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

by Smorynski, Ron

  Dad steps back, pulls off his helm. As she screams, he closes the door, “Shhhhh.”

  The door closing makes it worse. He goes to the door to open it and realizes not a good idea. “Lisa, be quiet, for crying out loud!”

  She hushes, her eye pokes out again. She sees his sweaty face. She sits up suddenly and stares at the wall.

  “Lisa?” Dad comes closer.

  She hugs his big steel armor.

  “Lisa.”

  “I'm alone,” she moans.

  “I know. I know. Lena sent me.” He gets on one knee to get to eye level with her. “Lena sent me.”

  “Lena?” Lisa slowly remembers. “Lena?”

  “Yes, she made me come.”

  “Lena... Where is she?” Lisa blindly looks around. Her hair is piled up high, matted, tattered.

  “She's at home, and I'm taking you with me, okay? You wanna come back to our house, be with us? With Lena? With Charlotte? Even our dang dog is alive.”

  She nods slowly, her mouth almost smiles.

  “Oh and my wife, she's there too. They can take good care of you, okay? Clean you up, cuz boy you stink!”

  “I know. I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed.” She covers herself. She has lost a lot of weight and looks gangly, sickly. Her mind is probably not there either. She seems drugged, dehydrated. It looks as if she were sleeping herself to death.

  “You got any water?”

  She shakes her head no. There are water bottles around, but most are empty. He notices one has a bit. He picks it up and sniffs. It’s awful smelling. He tosses it. He sniffs a few more with the same awful results. She tries to get back in the dirty fecal sheets, to sleep to death.

  “Ah no, nope, you gotta get up, okay? You're coming with me. Is anyone else here?”

  It takes a while for her mind to focus, to think, her glazed eyes finally discern, and then she cries and responds, “No, she didn't come back. My mom didn't come back. She promised.” She covers her face and cries. She doesn't have tears. It is a dry weak cry.

  “Okay, well you got a new mom now, and she's waiting for you, okay? And you got Lena and Charlotte and me now, okay? You're coming with me. You gotta get up. Let's get back. We got food and water too. We even got Doritos and cookies. You want some, huh?”

  “Cookies?” she sighs.

  Dad lifts her up. She used to be as big as Lena, taller. She was the post player on their varsity team, but now she is so thin and feeble. Dad is surprised at how light she is, and also, how weak. He knows she can't defend herself if zombies were to come up and get past him. She'd be bitten for sure.

  “Lisa, do you have any clothes? Can you put some clothes on?”

  She nods but it's as if she has been drugged or just dragged out of a nightmare hospital bed. She hobbles on bony knees and a protruding pelvis. Her underwear barely fit with receded flesh. Dad almost wants to cry, but at the end of his sudden emotional ride, there is hope in saving her.

  “Okay, get some clothes on, okay? Try these.”

  He picks up some basketball shorts. He gets her to lean on his steel armor as he puts her feet through one by one, then lifts them up. She grabs them and places them on her waist. They fall right back down.

  “Oh, I've lost some weight,” she says smiling in her dream state.

  He pulls them up again. They fall again. He yanks off his steel gauntlets and leather gloves, and pulls the strings and tightens the baggy shorts and has her pull them up again. They stay.

  “Do you have any pads, knee pads, you know, like the ones you use when you play basketball?”

  She nods, pointing to the basketball bags on the floor. He digs through them and pulls out knee pads and puts them on her. Her knees are knobby but the pads fit snug. He can't believe how skinny she's become.

  “Lisa, look, I need to cover your arms with some kind of protection. So let's tie these shirts onto your arms and your elbows okay, just in case.”

  She nods sleepily. He covers her, and ties things on using her many assorted hair bands. She looks like a dressed up doll, barbie style, only in grotesque undead proportions. Her father was a Jew. He can't help think of the Holocaust looking at her face, her arms, legs and ribs. Can she hold on to him on the bike as he drives along? What if he has to race along? If she were to fall off, she'd probably die from the impact to her feeble frame.

  “Come on Lisa, you gotta give me some strength, just enough to drive back to Lena, okay?”

  Lisa nods, but stares blankly.

