by Ben Reeder
“What do you say Willie? You want to get the hell out of here, or do you wanna go for the brass ring?” I asked. My hands flexed around the Deuce’s handle and I waited for Willie to give me his answer.
“Everyone else runs,” he said with the same grim enthusiasm I remembered from fighting beside him in the battles at Estrella. “And I didn’t come all this way to go home without a fight. Let’s go for the brass ring.”
For just a moment everything was still, and I was balanced between rage and joy. Then the first ghoul leapt toward me, and I stepped into its attack. The Deuce shot forward, sliding into the soft flesh where throat and jaw met and came back bloody. I sidestepped and spun to my right, whipping blood from the tip of the sword until blade met spine of the ghoul that was right behind the first one. The second ghoul flopped onto the gurgling corpse of the first, and I swept my arms to the left. The blade sank into the middle of a hapless zombie’s face. Before it could drag my blade down with it, I kicked it in the chest and yanked my blade free. Beside me, Willie swept his blade low and took two down at the knees. I put my foot in the middle of another zombie’s gut and pushed it back into the two behind it, then drove my sword into the eye socket of a zombie to my right. Before I could pull the blade free, something landed on my back, and I could feel something scraping at the mail on my neck. Reflex took over, and I slammed my head back. There was a satisfying crunch as the helmet met flesh and bone, and the weight on my back slipped. Not satisfied with that, I turned with my elbow up and felt the impact all the way up to my shoulder. My right hand reached for my sword as my left grabbed the Tainto from my belt. Both hands closed on the leather wrapped grips simultaneously, and I spun to plant the knife in the ghoul’s sternum. With a triumphant yell, I pulled my hands toward each other to free both blades.
For a fleeting moment I had no targets within my reach, and my head turned toward the Necromancer. Only four infected stood between us. In a flood of confidence, I tossed the knife into the air, passed the Deuce to my left hand under the smaller weapon’s arc and caught the Tainto’s handle in my right hand as it dropped. The path to him was as clear in my head as if it had been outlined in glowing lines.
“Come on!” I yelled as I rushed forward. Upthrust to the right with the Tainto, dead zombie. Cross body swing with the Deuce, dead zombie. Yank the blade free, spin it up, over the head, and down behind me, twist the wrist as the blade falls and snap it back up under the chin of the zombie in front of me. Dead zombie. Twist the knife around, sideways thrust into the eye of a ghoul on my right. Dead ghoul. Which left me standing in front of a surprised looking Necromancer.
Without missing a beat, I dropped the knife and took a two handed grip on the Deuce and stepped into the blow, a smooth, beautiful feeling snap shot, thrusting my arms forward to full extension, then pulling back with my right hand and following through with the left to bring the edge of the blade whistling forward to sink into the Necromancer’s head to the bridge of his nose. The crunch of steel through bone was the loudest sound in the fight, and suddenly, everything stopped. Living, dead, everyone froze the moment the sword hit.
Whatever I’d been expecting, I knew it wasn’t happening. My pulse still pounded in my ears and I still felt the urge to smash and kill. The world still felt wrong, and now that I was up close and personal with the Necromancer, I could feel his noxious presence pressing up against my skin, undiminished by the foot of steel I’d just lodged in his brain pan.
On either side of the black, acid etched blade, the Necromancer’s eyebrows rose. With one hand, he reached up and grabbed the back of the sword.
“Now, that was unexpected,” he rasped as he slowly pulled the blade free from the eight inch gash in his head. “That hurt!” I pulled on the blade to free it from his grip, but it was like trying to yank a building off its foundations. Instead, he pulled on the sword, and I ended up face to mangled face with him.
“Even this serves my purpose, Survivor,” he hissed before he pushed me away. I stumbled back and fell on my ass. Before I could even start to try to get back on my feet, Willie was at my side pulling me up by my arm. My Tainto lay at my feet, so I grabbed it and slipped it back into the Kydex sheath on my hip.
The Necromancer stepped away from me and held his right hand out. A female zombie shuffled forward and laid her hand in his.
