Order of the Dead

by James, Guy

  Senna and Alan went over to Tom, who was still standing by the lectern, frowning up at the scaly ceiling. A paint chip fell down and stuck in his beard, and when Senna got closer, she saw that there were paint chips on the floor around his shoes, and more in his hair and on his shirt. When she was near enough she reached up and brushed the debris from his shoulders, and picked a few pieces of the peeled paint out of his beard.

  “Thinking about dyeing that thing?” she said, removing the last bit of paint from Tom’s beard, which was washed with grey.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tom said. “Very funny. Someone’s got to sand and paint that damned ceiling one of these days, and it sure as hell won’t be me.”

  “Not big on heights?” she teased.

  “Jovial as you are today,” he said, putting his hands on his hips and rocking backward on his heels, “maybe you ought to get up there.”

  “Tom,” Alan said, injecting an air of seriousness into the conversation, “something strange happened at the gate last night, when we took Rosemary there.”

  “Oh?” Tom said, looking worried. He ran a hand through his hair, ejecting some more paint chips. “Rosemary didn’t say anything. Hasn’t said much of anything at all since, come to think of it, least not to me.”

  “Rosemary did just fine,” Alan said. “It wasn’t anything to do with her, it was the zombies themselves. There…there weren’t enough.”

  Tom frowned. “You expected more?”

  “Yeah. There are always more, even this close to market.”

  Senna gazed at Tom firmly, her playfulness of a few moments before entirely gone.

  A paint chip fell on the toe of Alan’s boot.

  Tom chewed on his lower lip, furrowed his brow, and half-shrugged. “Well, what do you think it means?”

  “I don’t know,” Senna said.

  “It could be nothing,” Alan said, “or…”

  “Or?” Tom said. “Or what?”

  “There could be someone in the woods,” Alan said.

  “So what?” Tom said. “The traders are coming. Maybe some of them came early and set up camp somewhere.”

  “Tom,” Senna said, “listen to what you’re saying. Why would anyone do that? It’s too dangerous for anyone to make camp out there. Why spend any more time outside a settlement than absolutely necessary?”

  Tom’s expression grew darker. A paint chip detached itself from the ceiling, fell lazily down—almost drifting—and landed on his nose. Tom sniffed and rubbed at his nose to keep from sneezing, and when he started talking again, he seemed all the more irritated.

  “Well, seeing as you’ve got all the answers,” he said, “why don’t you deal with it yourself? And just what do you expect me to do about it, anyway? Maybe I should close off the town, cancel the market? All on account of what, the fact that not enough zombies showed up at the gate last night? That’s a good thing, remember? Hell, that’s a great thing. Maybe they’re dying off. It’s a fucking miracle if you ask me. Maybe this goddamned planet will have a future after all.”

  “Tom,” Alan said, “we don’t have any answers. But, what we saw might’ve meant something. Let’s just all be careful in the coming days. It’s probably nothing.”

  Tom grunted. “Okay, whatever you say. Because we usually aren’t careful, right?”

  “Tom,” Alan began, “that’s not what I meant, I just—”

  “Forget it,” Tom said. “I have work to do.” He began to walk away, shaking his head and muttering to himself, looking a little bit too much like Knapp. Then he turned and added, sarcastically, “Just be sure to keep me apprised of any other strange activity at the fence.” With that, he left.

  When he was gone, Senna turned to Alan. “What’s he so mad about?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I’m sure he’s just stressed about the market. There’s a lot to do to keep the town safe. A lot to coordinate.”

  “Sure, there’s that, but he’s done it before. You think everything’s okay with him at home?”

  Alan shrugged. “I haven’t heard otherwise. He and Elizabeth and Rosemary seem fine, like always. Come on, let’s go for a walk.”

  “Okay,” Senna said, her face brightening. “Sounds good.”

  She took his hand and the two of them made for the exit. They had to stop when they reached the mass of people waiting to file out through the narrow doorway.

