“This is all very fascinating, but can we return to getting shitfaced?” Boucher said.
“Not too much. Got a long walk tomorrow,” Philip said.
“Thanks, Dad. I’ll be sure to drink responsibly and get a ride home.” Boucher threw down his cards. “I got nothing. I’m gonna dip down into some other rooms and raid their minibars. Won’t be long.”
“Take the flashlight,” Philip said. “And a weapon.”
“Sure thing, Pops.”
“So you’re the leader?” I asked Philip.
He shrugged. “We’re all noblemen. In the re-enactment, I mean. If anything, Percy’s the highest ranking. But we’re not… doing that now.”
“Yeah, I know,” I said. “I wasn’t saying it was weird or anything.”
Percy laughed, and Garrett joined him. “You just kinda did, Shy.”
“I know what it looks like,” Philip said. “We all do. Seems like dress up or a role-playing thing. But it’s really as much about history and camaraderie as anything else. It’s our lineage.”
I picked up a chip from the pot and ate it, suddenly aware of how hungry I was. “How do you mean?”
“We’re all descendants of men who fought in that battle. I mean, as near as we can track that history. Hard to know for certain, but the surname says a lot. The genealogy is more for bragging rights. We’re pretty inclusive. Nowadays there’s plenty of women in armor as well.”
“And authentic,” I said. “Somehow I doubt the Comic-Con LARP crowd has weapons that can decapitate zombies.”
He laughed. “We have plenty of respect for our LARPer cousins, actually, but yes, staying period gets pretty intense.”
“And expensive,” Percy said. “Damn good thing I got no other hobbies ’cause I don’t think I could afford another one.”
“Pretty big return on investment now, though,” Garrett said.
Percy put up a fist and bumped it with Garrett’s.
“So the castle is period?” I asked. “Where we’re headed. I’ve never heard of it before. I’m assuming it’s not, like, historic, but a private home. Built to be a modern-day castle. Something like that? I read about those in a magazine once. The guy who wrote Fight Club did a story on them.”
The knights shifted a bit, something that would have made a clanking sound if they still wore their gear. Silence spooled out before us, and my worry grew with each elongated second.
“Right?”
Philip shrugged. “Not period, per se. But it’s safe. High walls, running water, excellent vantage points for archers. Even has a moat.”
He turned his gaze to Percy, who coughed and said, “That’s right. It’s safe, most of all. It’ll be just the place for us.”
“Phones?” Garrett asked.
I knew my twin brother so well, I could hear the subtext in his tone as if he’d said the words out loud. He was asking about Mom and Dad. I’d barely allowed myself to think about them. That was the thing about them being, like, three thousand miles away in California: I didn’t think of them all that often anymore. Sad, but true. If they still lived in town, we’d have gone straight to them and probably died on the journey.
“No phones,” Percy said. “And not because of the place. There’s just not enough power pushing them anymore. Even if you restore power locally, it’s not enough to have it on one end and not in-between. And hardly anyone even has landlines anymore anyway. Most of it’s Internet-based or cell technology.”
“So what about, like, sat phones?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Probably. But the guy on the other end has to have a sat phone, too. Some people had satellite Internet, as well, but—again—good luck Skyping with someone who doesn’t have power or isn’t also using satellite Internet.”
“It went down like a glass-jawed boxer,” Philip said, then sipped from his Crown Royal. “All of it.”
The stairwell door banged open, and Boucher tumbled in a moment later, arms laden with thick plastic baggies. A few spilled from his arms, and I grabbed one. In giant type along the mud-brown front I saw: “Meal, Ready-to-Eat.”
“No way,” I said.
He dropped the rest of them in the middle of our poker circle. “I raise you a week’s food.”
“Where in the hell?” Percy said.
“Musta been a prepper of sorts. The kind what holes up in a damn hotel come Armageddon. Idiot.”
“So where is he?” Garrett said.
