100 A.Z. (Book 2): Tenochtitlan

by Nelson, Patrick T.

  “Drew, take your men to the flanks or we’re done!” Bowen yelled as he saw another go to stab the bitten man in the forehead. “Sorry, mate,” the comrade with the knife said. The man saw it coming and looked down. It was a good soldier who didn’t plead in such circumstances.

  Bowen looked up and for some reason had caught sight of Dalbec out of the corner of his eye. He was running from the fray, clutching a large book to his chest. His first instinct was disgust, then disregard. Dalbec wasn’t much of a fighter anyway.

  Sara hadn’t delivered any orders in an hour. She had relegated herself to her tent, which was in danger of being trampled over. She listened to the reports of the men struggling to push the geldings against the herd to keep it from breaking through. She wondered how long the harnesses would hold. Everything depended on those harnesses now. How funny, she thought, that everything would come down to some leather and hemp. She supposed that was all she had left. Her army was gone. Her guards stole glances at her, unsure at the distant look in her eye.

  “Obevens. Where is Obevens? I want to…” she trailed off.

  “We don’t know his location,” one of the guards answered hesitantly.

  “Can you find him? Please?” she asked. He saw fear in her eyes.

  “Yes ma’am.” The head guard jogged off.

  Obevens was busy. In the press to escape the herd, he’d been separated from his guards and ended up with Drew’s men. Using a metal club he’d pried from the hand of an unlucky Academy soldier’s body, he was right there with them, swinging, shooting and stabbing away to defend the flank from the undead coming through the buried zombies. They were all filthy with mud and gore.

  Obevens yelled, as he kicked one walker in the knee. As it broke, and the walker fell, he smashed another in the head. He swung back around to destroy the broken-legged one, which was still grabbing for his leg. Another grasped him from behind, and he twisted and gripped it before using his hip to throw it to the ground and crush its head with his club. He reared up again into the continuous stream.

  Through the mess and noise he heard a voice calling. Eventually he focused enough to hear his name being called.

  “Obevens! Obevens! Miss Sara wants you!” It was the head guard, shouting to him.

  “What?” Obevens yelled, incredulous, as he shot two walkers in the face before striking another with the butt of the empty pistol he’d gotten off a dead man. A zombie wrestled him to the ground, but he outmaneuvered it and stood up.

  “Miss Sara wants you!” the guard shouted again, louder.

  Obevens turned and looked at the man with disbelief. A walker lunged at Obevens but he knocked it aside and thumped its head. The zombie had been one of their soldiers.

  “You tell her she can…” but Obevens never finished. A large explosion erupted from where their camp had previously been. KAABBBOOOOOMMMM! A fireball shot into the sky, followed by a shockwave that almost knocked them over. Zombie bits sprinkled down from the sky.

  Shaking his head against the ringing in his ears, Obevens looked back to their flank. More walkers were coming through.

  “More!” he shouted at Drew’s men. Sara’s guard surrendered to the futility of his task and went back to his mistress empty handed.

  Dalbec was with Sara, and was terrifically excited about something.

  “It worked! It worked! Just like the book said! I was worried when we left it behind, but I did what the book said, and it worked!” Dalbec shouted at Sara.

  “What are you talking about?” she snapped.

  “It was just like a recipe!” he said, and began babbling and gesturing, running off a bunch of long, strange and scientific-sounding words that irritated Sara.

  The explosion had temporarily distracted the main herd, redirecting them toward the disturbance. This gave Sara’s men some time. They were able to push the geldings forward enough to give them some breathing room. The men could move now, as well as get rid of the bodies of trampled men.

  “Ma’am, I can’t get Obevens,” the guard announced sheepishly.

  Dalbec stopped, thrown by the interruption, and the mention of Obevens. What could Sara possibly want with him right now? Hadn’t he, Dalbec, just resurrected ancient military technology?

  Sara did not answer the guard. She simply looked at him, then raised her pistol and pointed it at him. He flinched. She lowered her gun. “Please get out of the way,” she asked in a calm voice.

