Infernal Corpse

by D. J. Goodman

  Angie took a deep breath.

  “Angie! No! Wait!”

  The words were lost in the wind for a few seconds, just long enough that Angie didn’t register them until after she had squeezed the trigger. The gun fired and one of the zombie’s head exploded from above. Erupting from the wound, right along with brains and blood and bone fragments, was a furious fire.

  Angie turned to see Megan coming around from the other side of the deck. “What?” Angie asked. “What is it?”

  “The way’s not clear!”

  “What?” Angie asked. She looked back down through the hatch. That single zombie had immediately gone up in flames, catching two next to it and quickly spreading to the wall. Every zombie in the building, hopefully every zombie from the entire town, was going to go up like tinder over the next minute. The lighthouse was going to go with them. They no longer had any time to wait, let alone time to clear out a rogue group of zombies suddenly blocking their path.

  Angie went around the deck to see that a small group of zombies had wandered closer to the front from the back of the lighthouse. They were still moving, heading for the area where Beth would touch down when they lowered her. It was hard for Kim to see if they were looking up at the survivors on the tower, but even through the snow, Angie could see the lead zombie’s bright Hawaiian shirt. Archie, the last of the four original zombies.

  “No, no, no. We can’t have this,” Angie muttered. It might have been her imagination but she thought she could already smell the burning from beneath them. Between the massive number of highly flammable zombies inside and the lighthouse’s old building materials, this whole place would go up quickly. Now their only escape route was going to be blocked.

  Angie closed her eyes and gripped the railing tight, trying to think.

  “Hey, do you see something else moving out there?” Jasmine asked.

  There had to be a way out of this. This was Pestilence’s show, and if she were really trying to make this entertaining for some soulless group watching them all, then she had to follow certain rules, right? There must be something that they could do or something that could happen.

  “I think so,” Kevin said. “Can’t make it out, though. Looks kind of small.”

  Angie thought back to everything she had ever read, especially things about storytelling techniques. There had to be something built into the narrative that they could use. What was that storytelling device called? A Chekov’s Gun, she remembered. Something that would have been introduced earlier, seemingly innocuous, that would become supremely important now.

  “There’s no way that’s what I think it is,” Jasmine said.

  “It does seem kind of unlikely that he would find his way all the way out here.”

  Or maybe this would be the time in the story for that other age-old storytelling technique, the Deus Ex Machina. Something that comes out of nowhere, exactly the right thing happening at exactly the right time. Angie dismissed that idea, though. She didn’t think Pestilence would be that lazy.

  “Angie, are you even paying attention?” Kevin asked.

  “Not now, guys, I’m trying to think.”

  “Angie, for the love of God, just look!” Jasmine said.

  Angie opened her eyes and looked where Jasmine was pointing. There, bounding toward the lighthouse and effortlessly wiggling through a hole the zombies had left in the fence, was Doug. His tale wagged so enthusiastically that it left a squiggly-snakelike pattern in the snow after him. He stopped just long enough to look up at the tower, right at Angie, and bark a happy greeting.

  “No, I won’t sleep with you,” Angie said with a happy smile. As if to say that he was okay with that, Doug barked again.

  Right on cue, the five or six zombies below them turned to the noise and began moaning. Doug bounded away on his tiny legs, taking a long circuitous route in the general direction of the back of the lighthouse. The zombies shuffled along after him.

  “Now, while they’re distracted!” Angie said. They wasted no time in lifting Beth and, with the greatest precaution not to snag and undo any of the knots on the railing, they played out the rope to lower her down. Under other circumstances, Angie would have preferred to do it slowly, but the smell of smoke was absolutely not a figment of her imagination now. A quick glance up showed her oily black smoke streaming up from the other side of the deck as it vented through the hatch. It might have been the exertion, but Angie also felt an increasing heat to combat against the freezing wind. There was a noise growing from below them as well, actual moans of pain from the zombies that strangely complimented the dreary song of the wind.

  Beth came to a rest in the snow at the base of the tower. Nearby, through the front door, there was a strong flickering glow that was only getting brighter with each passing second. There was no time to make sure Beth was safe or in a good position. It would be less than a few minutes before the entire lighthouse burned down with them still on top.

  Jasmine went next, obviously scared shitless of intentionally going over the other side of the railing but not having the time to consider how much danger she was truly in. Although Angie would have preferred that they go one at a time to ease the strain on the rope, she saw now that they didn’t have the time. Once Jasmine had half-shimmied, half slid precariously down the rope, Angie ordered Kevin to follow her. After he’d gone down a few feet, she heard a larger commotion somewhere near the back. The zombie moans and growls reached a crescendo and there was the unmistakable sound of ripping flesh, loud enough that Angie could hear it even over a particularly loud gust of wind. This was followed by distinct canine whine that went silent.

  Oh Doug, Angie thought, and had a peculiar urge to cry that had been greater than almost any other time over the course of the night. As Jasmine reached the bottom and began untying Beth, though, Angie heard the sounds of the zombies growing louder briefly before growing softer again.

