“Leave!? Oh there won’t be no leavin’. You tawk fancy an you ‘ave shiny things. No-No I think yow’ll be of high in’trest to Mr. White. Maybe Mr. White ’ll reward an honest acolyte like Roach for bringin’ ‘im such curiosities” Roach smiled and brought the shotgun up into a firmer hold as if he intended to shoot.
“Walta!” Roach bellowed.
One of the skinny men behind him stepped forward holding a blood stained wooden baseball bat with several nails driven though it in an intricate pattern – as home made weapons went it was a work of art.
“This is Walta, we are going to follow Walta in onesies yes? a nice little line. We’re gonna’ be quiet and we ah gonna’ pretend it’s a very windy day and that we’re wearing our very most fanciest hats!”
Everyone just looked at him. Frustrated he said “Put yer ‘ands on your ‘eds! ‘onestly some people ‘ave no ‘maginations.”
Slowly they did as they were told, placing their hands on their heads and walking single file after Walter as he made his way into the brush and down the hill further into Helheim.
XVIII
The way down the hill wasn’t easy with their hands on their heads, several times more than one of them slipped usually one of the expedition team.
Walter was leading them down a very unused path, the bushes and trees were trying to take it back over and they had to push through in several places, the longer limbs swinging back and hitting the person behind, something which brought much amusement to their armed escorts who chuckled every time it happened.
Things got as little easier near the bottom and they were on mostly flatter, firmer ground. They were making their way through a neighborhood of large houses that had been at least to some degree renovated and maintained.
As they passed they them could see faces coming to the empty windows and peering over walls, all of them dirty but none appeared to be dead.
By the time they made their way through the labyrinthine colony the sky was starting to darken into night. They ended their journey at the gates of probably the largest house they had seen, one surrounded by high cement walls and a long driveway leading up to the house.
Roach made his way forward and addressed the guards.
“Open up, I bring Mr. White an offering.”
The guards looked at each other before slowly pushing back the large wooden gates allowing them entrance. As soon as the last one of Roach’s thugs was through they pulled them closed again.
The house was huge with at least three or four levels, the walls outside were relatively clean compared to everywhere else they had seen, most of the houses they had passed getting here were painted with graffiti where as these still retained most of what might have been their original light grey color.
As they came around the curve of the driveway it led directly into a garage big enough to hold several cars. It currently housed three horses and one very cobbled together looking truck.
Several people stood around seeing to the horses and the car, Roach didn’t bother addressing any one of them in particular he just bellowed. “Where’s Mr. White?”
Someone rolled out from under the truck on a flat padded ‘creeper’ like one they had back in the bunker. Standing up the man looked at all of them through a quarter inch thick pair of glasses while he wiped his oily hands on a rag. “Upstairs, in the temple” he said his brow crinkling. “Who’r they?”
“They say they come from ‘Outside the city’.” Roach explained.
The oily mechanic rummaged in his pocket and pulled out large smoking pipe already packed with some kind of tobacco. Holding it between his teeth he patted his pockets looking for something to light it.
Roach produced a metal lighter from his pocket and struck the flame. It came out about six inches long and dripped fuel, unfazed the mechanic puffed on the pipe until it caught and smoked.
“Wait. I’ll let ‘im know you’re ‘ere”
Disappearing, leaving only a trail of foul smelling smoke the man went to tell the master of the house about the ragtag gathering to see him.
Everyone seemed to be watching them, their interest drawn by the neatness of their clothes and the cleanliness of their faces. By contrast everybody in Helheim seemed to have had a dirt bath and clothes handed down for over a hundred years that had never been washed.
Roach wandered away to pet one of the horses and Robert took the opportunity to turn a little and try to whisper to Lucas behind him. “What do you think?”
“I think we need to wait. Our chance will come.”
He tried to turn around more to look back at the others but one of their captors stepped up and grunted a warning.
When he turned back forward the mechanic was come back. “Mr. White will see you now.”
They were led in through the garage and up a flight of stairs.
On the first level they had to walk through a kitchen, down a short hallway and into a large white living room, where a dozen people around the room were in various stages of undress. The only ones fully dressed were four men who looked like guards, wearing helmets and holding three foot lengths of pipe with jagged discs of metal welded through them.
Almost all eyes were on them, even couples who didn’t bother to stop writhing against each other studied them.
On the far side of the room someone dressed in a long green silken robe with long blonde hair hanging in their face leaned against a metal statue which hung from the ceiling.
Robert looked at the statue, it looked like a naked woman with large breasts, her arms stretched out to the sides perhaps in a pantomime of a crucified Christ. She had a strange look on her face, not happy not sad, her mouth just seemed to hang open in a perpetual wail.
She had long hair that billowed out around her head and would be quite beautiful if she had had eyes. The black voids where her eyes should have been were like two more tiny mouths, both wailing in silence.
The figure in the green robe seemed to be hugging the statue, nuzzling one of the metal breasts. The mechanic walked over and whispered quietly to them. The figure shifted slightly and Robert could see more of the statue, apparently the bronze woman suspended from the ceiling also had a penis.
