The Queen of the Dead

by Vincenzo Bilof

  Instead of reaching for the crucifix above the door, Father said, “We can just stay here for a moment. Look, the plan’s working.” He pointed to the flame in the street beyond. “Someone’s creating a distraction for us. They’ll come back, or we can wait for the crowd to thin out.”

  “We’re wasting time,” Kathy said. She pushed him aside and ripped the crucifix off the wall. “Say a prayer. Bless us like you did this cross. Come on, you damn fool.”

  “Where’s Rose?”

  “Who cares? She’s upstairs playing with herself. Pray, or we walk out there and it’s on your head.”

  She knew where to hit him. She sensed his weakness and went for it, pounding away where he would feel it most.

  There’s always a way out when you’re backed into a corner. Put up the gloves and move your feet.

  “I’m going to my parents,” Kathy said. “I can take any of you with me, or you can sit in the middle of the street. I’m sorry. That’s just the way it is.”

  “Cocksucker,” Frank said.

  Father didn’t want to be there with Kathy and Frank. He could feel his strength ebb as shame and doubt devoured his confidence. Everything was for Frank, wasn’t it? Everything was to satisfy the man outside the ring. God accepted him and forgave him, but Frank had chased him away, chased him into the streets and into the arms of madmen and soldiers.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have saved Macon’s life, or maybe he wouldn’t have saved Kathy’s. Did he save Mina? Or Rose?

  He swallowed and looked into Kathy’s bright green eyes. Macon wore the smile on his face proudly, and Frank farted again.

  “Lord Father in Heaven…”

  A thump on the doors behind him nearly interrupted the flow of prayer. The words continued by themselves, running through the humid streets of his past and the sullen eyes of fatherless sons and men wearing hats low over their eyes. Past the sweat-soaked armpits and the smell of garbage rotting in the sun. Past the blood and dust inside the gym. Past the booing crowds where alcohol and piss were one smell, mingled with the sweat of greedy men, desperate men. Past the sweat and the blood of another round. Past the tolling bell.

  “Fucking get on with it,” Frank said.

  “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit…”

  “Amen, goddammit,” Kathy said and cracked her neck melodramatically. Without wasting another second, she threw open the doors where a bald man with a wrinkled head waited for her, shirt open down the middle where a tie should’ve been, revealing a black hole where the stomach had been opened for all the juicy organs.

  “You’re driving Frank,” Kathy smiled. “Macon, we’re gone. Finally out of here. You’ll love my parents. I bet you wouldn’t believe it, but my dad plays Xbox. Loves the Call of Duty games.” She threw open the doors and stretched her arms wide.

  “You assholes can’t touch me!” she said. “I’ve got God on my side.”

  The bald man took a step toward Kathy.

  “You see what faith can do for you, Macon?” Kathy’s smile didn’t waver.

  The zombie seemed to be smiling, too. The old man tilted his head and opened his arms slowly, as if he were embracing a relative he hadn’t seen in years. Father could hear his bones crack, his navy blue jacket sagging over his shoulders because he had shrunk over the years. A blue thread hung from the bottom of a pant leg.

  When his arms wrapped around her, she lifted a few inches from the ground. She didn’t have a chance to scream because the dead man kissed her lips with his teeth and ripped them off. The gun fired into the ceiling and her legs kicked. Blood squirted over her cheeks.

  Father attempted to rip her away from its arms. Macon and Kathy were both screaming. Was Frank laughing?

  A strange thought occurred to him: It’s just a cut. We’ll get you into a corner, Kathy, and we’ll get it sorted out. No reason to stop the fight now.

  Kathy flailed her arms and the gun fired again. The dead man pulled her away from Father like a child protecting its toy. He could see her bright teeth, but he didn’t see the two other dead people who stepped into the front lobby.

  The crucifix was on Frank’s lap.

  He let go of Kathy and grabbed the crucifix from Frank. The old man might’ve been smiling. Macon was bravely aiming his gun, his eyes concentrating on the sight. There was a way he could save all of them. He would have to fight.

