by M. D. Massey
Three of the others withered into shriveled husks as the vyrus in their blood reacted to the light. The fourth and sole surviving subordinate vamp had also been burned, but he was still on the move. The underling snuck around behind me, then sprang at me using his vampire speed.
Waiting until the last moment, I leaned forward and donkey-kicked him into a line of metal storage shelves. Before he could recover, I pulled a long, wickedly-sharp Bowie knife, one I’d painstakingly electroplated with silver shortly after arriving in this hellish timeline. I threw the knife in a fast looping motion and watched as the blade buried itself to the hilt in the vampire’s forehead.
Turning my attention back to the coven leader, I stepped back with my right foot and spun, dropping to one knee as I slammed her hard on the concrete floor below. My light spell had already faded, but the damage was done; my captive had crippling second- and third-degree burns over most of her body. That and the concussion I’d just given her made her weak as a newborn kitten… and ripe for interrogation.
I pulled a sharpened length of rebar from my Craneskin Bag and drove it through her shoulder, deep into the concrete below. The spikes were hooked on one end like a shepherd’s crook—my own design. They served well for spiking deader skulls, and detaining vamps for questioning. I did a repeat to her other shoulder, then did the same to each arm at the wrist and each hip joint. Finally, I pinned her legs to the floor through her ankles. She cried out in agony every time, but the screams grew weaker the closer I got to finishing the task.
Satisfied she wasn’t going anywhere, I took a casual stroll around the room. The place smelled of mold and death. A quick circuit of the warehouse revealed a stack of desiccated corpses and bones, past victims of this coven. I poked around in the pile, both out of curiosity and to look for ammo and other useful items.
My search turned up a handful of .22 caliber and nine-millimeter rounds, a serviceable machete, and a Buck 110 folding hunting knife, along with a more grisly and disheartening discovery. There were child-sized bones in the pile, and an infant’s skull. I instantly regretted killing the others so quickly, but was comforted by the fact that I’d soon be taking my frustrations out on their leader.
This vamp isn’t getting off easy. No fucking way.
Strolling over to a shelf, I grabbed a warm Mexican Coke from an open case. The cap popped off with a flick of my thumb, and I savored the soft hiss and slightly acrid smell before I took a nice long swig of the sugary, caffeinated concoction. I took my time walking back to the vampire, swirling the liquid in the thick glass bottle as I examined her like an entomologist eyeing a dead beetle pinned up for display.
“Baaaaaaah,” I bleated, doing my best impression of a lamb.
“I thought we killed all the wizards,” she spat. “How are you still alive?”
Her skin was slowly healing, so I grabbed a metal chair, unfolding it and placing the crossmember for the legs under her chin. I dropped my full weight on it, savoring the creak of metal as it pressed against her throat. Between the spikes and my extremely dense bulk holding her down, she’d be hard-pressed to free herself—vampire strength be damned.
“Brrrrzzzzzzzzzt!” I exclaimed, mimicking the sound of a buzzer. “Nope, not a wizard. Only two guesses left, darlin’.”
“What are you?” she asked, with just the hint of a Texas twang in her voice. “You don’t smell like an animal, but you’ve got the strength and speed of a ’thrope.”
“Strike two,” I muttered, downing the rest of the soda with a loud belch. “I’ll give you a hint. I used to live in the capital.”
Her brown eyes narrowed, then widened as realization dawned across her face. “Druid,” she said in a hushed, fearful tone.
“Bingo! Give the bloodsucking fiend a prize.”
“Impossible—they said you died in the blast. That was the whole reason we bombed Austin. You’re supposed to be dead!”
I considered the implications of that revelation. Guess I’ll never meet my alter-ego from this timeline. I didn’t really know how I felt about that, to be honest, but I kept my face a mask.
“Well, they missed. I bet that really fucks up your week. Hope I didn’t ruin your plans for world domination or anything.” I looked her up and down, taking in her singed purple hairdo, worn leather biker jacket, razored t-shirt, sports bra, wide leather belt, black yoga pants, and high-heeled ankle boots. “Incidentally, Pat Benatar called, and she wants her wardrobe back.”
Her eyes narrowed again. “We heard stories about you in the NOLA coven. They told us to stay away from Austin, to avoid any contact with you until it was too late.”
Without taking my eyes off hers, I reached out to the wooden scales on my silver-plated dagger, calling them to me. The knife flew into my outstretched hand, like an iron filing drawn to a magnet. It was another trick I’d discovered, innovation under stress—a survival skill I’d picked up out of necessity in this sink-or-swim, kill-or-be-killed world. I couldn’t do it with metal, but anything plant-based would obey my call, especially if I handled the item frequently.
My hand snaked out as I slapped the flat of the blade against the now barely-healed skin on her cheek. She hissed, wriggling and squirming in vain to get free as the silver burned and weakened her further. I trailed the blade up the side of her face, drawing a blistered line toward her eye. I stopped short of my intended goal, leaving the metal there to sizzle against the sharp curve of her cheekbone.
Time to seal the deal.
In one quick, violent motion, I drove the point into her eye at the corner, scooping out her eyeball so it hung against her cheek.
