Empire

by David Dunwoody

  Gerald continued to lay down suppressing fire. There was a hollow click. He lowered his head to reload.

  Voorhees leapt over the stairs and slammed into him, dashing Gerald's skull against the wall. They fell in a mess of thrashing limbs. He heard the others coming down after him, saw Jenna tear the revolver from the undead's hand. She rushed downstairs after the others.

  A few ferals had entered the lobby. Bailey swatted them out of his path. Simeon and Tetch waited right outside in the idling truck. "Hurry now!" Tetch yelled encouragingly.

  Jenna burst into the lobby - and right into a feral. They went down with a crash. The revolver flew into the shadows. Bailey and Prudence crawled into back of the pickup, holding Lily down, and it sped out of view.

  Jenna went limp with horror as the feral straddled her.

  Duncan cracked its temple with the butt of the shotgun. The zombie sagged; he jammed the gun into its desiccated belly and blew it in half.

  Gerald's twitching body, head crushed beyond recognition, thundered down the stairs. Voorhees followed, shattering another rotter's fractured grin with his fist on his way to the doorway. "Oh God."

  He turned to the others. "Back upstairs NOW!"

  They fled past the shambling dead, who stared blankly at one another as they tried to process what had just happened. The halved rotter lying on the floor blinked at its smoking innards.

  40.

  Lies and Consequence

  Once the manor gates had been closed behind the truck, Tetch pulled Lily out of the back and wrestled her into the house. She screamed and kicked all the way up the stairs, but once they reached the study she fell silent. He deposited her in a chair by the window and glared at her sullen face.

  "What the hell is wrong with you?"

  He slammed the door and locked it, then paced back and forth in front of her. "You've seen the city now - happy? Was it everything you'd hoped? If I hadn't come and gotten you, do you have any idea what those people might have done?"

  She had closed herself off to him and stared at the carpet. He stamped in his foot on the spot where she was looking. "So there are people in the city. So I lied. But now do you see why? It's Hell out there!"

  "You killed my parents," she mumbled.

  He dropped to one knee before her and clasped her hands. "Who told you that?" She tried to pull her hands free, but he tightened his grip so she just gave up and looked at the wall.

  "I'll ask you one more time. Who told you?"

  "It's true." She replied.

  "No - before I say anything about that I want to know who told you! Was it the man in black? Where is he? Has he left the city?" She bit her lip anxiously. "You don't know where he is." Tetch smiled grimly. "He's left you. Of course he did. But I came looking for you."

  Voorhees' words from the rooftop bored into Tetch's mind. He winced and pushed them back.

  "Your parents - if you can call them that - they abandoned you too. When they came back it wasn't because they cared about you, Lily!"

  "Then why?!" She spat. Her hands trembled inside his. "Because," he pleaded, "they just wanted to have you so they could make people feel sorry for them! I mean, first you're a liability that they have to get rid of and then you're a meal ticket. I've never treated you with anything but love, you KNOW that. I didn't tell you about them because I thought it would hurt you. To know that they were like that."

  "Is that what they said?" Her eyes were dark with mistrust. Her hands still trembled, from rage Tetch realized. "Of course they did." He answered.

  "You let the others eat them."

  "What was I supposed to do, Lily? Bury them in the swamp? Think about it. I just didn't want you to see them...now that you know, do you feel any better? No. You feel awful. And I don't know what the dark man told you about it, but he wasn't there."

  "Yes he was. He's the angel of death."

  "I know." Tetch said. It had a sobering effect on her. For the first time since he'd brought her back she made eye contact. "I know," he repeated, "and it doesn't matter. He has no place in the world anymore. I can bring the dead to life, Lily." He stroked his fingers along the back of her hand. She shuddered. "He doesn't understand things like I do. Neither did Addison. Neither did your parents."

  Her lips parted, she wanted to argue; but there was no argument. He leaned in to kiss her.

  She jerked her hands free and drew herself into a tight ball on the chair. "Liar!"

  He slammed his fist against the nearby desk. She whimpered. He wanted to take her into his arms and comfort her, but she wouldn't let him. She wouldn't let him love her when he was the only one who could.

  (You're the only man Lily needs - isn't that right?)

  "I'll prove it to you. You'll see. Soon." He left the study, relocking the door from the outside.

  Addison, Death, Jesus - all hopelessly irrelevant, hopelessly wrong. Cut from the exact same filthy cloth. Tetch pocketed the study key and headed up to the third floor. The servants' quarters up here had been mothballed years back, and a thick skin of dust coated the bare wood beneath his feet. He stood in the silence of one of the front rooms, at a window, and contemplated the encroaching swamp through a film of grime.

  There were ferals out there. He could see some of them, eyeing the house from the shadows.

