"Yes I am."
"So you must be praying with all your heart right now for God to come down from the clouds and save you. Are you?"
"Should I be?" She retorted. Her boldness surprised him, but he seemed to enjoy it. His posture changed and he began to pace around her. "I don't pray to the Old Ones. They don't want lowly supplicants. Your god is a petulant child, so insecure...my tribute to the Old Ones is to realize my own greatness. You rummage through this ghost town, praying for enough to get you - little, pathetic you - through the next day. I look out there and see an empire for the taking.
"Men can be the new gods, you know, we can take what is ours - we only need the will to do it! But no, not you. You can't. You'd rather die on your knees and awaken a zombie. I'll be your new god.
"I think Addison knew that, in the back of his mind, but he was afraid. He wanted to give us as offerings to the Old Ones."
Palmer studied the man's face as he spoke. So he was one of the children the doctor had adopted? What had really gone on in this house?
"Addison," the man continued, "was too frightened to accept that what the Old Ones really want is for us to take for ourselves! The groveling supplicants with their pitiful offerings will become the walking dead! As they should! As YOU should!
"But not Lily."
The man opened a folding straight razor in his palm. "My name is Baron."
Palmer strained against the ropes. "I don't know who Lily is, I don't know where she is!"
"Then you're no good to me."
"That's it then? You were so convinced that I had the answers you needed, and now you're just going to - to--"
"Cut your throat? Mm-hmm." The razor danced in the light before her eyes. "I'll deal with the dark man himself if I have to. I'm not afraid."
"Yes you are." Palmer spat. Baron held the blade a hair's breadth from her eyeball. She blinked rapidly, trying to hold her gaze steady. She thought she could feel the cold steel against her eyelashes. Her bladder failed her, and Baron laughed.
"I think I'd like to show you something, Reverend..."
Voorhees took Lily to the window at the end of the fourth-floor corridor. They watched the remaining undead shuffle about.
"Her name's Lily. Lily, this is Jenna, and Mark, and Cheryl." Voorhees gestured to the people behind them. Lily didn't take her eyes away from the plaza. "Where is he?" She asked.
"The...man you were with...he told me to take you. I didn't see what happened after that."
"They got him." She breathed. "How can that even be?" She stared hard at the glass, at the tears forming in her reflection's eyes.
Jenna touched the girl's shoulder. "Where are you from?"
"I won't go back."
"You don't have to. I promise." The girl turned and Jenna offered her a warm smile, something she hadn't thought herself capable of. "We won't make you go back."
"Daddy Addison's house."
"In the swamp??" Voorhees choked. Mark Duncan nodded grimly at Lily. "Who else is there? Addison?"
"No. Baron killed him. Baron killed my mom and dad. He's all alone in that ugly house."
"Who's Baron?" Kneeling, Duncan said softly, "He never has to know that you told us."
"He's my brother. He killed all the rest of them. He made them into rotters and now they do whatever he says."
She'd been around the same undead that had attacked the shelter...? Voorhees tugged at the sleeves of her dress. "Have you been bitten?"
"Sometimes." She jerked her arms away. "Wait, what?" Voorhees exclaimed. "You mean you've been bitten before - and you're not sick?"
"They aren't like the other rotters. They didn't get bit either. The swamp made them come back."
"All of them?" Duncan felt a twinge of hope - maybe he wasn't infected after all - but the girl's impression of how things worked was probably skewed. Half of what she was saying might not be true at all. "Even the one who wore the skull on his head?"
Lily nodded. "The swamp makes everything come back. Bugs and frogs and birds. Just magic I guess." She held up her fist, showing them each the scar of a bite below her thumb. "It's not like the city." Baron had been truthful about that, at least.
"Okay, I need to think about this." Voorhees slouched down on the floor and rubbed his temples.
"What's there to think about?" Duncan shrugged. "Everything we've been arguing about makes sense now."
"Lily," Jenna said, "I'm so sorry about what happened to your friend out there. But you'll be safe with us. We're going far away from here."
"He can't be dead!" Lily cried. "He's an angel!"
Jenna looked questioningly at Voorhees. The cop wouldn't even lift his head.
Out on the street, Death's body was a crumbled ruin. Gene dragged his shovel through the chalky remains. Neither horse nor rider had been able to fight him off, as if he'd crippled both when he ambushed them.
But the girl was gone. The girl was meat and this wasn't. Gene took a mound of the pale quasi-flesh in his hand and studied it. Then he packed it into his mouth.
It tasted like nothing. It fell apart between his gnashing teeth, and he tilted his head back to force the dry mass down his throat.
Then every muscle in Gene's body seized, and black blood spurted from his eyes and nose and he fell stiffly on his back. A paralyzing rigor had taken hold of him. He stared blankly skyward, unable to move even his eyes.
Beside him, a disembodied finger curled and rolled onto its back.
38.
