by Perrin Briar
When you were painted into a corner, when you had little you could do and there was little chance you would survive, you did whatever you could, even if it was almost suicidal.
The boys got comfortable—or, at least, as comfortable as the tree and its limbs would allow—and took aim with their rifles. They were putting the lives of their mother, father, Francis, and Jim into the hands of fate. They were to take no responsibility for their impending actions, Liz had told them. If anything should go wrong, or a bullet find a target they had not been aiming for, it was not their fault. Liz took full responsibility. Easy to say, but difficult for the boys to accept.
Their mother was still heading toward the Overlord In Black, a small figure in the middle distance. Every one of them was shaking, and not just because the wind was picking up. They were going to be firing at their own blood.
Chapter Thirty-One
LIZ KNEW the overlord wouldn’t hesitate to absorb Bill’s memories, or knowledge, or whatever it was that he did with people under his control. He would know what the family were likely to do. And so the family were left with one course of action: to do what the Overlord In Black would never think they would do. He would have ruled it out before even beginning his plan. That was what Liz was counting on.
Undead were positioned around Bill and Francis, prepared to kill at a moment’s notice. It still chilled Liz to the bone to know the control the overlord had over these creatures. They were modern day slaves, with no control nor power. Trapped.
“A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance,” the Overlord In Black said.
“It ought to be for one of us,” Liz said.
The Overlord In Black chuckled.
“I like your sass,” he said. “Bill thinks a great deal of it too.”
Liz could see Bill over the Overlord In Black’s shoulder. He was standing there, tied to a timber. On another was Francis, another the unconscious Jim. He had his chin on his chest. Still unconscious.
“Where are the boys?” the Overlord In Black said.
“Somewhere safe,” Liz said without making eye contact.
“I was rather hoping to make their acquaintance soon,” the Overlord In Black said.
“Not if I have anything to do with it,” Liz said.
The Overlord In Black smiled.
“And you’re intent on ensuring that, aren’t you?” he said.
“Why are you doing this?” Liz said. “You’re more human than the monsters you control. But you’re worse than them because you choose to be like this. They have no choice. It’s just the way they are. You could choose to be good. You could do a great deal of good. You could free us all, could unite the whole race against them.”
“I am already great,” the Overlord In Black said. “You are nothing.”
“Maybe this is why you failed to beat the boy you lost to,” Liz said.
There was a slight tightness in the Overlord In Black’s eyes.
“Because you failed to see the true strength in the world,” Liz said. “And it’s something you’ll never understand.”
“I saw perfectly how the world is,” the Overlord In Black said. “I just got unlucky last time.”
“You were incompetent,” Liz said. “Just like now. You take too much risk. You think you’re invincible, which is what defeated you before, and will defeat you again.”
“Except you are only human,” the Overlord In Black said. “With no army at your back nor traitors at your beck and call. How do you intend on defeating me now? To you, I am a god. You think you can cross the distance from you to me before I can draw a weapon and cut you down?”
“Probably not,” Liz said. “But then, I don’t need to cross the distance.”
She opened her jacket to reveal she was wearing a bomb. The Overlord In Black hissed through his teeth, and then chuckled.
“Good try, but if you use that, you’ll destroy yourself, Bill and Francis too,” he said. “Do you honestly expect me to believe you’d do something so reckless?”
“Perhaps not,” Liz said, “and we wouldn’t have need to, if you hadn’t forced us into this situation. When there’s nothing you can do to win, there’s only one recourse: to ensure your enemy does not get what he wants.”
“Then why haven’t you already set the bomb off?” the Overlord In Black said.
“Because maybe there’s a way out of this—some mutually beneficial way to serve us both,” Liz said.
“You are amusing,” the Overlord In Black said. “But there is nothing you have that I want.”
So, Liz thought, they were right about him. He wanted to take what he wanted from them. It was the thrill of the chase he enjoyed, the journey. That was what he loved. There was nothing they could ever give him that he wanted, because he didn’t want them to give him anything. He wanted to take it from them.
The most successful plans throughout history worked because they were tailor-made for the people they were pitted against. They were custom made to defeat them in the right location, with the right restrictions. That was what made them successful.
“Then I’m afraid I’m going to have to pull the trigger,” Liz said.
She was glad to see the Overlord In Black stiffen at that. He took a step to the side, and then another. They were small, not what she’d been hoping for. A man who was powerful and had a great deal to lose was also the person determined not to lose that power. He would fear death a great deal more than they would, because in death they would be leaving something behind: a safer place for their children to live in.
The Overlord In Black clearly hadn’t taken that into consideration in his calculations. Sometimes death was the cheaper price to pay.
But he also didn’t know that their self-sacrifice wasn’t their Plan A, but Plan B. At that very moment, the boys ought to be in position. She hoped they recognized the signal—the overlord stepping to one side.
She needn’t have worried.
The moment her concern crossed her mind, the Overlord In Black jerked viciously and suddenly to one side, as if he’d been dealt a victorious blow by an invisible enemy. He staggered as he lost his footing. For every successful strike to his body, there were a dozen small leaps from the dust at his feet.
