It was surreal. John was sure none of this was actually happening… like a horrific nightmare he just had to outlast. As Mark’s body cooled and the morning turned into afternoon, though, he began to understand that this nightmare would not end. Mechanically, he dug a hole, as deep as he could with the equipment the jungle had to offer. He laid Mark’s body in it and covered him with the spongy black earth. Gruesome as it was, the task gave him something to do. Once it was over, the memories started. Mark as a baby, then becoming a boy and a teenager, and the last time he would ever hold his boy in his arms. The memories washed over John. It sent him spiraling. He had to sit down before he passed out. With his last ounce of will, he mastered himself. He still had one reason to fight and live. He had to get home to Aaron. It was all he had left.
Weeks passed. John wasted away to a skeleton. He barely attempted hunting or staying hydrated. At times, he was unsure if he were awake or dreaming. His hair became matted and dirty. Dark circles formed under his sunken eyes. He was the living dead.
Despite being in a daze, a part of him still held on and carried him forward. He ignored the world around him. Zombies came at him, and he lethargically fought them off, killing them. He wouldn’t have even known if he’d been bit, he simply would have slipped off into the turn.
Through sheer luck or providence, he took the correct path to the coast. He waded into the ocean and looked at the deep water. The pain welled up again and he fought the urge to continue into the water and drown himself. Anything to stop the pain and the failure. The failure to protect his wife and youngest son. As if someone were speaking to him, he heard the name “Aaron” in his mind. John looked up and saw the sun setting behind the ocean. It was beautiful, but he only saw Mark’s face as he showed John his bitten hand. This image wouldn’t leave him; it haunted him every moment. John fell to his knees and began to sob. It was all the pent-up sadness that now broke free.
“I failed you, Martha. I let our boy…” John couldn’t finish the sentence.
Kneeling there, utterly destroyed, he barely noticed two sets of feet clumsily walking toward him in the wet sand. He saw them out of the corner of his eye and looked up to meet whatever doom was about to befall him. He was surprised by the sight of a mother and her son looking at him with concern. She was afraid of the dreadful sight before her, but despite the danger she felt compelled to help him. Her husband would chastise her, but it was still the right thing to do. There was something familiar about this man, despite being a stranger. For years after their parting she would wonder what ever became of that gringo she found on the beach.
“Señor?” she asked gently.
Through choking sobs he began telling her everything that had happened. She didn’t understand any English.
When he was calm again, they took him to their home and fed him. The next morning, the husband returned to collect his wife, son and now this stranger. He gave his wife a horrified look upon hearing the story, but obviously the northerner meant no harm. He took them all to his small sailboat. They loaded up supplies and began the journey up the coast. It wasn’t Camila’s brother but a different man. A couple of weeks later, they landed and began the journey inland to Tenochtitlan. They walked into the capitol with thousands of other refugees two days before the floating bridge across the lake was destroyed to protect the city.
Chapter 12
Almost three months had passed since Commander Quintana’s defeat at Gleeson. A campaign that had initially begun as an opportunity for the Southern Army to turn back the Western Government had turned into a humiliating defeat. Tenochtitlan looked at him differently now. Their golden child had been tarnished.
Through captives and spies, Quintana had pieced together a faint picture of his enemy. A leader from a mountainous region up north had embarked on a campaign to capture territory in the south. In the eyes of Tenochtitlan, all aggressors from the north were the same, but there was something different about this army. It wasn’t a part of the Western Army, so then whose was it?
He’d gone over the events of his humiliation and had come to one conclusion: The enemy had far better command of the undead. It was the backbone of their strategy. The Southerners’ expertise in zombie logistics was primitive by comparison. Quintana had brought this to the attention of Tenochtitlan’s leadership, and they’d quietly listened and said they’d inform the king. This meant nothing would change. He’d left that meeting even angrier than before. His people were impotent and stuck in their old ways. This army from the north was looking forward, not backward.
In Quintana’s assessment, the problem lay with their culture. The undead were shrouded in superstition and mysticism. The king supposedly controlled the undead via “the spirits.” Really, the king simply explained the actions of walkers, as his doing. When a herd destroyed some villages, the king would say the people were thieves, so he punished them. If people cried out for the undead to protect them from raiders, and it didn’t happen, the king claimed “Bad Future.” This meant that if he’d fulfilled their wishes, there would have been far worse consequences as a result. Lies. Fairy tales.
There was nothing supernatural about the walkers. The northerners didn’t need faith to maintain an army and a society. The walkers in the northern army were freshly turned and had superior weaponry and harnesses. The handlers were methodical. The commander’s strategy was built on logic, not belief in ghost stories and kings with black magic. The northern army had the superior system, but Tenochtitlan wouldn’t break tradition. To do so would imply the king didn’t exercise supernatural power over the undead. To suggest that meant death.
Quintana realized the only way to modernize their army was to move forward and do what he could in secret. He would ask forgiveness, not permission. This meant restructuring military doctrine, inventing new techniques, and winning battles to prove he was right.