He had read about a birth defect that caused a person to have both sets of sexual organs, he searched his memory to try and think what it was called… hermaphroditism, that was it, the wailing woman was a hermaphrodite.
Their host turned to fully face them, robe completely open held by a pair breasts. Apparently so was Mr. White.
“So these are the Outlanders?” Mr. White had a soft gentle voice that was neither distinctly male or female, but in his mind Robert decided that it should be male.
Walking over towards the group Mr. White’s hips swayed in an exaggerated movement as he placed his bare feet one in front of the other as if he were walking an invisible high wire.
He tipped his head from one side to the other, his eyes wide with wonder.
“Who brought them to me?”
“I-I did Mr. White, Roach D-do you remember me?” he stammered nervously.
Mr. White Smiled. “Well of course I do Roach – come,” he beckoned the short balding man over to him and gently clasping him by the ears placed a kiss right on top of his shiny head.
“Tell me Roach, wherever did you find them?”
“W-well one of my people spotted ‘um in the scubs norf of big mount”
“Really, who?”
“Ferret sir”
“Mmmm where Ferret?”
Ferret came forward and looked up at Mr. White in wonder. The corner of Mr. White’s smile twitched as he beheld the young child, reaching out a hand he caressed Ferret’s smudged face.
“Aren’t you just a tiny precious little thing?”
After several moments he reluctantly looked up at the others, sighing.
He looked at each of them, his eyes flicking back and forth quickly. “There’s something… wrong here” he said smiling. Gasping suddenly he said “Oo
h I know, why are their hands on their heads?”
Roach motioned for them to lower their hands. There was an audible sigh that passed through them, all of their shoulders ached from having to hold that position for almost two hours.
“There! That’s much better. Now tell me, where do you really come from?”
Robert spoke hesitantly. “We come from a place out in the desert, a few days travel.”
Mr. White walked slowly over to him and tilted his head slowly from side to side as he looked up into his face.
“Liar!!” Mr. White finally screamed. Pointing at the hanging statue he said “Do you think you can lie before Erebos!? He sees all, She knows all!” There was fire in his voice and dilated eyes.
“Who sent you? Huh? What false house shelters you? Greutungi?” He paused to give them a chance to answer.
“W-we do not know who that is” Robert tried to explain.
Sucking in a breath Mr. White squinted his eyes and walked back and forth looking at them all one at a time. He lingered longest on Robert.
“Yes, Yes Greutungi it is, the false Lord of the south it is!” he declared finally. A hiss went through the room.
“As Erebos’ emissary on earth I see all things, all truths. She lets me see with his eyes and shows me through the Khaos. Bring me their things.”
Roaches men scurried forward and emptied the bags out onto the floor. All of their personal effects scattered. Pictures, papers, letters, Ramirez’s small bible, carvings and lucky charms, binoculars.
Pushing through everything on the floor with one of his bare feet Mr. White studied everything like he was looking at tea leaves while his followers looked on excitedly.
He squatted down and started to look at the objects more closely, picking things up in his hands and turning them over, talking to himself while he did.
“Strange… Very strange… on the eve of our attack… that we should find them now…” He glanced over at the statue of Erebos. “What?” he asked the statue and waited, listening to it’s response.
Robert looked slightly to his left and right, looking to see if anyone else seemed to be getting ready to make some kind of move. Using the distraction of the crazed cult leader talking to his God seemed like the perfect time to try and catch the rest of them off guard.
Around the room the guards seemed to be paying more attention to the statue than them, as if they actually expected it to move and speak.
Glancing over at Ramirez he nodded almost imperceptibly, and Ramirez nodded back. He was about to lunge for Roach as soon as the shotgun wasn’t aimed at any part of him, when someone came running from upstairs.
“They’re here! They’re Here!” the figure, a young girl called.
The mechanic stepped forward, “Who’re here?”
“Looks like Greutungi.” she answered.
Mr. White yelled “Do you see!? They are here for their men!”
Quickly wrapping the silken robe around himself he ran over to a window and looked frantically about.
“Watch them!” he yelled as he ran up the stairs to get a better view over the top of the high cement walls that formed a ring around the property.
The guards all tensed and the group’s opportunity to try anything was lost.
Upstairs there was a large landing with a set of double doors leading out onto an open balcony, Mr. White strode out, his silken robe billowing behind him and left the doors open.
Outside was a new sound now, something they hadn’t been able to hear before over the constant clamor inside the house – it sounded like a mob of men, horses and engines.
“There he is!” yelled a voice from somewhere outside the grounds. This set off a roar from the gathered masses as they all began heckling the hermaphroditic madman.
“What do you want Skell?” White yelled.
“Heard that you planned an attack on my camp tomorrow” Skell’s muted voice answered.
“Is that why you tried to send spies into the temple of Erebos, He-goddess of Khaos?”
“What are you talking about? I want what’s mine freak!”
