Dead Hunger VII_The Reign of Isis

by Eric A. Shelman

  “Jesus, is that the whole pen?” asked Charlie.

  “Keep moving!” shouted Dave, taking Trina and Taylor by the arms and pulling them right behind.

  As Gem reached the maze and pushed herself between two male rotters, she stood aside to let the others in while she stopped to look again. Walking alongside the massive group of abnormals were four women, two per side. Even from the distance, Gem could see their glowing red eyes.

  In front of the horde were two more red-eyed females, but these had corn silk-straight hair and walked with shuddering gaits.

  Hybrids on the outside, commanding the Mothers. Mothers in front, commanding the Hungerers.

  “WAT-5 isn’t going to help us with those Mothers,” said Gem. “We need to push our asses the hell through this maze, now!” Gem was acutely aware of their disadvantage without being able to utilize firearms.

  “Mothers?” asked Dave.

  “We got Hybrids on both sides and Mothers in front,” said Gem.

  Dave guided Trina and Taylor into the packed maze beside Gem, and Hemp and Charlie pushed in next. Gem looked up to see Dave staring at her.

  “They’re moving now, Gem,” he whispered. “Really moving.”

  “The Mothers will tell them to attack us despite the WAT-5,” said Hemp. “Everyone, blend in among the ones inside the maze and let’s move through it as quickly as possible.”

  Gem glanced back before the stinking masses engulfed the entrance and left only one possible choice.

  Get through.

  The advancing pack, led by the Hybrids and Mothers, was now less than a hundred yards away and closing.

  “Keep a sharp eye out for Mothers in here, too,” said Hemp. “I’ll go first, Gem, you follow me, and tell me which way to turn. Everyone else have your knives ready.”

  Dave had left his suppressed Walther with the others, so had only his EB-tipped knife to grip. Charlie’s small crossbow would not be effective in the tight quarters, so she had a 9mm Glock in her right hand, and her EB-tipped knife clenched in her left fist.

  Gem said, “Charlie, remember. Don’t fire the gun unless you don’t have a choice.”

  “De-fucking-fine choice,” said Charlie.

  Hemp nudged unceremoniously past Gem. “Hurry, Gem. Which way?” he whispered, his voice more frantic than Gem recalled hearing before.

  She knew why, of course. His adopted daughter, Taylor was here, along with his wife. His son was back with the others risking his life. The lives of everyone he loved were on the line.

  Gem looked at the list and started at the end, reversing the turns. “Okay, make your right, then the second left.”

  The smell was horrific. The zombies within the maze reeked of death and deterioration as they pushed against Gem and the others, their flaking, mottled skin rubbing against them.

  “Gem,” said Hemp, his voice rising. “We hit a wall here.”

  “Shit,” said Gem, looking at her list. She took a quick glance back up. Something wasn’t right.

  “Fuck!” she said, realization striking her smack in the face. “Hemp, they’ve reconfigured the walls!”

  “Turn around and find another path then,” he said, stopping. “We’ll have to do this the old fashioned way.”

  Gem turned around and quickly pushed Trina and Taylor’s shoulders, spinning them. “Go, go!”

  They moved, and Gem and Hemp once again took the lead. It did not matter anyway. Their inability to see beyond the rotting bodies meant they were walking blind. They had no idea what lay ahead and no way to tell if the path they were taking was one they had taken before.

  A hand brushed Gem’s neck, and she swiped at it, feeling the scaly flesh against her skin, making her want to vomit and kill it at the same time.

  They took turn after turn, each time running into dead ends.

  “Jesus Christ,” said Dave. “Guys, this is taking too long. It looks like the sun is ready to come up. We need to get through this damned thing!”

  Gem looked, and sure enough, the dawn was ready to break.

  “Shit, I forgot!” shouted Charlie, whipping out the bottle of urushiol. She raised the sprayer and pumped it into the air over their heads.

  “Good, Charlie!” shouted Gem. The effect was instantaneous. The bodies around them began popping and hissing, the creatures falling away. As they fell and bubbled into oozing piles of muck, Trina called, “Watch your feet, everyone! Stay away from their teeth!”