  Sunlight was streaming in the door, casting a concentrated beam on the cracked tile just inside the threshold, over which many pairs of New Crozet feet were moving, clad in worn shoes.

  While they were waiting for their turn to leave, Alan buried his face in Senna’s hair. She smelled amazing, even better than usual. She squeezed his hand, and he could tell from the movement of her neck muscles against his face that she was smiling.

  He breathed in, moving his nose around the back of her neck until he felt goose bumps rise on her skin. His breathing sped up, and then hers did, and then she was pulling him closer to her and pushing past some of the others who were taking too long to leave.

  She and Alan had somewhere to be. They had very important business to transact.

  They squeezed out of the church over some mild protest from those they gently brushed aside. Like children, they took turns playfully chasing each other through town until they reached their home. They made it a few steps into the house, and then they were on the floor, rolling around in the next phase of their game, taking turns on top of each other.

  Back at the church, the last of the procession of townspeople filed out. Larry Knapp stood holding the door open, with a displeased look on his face, but bowing to the departing every so often.

  He’d meant to bring something up at the meeting besides the bunkers, had forgotten to do so, had now remembered that he’d forgotten, but still couldn’t remember what it was he’d meant to say. He cursed under his breath and a few disapproving looks landed smack on his forehead, pop, pop, pop.

  Damn puritans, he thought. Screw that.

  What he wanted was to remember. His memory had been troubling him recently, and he was forgetting a lot more than he should have been. He stood there for a few moments longer, furrowing his brow and trying to recall what he’d wanted to complain about, and he was still in his usher position when a current of cold air breathed its way past him.

  It entered the church and traveled up the nave, past the empty pews that were in dire need of polish and repair. The cool draft found the stack of disused Bibles in the corner, and there it set a skeletal mass of dust motes swirling around the once-holy books.

  38

  Brother Mardu, the founder of the Order of the Dead, that great and horrible brotherhood of myth and legend, could deny it no longer: he was losing his mojo. At this very moment, just when Senna and Alan were giving themselves to the throes of passion, Brother Mardu was in the midst of an internal struggle, trying to decide what to do about said loss of his charms.

  All the oomph was gone. His donut had been robbed of its cream, and the deflated shell that was left was not only stale, but crusty and sour, too. The balloon whose skin had once been so taut it verged on bursting was now flaccid, dangling helplessly from its string.

  The Order of the Dead was crumbling, and it was as if a chain reaction of disempowerment had been set in motion and was now in full force. It was too late to reverse, and though Brother Mardu sensed that this was so, he kept these feelings sealed in a padlocked and chain-wrapped box in a far corner of his mind.

  No one could be allowed to see it, because if he couldn’t control them anymore, everything was fucked.

  Fucked.

  The only thing that mattered was advancing the virus, moving its chess pieces ever onward. And with that had come power, and had he let the feeling of it corrupt his mind?

  Sometimes he felt that without power, there was no point, and that he couldn’t go back to the way he’d been before, not after having so much, after commanding—no, not just commanding, but also enthralling—so m
any. Perhaps that was how he’d lost favor with the virus to begin with, by losing sight of what he really was, and perhaps that was why that huge and throbbing mojo, which he’d mistaken for his own and not a borrowed power, had been stripped from him.

  It was true that at times he’d forgotten himself completely, and that was when it had started—the syringing out of the cream from his engorged donut. It was when he’d begun to think that they were worshipping him rather than it. That it was his made-up religion, rather than the truth of the virus. That he owned it, instead of the other way around.

  And so of course they’d dare to try to take the power from him, because the virus had taken back what it had given. And they weren’t just considering it now. They were planning, scheming, playing up the conflicts that hadn’t been there only months before…or had they always been in the background, kept in their place by the virus’s power, before he’d muddled it all up?

  How the hell had the Order—his Order—split up in the first place?