“That stung, Survivor, but it was just an inconvenience,” the dead thing said. His hand tightened on the zombie’s, and her arm turned black. The black crawled from her skin to his and stretched up his hand in thick, pulsing veins. Moments later, black lines spiderwebbed from under his shirt, up his neck, and across the right side of his face. I watched in horror as thick threads of black arced across the gap in his skull and slowly started to pull the fissure closed, leaving a blackened and uneven line down his forehead in their wake. As the wound I’d made healed, the flesh of the zombie next to him began to liquefy and drip from her bones in thick, gooey clumps until all that was left was a crimson stained skeleton. One of the hands dropped to the ground, then the forearm, the humerus, and shoulder blade slid out of her sleeve. Then the rest of the bones fell into the gooey mass that had puddled around her feet, leaving the Necromancer holding just the hand. With a wide grin on his face, he pulled one of the fingers off and put it into his mouth, then sucked on it as he pulled it free.
“Mmm-MM!” he crowed as he dropped the finger bones to the ground. “Now that is what I call finger lickin’ good!”
“Next time I’ll do more than leave a mark,” I said. His hand flew to his forehead, and he ran his fingertips across the line of black that ran down his face. His lips peeled back in a rictus of hate, and he pointed at me.
“Even this, Survivor…even this,” he said. “You’re almost served your purpose. The next time I come for you, you’re dead.” With that, he turned and started walking away. I stood there and watched him go, my hands shaking as I tried to keep from going after him. This was the second time this bastard had walked away from me, and I was not happy at how good I was at letting him walk away. Willie panted beside me, and I could hear my own breath coming in steady gasps. All around us zombies were shambling along in the same direction the Necromancer had gone.
“What did…he mean?” Willie asked, coming up on my right.
“Dunno,” I panted in reply. “He’s up to something.”
“Ya think?” he said. My left arm came up and back, rewarding me with the satisfying sound of steel crushing flesh and bone. The zombie that had wandered too close crumpled to the ground, and I turned and walked in the opposite direction, for the moment a little less grumpy. I pulled the can of spray paint from my right leg cargo pocket and started shaking it, looking for a fairly flat piece of wall.
“I kid you not,” Willie said to Kent as we walked up the stairs to the dining area. “He hit that son of a bitch right in the noggin, and he just pulled the blade out and said ‘That was unexpected. That actually hurt, Survivor.’ Then he grabs another zombie and just sucks the flesh off her bones and heals this massive gash in his head. And Dave just looks at him, like he thinks he’s Chuck Norris or something, and says ‘Next time, I’ll do more than leave a mark.’ Man, he was pissed about that.” They followed me as I stepped into the large open space and stopped. My eyes scanned the folks at the various tables until I saw Ruth sitting with Mark and Phil.
“No shit?” Kent said. “He went toe to toe with the Necromancer?”
“No shit.”
The room went silent as I pulled the Deuce off my back and walked across the room. People stepped aside well before I got close to them, leaving me a clear path to the table where Ruth sat. I tossed the scabbard onto the table in front of her with a clatter, and she looked up at me with wide eyes.
“You wanted a tissue sample from an Alpha zombie,” I said. “There ya go.” I turned and started to walk away.
“Mr. Stewart,” Ruth’s voice came, clear and firm. I turned to look back over my shoulder at her. She was holdi
ng the Deuce by the handle and had it pulled halfway out of it’s Kydex sheath, revealing the gore covered blade, looking at me over the edge. “What kind of tissue?”
“Brain matter,” I said, and walked toward Willie and Kent. I stopped next to them and put my hand on Kent’s shoulder. “No shit.” No one said a word to me as I grabbed a tray, spoon, and bowl from the stack at the end of the table, ladled some of the thick ham and bean soup from the pot, and grabbed the maximum two pieces of cornbread from the pan. The hard bench felt better than a recliner to my tired ass as I plopped down on it. Once I was down, and gravity seemed to have doubled, I realized I didn’t have anything to drink. My shoulders slumped as I leaned forward to lever myself back to my feet.
