by Paul Neuhaus
I went around to the back of my car and opened the trunk. From it, I withdrew a gladius in a scabbard with a belt (this I fastened around my waist), and a dory. I slammed the trunk and reentered the Firebird for what I figured would be the last time. I sat down, slid the spear over the backseat so I could grab it at a moment’s notice, and I revved the engine. I put the vehicle into gear and plowed into the field of lurking shapes.
Getting to the mountain and up its slope was my one and only priority. If I couldn’t get to Hermes’ door and sound the horn, this whole trip into the desert would be a waste.
At first, I cut through the creatures blocking my path with ease. In time, they tightened their ranks and made the going more difficult. None of them feared dying; it was their purpose. They existed only to do Prometheus’s bidding and they did it with gibbering enthusiasm.
Once they were inside my headlight beams (and splattered on my windshield), I could tell what the monsters were. They were animated corpses. George Romero would’ve been pleased—particularly whenever I ran over one and sent its insides splattering to the four winds.
Even as I leaned all my weight onto the accelerator and steered toward Olympus, I knew I wasn’t going to make it. There were too many of them, and my axles were choked with their gelatinous remains. My wheels started smoking. The evil dead closed in tighter and tighter in front of me. Since I’d have to get out at some point and fight hand to hand, I wanted to make sure I was as close to the mountainside as I could get. I hunched down so I could see over the heads of the zombies. Hermes had said the eastern face of Olympus, but I had no idea which direction was east. I also had no way of knowing what orientation the peak had chosen for itself in its journey from Greece to America. Of course, it was too dark to see. The mountain was little more than a blot of darkness in front of me. I felt a twinge of panic. Not because of the zombies, but because of my uncertainty. It wouldn’t do me much good to reach Olympus and be on the wrong side. I could probably keep a fair number of undead at bay, but not if I also had to circumnavigate the mountain on foot.
Then a miracle happened.
Two giant brasiers suddenly lit up the mountainside, not too far from the ground. Lit by these massive metal bowls was a door inset into the slope. How had this happened? Didn’t matter. I pushed even harder on the gas pedal so that it was flat against the floor of the car. My wheels were smoking and now so was my engine. Great plumes of white leaked from under the hood, obscuring my view. I could still see the yellow glow ahead of me even through the fog and I pushed and pushed the car. “Come on, baby,” I said, urging the Firebird on. “One last time. One last time.”
Flames from under the hood. More and more zombies pressing in from the sides, determined to act as an unliving shield for Olympus.
A flat, muffled “Boom” from under me. The fire was spreading. The car was a missile. A burning bullet. Even though the flames were probably moments from consuming me, they were also aiding me in my quest. All around me, zombies burned and fell.
“Flumph”, “flumph”, “flumph”. Three of my tires blew in rapid succession. I cut huge ruts through the dry soil behind me. My speed was decreasing. The fire from under the hood grew larger.
I came to a sudden, lurching stop. I bit down on my own tongue. I grabbed the dory just below the head and yanked it out of the backset. I’d start with the spear and move to the gladius if I had to.
I got out of the car and spared myself a quick, tactical look-see. I’d come to rest against the base of Olympus. Diagonally, to my right and above me, was the door.
Zombies were pooling around the Pontiac toward me. I put my back to my destination. I’d fight and back up, fight and back up.
My hands were quick. I made poking gestures with my long spear, going for zombie faces and heads. I knew if I went for bodies and limbs, the monsters would keep coming. If I wanted to put them down, I’d need to puncture their brains.
As I fought, I took shuffling steps to my rear. The undead followed, of course, but I was doing a good job of keeping them back. They had to step over their recently-fallen comrades to get to me. Some of them tripped and fell. Stabbing the downed ones through the head was easy.
Then, the worst happened.
I heard groaning behind me. Some of the zombies were flowing around my car going in the opposite direction. They were climbing to the door on the mountain’s face and pressing in behind me. I gave a frustrated scream and tried to hold off zombies coming from both directions.
