The Paladins

by Julie Reece

  Silver-blond hair stirs with the faint breeze, and a strand floats over her eyes. The silence between us stretches, yet I’ve never felt closer to anyone. My body leans in. I’m going to kiss her. She lifts her face like she’ll let me. We barely know each other, but I don’t care.

  A hiss brings me up short. I glance out the window, and in the yard, dozens of glowing orbs gleam like animal eyes watching from the forest.

  Never mind the kissing now. “What the hell are those?”

  “The Draugar,” she whispers. “I knew he—”

  “What’s a Draugar?”

  “The undead that roam these woods.”

  I stare as though she slapped me. “Vampires?”

  “Zombies.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Except it isn’t. My grandmother told stories. Old Nordic women used to threaten us kids into good behavior with scary fables about black monsters who ate naughty children. The legend says they are mound dwellers, shape shifters. Ones who walk after death. The stuff of nightmares, but in this place, our worst fears become real.”

  She’s right. The eyes in the forest grow brighter. Skulking, black shapes draw near the tower. “What do we do? How do we kill them?” I’m yelling my head off. Not that I’m blaming her, of course, but damn, zombies?

  “You don’t.” Her little hands clutch my chest. “Cutting their heads off will slow them down for a while.” I stumble back, as her silver eyes latch onto mine. “They aren’t fast, but they don’t stop. You have to get out of here. Go! Save yourself. Warn your friends … ”

  “Cole, wake up. Can you hear me?”

  Though I’m still inside the turret, Raven’s urgent call penetrates the stones themselves. “Rae?” My head swivels. “Where are you?”

  “Oh for crying out loud, will you just wake up? We have to get out of here!”

  “Out of where? What the hell?”

  Rose ignores my crazy conversation with an invisible Raven, choosing to shout at the ceiling instead. “Pan, don’t hurt him, please. I’m begging you, anything but this. Leave them alone.”

  I throw my hands up. Torn between two worlds, it’s obvious something scary is also happening on Raven’s side of my trance, but I’ve no idea what. Voices blend, each shouting their own agenda until I can’t tell who’s speaking to whom.

  The room blurs and it no longer matters. I spin out of time and function. The turret disappears. Rose is gone. And I wake in the tree where my night started.

  Raven’s fingers bite my shoulders. “For the love of Pete!” She gives me a good shake. “Wake up before those things get us.”

  “What things?” My eyes blink open.

  Rae balances her weight on the thick limb at my head while Gideon squats at my feet.

  “Those,” he answers, pointing to the clearing below.

  Yellow lights shine from the surrounding wood, filling my stomach with sick dread. I have no idea how they got here so fast, but the zombies I’d seen from Rose’s tower now plod toward our campsite.

  I sit up too fast and lose my balance. Arms flailing, my hand knocks Raven over, while my feet sweep Gideon’s boots. He swears an oath, and then we’re falling. Wind whistles past my head, Rae and Gideon alongside me.

  On instinct, my hands fly out. Wind might cushion our fall, but in my panic, I send mixed signals to the east and northern currents with no time to correct my mistake.

  I land so hard, it’s a miracle I can still breathe. If I’m going to wield air for our benefit, I’ll need to be faster. A lot faster.

  Maddox groans and staggers to his feet in a very un-Gideon-like manner. I don’t see his cane until Rae steps from behind me and hands it to him. He grasps the handle, planting the other end in the dirt. One arm wraps his waist. He curses again, raising his gaze. “Is everyone okay?” It strikes me we should be asking him that question.

  “I think so.” Raven says, rubbing her dirty shoulder.

  The hissing grows louder. Pale yellow lights move closer on all sides, and I guess the Draugar are roughly forty meters away.

  Gideon steps forward, leaning heavily on his cane. “What’s out there?”

  “Zombies,” I say, forcing my feet under me. My legs shake, but I’m up. “Saw them from Rose’s window.”

  “Wait, what?” Raven winces. “Real, brain-eating zombies?”

  “I don’t know about the brain-eating part, but yeah.”

  “God help us.”

  “What do we do?” Gideon’s asks. Moments of indecision feel like hours. Through the shadows, a few misshapen silhouettes threaten the clearing.