  The guard turned and saw behind him and twenty zombies stumbling them. Many were Drew’s men, now turned. She unloaded her clip into the group, dropping at least ten of them. Her guards hacked up the rest as she loaded a new clip and turned to her head guard.

  “With me,” she barked as she shoved through her men to Drew’s position. “Why are there still biters in here with us!”

  Sara shot her way through the stray walkers in front of her, as she continually reloaded clips into her gun. Her guards struggled to keep up. One walker came close to her, and she struck it twice in the forehead with the butt of her pistol.

  They made it to Drew’s men, who were in the process of putting up a string of geldings and piling the dead walkers into a berm. Half the men were working, and the other half were protecting the workers.

  “Why are there wild biters in with my army?” she yelled at Drew. He hadn’t seen her coming, and dropped the corpse he was carrying and went to attention.

  “Miss Sara, we almost have it under control,” he said as a previously unnoticed zombie caught his eye. It was missing a foot and was straggling slowly and awkwardly toward him. He nervously looked back at Sara, awaiting permission to be at ease.

  “I don’t want you to kill anymore. It is time to collect and harness. I’m sending the handlers your way to help. I don’t want that one, though,” she said pointing with disgust at the one now ten feet from him. “Kill it,” she said. Drew turned and hit it in the head with his axe as it came within striking distance.

  “I need Bowen!” Sara shouted.

  “Miss Sara needs to find Bowen!” the head guard yelled to the surrounding area. She glared at him with loathing. He shrank back apologetically.

  “Bowen here!” he jogged up a minute later.

  “Status,” Sara demanded.

  “The main herd is currently distracted by the explosion, thanks to Dalbec,” Bowen replied.

  Sara didn’t reply, unimpressed.

  “He saved us all, ma’am. We have a chance to repair some gelding harnesses and reposition them,” Bowen said.

  “Don’t worry about Dalbec. His reward is a job well done.” She waved dismissively. “What about the men who went into the city?”

  “What men who went into the city?” he said, surprised.

  “Oh yes. I suppose I didn’t tell you. Yes, before all this happened,” she motioned to the vague “out there” of the herd, “I sent some natives into the city to see what they could find out.”

  “Why wasn’t I informed?” Bowen asked.

  “Because I can’t trust you,” she replied. She motioned for her guards to grab Bowen.

  Obevens was looking on from behind some of Drew’s men. They stepped away from him, and the guards grabbed him as well. Drew walked over to Sara smugly. He had betrayed the two men. Whether that was his plan all along, or he saw an opportunity to save his own skin, hardly mattered now.

  After disarming them, her guards forced Bowen and Obevens onto their knees in front of her.

  “You,” she pointed at Obevens, “I can understand. But Bowen?” She motioned with her hand. Bowen was about to plea when a bullet went through his head from the guard behind him. He slumped to the ground next to Obevens. “Consider it professional courtesy that I’m only having you shot,” she said to his dead body.

  The guard who shot Bowen put his gun to Obevens’ head. Sara gave a nod.

  Chapter 18

  Carla pointed and yelled, “Through that door!”

  Clumsy footsteps, not too far below, tripping and stumbling u
p the stairs. The biters were only one floor down from them.

  Tock kicked open the decrepit door, and they all hustled through. John quickly shut it behind. He could hear the walkers fumbling up to the level they were on, and he braced himself against the door for the inevitable nudge. The nudge would be followed by a flail or two, then a push, and eventually the full weight of scores of walkers pressing against the door. They would probably be able to hold the door against them, but then what?

  They all cringed, waiting for the first probing of the door, but miraculously the footsteps continued up the stairs. Soon the stairwell was silent.

  Carla let out a deep breath. Lee slumped onto the floor.

  “Keep quiet, everyone, I don’t want to dance right now,” Tock said in a low voice. He looked grey.

  “Hey, look over here!”

  Jamed had wandered away from the group toward a patch of light straining through the wall. He was standing by a small pile of things that proved to be a coil of rope and two bags of shotgun shells. There was also water and some food.