“Why didn’t you say so!? Come on in and I’ll bugger you with my blade!” He laughed hysterically then yelped in surprise as a flaming porcelain toilet filled with a foul smelling flammable sludge flew through the open doors and shattered as it crashed down the stairway.
“Dead- You’re dead Skell! I’m going to cut off your head, scoop it out and shit in it!” White screamed, his voice breaking pitch in his rage.
He ran back down the stairs, his knees pumping rapidly as his feet hit every step trying not to step on a shard of shattered commode or slip in any of the fluid it had contained.
His robe had come back open billowing about him and he was now carrying a large curved sword.
“Everyone with a gun to the roof now and start killing, slaughter those fucks!”
Several of the guards left including Roach and some of his men, leaving only those armed with the lethal looking improvised axes and clubs.
“Take them outside – drop them in the pit!”
The tangled mess of semi naked bodies in the middle of the room scrambled to their feet some grabbed clothes and others didn’t bother they just grabbed weapons and ran raked outside into the melee.
Still outnumbered but with the scales tipping all of the prisoners let themselves be led outside, evaluating the best time to try to escape.
Flying flaming debris rained down into the backyard of the mansion and staccato gunfire volleyed back and forth between the two rival gangs. Makeshift scaffolds were erected and men lined the walls lighting and throwing Molotov cocktails out into the crowd.
The air was filled with gunfire, the screams of the dying and the roar of the living. Looking up as they were lead through the back yard Robert caught sight of archers firing arrows off of the corners of the roof.
Mr. White walked with the group, his breasts bouncing with every step, one arm swinging back and forth and the other hanging under the weight of his sword.
As they approached the edge of the pit every step brought a little more of the horror within into view. There were layers of sprayed blood painting the walls of the empty swimming pool and several dismembered body parts littering the blood muddied bottom.
Tommy, the first of them in line looked down into the pit, it took a few seconds for him to make out what exactly the movement at the bottom was. Covered with the same blood and filth as their slaughterous surroundings the three semi-fresh Zombies were all perfectly camouflaged and they all looked hungrily up at him.
XIX
“What are you waiting for? Put them in the pit!” White Screamed.
Before anyone could do anything Walter, the guard leading Tommy used the blunt tip of his immaculately nailed baseball bat-mace to shove him towards the edge. Tommy spun and tried to catch his footing but couldn’t, in a last ditch effort he managed to grab the mace as he fell – Walter let out a surprised yelp as they both plunged over the edge.
“Nooo!” Robert yelled in shock, he lashed out at the nearest guard and they grappled. All hell broke loose.
Moving impossibly fast Lucas lunged for Mr. White, he grabbed his sword bearing wrist and twisted, taking the sword and in the single move he forced the skinny cult leader into a spin which sent him flying through the air and wrenching the arm from its socket with a sickening crack.
White screamed an high pitched inhuman sound as he sailed into the pit.
Hitting the bottom of the pool knocked the wind out of Tommy so there was nothing left when Walter landed on top of him.
Forcing the panicked thrashing guard off of him he found the space to inhale and regretted it. He tried not to retch at the stench of the filth he lay in.
Walter rolled and staggered to his feet clutching his precious bat and started to wail “No-no-no-nononono!”
It took everything he had but he managed to roll over himself and crawl a couple of feet before he had to collapse against the side of th
e pool, turning around again he watched as Walter swung his weapon back uselessly in forth in front of himself.
Suddenly there was a sound like a screaming cat being ripped in half and Mr. White crashed face first into the wall off to Tommy’s right, the wail ended with a wet cracking sound and he tumbled into the bottom of his own pit.
Tommy looked back and forth, to his right one of the ghouls was shambling towards the prone Mr. White, to his left the other two were standing in from of Walter – but even as he watched one of them glanced in his direction and deciding to go after the easier prey, lurched in his direction.
At the mouth of the pit a mass of bodies tangled together, each trying to kill the others.
Ramirez managed to jerk free the lead pipe wielded by his attacker and brought it down with a dull thud against their shoulder. They crumpled to the ground unconscious and he whispered a quiet prayer of forgiveness if they died by his hands. Distracted by this, one of the temple guards managed to swing his razor toothed axe and it clipped him on the arm, jerked mentally back into the fight he swung the pipe again trying to aim for the guard’s arms hoping simply to break bones and not inflict a lethal wound.
On the ground, his assailant finally unconscious, Robert flexed his right hand. He hadn’t been in a fist fight since he was twelve and even then it was a minor tussle broken up quickly, his knuckles now were torn from having to repeatedly beat his chain wielding attacker to get him to stay down and already it felt like they were swelling.
Wrenching the chain free of the other man’s grip he staggered to his feet and tried to look around. He caught a glimpse of green silk disappearing into the pit and saw Lucas standing there holding the curved sword. Before he could say anything though Lucas ran and jumped into the pit.
Jackson tried to stay back out of the path of the vicious swinging axe but he was running out of room, he had to do something soon before something went wrong and he ended up dead or bleeding to death.
Long Live The Dead Page 10