by Perrin Briar
Now, for every new undead the zombies added to their ranks, two died in its place. The zombie horde couldn’t take it, its numbers dwindling until they were no more.
There was a moment of respite as the natives and pirates took in the scene. They were still alive! And then they glanced at one another, and the heavy machines of war in their hands. They turned on one another, squeezed their triggers, and blew each other away.
This part of the battle did not take long. The surviving members were not many in number. Then, before anyone knew it, it had ended.
The Flowers poked their heads out from their hiding places. They were shocked by what confronted them in the clearing. Bodies, unmoving, unflinching, blood, smoke. The remains of a battlefield.
It was over.
But it wasn’t yet over for everyone.
Chapter Thirty-One
MANUEL was soaked with blood—other people’s blood. It was an important, and to Rupert, unfortunate, distinction. Rupert had hoped it would be his own blood he would be bathed in. And not only human blood either, but undead blood too. It was thicker, darker, and did not run like water, but like lava erupting from the Earth’s core.
Manuel stood over Rupert. There was no mistaking the malevolence in his eyes. He was here to do one thing; to end Rupert’s life. That was his goal, his course of action, and nothing would, nor had, displaced him from carrying it out.
Rupert couldn’t run any longer. He was puffing and panting through his teeth. His body ached. He couldn’t do it any longer. He had to stop.
Rupert took a step, but he couldn’t move his leg below the knee. His momentum carried him forward. He felt the crunch, heard it in the pit of his stomach. It knocked him for six. He took a step, but it was no good. His leg was no longer capable of carrying him onward for much longer. He crashed through the foliage and emerged into the sunlight.
The sea beat against the sand and hard rocks in the bay. It was a cool and refreshing sound. He knew he was doomed. So this was where his life was to end. This was where his journey would take an unfortunate turn. This was where his final chapter would be written.
It wasn’t so bad. He couldn’t have hoped for a better setting. He wasn’t the type to feel sorry for himself. But he would not go out without a fight. He bent down and picked up a length of driftwood lying on the craggy rocks and waited for Manuel to emerge. A demon he had himself helped create.
The foliage drifted like snow. Manuel had the familiar look of a predator in his eyes, the look Rupert had always coveted when he was on the other side of the fence. Now, he loathed it, hated it with a passion.
Rupert repositioned his feet to reduce the effect of his injured leg. It would allow him to swing the lump of wood with all his weight. He would aim for Manuel’s head. With any luck, it would connect and knock him unconscious. He weighed the weapon in his hands and sensed it was at least strong enough to inflict that much damage.
Rupert was struck with the powerful feelings he had for Manuel. Damn it! At some point he had grown connected to the monster he had created. He was a friend, the only one he had in this world of theirs. Tears stung his eyes and dribbled down his cheek.
“No,” Rupert said. “I could beat you, destroy your body, but I cannot murder you. I have taken enough from you already.”
He tossed the bludgeon aside, letting it clatter to the stony earth. He reached out, offering his hand to Manuel.
“How about we get over this, go back and defeat the undead freak and set this island on the right course?” Rupert said. “We’ll do it together, as we’ve always done everything. What do you say, friend?”
Manuel’s expression changed minutely, Rupert thought, a slight softening behind the eyebrows, a lowering of his guard and his anger. A return of the old features Rupert recognized when they’d first met and become close. The child-like qualities and innocence of the person he had been.
Manuel stood in front of him. Rupert was a good foot taller than Manuel, but where Rupert was tall and lithe, Manuel was thick, broad chested and strong, a tree trunk of a man. His arms were the size of Rupert’s legs.
“You can’t kill me,” Rupert said. “I rescued you. I saved you. You were nothing till I found you, I nurtured you.”
“You nothing now,” Manuel said. “You weak.”
Rupert’s eyes widened with shock. Those were the first words he had ever heard Manuel utter, and they had been to condemn him.
With tears in his eyes, his body weak, a smile perched on his face, Rupert nodded.
Manuel’s face assumed his signature mask of anger. He seized him by the neck, his movements so swift and fast that they were virtually invisible. Rupert’s eyes boggled like they might pop out of his skull.
But there, in the corner of Manuel’s eye, was a single tear. Manuel grunted and lifted Rupert up into the air, and despite being taller than Manuel, Rupert began to feel his body, and then his legs, lift up off the ground, the tips of his boots, dragging and finally lifting up.
Rupert’s throat made involuntary choking noises. There was a crunch as Rupert’s neck and vocal chords began to crush under Manuel’s incredible strength. Rupert gasped, but he didn’t fight. He had his hands clasped tight around Manuel’s thick hairy arms, thick and long, like the simian cousin he so closely resembled. He was the closest living link to our neanderthal cousins. And here he was, the living embodiment of all that history and confrontation.
Rupert’s eyes never left Manuel’s. Death came as quickly and efficiently as a squeeze and twist of Manuel’s huge muscles. A crack, and a crunch, and death was upon him.
He died with a smile on his lips, his only consolation the knowledge that he wasn’t the only creator doomed to die at his creation’s hands today. At least with Rupert’s death there came some poetic justice.
