Banshee Screams

by Clay Griffith

  "Damn!" This was a new, nasty twist for the undead.

  She stuck her pulse rifle back around the corner and squeezed off a burst before taking off up the left corridor.

  "Tom. Which room are you in?"

  "It's blue. And there's a painting of a guy with ."

  "No! Which wing are you in?"

  "I'm on the side next to the church. Middle room."

  She looked out across the quadrangle and saw the church rising behind the abbey. She was on the opposite side.

  Another friar appeared at the end of the corridor in front of her and raised an automatic pistol.

  Debbi fired from the hip and stitched a pattern across its chest. Its shots skipped across the ceiling as it toppled back. She heard the telltale metallic sound behind her of the first friar working the action on its weapon. It obviously wasn't familiar with weapons. Debbi took advantage of that fact.

  In one bound, Debbi leaped up onto the elegantly carved three-foot high marble sills between the interior arches. The Stallion idled in the cloister below. She slung the rifle on her shoulder and jumped to the eaves of the abbey roof. Shells popped off the marble behind her. She chinned herself and struggled up. The friars leaned out under the latticework and aimed up at her. She rolled away from the flat roof's inner edge as shots cracked near her.

  The Stallion rose. Several shots rang off its hull. Ross boosted it higher and swung it over the roof outside the quadrangle.

  "What's wrong?" he asked in her ear.

  She immediately struggled to her feet. She couldn't afford to lie still because it was too seductive to her exhausted body.

  "There are a few armed zombies in there," Debbi explained. "They've got the militia's guns."

  "I'm coming out."

  "No. It's under control."

  Suddenly, shots tore up through the roof.

  Debbi ran, barely avoiding the barrage. She tightroped along the outside edge of the roof. Shells whizzed near her, fired by a friar hanging through an interior quadrangle arch watching the top of her head bobbing away. As she neared the far side, it withdrew inside the gallery, presumably to chase her inside the corridor.

  She cut the corner again. The massive cathedral was on her left, the open cloister on her right. She crossed to the inner edge of the roof, knelt down, and grabbed the eaves. Without a thought, she threw her legs over and somersaulted down and under an open arch into the corridor. She fell to the stone floor, but quickly gained her feet again.

  Debbi stepped back to the gallery overlooking the cloister and steadied her shoulder against a column. She saw a friar in the corridor across from her. The young Ranger smiled grimly and took aim at the blot of whitish color she took to be its face. The friar suddenly noticed her and raised its gun.

  She squeezed the trigger and its head exploded.

  Debbi tried to spot the second armed friar, but the shadows were too deep. She turned and threw open a door and moved into a room. A dead militiaman lay crumpled in the middle of the floor in a pool of thickened blood. She closed the door behind her, but couldn't lock it. There was another door to the right and a window straight ahead.

  She opened the door and there sat Tom, the militiaman she knew only from the radio. He had his weapon raised. Debbi was so tired her reflexes didn't kick in; she just stood as Tom's finger twitched on the trigger. He took a breath and lowered the weapon. He sat awkwardly on the floor, holding an obviously broken leg.

  "Ready?" she asked.

  He nodded, his face slack with relief.

  She moved to his side and slung his arm over her shoulder. Her legs nearly buckled as she lifted him. Leaning heavily on her, Tom got up on one foot. The other dragged uselessly behind him.

  She clicked her com. "Ross? You read?"

  "Go."

  "The wing next to the cathedral. Third window from the northwest corner. We're coming out in ten seconds."

  "That's a tight fit."

  "That's your problem. Out."

  Debbi hobbled with Tom into the outer room. They turned toward the window that had once had glass, but was now an empty frame.

  The door to the corridor creaked.

  Debbi spun around, dropping a screaming Tom to the floor, and opened fire. The doorway was empty. The door swung flat against the wall with a thud.

  She heard the hum of the Stallion outside. Tom pulled himself up using the window frame. Debbi crouched, and with the barrel of her rifle still pointed at the door, placed a shoulder under Tom's rear and pushed him up.

  He began to fight going through the window.

  She snarled, "What are you doing? Get out! Now!"

