by A. P. Fuchs
* * * *
4
Taking Chances
“Move!” Joe said, shoving Tracy toward the basement steps.
The freezer lid lifted then thunked down, lifted then thunked down, the books on top of it jumping and jostling with each thump. Some fell over, others spilled to the floor, lightening the weight on top of the lid.
Tracy was already halfway up the steps, Joe at the bottom. He backed up into her, nudging her closer to the stairway’s top.
The freezer lid jumped and thudded again, this time the height of its opening having doubled. Hands appeared between the lid and the rim. It was too dark to make out the exact details or their color, but it was most definitely one of the creatures and not somebody using the freezer for protection, even if someone else secured it by putting the books on top. The putrid funk of deceased flesh instantly filled the air like a punch to the face; Joe immediately gagged. How long that creature had been pent up in there, he didn’t know, and could only guess the sudden sound of the dryer lid slamming down set it off. Either that, or the monster had smelled them even from inside the freezer. So much for whoever’s idea of locking the creature in there.
Joe pushed back into Tracy, forcing her all the way up the stairs. Once at the top, he pushed her through the doorframe.
“Find something to protect yourself with,” he said, quickly shut the door and locked it from the inside.
Tracy banged against the door. “Don’t you dare, Joe. I’m not leaving you alone in there with that thing. Get out of there!”
“Go find a knife or something!”
“Joe!”
“Discussion over.” He ignored her pleas for him to come out of the basement and get away from the monster.
The basement reminded him of another one, the one with Blue and his gang, those men that had tormented the girl in the ragged, pale yellow dress, using her to tease one of the creatures. He killed the men, and the zombie in an effort to save the girl. He was too late. She had been bit, so he had to kill her, too.
The zombie in front of him snarled and made its way forward in the dark, its sliding footsteps indicating at least one ankle was broken. The creature hissed. Joe stepped forward, hands up, ready.
Tracy yelled through the door in the background.
Grimacing and ignoring the terrible smell, he stomped toward the creature and swung out, punching it in the head. The zombie stumbled back, then growled and lunged forward, grabbing him around the neck. Joe grabbed onto either side of the undead’s forearms and kicked straight out, nailing the creature in the chest, forcing it back. Its scraggly, decaying arms slipped between Joe’s hands and it tumbled backward. Not wasting time, Joe kept moving toward it, minding his own footing to ensure the thing didn’t lash out and try and take him down at the knees. Reaching forward, he gripped the zombie at the back of the head by the hair, pulled it up, all the while jerking the thing’s head to the side as it tried to lean forward and snap at him with rotten teeth. Punching the creature in the throat, then ramming the palm of his hand up against the underside of the zombie’s jaw, forcing its mouth closed, Joe threw the creature at the freezer. The monster slammed into it. With a hard kick, Joe took the creature’s knees out from under it, causing it to collapse. As it turned around, mouth open again, he punched it in the forehead, slamming its skull back against the freezer. Quickly, Joe opened the freezer’s heavy lid, grabbed the zombie by the back of the head again, and put it face down over the freezer’s edge. He jerked the heavy lid down as hard as he could, crushing the creature’s skull in between the lid and the freezer’s rim. Bone cracked, followed by the wet squish of compressed flesh. He raised the lid and brought it down as hard and as fast as he could again, mashing the creature’s head to a pulp until the thing’s body fell, its rotten skull having been cut off around the mouth. The top of its head thudded as it dropped inside the freezer.
Sweating, careful not to breathe too deep lest he throw up, Joe opened the lid, picked up the zombie’s body, and tossed it in the freezer. He slammed the lid shut, hands shaking, legs rubbery. His eyes ached from fatigue.
Tracy still pounded against the door, screaming for his safety.
* * * *
Billie hung on with all she had. The branch had snapped and swung down like a pendulum. She clung to it like a rope in gym class, the dead below feasting on Hank’s body.
Have to stay focused, she thought, though already her hands were beginning to slip against the rough bark. She could only imagine the splinters that would ravage her palms if she slid all the way down its length and onto the mound of the undead below.
The loud munches of the walking dead were enough to give her an extra boost of strength to hang on as tightly as she could. She squeezed her eyes shut, doing so somehow making her feel stronger and making it easier to hang on.
“Pleasedon’tseeme, pleasedon’tseeme, pleasedon’tseeme,” she whispered, mouth pushed into her arm. Heart racing a mile a minute, sweat bursting out all over her body, she hoped and prayed she’d somehow get out of this.
The groans and wheezes grew louder below, so much so she opened her eyes. Zombies gazed up at her, milky-white eyes fixed on her, mouths agape, their bodies swaying back and forth. Others remained focused on Hank, his body nothing more now than red mush mixed with some fabric and bones.
“I’m dead,” Billie said. She lifted her legs and set them around the branch as well, hoping she could muster the strength to inch her way up. She tried, but she quickly lost purchase and slid down a foot or two, her fingernails tearing against the bark, the inside of her forearms scraping along its rough surface. The interior of her thighs burned from the friction of her rapid descent.
Eyes wide, overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of pain, she could only just hang on and nothing more.
