Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology

by Authors, Various

  Pelias screamed at his warriors and wife, “Retreat back to the tower!”

  Desma smashed her father’s shield into the face of a looming creature, the blow enough to destroy it. She ran, her husband and son protecting her. The spearmen sprinted behind them, the dead on their heels.

  The group dashed through the open doorway of a stone house, Abantes barely getting through before Pelias slammed the door closed and shot the bolt home. A dozen thumps resounded through the antechamber as the infected crashed into the oaken entry from the other side. Antrius heard his mother scream and turned to see a white-garbed horror on the back of one of the spearmen. He threw the thing off him, the beast slamming to the stone floor hard enough to kill a living human, but the impact did nothing to this dead thing. A thrust from Antrius’ sword ended its mewling, the howls from outside the only source of sound now.

  Arms thrust through the high open window, reaching for soft flesh, but the opening was too small to allow entry. Fists hammered the heavy door and stone walls outside the building.

  “We must get to the…” began Pelias before he noticed Abantes, who had been attacked. Blood streamed from between his fingers as he held his right shoulder.

  “Let me see,” demanded Pelias.

  “It’s nothing,” the spearman countered. “We must away from this place before we are killed.”

  The group moved from the foyer through the house, finding a smashed door. They entered warily, the horror of what resided in the room a sight none of them would ever forget. A mother held her child in her arms, both with cut throats. Desma burst into tears, and the group fled the room. They climbed stone stairs to the second floor of the lavish house. All the homes in this section of the city were connected and perhaps they could leap from roof to roof to escape the horde, or rain death down upon it with arrow and spear. They soon stood on the roof balcony, a wooden ladder having given them access.

  Forty of the dead shrieked and screamed in frustration when they saw the living out of reach. They leapt at the stone walls of the house, tearing off fingernails in their haste to taste flesh. No purchase could be had though, and they fell back to the street.

  “This is a familiar predicament,” Theras said aloud. He drew his spear back and let it loose. In twenty minutes, the dead were truly dead.

  Pelias looked to Desma. “I feel no danger,” she told him.

  Pelias noted that his friend and soldier was sweating profusely and bore a sallow pallor. He stood beside the spearman, placing a concerned hand on his uninjured shoulder, “Are you well?”

  The wounded man drew the top of his forearm across his brow and sat on the stone. “I am weary. These things are legion.”

  “Let us bind that wound,” Pelias told him. “Perhaps we can find some unspoiled herbs for a poultice within the house. We will stay here tonight and resume our hunt on the morrow.”

  Pelias and Theras searched the extravagant home, taking note of several marble statues and busts. Theras found the pantry, and together the two of them brought as much medicine as they could carry.

  When they reached the roof, they saw that Abantes was ill. A foul black ichor with a green tinge dribbled from between his fingers as he clasped his wound. The secretion reeked as well.

  Pelias made to help his friend, but Theras stopped him with a hand. “Don’t. The wound is but hours old and already it putrefies? Something is amiss.”

  “Theras speaks the truth,” Abantes told them all through gritted teeth. “Touch me not. I can feel it in me, this disease, and I wouldn’t pass it to you.” The spearman swallowed, and everyone could see it was a struggle to do so. “It seeks to change me, this sickness. I can see now its cause.”

  Pelias looked confused, so Abantes continued with difficulty. “It is the bite, dear Pelias.” Abantes pulled his hand from his wound and beheld it. He turned the palm to face his friends, the ichor on his hand a disgusting sight. “This black ooze will slay me, then bring me back to fight for it.” He stood, a monumental effort. He slammed his fist against his chest in salute to his Captain and friend.

  “I fight for Acaharnae,” he said. “For you.” He tossed his spear to Theras, who caught it and placed it at his feet. Abantes searched the eyes of each of his friends until he stopped at Antrius, “I will not become as them.” He fell to one knee in front of the boy, “What better honor than to fall to a gift of Ares?” The spearman lowered his head.

  Antrius looked to his father, who nodded.