Liz dived to the ground, taking cover. She hoped the bomb she wore wasn’t pressure sensitive. It was genuine, and she would have set it off if she had no other choice. She covered her head with her hands and waited as the bullets tore through the area and thunked into the wood, embedding themselves deep.
Bill lowered his head. Liz hoped it was just to avoid the shards of wood that rained upon his head he was protecting himself from.
Liz could only hope and pray that any of her family would still remain after the dust had settled.
Chapter Thirty-Two
THE LURCHER blinked. Bill could see the very moment the overlord’s control was pulled from the undead. It was slow to turn its head and appraise its surroundings. Bill stood stock still, hoping the creature wouldn’t notice he had a perfectly edible meal right there in its clawed hand. All it had to do was to squeeze.
But he was shell shocked. Clearly, being released by the overlord was not met without some resistance. The creature wasn’t sure where it was or what it should be doing. It turned away from Bill, and in so doing, dropped its hand from around Bill’s throat.
Bill still didn’t dare move a muscle, but he allowed himself to breathe. Despite the undead now no longer under the overlord’s control, nothing else had changed about his predicament. He was still in grave danger, as were Francis and Jim, though their undead were clearly less attentive than Bill’s, and had wandered off in another direction, lost and trying to get their bearings.
Then the undead closest to Bill stopped. He raised his nose into the air and sniffed. It had caught a scent…
The cut on Bill’s arm was still weeping blood.
The undead growled under its breath and closed on Bill’s position. Bill began to squirm, knowing he had
been spotted now. There was no way for him to avoid the teeth of this beast.
Now the Lurcher was heading toward him, the other two who had been closer to Francis and Jim were turning on their heels and approaching the newly identified tasty morsel.
There was nothing for it. Bill would shout for help. It would not put him in anymore danger, after all. The undead were almost on him.
“Help!” Bill shouted. “Somebody! They’re gonna eat me! Help!”
Uhhhhhhh!
It was a chorus of excitement, for the meal to come. They could have been saying, “Yeeeeeeeah!”
The undead reached for him. Bill felt the cold touch of their fingertips. He gibbered, terrified of what would come next. They would tear him apart and gorge on his flesh. At least he would take their attention away from Francis. At least for a little while.
A roar. A scream. A warrioress ran from the dust cloud. Liz raised her cudgel and swung, swung, swung, at the shadows in the thick cloud of dust about them.
Bill shut his eyes. He couldn’t bear to watch.
Chapter Thirty-Three
FROM THE moment the very first few bullets tore into the Overlord In Black’s body, there was a general chorus of elation that came from the jungle’s depths. With the absence of the Overlord In Black as their leader, there was no driving force to command the undead.
They would operate as they normally would, which was in a constant state of hunger. Mindless, brainless. They were still dangerous, and they proved it now as they began to come out of the jungle, having lost their master and direction, with no command. They headed toward what most attracted their attention: the screams.
The boys opened fire and eviscerated the undead as they approached Bill and Liz in the eye of the storm.
“Lurchers at two o’clock,” Ernest said.
“You need a new watch,” Fritz said. “There are undead in every direction.”
Ernest lifted his vision from the rifle barrel sight and saw that Fritz was right. The undead were everywhere.
Chapter Thirty-Four
BILL STILL hadn’t opened his eyes, and flinched every time he heard an undead groan, or Liz scream, or a head thud as a skull cracked open. More than once he felt vibrations on his hands, where something struck the post he was tied to.
And then he felt something entirely different.
Something was tugging on the rope that tied him to the post. The rope began to loosen, began to unfurl. He felt the relief in his hands and wrists the moment it happened.
“Help me get Francis and Jim loose,” Liz said. “Then we’ll get out of here.”
Bill stumbled, his legs weak with lack of use, feeling like they were made of rubber. But he made it to Francis’s post, falling into it. He began working at the rope, but his fingers felt like they were not his own.
His heart was pumping and his blood was still coursing through his veins, but they wouldn’t feel normal again for an hour. He kept at it, and hooked his fingers into the loops and pulled his arms away. The knot began to give way. He felt them loosen.
Francis had evidently suffered being tied up worse than Bill had, and fell forward flat on his face. Bill helped Francis up onto his feet, but he was exhausted and couldn’t maintain his upright position. Bill gave him the strength he needed. Francis somehow had some untapped reserves of strength Bill hadn’t expected to find.
“Bill!” Liz said.
He rushed to her, Francis in his arms, and found Liz standing with Jim. His head lolled side to side, but he was apparently capable of walking. Perhaps it was the shock of the situation that had restored him. Bill had heard of such cases in the medical world.
Bill hooked Jim’s other arm around his neck and took half his weight, but was surprised to find Jim was largely carrying himself. He just needed help in knowing which direction he ought to be heading in.
The dust was already settling, revealing the Lurchers appearing from the jungle foliage. No sooner were their silhouetted forms appearing than their heads exploded in meaty chunks, blasted away by the boys’ automatic weapons. The shooting was messy and inaccurate, but that mattered little when you could fire ten rounds per second.
