The Shores Of The Dead: Omnibus Edition

by Josh Hilden

  “General Hart will explain the plan to you.” Lisa said and then allowed the older man to limp over, and take her place behind the podium.

  Ryan Hart could feel the prosthetic legs pinching and sticking, they always got that way when the weather got nasty, as he pushed through. “Ladies and gentleman we have a plan.” He began and then talked for 20 minutes. When he’d finished, things did look a little less bleak. But the odds of potential failure were greater than ever, unless everything went off according to plan. The only other options were surrender, or for everyone to separate and try to survive on their own.

  And that was not an option at all.

  9

  5:55pm EST

  Lisa and Kyle went over the clipboard Chief Hall had given them. They had to get their people ready to move out. Farther over, Ken Michener was rounding up the Spotters, and Chief Hall was personally addressing the few Militia fighters who were going to accompany the Wolverines, Rangers, and Spotters in their effort to stop, or at least slow down, the Army of the Dead. This would happen while the people of White Harbor were moved as fast as they could be to the island refuge.

  “How did Nancy take the news?” Kyle asked her, the silence had been driving him crazy. He had to address the elephant in the room.

  “How do you think?” Lisa snapped. She’d spent the last two hours comforting the love of her life. She felt wasted and drained.

  “We’ve all lost someone.” Kyle said. Lisa looked up at him. The coldness in his voice surprised her. In the short time she’d known him, she’d only seen the more vulnerable and open side of his personality. This was her first acquaintance with the steel that lived in his soul.

  “In the end, we have to accept that most of us are not going to make it back.” He checked off something on the clipboard as a Ranger showed him the contents of a pack and then moved on. “You are not the only one that had to comfort someone and still find time to do your job.” Then he walked away before she could reply.

  10

  6:00pm EST

  “Why the fuck do I have to stay here?” Jennifer yelled at her husband. She was seething, and part of him was relieved that they wouldn’t both be trapped in the town.

  “I am one of the best fighters that we have.” She said, and he knew she was right, but there was a fact of their lives she was purposely ignoring. He knew he was the only one who could just flat say it to her. He steeled himself, and then plunged into the topic they’d all been ignoring.

  “You are 5 months pregnant.” He said. Then silence filled the space that they occupied.

  “What does that…” she began. He cut her off and a facet of his personality usually submerged came forward.

  “Our daughter’s safety is more important than your pride.” He stared right into her eyes, and in that gaze was the man his father should have been if not for the booze and the drugs.

  She gaped at him with her mouth slack. Before she could respond and maybe say something she might regret, he closed the distance and embraced her. Jennifer Millette was a woman who corralled her emotions, but in the arms of her man she allowed them free reign and the tears rolled.

  “I love you hon.” He said and they stood there for a long time, taking and giving comfort that might be denied them thereafter.

  11

  6:05pm EST

  “David,” a voice said from behind the Chief of Police. He turned and saw the somehow diminished form of Amy Waters. She was wrapped in bandages and swelling was prevalent on her exposed skin.

  “Amy…oh God,” he said. David knew it had been bad. But to see her, the woman that he still loved, beaten and somewhat broken was a spike right into his heart.

  “It looks worse than it feels.” She said and attempted to smile at him. The wince told him more than he needed to know about the veracity of the statement.

  “Is there anything I can do?” He asked her. David had no real idea what to say or do.

  “No,” she said and then hurried forward. Apparently she had something she needed to say. “I need to know something before we all separate. I need you to tell me the truth, Dave.” She had not called him that in a long time.

  “What do you want to know?” He asked her but he thought that he knew exactly what it was.

  “Did you ever cheat on me?” There it was, and of course it was what he had suspected.

  “No,” he said, and as the look of relief began to appear on her face he knew he had to tell the whole truth, no matter how much it hurt them both. “But I might have if that day had gone differently.” He cast his eyes down, and did not look up until he felt her fingers touch his chin and lift his face. She was still smiling, but now tears glistened in her heavily darkened orbs.

  “I knew that. But if you hadn’t told me, I wouldn’t have said this.” She took a deep breath, and spoke in the clear voice he had missed for so long. “I love you David, and I forgive you.” She opened her arms to him, and he came to her.

  David Hall wept in the arms of the woman that he loved.

