by Jonah Hewitt
Amanda turned to look at Moríro. For the first time, Amanda looked almost frightened.
“SHE MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO ESCAPE!” he bellowed. The three boys tightened and stood up instead of slouching around the car. By their demeanor, Lucy could tell they weren’t certain if that was an order or not. Slowly, Moríro stood and began advancing on Amanda. The three others began awkwardly positioning themselves around her, surrounding her, cutting off her retreat.
“What are you doing?!” Lucy called out.
“She is condemned!” Moríro bellowed, “She has escaped her prison and must be sent back to the pits of punishment in hell where she belongs.”
“NO!” Lucy called out from the porch.
Amanda twisted to look at all of them. “Don’t you see, Lucy? Death never loses. Everyone must die. And like a good toady the Necromancer is here to see that the dead stay dead.”
“Don’t hurt her! Let her go!” Lucy yelled back at them.
“It is not for you to decide, Lucia! She has been condemned and must accept the price of her sins.”
“Just let her go!” Lucy begged Moríro.
“Stay on the porch, Lucia!” Moríro called back at her, “You must not leave the porch!”
“Don’t do this!” Lucy implored.
Amanda just smiled a wry smile at Lucy. “Don’t worry, Lucy. I’m a big girl. I can take care of myself.” She turned to look at Moríro. “You don’t honestly think I came here alone with just a handgun, do you?”
Moríro tensed. The other three stopped their slow progress to surround her and looked at each other uncertainly. Amanda slowly tilted her head back. Her eyes rolled back into her head until only the whites were showing. Her eyelids fluttered as if in a seizure and then there was a sudden flash with a sound like a crack of lightning and the phantom, Amarantha, appeared over her, hair flying wildly as if in some supernatural cyclone. Then it was gone, followed by an intense silence. Then in the distance from the woods beyond the drive, or the weeds at the edge of the house, came noises: the snap of a twig, a rustle of leaves, the moan of something not quite living. Several undead things crept from the darkness: some with arms missing, others with gaping chest wounds. Some were old ladies still in curlers, others middle-aged and paunchy men, naked, with large autopsy scars stitched up their middles. All were shambling, rotten and wretched with the stench of death hanging on them.
“I had a difficult time getting them all into the BMW,” Amanda stated simply, “So I had to borrow one of the hospital ambulances. There wasn’t much of a selection at the Harrisburg morgue, but they’ll do, don’t you think?”
Tim tensed and edged back to the Impala, putting it between him and the slowly advancing army of a dozen or so monsters.
“What…what are they?” Tim stammered to Schuyler, “Are they like…y’know…re-animated corpses, like…like Graber and Hokharty?”
Schuyler bit down on his lollipop, hard. “No, not like Graber. Worse. Much, much worse,” Schuyler said nervously.
“Worse than Graber?!” Lucy didn’t know who Graber was, but she could hear the panic in Tim’s voice.
Miles looked from the creatures approaching in the darkness to the porch where Lucy stood. She was alone and unprotected. He made a move in her direction, but Moríro stared him down and waved him off.
“Certainly you recognize the handiwork, Lazlo?” Amanda said simply, “I couldn’t manage them on my own, but fortunately, I was able to call a friend to help me out.” She turned to look into the darkness beyond the garden. From that direction emerged another corpse. Its face was missing, stripped to the bone, exposing the skull. It didn’t walk with a shambling gait like the others but stood straight and unbent, proud even. He walked boldly into the midst of the gathering, strutting frankly, and folded his arms across his chest in a pompous fashion.
“Bonsoir,” it said in a surprisingly jaunty voice that belied its terrifying visage.
“Mordant,” Moríro said bitterly beneath his breath, though how Moríro recognized him without a face was a bit perplexing. Lucy supposed there just weren’t that many dead French guys around.
“Et, bonsir á toi, mon bonhomme,” it said to Moríro.
Whatever that meant, Lucy didn’t like the sound of it. “Who is that guy?!” she yelled out, still clinging to the porch column.
“He is a necromancer,” Moríro replied.
“Another necromancer?” Tim spoke exactly what was on Lucy’s mind.
“Sí,” Moríro replied, “A living necromancer may summon the deceased necromancers of the past and call on their unique talents.” Moríro’s voice faltered, betraying his fear.
