by Amy Braun
Path of the Horseman by Amy Braun
© 2015 by Amy Braun. All rights reserved.
This is a work of fiction. Any names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locations is entirely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any written, electronic, recording, or photocopying without written permission of the author.
Cover Design: Curtis Lory
Stock Art: Dan Friel
ebook ISBN: 978-0-9938758-1-6
PATH OF THE HORSEMAN
Amy Braun
For my friends and family.
“The question shouldn’t be ‘is there life after death’ but ‘is there life before death’.” –
Kate Miller
“Each man is the architect of his own fate.” – Appius Claudius
Prologue
Of the Four Horsemen, Pestilence is the ultimate catalyst.
Sure, it’s probably the others that will get you. Famine starves you and War makes you insane before Death finally tracks you down. But Pestilence is the reason things go straight to Hell.
Don’t get me wrong– I was good at my job. Damn good. Too damn good, actually. I worked hard on my super-virus. The Big Boss Upstairs said wipe them out, so I did just that.
I was the spark that burned down the world.
Shame I didn’t read the fine print. Logan said I was being over-enthusiastic, but who listens to their older brother when they’re having the time of their life? Doing what I was created to do?
Turns out that I should have. I really, really fucking should have.
Ending the world wasn’t a mistake. It was my job. But watching it all unfold, all the pain and blood and the endless screams, I hadn’t anticipated that.
Before the seal was opened and we were let out, Heaven had been updating us on the world beyond our stone prison. We knew all of Earth’s history. We didn’t know when we’d be released, only that we would be some day. So our handlers saw fit to feed us a never-ending documentary on Earth’s history. I watched the first grunting humans shamble out of their caves and see light for the first time. I watched the rise and fall of Rome. I saw the radical slaughters of Genghis Khan then watched Vlad the Impaler earn his reputation in Transylvania. I also saw artists change the world only to fall into depression and suicide. I witnessed great men climb up the ladder from nothing, only to be screwed over by packs of backstabbing bullies. I even know the truths about Area 51 and the JFK assassination. Not that I’m about to share.
Amazing inventions, colossal failures, and countless wars. We watched it behind the scenes. Watched the monkeys from beyond the glass. We were intrigued, Hell was amused, and Heaven was losing patience.
Finally, the monkeys threw too much shit on the windows. They sparked a third World War, one that the Big Boss Upstairs knew would obliterate the world.
So He sent us instead. We were much more effective. We were much more eager.
But I never thought about what it would be like to watch my disease spread like wildfire in a paper forest. I hadn’t imagined seeing my closest brother parch the earth until it was a husked shell of itself. I wasn’t prepared when my oldest siblings tore through the world like a knife plunging into fresh skin, the hot pain of War chased by the cool conviction of Death.
Our handlers hadn’t prepared half as much as they thought they did. We weren’t the only things let out that day. Turned out demons were tricky sons of bitches with as much patience as any angel.
Standing on the hilltop, watching my brothers annihilate one half of the land while the demons picked up the scraps made me sicker than the plague I let out. We were told we’d be saving humanity. The Tribulation would lead to the Second Coming. A clean slate to restart the world.
What a fucking lie.
Chapter 1
Six Months After Tribulation
I couldn’t believe how long it took for them to see me. When they weren’t excited, they were the speed of a rolling pencil and about as smart, but I was a walking buffet. I had to shoulder into some of the idiots to get them to notice me.
Though when they did, the plan started getting dangerous. There wasn’t a lot a Plagued could do to me, but I could still get hurt. Getting crushed by a bunch of decaying corpses was not on my list of death wishes.
Their shambling picked up as I jogged through the crowd of Plagued. Raspy moans and guttural growls followed my back. Good to know I got their attention.
I needed them to surround me. Yeah, I could have taken them out one at a time, but where’s the fun in that? Besides, it had been so long since I used my powers that I was beginning to feel human.
Definitely not as fun as being the Real Me.
So I ran to the center of the town, making as much noise as I could. Knocked over a garbage bin, threw a rock into a window, shouted for help, the things only moronic people did.
Not that there were any stupid people alive anymore, thanks to my brothers and me. No Good Samaritans, either.
I slowed down and stood at a four way stop, looking at every intersection and counting all of the Plagued. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty... Twenty-three? That’s it? Damn. Last week’s haul was better.
But it wasn’t the Plagued I was really after. Oh no. I’m a guy who tries for the bigger game. Yes, I turned humans into flesh-eating zombies. There, I confess. But the real monsters? The ones who were fast, strong, and literally bloodthirsty? I didn’t make those.