  “Their heads have to come off.” Nerves tingle down my arms. Wind sweeps the leaves around in gusts. Unfortunately, it’s an involuntary response to my fear and not a sign of my controlling anything. “Or we can run. Personally, I vote we run.”

  Gideon grabs Raven’s arm and sends her barreling into my chest, followed by her backpack. “Split up. Take Raven with you.”

  Her headshake is vehement. “No, we stick together.”

  Gideon jogs the opposite direction, his limp definitely more pronounced. That’s when I see the blood spreading on his T-shirt under his arm.

  “You’re hurt?” Rae asks this as though her eyesight is lying.

  Instead of answering, Gideon stares me down. I get it. There’s no time to debate with her.

  The first Draugar enter the clearing. Moonlight washes the dark monsters blue. The non-humans are tall and emaciated. No flesh, just shriveled leather stretched over bone. Each mouth is a flapping black hole, their teeth clack in a terrible, steady rhythm.

  And they keep coming.

  “He’s bleeding.” Raven wrestles free of my grip. “We need to stay together.”

  “No!” Gideon and I yell at once. More zombies lurch from the forest cutting us off.

  We’re running, within view of each other at first, but after a few minutes of dodging trees and monsters—more popping up at every turn—the landscape and zombies force us farther and farther apart.

  A mad giggle echoes from the treetops.

  “Pan, please don’t!” Rose’s ethereal voice floats through the wood followed by a sinister laugh. I spin, watching for a flash of silver, but see nothing.

  “Dry your tears, Rosamond angel, delicious though they are. I’m only having a bit of fun with our new guests.”

  “Don’t do this.” Rose’s desperate pleading leaves me gutted. “This is my fault. Please don’t punish them with my nightmares.”

  “What’s her fault?” Gideon yells from somewhere in the black.

  Pan ignores him, continuing the eerie disembodied discussion. “If you won’t share your night terrors, sweet Rosamond, I’ll simply have to improvise.”

  A woman sobs, volume increasing until her weeping rolls like thunder overhead. I cover my ears but still hear Pan’s cruel mimic. “Oh, boohoo. Please don’t hurt them.”

  I grind my teeth to shut out the noise. His voice is so loud my ears may bleed.

  “Keep going, children.” Pan’s laughter twines with the hissing Draugar. “Run for your lives. Since our dearest Rosamond is unwilling to share, feed us with your fear. Face the terrors within.”

  Whatever Pan is threatening, there’s no time to ask. As more zombies break from the tree line, I zigzag around saplings and bushes.

  Raven calls and I answer. At least I think it’s her, she’s too far ahead to see. Roots snag my bootlaces. Branches scratch my arms and face as I tear through the underbrush.

  My foot sinks ankle deep in mud. Hissing follows a hair’s breadth behind. Always advancing. Gaining. I’m sure I catch a glimpse of Gideon as he fades into the murky shadows ahead. Freeing my boot from the muck, I startle, imagining the twig brushing my shoulder is the rotting claw of a zombie. Every thud and bump echoing in the night becomes a monster’s footstep announcing my doom.

  I run until hard clay softens to swamp, and tall leafless trees surro
und me. Stripped of bark, they glow white in the moonlight, their knotted roots still stab at the saturated ground that drowned them long ago. My tread slips in the damp, the earth sucking with moisture and slowing my pace. “Rae? Gideon? Where are you?”

  No answer.

  Another misstep has me tripping over a taut vine. I stumble, splashing down hands and knees into a foot of dank water. “Bloody horror show, isn’t it?” I whisper to no one. Vines litter the swamp. They float across the bog dotted with big purple blooms. Several flowers spring open when jostled. With each move I make, more petals unfurl, the flowers, one by one, shuddering and sifting open along the cluster of vines I’ve disturbed. All at once, yellow pistils secrete a cloudy mist that fills the air.

  “Bollocks.” This can’t be good. Plus, I’m talking to myself.

  My eyes sting and tear. I hate on the flowers. Curse the dust in my nose, because I’m choking on it. I’m too loud, but can’t stop. The flowers blow more powder, and I hack and wheeze, waiting for the next coughing fit to produce a lung.