Even when my car finally exploded and lit all the undead clustered around it on fire, the zombies were undeterred. If they could’ve spoken, they would’ve said, “Plenty more where that came from”.
But I wasn’t about to give up. Not when I was this close. Was I close enough to the door to sound the horn? I doubted it. Knowing how these things work, I guessed I needed to be standing right in front of it. And I had a good ways yet to go.
The zombies were clustering close enough that I dropped the spear and drew the gladius. For a moment, I exulted in the sheer joy of chopping off heads. Head after head. But there were so many of them, and I had no idea how I was going to survive the encounter.
Then I saw something. A strange glow. Pressing in from the parking lot of the Parthenon. Not a sustained glow, but rather intermittent bursts of orange.
Then a new kind of glow, this one just above the sea of undead and moving toward me. I wasn’t able to identify this second source of illumination until it was right on top of me.
It was M.C. Pliny the Elder. He was riding on Pegasus, and he was carrying a flamethrower. As he flew, he set zombies alight. He set zombies alight, and he whooped as if it was the best thing that ever happened to him. In my reptile brain, I did the math: Flying on a winged horse while roasting the undead? Easily the best thing that could ever happen to anyone.
Petey concentrated on the zombies behind me so that I could resume my backward momentum. I focused on the ones in front of me, so they couldn’t lurch out and end my journey prematurely. Finally, there were enough bodies clogging the path, I was able to run in the direction of the doorway and the two brasiers. When I reached the top, Petey continued to hover in circles around the earthen platform. He roasted any zombies that got too close. “More help’s on the way!” he said. “Do what you gotta do!”
I looked briefly toward the first glow I’d seen. I could make it out now. It was a group of men on foot, searing their way through the zombies with flamethrowers of their own.
I put the ram’s horn to my lips and blew.
An ear-shattering crack drew everyone’s attention to the Parthenon. Zombies included. A sinkhole appeared and swallowed the restaurant in its entirety. For a while, nothing happened. Smoke poured from the new opening and debris continued to pour in. Then an enormous hand appeared at the lip of the hole. Cronus’ hand. Soon the Titans climbed out, singly and in pairs. They were still under the watchful eye of the Heroes of Elysium.
As I stood taking in this wondrous sight, the bronies, liquifying zombies as they came, mounted the outcropping I stood on. Elijah led them. Behind him were his brother Jack, Tiresias, Sebastian Squire, Pan and Chad Kroeger. Chad held a banner aloft. A banner depicting an angry purple pony surrounded by lightning bolts. El came over to me and said, “Okay. Now what?”
Given the fact I’d been close to death just a moment before, I was very glad to see them. I nodded to each in turn. “I guess we go inside,” I replied. “I was waiting for Hermes to get— “
I was cut off by the sound of the enormous door opening. Standing in the portal was a tiny figure, silhouetted at first, but visible when he walked into the light of the two brasiers. “Hey, everybody,” he said.
It was Calesius. My jaw went slack. “Cal!” I said. “Where’ve you been?”
He nodded to me. “I got my old job back. In the Olympian stables.”
I scrunched my face at him. “Why would you wanna do that?”
“I’m a double agent,” he re
plied. “I’ve been up there biding my time ever since Prometheus brought the mountain here and took over.”
I turned to Squire. “Did you put him up to this?”
Squire shook his head. “Uh-uh. He volunteered.”
I turned back to Calesius. “How come?”
Cal flushed a little. “For two reasons. One so I could let you guys in when the time came, and two so I could keep an eye on Keri Wiener.”
That took me aback for a moment. “You have a thing for Keri Wiener?”
He made a pinch sign in the air. “Just a little one.”
Huh. That at least was one thing my artificial reality had in common with my real reality.
Elijah pushed forward. “How is Keri? Is she okay?”
Cal nodded. “There’s a whole bunch of space hippies up there. Prometheus gave them the run of the place. The Olympians hate them, but there’s not much they can do since Prometheus is in charge.”
A voice from behind made us turn. It was Hermes, floating above the lip of the outcropping. “Shall we go inside?” he said. Behind him, the Titans waited. Behind the Titans were a whole mess of smushed zombies.
