Knight of the Dead (Book 4): Realm

by Smorynski, Ron

  He could see why kings and churches of old had rituals now. How they meant something and brought people together. Seeing Randall and Beth let go of their inhibition and join together helped everyone. To see a man and woman, now as husband and wife, committed to each other, meant something. It changed them all.

  “Dad?”

  He looked about, sort of hearing, noticing Charlotte peer wondrously at the oohing and ahhing.

  “Dad?”

  “Huh whah?” Dad looked to see Lena and Marcus down in front of the stage before him.

  “We want to get married,” Lena blurted quickly with a slight hop. Marcus stared with bright wide eyes.

  Dad nearly fainted. His wife was with them, tears in her eyes. Dad controlled his wobble. He walked closer, unsteadily. “Okay, okay, let's do it in a month. The next morale boosting event.”

  “Really Dad, really, that's all you have to think about?” Lena smirked, looking up confidently. Dad and Marcus shared the same look of trepidation.

  Dad wasn't sure what she meant.

  “Morale booster?” Lena repeated.

  “Well,” Dad thought about it. This, the ceremony, was obviously helpful. He saw Randall and Beth kiss, smile, twirl, as Carl and Maggy danced near them. There was music playing from an Iphone. It wasn't too loud, and a few others danced too.

  Katrina handed them a bottle each of wine, vodka and cranberry juice. “Sorry, no ice!” she laughed.

  “Honey, congratulate your daughter and Marcus on their engagement,” his wife finally said to him.

  He looked down at Lena, overcoming being upset at Dad and hugging Marcus. “Oh sorry,” he dropped down to them and hugged her.

  “I know. I know you're just looking out for everyone. I know you care about the people. And I know you care about me!” Lena said.

  “Congratulations, my daughter, my love, my little Lena who I held as a little girl,” Dad said to her. “I wish,” he could barely talk and it suddenly overwhelmed her too. “I wish this world weren't so for my daughter. This life weren't so... I'm so sorry we failed you.” He couldn't help himself. He shuddered and she cried and they hugged each other.

  “It's not your fault,” she said, muffled in his hug. He wore armbands and had his sword, but could otherwise hold her.

  Marcus hugged his tiny wife. She spoke up to him. He nodded and smiled trying not to get emotional. His wife wiped many of her own tears. Charlotte came up to hug them, already knowing.

  Dad watched, wiping his emotions away quickly, as Beth and Randall celebrated, dancing around. Stu, Cory, Lisa, and some others danced about. Duanne was dancing with Eva. She was trying everything to turn him on. In the other life, he would only think of her as a fan, a mom fan, but here, what else was there? And he was alone. Whether it was because he was too tired or the world too harsh, Dad wasn’t going to judge. God where are you?

  Dad somehow got situated leaning against the stage near Steve. Both watched as people danced and giggled. Dad kept signaling to them to keep it down just a bit. There were still zombies outside, perhaps not close, but still. He knew Tom Jake, and Howie were out there, watching and keeping tabs. Howie was probably drinking some hard liquor, but he was a decent drunk, a little placid but didn’t get plastered. Amador and his son Julio came to and fro, giving Dad a thumbs up that all was clear.

  They had two to three blocks around the school blocked off. There was some peace and quiet, some sanctuary from the zombies. The cars and dumpster gates did their job, keeping wandering zombies from coming into the area, detecting them, and alerting more.

  Dad and Steve didn't talk. There was obviously a tension between them.

  Dad finally looked at Steve. Maybe it was the joyful ceremony, the moment, or Dad's tired demeanor, but he wanted to get it off his chest and be at peace with it. “I can't kick you out.”

  “What?” Steve asked, literally not hearing above the giggles and chuckles.

  “I said, I can't kick you out,” Dad repeated. He really wasn't sure if it was the right thing to do, the right approach. Would God bless him in this, or look away and let bad things happen? Dad was truly not sure, yet he said it.

  Steve looked at him. “So I can stay.”

  “Yes.”

  “So what's that mean then?”

  “I don't know,” Dad said, looking glum. “You're still a faggoty sinner.”