  A hiss goes off in my ear. Shudders crawl under my skin as I twist away. I’m up and jogging, but my boots lose traction on the boggy leaves sending my feet flying out from under me yet again. I land hard on my back. Peering into the canopy of crippled tree branches, a single Draugar is here, looming overhead, arms outstretched. I scuttle away, palms and feet to the ground like a hermit crab. My shoulders smack the broad trunk of a tree, and I can go no further.

  Misshapen legs shuffle toward me. He’s on me in seconds, and when the zombie clamps his dry, rotting fingers around my neck, my airway closes. Rough bark digs and scrapes my spine as I grapple with the stony bones at my throat. The eyes are nothing but gouged-out holes that go on forever. Desperate to free myself, I kick both feet up, but instead of throwing him off, my boots punch straight through his sunken chest. The laces snag somewhere inside his ribcage.

  The Draugar stands, releasing my throat, but with my feet attached to the skeleton, I’m drawn upside down like a rabbit in a snare. Engulfed by panic, I scream and shout obscenities. My eyes bulge and heartbeats gallop. I strain and stamp and punch at the stinking carcass, breaking him to smithereens and freeing myself.

  My chest heaves as though I’ll never draw enough air again.

  Storm winds bend the young saplings in the glade, plucking sparse leaves from their branches like feathers from a dead chicken.

  All around, pieces of the zombie I just destroyed twitch and jump all by themselves. Slowly, ruined limbs inch toward each other. I cringe watching old bones snap into place and knit together again like grotesque puzzle pieces. The creature struggles to his feet, shoulders hanging at odd angles. A hiss that sounds a lot like my name draws my gaze up. The creature has donned a thin, black robe that I recognize from my father’s dressing closet with its expensive satin sheen and rich, scarlet lining. The edges flap in the gale I’m creating with my fear and desperation. The robe’s collar droops, and inside, I see a young girl with platinum hair cradled within the heavy folds.

  “Rose?”

  The sight of her pressed against the mephitic flesh of the zombie turns my stomach.

  The scene smears with my fury. I rub my eyes and look again, but this time I’m drawn to the zombie’s face.

  Dead, black eyes clear and turn bright blue. Healthy flesh forms over bone, and the citrus scents of home replace that of rot and decay. Shining, black hair, a perfect match to my own, grows from the misshapen skull.

  Father?

  He sets Rose aside and comes for me.

  I’m weak, helpless. I don’t even fight as his palms resume the unrelenting pressure on my windpipe.

  Icy breath leaks from his open mouth in a cloud of mist. I blink, but slowly. Purple lines streak across the backs of my eyelids. My head spins. I’m sinking as he forces my head down and underwater.

  Waves close over my nose. A few bubbles escape my mouth, and I watch them travel lazily to the surface and burst.

  The muscles in my father’s face flex with effort as his hands continue crushing my throat. The heartbeat echoing in my ears slows to nothing. My vision darkens, lungs heat to burning.

  You always did want me out of the way.

  Ah, there … my father smiles at me, perhaps to say goodbye. But no, I see now it’s merely a grimace from the sheer force of his exertion on my neck.

  My hands go limp and fall to my sides.

  So, this is what it’s like to die.

  Chapter Twenty

  Gideon

  Over and over, my cane snags in the undergrowth, and my boots stick in the sucking mud. The wound in my side is screaming, slowing me down. Because my pace is slow, I’m falling behind. Falling behind means I’ve lost sight of her. Losing sight of her makes me insane with worry. Insane worry makes me rash and incredibly stupid.

  “Raven!”

  The thought of her in the hands of those things makes me see red. Literally. Like the blood I long to spill stains the sky, drips from the trees. Everything I look at is inked crimson. My thoughts are murderous as they turn to Pan, the board at Maddox enterprises, and myself. For once, life was good. I was happy. How did everything go from amazing to screwed so quickly?

  My foot goes out from under me, and I’m on the ground, covered in swamp. Wet and rotting, when the forest exhales, its foul breath permeates my lungs. The dozen flowers surrounding me open and vomit pollen. Swearing an extra painful death to Pan, I shake yellow powder from my hair. When the dust settles, I glance up and detect a clearing just beyond the haunted wood.