  Angie looked out toward the fence and saw Doug running away. The ripping hadn’t been him getting torn apart by the zombies. It appeared to be the other way around, in fact. Doug had a twitching dismembered zombie arm clutched between his teeth. The zombies shambled after him as though trying to get it back, led by the now one-armed Archie.

  “Good boy!” Angie shouted at him. Doug paused just long enough to look in her direction, wag his tail furiously, and then turned around and sped off faster than his little legs should have been able to carry him. The zombies trailed after. The survivors might have troubles with those remnants later, but for now the way was clear to escape.

  Angie gestured for Megan to go. “Now, before anything else realizes we’re sitting ducks over here.”

  Megan looked dubiously at the rope. “I’m not sure I can do this.”

  “Can you smell that?” Angie asked. “Can you feel that?”

  Megan paused, then nodded. There was no mistaking it for a trick of her mind anymore. The temperature on the deck had gone up several degrees, and there was a rancid burned stench halfway between a campfire and scorched flesh.

  “We have no choice. And I know you can do it. Because I know what you were going through on that shore yesterday. I know because I’ve been there. And anyone who hasn’t been there wouldn’t know what we know.”

  “And what’s that?” Megan asked softly.

  “That deciding to live can be the hardest thing people like us ever do. And you made your decision. So are you going to let the decision be reversed right now without even trying?”

  Megan looked at her for a couple more seconds. Instead of saying anything, she gripped the rope and lifted her leg over the railing.

  “Good,” Angie said, having to raise her voice both not just over the wind now but the growing roar from the building beneath them. Glancing over at the rest of the lighthouse, she saw the light of flames glowing bright from most of the windows, even the ones they had covered. The fire had already burned away their meager handy work. “Now go! I’ll be right behind you!”

  For one h
orrible moment, Megan looked like she wasn’t going to be strong enough to hold on to the increasingly slick rope. She slid a couple of feet and cried out at the rope burns on her palms, but she managed to stop her descent in favor of something slightly more controlled. There was a sound from the lighthouse something like an explosion, and several of the windows shattered to spit flames out into the night. The smoke here on the deck was thick enough now that Angie couldn’t help but cough. She waited until Megan had gone down about fifteen feet before she herself took hold of the rope and climbed over the railing. There was no more time to wait. The lower levels of the lighthouse were all ablaze, kindled by the majority of the town’s zombies. The tower wouldn’t last much longer at this rate. If Angie didn’t start making her way down now, she might never get the chance to.

  Angie wrapped her legs around the rope – which was still actual rope this high up – and started shimmying down with slightly more control than Megan had shown. Right as her eyes were level with the deck, she heard something loud bang from the other side of the light room, just outside her view. If she hadn’t known better, she would have thought something was coming up from the hatch. But there was nothing that could have climbed all the way up the inside of the blazing tower without the benefit of a fire extinguisher and an extremely long ladder.

  Unless, of course, it was something that didn’t necessarily need to conform to standard rules of logic. Angie didn’t want to see what it might be. She scurried down the rope faster, stopping only long enough to look down at Megan’s progress.

  Looking down was a mistake. Angie had never been particularly afraid of heights, but given the circumstances – trying to escape a burning tower on a makeshift rope while a furious snowstorm off Lake Superior make the rope slick with ice and also tried to blow her off into the darkness – she thought she had the right to suddenly develop new phobias. Jasmine, Kevin, and Beth were all waiting at the bottom and staring up at them anxiously. Kevin appeared to be limping like he had slipped and fallen the last few feet, but it had hardly been life threatening. Jasmine had her gun ready in her hand but there was nothing around for her to point it at. Megan had just gone past the halfway point, probably at the point now where she would live if she fell. As Angie watched, though, one of the knotted bed sheets just above Megan’s head started to slip.

  “Megan!” Angie screamed, pointing at the loosening knot. Megan looked up and saw it, then immediately started sliding down the rope faster. The movement only seemed to loosen the knot more, but before it could give way completely, Megan let go. She dropped the remaining ten feet and landed with a roll that obviously dazed her but otherwise didn’t seem to cause any significant damage. Good, Angie thought. They’re all safe. I did it. I kept them alive.

  “Angela Zwiersky, you didn’t give me the proper chance to introduce myself earlier.”

  The voice was raspy, thick, the husky tones of someone who’d once had a beautiful voice but had ruined it with years of chain-smoking. It came from above, impossibly clear despite the noise of the storm and the fire. Even though she knew she didn’t have the time, Angie only looked up slowly, not wanting to confirm what she thought she would see.

  But there she was standing on the deck, her hands on the railing on either side of the rope. She was exactly as Megan had described her, and yet merely hearing the description hadn’t been enough to make Angie picture this impossible person. It was impossible to determine her height, given Angie’s weird angle of staring straight up at her. Flames had erupted from behind the woman, but she would have been easy to see in the darkness even without the blaze because she gave off her own soft glow, like the embers in a fireplace shortly before they went completely out. She was naked from head to toe but any possible naughty details had been burned away, the spot between her legs smooth and her breasts charred to the point where Angie couldn’t see any nipples. The woman’s skin was black and cracked, highlighted with red burning just below the surface.

