by Tristan Vick
Endo just felt sorry for the demons—hey had no idea what was coming for them.
58
The Morning After
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, U.S.A.
Awakening to the sound of light snoring, Alyssa felt something warm resting on her chest and opened her eyes to find Dr. Patricia Hemingway sleeping soundly beside her, arm draped across her breasts. They were in bed together, but thankfully, Alyssa was not naked. Strangely enough, she didn’t recollect coming back from the banquet and she felt groggy as hell. Even so, she figured it must be Patricia’s room, since she hadn’t had the luxury of being given accommodations.
“Hey sleepy head,” Alyssa said, gently shaking Patricia’s shoulder to rouse her awake.
Hair disheveled, and with a long drawn out yawn, Patricia opened her eyes and saw Alyssa’s pleasant face gazing back at her. The glow of the morning light that gleamed upon her strawberry blond hair gave Alyssa an angelic appeal.
“You’re worried about him, aren’t you?”
“Oh god, yes,” Alyssa replied, letting out a pent up sigh she’d been holding in ever since Jen had become infatuated with her boyfriend. “It’s nerve racking not knowing what’s happened to him. I couldn’t bear to live without him. He’s my Cowboy,” Alyssa said affectionately, brushing her glowing hair out of her eyes. She looked over at Patricia and smiled. Patricia smiled back at her, recognizing the telltale signs of cupid’s arrow.
“How long have you two been in love?”
“Ever since he rescued me from a hospital a little over a year ago. It’s kind of a long story, actually.”
Patricia swung her legs over the side of the bed and said, “I see,” in a way that revealed she might know more than she was letting on. Looking down, she realized she was wearing only a black lace thong. She pushed herself up and stumbled over to the bathroom sink. As she stood in the bathroom, she reached over and fetched her silk bath robe from off the wall hook and slipped it on. It was a deep cranberry color which shimmered in the sunlight shining through her window. She tied the sash tight, and then, looking at her reflection in the mirror, she laughed.
“What is it?” Alyssa inquired.
“I look a mess.”
“You look like you got you some,” Alyssa joked.
Patricia laughed again. “I wish.”
After an awkward pause, Patricia looked back at Alyssa with inquisitive eyes and asked, “Do you remember how you found yourself to be in the care of Newcastle City Red Cross?”
“No…” Alyssa began. “Nothing since the escape from the base.” Alyssa was about to say something more, but as she paused to think about it she realized that there was no possible way Patricia could have known her back story. Unless… “Wait a minute. I didn’t say what hospital I was rescued from.”
Patricia turned to Alyssa, and a grave expression came over her face. “You didn’t have to. I know exactly which hospital you were placed in. I’m the one who checked you into the O.R.”
“You?!” Alyssa gasped. “But…how, why, I mean…”
“I know, I know,” Patricia said raising her hand. “You must have a thousand questions you are dying to ask me.” Patricia went into the small kitchen to one side of the studio apartment, opened a cupboard, and pulled out some tea bags. Placing the teabags in two cups, she added, “I’ll explain everything. But over a cup of tea. Trust me, it will help you relax. What I have to tell you is a little, how shall I say this…unsettling.”
Alyssa thought about it for a moment and then said, “Tea would be great.”
Just then there was a knock at the door. Both women startled and looked over at the door then back at each other.
“Expecting anyone?” Alyssa asked.
“Not that I know of,” Patricia replied.
“Open up!” a masculine sounding voice called out, followed by more pounding.
“Crap,” Alyssa said, looking down at herself wearing only a t-shirt and cotton panties. “I’m not dressed.”
“Neither am I,” Patricia added. Pointing to a small dresser at the side of the bed, Patricia said, “There should be some clothes in there. We’re the same size, so feel free to take what you like.”
“Open up,” the voice said again. “We don’t have all fucking day.”
Patricia ran up to her door, checked the peep hole, then looked back at Alyssa with a concerned look.
“What is it?” Alyssa asked, pulling up a pair of jeans and fastening the brass button. She had also slipped on a nice, forest green sleeveless tunic that draped over her jeans like a half dress.