I slapped his knee. “Or she.”
“It doesn’t have much of a face left, so take your pick on the gender. Had a shit-ton of food but rode the bullet train outta town. Or the buckshot train, more accurately, but that doesn’t sound as cool.”
“Did you grab the shotgun?” Garrett asked.
The knights stopped rifling through the MREs and looked at him.
“What?” he asked.
Boucher sat, ripped open an MRE like it was made of paper, and dug into a pound cake before speaking. “We came across a National Guard garrison out by Thaxton. You remember?” He turned to the other knights, who nodded but said nothing. “An infantry company. Small, certainly, but secure. Weaponized, armored. You know what we found there?”
“Not sanctuary, I guess,” Garrett said, head hung.
“It was a noble attempt,” Boucher said. “But futile. No, we found zombies in well-ironed uniforms and polished boots. Nothing more.”
“You don’t polish ACU boots,” Percy said. They’re suede, so you just—”
Boucher held up a finger and Percy stopped talking. “So let’s be clear, Garrett. Guns have failed us. We’re going to take back this world—if we even can take it back—with shield and spear and blade. What began as a tribute to our fallen ancestors has become…. Are you filming this?” Boucher looked at me, finger still pointed skyward.
I’d assembled my camera and engaged it automatically like a soldier would a stripped weapon. “I… was. Sorry.”
Boucher laughed, and the others joined him. “Go right ahead. Need me to start again?”
“If you would.”
***
We set out the following morning, my pack lighter despite the MREs. I’d ditched all my film books, my notes on our latest project, and a container of camp fuel. Modernity would furnish us with enough gas and diesel for a while, I figured. No engines burned that stuff anyway.
Garrett and I got to work, setting up shots, filming b-roll, and capturing the knights when they dispatched the occasional stray zombie. Our trek lay mostly along the grassy, rolling hills, where you couldn’t see a half-mile ahead of you, but you could damn sure see around you well enough to spot any biters.
I’d woken to find the knights polishing their armor, their faces stern and their brows crinkled in concentration. Now they shone in the morning sun. I imagined their weapons had received the same treatment: as ready to dispatch another horde as the day they were forged.
We stopped for lunch at a park, as much for the three-sixty view as for the picnic tables. From my tablet, I edited footage, whittling it down to as small as possible. Philip slid behind me and watched me work. It felt good to show off. Garrett and I enjoyed a full-on escort to a castle, of all things, so I welcomed the swell of pride as my fingers flew over the screen.
“You’re fast at that,” Philip said.
“Yeah. I’ve only got so much storage, and this new camera is a pig, so I’ll have to keep it tight.”
“What’s OSD?” he asked, pointing to the title of a project file.
I hadn’t even thought about it, really. Just picked what first came to mind and made it my naming convention. Our camping trip was SGTT—Shiloh, Garrett Training Trip. The inspiration for the knight footage had come just before sleep in one of those flashes I half expected to disappear by morning, but it hadn’t.
“The Order of the Second Death,” I said and turned to find his face less than a foot from mine. “That’s you guys. Before, you re-enacted how your ancestors died, and now—”
; “I get it,” he said, smiling. “And now we’re sending these things to their second death. I like it.”
“It’s a favor, y’know?” I told him. “Not one of them would have wanted to stay like this, as one of those things.”
He nodded. “I think you’re right. I hope so. We don’t really have room for conjecture, not when they’re trying to kill us, but still, I’m glad to hear you say that.” He leaned closer, perhaps reading some clue in my face, and we kissed.
The sound was minuscule, but you’d have thought were broadcasting it because we looked up to find everyone else staring at us. Only Garrett averted his eyes at being discovered. He knew better than to gawk.
“All right, let’s move it,” Philip said, though his tone lacked any agency.
***
The closer we got, the more I sensed an odd tonal shift. I thought at first it was because Philip had kissed me, as if the others saw that as—I don’t know—against the knight’s code or something. But whenever I caught Philip’s gaze or shot more footage of him, he brightened and seemed only pleased to have us around.