  Even as the oily liquid hit their emaciated bodies, they gnashed their teeth at what seemed to be double and triple speed, still following the commands of the nearby Mothers to attack us even as they melted and died. The little clump of shriveled brain within their skulls would have to dissolve before the Mothers’ control would wane.

  “The other ones are entering now!” shouted Hemp. “Gem, keep moving, and everyone else, keep up with us!”

  Gem glanced over her shoulder. The horde had indeed arrived, and now they pushed into the maze. Gem realized they had not gotten far enough inside. If they got lucky, two turns and they would reach them.

  The bodies of the dozens of dead zombies had congealed at their feet, and now it was like walking through two feet of thick honey. Gem made a turn and advanced through the maze, pulling her feet out of the mess with great effort. She turned again, and found herself at another open path.

  “Charlie, I found a way through!” she called. “Give me the bottle!” she shouted, her hand in the air.

  “Here, Gem!” shouted Charlie, tossing the bottle over the crowd. Gem watched it sail just over the reaching arms of the still-standing rotters and snatched it from the air. In her hand, she adjusted her grip on the bottle and pumped the liquid out into a fine mist in front of her.

  Three bodies directly ahead of her blistered, the skin pulling back from their eyes and teeth, creating ghoulish skulls atop dripping bodies. Ultimately, they fell away from Gem, adding to the now flowing goo at their feet.

  Gem felt something close on her foot and looked down to see what appeared to be nothing more than a skull biting down on her leather boot. She kicked at it, then raised her foot, bringing it down hard atop the thing, shattering it into fragments that immediately disappeared into the slime coating the asphalt street beneath her.

  As she pulled her foot from the muck and looked up, a Red-Eye stood in front of Gem, three feet away. She stood stock still, her blazing, crimson eyes locked to Gem’s.

  Red-Eyes. Mothers. Whatever they were, they were what gave the Hungerer masses focus beyond their ravenous craving for human flesh. They told them that even if you could not smell them, all living humans were food.

  This one stared at Gem with great intensity.

  She killed my son, thought Gem.

  Gem wanted to reach for her EB-tipped knife and jam it straight through the monster’s eye, but when she tried, she realized she could not move. Her limbs were paralyzed.

  The Mother’s eyes remained locked on Gem’s as she closed the gap between them, pulling her feet from the goop with relative ease and a deep, sucking sound. The advanced creature stretched its jaws open wide, its teeth not brown but ivory, its skin not flaking away, but vein-riddled and smooth.

  Move! She thought, but the word had no effect on her frozen muscles.

  “Gem, duck!” shouted Dave behind her, but she found she could not. She could not answer Dave, either.

  The Mother’s arms reached out and took her shoulders, jerking her forward. Gem could only watch as the urushiol bottle fell from her hand and the Mother moved in, her mouth stretched open wide.

  *****

  Isis, Max, Punch, Flex and Nelson stared, analyzing the space in silence.

  Inside were dozens of sets of remains, and with all of the Mothers and Hungerers gone, the bloodstained concrete became more obvious at a casual glance, even in the early morning gloom.

  “Where the hell did they go?” asked Flex.

  “I think maybe Maestro had a plan we were unaware of,” sai
d Punch.

  “Think he still thinks we’re in jail?” asked Nelson.

  “We need to get back to the basketball court,” said Isis. “Now.”

  They ran.

  *****

  The basketball court was empty. The cots were there, but the gate was open and all of the Hybrids were gone.

  “Think there’s any sense in going to Living Joy church?” asked Max.

  “He’s gone,” said Isis. “I don’t know how he found out. Perhaps we were deceived after all.”

  “No, Isis,” said Max. “I looked into Beauty’s eyes. She was telling the truth. I could see a longing there.”

  “He’s sure as hell taken them all somewhere,” said Flex.

  “Do you feel them?” asked Max. “I feel something. There are Mothers and Hungerers here still.”

  “I feel it, too,” Isis said. “Powerful. They’re nearby.”

  “Not all of them,” said Max. “Not near.”

  “Then we need to get to the maze,” said Nelson.