  Dad puts back on his helm, his gloves. She looks at him.

  “Is that your sword fighting stuff?”

  Dad stops. “Yeah, you remember?”

  She nods, staring blankly at him.

  “Yeah, the medieval thing I did, uh... do.”

  “Why are you wearing that?”

  Dad shrugs under the steel armor. “Come on.”

  He gently tugs her past the stench of the apartment, over the couch, to the door.

  He peers out of the apartment door, down to the courtyard. Two zombies have shown up. They must have sensed him earlier, breaking in and coming up. They are meandering in the courtyard. If they bark an alarm, others will come. The upper walkway is exposed. If there is any movement, they'd surely see him.

  He waits a moment to see where they are going. They aren't going anywhere but in a circle.

  “We going?”

  “Shhh, zombies down there, two of them.”

  “Zombies? Is that what they are?”

  “Yeah, well, yeah.”

  “I just thought maybe a war started. And we lost.”

  “Shhh, okay, you wait here. I'm going to go down and kill them. Can you walk down by yourself when I wave to you?”

  She nods yes, no, it's circular. He's not sure. He goes anyway. He walks slowly, looking down at them. Both suddenly freeze and sense him above. They look up at him and are curious but not frenzied. He moves along to the back stairway. They hustle over but have not yet barked an alarm.

  He meets them at the stairwell. They come up quickly, growling. He punches the first in the face, to shut it up, then swings down on the second. But the blade misses the head and sinks deep into the clavicle. The zombie screams. He elbows it with steel and has to scramble and leap down the stairs as both go toppling. They both manage to growl loudly as he gives up any pretense of perfected silencing. He slashes away at their heads till both are hacked up and dead.

  He looks up to see Lisa standing at the top. She looks down in a deadbeat stare. “Oh, that's why you wear that.”

  She takes a step down the stairs. Since she doesn't realize how weak she is, she nearly falls to her death. Dad rushes up to catch her. She meets his steel armor and hurts herself but at least he softens it a bit by grabbing her weak limbs. Yet parts of her body, dangling, are too weak to tell her it hurts.

  “Sorry, I didn't,” she mumbles.

  “It's okay. It's okay. Let's go.” Dad pulls her along. He can sense more zombies coming. He sees a crawler way off, a pretty fast one with entrails from his midsection dragging along. It's his bark that lets Dad know, there's more to come. He gets her to the bike. He straddles it and tells her to get on. She's too weak. Damn. He gets back off. Zombies still haven't shown up yet. The crawler is coming but if all goes well, he can just drive off. He is in the courtyard with the bike so he can't see out on the street. He picks her up and places her on the back seat. He grabs his bungee cord and wraps her, hooks her as best he can to the seat and chrome fixtures in the rear.

  “What is that?” she asks in her drugged state.

  The crawler made it faster than he thought. The thing bites at his leg. He looks down. It toddles on its two hands and crumpled mid-section, using what's left of its dangling intestines as a third leg. He kicks it back. Then it rights itself back up, head and neck exposed. He lops the head off.

  Others run in, turning into the courtyard.

  Lisa screams trying to squirm away.

  He jumps on, pressing her firm
ly back. He rides out. A fast zombie, quite capable of leaping on him and throwing them off, rushes in. Dad points his sword at it, as it runs right into it. The blade slides in and next to the spinal cord. The zombie grabs at them. Lisa hyperventilates. Dad twists the blade fiercely to crack the spine. The zombie, paralyzed, slides off.

  He drives out a bit too fast. Lisa adds barely any weight. He rides past zombies circling and gets some distance quickly up the street.

  A handful make chase. He can see them through the rear-view mirrors. Lisa has her eyes closed, almost mummy like, in her wrapped bungee cords.

  “Oh my God! Oh God! Oh God!!!” she mumbles.

