by Jeff Gunhus
“There are too many of them,” I whispered.
“There are only going to be more the longer we wait,” Eva whispered back. She’d walked up behind me and looked over my shoulder.
“Wait to do what?” I said. “Stroll down there and hack our way through that mob? And for what?”
“There,” Ariel said, pointing.
To our right, and fortunately on our side of the river, was a wooden platform with torches lining its edges, effectively forming fiery walls. There were two lines of zombies standing in front of the platform, facing outward as if on guard duty. Even from where we were, I could see that these zombies wore the unmistakable uniform of Roman legionnaires. One of them even held up a long pole with a gold eagle at the tip.
“That has to be where the Lord of the Zombies is,” Ariel said. “And wherever the lord is, that’s where the Jerusalem Stone will be.”
“There’s no way we can get all the way over there,” I said.
“I have a plan,” Eva said, reaching over my shoulder and pointing down at the floor. “Those aren’t all zombies down there. Look at who’s organizing everything.”
She was right. Spread out among the zombie horde were tall figures in black cloaks, pointing and seemingly shouting instructions, even though their voices didn’t reach all the way up to us. Vampires. The group of Creach that Ren Lucre held the most control over were there to do his bidding. I immediately understood Eva’s plan.
“No, it’s too dangerous,” I said. “We’ll think of another way.”
“All right,” she said. “What is it? What’s the other plan?”
The enormous tree we’d seen tossed into the fire snapped and hissed, the flames shooting toward the ceiling. It seemed like daylight for a few seconds in the cavern. The light clearly showed the writhing mass of zombies covering the floor, and more pouring out of the walls every second.
“Do you think it’ll work?” I asked, turning to face her.
Eva shrugged. “We’ll know in a hurry if it doesn’t. If that zombie mob tears me apart, you’ll know you need a plan B. Now move aside. I’ve got work to do.”
22
We all managed to take cover behind rocks just outside where our tunnel entered the main cave. Some of the guys had glared at me once they understood what Eva intended to do, but none of them said anything. That meant none of them had a better plan either.
Eva crawled down to the cavern floor, carefully picking her way over the boulders and chunks of ice in the debris field. Finally, she reached the bottom, still hidden behind a large rock that separated her from the nearest group of zombies.
She took a deep breath, gave a small wave to all of us watching her, then stood up and strode out into the cavern as if she owned the place.
The sudden movement caught the attention of the zombies nearest her, a motley-looking group, many with an arm or a leg missing, some with their internal organs drooping out of decayed holes in their torsos. Exactly what zombies tended to look like, but seeing it up close still turned my stomach.
These were fast zombies, so there was none of the slow shuffling toward her. Instead, they ran right at her.
Somehow, Eva didn’t flinch. She was all in, her shoulders squared as they approached.
I had my sword pulled just in case, ready to jump down and hopefully fight them off enough that we could escape back through the tunnel. The aggressive way the zombies came at Eva, made me get ready to pounce.
Eva didn’t pull her own sword. Instead she pointed at the closest wall where there was a large group pulling zombies from the ice.
“Over there, all of you,” she barked. “Back to work.”
The zombies stopped in place, their decayed heads turning to one side as they looked her over. One of them had an eyeball pop out, roll down his cheek and fall to the floor.
Eva walked over, picked it up and thumped it back into the zombie’s head.
“You heard me. Go on. Back to work,” she said.
The zombies turned back to the main group, looking like school kids who’d just gotten into trouble, and went back to work just as their vampire boss had instructed them to do.
“She did it,” Will whispered.
“But what about when one of the other vampires spots her?” T-Rex asked.
“We just have to hope they don’t all know each other,” Daniel said. “There are a lot of them.”
I looked down the line and saw that Xavier was staring around the cavern with a distant look in his eyes. Knowing him, that could either mean he was deathly afraid to a point of being immobilized, or that he was lost in deep thought. I hoped it was the latter.
“Xavier,” I whispered. “Are you all right?”
Ariel, who was crouched next to him, gave him a nudge in the arm. He came to as if he’d been in a deep sleep.
“Huh? What is it?” he said way too loudly.
“Shhh…” Ariel said, putting a hand to his mouth.
“Are you okay?” I tried again.
He nodded. “I was just looking at the unsupported span. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“Not the best time to be admiring geologic formations,” Daniel said.
Xavier looked down, embarrassed.
“Go ahead, Xavier,” I said. “You see something, don’t you?”
“The cave is rock covered with thick ice, almost like this was an unground reservoir that froze solid.”
“With a massive pile of zombies in it,” T-Rex added.
“Once that ice froze, it expanded,” Xavier said. “You can see how it pushed up against the ceiling.”
“Is there a point to this?” Will asked.
Xavier looked a little more defiant now. “The point is that when they started to melt the ice, they removed the support the cave ceiling had.”
I started to see what he was getting at. “But wouldn’t melting all that ice also reduce the weight hanging from the ceiling?”