And then Bill saw him, limping toward the foliage, his black clothing spattered with claret flowers. He was getting away. He would return, would endanger his family again. Bill couldn’t allow that to happen. Not when he had a chance to shut him down for good.
“Bill,” Liz said, snapping his attention back to the present.
Bill obeyed Liz and took another couple steps forward, but in his mind, it was in the wrong direction. He should be heading toward the Overlord In Black, not away from him.
“I have to go,” Bill said, removing Jim’s arm from his shoulder.
“Go?” Liz said. “Go where?”
“If I don’t finish him now, he’ll come for us again,” Bill said. “And he won’t stop until he succeeds.”
“If he comes back, we’ll be ready for him,” Liz said.
“What if we’re not?” Bill said. “What if he comes for us, or the kids, while we’re not watching them?”
“You’re in no fit state,” Liz said. “Besides, I need you here. Now. With me. I can’t carry both Francis and Jim by myself.”
“Jim is almost walking by himself, and Francis isn’t that heavy,” Bill said. “And the boys will be here soon. Liz, I have to do this. I can’t let him do this to us again. You know how dangerous he is.”
Liz thought for a moment, and then nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “But be careful.”
She took Francis in her arms as Jim put his elbow on her shoulder.
Bill took off after the ink blot shadow. Bill had lost valuable seconds, but he could make them up, if he was quick. His body was infused with renewed energy, with the energy of certain vengeance. He even managed a smile.
Chapter Thirty-Five
THE OVERLORD In Black barely caught his feet as he stumbled through the thick jungle undergrowth.
How had it happened again? he screamed at himself. How had the pitiful uninfected humans outsmarted him?
No, they hadn’t outsmarted him. They had just been lucky, that was all. If he could wind the clock back and play the events forward again, he was certain they would not have happened in the family’s favor. He ground his teeth.
But he couldn’t wind back the hands of time. He couldn’t replay the events. They had happened this way, and there was no changing that. No way to undo what had already been done. He had lost and they had won. Again.
His feet caught on an exposed tree root. He fell forward. He extended his hands to break his fall, but it was unnecessary. He landed face first in freezing water. It was fast flowing. He felt the rush of pain up his legs, arms and chest from where he’d been shot. Bad luck he’d been shot. Good luck that the bullets hadn’t struck any of the major organs. But if he wasn’t careful, he would bleed out before long.
He heard the snap of twigs underfoot behind him. He reached out for the slaves who had previously been under his control, but found none of them close enough to be responsible for disrupting the foliage behind him. Then it was a living creature. He turned onto his back and was not at all surprised to find who stood before him.
“So, we meet again,” Bill said.
His eyes were burning fiery pits, his face pale and dead, almost as if he was a slave himself. Almost. The Overlord In Black cursed himself for not turning Bill into one of his slaves sooner. But he knew that if he were to replay the event again, he wouldn’t have done anything differently. Some things never change.
He wanted to have fun with him, torture him to the point of madness. It was a game he liked to play with some of his newest recruits. Instead, Bill and his family had turned the tables on him, and he still didn’t fully understand how they had done it. Now, he was the one at their mercy.
“Come here to gloat?” the Overlord In Black said.
“No,” Bill said. “To end you.”
The Over
lord In Black had already reached out for the undead in the close vicinity. He wanted to bring them to him, to cast them at Bill. After all this, after everything that had gone wrong, he could still get his revenge. He located them all and pulled on them, like pulling on the strings of a company of puppets, forcing them to come to him. To come at Bill.
“Are you surprised it ended like this?” Bill said. “I’m not. Not really. The truth is, we were always going to beat you. You never stood a chance against us. Do you know why? Because we’re a family. We help and support one another. There is nothing that we can’t achieve if we work together.
“Whereas you, you only have yourself, and the help of just a few brainwashed slaves that do not love you and offer you no real allegiance because they will leave you just as soon as they can for someone stronger. I don’t know anything about these other people who beat you before, but I bet they worked together, didn’t they? They were a family, or as close to one as to make no difference. It was love that defeated you, not guns or strength or intelligence. But love.”
Bill smiled a grin that he had directed at few people over the years. He’d never been the gloating type. But now, he couldn’t resist.
“I’ve seen plenty of wounds in all my years,” Bill said. “Not many bullet wounds, I‘ll admit. But I’d say you were in pretty bad shape.”
“Never underestimate the power of hate,” the Overlord In Black said.
“By all rights you should be dead,” Bill said, closing on the overlord with his knife raised. “But thankfully, that is one thing I can rectify.”
“Funny,” the Overlord In Black said. “I was thinking exactly the same thing.”
The foliage behind Bill exploded, and the first undead fell upon Bill. His reactions were quick—they had to be in this world—and he brought the knife around, jamming it into the Lurcher’s temple. Another undead appeared, but he was farther off. Bill took the time to spin back to the overlord, to end him before he could get away.