  "But there's just the top of the ship down there!"

  Shadows moved in the corridor. Debbi fired again.

  With one last shove, she pushed Tom through the window and heard him hit the top of the Stallion outside. She fired the rest of the clip as she put one leg through the window. When the gun clicked empty, she quickly switched over and pumped a grenade out the door. She slipped out the window.

  The Stallion hovered six feet below, scraping the wall of the abbey on one side and the cathedral on the other. She landed heavily on top of Tom. He grunted in pain, but was too petrified to move, his fingers dug into a small seam in the ship's armor. She could see by his wide, frozen eyes that he was terrified and couldn't move. She just clamped onto his arm to hold him.

  The grenade exploded inside and the building shook.

  "Ross, go!"

  The Stallion began to rise slowly to avoid ripping the hull on the stone walls. As they passed the window, Debbi saw a large flash of black. A friar sprang from the window. It stretched out and sank bony fingers into Tom's ribs. The young militiaman screamed and flailed. He would've fallen but for Debbi's grip on his arm.

  Debbi pounded the friar with the butt of her pulse rifle. It thrashed and squealed with an animalistic rage. The ship rose above the abbey and banked over, sending Debbi sliding toward the friar. She dropped the rifle and hastily crammed her fingers into a niche on the roof to stop herself from slipping, almost yanking her shoulder out of joint. The pain sent stars to her eyes. The friar held fast to Tom and scrabbled at Debbi's legs with its other hand. She kicked out desperately as the fetid fingers clawed at her.

  She shoved the sole of her boot against the friar's face only to feel the zombie trying to bite her foot. Its hand tore at her knees. She pushed with all the strength she could manage. The friar began to slip, but Tom was going with it. Debbi was losing sensation in her strained arms. She could no longer feel her numb fingers jammed into the tight slot in the roof, nor could she tell if she was still clutching the militiaman's arm.

  The undead friar slowly dropped off the ship. Tom's terrified face receded. Debbi's head swam, surrendering to exhaustion. She lost her sense of reality, feeling as if she was floating in space. Darkness welled up to surround her.

  Debbi felt herself being grabbed and pulled. Strange faces surrounded her. She heard the sound of multiple gunshots, then reality melted away despite her struggle to hold it.

  Ross jumped from the cockpit of the Stallion hovering a few feet above the street.

  A captain in the Night Watch, a brute of a man named Holt, pulled Debbi off the Stallion and held her gently in his arms. Other militiamen with smoking guns surrounded the newly lifeless friar.

  Ross took Debbi from Holt with grumbled thanks. "See to your man, Captain. Get him to Doc Dazy."

  The Night Watchman grudgingly turned to Tom.

  Ross carried Debbi away from the melee and noise. He set her down against a wall, and then pushed back her matted hair with a hastily bandaged hand. Her eyelids fluttered.

  "Ross?" she mumbled.

  Miller knelt behind Ross. "Is she okay?"

  "Yeah. She's exhausted."

  "Man, I know. I'm beat too."

  Ross glared quickly at Miller before turning to Debbi again. She still wasn't fully conscious.

  "Sir?"

  Ross looked up to se
e two militiamen standing behind him. "What?"

  "Is there anything we can do for her?" one of them asked.

  Ross recognized something in these militiamen that he'd rarely seen in members of that unit before. He knew Captain Holt for a hardnosed man with little interest in anything outside his own well-being. Yet, Ross had seen the concern in his eyes for Debbi and gratitude for her actions, for deeds that none of them would have dared. But more, there was a sense of pride based on the fact that a Colonial Ranger had risked her life for one of them. Perhaps the militiamen might dare such things themselves now.

  Ross said, "Get her some water. Then make sure she gets home."

  They both saluted. "Yes sir!"

  Ross's hand lingered on Debbi's shoulder. Then he stood up slowly, reluctant to leave her. He forced himself away and lightly shoved Miller back toward the Stallion.

  "C'mon, Miller. Let's get a chain out of the Hoss and lock that gate a little safer. Then we still have a lot to do tonight before we match Dallas's workload."