Scout’s honor.
I watched the Plagued shamble closer, keeping my eyes on the windows of the busted shops and the alleys. They could come out during the day, but they hated it.
Still, I was fresh meat. Something I knew they wanted. As far as they knew, I was a nice juicy human. The rarest of rare for their palates.
Come on out, you bastards. Take a bite of me, and choke.
I swear the Soulless were less patient than their brain-dead brethren. They eased out of the dark like pools of oil dripping into shadows. Stealthy and languid, they were the jaguars hiding in the jungle. There were four of them. Less than I accounted for. I would have gone back to recheck my numbers, but the converging circle of Plagued was tightening. The smell nearly made me gag. Think sleeping next to a rotting corpse in a dumpster is bad? Try standing in the middle of over twenty decaying corpses whose body odor alone will have your stomach rethinking your lunch.
The Soulless weaved faster through the crowd of undead. I could see them being shoved aside. The Soulless wanted first bites, the selfish jerks. There was enough of me to go around.
I kept my hands loose at my sides, relaxing my mind and pulling up the ancient power inside my body. It grew like the maw of a yawning lion, wide, roaring, and showing all its teeth.
I shouldn’t have been using it, but… it felt fucking good.
The power shivered under my skin as the Soulless gave up on subtlety. The Plagued were feet away, and they wanted early dibs. The closest Plagued were just stretching out their withering fingers when the Soulless burst through the lines. They hissed like feral cats, bloodshot eyes narrowed in hunger, black tipped claws pointing out like shards of glass from their fingertips, dried blood caked around their crocodile toothed mouths.
The Soulless thought they were the top dogs. Highest on the food chain. Untouchable.
But they were nothing compared to me.
Their claws barely scratched my arm as I let all that pent up power go. A living disease exploded out of my body in a wave of black smoke and ash. I controlled the smoke, watching its tendrils snake into the mouths of the Soulless. They skidded to a stop and screeched as I turned the smoke into a corrosive bacteria that devoured their insides. The hungry bacteria tainted
their pale blue veins, turning them into black cracks on their dirty, alabaster skin. The four Soulless gave a collective scream before collapsing onto the ground. Their pale complexions turned grey, and I knew my job was done.
But did I stop there? Of course not. I was surrounded by walking corpses and too lazy to fight my way out.
I pushed the hazy disease toward the Plagued. I narrowed my smoke, condensing parts of the vapor to the size of hornets. My locusts. It had been so long since I used them.
And they were hungry.
Holding onto my smoke, I let the locusts fly at the Plagued. They latched onto the walking dead instantly, through their already decaying flesh. Dead things don’t feel pain, so they didn’t scream or howl. They just twitched and jerked, like they were dancing in a possessed rave while the smoke machine poisoned them.
Took another minute for the Plagued to collapse onto the ground next to their freshly dead Soulless pals. I pulled the locusts back, dissolving them into fumes that I pulled into my skin. By the time the disease was back in my body, I was light-headed and seeing stars. It had been a long time since I’d used the locusts, and I’d forgotten how draining they could be. I had a lot of power, but no idea how much longer it would last me.
Playing human was a bitch. Stupid Bosses should have told me that much.
I shook the dizziness off and breathed steadily, then looked at my work.
Twenty-three Plagued lying in chunky heaps of bone and clotted blood, four black veined and grey skinned Soulless staring with sightless eyes.
Not a bad haul, actually.
***
After effectively vaporizing the overeager vampires and their brain-dead cousins, there was nothing left for me to do in Boulder City. This had been my sector since that little apocalyptic party my brother and I hosted six months ago, and I hadn’t been to one since. Not even a Sunday dinner. Not that there was a lot to eat since Simon did his job.
Some days I wondered if the Bosses Upstairs knew what would happen to us after we cleansed the earthly slate. Actually, I’m pretty sure they did. We were just tools to them. The ultimate stain remover, no money back guarantee required. Except what do you with the bottle when those stains are gone? You toss it. The stain remover did its job, and you don’t need it anymore.
So we were stuck down here with the leftover dead and might-as-well-be-dead, wandering back and forth because we had no direction. When we finally picked our spots, we stayed in them. It wasn’t like anything could really hurt us.
Too bad that like the stain remover, we had an expiry date. Nobody was coming from on high to take us back to the clouds and throw us a thank you party. They couldn’t even be bothered to seal us back up again. I wouldn’t really want to be locked in the pit with my sociopathic siblings again, but a change of scenery would be nice. I was sick of the sandstorms, the sunburns, and the smell of old death.