“Yes,” he said. “Which is likely the only reason why it’s still standing. But the ice up there is mostly gone. Now they’re melting the ice in the interspatial voids in the rock matrix––”
“English please,” I said.
He slowly looked up at the ceiling. “The roof is going to cave in. It’s just a matter of time.”
“How much time?” Will asked.
As if in answer to the question, there was a loud crash from our left. I looked over in time to see a pile of debris cascade from the ceiling, crushing a hundred or more zombies in the process. The rest of the zombies kept about their work, ignoring the sound which echoed throughout the chamber. But the rock slide was limited in size, and the dust from the collapse soon settled in the damp air.
“I can’t believe it’s still standing,” Xavier said. “It could go at any time.”
“We’ve got to get Eva out of there,” I said.
“We need the Jerusalem Stone,” Ariel said. “Besides, she’s too far away now.”
I saw what she meant. Eva was moving along the edge of the zombie horde, heading to her right and choosing a path that didn’t put her anywhere too close to any of the other vampires. On the far side of the cavern, another section of the roof fell in with an enormous crash.
I stood up and moved to climb down the rocks in front of us.
“Where are you going?” Daniel asked.
“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m making it up as I go along.”
Without waiting for a response, I slid down most of the way to the floor. Quickly, I picked my way along the wall, trying to stay in the shadows as much as possible. Lucky for me, Eva ran into a knot of zombies that she decided to go around rather than through, so she doubled back a bit. I was still fifty feet from her when she passed by me, moving quickly.
“Eva,” I hissed. “Eva!”
She didn’t hear me, but unfortunately a nearby zombie did. It turned in place, its lower jaw dangling, and walked toward me. I knew it was only a matter of time before it alerted the others.
I made a run toward Eva.
The second I did, more zombies noticed and turned in my direction. Not good.
Eva looked at me and her expression told me she thought I was nuts. At that moment, I kind of agreed with her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
“The ceiling’s unstable,” I said. “It’s going to collapse at any second.”
Eva glanced up, but then quickly turned her attention to the approaching zombies. “That’s not going to matter much, is it? Because you’re about to be eaten by the undead.”
“Take me prisoner,” I said.
“What?”
I raised my hands in the air. “I surrender,” I said loudly. “Now take me to your leader to see what he wants to do with me.”
Eva nodded. She grabbed my hands and twisted them behind my back, a little harder and more painfully than was really necessary, and forced me to my knees. She held out her hand to the approaching zombies. “I have the intruder. Go back to work.”
The zombies stopped, but they stared at the two of us with blank faces. The one with the hanging jaw chomped his mouth up and down like he was trying to say something, but all that came out was an unsettling, “Nuhhh…nuhhhh….nuhhhh.”
Eva yanked me back up to my feet roughly, this time with a short knife pressed against the small of my back. “I said back to work,” Eva snarled.
The zombies hesitated, then turned back to where they’d come from, ignoring us. All of them except the one with the loose jaw. He followed us, watching closely. I didn’t like that at all.
Eva shoved me toward the platform where we thought the Lord of the Zombies must be. “You’re an idiot,” she said.
“Maybe, but it worked.”
“You could have been killed.”
“Xavier thinks this cavern is going to collapse any minute, so we need to get out of here.” I looked over my shoulder at the zombie following us. “Although I don’t think our new friend is going to like it if we try to waltz away.”
“You have the Jerusalem Stones?” she asked.
“Of course.”
“Get them ready. We might have to see what you can do with three of them if slack-jaw raises the alarm.”
We were close the platform now, the Roman legionnaires looming in front of us. I had to admit that even with their withered limbs, skin like parchment paper stretched over bones, sunken black eyes and exposed, rotted teeth, the legionnaires still looked magnificent in their uniforms. Burnished metal breastplates covered their chests and mottled red capes draped behind them. A few of them wore impressive helmets with various amounts of red brush left on the top after two centuries of deep-freeze storage. These were the centurions, the guys in charge. The most nerve-wracking thing was the way all of them stayed in formation and gazed out over the scene in front of them. They seemed much more aware of their surroundings than most zombies. And that wasn’t good for us.
“We’re all in now,” Eva whispered. “Let’s see if we can take this all the way and get that fourth Jerusalem Stone. Ready?”
“Not really.”
“Perfect,” she said, shoving me at the nearest centurion.
The soldier lowered his spear at us and hissed through his few remaining teeth.
“I caught this human sneaking into the cave,” Eva said. “I was going to dispose of him myself, but I suspect he’s a monster hunter of the Black Guard.” The centurion’s black eyes bore into me. “I assume the Lord will want to interrogate him.”
I looked at the ground, trying to appear as scared and nervous as possible. Trust me, it wasn’t a hard act to pull off. I was literally shaking in my boots. Ancient Roman legionnaires in front so me. A thousand zombies behind. And millions of tons of rock ready to drop on our heads at any second. This whole thing wasn’t exactly going to plan.
“Let us pass,” Eva said. If she felt any of the same nerves I did, she certainly didn’t show it.
The centurion slowly extended his spear closer and closer to my chest until the tip touched me. Then he slid it upward until it was under my chin, and he used it to raise my head so that I was looking right at him.
