Knight of the Dead (Book 1): Knight of the Dead

by Smorynski, Ron

  He finds the secondary stairwell. The hooligans barricaded this stairwell at the first floor. He yanks the shopping cart and the stove out of the way, opening another entrance into the building. He goes up the stairs. The gun fire and the yelling of the hooligans drowns out his steel clacking in a hollow stairwell. He bashes open the door to the next floor. He can hear several of them yelling around the corner.

  “Gotchya zombies. I gotchya. You want some!? Take this, ahh! Get back! Shoot'em in the head! I need more ammo! Who let them in!?”

  “I saw a truck. Some motherfucker smashed our wall with a truck!”

  “Whah!?”

  “Was it that guy? That crazy warrior?”

  The knight turns the corner, unleashing all of the AK-47, blasting holes in the mid sections of the guys standing there. One drops to his knees holding his guts in as zombies immediately dive in. Two are instantly dead. One at the door slides down as zombies pull him out and rip him apart. Another turns a corner with a box of ammo, and looks up. The knight slowly walks backwards, changing out magazines, as the zombies charge in, bulldozing over the screaming punks.

  He empties the second mag into several zombies that come after him as he backs away. He drops the AK-47 and hurries to the stairs ahead of the forming zombies. He slips into the stairwell.

  He has not seen the skinny punk who shot him. He goes up to the third floor and bashes the stairwell door open. They barricaded it but not very well. Someone screams inside and rushes off. He pushes his way in. He rambles down the hallway, shield up. Perhaps the one he really wants is inside one of these rooms. He doesn't know. He realizes it doesn't matter. He now wants them all dead. He sees punks run across his path, down another corridor. They shoot back wildly. The door to the main stairwell is locked. Dad opens it. Zombies pour in. He stands still as they run around him. A zombie twirls near him, sensing him. He doesn't move. The zombie hears the screams ahead and gets back to the rush. The knight backs away slowly and makes it to the back stairwell and goes up quickly to the fourth floor. He doesn't know if the screams are from the innocent or guilty.

  He opens the fourth floor stairwell door. The hallway is a mess of graffiti and blood, ripped carpets, smell of urine and feces, bottles and drugs. The doors are all open, as if it is some sort of denizen, some sort of cave. He peers in one apartment. Women are chained. One is a zombie. The others look dead or near death. He passes on to another room. It is clean, pristine. An old woman and a young girl are hiding there, peering at him.

  “Are you him?” the old lady asks.

  He nods. The girl cowers. The old lady bows. She pulls out a handgun. “Don't kill my son.”

  She aims it at the towering knight. He walks away. She hobbles to the door to shoot him in the back. She gets there and the knight suddenly reappears and crushes her tiny skull in. She collapses like a brown bag of air. The girl screams and cowers. The knight takes the small pistol and tosses it out the window.

  Down the corridor, he sees smoke coming from a room. Within, he looks quickly, shield held high. There are several writhing bodies on the floor. They are drugged. He looks past them. It’s the skinny guy who shot him. He is in the back with others behind a barricade. They see him.

  “It's you, the warrior! Take this motherfucker!” The guy fires his handgun. The others fire away.

  The knight backs behind the wall. The bullets go through the apartment walls quite easily, hit his shield and go past to the young girl. She had her own pistol and was going to shoot the knight in the back. She drops, holding a wound to the stomach as another bullet rips her chest. She dies silently with no one to know but the knight.

  “That's right steel man! Take some of our steel!” the hooligan laughs maniacally.

  The knight puts his shotgun through a hole in the wall and fires his buckshot shells. They wreak havoc on the guys. The shoddy barricades don't hold up well. Several scream. The skinny guy ducks. The knight pumps and shoots again and again. Pellets scream through their barricades, ricocheting and smashing everything. Another guy screams firing wildly toward the wall.

  The knight turns to see zombies finally coming from the stairwell at him. He steps into the room with his shield up. It receives a good dozen impacts from the hooligans gunfire. It holds up quite well. The skinny guy looks and points his gun as his comrades are screaming in pain. The drugged out kids on the floor are completely out and don’t know what is happening. Others are screaming and crying in fetal positions.

