The Edge of Temptation: Gods of the Undead 2 A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

by Peter Meredith

  Jack could hear mumbled curses—they competed with the sound of a drum banging in his head. The drum wouldn’t stop. It was a rhythm of hate. After a minute, the cursing faded and there were no more crashes. He could feel the soul of St. Gregory retreating.

  Immediately, Jack went to work on the wall, not feeling the pain in his fingers as the rocks bit into his flesh. He felt nothing but the rage.

  It took two hours to dig a hole through the wall. On a certain level, Jack knew he was exhausted beyond anything he had ever experienced, and he had experienced his fair share of exhaustion. But this was different. He was so dead inside that when he finally saw Cyn’s lifeless body, he didn’t breakdown crying as he had expected.

  He’d been sure that when he found her, he’d be so overcome that he wouldn’t be able to carry on. Instead, he knelt over her, studying every soft curve of her beautiful face until the sound of birds twittering sounded. The moon sat banked well over in the sky and on the opposite side of the world, the night was no longer the deep velvet it had been.

  Dawn was coming; a new awakening.

  His power had been coming back to him little by little and when the first light of the new day crept over the horizon, Jack cut himself. Drops of perfectly red blood fell in a pattern as he walked around Cyn’s body and as they fell they formed intricate shapes. Not a drop went wasted.

  He spoke each word of the spell clearly, precisely, deliberately. Jack wasn’t about to let Cyn languish in hell, even if it drained him to death. And it was close. He reeled back in exhaustion as the broken and dirty floor beneath her body turned the deepest black and within that black was a single mote that grew until it took up the entire circle, and then the glow faded and Cyn began blinking her blue eyes.

  “What happened?” she asked. Her voice came up out of her throat in a breathy rush. She stood quickly and looked down at herself. “Am I dead?”

  “Just a little,” Jack answered, laughing at the same time that tears ran through the grime on his face. “But we’ll figure some way to fix that. I don’t know if a priest can heal a dead body, but we’ll find a way even if we have to use a voodoo priest. And then all we have to do is fuse your soul back in you and you’ll be good to go.”

  He expected her to raise an eyebrow at that and when she didn’t, he figured that she was having a little trouble controlling her body. Jack was so tired that it was a struggle to get to his feet and when he did he found that his body was shaking all over; it happened sometimes and he thought nothing of it; however, Cyn saw.

  “You’re cold? I’m cold too. Hold me, Jack. Hold me so I can feel something again.”

  “Sure,” he said, tripping on the loose stones under feet. “I honestly thought that you would have more of a problem with this. I thought you’d fret over my soul and read me the riot act.”

  “Hell changes a girl,” she answered and then held out her arms.

  Jack stopped a foot away, worried for her. “How long were you there? I mean, is time different in hell? Is five hours equal to five centuries?”

  “It was long enough for me to miss your touch.” Her arms had not dropped, they stood straight out in front of her. The embrace would be awkward and stiff and very cold. He hesitated, fearing that his reaction wouldn’t be what either of them were looking for.

  “What are you waiting for? You did this to me. The least you could do is comfort me.” The arms were still out.

  Jack took a step back, suddenly wary. Hell certainly could change a person, but Cyn wasn’t acting like the others that had been brought back. His father had still been his father and acted like it, and Dr Loret had been just as prissy as when he had been alive.

  “If you want a hug, come to me.” Jack stuck out his own arms in an ugly imitation of Cyn. She didn’t budge. She remained in the circle and now she sneered. “Who are you, really?” Jack asked. “Are you the Mother?”

  Cyn’s demeanor changed in an instant. The faux anger was replaced by something which resembled her old impish smirk. “I almost suckered you in. I nearly got the ol’ two for one deal.”

  “Where is Cyn?” Jack demanded. “I called her not you.”

  “Oh, she is down here somewhere, probably having a gay old time being raped or flayed or forced to eat her own intestines in an endless loop. I can find her for you, of course, except you’ve been so mean to me. Yelling at me and saying lies about me, and then there’s the fact that you’ve said no to me time and again.”