  In City Hall, Jenna stood at the window in the fourth-floor corridor. They'd barricaded the stairwell entrance, and could hear the ferals that had followed them shuffling outside. "We can't just forget about that girl." Jenna muttered.

  "I know." Replied Voorhees. He toyed with the shotgun in his lap. "We could make a clean break if we had that truck."

  Jenna turned to face him. "Are you suggesting we go to the Addison house?"

  "I think we're both suggesting it."

  "Make that all three of us." Duncan stood uncertainly on his leg. He was paler than he'd been before the attack. "Maybe we can use the sewers to get across town. At least part of the way."

  Voorhees shook his head. "Sewer access is all sealed up. We're going to have to take our chances on the streets. I think - well, frankly, I don't think we'll all make it. We might all reach the house, but..."

  "Someone will get bit, at least." Jenna finished.

  She pulled down the collar of her shirt. There was a gash on her collarbone. "The one that pinned me in the lobby."

  Duncan let out a long sigh. "Jen."

  "All that matters is that somebody gets that truck and gets Lily out." She smiled sadly. "As for me...honestly I just don't care anymore. But she hasn't lived life long enough to be sick of it."

  "I'm infected." Duncan said. "The axe, it had that rotter's blood on it. I can feel it inside me." Duncan gave a mild shrug. "I wouldn't know where to go anyway. I spent my life chasing the dead, not running from 'em."

  "I know the Army's withdrawal route." Voorhees kneaded his hands. "They briefed us before they pulled out. I'll take her to them. There might be refueling sites along the way, but if we end up running out of gas or just breaking down, we'll hoof it. If I can just get her out of town, I know I can keep her safe."

  "We're really doing this." Jenna whispered. "Okay. When?"

  "No time like the present," said Voorhees. "We've gotta get to the house by twilight."

  "Okay." Jenna motioned toward an open office. "I'll make some more torches to throw the rotters off."

  Voorhees turned to Duncan. He knew in his core that Duncan wasn't infected, that he felt nothing coursing through him but his feelings for that woman. He'd seen Duncan's photography of the undead hordes. There was always an intimate quality to the images, to the way he framed both soldiers and rotters, unlike the stark gore-laden pictures snapped by most freelancers. Mark Duncan was a romantic. It was a stupid way to live. Maybe, though, a nice way to die.

  41.

  What You Sow

  Death stood in an endless tunnel with candles set into niches in the walls, their halos of light constricted so that he was in complete darkness.

&nb
sp; He began to reconstitute his body in the living world, but stopped. He knew Lily was alive - her flame still burned bright - but did it even matter? When her candle went out, it went out. As they all eventually did. He watched the tiny fires around him flicker and jump in life's dance.

  I don't want to do this anymore, he thought.

  (Then quit.)

  Who are you?

  (Don't worry about it. So are you quitting?)

  This is all I am - my purpose is my being. If I quit, I cease to exist.

  (No, not really. I've never made anything that didn't eventually find its will. Will becomes being, purpose becomes secondary. That's life I guess.)

  You made me?

  (I sure did. As I made others before you, and as, if you quit, I'll make another one.)

  I'm not the first? The first Reaper?

  (Humanity was around long before you were. Don't feel bad for being so presumptuous - you've been nothing but an ego for so long, you weren't meant to ponder things like that. But you, my friend, have begun pondering. Can I ask a question?)

  Of course.

  (What was it? What woke you up?)

  It was...a child. A little girl.

  (But for thousands and thousands of years you've seen a parade of children living and dying. What was it about this one?)

  It wasn't just her. It really started with the afterdead. I have to ask - did you make them? If so, why?

  (Ummm. Maybe I did. I don't remember. Doesn't seem like my work though, does it? No will, no soul.)

  That's it?

  (If I knew more I'd say so. Sorry. But back to this girl.)

  She doesn't have much time left. But I can't just let her die. It's not...it doesn't seem...

  (Doesn't seem right.)

  Yes. Exactly. But as you said I've seen billions of young flames snuffed out. I don't remember a single face or name. I don't know what's different about her.

  (What's her name?)

  Lily.

  (Lilith? I like that. How do you feel about her?)

  It makes me angry when I think about what might happen to her.

  (Anger. That's fear, really, did you know that? You're afraid of what might happen. And what might happen is her death. You see, she made you look at yourself and you didn't like what you saw.)

  I suppose that makes sense. Actually, that makes a lot of sense. Perfect sense.

  (Yeah I can be fairly perceptive sometimes)

  (So you are going to quit, right?)

  Yes. I am.

  (Do you have any more questions before I cut you loose?)

  I can go back to the living world, can't I? And help her?