“What happens once we’re in?” I asked. “Do you have a specific plan or a route we should take?”
Hermes shrugged. “I was never in the basement. What I know about it is it’s mostly Hephaestus’ workshop. A lot of bellows and furnaces and whatnot. That and it eventually leads to the top.”
That was less information than I’d hoped for, but we did have the Titans on our side. I couldn’t imagine there’d be much along our route that could stand in the way of the elder gods. I took a moment to assess my squad. A ragtag group of men with guns, a bunch of old, dead heroes and a parcel of the meanest most powerful creatures from Greek myth. It’d have to do.
As I surveyed the troops, a detail that’d escaped me at first came clear. Tiresias was surrounded by a cloud of little birds with blue bodies and bright red heads. He caught me looking. “They’re helping me to see,” he said. “By the way, love your outfit.”
I returned his smile and spun on my heel toward the massive door. Elijah fell into step beside me. To his right, and mostly oblivious to the rest of us, his brother Jack marched forward with an eager smile. He looked like a boy scout on an outing. “Why would you bring Jack?” I whispered. “This is no place for a man… in his condition.”
Elijah sighed. “I wish you could go back in time and try and dissuade him. I’m sure you’d have as much luck as I did. By the way, he told me he was in love with you.”
I flushed a bit. I’m not sure why. I had nothing to be embarrassed about—unless you counted the fact, I’d given Jack the runaround since he’d admitted his feelings. “Well, keep an eye on him, would you? He’s a sweet man. Even if he is a pain in the ass.”
El smiled. “Will do,” he said.
We entered an enormous chamber lit by more brasiers. It looked like the Greek equivalent of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. Hephaestus had clearly been ahead of his time in the area of machine-making. Hell, there were several metal apparatuses I couldn’t even identify.
Cal came up next to me on my left. “The core of the mountain is basically a perfect cylinder. There’s a ramp that circles upward in a corkscrew.” He pointed, and I saw the incline. It was wide enough to accommodate one Titan at a time. Not the best thing tactically, but it’d have to do.
I looked over my shoulder and called, “Hermes! Get up here!”
The dead messenger god was with us quickly.
“This is Cal,” I said. “He’s the one that let us in. More importantly, he had to come down from the top to do it.”
Hermes squinted at Cal. “Weren’t you the stable boy?”
Cal smiled, pleased to be recognized. “Yes, sir. I was. And I am.”
It was Hermes’ turn to smile. “You’re a double agent, aren’t you?”
Cal nodded, starstruck. Hermes held out his hand, so Cal and he could fist bump. Cal’s hand passed through Hermes’, but the gesture still made the boy’s day.
We reached the ramp and started to ascend. “Alright,” I said. “There were a shit-ton of zombies out there, so Prometheus clearly knew we were coming. What other resistance can we expect?”
“Well,” the boy replied. “Like I say, this is just one big cylinder. Like an airshaft. I would expect an attack from the air.”
Even as Cal finished speaking, a screech rang out. It sounded like it came from the biggest, most ill-tempered bird of prey ever.
I looked up and, bearing down on us from above, were a flock of griffin. Great feathered wings. Lion bodies. Eagle heads. I’d compare them to bats because there were just so many of them, but they were so much larger and more intimidating than any bats could ever be. I won’t lie: I panicked. I had no ranged weapon and no shield, so I stooped and covered my head in a futile attempt at self-protection.
Fortunately, I was surrounded by guys with flamethrowers. Without missing a beat, the bronies, Squire and Jack all pointed their weapons upward and let fly. The griffins flew into a nearly-solid wall of flame and heat. When they passed through—mostly nothing more than singed—my crew adjusted their weapons as a single unit. Clearly, Squire had drilled them on the proper use of the armament.
The one person in my entourage who was at a clear disadvantage was Petey. He’d stayed aloft on Pegasus as we ascended the ramp. He had to dip down below the initial flame layer and a few of the griffins clawed at him and his mount as they broke through. Wisely, the hip hop impresario let his own flamethrower dangle at his side and picked up a medieval-looking lance that hung in a strap at his side. As he bobbed and wove through the cloud of griffin, I was reminded of Joust, the 80s video game featuring mounted aerial combat. Petey too and been practicing. He and Pegasus moved almost as a single entity. The M.C. delivered killing strokes with precision.