“No,” she said, trying to catch her breath, “must try. For Hank. For me. For Joe. For Des.” She grit her teeth. “For August.” She screamed behind tightly-pressed lips as she attempted to climb the branch again; the raw skin of her forearms lit up in fiery pain every time she moved them along the bark. She made it up a couple of feet, getting back to where she’d been before she slipped. She clung hard to the branch.
Hard.
Harder.
Wood snapped beneath her.
The undead had latched on to the bottom of the large branch, clawing and pulling on the fan-like clump of smaller twigs and branches, trying to climb up. Each jolt of their weight against the branch wreaked havoc on her arms. Blood leaked down her skin, pooling in her armpits and dripping down her sides. Arms numb, it was hard to tell if she was even holding on anymore. She actually had to look at her arms to make sure.
The branch shook. Billie slipped a few inches, her arms getting torn up even more. Screaming from the pain, the terrifying thought of becoming zombie food setting her heart into an all-out gallop, she looked around, checking for any last-second options.
“Hold on!” she shrieked at herself.
But she couldn’t. She slid down the branch, the flesh on her arms tearing to ribbons, the zombies below quickly getting closer.
Some fifteen or twenty feet from the ground, Billie let go, rolling her body in the air as hard as she could to the side, and landed on her right shoulder and hip some ten yards from the hungry undead.
The right side of her body numb, she tried to get to her feet, only to collapse.
“No! Get up!” Her words floated away from her then echoed in her ears loud and clear.
Had they been her words? Hank’s? August’s? Nathaniel’s?
What words?
Darkness rimmed her vision.
“Noooo . . .” she groaned, eyeing the undead as they made their way toward her.
Billie dragged herself along the ground, arms stinging and bleeding. She came up near a large bush that had long since lost its leaves. Reaching out, she grabbed its stems and slowly pulled herself up. Her left leg worked—barely—her right was useless.
Hobbling
, she pushed her way into the forest, not looking back or wasting any more precious seconds on the undead.
She slowly moved around trees and in between skeletal bushes, hoping to find some sort of haven.
But there was nothing.
Just dead trees, bushes, shrubs and rocks.
Rocks. The ground beneath her had changed to rock. She was outside the forest, along the lake.
The zombies got closer and broke through the bushes.
Barely able to walk, Billie screamed at them, raw and visceral. Her primal shrieks didn’t faze them and they kept moving forward.
Backing up, running out of room, she bordered the edge of the rocks and the gray waters below.
“I’m tired,” she said, the words trickling out. The hard realization hit her that despite any hope she once had even just moments ago, it was all gone. This war, these creatures, angels, demons and everything in between—no more.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, maybe to Joe, or to Nathaniel, or even herself.
The undead reached for her.
Billie backed up and pushed herself off the edge of the rock into the gray water below.
* * * *
One year ago . . .
Bethrez entered Vingros’s chamber not worried he would chew him out for putting an end to Holgrack’s commandership. If anything, Vingros would be glad the sniveling worm was out of the way as, though he’d never admit it, Bethrez knew Vingros had regretted the decision of promoting Holgrack to commander after Holgrack had returned empty-handed from a recent battle, without the influence on even a single soul.
Vingros liked the dark, Bethrez knew, and only on occasion permitted himself the luxury of a dimly-lit torch to light the otherwise gloomy den.
“I can hear you breathing,” Vingros said, his voice coming from where Bethrez knew the large demon kept his throne.
“The portal is ready albeit there is one problem before testing.”
“Don’t tell me, it’s in the wrong location.”
“Yes, how did you—”
“You idiot! I know what’s going on in my circle and am apprised of news before all else, save the master himself.”
“Yes, my lord, but I thought it best to come to you to let you know that we are ready except that one detail otherwise we await the master’s command to open the portal. Is he aware of—” Bethrez thought better of the comment and kept his mouth shut.
“I will send others to move the portal—”
“I wish it were that simple, but the portal is larger than the room it’s constructed in, thus cannot leave without being dismantled.”
“Oh, Bethrez, you disappoint me. Do you not remember that as master of the Fourth Circle I am able to bend the very depths of the earth to my whim?”
“No, my lord,” he lied. Fact of the matter was, ever since being tasked with creating the portal, the work had taken up most of Bethrez’s time, and if not all his time, then his thoughts, pushing out all else.
“The portal shall remain where it is, but I will use the rocks and stones to move it to its rightful location. I ask you, once there, will it be ready?”
Bethrez grinned. “It will be ready, however, I request to be present upon first usage, namely, the first one through. If it fails like before, then I will be shot back here. If it succeeds, the doors to the Earth will open and we will all go through.”
“The master will not tolerate another failed experiment. You have had over six hundred years to get it right.”
Bethrez wished to explain that to enable his fellow demons access to the Earth en masse and in the manner of which mass possession was possible, was not an easy feat as safeguards from the battle long ago had been put in place to prevent such a thing. It took over two centuries alone to thoroughly study each and every safeguard and realm-lock before even an attempt at a means to disarm them was possible. Construction on a single prototype portal took anywhere between eighty to one hundred and thirteen years. Yet Vingros wasn’t interested in such things, he knew. He was also aware their master was on a clock himself, one that couldn’t be outrun unless such a device was constructed.