  “You're still a right wing asshole piece of shit.”

  “I guess that's how its going to work,” Dad answered.

  “We'll figure it out,” Steve said.

  “I'm still telling all the kids about marriage, man and woman, and no gay shit,” Dad looked mean, or tried to, but it turned out looking haughty.

  Steve shrugged, looking at Dad mean too, which turned out looking more defiant. “Piece of shit, a real piece of shit.”

  Dad shrugged. “One thing though.”

  “What?” Steve rolled his eyes.

  “We still go.”

  Steve eyed him unsure.

  “We still go, and see.”

  Steve nodded. “Sure. Who knows?”

  “Who knows?”

  22. Departure

  “I still think we should go with you,” Duanne said, trying to act brave, using his signature looks.

  “No, just Steve and me,” Dad said, standing next to Steve. Both were fully armored and had two motorcycles ready to go.

  “You sure he can't come?” Steve asked. He looked to Howie and Ray. “If we do find anything, I'm going to stay and build a place of acceptance and love.”

  “Here we go,” Dad huffed.

  Steve chuckled or snorted. Dad wasn't sure.

  “We got something good here,” Duanne said. “And Ronan did the right thing letting you stay, letting you be you, man.”

  “There's so much work to do here,” Ray said to no one, looking at the expanse of defensible walls.

  Dad gave a slightly cringed look. He wasn't sure accepting homosexuality, openly in his community was good, sound, moral, of God, but he couldn't fight the feeling that he was forcing, pushing, expelling him from a civil community, and not from the church. He hadn't figured it all out, but a civil community was not to be as moral as a church community. He did not want to force everyone into the church. He couldn't. He shook off the thoughts. He just wanted peace for these people, even if they were surrounded by hell.

  His wife and Amanda came up. They went to Steve who was taken back. They brought out two tightly wound bundles.

  “Three swords and three sets of arm bands, if you find anyone,” Dad's wife said, offering the bundles.

  “Oh, thank you,” Steve said too politely, unable to emotionally bond with Dad's wife in her moment of sincerity. He took the bundle unsure. Amanda took it from him and strapped it to his bike that was already fitted with food and water.

  “If we don't find anyone, anything, we'll be back,” Dad said. “Keep training the new recruits. Keep vigilant.”

  Lena hugged her Dad. “Be back for the wedding!”

  “Hah, I'll be back in a few hours at most!” Dad said. "You all know what to do. Always have guards. Always keep an eye out for Charlotte and the kid's flag warnings. Always keep working. Get along. Randall is in charge till I get back."

  Everyone nodded, teary and stoic.

  They drove out, slowly, quietly. Tom and Stu pushed the dumpster aside. Randall and Tom followed on bicycles. It was something new they had figured out. With all the clear neighborhood blocks and easy salvage, Tom found it easy enough to ride a bike around quietly, especially to cross the school grounds and check different areas. They only needed to go out and open another dumpster, to let them out, close it, and return with very little noise. And it was easy enough to carry the bikes over some cars.

  They were careful to ride in safe areas, park, then carefully sneak up to perimeter spots.

  They went where it was safer and obscured in the neighborhood. There was a row of cars and a dumpster. There were only a few zombies on the o
ther side. They were less inclined to be alerted in the cold morning.

  As Tom and Randall pushed the dumpster aside, Dad and Steve drove out. Dad easily swung his sword as zombies suddenly rambled hurriedly toward them.

  Tom and Randall quietly walked back to their bikes a distance away. Seeing they were clear of any zombies noticing, they rode back to the school.

  Dad and Steve coasted down to Sunset, their engines softly idling. Once they got well clear of their territory and turned west towards West Hollywood, they throttled. Zombies were alerted, rushing toward the sound. Dad and Steve rode hastily and easily along Sunset Boulevard. There was an open path all the way to Fairfax and many paths, however disrupted, to take beyond.

  This area was less of a bottle neck jammed with cars than most areas. The hillside above them blocked any traffic flow out of the Los Angeles basin, so most of the traffic went away from the area, to the freeways further east in Hollywood or west toward the other major freeway, the 405.