In the end, that was what made me leave my little Boulder. I needed some kind of adventure. Anything to kill the time while looking for something to actually kill.
I trudged through the now completely empty city, kicking up dust and stepping over debris. With no street crews alive to maintain the roads, the whole of downtown looked like the desert was swallowing it up. The sand was ankle high at some points. I walked past the bloodstains and emaciated corpses I’d spent the last six months talking to. I didn’t have much for company these days since we’d split up. Some days I wished I hadn’t let Bacillus go. He’d been my one loyal friend, and I locked him away. Couldn’t even think about the guy without thinking about what he’d helped me enthusiastically do.
The roads were littered with cars. Most of them were crammed into the middle of the streets, like metal sardines in a brick casing. I didn’t have a lot to pick from in terms of style, but I did find a black Jeep Cherokee near the corner of the four way stop. Three other cars had been smashed together, probably two sets of cars trying to speed to safety. Of course they didn’t pay attention, thinking the Plagued were more dangerous than their fellow commuters.
Irony, thy name is humanity.
The sand softened the crunch of glass under my military boots. I looked inside the Cherokee to make sure it hadn’t been turned into a Dead Hobo Hyatt. Good news was it was empty. Bad news was I couldn’t see anything remotely close to survival supplies. I figured food would be out (damn you, Simon), but anything else would have been nice.
I’m invincible when I’m using my powers, but my skin suit is not impervious. This is something many Soulless have discovered, but haven’t been able to tell their friends. I’m not sure what will kill me. Simon will probably die of starvation, Kade will burn himself out, and Logan will be the last man on earth before he commits suicide.
Turns out we weren’t the only suckers for that bitch called Irony.
I tugged on the car door. It didn’t budge. So I made my way through the maze of crushed cars, found a fist sized rock, and picked it up. I turned and walked back to the car, then smashed the rock into the driver side window. I was stronger than your average mammal, so I took it out in one hit. I wasn’t worried about the noise, since everyone on the planet was dead.
I reached into the broken window and pulled up the lock. There wasn’t a car alarm, thank God. I hated breaking into cars that have thirty different alarm tones. I brushed the glass off the seat and slipped inside, tossing my rucksack into the seat next to me. My black cargo pants were thick, but no one wants to drive around with shards of window sticking into their ass. Next step was getting this box started. I reached into my front pocket and took out a Swiss army knife. Not as badass as the machete strapped to my back or the two KA-BAR knives hooked on my utility belt, but damn it if the little blade wasn’t efficient. A couple little twists, and the steering column popped off.
Though I was reluctant to show them any kind of gratitude, sometimes I was grateful the Bosses Upstairs implanted me with universal knowledge. It made finding the wiring harness and connecting the ignition to the battery wires an easy task. I didn’t even electrocute myself. I sat back against the seat and revved the engine. It started in one sputtering burst. Hallelujah.
As I put my hands on the steering wheel, I caught a glimpse of myself in the rearview mirror. It had been a while since I’d seen myself, but the body I’d been dumped in didn’t look any different than it had when the chaos started six months ago.
I was around the age of twenty-five, as far as humans were concerned. I suppose this body was attractive, though its skin was a little too pale for my liking. My hair was a short, white-blond mess on my head, and my gold eyebrows had a constant pinched look to them. The paleness of my appearance was stark against my clothes. The black cargo pants, combat boots, weapon harness and utility belt, and dark green shirt. I looked like an albino that went to boot camp for his anger management issues.
The only thing that gave me away was my eyes. Instead of albino red, they were dark. I don’t mean deep brown or black, just dark. Kind of the way the night is dark, a color all its own because it’s seen differently by everyone. Depending on my mood, the dark could be a touch lighter, or on the path to abysmal. These days, it’s probably always abysmal. I really need to talk to Simon.
I backed up the Cherokee, shifted gears, then navigated my new ride to the Esso across the street. I had to zigzag through the mess of cars, but soon enough I got to the gas station.
My skills are in the “infectious” category, so keeping fuel potent was tricky. At least I had some to spare in Boulder. Too many people had turned into Plagued buffets before the pumps ran out. Good thing the Cherokee took diesel.
As I filled the SUV, I took my last long look at Boulder City’s downtown heart.
My implanted memories told me it had been nice once. Like a preppy homemaker version of Vegas. Now its paved roads were smothered with dull yellow sands. Street signs and billboards were covered in grime. Trashed and burned out vehicles had been dropped like unloved toys. Store windows were broken or half boarded
up. Blood splatters painted the sidings. Skeletons with broken bones lay partly buried under layers of dust they would soon be part of.