  “I’m sorry about that,” he answered, trying his best to remain calm. Losing his temper meant that he could lose Cyn for good. “All of that was a mistake and I’m sorry. So please let me have Cyn or…or just step aside and I’ll call her. You won’t have to do anything.”

  The Mother forced another sneer onto Cyn’s beautiful lips. “Is that the best you have? Remember what I said the last time you were so rude to me? I said you would beg on your knees.”

  Jack didn’t hesitate. He dropped down, clasped his hands together and debased himself in front of the Mother. He begged for Cyn’s soul, shamelessly.

  She let him go on for five minutes and then said: “No.”

  “I’ll give you my soul for hers.”

  The sneer turned to a look of disgust. “Are you kidding me? Her soul is wonderful while yours is a joke. It’s in pieces. It’s nothing but rags. It would probably fall apart down here and leave me with a whole lot of nothing.”

  “Then what can I do? What can I give you for her soul?”

  “You know what I want. Let me out of here! Find someone willing to sacrifice their true love. Only then will I let you use my gate to call Cyn. And you had better hurry. Cyn is everyone’s favorite down here. Her screams are simply delicious. And it won’t be long until she changes, if you know what I mean.”

  He didn’t know and was about to ask when she waved Cyn’s hand and left the body and the world.

  Just like that, the endless black of the gate disappeared with a snapping sound, becoming only dirt and rock once again. Cyn’s dead body fell as if all the bones in her body had become rubber and when she struck the ground her head knocked so hard against a rock that there was a grisly sound like a hammer striking bone.

  “Oh Lord,” Jack cried and rushed to her side. She was horribly cold and stiff…dead. “No, not yet!” For a minute, he inexplicably rubbed her limbs and blew on her hands as he cried over her.

  Then as the stiffness refused to pass and her skin stayed cold, his anger returned. He slid his hands beneath her body, picking her up. She lolled in his arms, a loose bag of bones. It was horrible. He cried and raged as he stumbled up out of the ruins of the basilica.

  The sun stood on point over the city and he let it beat into his face before he looked around him. The destruction seemed total; a few walls stood, none connected to another. The rest of the basilica consisted of jagged mounds of rock and glass. Jack mounted one a hundred feet in height and the sight below him took his breath away. The Vatican and the city around it swarmed with undead. Bone-creatures and skeletons and partial corpses in rags were everywhere, down every block and street—millions of them crushed together.

  It was a moment before he realized that these were his soldiers. This was the army he had raised. In silence, they waited on his command.

  Smack dab in the middle of the horde of dead were three helicopters sitting silent and still. In a ring around the machines were priests and Swiss guards, staring fearfully at the undead, gripping their guns and crosses with sweaty hands. The Pope was there. Jack could feel him, the light of his soul, the antithesis of his own.

  He carried Cyn to the helicopters and for some reason, seeing the priests rekindled Jack’s fury, but he stuffed it away. He had debased himself before the Mother of Demons and he would do the same for the Pope if it would help.

  The undead parted allowing him to pass through. Strangely, even the priests and the soldiers stepped aside as well as if they had been expecting him. A battle weary cardinal greeted him, speaking in
Italian, concern in his tired eyes for the girl in Jack’s arms. He led Jack to Pope Romanus, who drew the sign of the cross over her.

  “I need your help,” Jack said, keeping his eyes down. “I need God’s intervention.”

  The Pope sighed, tired and worn. “You come to the Lord as your second choice? And then you come with an impossible demand?”

  The rage had Jack shaking, but he bit back the words of acid and said: “Nothing is impossible with God. That’s what I’ve always been taught.”

  Romanus nodded. “Nothing is. But the Lord does not interfere with choice. Cynthia chose to commit suicide…and as a devout catholic, she knew the consequences.”