“Just as you summoned me,” Amanda said smiling.
“Oy! And what is this one’s talent then?” Miles asked turning in all directions to follow the corpses slowly surrounding them.
“Revenant,” Moríro spoke lowly, “Soulless revived corpses.”
“You…you mean zombies?!” Tim said, his voice rising in fear.
“Better,” Amanda replied smugly, “Zombies are just dumb slaves. These are fearless and remorseless hunters. A bit slow perhaps, but they are relentless.”
Tim gulped.
“Oh, and one more thing,” Amanda added casually, “These were created without the life essence found in the blood of a necromancer. So they are immune to its unique effects on the undead.”
Now Lucy gulped. Did that mean no magic finger?! Did that mean that Moríro’s bloody knuckle was useless too?
The corpses moved slowly forward until they were within twenty feet of the gathering and then…they stopped. They were now surrounded by about a dozen corpses. The boys and Moríro had Amanda surrounded, but her henchmen had them surrounded.
The faceless corpse tossed its head back and laughed ruefully.
“Où est-ce que tu peux fuir maintenant, mon petit cochon?”
Lucy really wished her mom was here now. Not the least because she spoke a little French. It was really horrible not knowing what was going to happen next. Amanda turned slowly back and forth, examining the situation. She felt so confident she put the gun away in her pocket.
“What now, Moríro? What trick do you have up your sleeve this time?”
“Just go!” Lucy screamed, “Just go and take your zombies with you!”
“Ils ne sont pas de zombis! Quelle insulte! Ce sont l’oeuvre d’un artiste, ma fillette!” the faceless Frenchman responded testily.
“I’m afraid we’re well beyond that now, Lucy,” Amanda said wistfully, “You see, Mordant and Moríro have a history together and I don’t think I could convince either of them to take the high road now.”
“Et maintenant, tu découvrirais ce qu’il est brûler à l’enfer!” The faceless corpse responded.
Moríro’s reply was barely above a whisper. “Yo os he enviado al infierno antes y puedo hacerlo de nuevo.”
Moríro and the Frenchman eyed each other ominously. The Frenchman barked a single word, “Avancez!” The corpses began a slow advance on their position.
Lucy could see the entire engagement from the elevated position of the porch. Tim looked like he was thinking of bolting, but Sky just put his arm in front of him, shook his head and pushed him back against the relative safety of the car. Moríro paired up opposite Mordant and the two began a sideways dance, keeping the other directly in front regardless of how they turned.
Seeing that he was occupied with Mordant, Amanda began edging towards Moríro’s flank. Miles saw it and began to move her direction, but stopped when his movement exposed his flank and Tim to two corpses advancing around the rear of the car.
“Moríro!” Lucy tried to warn him about Amanda’s advance.
“STAY ON THE PORCH!” Moríro yelled, holding his hand out behind him to stop her, “Whatever happens, you must stay on the porch!!” but he didn’t dare turn around to face her and take his gaze off of Mordant for even a second.
For the moment it was a stand-off, but Lucy knew everything
was going to break loose any second. Just then, a small boy in a baseball cap staggered out of the woods and into the garden screaming. One of the dead revenant things was right behind him. It had scared him out of his hiding place. He came to a dead stop when he saw the gathering of monsters and people in front of him, but the monster behind him didn’t stop its pursuit and would soon be on him.
“Lucy!” he cried.
“YO-YO!!” Lucy screamed. He was all alone and exposed and about to be grabbed by the undead monster behind him. Before Lucy could think, she saw everyone turn to look at the odd boy. All were puzzled, except for one – Amanda.
Amanda exchanged looks with the boy and Lucy quickly before she instantly transformed into the long-haired phantom with nothing for a face except two empty hollows filled with piercing grey light. Immediately, she began speeding towards Yo-yo.
“Noooooo!” Lucy ran to Yo-yo. She didn’t even realize she had left the porch until she was halfway across the drive and saw Moríro lunge to protect her.