“Don’t bother,” I heard someone say from in front of me. A thick hand set a brown bottle down on the table before me. Its twin set another down on the other side of the table, and one of the larger men I’d ever seen sat down across from me. Dark hair covered his arms, matching the thick ruff on his head that turned into a full, well-kept beard. “All they have up there is warm tea. If you’re going to drink anything after a fight, at least make it a good stout.” His voice sounded more like it should have come from a teacher than from the bear sitting across from me. I turned the glistening bottle to reveal the Guinness Extra Stout label.
“Won’t say no to that,” I said as I took a pull from the bottle. “Dave,” I offered as I extended my hand. His hand engulfed mine for a moment, then left mine uncrushed.
“I know,” he said with a laugh. “Vali Jorgenson. I hear you asked for some of my work.”
“Yeah, I need you to make a couple of knives for my…daughter,” I said as I crumbled one of the squares of cornbread into the soup. “She needs one for fighting and one for working. For that matter, I need a working knife myself. My Tainto is a damn fine blade, but I never expected to be fighting with it as much as I have. And I really don’t want to nick myself with anything I stuck in a zombie.”
“I hear that,” he said. “I can set her up with one of my dog-leg fighters, and get you a couple of my bushcrafters. Why don’t you come on over to the workshop tomorrow. I’ve got a couple of other things I think you’ll like.” I nodded at him, my mouth full, and he got up from the table. The bowl of soup didn’t survive much longer, and I savored the second square of cornbread with butter and honey. I managed to nurse the bottle of Guinness until the last bite of the cornbread, then slowly climbed to my feet. As tired as I was, I still needed to clean my gear before I even looked at a bed.
The next morning I stumbled down the stairs and into the workshop after a late breakfast. The sun was a lot higher in the sky than I’d hoped. Around me hammers pounded steel in a symphony of chaos being forged into order. I looked around for Vali, finally spotting him at the far end of the shop working at an improvised forge. He wasn’t alone, either. Amy was manning a hand cranked blower made from a leaf blower. The blower was attached to what looked like an oversized brake drum filled with glowing embers. As cool as the morning air was, the heat from the forge had them in as light of clothes as could be managed. Amy had her tank top on and jeans, while Vali only wore an apron, jeans, and heavy gloves.
“Good morning!” Vali said as he turned the tongs he was using to hold a piece of metal in the fire. “Though I’d say you were cutting it close.”
“I’m a night owl,” I said as I rubbed at the back of my neck. “At least I was. I dozed off while I was cleaning my Colt last night.”
“I think everyone’s going through that,” Vali said with his customary grin. “People aren’t used to the normal day and night cycle any more. Since Z day there hasn’t been as much artificial light as we’re used to…our bodies are resetting the clock back to Nature’s time.”
“You’re up early,” I said to Amy. She gave me a look of grudging tolerance before she spoke.
“Vali is letting me help him out to trade for one of his addle things,” she explained and held up a carved stick with a lip on the end. Vali grimaced slightly at the hatchet job Amy did on the term.
“Do you mean an atlatl?” I asked. She shrugged and went back to cranking the improvised blower, sending sparks up.
“She uses it better than she says it,” Vali said. He pulled a short length of steel from the fire and laid it on the anvil, then began to hammer it in a rhythm, first tapping the anvil, then bringing the hammer down on the blade. Sparks flew from the glowing metal with every blow. “I have a few fighting knives ready,” he said as he held up the piece he was working on to inspect it. Apparently satisfied, he dipped it into a bucket of water. “But I only had the one bush knife done. You’re getting my first one from this shop. Amy, could you got ask Harold for some leather to wrap the handle on this ?” With a nod, Amy darted off.
“I really do appreciate you doing this,” I said. He made a dismissive sound and untied the apron.
“Pete and Devira told me what you traded for this stuff. Personally, I think you’re cheating yourself. But while she’s gone, she asked me to make her a sword like yours. I’ve seen your blade, and I don’t have what I need to make something like that. But we do have some spring steel. I could probably make something for her from that in a couple of days for her to start training with.”
“Would it kill zombies?” I asked.
