by Black, D. S.
“NOOOOO!” Duras screamed and ran with all his strength, his bat'leth held high, swinging with all his might. The tip of the blade entered Spade’s throat, and Mary Jane fell to the floor screaming.
Duras pulled the blade from the king’s throat and watched in horror as the man turned and faced him. His eyes fluttered shades of red, then black, then red again. His white skin was turning crimson.
The king smiled. A smile that would send most men running, pissing their pants.
Duras felt something tighten around his throat. He wasted no time. He swung his blade with dizzying speed, and the king’s head toppled off its body; landed with a meaty thud and rolled on the floor, coming to a rest against a work table.
Duras ran over to the head. The eyes looked up at him smiling.
Duras’s feet were swept with psychic force and he fell to the floor. His bat'leth was ripped from his hands, and he watched with curiosity and fear as the blade hovered in the air, and then turned its blade towards him. The blade began to move, to swing—
Tasha brought her hammer down. Spade’s skull crushed and the bat'leth fell to the floor. She spat on the king’s oozing brains, then walked away and fell by the side of Okona; wrapped his dead body in her arms, closed her eyes, and mumbled something in his ear; her voice too low to hear.
Duras pulled himself to his feet.
“Du-ras…,” Mary Jane spoke his name in two syllables, near death apparent in her voice.
“Mary!” Duras said, running to her, dropping to his knees.
00:30…00:29…00:28…
A large piece of rebar protruded from Mary Jane’s stomach. Her eyes closed, opened, closed, opened again. A dark haze lingered in her vision. For a moment, she saw It—the dank greedy lust for souls, pain, and all the hatred It spewed—hovering in front of her. A ghastly creature her vocabulary lacked diction to describe
Her vision cleared.
She saw Duras. Beautiful, wonderful, Tommy Morrow. Bloody, afraid, but still beautiful. His long brown hair disheveled like a Viking lord after a glorious battle. She reached up and touched his face, and he took her hand, holding it against his cheek.
She tried to speak. Blood came out instead. Duras’s tears gushed out, and he said: “Don’t talk. It’s alright. I love you, Mary. I’ve loved you since I met you, and I’ll love you till the end.”
00:11…00:10…00:09…
Behind them, Tasha’s sobs were loud; her voice broken, her mind lost to grief.
Her child unknown to her or Okona, rested like a peanut inside her, never to be discovered.
Outside, the battle was over. Duras heard the sound of Militia soldiers walking towards the room. Their boots pounding, their voices raised in victory.
He ignored them. He looked down at Mary Jane. All her love, all her wondrous beauty, her once bright eyes now lingering on the edge of death.
00:05…00:04…00:03…
He cradled her head in his hand, pulled her to him, and looked deeply at her eyes. His tears washing blood from her face. His words came out in a soft sob, “Don’t lose this moment. Stay with me. Right here. Right now. In this mome—”
Zarina (And the World) Moves On
The mushroom cloud rose in the distance. Her heart sank. Gone. Dead. All of them.
She heard her father’s calculating voice: Zarina, mir – jeto zhestokoe mesto. Luchshe tebe ozhestochit'sja vmeste s nim. Zarina, the world’s a hard place, best for you to harden with it.
Her father’s cold words dampened the pain only a little.
Her kids, her children of the apocalypse. Brave boys and one girl. She’d never forget them. She’d spread their story wherever she roamed.
She’d only known Johnny Rainmaker a short while, but felt his soul burning in the nuclear inferno.
But there was no time for mourning. No time at all. The winds would kill her if she stayed. Time to leave.
The world, like Zarina, was moving on.
And so, she set out and already her heart yearned for Russia. For Zlatoust. For her father. She couldn’t know for sure, could she? Was he still alive? The man was a military machine, if anyone could survive it was him. She had to believe that. She set it in her mind at that moment to see her homeland again.
The world was moving on. Much of the South East would soon become inhabitable, a desolate nuclear wasteland—a hellhole occupied by souls under the tyranny of The Voice.
And thus, came an end to many fine lives. To many brave hearts and souls. History books would never record the events of that fateful, destructive summer. The stories told to Zarina along with her own experiences, would get passed around as she went from city to city, town to town, state to state; apocalyptic communities scattered here and there. The stories would become legend; legend would become myth.
Some stories died in the inferno, stories about a man named Duras and a man named Okona, and their reluctant peace that led to a heartfelt but failed search for their beloved. The names and actions of so many: Vice, Rhino, Ice Man, Chris, Andre, Tasha, Mary Jane… lost forever in the sands of time, eviscerated in one blinding flash.
In the real world, sometimes evil wins, and hope fails. Sometimes it’s a draw. Sometimes only a moral grayness is left, leaving any survivor to ask if such words have any meaning at all.
The world was moving on. The New World was here to stay. The ghosts, spirits, haints, demons, whatever word you chose; for better or good, would continue to play their roles.
As Zarina looked in the rear-view mirror, she saw the imprint of a smile embedded in the rising nuclear mushroom cloud.
The Voice, who had hosted the Mountain King’s darkest dreams and brought about the nuclear destruction of the Carolinas, laughed loudly and proudly.
Zarina: Zombie Huntress
Ten years ago, Zarina Seraeva left her home in Russia and took a vacation to America.
She never returned home.
After a supernatural virus ripped open the thin veneer between the world of the living and the world of the dead, Zarina found herself trapped in North America.
Her long journey north led her to Canary Colorado where local rebels ask for her help in defeating Barry Blackwood.
The Blackwood Gang controls much of Colorado. Barry’s strange supernatural power comes from sacrificing children, aided by Hazel Storm, a strong witch with a touch of insanity.
Zarina wants to go home. Wants to skip these fights. Let the people here handle their own problems. She could just skip past all these little towns, head straight to the Canadian border.
She can’t. She won’t. She must help them.
Why?
Simple.
She’s the only one who can.
Coming Soon!
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About the Author
D.S. Black is the author of Humanity’s Death: A Horror Fantasy Epic, Humanity's Death: Road to Columbia, and Humanity's Death: The Final Solution. As a child and teenager, he fell in love with horror, starting with R.L. Stine's Goosebumps series; eventually graduating to the works of Stephen King, among others, and always seemed on the outskirts of normal and acceptable behavior and thinking. During his twenties, he smoked a bit too much weed and dropped too much acid, but by the time he hit thirty; writing books became a passion. He resides in Spartanburg, SC with his loving wife.