  And there he was doing it again, presuming too much. That was exactly how it had gotten away from him. He’d forgotten the delicious cream was the virus’s, and not his. That was when he’d lost the virus’s ear, and they’d kill him if he let this go on much longer, of that there was no doubt.

  I’m the one who’s supposed to dictate these things, he thought. I’m running the show. This is my motherfucking show.

  And there it was yet again, the whole forgetting himself thing. He wasn’t the one running the show, he was just the medium, and he wasn’t even that any longer.

  Flying into a rage was very tempting right now, and he was close to it, but that would only make matters worse. What he needed to do was take decisive, unemotional action. Play with a permanent poker face.

  They can’t see my anger. I’m above that, above them. They’re weak. They are.

  The problem was, no matter how good he promised he’d be, swearing it over and over again in his head, the virus’s voice wouldn’t come back. And maybe he’d lost it for good. Maybe. And then what?

  If that was the case, and he was growing increasingly sure that it was, he would still make a last ditch effort at regaining his foothold and crushing the spirits of all those who were trying to overthrow him.

  What was clear beyond the shadow of any doubt, whether the virus was on his side or not, was that the fear bucket needed a refilling, and a serious one. He’d used to give to the virus on a regular basis. Now, it had been a long time since.

  And he’d used to keep viral pets, too, ones whose teeth and tongues were extracted, their lips burned shut, and the other orifices sealed. He’d used to make them himself, while the rest of the Order, his followers, watched, and then the foul, mutilated things would be set free to roam within the Order’s grounds.

  The creations…no, the mascots, were still dangerous; the virus was frantic to spread out of them, and that had kept everyone nicely in line, trembling at the sight of them, and, he was sure, taking said trembling with them to their bunks even when the beasts were out of sight. The last of them had been let loose long ago, and why, exactly, had he let that happen?

  And how long was it since he’d last given to the virus? Three months? Six? Longer, virus forbid?

  There had been a series of almost involuntary changes, and they’d put a hole in the fear bucket, and, gradually, without the giving and the pet zombies, liquid dread had oozed out of the bucket, and the brothers and sisters had begun to feel safe, and that was never good. Feelings of safety led to a cuddly warmth in the belly that festered and turned into mutiny, and that had proven true here, because here was Brother Mardu, the failing and perhaps already-failed captain of the cult’s ship, on the verge of losing it all.

  And what the fuck was he, a Flesher? No, that, he certainly was not, and would not allow himself to be. The Order wasn’t just a gang of cannibals. The Order had a purpose.

  But, be that as it was, he knew he couldn’t compete with the Fleshers even if he tried. That much he had to give them. They had what they did down to a science.

  And they would take you in too if they thought you could carry your weight, and they would keep you as long as you kept on bearing your load, bringing new meat in to the group to be shared. Once you stopped, and if you failed to perform for long enough, you’d be putting in your pound of flesh literally.

  More than a few found this arrangement appealing, but what the newcomers were ignorant of was the fact that most of the ‘new meat’ the Fleshers were brought, walked in on its own in the form of those looking to join the club. Newbies had a way of not measuring up these days, on account of the human steak well was drying the fuck up.

  39

  I can make another one just like it, Brother Mardu thought, recalling the last of the pets he’d owned, his heart summoning up a boldness that had become foreign of late, and all at once his stomach began to turn sour. The idea of it was already making him sick, and he’d just conjured it up. Even the straws he was grasping at wouldn’t be still.

  No, there would be no more pets, but he’d have to give tomorrow, and even the thought of it, of the ritual that was the bread and butter of the Order, was like a vacuum pulling the scant contents of his stomach upward, and giving was arguably nowhere near as…intrusive as sealing a zombie’s holes to keep the virus in.

  Giving was a simple turn, and yet, thinking about it was making him want to vomit up the brittle, half-chewed mouthfuls of hardtack he’d made himself swallow for his last meal of the day. His lip quivered. What the hell was that? Anger? Hunger? Or…fear? Fear of his own followers, in whom he was the one who was supposed to instill fear? Shit. He was getting soft. What the hell was happening?