Empire
"This," Tetch said as he descended the steps into the cellar, "my afterdead found when they were laying the explosives in the garbage dump." He was carrying a small bundle in his arms. Palmer craned her neck to follow his progress across the room.
"I want to see what you think." Tetch brushed specks of dirt from the blanket and uncovered whatever was inside. There was movement within; Palmer steeled herself. It had to be some sort of animal. "I brought it back in the swamp. Now, you take a look at it, and you tell me whether or not I am a god, a god without fear of death."
He thrust the premature infant at her. Its toothless mouth opened and let out a gurgling sound; thick red bile spattered the reverend's face.
Palmer wailed and turned her head away, but the vile smell of the baby surrounded her and she retched. Tetch danced around her, pushing the bundle into her face every time she turned. Palmer cried to her lord, but there was only the stench of the dead thing in the blanket and Tetch's earsplitting laughter.
Then, with a howl, he turned and hurled the baby into the brick wall. A wet smack, then silence.
The razor swept across Palmer's throat in a flash. Her screams drowned in a torrent of blood that spilled into her lap and pooled at her feet.
Tetch straddled her, letting the blood soak his abdomen and groin. Taking her limp head in his hands, he pressed his face to hers. He threw open the conduits in his body and called her dying breath into his lungs.
Tell me, he thought, tell me everything.
He saw others in the city and saw that their number was four. They had slaughtered as many of their own as his afterdead had. They were hiding in the police house - no, the city hall. He strained to catch a glimpse of Lily among them, but there was nothing there in the reverend's memory.
Yet they must have her, he thought.
Shaking the scraps of Palmer's subconscious from his mind, he refocused and tried to locate the dark man. Nowhere to be found. Only the feral undead wandering the streets. Hundreds of them.
This was his empire - though the city had originally been much larger, before the security walls were erected, it was enough to serve his needs at the moment. And these brainless rotters could be educated. Yes, they could be trained, but he would go farther - and before long they wouldn't just be going through the motions of people in a proper society. The dead would come to comprehend their role in the empire, they would fill his court and worship at his feet and would be far more sophisticated than the living that struggled
to subsist in this new world.
He'd considered moving his home to the old bank, but ultimately decided he would stay here in the swamp, the source of the energy that permeated the virus, the so-called "plague". Dealing with these infected rotters instead of his murdered siblings would be a new challenge, but he welcomed any opportunity to prove himself.
Now he just needed Lily. LILY!
WHERE ARE YOU?!
(I gave you pretty dresses and I watched you dance. I gave you warm food and watched you eat. I gave you a safe bed and I watched you sleep)
He concentrated hard, gathering the energy that ebbed from the reverend's body, and sought Lily's spirit. He knew intimately her heart and mind
(and you will know her flesh)
and might be able to sense her innocence out there, burning bright amongst the primal fear and hunger of the city. So he rocked atop the corpse in the chair, overturning every grain of sand in Jefferson Harbor.
There!
Yes, she WAS with the living!
He tasted of her hatred for him and nearly fell to the floor.
"The dark man...how has he poisoned you against me? Lily...I love you..."
The reverend's blank face seemed to mock him. He backhanded her, spilling more blood from her throat.
He called for his siblings. They came down the stairs and fixed their eyes on the corpse.
"Eat." He told them. "Then clean up and meet me in the yard. We're going to get her."
The bundle lying against the wall squirmed. Creeping closer, Tetch pried the blood-caked fabric back and saw there, in that corrupted flesh, a tiny hand. Its webbed fingers clenched and unclenched without purpose.
He covered it back up and stepped away. "I'm not your god."
The others had descended on Palmer. Tearing thick ribbons of skin away in their teeth, they paused only to yank bits of clothing and hair from their mouths, pushing at each others' hands to get to the best parts first. Her breasts were ripped off and gnawed for a few seconds before being discarded. Simeon pushed his hands down her throat and tugged at her innards while the others groaned in anticipation.
Tetch stared in disgust. When Palmer's ribs began to crack he went upstairs.
39.
Mine
So it came to be that, as Voorhees dragged the headless bodies of Lauren and Thom to the roof of City Hall, he found a man waiting on the roof of the police department and was greeted with a wave and a smile.
"So you're the city's policeman?" The man called.
Voorhees dropped the bound feet he held in either hand and hissed "Quiet!"
The man shrugged. "They're all busy." He gestured downward, and Voorhees peered over the edge. On the plaza, a pickup truck was making lazy circles. The rotters still left in the vicinity had gathered around and were lurching feebly at it with each pass.
There was a goddamn rotter behind the wheel.
"I'm Baron Tetch." The man said.
"Senior P.O. Voorhees." Came the reply. The cop gritted his teeth. He'd left the shotgun inside.
"The last of a dying breed." Tetch remarked. He studied the sky, still stained with smoke. "I'm not dead yet." Voorhees called back.
"You found my little girl, didn't you?" Asked Tetch. "Saved her life. I can't thank you enough. I'd offer you a ride out of town with us, but there isn't any more room in the truck."