“Just…don’t panic,” Patricia said. Then she opened the door and two tall men barged in dragging an unconscious, battered and bruised, and completely naked Gordon Longstaff by his arms and dropping him in the middle of the room. Gordon’s body landed face down on the floor with a thud. Lash marks from a whip, every dominatrix’s favorite tool of submission, streaked his back. His shoulders and arms had claw marks across them, and his buttocks was black and blue with the imprint of a woman’s slender hand. Without saying another word, the two men took their leave and slammed the door shut behind them.
Alyssa fell to her knees and gently placed her hand on the back of Longstaff’s shoulder. “My poor thing. What did she do to you?”
Patricia knelt beside her and felt Longstaff’s neck for a pulse and looking over his mostly superficial wounds.
“Is he…alright?” Alyssa implored, her worried eyes gazing at Dr. Hemingway.
Patricia looked up at her and said, “Yes. He’s obviously exhausted, dehydrated, and a little worse for wear. But I don’t think anything vital has been damaged.”
“Thank God!” Alyssa exclaimed, releasing a sigh of relief.
Patricia rolled Gordon over onto his back and gasped.
Alyssa looked down and covered her mouth in shock. His nipples were chewed up and bleeding. Candle wax had hardened in his chest hair. His abdomen had burn marks all the way down to his pelvis. And his dick had bite marks and lipstick all over it. Alyssa quickly tore the sheet from the bed and covered him with it.
“She did this to him, didn’t she?” Alyssa was furious. Unable to sit still, she stood up and paced the room. She had never had any love for Jennifer Hurley, but now she downright wanted to kill the slut.
“I know it looks bad, but really, she’s done a lot worse. You wouldn’t imagine some of the things I’ve been asked to treat.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” Alyssa said, acknowledging the fact that Jen was completely off her rocker.
After taking a deep breath, Alyssa stopped pacing and sat back down next to her Cowboy and began running her fingers through his hair, the way a mother would her child. “Doctor, is there anything we can do for him to make him more comfortable?”
“Until he wakes up, all we can do is let him rest.”
After a long pause, Patricia walked back into the kitchen and finished making their tea. It was the only thing she could do. And, truth be told, it was the only thing they had on hand to help soothe their nerves.
59
Obsequium
Aokigahara Village, Near Mt. Fuji, Japan
Dipping the Kevlar wick into the canister of kerosene, Saeko pulled it back out and ignited the torch. The people of Aokigahara village had spent an entire day preparing for the funeral and now, with evening settling in around them, they lined both sides of the street that lead to the center square. In the middle of the town was a large funeral pyre with the body of the old monk, Mr. Tamagawa, dressed in his finest ceremonial robes.
The funeral ceremony for Mr. Tamagawa had begun at sundown, and Saeko could barely hold back her tears. She turned up the path that lead out to the center square and began her solemn walk to the pyre, made of bamboo and wood. The teary-eyed faces of men, women, and children watched her as she made the emotionally straining journey to the pyre. Mr. Tamagawa had helped so many. In the midst of the apocalypse, he had created a safe haven away from the insanity, and
many viewed him as a kind of savior, because he literally had been their savior. He also was Saeko’s personal savior. If he hadn’t taken her in all those years ago, she would have lost herself to the darkness.
With tears in her eyes, Saeko raised the torch high and ignited the pyre. It went up in an instant and Saeko stepped back from the intense wave of heat that blasted her. Although she didn’t notice him approaching, Daiichi Endo was suddenly by her side. He took the torch from her and dowsed it in a bucket of water. Then he wrapped his arm around Saeko and she turned and buried her face into his chest and sobbed.
Rachael Ramirez watched from afar. It wasn’t her family, they weren’t her people, but she could see how much the old man had meant to everyone. After the outbreak of the Resurrection Virus, after it had decimated entire cities and continents, it seemed that life had become that much more precious and rare.