Chapter Thirty-Two
“IS IT OVER?” Ernest said.
“Is it ever?” Bill said. “But the pirates and natives no longer need concern us.”
“I’m free?” Jenny said with tears in her eyes. “I’m really free?”
“Yes,” Liz said. “You can rest in peace now. No one will come looking for you any longer.”
“But we’re never going to be free on this island,” Fritz said. “There is going to be someone out to get us, always. And one day we won’t be able to stand against them. There will be nothing we can do. They will overrun us.”
“Captain Shih was right about one thing,” Bill said.
“What?” Liz said.
“A community is the only way we’ll survive,” Bill said.
“We tried building a community,” Liz said. “It didn’t work because we don’t know who the people who will be joining us are. We can’t trust them.”
“No,” Bill said. “Which is why we have to go somewhere where we already know and trust them.”
“Where?” Liz said.
“Chucerne,” Bill said. “Our old home.”
“Are you crazy?” Liz said. “We’ll never get there in one piece! It’s halfway round the world!”
“Yes,” Bill said. “Before, it would have been impossible, but now we have a means of transport to get us there.”
“How?” Liz said.
“The Red Flag,” Jenny said.
“That’s right,” Bill said. “It alone can sail the high seas and get us to where we need to be.”
“The pirates will never let us on board,” Liz said. “And do we really want to be stuck with them on a long journey?”
“We might actually be in luck there,” Jenny said. “The people left behind will be those who the crew value least. They will be the weakest members, the ones least likely to attack us, because they’ll be the ones who would have struggled to survive in the first place. But we’ll need to act fast. If they figure out that Captain Shih is dead, they’ll sail off into the sunset and we’ll never see them again.”
“And why would they let us on board?” Liz said. “They don’t even know us.”
“Wh
ich is why we have to be sneaky,” Bill said.
“How?” Liz said.
“We just need to get on board,” Bill said. “After that, we can let our guns do the talking.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
THE OVERLORD In Black’s first big defeat came at the hands of a young boy, still wet behind the ears. This time, it was at the hands of a family. But he was still alive. So long as he lived, he still had a chance of success. Lucky number three.
The overlord had sent all his units to fight the Flowers, the pirates and the natives. It had been his hope that together they would provide him with the army he needed to wipe out the Flowers and then head out back to the mainland where he might begin recruiting for his new next super army…
Except that hadn’t happened. The Flowers had strategies in place he hadn’t known about. Uninfected were invisible to him. The natives, the Flowers, the pirates… There were just too many of them. He had once again allowed his greed to dictate his actions.
And then the angel of death came out of the jungle.
It took a moment for the Overlord In Black to recognize him. He had forgotten all about him—a sure sign the Overlord In Black was already approaching the end of his days. Normally he could recall anyone he had Tasted within a fraction of a second. The memory of their previous meeting filtered into his mind, the realization of what his appearance meant.
“No,” the Overlord In Black said. “No!”
He had few slaves under his control. All left available to him were those plugged into his body, feeding him their blood. He couldn’t sacrifice them… But then, he was going to die anyway. He felt their strength, or lack thereof. They were almost empty. But he dispatched them at the large man.
Manuel swatted them aside easier than if they were flies, crushing them underfoot. The Overlord In Black was going to die. As inevitable as the sun would rise the next day.
Killed by an uninfected, the Overlord In Black thought. He could almost laugh. Almost. If it hadn’t been so tragic he just might have done.
“Okay,” the Overlord In Black said. “Do it.”
Manuel took no pleasure in it, just as he never took any pleasure in killing of any type. He took the Overlord In Black’s head in his hands and squeezed. There was a creaking sound as the jaw and neck joints came under pressure. The skull began to crack. Manuel tensed his powerful muscles again, a wet crunching noise, and the skull gave way to his immense power.
As his eyes fluttered closed and his consciousness was lost, drifting to the four corners of whatever plane he would next inhabit, he realized with cold clarity that maybe sometimes people were just born to lose.
The Overlord In Black’s body tensed all at once, and then relaxed. It fell forward, suspended by the vines that pierced his veins. Dead.
Manuel, at a loss, turned to the jungle before him. He stood there a moment, powering down. He blinked, and it was as if his system was rebooting. A look of fear came to his features. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do. He was at a loss. What was he supposed to do with himself now? His eyes moved to the side, a thought entering his tiny mind.
He began to jog, running into the jungle and a new life.
Chapter Thirty-Four
THE FAMILY gathered their belongings and food that wouldn’t spoil. They wrapped everything in hasty sacks and strapped them to their backs. They needed to act fast.
The bloodbath was already beginning to attract undead scavengers. They would have had to fight them off if they wanted to remain here. Also, their plan would only work if the current crew aboard The Red Flag believed they were who they pretended to be. The cool darkness of night would be their ally.