  The zombies pour in, leaping past the knight who side steps calmly to the corner. They run at the wide eyed shooters. The skinny guy tries to shoot the knight, but falls back in paralyzing fear. The zombies leap atop the feeble furniture and barricades, leaping at anyone who screams. The hooligans in their panic can't seem to hit anything vital. The zombies over run them. The main guy's flesh is being ripped off his limbs but he manages to raise his gun at the knight. Their eyes meet. A zombie chomps down on his hand and the gun falls as he drops.

  The room fills quickly. The knight steps to the small hall, to a bedroom, closes the door, then hacks his way through a wall to another room. He kicks and smashes through not worrying about the noise as the zombies are busy with flesh in the other room.

  He goes into the other room. A scared kid attempts to attack him with a samurai sword. He slashes at the knight's steel armor. The knight pulls out his dirk as he deflects with the shield and stabs straight into the exposed abdomen. Never swing wildly at a skilled swordsman.

  The knight sheaths the dirk and takes the katana from the dropping idiot. It's actually a pretty nice sword.

  A man dressed all in leather with spiked fists leaps at him, clanking his worthless gothic spikes onto the knight's helmet. Perhaps in some perverse sex act, these spikes might cause a twitching of erotic pain, but to the knight, they are only a reminder of this one's pathetic thoughts. The knight pushes the whimpering play man hard against a fridge and slashes a deep blood letting wound across his fat belly. The play man folds silently as blood spits out and guts ooze.

  He quietly and calmly walks out to the corridor. He goes to the front end stairwell and down a floor. More zombies are rushing in, but have lost their way and are somewhat scattered. He moves slowly as they near him. He swings the katana swiftly. It is lighter than his blade and needs a more light footed finesse but he manages. He gets to the bottom. The zombies there are drifting, as they don’t sense any new victims nearby. His attacks are quick enough in tight quarters that the zombies do not converge on him.

  He clears a path to the truck, cutting deftly with the blade. Looking toward the street, he sees his sword and shield. He tosses the katana and ballistic shield in the back of the truck and rushes for the sword he dropped when he was shot. As he does, many zombies see him.

  He reaches his sword, a medieval heavy longsword. He pulls it up and lops off the head of two zombies. He does tight torque style swings, cutting hands and calves, dropping zombies in waves.

  More come from all sides. He grabs up his shield just a few paces away. He fights his way fiercely to the truck and gets in. They grab at him through the truck door. With steel armor, he can ignore their unbalanced weak clasps. He drives back out, crushing zombies, then turns back up one street and down his street. A few zombies are in tow but they begin dropping one by one from his daughters' hail of 22 fire.

  He drives casually, peacefully and parks in front. He gets out to see a lone zombie make it this far. But a 22 round penetrates its skull and it plops. He looks up at the roof to see his daughters' shadowy sniper repose. He returns to his family. He walks up the driveway with his weapons of war. He stands at the back table and takes off his armor, piece by piece and wipes them down. His wife comes to help him. He kisses his wife.

  20. God's Plan

  “Dad, did God do this?” asks Charlotte

  “I don't know, maybe.”

  “Are we being punished?”

  “Possibly, sure feels like it.”

  “But why,
so many?”

  “I don't know. So many have sinned and so many have done bad things. We kill babies. We forget God. We think we can just do whatever we want. So much bad has happened. Maybe some crazy scientist made a virus or made a rabies-virus go hybrid and it is infecting everyone. Even in the Bible, in Kings and Chronicles, each generation forgets about God. They start worshiping idols and themselves, opening up their culture to other gods, other things. And they forget God. So he looks away and they suffer horrible stuff. Each time someone comes along to warn them but they won’t listen and bring calamity upon themselves. What they do, who they worship, they do things that make everyone suffer and they don't care. Trust me Charlotte, these zombies are horrible and stuff, but man has done so much bad to man. I don't know what these zombies are. Maybe someone does. Maybe there's someone out there who does. Or maybe Satan, the beast, has been unleashed and is allowed to cause all of this horrible death. I mean, without God, anything is possible, and that anything is hell.”