  Macon missed his shot.

  Father returned to Kathy’s battle; the old man had buried his face into her throat. She gurgled while gore painted the top of the man’s bald pate. Father slammed the point of the crucifix down into the open spot.

  But Frank was unprotected. How stupid could he be? He wasn’t thinking. God, he wasn’t thinking.

  “We’ll be okay,” Father said as the corpse fell on top of Kathy. Her green eyes were still open in a mask of blood.

  Macon fired again.

  There were so many, too many. He could smell their gaseous, rotting bodies, and he could smell the blood. Blood was on his hands again. The crucifix had shattered, but he didn’t see it. He pushed through the crowd, and his heart burned when Macon screamed. He was only two feet away, but it could’ve been miles.

  And still, none of the dead noticed Frank.

  ***

  They killed his men because they needed to win the war. They killed his men so they could create the army they have now. But if every man believed in the concept of freedom and love, freewill and democracy, then any war could be won.

  General Masters was going to kill all of them.

  He was proud of Jeremy. He was holding his own by kicking dead bastards out of the truck and chopping others down with his axe. A true, fearless warrior—he put it all on the line for this moment.

  Sergeant John Charles was a good man, but he was nowhere to be found. There had been a lot of blood around his rifle, and there were a few bullets on top of the truck where he took up his firing position. General Masters loaded the gun and enjoyed each pull of the trigger. He lit up the cocktails and managed to get one beneath a car to blow up a fuel tank.

  There were hundreds of them, but he needed more. He wanted thousands. He wanted a million of the dead. They were going to fight a man’s heart and a man’s soul. They were up against the man who was the dream of the founding fathers, a man who would give every drop of blood to keep his country alive.

  A shotgun, a pair of handguns, the sergeant’s rifle; he unloaded every bullet he had. He couldn’t imagine a world overrun by the heartless murder machines he was supposed to lead into battle; he would fight the war himself so thousands of people would live.

  He was taller than all of them. Taller than the highest building, taller than his father and his father before him and his father before him. His ancestors watched the color of mud change with the blood that soaked it at Fort Wagner in 1863, at Alsace in 1918, at Bastogne in 1944, to the Pusan Perimeter in 1950, to the eternal battle, the infinite jungle, in 1968.

  The war ended there so it could terminate here. On the barricade against the end of the world. The last battle for freedom, a freedom his fathers had the courage to die for.

  General Julius Masters felt each bullet pump, watched heads explode, felt the love he knew burn within his heart. The feeling of belonging, of sacrificing himself to someone greater, a power beyond his ability to comprehend, a power he needed to fill his stomach and warm his soul.

  “This is your destiny,” his father once told him.

  Because his father told him.

  And his father told him.

  Love is an idea nobody can hold, nobody can see. Love is an idea, a world, a universe. Men and women die for others to see the love that is otherwise invisible. You must love life itself to give yourself to love. You must feel the burn within you at night, a flame that haunts dreams beneath overpasses and in alleys where dead bodies lie forgotten. You must look for that love when children are caught between bullets and battered houses. You must look for that love in the graveyards wher
e school busses lie buried in the swamp of rusted metal and ancient trees gnarled by time and sun.

  Jimmy Hendrix burning his guitar, the bandanna on his head, the flag waving and cheering him on as he paid tribute to the sky. Young boys painted with sweat, with cigarettes dangling between their lips to pretend they’re not afraid, to convince themselves death isn’t real in the jungle, where the blood hides, where Charlie waits to fight for freedom, for life, for existence. Death is life, life is death.

  Molotov cocktail. Burn the flesh from the dead and bury them in the agony they can’t feel a second time. The agony of life. The automatons, the war-beasts, the nightmare-machine of the perfect army. The freedom thieves.

  A symphony accompanied each bullet.