They stopped on the edge of the clearing to look back at what had, for the past four hundred-odd days been their home. It had contained their hopes, their dreams, but the new world was not warm to such things. They had done everything they could to turn New Switzerland into their home, but in the end, there was no turning an apple into a plum, no turning a rock into food. Some things were just not meant to be.
They stole into the jungle, into the silvery tint of night. The jungle welcomed them with open arms and noisy background music. It had been the setting of their life for over a year and now they were leaving it behind.
They each felt a strange conflict of emotions at the thought of leaving this place. It had made them feel safe, but of course the island was anything but safe. It had thrown everything it had at them, and they had survived. Now that they had overcome their greatest challenge so far, they no longer wanted any part of this place. They wanted to be somewhere genuinely safe, a place that when they thought about the word ‘home’ was the first place they thought of. Excitement replaced fear.
“Just a little further,” Bill said. “Then we’ll be at the beach and can board The Red Flag.”
Bill pulled to a sudden stop.
What was it now? Liz thought. Would they never escape this infernal island alive? And then she saw what stood before Bill.
Manuel. Drenched in blood, dirty, looking like he had just escaped hell. For a moment, Liz thought perhaps he had somehow remembered who his original target had been. Fritz. The last they heard, he was giving chase to Rupert. Into the jungle. The monster had been set upon his own master. Presumably he had done that. There was nothing left for him to do. So what was he going to do?
Liz felt the weight of the gun in her hands. He could crush them all if he wanted. Liz doubted they could get their guns up in time before he wailed on them, even if they did manage to stop him. He would have torn this family apart, beginning with the head of their household, Bill.
But Manuel didn’t attack. His eyes only searched them, looking for someone, or something. His eyes caught on Francis, locked on him like a homing missile. He turned from Bill and approached the young boy. Bill raised his rifle to open fire.
“No Bill,” Liz said. “Wait.”
Manuel fell to his knees before Francis, who shied back, afraid. That was it. That was all Manuel did. He did nothing else, did not move, did not move aggressively. In fact, did nothing but stare at Francis.
“What does he want?” Jack said.
“I don’t know,” Liz said. “But I suggest we keep moving and not find out.”
She tugged on Francis’s hand. The family continued through the jungle. Liz glanced over her shoulder at the giant of a man. He was now on his feet, following them. He ran faster, harder. Burdened with their belongings as they were, they could not keep up the pace required to keep ahead of him. He pulled alongside them.
Manuel raised a fist, and Liz pulled back. There was the clack of four rifles in the hands of the others, aimed at Manuel. Clearly their vow of nonviolence didn’t extend to powerful figures like Manuel.
The man continued into the jungle, and then, just as an undead groaned, Manuel brought his padded fist around and slammed it into the undead, crushing its skull against the tree, pulverized. The blow had come with a sledgehammer’s force.
Manuel turned back to the family, approached them, but took no notice of their weapons. He knelt before Francis again. He appeared to be waiting for something.
“Why is he following me?” Francis said.
His voice shook, clearly afraid.
“He seems to have some kind of connection with Francis,” Jenny said.
“We should leave him here,” Ernest said. “He’s dangerous.”
“We can’t do that to him,” Liz said.
“It’s the best and safest thing for everyone,” Bill said. “And do you really want to have him at our backs? On board a ship?”
“He was only dangerous in Rupert’s hands,” Ernest said. “Perhaps in another’s he would be kinder, more gentle.”
First Valiant the bull, and now Manuel. It seemed strong powerful things were attracted to the youngest member of the Flower clan.
“Of all of us you were the last one he saw,” Ernest said. “Maybe he has some kind of connection with you.”
“I do
n’t want a connection with him,” Francis said. “He’s scary.”
“He’s no more scary than Valiant,” Liz said, though she looked perturbed. “Think of him as Valiant, but in a man’s body.”
“Valiant?” Francis said.
He looked up at the huge muscle bound man. Manuel grunted, and Francis turned to look away, scared. He turned to look at Manuel again. He reached up and put his hand to Manuel’s cheek. Manuel brought his hand to Francis’s. They were like shovels, but he was extremely delicate with young Francis’s tiny hand.
Bizarreness knew no bounds.
“We’ll have to get him cleaned up when we get the time,” Liz said. “But for now, we have to press on.”
She was wearing Captain Shih’s clothes. They were a little too small for her and pinched the skin of her upper arms. They were still wet from where she’d been shot. The getup wouldn’t have fooled anyone up close, but from a distance she might be passable.
They reached the beach and slowed down, but did not stop. The sooner they got away from this island, the better.
Liz did her best impression of walking like a man, with her shoulders instead of her hips. The others carried their loads behind her. They had changed clothes too, wearing pirate clothing. Only Francis wore his own clothes as it would have looked suspicious if they had dressed him up—none of the pirates were the same height as him.
They climbed into one of the waiting row boats and took it across the water toward the great Red Flag ship. And it was a great ship, like something from a Hollywood blockbuster movie.
A shout went up as they approached. The family clutched their weapons close. The crew were hastily rushing about their duties.
“What should I say when I get up there?” Liz said.
“Don’t say anything,” Bill said. “Just wave.”