"There would be if you dumped that corpse out of it."
Two gunshots rang out. Voorhees stumbled toward the edge again.
A well-dressed rotter, standing outside the entrance to the PD, had kneecapped another one that tried to get inside. Voorhees watched in horrified fascination as the undead reloaded its revolver.
"Those corpses mean a great deal to me." Tetch said as he followed Voorhees' gaze.
"Of course. They're your brothers and sisters."
"So Lily's been talking." That cold smile never left Tetch's face. "You want to bargain, then?"
"There's no bargain to be made." Voorhees let his voice rise in volume. If it attracted any attention, Tetch's little helpers could deal with it. "You're responsible for more deaths than I can remember. You think I'm going to hand over that girl to you?"
"Going to arrest me?"
"Doesn't seem like there'd be much point."
Tetch clasped his hands and cocked his head. Waiting for Voorhees to exhaust his bravado and realize that he was the lesser man. To give up the child. Instead, the cop stepped to the edge of the roof.
"She's talked about other things. You like 'em young, don't you Baron?"
The young man's arrogance drained from his face and he was the pathetic little worm that Voorhees had seen all along. The yawning space between them seemed to contract, Tetch's shoulders dropping, his stance changed from threatening to threatened.
"I can see why you prefer the company of those maggot-eaten retards. They don't judge you, do they? They don't care what you do in your house out there in the swamp. Out there, you're the only man Lily needs - isn't that right?"
Tetch's lip curled as he glared in the cop's direction, but he wouldn't look directly at him. Voorhees pushed further. "I've been here a long time. I know people like you. You think you can do whatever you want. But this city still has a cop." He slipped his hand into his trench coat. "And no, I'm not going to arrest you."
Tetch shook his head angrily. This wasn't going the way he'd planned. Voorhees grinned, even though the hand in his coat was closed around nothing but a belt loop. "I don't think I even have handcuffs. Lost 'em at the shelter. You hear about that? Did your dogs report back to you about the bang-up job they did?" He stifled a chuckle. It didn't register that he'd done it with the hand in his coat. "Speaking of which, we hacked that skull-faced rotter to pieces. Was he your favorite doggy?"
It was Tetch's turn to chuckle.
"Not really." He said.
Then he shouted "KILL" and the doggy guarding the PD snapped the revolver upward and fired.
It missed Voorhees by a hair. He threw himself to the rooftop. Another shot grazed the edge of the building, spitting dust into the cop's eyes.
"Pull out your gun and shoot me!" Tetch laughed. He clapped his hands and turned away. He was leaving. Leaving without--
No--
Voorhees began a frantic crawl toward the access door. "DUNCAN!!" He bellowed. "THEY'RE INSIDE!!!"
Down below, the undead gunman, Gerald, walked across the plaza to the de-barricaded City Hall entrance. Prudence and Bailey were already making their way across the lobby.
On the fourth floor, Jenna heard Voorhees' voice bouncing down the stairwell. "What's he saying?" She asked Duncan. He didn't hear her; he was letting Lily see the shotgun, warding her curious hands away with an attempt at a stern look.
Cheryl poked her head past Jenna into the stairwell. "Voorhees?...He's saying something about 'inside'. Voorhees!"
The two women stood in the doorway and listened for a response. It came.
"That sounded like a moan. Like he's hurt!" Cheryl whispered.
"That came from downstairs," Jenna gasped.
A thin woman appeared on the landing below. Cheryl was halfway down the stairs when she realized the woman was dead, but she ran into its arms anyway, senselessly, shrieking all the while; and Prudence, embracing her, clamped rotted teeth down on her cheek just beneath the eye.
Duncan shoved Jenna aside and took aim. Cheryl turned, her face a bloody screaming hole, and he blew her away.
Gerald staggered into view and fired wildly. Duncan and Jenna fell back. The shotgun clattered at the rotters' feet. Bailey passed Gerald as the latter emptied the revolver and reloaded from his pocket.
"God! God!" Duncan stammered, covering Jenna with his arms, protecting and restraining her at the same time, watching Bailey come up - but the zombie simply made a left into the fourth-floor hallway.
Lily let out a terrible cry.
"No!" Jenna tried to thrust Duncan off of her. A bullet whined past the pair as they struggled. "Stay dow
n!!" He yelled. "LILY!!" She wailed.
Bailey emerged with the girl writhing in his grip. Gerald clumsily ascended the stairs and trained the revolver on the two adults. Lily strained at them from over Bailey's shoulder. "DON'T LET THEM TAKE ME!! PLEEEEEAASE!!!"
Voorhees stumbled down the stairs from the roof. He saw Gerald and leapt to the floor just before a flurry of gunshots chewed up the wall where he'd been. "Shotgun," he breathed, slapping at Duncan, "shotgun--" Then he realized it wasn't in the man's hands.
Empire Page 17