  12

  7:00pm EST

  The people of White Harbor paused from their activities to watch the column head out of the main gates to find and confront the enemy. Every man and woman who’d volunteered to go out and engage the Dead and their Masters knew the odds of coming home alive were slim to none. They needed to delay the enemy until the evacuation was complete, or for as long as they could continue the fight.

  “There they go.” Captain Rich Paulson said to Jennifer from the tower over the main gates. The two of them had been left in charge of the town’s defenses. Rich was running the evacuation at the docks, and Jennifer was in charge of keeping any of the enemy that approached the town at bay.

  “My entire family is leaving and I am stuck here.” She replied and he could hear the resentment in her voice.

  “Well whether you want to be here or not, I’m glad that you are.” He was serious and she knew it. The stories of her exploits on the trip from Dayton to White Harbor had become a thing of legend.

  She looked up and down the length of the wall surrounding the land side of the town and nodded to herself. The positions for the defenders were being prepared, and as many new pneumatic cannons that could be cobbled together as possible were being mounted. Jennifer knew that even if the force that had just left actually engaged the enemy, most of them would still probably hit her position.

  “For what it’s worth I’m glad you’re still here too.” She said to Rich who grinned his little boy grin at her.

  In the distance the tail lights of the column disappeared one by one in the night blackness.

  13

  Ten Miles South of White Harbor

  November 27, 2012 AD (Day Forty)

  12:40am EST

  The collection of miscreants and thieves that were Satan’s Razors perched on a hill top outside of White Harbor. The modern day Vikings were encamped on high with a long distance view of their objective.

  Arn looked through the binoculars at the sporadic lights of the town that had been his home for his entire life. It was clear to him that even though the people in the town had not been able to get the hydroelectric plant back up and running, they were able to bring the emergency generators online. That was not something the Razors planned for.

  James said that it was nothing to be worried about.

  The combat vehicles cobbled together in Marquette over the last three weeks roared down the blacktop. The Razors spent the first two weeks after the rise of the dead securing and purging the area all around the former largest city on the peninsula. The chain gangs were forced to work for 14 hours a day rebuilding the vast cornucopia of vehicles which now carried the assembled ranks of the Razors and their forced levy of foot soldiers.

  Marquette was far too open and exposed for James’s tastes. He knew when it got hot again the Dead would overrun the thin defenses the Razors had erected. This was an all or nothing push to either take the town of White Harbor, or be smashed in the attempt.<
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  “You were right Books,” James said from the back seat. He was sipping a steaming mug of coffee and savaging a stack of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. “The security perimeter is focused around the town and the approach is open. What do they think? That the only thing that they have to worry about is the Dead?” He laughed as picked up another sandwich and plowed into it.

  Arn was about to answer his best friend when the screams began. They both turned in time to see a legion of the dead, the dead which should have been frozen to the ground for the entire winter. They were overrunning the Razors and their retainers.

  “What the fuck!” James screamed. Then jumped from the cab of the Hummer and opened up on the Dead with the shot gun he had strapped to his shoulder. James was far from a coward, but Arn was sure they were finished.

  14

  1:45am EST

  All of the forced foot soldiers the Razors shanghaied were now either dead on the ground or fled into the forest. The remaining Razors, 37 in total, were standing inside a circle of the dead. The zombies did not advance but would not let them escape.

  The crowd of the dead spread to the sides as a man dressed completely in black walked toward the prisoners. Arn and James watched as the human fighters, who wore the strange obsidian marks on their head, bowed low as the tall and darkly beautiful man advanced on the collection of bikers.

  “Well, well, well,” Rudolph Clarke said as he gazed on the Razors. His Master told him these men would be of use, and that he should attempt to bring them into the family so to speak.

  “I am about to offer you gentlemen a chance to live all of your dreams, and to make the people you hate meat for the beasts.” The honeyed tone of his voice and the angelic smile worked its magic on the bikers. They felt the strength and the presence which suffused him.

  James McCoy broke into a grin and stepped forward. Arn didn’t even hesitate as he broke ranks to join him. “Where do we sign up?” He asked.

  Rudy laughed the laugh of a child, and drew the branding iron from inside of his trench coat. There was some fear on the faces of the Razors as the glowing end steamed in the freezing cold.

  “Just step forward,” He purred.