  Four Acharnians left the exquisite marble house the following morning. They began their search for the dead anew.

  Olympus

  A body, burned and black, lay in a heap of scorched robes on the white marble floors outside the door to the Gazing Pool. Perhaps Zeus had finally had enough of Hades’ insolence and had roasted him with a thunderbolt? Before today, Ares would have thought that feat impossible, but he had just killed his own brother, the messenger to the gods, moments ago. In truth, he had destroyed a dead thing which had once been his brother.

  A horrendous sound assaulted Ares’ ears as he trod further down the halls of the home of the gods. The great doors to The Hall of Judgement stood closed for the first time in ten thousand years and Ares could see why. Hera and Demeter, revered mother and aunt to Ares, scratched and clawed at the white marble doors. The same vile fluids that had leaked from the now dead Hermes dripped from the stained tunics of the two goddesses in front of Ares.

  Anger took the God of War and he strode forward, his sandals slapping the marbled floor. He had known they were infected. He had known these two goddesses, capable of great love and great treachery, who had nurtured him when his father had been so cruel, were both gone. Yet when they turned to face him, obsidian eyes burning holes through his soul, he took a step back. Hera leapt, and Demeter sprinted at him, their single-minded desires clearly present on their ravaged faces. He thrust with his spear, piercing Hera’s chest and swung his mother into his aunt, both smashing into the stone wall outside The Hall of Judgment with a thunderous crash. They began to get up, but Ares finished both with one swing of his sword. The lopped heads rolled, coming to rest against each other near a column.

  “Forgive me,” lamented Ares. He ended their suffering with two powerful thrusts of his spear. Glancing once more at the carnage in front of him, he gave an involuntary shudder. Three gods dead by his hand, another in a pile of charred clothing by the Gazing Pool.

  Ares balled up his fist and gave three powerful hammers to the doors of the Hall of Judgement. “It is I, Ares. I live when others do not! Open! Open, I say!”

  The door opened a crack, the bearded face of Hephaestus warily staring out at Ares. The God of War stood with his arms folded, regarding his brother with contempt. “Perhaps you should send out your wife, brother. She has more courage than you.”

  Hephaestus’ face grew red with rage and he tried to slam the doors closed, but Ares jammed his foot between the gates. He pushed the door all the way open and stepped into the room.

  Another charred body lay twisted and broken on the floor. Ares stared at it, not knowing which god had fallen on this side of the great doors.

  “Hestia,” came a deep voice from his left. Ares shifted his gaze left to see Zeus sitting on the steps to the council seats. The great god sat with his forehead in his palm, regret and sadness on his countenance. Zeus pointed at the body, “It is Hestia.”

  Ares was overcome with sadness, “I am sorry, father.” He searched the room, “Where is Poseidon?”

  “He waits at the bottom of the sea. I bade him beneath the waves until we sorted out this business of the living dead. One of the Three needs to remain intact. I did not know if I would survive a battle with infected gods, and Hades has already fallen.”

  Ares was shocked, “Zeus is… uncertain?”

  “Do you mock me, boy? These… things are like nothing we’ve seen. They can harm us.”

  “No, father. I do not mock you.” Ares sat with his father, putting a hand on h
is shoulder in comfort. Zeus covered the offered hand with his own. “What happened on Olympus today?”

  Zeus’ rage began to show anew, “The impossible. The unthinkable.” He slammed his fist on the marble stair, the step cracking and sparks shooting from the impact. “Gods have died!”

  Ares drew the back of his hand across his brow. “How? How is this possible?’

  “I know not. Whatever this thing is, it has the power to turn even a god from the light. I thought it was some hateful plot of Hades, but he was the first of us to fall. I also thought that we were all powerful, but clearly, that is not the case.”

  “There is always someone stronger,” Ares said, again putting his hand on his father’s shoulder. “A very wise god told me that once.”

  Zeus smiled. Hephaestus and Aphrodite appeared next to Ares and Zeus on the stairs. “What is next, Mighty Zeus?” asked Aphrodite.