“Hell, yeah. I don’t make anything that isn’t battle or field ready. It won’t be pretty, but it’ll be pretty well balanced and it’ll bust heads. So I have your okay to make it, right?” I nodded.
“Make the grip a little long so she can use both hands if she needs to,” I said. The pitter-patter of teenage feet came from behind me, though it sounded more like a squad of Marines.
“Here you go,” Amy said as she trotted up and handed over a roll of black leather.
“Vali, I’m stealing your apprentice,” I said. He nodded and grinned at me over a thumbs up.
“Don’t you have sword practice or something?” Amy asked.
“Yes, and so do you,” I told her. I could tell from her grin that my respite of silence was over.
Journal of Maya Weiss
Monday, October 21, 2013
Dave and Amy are okay! Thank the gods, they’re still alive! So much to do, so far to go, but all I can think about is the fact that my little girl and the man I love are safe. Major Lynch couldn’t believe it, but Porsche was quick to set the man straight. I hope it wasn’t supposed to be a big secret or anything. Dave never accused me of being subtle. I was kind of loud after we talked, and I’m sure everyone with us knows. But now we have a mission, and I’ll have them both in my arms again soon.
We leave Ft. Riley today. The coordinates Dave gave me are near Scotts Bluff, Nebraska. If we’re lucky, we’ll be there tomorrow. Tanks are topped up, guns are loaded, and we have twenty more people than we started with. But we leave ten graves behind. No matter how the math works out, I don’t like those numbers. But I’m not a soldier. There is no such thing as ‘acceptable losses’ to me. Lynch says that’s why the military answers to civilian authority. But what he said after that scared me the most.
“Why do you think I asked you to stick around?”
Chapter 13
Reap the Whirlwind…
~ Strategy is about making choices, trade-offs; it’s about deliberately choosing to be different. ~ Michael Porter
“I hope you’re finished pissing people off,” Hernandez said as we covered the last few yards to the Stryker. “I don’t want to get this close to the New Eden compound again. And we’re out of spray paint.”
“I wanted to make sure he saw it,” I said as we jogged along. We moved as quietly as we could in the darkness, our way shown to us in the green landscape of the NVGs on our helmets.
“He’s gonna have a hard time missing it.” In spite of herself, she laughed.
“You think it was too much?” I asked.
“A little, but that’s the point, isn’t it?” she asked as we slowed to a stop in front of the vehicle. K
aplan looked down at us over the the barrel of his MP5. In the eerie glow of the firelight behind him, he looked like some dark sentinel that belonged on a recruiting poster. The gun’s barrel came up and he pointed it away from us. Hernandez climbed into the driver’s seat, leaving me to crawl in through the rear hatch. I grabbed the crew headset as I pulled the hatch closed, then stopped as I heard the low rumble of a diesel engine from behind us.
“Kaplan, on our six,” I said while I popped the top hatch on the vehicle’s left side. I could hear the weapon mount turning behind me to bring the vehicle’s salvaged M2 machine gun to bear as I brought my rifle up. A Humvee drew up behind us, and I could see Willie’s banner flutter as it slowed to a stop. Willie got out of the passenger seat and stood beside the vehicle.
“Vivat the Blackstar,” he said just loud enough to be heard from a few feet away.
“Hurrah for Calontir and Ansteorra,” I completed the first half of the chorus to ‘Bare is the Brotherless Back,’ one of the songs we’d both sung at a bardic circle at Estrella Wars. Mistress Aeruin ni Hearain’s song of brotherhood in war was the perfect challenge and countersign, since none of the Prophet’s people had been in the SCA to ever hear it. “What’s up?”
“Shit just got serious. One of our lookouts just spotted a ton of zombies downtown, and they’re all headed toward the West Bottoms.”
“You’re not ready to go,” I said with a sinking feeling in my gut.
“We’re just not finished packing,” Willie said. “Pete and Devira have everyone loading the train up now, but they don’t think they’ll be done by the time they get there unless we can slow them down somehow. My team is setting up a choke point on the 12th Street bridge where it crosses over 35.”
“You’ll be slaughtered,” Kaplan said. “Even with your tactics, there’s just too many of them to stop.”