Then, as if things couldn’t get any creepier, the exposed tendons in the zombie’s face flexed, turning his decayed mouth into a cruel grin.
He lowered his sword and turned to let us pass. I blew out my breath, only then realizing I’d been holding it the entire time. Eva pushed me forward and we walked past the two rows of Roman soldiers.
Behind us, a great crashing sound erupted and the strangled sound of zombies screaming rose through the air. I turned, fearing the worst, but saw only another small section of ceiling falling, not the major collapse. Yet.
We reached the stairs that led up to the rectangular platform. Torches surrounded the entire edge, leaving no opening, not even at the stairs. Shadows moved beyond the fire, dark and obscured.
“What now?” I said to Eva.
She didn’t get a chance to answer. A looming figure stepped forward behind the row of flaming torches at the top of the stairs. We both stared, somehow knowing it was the Lord of the Zombies.
Slowly, the figure stepped through the fire, not bothered by the flames scorching its body. It took one step down and then waited.
I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. My knees nearly buckled and I had to reach out to Eva to steady myself. But she wasn’t much better off and she stumbled to the side a little.
What stood in front of us didn’t make any sense.
It was impossible.
Master Aquinas’s voice came back to me. She’d told me there was a new leader of the zombies. Someone they thought Ren Lucre had chosen himself so that the zombies would do his bidding.
That may very well have been the case, but it was clear now that his choice had been made for a different reason. It’d been made so that if this exact moment happened, my friends and I would be paralyzed with…with…what were the emotions? Fear? Guilt? Panic?
All I knew was that nothing could have prepared me for the person who stood on the stairs, twisted to one side because parts of her body were gone, her face death-grey with black holes for eyes staring right through me. Tears sprang to my eyes as I looked at what had become of the hunter who’d sacrificed herself to save me all those months ago back in Sunnyvale.
It was Hester.
And, somehow, she was the new Lord of the Zombies.
23
“Hester,” Eva whispered. “What have they done to you?”
I heard the pain in Eva’s voice. It wasn’t lost on me that she was speaking as one proud hunter, who found herself transformed into a Creach, to another. Hester’s vacant stare and decaying body somehow made the price she’d been forced to pay seem much greater than Eva’s own.
I put a foot on the first step up the platform. There were only ten steps so we weren’t that far from one another. “Hester, it’s us. Jack and Eva. Do you understand?”
Hester took two more steps toward us and stopped. If she had any understanding, it was impossible to read from her face.
“Let us get you out of here,” I said. “Get you far away from all this. I have Jerusalem Stones now. Three of them. Maybe that will be enough to help you. Transform you back.”
Hester hissed at the mention of the Jerusalem Stones. She bounded down the last of the stairs, taking two at a time. Her limbs flailed in odd directions as she moved, as if her bones were broken, but she was fast. Of that there was no doubt.
I stepped back quickly, Eva and I taking a defensive posture. I pulled my sword and she had her knife. In life, Hester had been an instructor at the Academy and a legendary fighter. I just hoped the undead version of her hadn’t kept many of her skills.
In a blur of motion, her hands flew to her side and came up with two wicked-looking knifes, slicing the air in front of her with practiced ease.
“Uh oh,” Eva said.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
Hester launched herself at m
e, snarling and biting the air.
I wasn’t prepared and stumbled backward.
Luckily, Eva had her wits about her and intercepted the charge, slamming into Hester’s side with her shoulder, sending her off course.
I did a quick check behind us, half-expecting the Roman legion to be in full battle mode to protect the Lord, but they hadn’t moved. All of them faced outward, seemingly programmed to do that one thing. At least we had that going for us.
“Jack!” Eva cried.
On reflex, I dodged right and tucked into a roll on the ground. I felt a searing pain as one of Hester’s knives sliced though the top of my shoulder.
A knife wound I could live with. I knew that a bite was the real worry. The quest to stop Ren Lucre would come to a stop in a real hurry if Eva and I were turned into zombies.
I bounced back up to my feet just as Hester charged at me again. My sword blocked a knife plunging at my head as I twisted to the side to avoid the attack with the other hand.
Just as I did, I heard Eva cry out and a second later the point of her knife poked through the front of Hester’s chest.
The problem with fighting the undead is that they don’t feel pain. At all.
Hester spun around, completely ignoring the knife sticking out of her back, and ran at the now weaponless Eva.
It was my turn to come to the rescue.
I sprinted to Hester and grabbed the knife handle lodged between her shoulder blades. It might not hurt her at all, but it was a pretty handy way to control her movement.
I used it to spin Hester away from Eva and to keep her from turning to face me.
She clawed at her back, trying to reach me, trying to reach the knife. But I had too good a hold on her.
I’d dropped my sword to the ground to have both hands free. Eva picked it up and stood in front of Hester as I controlled her.
We both knew what needed to be done.
The only way to stop a zombie was to cut off its head.
Eva raised the sword, her lips pulled back, revealing her vampire teeth.