  Before Zeus could answer, Hephaestus stumbled forward, placing his hand on one of the marble steps. He made a sound of anguish, pain stitched across his face. He collapsed on his chest, a black arrow protruding from his back. Another arrow struck the stone near the God of Lightning and he shot to his feet. Aphrodite screamed, rushing to Hephaestus’ aid. “Husband!”

  Apollo and Artemis stepped from the shadows, both with short bows. Apollo had an arrow nocked, the shaft point dripping with a foul black liquid.

  “My twins!” bellowed Zeus. “What is the meaning of this?”

  “You said you wanted to know how it was possible to kill a god, father,” Apollo had sneered his last word. “I am the god of plague. This sickness brings the dead to life. The dead hate the living, father, and they hunger.”

  “Yes, old-one,” continued Artemis nocking an arrow of her own, “it was we who killed your precious mortals, those you revered even over us. It was we who culled our family.”

  “Jealousy?” screamed Zeus. “The end of things is because you covet my love?”

  “Yes,” both twins answered at the same time. Apollo gave a wry smile. “Behold, father, your son rises.”

  Zeus glanced to the left. Hephaestus pushed himself up and turned his gaze upon Zeus and Ares, his eyes black as pitch. The thing drew a breath to utter a shriek, but Athena drove her hands into the creature’s back, ripping out its spine as she withdrew. The dead god collapsed, unable to move. Athena threw the spine at Artemis, who deftly ducked, the vile thing flying past her head. Athena was there to receive Artemis as she stood back up, Athena’s hands dripping with the infected fluids of her deceased husband. She raked her nails across Artemis’ face, digging red-gold furrows down her sister’s cheek.

  “Goddess of strategic warfare, bitch!” screamed Athena.

  Artemis put her palm to her face, drawing it back to stare at it. Enraged, she kicked out, sending Athena sprawling. Both twins drew their bows and fired at Zeus. Ares threw himself into the path of the incoming arrows, taking both in the chest. The horrible plague-infused arrows pierced Ares’ golden armor as if he wore but a sheet of linen.

  Zeus put his hand forward, both bows tearing from the hands of his children, sailing across the vast room and into his fist. He crushed both weapons, staring at his twins in a rage he had not felt before. Apollo and Artemis tried to disappear to Earth, but Zeus held them firm with his will.

  Zeus shook his head, sadness overtaking his rage. “You have succeeded in killing a god,” he told his progenies. “Before this, the only way to remove a god was to send him to Tartarus as I did Hades. Enjoy eternity in hell, my children.” The twins screamed briefly before they vanished.

  Zeus knelt next to Ares. “Fool. You should have let them take me.”

  The God of War coughed, a great gout of blood expelled onto the steps. Athena was by their side in an instant. “Use my spear, father,” Ares pleaded. “You must pierce the skull else I will return as a slavering monster, witless and without mercy.”

  “You describe your father, my son. I am sorry for everything.”

  “At last,” Ares said, and died.

  Dionysus appeared, weapon at the ready. He rushed to Zeus’ side, noticing the dead gods and The Hall of Judgement soaked in blood.

  “Zeus, what has happened here?” he begged.

  Zeus did not look from Ares’s face when he said, “The end has come, I think.” He stroked his son’s face one last time and stood, lifting Ares’s spear.

  Tartarus

  Artemis glared at her twin shaking her head, “Yet again, I am punished for your foolish ideas.”

  “It worked!” countered Apollo.

  Artemis strode to the center of the vast room, spinning and glancing about, “How did this, in any way, work?” she demanded.

  Apollo smiled. “Most of the gods are dead. The humans have been dealt a huge blow. We are safe and will remain down here,” he stared at the roof of the throne room, “for the time being.”

  He turned his head slowly to gaze at her, “Of course, then there is the matter of you?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes. Athena scratched you. She could not have done so unless she had plague-blood on her fingernails.” He smiled wider, “You are infected.”

  She put her hand to her cheek in shock. “No…” she whispered.