  15

  In the Rear of the Army of the Dead

  November 28, 2012 AD (Day Forty One)

  9:20pm EST

  The combined forces from White Harbor had been sniping at the edges of the Army of the Dead. But for each of the Dead they removed from the board, ten more Rose from the frozen ground as the army marched by. There seemed to be no way for the defenders to do more than slow down the enemy force before it reached the town. Every time they came out and fought, the human soldiers of the Army of the Dead emerged from the protective center of the mass and engaged the smaller force.

  “If we hit them now, there is no way we could do more than slow them.” David said. He watched the vast sea of the Dead wash across the snow covered landscape.

  At the center was the knot of the living encased like a yoke in an egg. They’d been forced to swing wide around the force marching on the town of White Harbor in an effort to get a count to be relayed back. He hoped panic was not setting in among the evacuating populace. More than 10,000 of the Dead were approaching the last bastion of the living in Northern Michigan.

  “We need to be ready to strike when they hit the wall.” Ken Michener said from his seat next to the White Harbor Chief of Police. Hall reminded him painfully of Estelle Landry. He wished that she was here instead of him.

  “Hammer and anvil,” David mused and the picked up the radio next to him.

  “This Hall to Carson and Sutton, please respond, over.”

  There was nothing but static. David repeated the call, but there was no response from either of them. A minute later a voice did answer the call, but it wasn’t either of the people he had wanted to reach.

  “Chief Hall this is Ben Millette of the Rangers, over.”

  “Millette this is Hall, where are Carson and Sutton? Over.”

  “Nobody has been able to locate either one of them since we took position behind the enemy. I have taken command of the Rangers, and Captain Sims is leading the Wolverines, over.”

  His reply caused David to release a string of expletives. Part of him had been hoping the strange power Colonel Sutton used at the bridge could be used to slow down the enemy until the civilians were evacuated from the mainland.

  “We can’t spend any time trying to find them. We need to continue with the mission, out.”

  He prayed that they would be alright, but for now that was all he could do for them.

  16

  Within the Army of the Dead

  9:30pm EST

  Lisa expected she would face the enemy side by side with her people. But when Sandy appeared before her, Lisa had been attempting to access the powers she’d discovered at the bridge. She wanted to slow down the Army of the Dead, even though she might die in the attempt. But her sister was adamant. She had to confront the leader of the enemy forces, and put an end to this once and for all.

  Lisa broke away from the Wolverines, and made her way through the woods around the straggling dead to a point closer to the center of the mass. Where the human leadership was secreted. Just as she was preparing to unleash the light and wade into the rotted mass, a voice spoke from behind her.

  “So you think you can do this alone?” Kyle Carson asked quietly.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” She hissed back.

  “Someone has to watch your back, Colonel.” He glared at her defiantly, with his Pike gripped in his hands. He had no intention of backing down.

  “Alright,” she sighed, “If you’re coming let’s go.”

  Kyle nodded and joined her as they moved forward. When they reached the nearest mass the Dead sensed them and turned to feed. Kyle raised his pike to hack his way through the Dead but Lisa put her hand on his arm and he eased. Then she stepped forward and began to glow and the Dead halted. “Take us to your Master.” She whispered in a voice more ethereal than human.

  They trudged through the Dead, and the walking corpses never gave them a second glance. As they got closer and closer to the center, they could hear the sounds of people talking. When they broke through, they were right next to the truck serving as the mobile throne of Rudolph Clarke, High Lord of Ast-Murath.

  “Hello, False Priest,” Lisa said when he saw them walking toward him. The insanely beautiful face of the man in black smiled and then he spoke.

  Rudy laughed and gave a single command, “Take them.”

  That was the last thing that Kyle heard before the world went black. When he woke again, it was to a world of pain.

  17

  Outside the Walls of White Harbor

  11:00pm EST

  A cold wind was blowing in off the lake. The snow had begun to fall. General Baker smiled as the lights of the town came into view. His Master was far behind with the bitch, and the boy who’d accompanied her. Now he had a free hand to do what he was made for.

  The sirens in the town were going off at an ear-shattering timbre, informing them that the enemy was well aware that their end was near. Behind him tens of thousands of the Dead and almost 1,000 living fighters stood ready to reign down on the isolated community of the shores of Lake Superior.