The knights marched on with the lingering, constant energy they somehow managed in all that armor, but they swapped furtive glances and studied the ground in front of them instead of the landscape. I kept filming, sure, but—as a cameraman—I knew I wouldn’t use any of this footage. Viewers would sense the same lack of spark I could see in them. What had happened in the last few hours?
Finally, I couldn’t take any more of it. The knights walked in a triangle, and Philip was on the back right, a good thirty feet from Percy up front with Garrett.
“Everything all right?” I asked.
Philip smiled—simpered, really—and nodded.
“Y’see, I paid way too much in film school to hone this weird power. I can sense when something’s up. When my subjects are… stiffening. Happens sometimes. That’s when you quit filming and figure out what’s changed.”
Even in the armor, I could see Philip’s shoulders slump. “I’ve not been completely honest with you, Shiloh. The castle—”
“We got company,” Garrett yelled and pointed beyond the hill he and Percy had crested.
Percy said something to him. He buried his lance in the earth and waved his gloved hands in front of him, gesticulating to himself, to what lay over the hill, and back to himself.
I knew Garrett, sometimes better than he knew himself, surely better than he knew me, and I watched as a weight settled on him. Or maybe it was just his spirit leaving him. Whatever it was, by the time he pivoted on Percy—slinging a hand behind him as if waving off the cavalryman—and trotted up to me, a lump had formed in my throat and a boulder in my stomach.
“What is it, bro?”
“It’s not a castle, Shy. It’s a fucking water park. It’s… it’s nothing. It’s a park. For kids.”
Philip’s gauntlet reached out to the crook of my elbow, but I shook it off. I ran to the crest of the hill, and the features came into view: water slide, scaffolding, lazy river encasing the lot of it.
A few dozen people milled about the interior; archers manned the tops of the slides, where—just a week ago—bored teenagers reminded a thousand kids a day not to go down head first. Around the perimeter, armored knights walked the high fences, as somber as the guards of Buckingham Palace.
All of the comforts I’d allowed myself over the last two days fell away like plates of my own, invisible armor, which I had proudly worn in the knights’ company. The gravity of this new world fell on my shoulders, and I collapsed to one knee under its weight. My eyes teared, sending the grass at my feet into swirls of watery green.
I felt a hard hand on my shoulder and spun to find Philip standing over me.
“It’s more than you think,” he said, but he couldn’t meet my gaze. “Just think about—”
I discovered the strength to take my feet and to shove him hard in the chest. He staggered, despite the armor. He made no move to defend himself as I slapped at his face. My hands banged against his helm, finding only meaningless purchase on the flesh beneath and sending stabs of pain up my arms.
“I believed in you,” I growled over and over.
Finally, he grabbed my hands and pinned them between us. “What did you think it was?” he said. “You thought we’d come upon a king’s keep manned by a thousand men? Walls thick as trees?” He spun me around and wrapped his arms around me from behind. He pointed to what a kiddish sign at the entrance dubbed “Splash Kingdom.” “Every person in this place is just like us: knights all. Every one has carved their way here through the dead.”
“It’s a water park,” I sobbed. “How can you—”
“Clean water,” Percy joined in. “The filters run on diesel. They’re industrial grade. High vantage points, dry goods, fences that kept out the freeloaders do a damn fine job of keeping out the dead, too.”
I slumped in Philip’s arms, my energy sapped, my will alongside it.
Garrett bent down to my level. “You believe this shit, Shy?” he whispered. “Not quite what we had in mind, huh?” He turned back to the park, shook his head, then shrugged. “These guys aren’t knights. No one’s anointed them. They don’t own land or have coffers full of gold. They bought their stuff with minimum wage.” He took my face in his hands. “But you’ve seen ’em in action. We both have. Do they seem like knights to you?”