Having a loved one pass away was hard enough in the old world. In this new world it was downright crippling. If you didn’t handle it right, a person’s passing could haunt you for the rest of your life. Rachael knew this from experience.
She had never come any closer to finding out what had happened to her son, Hector. For all she knew, he could still be out there somewhere, roaming the streets of Newcastle, terrorizing the city in search of his next bite.
She still had the nightmares—almost every night. She saw his pallid face, the vivid purplish veins, like a series of dark branches lying just beneath the translucent layer of skin glazed with the sickly residue of the passing fever, the unsettling murky white-eyes, the subtle yet unnerving growling like that of a mindless animal. She still awoke in cold sweats almost every night to that image; the ghost of her zombie son which haunted her memories. She wondered if she’d ever find closure.
Only time will tell, she told herself. Only time will tell.
60
Recovery
Alcatraz Island, San Francisco Bay, U.S.A.
Sipping her tea, Alyssa gazed past the thin wisps of steam rising from her cup and across the small white kitchen table at Dr. Patricia Hemingway. “So what are you saying, doctor?”
“I’m saying that you and I are both immune to the Resurrection Virus, thanks to your friend Rachael Ramirez and her amazing DNA properties. It was her bone marrow and blood that saved your life, and mine as well.”
“You saw Rachael? I mean, after I…?”
“Yes.”
“But how?”
“You have your friends, Jared Barnes and Ulysses Noble, to thank for that. They were fast thinking, found a meat locker, an electrical generator, and froze your body. The rest was pure serendipity. We crossed paths just in time for them to lead me to you. We found your body, but that wasn’t all. Call it a miracle, call it random chance, but your Gordon Longstaff and Rachael Ramirez were already there when we arrived. Even though I don’t believe in God, I’d be tempted to say some higher power was definitely looking out for you that day.”
Unexpectedly, Alyssa stood up, came over to Patricia, and hugged her. “Thank you,” she said in a kindly whisper.
Patricia hugged her back. Once they had finished their embrace, Alyssa returned to her seat and Patricia finished outlining the details of what had transpired. “Although it was a gamble, I wanted to see if it was possible to save someone in your condition—right at the brink of turning. I’m happy to report the answer to that question is a resounding yes.”
“And I’ll be forever grateful,” Alyssa said, smiling warmly at Patricia.
“I don’t know what it is,” Patricia said, brushing her hair from her face as she looked down into the swirling milk that spiraled around like a miniature galaxy in her cup of tea. “I’m terribly fascinated by this virus and what it can do. It’s become a sort of obsession of mine.”
“If you don’t mind me prying further, may I ask why I was put into a coma?”
“I had to induce a coma due to the nature of the surgery. If I would have thawed you out entirely, the virus would have reactivated before your brain functions turned back on and consumed you completely. So I thawed you out little by little, replacing your bone marrow as I went. Once you were completely unfrozen, the transplant took and you were, for lack of a better word, cured.”
“But for whatever reason, I didn’t wake from that coma, did I?”
“I’m afraid not. Like I said, the procedure was experimental…which is to say, completely unsanctioned…field medicine, as they used to say. And if I’m being completely honest, I’m surprised you survived the procedure at all.”
“So you left me in the hospital.”
“We had no choice. It was the only hospital outside of New York City or Washington D.C. that had a fully automated coma center. After you didn’t wake up, the city was evacuated due to radioactive fallout.”
“They nuked the city?”
“I’m afraid so. I held out hope that, somehow, you’d make it, given the nature of Rachael’s DNA and its unique ability to heal. The hospital was just outside the blast zone, so I figured there was a good chance you would pull through. But, as always seems to be the case, a string of unfortunate events prevented me from returning to you.”
“You don’t have to tell me. It was her, wasn’t it?” Alyssa nodded toward the door of the apartment, suggesting the woman outside, the woman everyone feared, Jennifer Hurley.
“I feel…” Patricia cut herself short as she struggled to find the proper wording. “The fact is,” she started again, “I haven’t been completely forthright with you. I’m not exactly a prisoner here. I’m here of my own volition.”