  His orders had been to give his boys the poison. To let them fight without feeling pain, without feeling fear. They were supposed to bleed on the leaves and keep fighting Charlie. The general was going to win the war, if only they gave him more of the juice. But the war ended for the army. It ended without him.

  He closed his eyes and waited for the ecstasy of martyrdom. The perfect soldier needed to believe in freedom as God; Freedom and Love were the names of God’s children.

  There were no more bullets. There was only the multitude and Jeremy.

  And there was the sergeant sitting on top of a car, waiting for him.

  John Charles was one of them.

  General Masters picked up a Molotov cocktail and held it. He wasn’t ready to light it. Not yet.

  “Jeremy!” the general roared. “Get in the truck! Ride the hellfire straight to Heaven!”

  The sergeant didn’t have to move. The dead had already crowded atop the barricade, the barrage of gunfire that had lasted barely two minutes leaving a mountain of bodies for the others to climb.

  They pushed him to his knees.

  Still not time to light the cocktail.

  The sergeant stood.

  The warmth of his life spilled from his arms. He watched it drip onto his pants. There was no pain other than the pain he felt when he was relieved of his command. Pain didn’t exist. Chavo and his son were dead. Hector was dead. There were men and women stationed all over the world who might not have a country to come home to.

  Blood was the least he could give, and he watched it pool at his feet. He felt the weight of hands, and he held his head high and watched the sergeant approach.

  It still wasn’t time to light the cocktail.

  MINA

  “I need you so bad.”

  He kept saying it over and over again. There was something different about the way he pushed into her, something different about his needy words. Griggs was an aggressive lover who reserved the pillow talk for later, and only after a lot of scotch.

  She closed her eyes and moaned for him in her pretend universe to please him, to make him feel good, but he might not have been listening to her. He was inside her, but he didn’t seem to know it. His face was buried into her neck and she could feel his warm tears. His shoulders were cold to the touch, and his thighs were frozen slabs of meat against her tiny body.

  “Patrick,” she said. “Patrick, I missed you.”

  Her lips were chapped and her head felt like a nails were being screwed into it. How many hours passed since she last slept? Could she sleep beside Patrick while the world outside faded? Could she hold his hand while reality dissolved?

  Sensation slipped away. Her mind exploded into a thousand galaxies, bright and filled with distant voices. Her body shivered and words reached for memories that revolved around the idea of years.

  Men wearing white surgical masks peered into her face.

  (Doctor, these injections are designed to erase her memory.)

  Jim had challenged her ability to draw conclusions about her own existence. How much could she remember about Daddy? A man wearing a mask who stroked her hair lovingly, whispering sweet words into her ear, the only man who could do it before Patrick came along. The only man who could make her feel like she was loved, though she didn’t understand what the feeling was; only that she inspired it.

  Daddy tasted delicious when she ate him. Steam rose from the pan on the stove while she flipped the meaty chunks with a spatula. She placed his monster mask on the table and stared at it while his flavorful skin melted in her mouth.

  Remember when the doctors had your head hooked up to the machines? The voice asked. Remember your first nightmare?

  “No,” she said into Patrick’s ear, “I don’t remember.”

  They wanted to find me, and now I’m here. I’m with you and we can destroy all these people for what they’ve done to you, Mina. We can start a new world, and you will be the queen.

  “I don’t want that,” she said, and Patrick slowed down.

  (Have a drink, Doctor. On me. Immortality is so close now. Can’t you feel it?)

  She ran her fingers through Patrick’s sweaty hair. She arched her back for him until he paused to reposition her legs. When their eyes met, she wondered where the color had disappeared to; his eyes were filled with liquid and the dark circles beneath them made his entire face sag. He looked older than she remembered.

  Don’t blame yourself for what’s about to happen. You’re a precious girl, Mina. You were used, designed. Nobody cared about you from the start. The only way to stop it from happening to someone else is to kill them all. Kill them all to save them.

  “I don’t want to hurt anybody,” she gasped.