  “Let’s go,” said Flex.

  Punch said, “Wait, guys. Let’s check on the guards. We don’t know if they had the key, so they might be there. If we can get some information out of ‘em it could really help us track this bastard down.”

  Isis recalled that Punch was always the military man. He knew interrogation and he knew strategy.

  “He’s right,” she said. “Let’s hurry.”

  They ran around the corner of the block building and ran for the open door. Inside the front lobby area nothing looked different. Once they opened the door to the cellblock, that changed.

  Flex drew back and gagged. “Oh, God,” he mumbled.

  Isis stared. The cell doors were indeed open. The two guards were in pieces. Not by the Hungerers and not by the Mothers.

  “This was Maestro,” said Isis. “It’s his punishment for them letting us get the better of them.”

  The heads were jammed into the stainless steel toilet. The torsos were in the area just outside the cells, and the arms and legs were everywhere. All of the fingers had been severed from the hands, and it appeared that all twenty of them lay scattered throughout the cellblock.

  “Dude, it’s like a zombie all-you-can-eat buffet in here,” said Nelson. “I gotta get outta here, like yesterday.”

  They left the building and ran toward the maze. Punch led the charge with Nelson behind him, Isis and Max followed them, and with Flex’s injured ankle, he hopped along behind them, barely keeping up. Isis kept her eyes and ears peeled as they worked their way toward the maze.

  They rounded the corner on West Railroad Street and Main Street came into view.

  “Holy shit,” said Punch, stopping sharply and holding up his right fist. “Guys, wait.”

  “That is not all of them,” said Isis.

  “Not near,” said Max.

  “I sense Maga are among them,” said Isis. “And Mothers.”

  “I can’t see into the maze,” said Flex. “Anyone?”

  “Nah, bro,” said Nelson. “Just a couple yards in. Maybe they’re through already.” Nelson continued staring at the maze for a moment. “Wow,” he said.

  “What?” asked Flex, looking at Nelson, then back to the massive horde.

  “That maze is different, dudes,” he said. “You’re supposed to go in and make the first left, but I can see from here that leads to a dead end.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Flex.

  “It means,” said Isis, “that Maestro always had a contingency plan in place. I don’t know whether he was informed by Alyssa, Megan and Beauty or not, but he’s reconfigured the maze and released these Mothers and Hungerers to stop us from leaving the city.”

  “Why would he do that?” asked Nelson.

  “Because he wants to get to Kingman before us,” said Isis. “Charlie unintentionally revealed the name of our city to them.”

  “Fuck!” shouted Flex. “If everyone is caught in that maze, we need to go now!”

  “First let Max and I go,” said Isis. “Max, come on. We need to hurry.”

  She and Max ran toward the crowd, splitting up and flanking them on both sides. Isis saw two women standing outside the maze against the fence. They were not shuffling or staggering; they simply stood there. Isis grabbed her radio, turned it on and made sure it was on channel 15.

  “Max, there are two Hybrids at the fence,” she whispered. “They may be commanding those inside the maze.”

  She had the volume low as Max’s voice responded. “Yeah, Isis, there are two more over here. It’s the same thing. They’re just standing there, staring into the maze.”

  “Make sure it’s not Megan, Alyssa or Beauty and kill them, Max,” she said.

  “Isis,” he said. “I’ve never killed … anything alive before. They’re innocent.”

  “They’re definitely not innocent, Max,” said Isis. “Whether they would’ve been if they’d never met Maestro is one thing, but we have to go by what we know, and we know they do his bidding.”

  “But Isis,” said Max.

  “Do it, Max,” she radioed. “Save your family.”

  Isis tucked the radio away and started a slow jog. She slipped into the crowd of rotters to the left of the hybrid and drew even with her. She remained concealed behind a dozen rotters, working her way to within three feet of the Hybrid.

  A shriek came from the other side of the crowd, somewhere out of Isis’ view. She felt the scream in her mind, and tears immediately came to her eyes. Her breath caught in her throat and her heart rate increased to quadruple what it had been moments earlier.