“NO!” he yelled, “You mustn’t leave the porch!” He turned to stop her, but he never got that far. Once his back was turned to Mordant, the faceless French necromancer seized him by the collar and pulled him back, flinging him through the air and slamming him hard to the ground. He then pounced on Moríro like an animal. Elsewhere all chaos broke loose. An undead monster was nearly on top of Yo-yo who stood there screaming, too scared to use his powers. Amanda and Lucy were racing to see who would reach Yo-yo first. From the crashing and screaming behind her, Lucy could tell that Miles, Tim and Sky had entered the fray as well. The fight between necromancers was horrifying with sounds like firecrackers and thunder strikes snapping off several times a second. The two tumbled into the path of Amanda’s flight and Amanda had to rear back out of the way, screeching all the time like an eagle in extreme pain.
The phantom Amanda became entangled in the fight between Mordant and Moríro and Lucy pulled ahead. Lucy raced into the garden, grabbed Yo-yo’s hand and pulled him away, just before the undead monster reached him. The zombies were fast in short bursts but were not terribly quick otherwise, thank goodness, and she soon outpaced it. She dragged Yo-yo away towards the porch in the hope that they might sneak back into the house in the middle of the fray. No sooner had she turned around to go back to the house than she came face to face with the corporeal Amanda, whose amber glasses were askew. She looked terribly angry.
“AAAh!” Lucy screamed and came to an instantaneous halt. Even through the amber-tinted lenses, Lucy could see Amanda’s eyes burning with cold, grey light. And that’s when another strange thing happened. An enormous, discordant honking sound emerged from the back of the Impala as the whole car shook violently.
“FFAAAARNT-HOOOOOOOOOONKFFT!!”
Lucy knew what it was the second she heard it. There couldn’t be two things that sounded that awful, but the noise was so jarring she couldn’t help but look anyway. Amanda turned too. Even Mordant and Moríro had to take a break from pummeling each other to see what it was.
The horrid pig-duck monster that had chased her and Yo-yo earlier burst out of the back of the car, except this time there was a boy with a shaved head in white robes clinging desperately around its middle, trying to restrain it.
“Diablillo?!!” Moríro stammered, “No es possible!!” The old necromancer’s notions of possibility had really been shattered that evening.
Amanda turned to look at it with a mixture of horror and disgust. “What infernal thing is that?!” There was no time for an answer, because the second she said it, Hiero spied Lucy and started frothing up like a mad dog. It lowered its anteater-like snout and charged directly at her and Yo-yo like a bull while waving its butcher knife appendage in a blind fury.
“AAAAACH!” Lucy screamed. This time it was Yo-yo’s turn to save her. He grabbed her roughly and dragged her back, pulling her towards the garden in the direction they had just come with surprising strength, but no sooner had they taken those few steps than they came face to face with the zombie they had just eluded mere moments before.
“AAAAAH!” they both screamed, clinging to each other desperately. The zombie lunged, but a flash of white silk and blonde hair dropped down immediately between them. Schuyler landed in a half split and then instantly shot up and spun around, sweeping the legs of the zombie out from under it. Then, while the zombie was still falling, Schuyler leapt up to perform an amazing roundhouse kick, catching the zombie in the torso in mid-air before it even had the chance to hit the ground. The force of the kick sent the zombie flying across the garden and into the woods where it collided with a tree before falling to the dirt.
“Yeah!” Schuyler jumped up triumphantly, “NOW IT’S A DANCE!!”
Saved from one horror, Lucy suddenly remembered the one behind them. She turned to look, only to see the pig-duck monster scrambling towards her, digging the knife into the ground and desperately trying to claw himself forward, spitting bile and blood and rolling his eyes in frustration, panting and hooting maniacally the whole time, but somehow, miraculously, it wasn’t making much progress. Behind it, the boy in white robes with the shaved head was frantically pulling it back by its one duck leg and the other pig leg.
“NO, HIERO!! STOP IT!!” he screamed over the horrific honking noise. Lucy recognized him. It was the boy they had nearly run over in the Impala! It was also the boy from her vision. The one she had seen just after the accident!
Spared from the horrors of both zombie and pig-duck monster, she had a second to survey the scene. In the distance, Moríro and Mordant were still at it, with Moríro getting the worst of it. He wasn’t trying to fight, so much as stay just out of reach of Mordant’s blows which crackled like lightning every time they struck. Tim had barricaded himself in the Impala. Several zombies were already clawing at the windows, rocking the car back and forth like mad rioters, smashing the windows and clawing their way inside past the sharp fragments. Tim was inside screaming hysterically. Beyond them, Lucy saw the most epic battle of the evening. The long-haired phantom with the grey eyes was thrashing about with the smoky dog monster. The dog monster was getting thrown around the most, but every time she knocked him down, it just kept getting back up, refusing to stop.