  “I should’ve never let you go.” Patrick choked while brushing his thumb against her cheek. “I should’ve fought for you, died for you. It’s too late, and now I just want to be with you.”

  He wanted to blame himself, but Jim was a scary guy. Patrick had to watch the soldier get killed by Jim, and he must’ve been scared to do anything about it. But he did come for her. He looked for her.

  What was Jim going to do? What was the point of everything? She didn’t know why she cared all of a sudden, but the voice inside her head bothered her. It was nothing more than a symptom of her own madness; she knew she wasn’t normal, but she never actually heard a voice in her head until now, with all the meds gone, her head suddenly clear, or maybe more confused.

  Jim said he wanted to watch her kill, to create some kind of masterpiece he could enjoy; murder for the sake of art, for the sake of murder. But he knew things about her and left her to die. He asked her questions and kept her alive to make the video, so he wanted to spread the pain around the world.

  He knows what he’s doing, the voice said. He’s waiting for you to come back. He wanted us to be alone together, but he needs you. He loves you more than Patrick ever could.

  “I don’t believe you,” she said.

  “I’ll never leave you again,” Patrick said, “I promise.”

  He’s waiting for you. All you have to do is look for him.

  The zombies didn’t want to touch her. They left her alone, and they listened to her when she saved General Masters. There was no denying what happened.

  Let me show you. Take my hand again and let me show you what cannot be saved, what cannot be salvaged, but must burn.

  “I don’t want to see.”

  Patrick replied but she couldn’t hear him. She drifted past the voices of doctors whispering in corridors or behind two-way mirrors. Daddy said something to her from behind his mask, but it didn’t make sense. Stars again, bright light spinning through spectrums searching for figures on a stage.

  She was walking through the streets of Detroit again, where hundreds of dead people stood around, looking at nothing, like toys waiting to be picked up to validate their presence. Like a forest fire that couldn’t be stopped, everything burned.

  East Pointe, then Roseville. A maze of cars and silent houses on side streets, closed doors hiding the cowering families who dreamed of rescue. Dead people stared at the smoke or crawled over decayed lawns.

  Someone has to know him. Someone has to see him.

  An airfield littered with corpses an
d bullets, puddles collected along the flat pavement where jets should’ve been. An open hangar that looked and smelled like a slaughterhouse. Semi-conscious memories.

  Just like she experienced in the clothing store, she surrendered to the last memory of a dead person, a man this time. His name was Jack.

  ***

  People were huddled beneath blankets under a stairwell. At the top of the staircase was a man Mina knew, a man Jack had seen, too.

  Jim was still dressed as a priest, and he was giving blessings to people as they approached him at the top of the stairs. Jack’s stomach hurt, but he needed to tell people about the priest. The priest was evil.

  Another man with a little girl beside him hid in the shadows. Jack recognized him and needed to tell him something, but the words were difficult to manage. He was dying; the pain inside his stomach was unbearable, but he had to tell the man—his name was Ed, and his daughter was Alexis—to get the hell out of the building. The priest was dangerous.

  Ed was wearing a cool shirt. Jack fixated on the shirt to keep himself strong. Heavy metal was the only thing that was good to him; everyone else wanted to hurt him and call him names. He might never get to play the drums again, but at least he wouldn’t have to hear people calling him fat anymore. At least he could help Ed and his daughter. He could help them stay alive.

  Ed remembered the policewoman, Denise. Jack tried to explain what happened to her, but the other man had a hard time believing it. Ed was starting to think he was lying. He would do anything to protect his daughter, and he had a hard time believing that a priest helped kill a police officer.

  Jack was going crazy. Shirtless and bleeding, he looked dangerous to Ed.

  When the priest limped down a couple steps, Jack pointed: Denise shot him. He was wounded. The priest had taken his shirt to wrap the wound. What further proof did Ed need to see the man was evil?

  Jack didn’t have to know where Alexis was; her safety was the most important thing. Ed’s eyebrows were furrowed deeply into his creased forehead while he debated with himself.