  "Jesus. I've been on duty for ten straight hours. What do you expect me to do? Go till I drop dead from exhaustion?"

  Ross retorted, "It'd do everybody good."

  Chapter 12

  Lester Atkinson was the head of the First Temptation Bank and he had no desire for trouble.

  As with most men of wealth, he was concerned about maintaining the rule of law. Any disturbance in that firmament sent him into paralytic shock. On the other hand, there was always a concern about the abuse of the rule of law. Atkinson feared that a dictator could take advantage of the chaotic situation in Temptation. To that end, he viewed the Colonial Rangers with a jaundiced eye. They were the best-organized force on Banshee aside from the outlaw Reapers. And the Rangers' commander, Captain Dave Ross, seemed to hold Temptation's civilian leadership in limited esteem.

  It made for a very distressing situation.

  These were the civic terrors that populated Lester Atkinson's mind on a constant basis. So the other day, when Ross had issued the curfew order on the pretense of Reaper infiltrators, Atkinson immediately grew frightened. Reaper infiltrators would hurt business. But what if Ross was using emergency measures to seize power? That would certainly hurt business too. Atkinson fretted over which would be worse.

  Immediately after Ross's decree, Atkinson drafted a strongly worded, but tactfully groveling communique to Ross on behalf of the Town Council, of which Atkinson was chairman. After that, he then sent less strongly worded messages every few hours, asking and then begging for an explanation. Ross never replied. And that made the banker even more nervous.

  Then, two days later, came a late night knock at the door. Atkinson opened it to find four nervous militiamen and a Colonial Ranger.

  Good God, he thought immediately, Ross is rounding up the Town Council. He reared back in alarm.

  That new Ranger stepped up, Something Dallas. Tall and attractive. She seemed competent, but there was something unsettling about her open, frank gaze and her unpretentious sense of command. She was a Banshee native and her father was career army. Atkinson hadn't exchanged more than two words with her since she arrived.

  She said, "Ross would like you to come with me, if you will. He wants to explain the current situation."

  Atkinson hesitated momentarily, then grabbed his coat and followed the Ranger and the militiamen. They stopped next at the home of Randolph Peck, the Caravan Administrator and another powerful member of the Town Council. Peck stood at the door with a glass of liquor in his hand glancing from the Ranger to Atkinson and back. He was always calm and collected. Atkinson had seen him with an office full of screaming caravan bosses and teamsters who seemed bound for violence, yet Peck always spoke in soft, modulated tones and steered the discussion back to his strong points: paperwork and regulations. Peck never lost an argument because he never argued issues he didn't control. The Ranger had barely asked him to come along before he set down his glass of liquor and followed.

  Next came Donald Fairchild. He was a massive bear of a man who was always very well dressed, which was not an easy task in Temptation. He almost always wore a sidearm too. And as the representative of the mining interests on the Town Council, he was much more manly than a nerve-wracked banker or drunken bureaucrat. To prove it, when the Ranger asked him to come with her, he slapped his pistol and spit dismissively on the ground. He'd be along directly, he said; he didn't need a militia escort to walk the streets of his own town. She slowly turned her head to glance down at the spittle and then turned back to look Fairchild full in the face. There was a brief pause. With a monumental effort to remain polite, she told him where to meet and led her little group away. With incomplete satisfaction, Fairchild watched her red hair vanish into the darkness.

  Debbi cruised through the night streets with the wedge of militia-contained Councilmen behind her. They marched up the steps of the old medical clinic where Doc Dazy maintained his offices and an infirmary. She ordered the militiamen to wait outside, which they did with some obvious trepidation, huddling near the door.

  Debbi stepped quickly down the dark corridor, while Atkinson and Peck hurried to keep pace.

  "So," Atkinson asked tentatively, "what does Ross want to tell us?"

  "I'd prefer you hear it all at once, Councilman," Debbi said without looking back.

  She paused at a door labeled "Surgery 2" and pushed it open. She held out her arm for the Councilmen to enter.

