make sure we were all paying attention. “They are far behind us right now.”

  Everyone stopped and immediately fell still and silent. As if to verify what the girl told us, in the far distance behind our group, the moans, keens and scrapes of the undead could be heard. It was a constant noise now, like a busy freeway in the dead of night, or waves crashing in the ocean.

  “I must go out first to ensure all is well and my father has not set a trap for us. He knows this place far better than me, and he cannot be trusted. Please, watch behind you and if you must confront the skinwalkers, kill them silently.”

  The sound of dozens of knives sliding from sheaths added to the zombie sounds.

  “Be careful,” I told the girl. “Stay out of sight and use your goddamned radio if you get in trouble. Most of all, just check real fast and get the hell back in here.”

  Magi Silver Bolt said, “Let me go with you.”

  She shook her head. “If there is a confrontation between my father and me, I am better prepared to reason with him. Stay here.”

  Tala didn’t wait for him to agree. She walked away from us, ducked around some broken rocks and some brush that had blown against the cave entrance at some point, and disappeared.

  “She’s a tough one,” I said.

  “Maybe,” said Silver Bolt. “But I am a chief. She is of the Hintoka. She does not control me, or any of the Henomawi.”

  “Dude, just let her do this –”

  “Come with me, Tommy,” he said, his knife still in hand.

  “Chief Silver Bolt, maybe we should wait as she asked –”

  “One member of my tribe left, and you will dishonor me by refusing to do what I command?”

  Tommy’s head dropped. “No, Chief Silver Bolt.” He stepped forward, his fingers flexing ar
ound the handle of his knife. “I am behind you.”

  “You millennials are a stubborn bunch,” said Danny. “You don’t goddamned listen when somebody who knows more than you tries to give you advice. You always know better. You could learn a little bit about discipline from the Nacogdoche Tribe. They work together, like a single machine. It’s what kept them alive, and they didn’t have the benefits of national recognition, either. Or a reservation.”

  Silver Bolt stopped and looked at Danny. My buddy wasn’t done.

  “Where you going, anyway? What you gonna do out there? Get in her way? Distract her? Get her killed, maybe? Look. I know you’ve lost a lot, man. I get it, we all have. Just stop and think. We got this far.”

  I watched the young chief consider Danny’s words. He looked from Lilly to me, to several of the Nacogdoche Tribe’s young men behind us.

  Turning, he walked back toward us. Tommy hadn’t moved a step, but he would have, I know. Relief flooded his expression when Chief Silver Bolt crouched down and put his knife on the ground in front of him.

  “I understand. You are right. We are all that remains of our tribe. There is no sense in accelerating our demise.”

  Danny looked at the young man for a few seconds, then said, “You just proved to me you deserve to lead your people. No matter how many there are left.”

  Ω

  Qaletaqa continued the process of twisting the fuses to the sticks of dynamite to the main connecting fuse and lowering them over the edge. In a few moments, he would feed it to the north and lower more sticks down to rest beside the mouth of the cave’s rear entrance.

  He had planted twenty sticks around the front entrance, tucking them into crevices and notches in the stone, and had fed out the long coil of fuse so that it now lay beside him. When he was finished, he would connect them together and ignite the fuse.

  A strong feeling struck him, and he closed his eyes; the image of Tala entered his mind, and he watched her move to within a few feet of the cave mouth.

  A tear slipped from his eye and down his cheek when he thought about ending her life. She was like her mother; she was naïve and caring, always doing what she felt was right.

  She would have been a great asset in the world that would exist after he and his army of the undead cleansed the land.

  Because of her changed physiology, she would be able to bear children for many years to come, repopulating the continent with children who would then grow to have children of their own.

  The land would be reclaimed by those who never should have lost it.

  He would try to reason with her one last time. Closing his eyes again, he watched through her eyes as she emerged from the cave and turned around.

  If he stood now, their eyes would meet.

  The dynamite was dangling down on both sides of the cave, hidden by the cascading brush and vines that grew around it. The winter had not yet caused the foliage to go dormant.

  It would provide the cover necessary to prevent Tala from seeing the danger.

  He stood.

  Ω

  Garland Hunter stood behind the fifteen-foot-long gator, the heavy chain gripped in his hand. The dead rabbit had been rotting for who knew how many days, and it was rancid enough that Albert wouldn’t get out to retrieve it on the way there.

  Garland had to do it. He didn’t blame the kid. It was covered in maggots and it stank to high heaven, but that was exactly why he needed it. He had just brushed them off against some brush on the side of the road, and shook the rest of the tiny, white larvae off the decaying corpse as best he could.

  But now, knowing how he and the others were changed, Garland realized he needed something more.

  The rotting rabbit, when connected to the dangling rod in front of the gator, would keep it moving forward. But to make it attack something when he removed the dangling bait, it needed to see and smell.

  Garland needed zombie slop.