  It’s not the lake house that lies ahead in the distance, but Maddox mansion. I briefly think that’s impossible, but Jamis and Jenny’s safety trumps logic. Old as they are, they’re no match for Pan’s creatures. Like a fool, I must have led them all the way home.

  I search through the muck with my fingers, grasping for my cane but can’t find it, and I’m out of time to look. The house needs warning, so I gather my legs beneath me, muscles burning as I rise. My exhaustion makes sense, but not the labored breathing and blurry vision. Everything hurts as though I finished a triathlon, but it’s the sharp pain in my ribs that has my attention.

  Eight inches of tree branch protrudes from my side. I clench my teeth knowing it has to come out. Trembling fingers grip the stick’s end. I tense, ready my mind, and ease the wooden stake from my torso. My lips press together to gag the cry in my throat. Sweat beads on my forehead. Breaths pant from me in noisy, broken puffs.

  I can’t control my shaking hands. Red runs down my fingers, splattering the leaves below until, inch by inch, the stick is out. As I examine my skewer, it tips forward from my too loose grasp and falls to the ground.

  As if someone slashed a tire, dull hissing leaks through the forest behind me.

  I ignore the pain in my gut, forget my cane, and limp toward the house. There’s plywood stockpiled near the garage, left over from repair work we did last month. If I can get everyone inside, perhaps we can bar the windows. Create a barricade. Once the zombies lose interest, I can slip out again and look for Raven. Not much of a plan, but it’s all I’ve got. She’s strong. Smart. She can hold on until I find her. I force myself to believe it’s true.

  I head for the detached garage. Though I’m constantly watching the house windows for my employees, I alternately scan the woods for Draugar.

  And then the first one breaks from the tree line. More follow, slinking along in their relentless pursuit. The zombies’ mouths hang open, no more than cavernous black holes. With their weird, hobbling gate, the things look like mummies wrapped in tobacco leaves.

  Shudders wrack my body, but I keep moving.

  A new group pours from the trees opposite, thick like a trail of fire ants between me and the house. Rapid heartbeats slap at my aching ribs. I’m breathing so loud I fear they’ll hear me.

  Slipping through the side door of the garage, I search for anything that will make a decent weapon. The pl
ace reeks of gasoline and sawdust. Moonlight streams through rotted shingles in the roof. Between the junk piled in here and my father’s old ’57 Corvette rusting under its cover, there’s nowhere to step without making noise.

  I dare a glance out the dirty window and come face to face with a zombie. Ducking, I bump the rear fender of the car with my ass. My elbow knocks a paint can over, and the hissing outside increases tenfold.

  Shadows play on the cover of the Vette, staining the old, blue plastic darker. I know a dozen zombies congregate just outside. Sweat creeps down the back of my neck, dampening my collar.

  Glass breaks. The door on the far side of the room creaks open. Frantic, I scan for a way out and catch sight of the rafters and damaged roof beyond. The hole may be too small to fit through, but if zombies can’t climb, this is my chance.

  I’ll have one shot. Placing most of my weight on my good leg, I launch toward the lowest beam. Arms stretched to capacity, my fingers bite onto the rough wood. My injury stabs white-hot as I pull myself up, just as the door smashes inward.

  Zombies burst into the room and swarm the car. One spots me, alerting the others with his shallow wheezing. They reach for my legs, but my feet scrabble up and over the beam to safety. I never find out if zombies climb—because they jump.

  Crouching like spiders on the floor, they shoot upward. Limbs flailing, they windmill through the air before clinging to the beams. One grabs my boot with a hiss, its open mouth moist and foul as the pit of hell.

  With surprising ferocity, I’m yanked from my perch. My body rockets toward the floor. My lids slam shut as I brace for impact. The fall lasts longer than I think it should, and my eyes open again.

  Then I hit.

  Pain blisters my knee, hip, and shoulder where I make contact.

  Looking up at the Draugar, the distance seems wrong, and I realize I’ve fallen into a pit that wasn’t here a minute ago. My fingertips graze concrete block. Cold and damp, it surrounds me on four sides.