  The room was vast. Most of the equipment had been long since removed for spare parts. There was an observation area above the operating floor consisting of several rows of benches behind now-missing glass. The electricity in this part of the old hospital had been shut off for economy. The surgery was lit by a collection of oil lamps that sent long, trembling shadows across the pale green walls and chrome fixtures.

  Ross stood with Doc Dazy in the center of the room. They were both looking at something that lay on an operating table. At the sound of the door, Ross turned. The Doctor quickly reached up and pulled a ragged curtain in front of the table.

  The room reeked of formaldehyde, putrid flesh, and ghost rock oil. Atkinson didn't show that he smelled the offensive odors. Peck sniffed the air and wrinkled his nose, but didn't say anything. Odd noises came from whatever was behind the curtain, though it wasn't intelligible and certainly wasn't identifiable.

  "Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Peck, thanks for coming out." Ross stepped out of the shadows. The yellow light of a lantern illuminated the stark highlights of his chiseled face.

  Atkinson said, "Oh yes! There must be something very...unique going on. Otherwise, why contact the Council, right?"

  As Debbi closed the door, Ross asked, "Where's Fairchild?"

  She rolled her eyes. "He said he'd be along."

  "Donald was quite headstrong." Atkinson confirmed quickly. "Your Ranger was gracious and insistent. But you know Donald. Whereas Randolph and I have always been very supportive of the Colonial Rangers."

  "Yeah, okay." Ross indicated a trio of straight back wooden chairs near the door. Atkinson and Peck sat down. He gave Debbi a pained glance.

  She rolled her eyes in commiseration as she leaned against the wall, bone weary. Ross had sent her to round up the top three Councilmen so he could explain the situation to them once and for all. He had waited until he felt the streets were reasonably safe and he had a chance to talk to Doc Dazy about the situation.

  Debbi wasn't sure why Ross felt it was important she be present for this meeting. She normally had no opportunity or reason to interact with the Town Council. But she was the new girl. It was probably something every Ranger had to go through. Lucky her.

  Ross stood a few feet in front of Atkinson and Peck. He was clearly uncomfortable. Here was a man who could hear the news that the dead in his town's cemeteries were digging themselves out of their graves and then snap off a few orders without twitching an eye. But this forum didn't involve giving orders to Rangers about peacekeeping. Now he had to be diplomatic and mak
e sure the Council understood the truth, but without setting them off in a panic. It was a fine line and one he hated walking. He took irritated breaths and worked his jaw back and forth.

  "I'm gonna get started," Ross mumbled. "Fairchild can catch up when he gets here. We've got a...uh...situation in town that...um...isn't normal."

  "Reapers?" Atkinson volunteered.

  "No. Well, yeah, there were a few Reaper scavs in town night before last. But Ranger Dallas there took care of that." He glanced up at Debbi. "In fact, I think I'd like to have Ranger Dallas take over now." He stepped back into the shadows.

  Debbi didn't move for a moment, stunned. Then both Councilmen turned and looked at her. She could barely see Ross in the darkness. She hesitantly came forward.

  She drew a deep breath and said, "Gentlemen, what is happening in Temptation may seem impossible to believe. But what you are about to hear is the truth."

  Atkinson looked at Peck with growing alarm. Peck kept looking ahead, blank-faced.

  "The dead are rising from their graves," Debbi said.

  She paused to let the dramatic statement sink in. The Councilmen just stared at her.

  "That's it," she added less melodramatically. "The dead are rising from their graves." She looked for Ross to help her. He sidled farther back in the shadows. She frowned in his direction.

  Peck wet his lips and said with the steady, handpicked verbiage of a politically minded drunk, "Now, when you say the dead, you mean what exactly?"

  "I mean the dead. That is to say, people who are dead. Dead people are getting out of their graves and walking around. And they are endangering the lives of our citizens. The Rangers have had a number of run-ins with the...uh...living dead over the last three days and nights. We've had a number of casualties. At least thirty people have been injured. To our knowledge, we've had nine fatalities. The first was Lee Womble who was killed by his wife, Glenda. Reverend Galloway of the Ecumenical Church was killed at his pulpit. Two members of the town militia were killed in the St. Calixtus abbey. And five others were killed in various incidents around town."