  They tried to clean their hands and then huddled over it and greedily ate while John kept watch at the door. Lee carried him some of the food and he thanked her.

  “Thanks for getting us this far,” she said, putting her hand on his shoulder.

  “Just doing my job,” he said, suddenly embarrassed by the sign of appreciation.

  Lee smiled a bit, sadly. She paused, then, “I heard about your son. Carla told me. I’m so sorry.”

  He nodded but found he couldn’t speak. At least not without losing it. He looked away.

  “I never had a husband or kids,” she said, her voice clearly betraying that she thought it impossible in the future, too.

  “There’s Tock,” John said, straight-faced.

  She laughed out loud. “Ha! No, I said have kids, not marry a kid.” She gently punched him in the shoulder. He laughed a little too. It had been a while since he’d laughed.

  “What you two saying about me over there?” Tock said through a mouthful of beans.

  “Everything isn’t about you, Tock,” Lee sassed.

  They gathered up the supplies after much wondering about where they’d come from. They figured it was from the event coordinators who wanted the show to go on.

  Tock shook his head. “Like I said before, though, there is no show. None of those partiers can see what goes on in here. Something ain’t right, I’m telling you.”

  “He’s right. Keep your eyes open and be ready for anything. We don’t know what they’ve prepared for us,” John said.

  “Well they gave us some food and rope. I’d say they’re helpful,” Jamed said.

  “Unless it was poisoned,” Carla retorted.

  Jamed and Cecil looked at each other. Both were thinking the same thing: Do I make myself throw up or hold on to this nice feeling in my stomach?

  “Come on, let’s go back in the stairwell,” Tock said.

  Since the cats had come back up the stairs, they wondered if there was no exit at the bottom. They hoped whatever had blocked their way was just a door. A door they could open. Tock assured them he could open doors.

  They braced themselves as John slowly cracked the door to the stairwell, as quietly as possible. It was silent. He stuck his head through the opening to see what the stairwell held. There were no walkers in sight, so he opened the door all the way. They all noticed it at once. A trail of small red rocks going up the stairs.

  “Those weren’t there before, were they…?” Carla asked, although she knew the answer.

  “I’ve seen rocks like that before,” John stared. “It means we aren’t the only humans in this building.”

  “Those are from a necromancer,” Cecil said.

  “A who?” Tock asked.

  “People who control the dead, or at least claim to,” Cecil said.

  “No one controls the undead,” Tock scoffed.

  “I heard about them when I used to work the bean fields. There was a farmer who told ghost stories about the necromancers. He said they were in the mountains and lived with and commanded the undead. Supposedly the king is the only one who can grant this power, because the king controls all the undead.”

  “That’s stupid.” Tock rubbed his eyes.

  “Either way, the walkers are upstairs, and we’re going down. Let’s go,” John urged.

  Down the stairs they went, unimpeded, about nine floors. The line of rocks ran all the way down, stopping abruptly in the middle of a floor. Tock kicked them aside. The stairwell was blocked with huge pieces of metal and concrete. The blockage was clearly intentional, but it was unclear how recently it had been placed.

  “Well, we aren’t going any further. Should we get out on the nearest floor and see if we can find another way down?” John asked. Everyone agreed.

  They retraced their steps to the nearest door and spread out in an open formation, guns ready. Tock gently tugged on the handle. It didn’t budge. He pulled harder. Nothing.

  “Let’s go up a floor,” Lee said.

  They went up a floor, and the door was the same. Eventually they had to backtrack four floors to find one that would open. They walked through it, and the light hit them. The sun’s last rays streamed through the open sides of the building. This level had been designed with floor to ceiling window panes on all four sides, which in its current state meant there was nothing between them and a long fall into the water below. They approached the opening to look out. As they did, some revelers in the building adjacent to them began screaming and cheering. Tock waved and the others stared at the spectacle in disbelief. It was a colorful sight. There were streamers, paint and decorations covering the opposite building. It looked like an explosion of color, vandalism, and disarray across the proud and formal skyscraper. The partiers threw fruit to the warriors. They caught some of it and began filling their bags. What they couldn’t catch splattered against the concrete.