  Dad stops and gets off the bike. She is squirming in convulsions, nearly coming out of the cords and seat. He advances efficiently on the running zombies. He bashes into the first, slices the head of the second, and kicks the third, smashing it into a car. He returns to the first and stomps its head into goo, then points his blade at an oncoming fourth. It runs right at it. The blade drives through the neck. Dad turns the sword, twisting the head. With his other hand,

  he fist smashes the third again, this time into the car window, retracting the gooey brains as he retracts his gauntlet. He pulls the blade out of the fourth's neck as it totters. He braces his elbow meeting the fifth's charge, which flips sideways into a car. He slams it down on the street crushing it. With feet firmly planted, Dad slices horizontally through the sixth, cutting it in half, the top part plops on the fifth with the bottom rolling under a car. Dad returns to the fourth by beheading its twisted head. Finally, he hacks down furiously on the fifth and sixth until they are a mash of sliced exposed parts.

  “Lisa, you have got to shut up.”

  She twitches in the loosening cords, staring at him.

  He refastens the cords. “I'm gonna to get you somewhere safe, okay?” He almost looks and sounds like a medieval Darth Vadar.

  She nods awkwardly.

  “Breathe,” he says.

  She breathes...

  “Okay... Let's go.”

  He gets past the Sunset-Fairfax intersection, past the gas station, and into the residential area. It's less dense, quieter, has large homes and a peaceful feel. He drives quietly humming along, zipping easily again through the luxury cars and wide lanes and wider sidewalks and even wider driveways.

  Lisa is looking around, like a zombie.

  He makes it to the rear of the house again. He unwraps Lisa and escorts her through the backyard, past the pile of zombie dead. She looks at it.

  “You killed all those?”

  “Yeah, this guy and his sword fighting hobby.”

  “Oh okay, sorry for asking.” Lisa's personality and relationship with her best friend's Dad returns. He chuckles.

  He gets her over the wall. Charlotte comes up first, hugging Lisa. Lena walks out and cries with her mother. They all hug. The women all hug. Dad stands back and takes off his helm and gloves.

  They cry for a long time. His wife comes to him finally, crying, holding him, looking up at her huge husband, proud of him. She kisses him on the cheek, rubbing his big sweaty back.

  Charlotte runs in and brings back snacks. Lisa nibbles slowly, chuckling as they remind her repeatedly how much she stinks. They compare how much weight each has lost. Lisa wins. Rondo wants to leap up, like he did many times before to get his extra petting, but they quietly have to pull him away for fear he may knock her over. They make Dad leave the backyard so they can undress and clean her from her days of fecal matter build up.

  Dad rolls his eyes and realizes he has no where to go. No TV, no computer, no front yard. Oh! He can go in the garage and work on some more devastating maces and other weapons. Cool.

  22. Trip Two

  Standing in the garage, he can hear his daughters and new daughter giggling, crying, hugging, eating, and relaxing. He doesn't have much to work with: no blades, no long poles, and no plastic. He could make another mace with nailed spikes.

  He looks down the driveway as a zombie rambles by. Are the girls too loud? The zombie continues on.

  Just up on Hollywood Boulevard is a store with swords and movie props, lots of steel blades, and many of the oriental martial arts variant. He could do a lot with that stuff. He had visited the store before but did not find what he was interested in. Many of the blades are for display only, the main issue being their handles. None seemed like they could handle actual medieval armored fighting. But if he reinforced them, making stronger handles, they might work. And since they would be used only on rotting zombie flesh, it was probably doable.

  The old Asian guy has some real swords in a display, a bit too ornate and gaudy for his tastes. However, he could go there and grab a bunch to see what he could do with them. Maybe he could build an army of survivors. That got him excited. What if he could train others, build medieval weapons for them and have the school be their fortress? People were probably like Lisa, holed up, hiding in their homes, afraid, and running out of supplies. They have nowhere to turn, no one coming to rescue them.

  It is mid-morning. His trip to save Lisa was rather uneventful and quick. He feels full of vigor and wants to do something. He walks back out and sees them all huddled at the table, talking, giggling, and picking at dog snacks.

  They look up and smile. He has forgotten his recent trip and is ready for a more productive time. They can tell he's on to something and are annoyed by his presence, even if he did just save Lisa. “Lena, so I want you to start training Lisa on the pell. I'm gonna go get some more stuff, some swords.”

  “Uh, Dad, you know you just saved her.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Dad swells his chest.