  Jack was suddenly in such a fury that he was afraid that he would dump Cyn on the ground in order to strangle the Pope. Gently, he lowered her and then knelt, spreading his fingers on the smooth pavement of the square and bowing his head. Through gritted teeth, he said: “That’s where you’re wrong, she had no choice.”

  “There is always a choice. A thousand choices led her here today. Just like a thousand led you to bring her here with you. Now, we are all out of choices.”

  It was a fight to keep his hand off the hilt of the Holy sword that Romanus had given him, but it was a much more difficult fight to keep the fire of anger out of his voice. “Pray. Please,” Jack begged. “If God won’t listen, pray to Gabriel or Michael. Pray to the heavenly host. There is a child in hell who is blameless and altogether good. She doesn’t belong there.”

  Romanus shook his head. He had sad, weary eyes and his hands were maroon with the dried blood of priests and soldiers who had died in his arms. He spoke in full honesty and complete compassion when he said: “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

  Now the rage had Jack in a death grip. His splayed hands scritched across the pavement, his nails bending back and peeling away as his hands balled into fists. The pain was almost welcome and the truth was that he wished with all his heart that he could feel more pain. He wished that he could take away Cyn’s pain and take it all on himself. But he couldn’t.

  “If you won’t help, there are those who will,” he said, picking Cyn up once more.

  “Do not go down that path, my son,” Romanus pleaded. “It is a false path. It is a road built of lies and it will only lead to more misery, for everyone.”

  Jack chomped down on the inside of his cheeks, tasting blood and enjoying it. He was drained of power, but that blood was a reminder of where he could get all the power he would ever need. Silently, he commanded a demon who stood nearby to take Cyn from his arms. “Do not let even a single hair on her head be harmed,” he ordered and then turned his back on the Pope.

  He strode through the crowd of skeletons, ignoring the stink and the static of their unnatural evil that hung around them in a cloud. Jack parted them and went through to the gate of the Vatican and then led his army into Rome. It was early morning and yet the city was in the throes of panic. The coming of his army, peaceful as it had been, had sent the city into a frenzy. They had abandoned everything and had fled empty-handed.

  And that was good; there were things left behind that Jack needed. He stopped the demon holding Cyn’s cold body and searched her pockets. The first thing he found was a red ponytail holder. He stuck it on his wrist, snuffled back snot and tears and went searching again. He found two candy bars, chapstick, five shotgun shells, lipstick and a whetstone, and then he found what he was looking for: her phone.

  A five second Google search showed where he needed to go and a twenty-two minute walk got him to the closest Case Di Reclusione Maschilirison—a prison for male convicts.

  The city had been abandoned; however the guards had not fled, though they seemed to be regretting it. They were hiding in their guard towers at the approach of millions of walking dead. Jack strode right up to the gate and yelled to a guard: “Open the gate or I’ll tear it down.”

  In seconds the gate was open. First one guard, then a dozen of them ran. Only three held their ground beside the iron doors, thought they all looked on the verge of wetting themselves as Jack’s army flooded the inner courtyard of the prison and flowed around the walls.

  Although Jack admired their courage, he knew he would destroy the first man who wasted his time by making a gallant stand on principle. With the insolence of a Roman emperor, he ordered. “Fetch me the worst, most evil man you have. Bring him to me or I will break down these doors and get him myself.”

  Two of the guards looked to a third, whose fanciful uniform suggested that he possessed some sort of superior rank. He wasn’t superior to Jack’s power and after a quarter second he said: “Si…si,” and fled inside.

  The other two followed after, leaving Jack alone for five minutes. He knelt on the brick courtyard, his knees crying out in pain that went ignored as he looked up at the sky and, in all honestly, pleaded: “Please, Lord, help me. Help me to get her out of there. I’ll take any sign whatsoever.”

  He waited and waited for an answer, but the only one he received was when the doors opened and a man in chains was thrust out. He was tall and thickly muscled, swarthy, scarred and tattooed. Under different circumstances, he might have been a bad man, a hard man.