Tears continued to flow, but I nodded.
“So could this just as well be a castle?” He moved to open my view of the park, filled with men and women as dedicated to their code, I knew, as the Order of the Second Death had been these last couple of days.
And then I saw it: high walls and grand parapets. Banners popping in the wind, order amid chaos. A dozen people as sharp as Percy, as dauntless and mighty as the Butcher, as noble and staid as my Philip.
“They’re only missing one thing,” Garrett said.
“What?” I said, the weight of this newly rotten world lifting slightly.
“Bards,” he said and held out my camera. “Now let’s get to work.”
8 Yakuza Dead by T. S. Alan
DEDICATION: For Isamu
And for the members of the Hachioji Police Department at the Hachioji Station North Exit Police Box, without whose inspiration this story would not have been imagined.
I. Tokyo Ninkyo
“Rumors of an ARS counteragent are lies spread by detractors, including political opponents, who wish to undermine the government’s authority and robust measures at keeping the nation contagion free,” Prime Minister Toyoizumi countered, having been accused by news reporters that he and his administration were hoarding an antiviral drug for the plague, which had been acquired from a trade deal with the United States’ military. “The government assures its people that though there is no cure or counter-response for ARS at this time, we are still safe and infection free and will remain so as long as citizens respect and obey the government’s rule.”
Isamu Kudo turned off the television and immediately put the remote down and addressed the senior clan members that were gathered around the table. “The Prime Minister must think us all stupid. No counteragent, infection free? — All lies. We have a cure.”
Advisor Jun Okabe was quick to respond to his boss’s statement, correcting him not only for incorrectly saying “cure,” for there was none, and for the fact that they had lost the counteragent that could combat the virus. “Correction, Boss. We had a supposed antiretroviral.”
Isamu responded tersely to his subordinate’s clarifications, “Do you think me an idiot? I am aware of the situation. Why do think I called this meeting?”
Okabe immediately arose from his chair, bowing and apologizing for his impoliteness, “Moushiwakearimasen! It was not my intention—”
“Sit down, Okabe and quit groveling,” Isamu instructed, and then turned to Senior Advisor Kuniyoshi Otsumi. “Otsumi. The laboratory has been completed and we are ready to start production? Is that correct?”
�
��Hai,” he responded, confirming.
“Then I shall retrieve what is ours tonight,” Isamu informed the five senior members at the table.
As one of the clan’s inner circle and the senior advisor, it was Otsumi’s obligation to point out that his boss’s proposed action was highly inappropriate and risky, and not being in the best interest of the clan or that of the clan leader’s health and welfare.
“With all due respect, you are being rash. You have many seniors that you could send, all who are willing and competent for the task.”
First Lieutenant Akira Kimura stood quickly and bowed respectfully, eager to offer his service for the job that needed to be done.
“It would be an honor,” he said to his clan leader, “if you allowed me to lead our men against the Tohno Clan. I will not fail you. I will retrieve what was stolen.”
“I have no doubt in your success. But I trusted Tohno like he was blood, and he betrayed my trust by stealing from the family.”
Otsumi again advised against his leader’s decision. “There is no need to risk your life.”
However, Isamu was steadfast in his resolve. “Tohno’s breaking rank and forming his own family has not only cut into our profits, but by stealing the antiretroviral he has condemned our family to death. This has made me look weak and unfit to lead.”
“No one thinks you are weak,” Advisor Okabe stated. “Any disgrace falls on Tohno and the brothers who followed him.”
Isamu knew his newest advisor was trying to be tactful, but his statement was not true, and his attempt at placating him was irritating.
“If you wish to kiss ass,” he replied, “then perhaps you should wait for me to drop my pants before doing so. I hear the talk. I have lost face with the family, and I must regain their respect and trust by dealing with the traitor myself. And it needs to be tonight.”
This time Okabe decided not to rise and apologize. He didn’t want to be admonished again.
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