  Max had killed one of the Hybrids. The severe pain Isis felt wasn’t drawn out like her earlier pain; it was stabbing, emotionally intense, then gone.

  Had it been Max killing the Hybrid, or the Hybrid turning the tables on him?

  Isis burst from the crowd and hooked her left arm around the hybrid’s neck, dragging her to the pavement.

  Suddenly Nelson appeared, and as Isis dragged the Maga to the ground, he jumped on top of the Hybrid, his knee on her neck, his knife pressed against her forehead.

  Isis got on her knees beside Nelson. A moment later the Maga blinked twice and her red eyes stared up at Isis and Nelson. “Why?” she asked. “You are as Alpha and Omega.”

  “You mean Alyssa and Megan,” said Isis. “And you are as the Magas,” said Isis.

  “I am Maga 23, and you must die,” said the Maga. “You are not one of us.”

  “What are your orders?” asked Isis.

  “I cannot reveal them,” she said.

  “I’ll kill you,” said Isis, pulling the Walther from her pocket and pressing it against the young woman’s forehead.

  “Mothers,” said Maga 23. “Come.”

  “I’m so sorry,” said Isis. “In Kingman, you could’ve been called Maggie if you wished.” She pulled the trigger and the Walther’s suppressed discharge was subdued in comparison to the destruction the bullet did to the young woman’s face. The blood sprayed out on the asphalt and the feet of the rotters surrounding them.

  The shriek came again, this time accompanied by the worst pain that Isis had ever experienced. She looked up to see two Mothers advancing on her, now five feet away. Nelson jumped up and charged them, reaching into his pocket at the same time.

  “Move, Nelson!” shouted Isis, but he did not. She held the Walther out in front of her so that if Nelson were to drop down, she would have a clean shot at the Mother’s head.

  His arm came back, and the morning sun, now well above the horizon, glinted off the flying brass star, allowing Isis to follow its flight until it embedded deep in between the eyes of the first Mother.

  “Got it!” he shouted.

  The pregnant female toppled forward, its eye shine fading to black as she dropped.

  Nelson saw the other advancing Mother and grabbed a staggering rotter by the shoulders, practically tossing his emaciated body at her.

  It slowed, but did not deter the
Mother. She caught the long-dead man, lifted his wasted body into the air and heaved the Hungerer into the middle of the crowd. Her eyes never left Isis, glowing as deep and vivid a red as Isis had ever seen.

  Out of the blue, something struck the Mother.

  It was an arrow. It entered above her right ear, and came out in the same spot above her left ear.

  She stopped, teetered from side-to-side for a full two seconds before several shambling Hungerers knocked her to the ground.

  Nelson reached the other hybrid and used his Subdudo, taking her easily down. At that moment, another shriek came in Isis’ mind, and this time she found herself breaking down into sobs, even as she approached the last hybrid.

  She was the last, for Max had just killed another. It was horrible. The pain lingered, blurring her vision and dashing her concentration for a few brief, critical moments.

  Isis prayed they would not have to kill the other Magas. The emotional damage it might do to her and Max might never be repaired.

  She knelt down before the Maga. It was Beauty.

  “Beauty!” said Isis. She held her down on the ground for the moment. “Beauty, where are Megan and Alyssa?”

  “They have not been Megan and Alyssa since Maestro came to them again,” said Beauty. “At that moment they again became Alpha and Omega.”

  “Where are they,” asked Isis, fearing the answer.

  “Megan is in the cage car,” she said. “She is going to Kingman.”

  Isis hesitated at the omission of Alyssa, but before she could ask about it, a distant engine roared to life. Flex ran up, breathing hard. “Everyone get back, now! Punch found a back hoe!”

  The diesel engine revved in the early morning, and Isis heard Punch grinding the gears and he worked the machine.

  “Beauty, are you still with us?” asked Isis, holding the pistol to her head.

  “I am,” she said. “I was commanding nothing here,” she said. “I was only waiting for you as I promised.”

  “Okay, get up.”

  “What was that horror in my heart and mind?” she asked, as Isis pulled her from the street.

  “It was your sisters – no, it was our sisters dying,” said Isis. “I’m sorry.”