  But her most striking feature was her back. A pair of wings looked like they had sprouted from there at one point, but they had either been ripped or burned away, leaving boney, flapping nubs fluttering behind her.

  “I am Pestilence,” the woman said. “One of the Four. And I am here in service of—”

  “The Legion,” Angie called up. “Yeah, yeah, I know.” She did her best to ignore the horror staring down at her and instead looked down again. Somehow that had now become the better view.

  “Wait, how can you know that?” Pestilence asked. Angie looked up only long enough to see a look of pure shock appear on the demonic woman’s face. She seemed to be looking past Angie for the first time to the survivors on the ground.

  “No. No that can’t be right,” Pestilence said. “This isn’t the plan. This isn’t what the Legion wants to see.”

  It took all of Angie’s mental strength not to say something snarky. She was about one third of the way down the tower. Still high enough that she wouldn’t walk away from a fall.

  “Angela Zwiersky, what have you done?” Pestilence screeched. “How did you make this happen? You and Boris are supposed to be all that’s left! You’re supposed to be the only one who survives the night!”

  Angie still resisted looking up, but she didn’t like that tone. Pestilence was already somebody she didn’t exactly want to make angry. And from the sound of her voice, Pestilence was beyond merely angry and heading into the territory of righteous fury.

  “This is not the formula! This is not the way a zombie story is supposed to work!” Then, in a worried voice that was almost childlike, “The Legion is going to be so mad at me.”

  Angie let herself slide down a little, ignoring the pain from the rope on her hands. Just a little farther.

  The rope jerked underneath her and Angie had to grip it tighter to keep from toppling. She looked up to see Pestilence touching the rope where it went over the railing with the tip of her finger. The rope had begun to smolder.

  “Oh God,” Angie muttered. Screw safety. Screw pain. She had to get down the rope now.

  “I don’t know how you did this, Zwiersky, but you’ll pay for it. I don’t care about formulas and final girls anymore. I’m in charge of this scenario, and I’m sick and tired of you trying to defy it.” The rope jerked again and Angie could hear it audibly straining under her weight. “You’re going to die, and then every single one of your friends down there is going to die with you. All of you dying will be more pleasing to the Legion than too many of you living.”

  Angie got below the level of the knot that had been unraveling. The rope was now buckling under her weight in two different places. A quick look down showed she had about twenty feet to go. Come one, come on…

  The rope gave out. She didn’t know from which point, nor did it matter. All she knew was that for a couple moments she was in free fall, and then pain lanced through her entire body. The snow was just thick enough here to cushion her fall somewhat, but not enough that she didn’t feel multiple bones throughout her body break. She screamed, a sound that didn’t come out anywhere near as anguished as she actually felt. Her vision went dark and blurry for several seconds, the pain intense enough that she suffered a very brief blackout.

  That state didn’t last long as Pestilence’s scream of fury woke Angie all the way back up. From her place sprawled on her back, she had a clear view all the way up the tower. The fire had broken through the walls in several points and the entire top deck looked like it was on fire. Even in the snow, Angie felt her hair scorch from the heat of the burning building, now bright enough to light up the entire night around them. There were multiple moans and screeches coming from inside as the remains of the townsfolk burned.

  But all these sights and sounds were nothing compared to the vision dropping down from the top of the tower. Pestilence’s faint glow had turned into a full blaze, making her look like she was burning from the inside out. She jumped over the railing, but rather than dropping straight down, she seemed to glide on
the wind as though the broken vestigial remains of her wings were still capable of flight. At about twenty feet from the tower, she went into a dive, at faster than free fall. She hit the ground a short ways behind them, causing an impact that shook the earth and pelted them all with dirt and rapidly melting ice. It reminded Angie of what Megan had said happened at the shore. She thought of Pestilence’s wings and her impact and thought fallen angel. Was that what Pestilence was? Was that what all the Horsemen of the Apocalypse were?

  As much as Angie wished she had time to speculate, she knew her life depended right now on being able to get up and away from the burning woman stomping toward her through the snow. Every step vaporized the snow beneath her feet, surrounding her with plumes of super-heated steam. Angie tried to roll away, but even that simple motion caused her unbearable pain. The pain was everywhere in her body, which Angie supposed was technically a good thing. If she could feel pain everywhere, it meant her back was not among the broken bones. All the other breaks, however, would keep her from getting away.

  “Was it really so hard?” Pestilence hissed. “Is it ever that hard? I have a plan. I know how I’m going to entertain the Legion. But you people always fight it. Always.”

  Pestilence stopped right next to her, standing over her and sneering. Angie again tried to move and again nearly blacked out from the pain.

  “I’m not doing this to be horrible, you know,” Pestilence said. “I’m doing this because the Legion needs their entertainment. They’ll get it from me or they’ll get it from someone else. And people need to suffer for them. It was never anything personal against you. It was just my duty.”