  Now he cringed and cried and begged.

  “Seize him,” Jack ordered. Fifty skeletons charged and with hateful glee, they grabbed the man and pinned him down. He shrieked like a frightened child as Jack stood above him. A part of Jack saw a fellow human, a man who had made terrible mistakes but who had also loved and laughed and cared.

  “If you won’t save Cyn,” Jack cried, looking up at the heavens, “then save this man.” When the skies failed to part, he shrugged and said to the man: “It seems God is forcing us to play our parts and yours is as sacrifice and mine…mine just might be as destroyer of worlds.”

  How the knife came to be in his hand, he did not know, but its blade glittered and its edge was wickedly sharp. It parted flesh with sensual, gentle ease. If God wouldn’t right this injustice then Jack would have to do it and his way wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, his way was going to be a bloody nightmare and it would start with sacrifices to beings as black as night, beings that were desperate to rival the Mother of Demons and the Father of all.

  He called upon the Gods of the Undead.

  The End

  *******

  Author’s note:

  As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed the book and as always I humbly beg for an Amazon review and a quick mention on Facebook so that I can continue to write what I think are pretty good stories(Most people agree, except for those whose chests seize up over the occasional errant comma.)

  I am frequently in need of names for my characters and if you would like your name to appear in one of my books, please contact me at petermeredith07@gmail.com. I try to use as many fan names as possible, but if your name is Willy Willoughby, maybe just write to say hello.

  The third book in The Gods of the Undead series is being written right this moment(Yes, even if you are reading this note and two in the morning, chances are that I am up and writing!) As you desperately wait on book 3, how about you take a look at some of my other works. I would suggest my seven book series: The Undead World. Here is Chapter 1 of The Apocalypse to wet your whistle:

  The Apocalypse

  Chapter 1

  June 27th

  Rostov-on-Don, Southern Military District, Russian Federation

  Under the neon lights, Yuri Petrovich seemed a sick, pasty white, however since this was normal for almost everyone at the facility, it went unremarked if it was noticed at all. From his office, he passed through the agriculture research section—what once was the façade of the operation, and took the secure elevator to the lowest sub-basement.

  There he grunted a 'hello' to the aged guard, Beria, and signed his name on the log board. "Time for my monthly checks," Yuri said affecting a bored voice despite the tremor in his hands.

  The guard didn't look up from his magazine, a German rag that was two mo
nths out of date. "Better you than me," Beria replied, as he always did. Though the man wore a gun at his hip, he was extremely disinterested in anything concerning the facility and no one knew who or what he actually guarded.

  "Key me?" Yuri asked.

  Once upon a time it would have been a sharp-eyed and sharply dressed political officer who had to match keys to get into the White Room. Now it was only fat, put-upon Beria. He sighed heavily as he heaved himself out of his creaking chair.

  "On three," he said, taking up his position on one side of the door. "One, two, three." They both turned their keys and the door opened with a hiss. Beria beat a hasty retreat to his beloved chair, where his fat rear had only wiggle room left.

  Yuri went into the next room and donned his bio-suit, ran down his checklist, inspected his filters twice, and then went first through one air-lock and then a second. Despite his years on the job, the White Room always gave him a shiver down the spine when he entered however today the shiver went to his guts and wouldn't leave.

  "Five hundred million rubles," he whispered to himself. "Five hundred million fucking rubles…"

  This helped. And so did the fact that he knew Beria was completely ignoring the cameras. To be on the safe side however, Yuri went through the dull routine of cataloging the various strains of bio-weapons stored there and he did so as slowly and methodically as he could.

  Though it was called the White Room by the sad few who knew of its existence, it was officially unnamed and not at all associated with the Department of Agriculture housed in the building above. Instead it had grown as an offshoot of the Stepnagorsk Scientific and Technical Institute for Microbiology. It was what the Soviets had called a Biopreparat facility and thus very illegal in the eyes of the world–for good reason.