  It was still crowded in the hilly areas dotting the Sunset Strip and West Hollywood. There were plenty of blocked streets, but the wide sidewalks and rich homes afforded avenues of passage for their motorcycles. In this area were fancier cars that, on that first day of panic, would not slam into each other or buildings, to block their way. It was a gentrified traffic jam, affording ease of access.

  Dad had driven through before and felt a familiarity with the congestion of silent vehicles. Zombies came running out of dried shrubbery, around those fancy cars, up driveways and out of boutique shops.

  They passed through with minimal threats, passing small gangs of zombies flailing in surprise. When they reached an intersection familiar to both as the entrance to West Hollywood, down on La Cienaga and Santa Monica Boulevard, they saw a rare massive jams of cars, buses, trucks, and police SUVs in the area.

  “Get some guns outta those,” Steve figured.

  Dad nodded. “We'll come back for that. Remember the police station?”

  “How could I not? Been there!” Steve chortled.

  “Let's go,” Dad said. They raced on as zombies converged on the spot.

  The wide street of Santa Monica Boulevard was a hell of smashed up cars and rabid zombies. Many seemed fresh. Perhaps the fighting to survive around here was more recent. The gay men and regular folk in this area tended to be in shape. Dad wondered, shuddering a bit, would there be a bunch of muscle bound big ones here? Would there be big zombies lumbering about? He didn't see any. He saw plenty of rotting, fast zombies running out of stores, around or over jam-packed cars, and coming out of side streets. Many of these could be ghouls. He wasn't sure. He didn't stop to examine them. It was going to get crowded quickly.

  They didn't ride far before seeing the looming structures of the Design Center, two large glass steel buildings that stuck out like shining emerald fortresses. They then saw, on the roof, survivors waving. They were high enough that zombies weren't alerted. They looked like tiny shadowy bugs waving their tiny limbs. There were several of them. They had slung banners over the edge of giant glass towers, "Survivors! HELP!"

  Below was the West Hollywood Sheriff's Station, a brick structure with many compartmentalized buildings. Was it intact? Were there cops within? It didn't look promising. The area had several burnt lots of what had been stores and park areas. Rows of cars were ashen skeletons. While it seemed like half was burnt, the other half was still intact, and it was all quite random. After the rains, the burnt areas had a melted muddy look to them.

  Dad realized they were driving past a parking structure which was in front of, reading the burnt sign, the Los Angeles Metro Transportation depot. It had a massive lot of buses and facilities right behind the two story parking lot. He wondered if they should all move here. He could see through the lot and signs that there was a vast yard of city buses.

  A bus was driven to block off the entrance but the zombies broke through the glass windows, and probably over it. There was a fight within. Probably no survivors as they didn't see anyone in the immediate area, on the facility rooftops or the sheriff building. These were much lower. A horde could easily overtake the roof tops.

  Dad saw that the sheriff's upper floor windows were broken and the wall was splattered with blackened blood. Surely the zombies overcame it sometime ago. He realized around the base of the building were plenty of dead, in piles and scattered about. There was obviously a great fight here. But guns were not effective against rampaging zombies, and the inevitable happened here as it did across the city.

  Steve looked more anxious and hopeful, sitting up as he rode slowly, glancing to and fro, seeing the survivors way up high and all the possibilities of fortification, if done right. He looked back at Dad who drove up. Zombies were coming, many fast, many limping, soon to be upon them.

  Steve turned into the sheriff station's parking lot. He drove past the burnt civilian and cop cars, between the buildings. Dad followed, slicing zombies as he went.

  Dad could see the survivors way up atop the larger building, atop the roof. He then saw zombies pouring out of the entrances, alerted now to Dad and Steve. The zombies were in the building of the survivors but couldn't reach them way up on the upper floors. Stairwells going that high up with steel doors would easily keep the zombies at bay. He could imagine them running up the stairs, hunting humans. He wondered, at what floor, all being closed, would the zombies eventually lose interest, not being alerted to anything and seeing more stairs in a hollow concrete tower.

  The survivors were definitely stuck up there with no way to come down. He saw them waving a board, “Starving! Water! Food!”