  (Sure. But you won't be able to reconstitute yourself again after this next time. When you're done, you're done. There's no Heaven or Hell or anything else waiting for you. If anything, I guess you're about to enter your afterlife.)

  My scythe.

  (You made it, it's yours. I like it by the way, novel idea to forge a tool from their bones so that you could affect them. Did it ever occur to you that the concept was born of your own imagination?)

  It didn't...

  (See, it was only a matter of time before you found your will.)

  If I'm not the first - and not the first to quit - that means are there others like me out there?

  (Hmm. Well, there were. Like I said, you'll be a wholly corporeal being - your existence will become temporary. Theirs were temporary too.)

  Do you know what happened to them?

  Do you?

  (I can't go down this road with you. Foresight is one of the things you're surrendering. You won't be able to see Lily's flame anymore, but you will be able to intervene in her life. And you won't know how much time you yourself have left, but you'll have a life of your own. You're trading certainty away. Do you understand?)

  I understand.

  (Anything else?)

  Do I...have a...

  name?

  (Not until you pick one.)

  That's it then.

  (Oh. Farewell.)

  And just like that, it was.

  On the thoroughfare south of the city plaza, the nameless being stirred and rose to his feet. His steed rose with him, and he stepped over Gene's prone body to climb atop the horse's back.

  Most of the afterdead had cleared out of the plaza. The sun was going down, filling their eyes with light, and they shuffled blindly amongst themselves.

  He backed cautiously toward a strip mall across the street. None of them appeared to have noticed him - then one let out a baleful moan...

  And was knocked down by a crushing blow to the head. P.O. Voorhees stood over the rotter and swung his widowmaker into its face. The skull split like an overripe fruit.

  He handed the cleaver to Mark Duncan, who nodded in understanding and took it, giving Voorhees the shotgun in return. Jenna O'Connell had the revolver that Tetch's zombie had dropped in the City Hall lobby. The fallen rotter continued to flail its limbs as they walked past it, but it wasn't getting back up, nor could it moan.

  The man on the horse, sitting motionless in a long shadow, saw that Lily wasn't with them. He decided to follow. The horse's hooves were eerily quiet on the asphalt.

  The living moved quickly from block to block, staying behind businesses to avoid the intermittent clusters of undead that stood in the streets. Just after they left the cover of a small building, a rotter stumbled out the back door and saw them crossing the road. It opened its bloody mouth--

  And a scythe exploded through its chest.

  Duncan had taken point and was ready to quietly dispatch anything that got in their path. Voorhees wielded the shotgun like a club; firing it was his last option. Jenna tucked the revolver into the waistband of her pants.

  "Please. Please." A voice called.

  A man, shirtless, walked toward them. He held out a grasping hand and repeated, "Please." His tone was flat, without urgency or emotion.

  It was a rotter, parroting something it had probably heard from one of its victims. Voorhees motioned for Duncan to hand him the widowmaker, but the latter shook his head and approached the talker himself.

  "Please." The undead said mechanically. Saliva ran in thick gobs down its chin.

  Duncan swung the blade into its neck and wrestled it to the ground. He sawed frantically through meat and bone until the gurgling head fell free. Its eyes stayed focused on him.

  Voorhees touched his shoulder. "Leave it."

  They were nearing the construction site. Bad memories, recent ones. Duncan silently vowed there wouldn't be any more.

  42.

  House of the Dead

  They'd surrounded the house.

  Standing along the fence, studying the crumbling manse with its dark, broken windows, its ivy-covered stone walls, studying what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a home abandoned to the elements.

  Yet, they knew that wasn't the case.

  The front door opened. Simeon came out and stood in the yard.

  He examined each of the undead that stood silently before the gates. A female with half her scalp missing, a scrap of fabric caught between her teeth. A squat rotter that had died in his teens, his muscular arms purple and streaked with cuts. An adult male barely holding himself together - his hands clutched at a ponderous bloated stomach that wept dampness through his button-down shirt.

  They were out there, Simeon was in here. They weren't to be allowed in. If they did come in, they would take his meat. And Tetch would be angry; he wouldn't help Simeon find more nourishment.

  Bailey emerged from the back door and surveyed the yard before him. Rotters were crammed into every available space along the fence. Some of them had wrapped their thin fingers around the iron bars and were tugging.

  Tetch was still observing from the third floor. He heard feet scraping behind him and turned to see Prudence's silhouette. She tilted her head, expecting an order.

  "Just go downstairs." He told her, in a strangely reserved tone. "Stand outside t
he study. Lily isn't to be let out. Is that clear?"

  With a half-nod, Prudence left him.

  "Prudence!" He shouted. She reappeared. "Bring Bailey and Simeon inside."

  Another slight sway of the head. Tetch returned his attention to the yard below.