  “But, are we being punished? Us? We pray to God and love Jesus?”

  “I don't know Charlotte, I don't know.”

  “Maybe Dad, he wants us to be here, to stay and help others, to save others?”

  “Yeah Charlotte, yeah, that's right.“

  “Dad, can you save my friends?”

  “Lena... I don't know.”

  “I miss my friends. Lisa my best friend... what happened to her? I miss her so much. I texted that day, she got home cuz she's close to school. She's still at home. Their apartment isn't far dad...”

  “I know, don't think about it,” his wife answers, rubbing her back. “Your father and I love you. Whatever happens, remember that, okay?”

  “Lena, I'll tell you what, tomorrow, I'll go look, okay? I'll go on the motorcycle to her place and see. If I can bring her here, I will. But please, whatever news I bring back, please don't let it destroy you.”

  “I know. I know.”

  “There's going to be a lot of death and loss, so much. We are hiding here, sheltering ourselves. We're lucky. I'm grateful that I can fight, that I was ready for this kind of crazy... I mean, this IS IT! End of the world apocalypse. But we gotta remember that anyone of us can go, okay? We gotta hold strong.”

  “Hold strong for what Dad?” Charlotte asks with eyes of innocence.

  “Well, uhh, for God. First, for the coming of Christ I guess. This certainly seems like the right time. But well, I guess, to save others. Maybe we can even get out of this city to see if smaller towns did better. Maybe the military was able to help them. I mean, we all know this is a big city. This area is infested. Its gotta be widespread here. We haven't seen any planes or, I dunno. Just let me go tomorrow. I'll go to Lisa's, okay? I'll go.”

  “Thanks Dad. She last texted me that she made it home. And she was texting her dad and other friends at school. This was way back when this started. I don't know how she is now.”

  21. The Trip

  Dad, fully armed, crawls over the backyard wall. He feels a bit stiff in the morning sun. He drops onto the pile of festering goo. It is the dead zombie parts from his first siege in the backyard. He steps through it as a cloud of flies and bugs swirl and buzz around him. Thankfully, a lot of it is drying in the sun. He realizes that the plants are dying and the trees are drying. Plenty of desert weeds are doing fine, growing in many spots, but the greener tone he is accustomed to is dying away. After all, this is a desert.

  He walks through the festering yard to the front where the motorcycle is parked. In addition to his shield and sword, he has a plastic milk bottle and a cut piece of garden hose. The bike is dust ridden but otherwise the same. Odd to feel that he can leave the key in the ignition, park it wherever and know it will be untouched. He stops by a car. The window is bashed open. He reaches in, opens the door, then clicks the fuel cover open. He siphons gas with his cut hose. He spits gas as he fills the gallon jug for the motorcycle. He looks along the quiet neighborhood street – a lot of cars, a lot of gas.

  He sets the jug and hose under a porch nearby. He'll be using that often. He straddles the bike and starts it. It's a touring style motorcycle, not built for speed or show but for driving. Thankfully, it tends to purr instead of growl like a Harley. He drives it quietly through the back streets.

  “Gotta get me some more of these,” he says, muffled in his helm.

  The large oak trees are still green, but many of the grasses and once manicured shrubs are fading. Their once well-watered deep green is being taken over by the drab greenish brown of weeds. He drives around a few crashed cars, up sidewalks, and through yards. The bike seems quiet enough. He drives along Sunset for awhile. There are a few rambling zombies. Most are disinterested.

  Dad is casually cruising along, keeping the same pace. One zombie hustles closer, to sense if anything is there, from the movement and purring of the cycle. The zombie bobs its head, growls a bit, but is unable to recognize Dad as a human. And in that delay of recognition, Dad casually swings his sword, cutting the top half of the head, severing all senses immediately as the cranium lid slides off and the body flops.

  Other zombies turn sensing something just occurred. Dad sits still, a metal visage. The motorcycle purrs. The zombies continue on with their rambling. Dad continues on his way.