He was putting some of his ideas to paper, or at least trying to, when he heard rumors that a large army was approaching from the north. The descriptions from the scouts matched the army he’d met in Gleeson. He sent the messengers away and looked at his nascent plans on the page. He had nothing. It was too late. He felt like a fool.
The king summoned him. Quintana was blindfolded before being taken into his presence. Quintana had never seen the king or his inner sanctum within the old church that now served as a temple. All he knew of the sanctum was the stench of rotting corpses mixed with incense, and the dull groans of walkers. This visit he heard what he assumed was the king shaking red rocks in his hand. It felt oppressive, and Quintana hated every second in there.
“Quintana,” the king began. He had a hoarse voice, not much louder than a whisper. He also slurred a bit.
“Yes, my king?” Quintana tried to sound reverent.
“You failed Tenochtitlan before, but now is your chance to earn forgiveness. The people still believe in you and will fight for you. Don’t waste their loyalty. Now go, prepare to defend your king and people.”
“Yes, my king,” Quintana bowed low before being led out of the sanctum. He took a deep breath as he exited the room.
Panic spread across Tenochtitlan. The army that had defeated them in battle was coming to their doorstep. It would arrive there in a week or two. Some tried to flee the city, but the narrow floating bridge across the lake and the dangerous path through the buried walkers made it slow going. Most thought the city was the safest place to be. What means of survival was there in the absence of the protection and food Tenochtitlan provided? The king left the defenses to the military leaders while he saw to the religious ceremonies required by the moment.
To stave off the anxiety of the days that followed, the people turned to Tenochtitlan’s first-class entertainment. The fighting rings were packed every night. Drunkenness and rape were becoming problems. Chaos broke out as the people ignored day-to-day responsibilities in the face of the end of the world.
This hopelessness was premature in Quintana’s mind. The end of the world had
not come. Tenochtitlan had never been breached by an enemy force, and her defenses were stronger than ever. The buried walker fields would halt the army’s initial approach. There were thousands of them buried up to their waist in the area surrounding Lake Texcoco, the lake containing the capitol island, for protection. These walkers were rotting, they often escaped, and were long overdue to have their stock replenished. Buried only feet from each other and covering thousands of acres, they would slow an attacking army considerably. Placed among the walkers were wooden spikes to cause further delays as well as tunnels whereby human defenders could pop out above ground to harass the attackers. All these tunnels could be caved in on short notice to prevent compromising the entire network. Tenochtitlan’s forefathers had simply built these defenses to defend the city; there were no supernatural powers at play.
If the attackers got past the walker fields, they would encounter the lake. The only way across it was the floating bridge, which would be destroyed prior to the siege. The lake would have to be crossed by boat. Quintana guessed the northerners hadn’t thought to bring those along. In the water were throngs of partially submerged and bloated undead impeding any attempts to cross. If the army made it across the lake, they would face the city wall. It was thirty feet tall and solid rock with battlements every few hundred feet. Should the northerners manage to penetrate that, they would find a partially flooded city with a convoluted layout that even residents got lost in. The urban defense forces knew the city well, however. The jungle of trees, destroyed skyscrapers, and crumbling buildings was their home turf. It would be fought block by block, something these northerner probably weren’t used to. They would have no means of quickly transporting their “modern” walker army into the city. Even if they could, they wouldn’t be able to deploy it effectively in the tight spaces. Despite Quintana’s respect for the northerners and contempt for his own leadership, he thought the northerners were about to harness more than they could handle, as the saying went.
Refugees streamed into the city. They carried their possessions and marched across the floating bridge, bringing dire news from the south with them. The Panama Canal herd had crossed and was coming straight for Tenochtitlan. All the refugees were fleeing to the capitol and would bring the walkers in right behind them.
Tenochtitlan’s panic intensified. The king sent a message to his leaders, which they relayed to the people. He had to turn the events to his favor.
“We have always feared the giant herd, but it is coming to help us in our need!” one of the spokesmen said. “The herd will not enter the city but will destroy the northerners!” The malleable people of the city cheered, for their deliverance and their wise king who foretold it. Countless celebrations began. Quintana rebuked the leaders for letting the people celebrate when Tenochtitlan should be preparing.
“You do not understand what the people need,” one said to Quintana.
“They need to be massing food stores and preparing for a battle!” Quintana bellowed.
“Our people must be reassured they can rely on the undead, and therefore our king,” another explained. Quintana just stared. This logic escaped him.
The oldest turned to Quintana to explain but he wasn’t listening. His confidence had turned to dust. Tenochtitlan was run by superstitious fools who would get everyone killed.
They did make one decision he approved of. They destroyed the floating bridge to force a river crossing into the capitol.
***
Sara’s army approached. They were just a three day’s march from Tenochtitlan. Along the way she had learned a lot about the capitol from villagers willing to help. The city had a lot of enemies. Tenochtitlan took crippling tributes from the surrounding countryside in the form of food and lumber, and started skirmishes to justify taking prisoners to turn for the army.