“I kind of figured as much. After all, you are obsessed.”
“Actually, it’s more complicated than that. I was on my way back to you when my jeep was overturned in a freak accident. Jared and Ulysses, along with two other Marines, fought off a horde of zombies, but soon we became separated. Jared and Ulysses made it out safely, but my team took a wrong turn and ran into a dead end. Just as my brave escorts succumbed to the throng of hungry mouths, and I was as good as dead, out of the blue a candy apple red Cadi pulled up and a beautiful blond woman with the most dazzling blue eyes I’d ever seen told me to get in. Needless to say, I couldn’t refuse.
“Hurley actually saved you?” Alyssa asked in disbelief.
“Not for lack of trying, that’s for sure,” Patricia informed her. “You see, as I made a beeline for the car, I tripped and fell flat on my face. The monsters had me pinned down; I was certain that I was a goner. Then I heard her say, ‘Stand down.’ I looked up to see all the zombies frozen in place, watching me with those terrible eyes, replete with bloody veins, like spider’s silk, webbing through the milky whites of their eyeballs. They looked upon me as though I was their next meal. You can imagine my utter surprise when, by some sort of miracle, they obeyed her commands and ceased their advance. It was as though they were under a kind of trance. A spell. I couldn’t believe my eyes. She had total control over the undead. And, yes, she saved my life.”
“Ugh,” Gordon Longstaff groaned, interrupting the women’s conversation.
Alyssa and Dr. Hemingway turned and looked at him.
“You’re awake! Alyssa chirped, her voice full of sympathy and nurturing.
“I feel like a rodeo rider who’s been bucked to the dirt and kicked in the ribs by a raging bull,” Gordon said in a raspy voice.
Alyssa jumped out of her seat and ran to him. Helping him sit up, she kissed him on his forehead and brushed her fingers through his dusty-brown hair. “What did that evil witch do to you?”
“If you don’t mind, I’d rather not talk about it.”
Alyssa could sense the deep shame in his voice. But he needn’t be ashamed. It wasn’t his fault. He didn’t do anything wrong. Besides, he didn’t know Jennifer Hurley like she did. This was just his first encounter. Alyssa had spent a terrifying week with her. And it was clear to her that Hurley had left him battered, but not broken, for a reason. He obviously had made an impact on her. Which
meant she liked him.
But Alyssa knew she had to tread lightly. Jen was a ticking time bomb of violence wrapped in insanity fueled by a wellspring of endless rage. If she went off, given her new powers, she could be truly devastating—like a tsunami multiplied by earthquake level natural disaster kind of devastating. Which wouldn’t bode well for anyone. Pushing her buttons and making her go nuclear simply wasn’t an option. Alyssa needed to be smart and play it safe.
Additionally, Alyssa knew all too well the game Jen was playing at. Jen loved to use sex as a strategic weapon. She played mind games better than anyone. She fucked her way up the chain of power to the top dog. Once there, she’d be sure to murder the top dog and take his place. After which, she’d kill the next dog below that, then fuck the next one down instilling terror and loyalty. Of course, she’d never fuck him again, but he wouldn’t know that.
Jennifer Hurley promoted all her pawns to ensure that any signs of rebellion from within could be easily squashed from both ends of her playing field. If the least in the social hierarchy was loyal to the Queen, then the lowest of the low was contented and insurrection was that much more difficult to come by.
Alyssa was no psychologist, but she was sure that this behavior was learned. Maybe Hurley herself had been the victim of such sexual abuse, which would go a long way to explain how she knew exactly how to wield sex like a bludgeon.
And even if someone did manage to rise up against her, they had better be damn well sure that they could take her on. After all, Jennifer Hurley had the ability to control the living dead. There simply was no competing with that kind of power. It was a fool’s errand to even try.
Patricia came over and bent down to help Alyssa get Gordon onto his feet. Slinging his arm across her shoulders, Patricia said, “Glad to see you up and about. Let’s just get you onto the bed so I can check you for any head trauma and then we’ll—”