  “Now this is more like it,” Tock chuckled. He turned a circle, flashing a huge smile, blowing kisses at some of the ladies. A particularly drunk group was cheering and waving wildly. One of its members got too close to the edge and fell off, plunging into the water thirty stories below. This prompted more cheering.

  “They’re crazy,” Lee said.

  “They love us!” Tock replied.

  Then the tone changed, and the observers began pointing and shouting.

  “They’re coming,” Tock said.

  The group quickly moved into the nearest defendable room and positioned themselves facing the cement doorway leading into it. The breeze from the broken out window chilled them. It felt like rain was coming.

  “They’ll funnel through the door. Only two people shoot at once, the others reload and then switch,” John instructed.

  “Dang, Beard, you know what to do in every situation,” Tock said.

  “Pretty much.”

  “Okay then, question: Say I’m rich and famous and I’m dating a woman, but then I find out her sister is prettier. What do I do then, Beard?” Tock asked.

  “Find a better looking guy than you to date the pretty sister,” John replied.

  “That’s fair!” Tock laughed, which caught the attention of whatever was outside their room.

  A walker entered the doorway and Tock blew its head off. “Zombies piss me off…just trying to have a laugh with my friend Beard,” Tock said.

  There were another fifty behind the one Tock shot and they worked like clockwork for several minutes to shoot and reload until the doorway was full of bodies.

  “That should stop them,” Carla observed proudly, breathing heavy.

  “Nope, look at the pile,” Cecil pointed.

  It was getting nudged slightly into the room by the remaining biters on the other side.

  “I know – the rope!” Lee cried. She grabbed it and deftly wrapped it several times around an exposed piece of rebar jutting out of the floor. She then hurried to the open side of the building and looked down. She drop
ped the end of the rope over the edge.

  “This will get us down to the floor below,” she said.

  Tock volunteered to go first.

  “Wait, but you’re the heaviest,” Jamed said. “If you break it, we’re trapped.”

  “Be my guest,” Tock answered.

  Jamed lowered himself over the side of the building. The shotguns didn’t have straps so Cecil held Jamed’s for him. The moment he dropped to the cement below he yelled, “Shotgun! Hurry!” Cecil tossed it down to Jamed. Shooting followed. Carla jumped onto the rope next and went to help. More shots.

  All of them descended and cleared the room. Jamed’s shooting had improved so the task was easier. There were zombies piled up all about. They rested.

  Cecil had walked off without saying a word. He returned and cleared his throat. “There’s another stairwell on the other side of the building.” Everyone turned to look at Tock, who shrugged.

  They made their way to the new stairwell and continued down the floors. John kept an eye out for the red rocks but didn’t see any.

  At nightfall, they found a room with a door they could barricade and slept while switching off guard duty. Rain came but thankfully didn’t permeate the building to reach their floor. The weeds were also thinning out in the lower levels, due to the lack of water.

  In the morning, they continued as the previous day. Moving lower and lower, finding barricades, getting around them, and killing the undead.

  On the third day, they were only five stories from the bottom. Everyone was tired, hungry and sick of stepping in what they assumed was cat poop.

  They did their reconnaissance routine of the floor below and found that it teemed with walkers.

  “There must be hundreds down there,” Cecil said, hushed, as he peered through a long, thin crack in the floor. The biters had also seen them and were getting worked up.

  There was silence for a moment.

  “I’ll go,” Carla finally volunteered.

  Carla, Tock, and Jamed went to the window at the end of the hallway. Tock tied the last piece of rope around Carla’s waist, and they lowered her out the window. She walked her way down the side of the building and tried to ignore the cheers from the building across the water. She positioned herself to the side of the floor-to-ceiling window of the infested level, then nodded up to Jamed. He carefully dropped her shotgun down. She caught it.