Sky was knocking the rest of the zombies left and right, throwing them back with relative ease, but they wouldn’t stay down either. Already the one he had kicked to the woods had crawled back. There were more than six of them at least. Sky was fighting heroically – like Kung-Fu-movie heroically, in fact. He made it look like a dance, throwing one into the other and doing flips over their heads before kicking them to the side, but there was a limit to what anyone could do, even a vampire. He knocked down the three in front of him, but the others in back were already on him. Each grabbed a limb on Sky and began pulling in opposite directions. It was artless but effective. Soon he wouldn’t be anything but pieces, torn limb from limb. Sky was screaming. Lucy looked away. Just then the dog-monster came crashing through. Whether of its own will, or because it was thrown over there by Amanda, she couldn’t tell, but it knocked two of the zombies away. With a leg free Sky was able to spin up and kicked the remaining zombie so hard it flew skyward. Back on his feet he easily knocked the others aside like they were empty boxes.
Standing up, Sky saw that the Impala was swarmed with the remaining undead and yelled, “DUDE! TIM!!” He jumped away to the rescue. Amanda’s phantom was now fighting with the pig-duck thing, trying to shake it off as it repeatedly stabbed her.
“GET OFF OF ME, YOU THING!” the long-haired specter screeched in the sepulchral voice that she had when in that ghastly form. Even in the phantom state the thing’s butcher knife seemed to be able to cause her great pain, but she had had enough, and she flung it far out into the woods, where it landed with a crash and yelp. Once free, she turned her hollow eyes and her full attention back to the dog-monster. Miles was chomping down on zombies with those enormous jaws of his. He had even ripped the arms and legs off of a few, bu
t they were relentless and tireless. He tossed one aside just as the phantom crashed into him.
Looking around, things didn’t look good. Sky was throwing zombies off as valiantly as ever, but there were too many. Miles was trying, but Amanda was just too much for him, and Moríro couldn’t break free from his opponent. Already the zombies Sky and Miles had scattered were gathering back and surrounding Lucy and Yo-yo once more – slowly inching forward, their dead and rotten hands ready to rend them apart. Yo-yo was rocking back and forth in her arms crying. The boy with the shaved head was there in the garden beside her, crouching with his hands on his head. He was muttering something in a foreign language. It took Lucy a minute to realize he was praying.
As their attackers gathered in, she looked to Moríro, who had momentarily wrested free from Mordant. The two were standing opposite each other, waiting for the other to strike first. Moríro’s face was bloody and bruised. He was faltering. She caught his eye. She looked at him in despair, longingly, hoping there was something he could do. He regarded her and seemed utterly remorseful. He looked back at Mordant who was searching for the perfect chance to strike, but then Moríro turned around abruptly and fled. He ran away from the fight and down the driveway away from the house as fast as he could.
“NO!” Lucy screamed. She couldn’t believe he was abandoning them now. The zombies were getting closer; already they had grabbed the boy with the shaved head and began dragging him away.
“NO!” she screamed again. She clawed over to the boy, grabbed him by his ankle and tried to pull him back. No sooner had she left Yo-yo though, than another one reached up and grabbed him from behind. “NOOOO!” she cried. She reached out desperately for Yo-yo too, but he was already out of reach, and they were dragging him away. They were losing everywhere. Amanda had the dog monster pinned down. Sky was on the roof of the Impala throwing everything he had at them. Even Tim was throwing his eight-tracks at the zombies, but they would soon be overwhelmed. She looked for Moríro. His flight hadn’t taken him far. He had reached the end of the drive near the stone lantern when Mordant tackled him and began dragging him back by his ankles, laughing. Moríro clung desperately to the stone lantern, and there, she saw him biting his knuckle, opening up a fresh spurt of blood. With all his strength, the Necromancer dragged the bloody knuckle across the lantern and said something in yet another language. Lucy felt a vibration move through the earth. Mordant gave one last tug and pulled Moríro away kicking, but he didn’t get far before a blue-white flame burst from the lantern, sending them both flying back from the force of the explosion.