“Depart now, Bethrez. I will call when I have need of you.”
“Thank you,” Bethrez said with a bow then left the cave.
* * * *
5
Hang Ups
Tracy slapped Joe in the face, sending a hot sting across his cheek.
“You’re unbelievable,” she said. She was stunned he’d lock her out of the basement, and what for? So he could play hero and take out a rotter all by himself? Yeah, that’s real impressive, not to mention stupid and dangerous. She knew he’d killed many undead creatures on his own before, but what she didn’t get was why he’d suddenly cut her out and take one on with her right there. It’d be one thing if she couldn’t handle herself, or had been severely hurt, or even had simply not been present—but when she stood right there beside him when the creature emerged? What gives?
“What’s your problem?” he said.
“What’s yours? Why did you lock me out of the basement?”
“I . . . didn’t want you to get hurt.”
“Don’t feed me that crap,” she said. “We might not be best friends, but I know you well enough to know there was another reason.”
“Honestly, there wasn’t. I saw the thing, you were by the door, I pushed you out in case the worst happened.”
She threw up her arms and shook her hands by her head, frustrated. “Are you listening to yourself? You’re the one who backed me up the stairs by the door. You’re the one who thought that somehow the worst would happen when we were together versus the worst happening when you handled that on your own. And without a gun!”
“I knew what I was doing.”
“That doesn’t matter. You willingly went head first into death and shut me out. What’s going on, Joe? Did something else happen? Is it me? Seriously, what’s going on?”
He looked at her, eyes empty of emotion or concern, just . . . lost.
Is he over the edge? Did it finally happen and just came out of nowhere? she thought. I understand his pain and his battle against the undead. I get all that, probably better than anyone else he’s ever met. Just don’t get how he could suddenly snap. Thought there’d be a progression, if that was going to happen. Thought there’d be signs.
She loudly exhaled and shook her head. “I-I don’t know what to say. Just think it was a stupid move on your part.”
“Think what you want. The thing is . . .” He didn’t finish.
“What?”
He simply folded his arms.
“No, no, come on. Don’t start to say something then cut yourself off. Give me a break. I hated that before the world fell apart and I hate it now. Spit it out!”
He turned around and headed toward the kitchen. “Going to go look for something to eat. Sorry, Tracy.”
She gritted her teeth and stared after him with squinted eyes. “Stupid idiot.”
“Heard that,” he said from the other room.
“I don’t care,” she shouted.
The house went quiet. She ran her hands over her hair, smoothing it back. Quietly, she said, “Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re so upset.” But she already knew the answer.
It was so simple, so obvious.
She’d grown to care for him.
* * * *
There was nothing food-wise in the kitchen. The water was off. Even after checking the master valve, nothing was running into the house. Joe swallowed back his thirst and sat alone on the bed in what seemed to have been a teenager’s bedroom. KISS posters dominated the walls. Clearly whoever had lived here was a fan. He browsed the CD rack and there were a dozen of their albums, their edges covered in dust.
Tracy was right: it had been a bonehead move to try and take on the zombie by himself, especially since he was unarmed. He was thankful he was still alive, though there was a brief moment while taking on the creature that he thought it might be fo
r the best if the thing killed him. Finally, then, he’d be free of this world, the heartache, this disgusting reality of undead monsters and supernatural forces.
Except when you hit the other side, he thought, then you’ll be spending eternity with the supernatural anyway. You’ve seen enough to know that. He just hoped he’d make it to the right side when his time came.
Misplaced affection had been the real culprit. His love for April, her untimely death, undeath, then death again—Joe knew full well he’d never get over her. Not completely. At best, he’d remain as he was: used to a life without her, the pain of the past always present and hanging over the future. But this world, the one he was in, the one he and Billie and August emerged in after the Storm of Skulls—it wasn’t theirs. April could still be alive here. If so, he’d have to find her. There was no choice.
But Tracy . . . he thought. The girl was growing on him. He saw so much of himself in her that it was surreal he even found her, never mind actually got to spend lots of time with her. She understood him, he knew, his mission, his pain. She was on a similar quest of her own, this undead world a twisted salve to their pulsating wounds.
He’d pushed her out of the basement for the same reason he immediately tore off into the gray rain the day it first fell: to ensure the girl he cared about was safe. Something had come over him the moment he saw that creature emerge from the freezer, an instinct to protect her overriding any thought for his own safety.
“She would have been fine standing right there with me,” he said to himself. “She could take you down if needed and would probably have no trouble doing so.” He touched his cheek where she slapped him. His skin was still sensitive.
Joe just wasn’t sure if he was substituting Tracy for April, and the feelings he had for his beloved were being projected onto someone who might be able to take her place.
“You can’t treat her like that, though,” he told himself. “She can’t be a surrogate. She deserves better than that. Deserves someone who cares for her just for her, no strings attached.” He sighed. “Can’t believe I’m even thinking about this stuff when there’re more important things to worry about.”