  At Fairfax Avenue, which crosses Sunset Boulevard, the cars are wall to wall, packed in, and dust covered. The dead long dried up or picked apart. He spots his first coyote. It's trotting along, quite far away but still discernible in its mangy form. Is it eating the bits of the dead? It doesn't look healthy. How fast things change in the urban landscape.

  He can easily turn to a nearby drug store, walk in and pick up supplies, medicines. The thought entices him, but he promised his daughter he'd check on her friend Lisa.

  He doesn't see any zombies in the tightly jammed spread at the Sunset and Fairfax intersection. It is a major Hollywood intersection with a bunch of sports class BMWs and Mercedes vehicles crunched into each other. Agents and producers, having very important places to be, had to get through, but didn't. It feels like a ghost town of really nice cars.

  The zombies must have migrated somewhere. He drives along the sidewalk, through some parking lots and past side streets. He drives down a back alleyway past dumpsters. It is strangely quiet and peaceful.

  He gets to some known opposing churches, one Catholic, one Presbyterian, facing each other. There are a lot of cars in both lots, parked and jammed. It looks like there was a last stand being made in both, but neither made it. Their doors and windows are bashed. Whatever happened, happened a while ago, and all within met their maker or worse.

  He drives down the sidewalk to the small apartment complex. Looking at the feeble doors and windows, he thinks there is no way anyone could have survived, not for this long. Doors and windows are broken in.

  A small courtyard opens to the sidewalk. The doors and windows face into the courtyard in a U shape. It has a second floor where Lisa and her mother reside. He's never been in her place but has parked and dropped her off many times.

  He walks through the courtyard to the stairway. Dried blood stains abound. He walks up to her apartment on the second floor walkway. The door is closed. He raises his hand to knock. He hesitates but continues, softly. Waits. Looks around. Still quiet.

  No answer. He checks the knob. It's locked. He doesn't want to start bashing it in. He tries wedging his blade in the door but doesn't want to bend the blade. He goes to the adjacent window. He quickly hits it with his steel gauntlet. It breaks easily. He pushes the glass bits inward. It isn't that loud. The pieces fall onto carpet. He is able to reach around to the door. He unlocks it. He opens the door.

  The door is blocked. He pushes it. A couch is in the way. That makes sense. He pushes a bit more and looks in. The place is stacked full of junk. Lisa's mother was something of a hoarder and has many things. It is dark in there, dusty, and quiet. He pushes in enough to step up and over, onto the couch. Steel armor and couch cushions do
not work well together. He bends down to balance.

  He smells the overwhelming stench of human feces. Scattered about are dirty dishes with a few flies buzzing. He steps over many things to the kitchen, where cupboards are open and boxes, cans, and water bottles are empty. He walks into the small hallway. He opens a door to the bathroom. He sees human feces in the toilet and bathtub, and toilet paper crumpled everywhere. Flies lazily crowd on the waste. He closes it.

  He goes to a bedroom door. He opens it and looks in. On the bed is a body. He waits as his eyes adjust to the darkness, to the dust, and sees a girl, partially wrapped in sheets and bedding, lying face down, stripped to her underwear.

  He walks in looking down. She is dirty. She stinks. She must be dead.

  He turns her over. She moves with zombie hands reaching. Dad raises his blade and quickly torques the momentum downward to end it. But he stops. She whimpers and cries, hiding her face.

  His blade hovers and floats several moments, but she does not notice. She is hiding her face in terror, dog tired terror.

  She is terrified of him. Dad realizes that a towering giant horror of a man in steel stands above her. She's already been through a lot and been isolated here for weeks with no help.

  “Lisa!?”

  She cries more, to drown out his gruff, terrifying whisper.

  “Lisa? It's me. Uh, Lisa, it's Lena's Dad.”

  She rolls back over and folds up into a fetal position. She keeps crying into her pillow. He waits for it to end.

  “Lisa? Lisa? I'm not a zombie. I've come to get you, to save you.”

  She stops crying and opens two fingers for a bloodshot eye to look through. She sees a dark huge head with many eyes, his steel helm. She covers again and screams inside her hands.