  They roll their eyes.

  “So, can she chill for a bit and get her strength back?” Lena asks.

  “Oh yeah, sure. I don't mean right now... for her to get on the pell and swing away. I'm just saying. When she gets her strength back, show her the ropes. Show her all we got, you know, to pull her weight or whatever around here. Got it?”

  “Okay Dad, not like we're going to text or watch Netflix,” Lena says. The girls snicker.

  Dad rolls his eyes, savior or not.

  His wife stands up, goes over to him, hugs and kisses him.

  “Uhh, mom, not in front of us,” Lena grimaces.

  “It's okay dear. You're my savior. You're my hero.”

  “Mmm hmm.” Dad is fine. “I'm going to get some more blades from a store.

  “What?” Lena moans.

  “There's this martial arts, well sword store. This Asian guy was running it on Hollywood Boulevard. It's filled with swords and things. We can use them.”

  “Dang Dad, getting more toys?”

  “You're getting them for us?” his wife asks.

  “Yeah, for us, for others,” Dad assures.

  “Others? Seriously? You are actually going to finally save others?” Lena sits up.

  “Lena?” His wife gives her a look.

  Lena changes her tone. “No seriously, that is way cool.”

  “Yeah we gotta do this,” Charlotte bobs up and down in excitement. “Save others!”

  “Dad gets to go have fun again. Wish we could go shopping!” Lena says a bit too loud. Lisa and Charlotte giggle.

  Dad is amused but only slightly. The wife knows they better clamp it down.

  “Sorry, just joking.” Lena slumps.

  “I'm getting blades, to make more weapons. When Lisa's strength is up, we'll move into that school. And start saving others.”

  “Awesome,” Charlotte says.

  “Yeah Dad, that's cool. We can do it.” Lena thumbs up.

  Lisa smiles. Already her color is returning and her lips are moist. The wife begins the process of brushing her matted hair.

  “Be careful dear,” his wife says.

  “You be careful. And be quiet. I'd say, get Lisa up in the attic. If the shit hits the fan, if zombies should come, I don't think she can get up there fast. So, get her up there soon.”

  Lena nods. Ch
arlotte and the wife nod.

  Dad drinks some water, eats a few handfuls of dog food, takes a water bottle and a few biscuits. He takes a dump and tosses it over the wall. He gets a cloth shopping bag as his new tool sack and fills it with a crowbar, a hammer and a chisel. He heads out. He goes out the backyard, over the wall, to the motorcycle. The tank still has plenty of gas. He has the gas he siphoned off earlier plus a full five gallon container of gas in the garage. And there are plenty of cars around to siphon. He bungee cords a duffle bag to the bike, ready this time to pack it full of goods.

  He drives up to Hollywood Boulevard, giving a wide birth to his home so he won't attract zombies. Up on Hollywood Boulevard, there are a lot of zombies. Many are severely mauled, crawling around. Some have been crushed under cars, partially eaten and stuck there groveling. The rest are limping about staring at movements, at glints of light and passing reflections in store windows.

  The major tourist area is packed with cars, taxis and tourist buses. The day of the first attack must have hit this area as tourists were gathering. Swathes of cameras and tourist signs and backpacks litter the area. Tourist buses have bloodied and smashed windows. Their exteriors are surrounded by car collisions.

  He drives along as a small horde builds behind him, collecting more as he passes. This should get interesting. He knows to keep a good pace. But he must be mindful as he could get stuck down a path that leads to a car jam and have to backtrack. He stops a lot, to stand up and see his path ahead. A zombie jumps at him but bounces off his steel armor. He flinches, his shoulder throwing the zombie off. As it scrambles to recharge, he pulls out his sword, circling wide to come down on its head, splitting it. It slides off. He sheathes his sword, sees an open path and continues just as a small horde tries to reach him.

  As he drives through the main tourist area with zombies in tow, zombies flail from buses, zombies come out of tourist stores, and he realizes that there are a lot of zombies.

  They swarm over everything. Some climb over and fall hard on asphalt, cracking their limbs and popping ligaments. They do not feel it, getting up with some new injury and coming on relentlessly.