Eventually, some of the griffin broke through so they could swipe at the forces on the incline. There wasn’t any room for them to land otherwise there would’ve been more close combat. Instead, a few of the Titans received deep, raking blows from powerful claws. One of the elder gods—whom I didn’t know—was clustered by bird-headed lions and yanked from the ramp. He fell several dozen feet but turned his body in midair so that he crushed his attackers with his own weight. I watched as, after his impact, he shook his head and rose again to his feet.
Following my brief panic, I raised my head again and looked upward. The bronies were doing a good job of keeping the griffins away from us, but one did sneak through. It came down at us at an angle, its claws at the ready. I turned my head and saw it would hit an unaware Jack dead-on. That was unacceptable. I braced myself and raised my gladius. I was nearly ripped off of my feet as the blade entered the creature’s chest and, thanks to its forward momentum, cut all the way down to the groin. It took a moment for the griffin to realize it was mortally wounded. It screamed and fell away from us at an angle. It dropped to the floor below and, I’m sure, never got up again.
Still the screeching continued. Still the creatures plummeted down on us from above. “Cripes! How many griffins does this motherfucker have?!” I said over the din.
From my left shoulder, Cal said, “Prometheus has been breeding monsters. He wants the world to be like it was in ancient times.” For the first time, I realized the stable boy had come to us unarmed so I hung a little closer to him to offer whatever protection I could.
“Swell,” I replied. “There’s nothing better than a megalomaniac with a nostalgia kink.”
“Look out!” Cal said, pointing.
There was a griffin headed directly for us. We would’ve both died if Elijah hadn’t hit it with a burst of hot death. Even as the monster spun away trailing smoke, Hermes came forward, floating just off the ground. “Cronus wants the flamethrowers!” he said.
I started to reply, but Cronus’ giant hand cut me off. It pressed into our view on the right. It was clearly waiting for the flamethrowers. I didn’t trust Cronus, b
ut I trusted Hermes. “Give him your flamethrowers!” I shouted.
Sebastian, El, Chad, Ty and even Petey dropped their flamethrowers into the enormous palm. Cronus’ hand withdrew, and I followed it. It went to the Titan’s mouth and it popped the flamethrowers in like so many Pop Rocks. The elder god chewed for a moment and then he leaned forward and spat a cloud of fire so enormous it filled the entire space above our heads. The griffin were enveloped by a dense cloud of hot gas and all of them either burst into flames or were instantly consumed. The ones who caught fire plummeted into the strange machinery below them, destroying it.
Griffin problem solved.
I wasted no time plowing forward again. “Everybody! Follow me! There’s a landing above us!” Indeed, there was a platform without any railings. For a moment, I hoped it would be the entrance to Olympus proper, but I had to scold myself. We hadn’t ascended far enough for that to be the case. I was the first to reach it and to see that, embedded in the wall was another titanic door. I went over and pressed against it, but it wouldn’t budge. I turned to Cal. “Did you come through here on the way down?”
“Yes, but I was coming from the other direction. It didn’t have any of this fancy bas relief.”
“Why didn’t you leave it open?” I asked, frustrated.
“I didn’t know it’d lock behind me.”
I took a couple of steps back and looked up. Cal was right: the portal was covered by elaborate bas relief sculpture. Near the bottom—so I was eye to eye with them—were life-size representations of Hades and Persephone.
Hades had his left hand raised, palm out, and Persephone had her right hand raised. The hands were held about chest-height. Unlike the rest of the sculpture, the two hands, while still very detailed, were recessed rather than extruded. My immediate reaction was to put my left hand into Hades’ palm and my right into Persephone’s. The fit was snug in both cases (indicating I was on the right track), but nothing happened. I looked over and said over my shoulder, “Does anybody know how to work this cockamamy lock?”