  Apollo shrugged. “I don’t need you anymore, sister.” The Sun God heard something then. It sounded like thunder from his father.

  Thousands of infected poured into the throne room. They came from all directions, shrieking and drooling.

  Artemis laughed, “Your plague. It raises the dead. Tartarus is full of the dead, fool.”

  Apollo leapt over the rubble of Hades’ gigantic throne, landing atop the Lord of Tartarus’ wife, Persephone’s, equally massive seat. He desperately searched for an avenue of escape. Artemis just lowered her head as the throngs of undead tore her to pieces. Legions of the things climbed and scraped at the stone chair, but they could not reach the Sun God. He stared at them, fifty feet below. The entire room, acres of stone floor, teemed with the dead.

  “Shit,” croaked the Sun God.

  Knossos, Crete 610 BC

  “Pull the Halyard, Antrius. That’s it.” Pelias smiled at his son as the sail raised. The sloop moved slowly toward the dock at Knossos.

  “I feel them,” Desma told the crew of three. “There are but two left.”

  The boat thudded against the wooden dock, Antrius and Theras fastening lines to a piling. Pelias helped Desma step to the dock as the men gathered their weapons. In the two years since the dead rose, the group of four had been to several cities, helping the citizens clear the towns of the evil that had befallen them.

  Knossos, like Acharnae, had been one of the unfortunate cities to completely fall to the undead menace, no living person having set foot there for nearly two years.

  “One comes,” Desma warned.

  A dead man came at them from down the dock. Withered and frail, the thing shuffled toward the humans at a pathetic pace. The group of slayers had learned during their hundreds of battles that without fresh meat, the dead wasted away and began to rot. They slowed down and were easy to kill. Still deadly though, and best slain from a distance.

  A spear pierced the creature’s skull, Theras holding his palm open for the weapon’s return. “We have not heard reports of any dead walking in weeks. Could these be the last?”

  Desma took a deep breath, “I do not feel their power as I once did.”

  A second creature stumbled toward the dock on unsteady legs. Pelias ended its misery with his bow. When the thing collapsed, Desma felt a great tide of relief wash over her.

  “That… that was the last of them. Our world is cleansed!”

  “Father,” a young boy’s voice blurted. Pelias and Desma regarded their son. He stood as a child once more in armor that no longer fit. “Mother, I am a boy?”

  “My son,” Pelias cried, “the gods have seen fit to return childhood to you!”

  The boy smiled, looking toward the sea. His mother hugged him on the doc
k, his father standing proud. The boy had but one question as he stared at the waves, “Can we go fishing?”

  University of Oxford. Oxford, England. 2018 AD

  The professor ended his lecture and dismissed his class. The students began to pack their belongings and started to file out of the lecture hall. A bloody man burst through the door, searching wildly. The man sprinted toward the group of students, leaping on an unfortunate one and using his teeth to tear a great chunk from the pupil’s neck. Several of the group began to scream, others rushed from the scene. Not one tried to assist the hapless victim.

  Dionysus, the God of wine, sighed from his seat at the back of the hall. “This shit again?”

  His sister Athena stood, throwing her coat to the floor. “At least you’re sober this time.”

  “Are you kidding?” he lamented, “I’m hungover as fuck.”

  The two of them strode through the seats toward the feasting creature. Athena brandished a golden sword. A gleaming chrome shotgun rested on Dionysus’ shoulder. He used his off hand to pull a cellular phone from the back pocket of his jeans. “Better get dad on the horn.”

  About Rich Restucci

  Rich Restucci is a practicing chemist living in Pembroke Massachusetts. He resides with his lovely wife, three children, a portly cat, and a crazy dog. Rich enjoys drinking beer, stocking up on weapons and supplies, playing with explosives, and reading/writing anything zombie related. Rich has been fortunate to have two series published, The Run series, and the Zombie Theories series as well as many shorts for anthologies. Rich is currently working on publishing several other novels and is always ready to jump into an anthology. Visit Rich’s Amazon Author page for updates and a listing of his works.