  One of the first things he realized was that zombiegators did not differentiate between the living and the dead; they ate both fresh and rotting meat without preference, but the rotting stuff really tantalized their olfactory senses. It drew them forward in a frenzy.

  He finished connecting the dead rabbit to the small chain and set the whole works aside. Hurrying back inside the cave, he withdrew his knife and trotted back down the path the dead had taken.

  About a hundred more of them bunched up, and he could hear distant splashes as they dropped into the lower chamber and hit the pool of water.

  The last one in line was too big. Garland wasn’t any he-man, so he side-stepped past a couple of them until he came to a small female.

  This one was an old woman. She was probably under five feet tall, and if she weighed eighty pounds, it would be a miracle.

  He needed her assistance. Keeping his eye on the two rotters he’d passed, he took the woman by the shoulder and pulled her back. As she drew alongside the two large dead ones, Garland sheathed his knife and got both hands on her shoulders.

  He walked her back. The ceremony had really worked. She did not fight him or move to attack. As he pulled, she walked.

  I feel strong! he thought. Like I could just carry her out.

  Fighting nausea, he realized he needed one hand to maintain his balance along the rocky trail. He reached down and took her by her shriveled hand and walked back toward the way out.

  Once back under the partial moonlight, he withdrew his blade again. Without hesitation, he pushed it into her right ear and through her brain.

  She crumpled to the ground with a final growl.

  Garland then removed the pack from his back and dumped its contents on the ground.

  Repositioning the corpse quickly so that her stomach was exposed, he cut open the housedress she wore and plunged the knife into her stomach, just above her pelvis. Cutting upward, the muck and innards remained contained within the body cavity.

  The gator let out a low growl. The smell had reached him. The eye plate was still in place, so he did not move.

  Placing the open pack on the ground beside her body, Garland fought his own disgust and reached in and severed the guts from the rest of the body with sawing cuts around the sides and beneath the intestines and other organs.

  Setting the slippery knife aside, Garland swallowed his own vomit as he lifted the sick, rotting guts from the woman’s body cavity and deposited them into the backpack with a splat.

  Now what remained in the body was black goo and more liquefied body parts, but two more hand scoops and he felt he had enough.

  Garland wiped his hands on the gator’s back, getting as much of the slime and smell off him as possible. He then unscrewed the cap from the canteen he’d taken from the pack and rinsed the remainder off his hands.

  He didn’t need to be the draw. He had other plans.

  Sealing the backpack as best he could, he carefully re-slung it onto his back. Crouching rather than bending down, so as not to dump its contents onto the back of his neck and head, he picked up the chain, walked the gator around to face the trail leading back to the old Indian, and put the dead, dangling rabbit carcass in place.

  When he had the big zombiegator pointed in the right direction, he used the rod to retract the blinders.

  The gator’s mouth opened fast, and it let out a low croak. It moved fast up the trail.

  Garland held on for dear life. He said a little prayer and made his way back up the trail behind his new best friend, Lester.

  Ω

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The Confrontation

  “Qaletaqa,” she said, with both deference and dread in her voice. The former was out of habit; the latter was borne of her recent understanding of him.

  She did not see him well with the moon behind him, but she knew the shape of a powerful Indian chief in full war regalia; she knew it was her father high above her wearing the ceremonial headdress she recalled seeing him wear when she was a young girl.

  He had not yet been chief those ma
ny years ago when he had crafted the elaborate, draping headdress and accompanying outfit. She recalled that on rare occasions, he would take her out to the isolated desert and park the pickup truck.

  Her father would then construct and ignite a massive bonfire, putting on each piece of his outfit, all made by his hand, the buckskin pieces perfectly sized and sewn together.

  She never understood it then. She surely did now.

  He finally spoke, and his voice sounded extraordinarily strong.

  It frightened her.

  “My daughter,” he said. “You must leave. Now.”

  She turned to look around her, and saw there was a narrow trail to her left, leading down the side of the mountain they had partially scaled to reach the cave. Behind her, extending perhaps ten feet, was a flat plateau area.

  She could not see beyond the ledge. “You will … allow us to go?”

  She saw the side-to-side motion of his head. “No, not them. Only you, if you choose.”

  “Choose what?” she asked. “Your domination of the world? You, using the skinwalkers as your army to finish off the rest of mankind? What then, father?”

  “There are others who live,” he said. “They are safe. Many others. Just as you did not know of my plan, or of their existence, their knowledge is limited as well.”

  “How many?”

  “They number almost two thousand.”

  “Where are they?”

  Her father laughed softly. “No. That I will not tell you. You will learn when we walk together again.”

  She wasn’t sure if he really believed she would ever go along with such a plan. Clearly, he intended to repopulate the continent with pure bloods. Why he couldn’t just make life on the reservation as good as possible for his people, she did not know.

  Her mind went back to everything that had happened, leading up to this moment. His long absences; his secret conversations on the telephone. She had given him his time and his privacy.

  She thought he was fulfilling the role of leader, not authoritarian dictator.