  Steve, oddly, stopped. He looked about, between the sheriff station and the bus depot. There was a solid fencing, not unlike the school. The space was much larger and industrial.

  Dad was a bit anxious. He could hear the zombies coming from behind on the street and in front of them from the walkways. If they didn't make a move soon, they'd be trapped in the parking lot between the sheriff station and the bus depot fencing.

  “This is it!” Steve yelled.

  “What?” Dad rolled up beside him, sword ready.

  “I'm staying! Here, this is it!” Steve said to Dad.

  Dad nodded. “We gather them,” Dad waved, both knowing what to do, “out front, around this building, then I'll lead them away!”

  Steve nodded. There wasn't much time. Zombies were rushing in. Dad quickly reached and grabbed Steve's shoulder. Steve suddenly reached and touched Dad's gauntlet. Both nodded.

  23. Police Station

  Dad took off, immediately blocked by some fast ones. He sliced off head after head. He slammed into several. The impact jerked fiercely on the front wheel. The handle bar got hit by flailing limbs, which pulled hard upon the front wheel, twisting it.

  A bike so twisted would easily roll, throwing its rider to the ground. Dad felt the tug then adjusted quickly. He had surpassed that kind of panic and confusion on his bike. Off he went, racing through them. He had figured out a way to hold his sword in his left hand, then slam it against the handle, and hold it there, while twisting his grip for gas. He was a knight on his war mount.

  Steve was behind him, driving in his wake. They rode around and around, gassing their bikes loudly and luring all the zombies in the area. It became a swirling mass of flowing cannibals.

  The people on the roof stopped waving. They probably thought these two dark knights were doomed. Then Dad noticed survivors in the sheriff station, behind a barred window. He wasn't sure, but imagined the sheriffs must have blockaded themselves in with the prisoners, in the secured or locked down area. They must have had prison food and water to survive this long.

  Or perhaps they were sullen zombies, staring blankly through the greased up small windows. He wasn't sure. He couldn't look long nor too clearly through his helm.

  He rode on, around the lot and off onto the street. Zombies ran crazily in circles trying to catch one of them, then the other, as both raced through. Dad sheat
hed his sword smoothly as he rode. Now with both hands in full control, he zipped in and out freely, riding and bursting through groups.

  He skidded and bounced against vehicles as he crackled glass off cars and trucks, bursting side mirrors and whatever debris lay strewn about. At this point, Steve had disappeared. It was all part of the plan. Steve drove quietly into an alley, slicing any zombies nearby and parked in the back. He was behind a store, in their fenced-in parking area. Zombies, in droves, ran past him, to the noise and bluster of Ronan the knight, calling them to battle.

  Dad could see the frenzied buzz of The Horde forming, in small bits here and there as the zombie horde condensed. He was several blocks away from Steve now, luring them further and further out. He got a sense of The Horde forming and knew it was time to go. He drove on, just ahead as the zombie wave crashed down after him. He rode along sidewalks and open spaces. He had to look ahead to make sure he truly had the open route and not some long narrow path that ended in a blockade. It was difficult but something he was used to.

  In one desperate move, he drove inside a store as the wave of zombies crashed along the street outside. He drove to the back and had to walk his bike quickly to the rear exit. He could hear the zombies crashing through the store front windows and smashing up the aisles of clothing and metal wracks.

  He kicked a fancy deco desk aside. It was light. Then he kicked the rear door open, and then stumbled himself and his bike down a few steps to the rear lot. The bike's momentum nearly threw him forward. Both slammed into a parked car. Dad was able to catch himself and his bike. He got back on as a few zombies leapt upon him. They bit and scraped their breaking teeth against steel as he rode off. He couldn't hear the screeching of teeth on steel from the roar of the crashing Horde but felt it. Or it was just a chill down his spine.

  The back alley was narrow. He had no choice but to turn down it. The other way had zombies spilling over the roof of a small store and filling the area like a dump truck garbage pile. He raced through what was mostly an open path, except at the end where there were several cars that had tried to drive to through the alley, crashing into each other. He felt a surge of panic that he had hit a dead end and wouldn't be able to make it out.