She also confirmed that the entire city was surrounded by water. Not only that, the water itself was surrounded by a sea of partially buried zombies. This sounded ridiculous to her. How dangerous were walkers that couldn’t move?
“Just send some men through with an axe to destroy them!” she blurted out. Her informants assured her it wasn’t that easy.
The king of the city was said to have supernatural powers over the undead. He could bend them to his will. They obeyed his commands and feared his wrath. It was also rumored that he ate the undead for power and would remove the eyes of anyone who saw him do it. All the people Sara talked to were terrified of the king, and only referred to him as “El Diablo.” The Devil.
Sara scoffed at these stories. She told the locals if they helped her capture Tenochtitlan she would give them freedom and land. Some took her up on the offer and were enlisted as soldiers, spies or scouts. They numbered in the thousands, and Sara thought this the best sign so far of her impending victory—the people were on her side and wanted the rule of Tenochtitlan to end. Other tribes relocated further north to avoid the war that was coming.
She let these people escape the impending conflict, not that she could stop them. It didn’t matter to her. With her inevitable capture of the city she was feeling confident and generous. Besides, if they actually had valuable information she could have them rounded up and tortured later.
Obevens and Bowen had decided the best plan, or at least the one with highest chance of success, was to wait until the battle had broken out to make their move. In the pandemonium, they would find an opportunity to lure Sara away from the rest of her leadership. They would probably have to kill all her guards, too. Obevens hated the thought. He didn’t like killing people unless he had to. He reminded himself that in this case he had to. Killing her would save countless other lives. He couldn’t afford to have second thoughts now. Everything was at stake. They had considered bringing in Commander Drew. His disagreements with her had intensified lately in number and degree. In the end, though, it had seemed too risky.
“Dalbec, please send an envoy to the capitol to allow them to surrender. Once word of our force arrives, I believe they will sue for peace,” Sara said. She was beaming. Even Dalbec smiled, as he turned to carry out the order.
“Oh, and Dalbec.” Sara brushed her hair out of her face. “Send five thousand men and one thousand walkers with the envoy to drive the point home.”
Dalbec nodded and trotted off.
The envoy left a few hours later. The main force would march another day and wait for their return. The soldiers were already joking and laughing at how easy this was going. They were two days from the capitol and had met no resistance. They freely daydreamed back and forth amongst themselves about the plunder they would take from their beautiful new city.
“Ma’am, I don’t mean to criticize,” Drew began at a meeting. This always meant he was going to criticize. “Why send an envoy while waiting a day’s march from the city? Why not mobilize the entire force and communicate a much more potent message about your strength?”
Sara didn’t flinch at the question. “Can I let you in on a little secret, Drew?” Sara leaned forward in her chair, a smug smile on her face. She had dark circles under her eyes.
Drew raised his eyebrows.
“I am going to have you killed after this battle,” she said.
He shuddered and took a step back. After a few seconds of silence, he saluted and hurriedly left the tent. Obevens and Bowen both heard the exchange. Bowen looked at Obevens and gave a subtle nod.
“That is a weight off my shoulders,” Sara sighed, as she turned to look south again and think about her next move. She had sent the envoy with those numbers for two reasons. The first was she didn’t want to commit her whole force in case the defenses were as tangled as reported. Despite her bravado, she wanted this to be a calculated assault. The attack on the fort had taught her not to underestimate an outnumbered enemy with excellent defenses. Even though she’d won, the losses had been higher than expected. She wasn’t going to risk a debacle. The second reason was she wanted the people in the city to see a smaller force than they’d expected. She
wanted to get their hopes up so when the entire force arrived it would dash their hopes. Let them think I’m weak.
Bowen waited until Drew was alone. Sara had simply let him walk off. He slumped limply on a stool in his tent, face gray and blank with dread. There was nowhere for him to go. He couldn’t leave the army and he couldn’t stay. His only chance was if Sara lost the battle.
“Do you want to live?” Bowen asked.
Drew looked up at him and nodded.
Chapter 13
Tenochtitlan loomed in the distance. John and the family who’d transported him were on the final leg of their journey to safety. They were in a long line of refugees streaming in from the countryside. They all thought of the giant herd that brought them here. Even though the city already knew of the herd, they were afraid to even mention it to locals. No need to alarm them, at least not until they were safely within the walls.
The towering buildings had appeared first as small dark dots on the horizon. As they got closer, John began to see the scale of these monstrosities. “Do people live in those?” he thought. His curiosity surrounding the structures was soon displaced by the increased anxiety of the crowd. They were approaching the buried dead. John didn’t understand what that meant, and thought he was losing something in translation. He saw soon enough. What he first thought was an expanse of evenly spaced shrubs or short trees revealed itself to be thousands of the undead buried up to their waists in the ground.
He stopped dead in his tracks, his mind racing. What kind of trap had they all fallen into? The family looked back and motioned urgently for him to follow. Was it like Rosa, some sort of madness driving the refugees to their death? The father of the family strode impatiently back to John and said in broken English “Safe path,” tugging on John’s arm.
100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan Page 8