  I’ll drill the fear back into them, he promised himself. I’ll put that fucking drill in their mouths and bore into their teeth until all the goddamned hope is out of ‘em.

  But could he? What was it with this self-doubt? Where had it come from?

  What it came do was that he could do this and he could do that, but until the virus was back in his ear, it would all be worthless. That was where his power came from, and now its source was missing. Maybe it was because of the drop-off in giving. But there was so little to give now, surely the virus must know that, must understand that.

  And the changes he’d made, the compromises he’d made with Acrisius, they’d been for the greater good, necessary. Couldn’t the virus see that? It was so obvious how could it not understand? Tradeoffs had to be made now. That was the only way left to keep moving forward.

  It hadn’t always been like this. Before the outbreak—long before it—he’d been a locomotive chock full of steam, and then, after the virus had found him, overflowing and damn well bursting with mojo-madness.

  And now what was he doing? He was tumbling head over feet into that dark well of his past, thinking about the before and back then, a fool’s errand reserved to those with limp mojos who were on their way out. There was nothing to see in the past, and he knew that. Whatever the solution was, it was evading him, and still, his mind kept trying to reach back into the time before the outbreak, as if there was something to glean from the events of his…other life.

  This made him angrier, and now he was right on the cusp of flying off the handle, but that would only make matters worse. They couldn’t see him lose control. He had to focus on something else. Any more on this and he’d go over the edge, and then there would be blood. There would have to be blood soon enough, but not yet. It wasn’t to be let in a disorganized way. But the damned plan just wasn’t forming.

  He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry out to that grey-skinned relic towering over him, the fucking thing. What if he got up right now, tore the thing down and let it loose among them? Them. It had used to be us, and that was just a short while ago. Six months? Nine? A year? Why couldn’t he remember?

  Now, suddenly, it was him and them. Maybe that was the thing to do: let it loose—it had no arms or legs but it would wriggle after them with appre
ciable enthusiasm, he was sure—and watch the panic. No, he wouldn’t just watch, he’d go at them, too, with his bare hands, go out fighting, like a man who still remembered what it was like to have fire in his loins, what it was like to be a king.

  Where has the virus gone? Why don’t I hear it anymore? Why?

  Calm yourself, he thought. Don’t let them see into your mind. It’s not as bad as you think. There’s still Acrisius, he’s on my side, and that huge motherfucking slave of his, Saul, too. Brother Acrisius and Brother Saul, yes. I’ll talk to Brother Acrisius, and maybe listen to what he has to say for once. Maybe I’ve taken on too much. He’s not a stupid man, not by a long shot, maybe it’s time I listen to him.

  They were an odd pair—Acrisius and Saul—the diseased semi-paralytic and his servant, who was a model of physical perfection, like a Greek god or whatever, carved from stone and the whole shebang. That image pleased Brother Mardu, because he knew he was trying to hold on to something that was drying up and crumbling, and maybe Saul, since he was carved from stone himself, might have a fix for this: maybe mortar and clay.

  Saul was dumb as a brick, from what Brother Mardu could tell, but maybe he’d have something worthwhile to contribute. At this point, Mardu was desperate enough to take anyone’s counsel, so long as they were loyal to his side.

  I’ll find a way back, he thought, somehow. This is mine, and I’m not running away from something I was entrusted with, from something I built brick by moldy brick with my own hands.

  And he wasn’t the one who needed to figure things out, anyway, it was the fucking traitors. They were the ones who needed to figure their shit out, because when he rooted them out he’d kill them all, one by one, and slowly. He just needed some proof that would stick.

  Or did he? Fuck proof. He’d just start killing. After tomorrow’s business was done, he’d pick them out at random—well not really at random, as there were a good number he had on his killing shortlist—and begin to cull the herd.