The vampire howled. She was trying to wrap her mind around what was happening to her and failing. When you’ve been an apex predator for decades, and suddenly something comes along that’s even more dangerous and wicked than you, well—suffice it to say it’s a shock to your system. In all likelihood, the last time she’d felt this sort of pain was back when she still had a heartbeat.
I examined my work thus far, then started poking and prodding at the exposed nerves and connective tissues from which her eyeball currently dangled. Poke. Sizzle. Scream. Poke. Sizzle. Scream. It didn’t take much to cause pain when you were working with exposed nerves. She shrieked ever more desperately with each tiny stab and cut.
“What do you want? Tell me, and I’ll give it to you,” she panted. “Please!”
Pausing to wipe the blade on my pant leg, I pointed the tip at her other eye, leaning over the chair back as I let a bit of my Hyde-side show on my face. Her reaction waffled between revulsion and abject terror.
Nothing like showing the boogeyman who the real monster is.
“Let’s start with your name.” I really didn’t care, since she’d be dead in an hour anyway. But I’d noticed that asking put the vamps I interrogated at ease.
“Clara,” she said with a genuine sniffle. Pathetic.
“Alright, Clara. What I want is answers, namely about how this shit started. I want to know everything, including who was behind the whole fucked up mess. I want to know the key players, the planners, their triggermen, and who was pulling their strings.”
“I can’t! Every maker put their thralls under a compulsion to force us to keep our mouths shut. I couldn’t tell you if I wanted to, druid—you gotta believe me!”
I chuckled. It was not a friendly sound.
“Compulsions can be broken, Clara. That’s something I’ve learned through trial and error.” I let the tip of the knife drift closer to her remaining eye, causing her to flinch and squirm.
“Please, don’t,” she said in a small voice. “I can’t talk, mister. Honest.”
I frowned. “Is that so?”
Ever so slowly, I ran the tip of the blade down one side of her face, around her jawline, and up the other side, watching her skin sizzle like bacon crisping in the pan. Clara let out a little mewling whine.
“Clara, after six months in this shithole I got nothing but rage and crazy inside. So
, you and I, we’re going to work through some of my anger issues together. Believe me, it’s going to be one hell of a long day for you. But don’t you worry your pretty little head, because I’m positive you’ll give me what I need—soon enough.”
2
I was on my way back to camp and deep in my thoughts when I nearly stumbled into a sizable group of zombies headed straight for our encampment. I’d have noticed them sooner, but the evil little coven leader had turned out to be a wealth of information—although it had taken considerable time to break the compulsion her maker had placed on her. In the end, she’d given me plenty to ponder. But now, I had more pressing matters to attend.
Our camp was located on a large isthmus that extended a half-mile or so into Lake Somerville, a man-made reservoir about nine miles northwest of Brenham, Texas. I’d chosen the location because it was remote and highly defensible, as deaders could only access it via a single narrow stretch of swampy land that was partially flooded at this time of year.
We’d been there for two weeks, and thus far I’d managed to hide us from the numerous wandering hordes of undead that now roamed the countryside. Almost every populated area had been overrun by the dead at this point, and vamps roamed at night in most sizable towns, along with the odd revenant or ghoul. The cities were no longer a safe place for children, so I’d led our group out here. It was far enough away from populated areas for safety, but close enough to allow for scavenging runs.
To this point, I’d only had to deal with encroachments by lone deaders. But this group consisted of at least two-dozen zombies and, from the looks of it, some of them were fairly fresh. Probably that vamp coven driving them out this way. Damn—a herd this size might push their way through the swamp.
I’d hidden a flat boat and canoe in the trees on the north side of the isthmus just in case, but I’d rather it didn’t come to that. Finding locations where I could safely hide two dozen kids was never easy, and for that reason alone I didn’t want to abandon camp. Like it or not, I’d have to take the herd out before they made their way to our camp.
Great.
In the six months since that bastard Click had stranded me in the middle of a zombie apocalypse, I’d learned a few things about killing the undead. For one, I’d almost immediately given up fighting them with firearms. Sure, you could take out a lot of deaders with an AR-15 and a decent optic, but even suppressed gunfire would attract more dead. I’d found stalking them from cover was best, and silent kills were the rule of the day.
Like I said, getting swarmed sucked.
After stowing the huge duffel bag of supplies I carried, I strung my longbow and nocked an arrow, holding it in place by wrapping my forefinger over the shaft. Then, I snuck through the swampy woods, keeping myself hidden behind thick brushy undergrowth and the oak, hickory, and sugarberry trees that dotted the area. The woods had gone quiet, except for the low moans and shuffling footsteps of the walking dead. Thus, I took great care to avoid snapping a twig or branch underfoot as I flanked the group of undead.
Peeking around a large post oak, I spotted the last few stragglers in the group. The herd was headed north, funneled toward our camp by the gradually narrowing stretch of land that jutted into the lake and blissfully undeterred by the dense vegetation and marshy soil. Deaders didn’t much care about such things, mindless creatures that they were. Once they began walking in a particular direction, the only thing that would cause them to change course would be a high wall or a warm body moving in a different direction.
I leaned out from behind the tree and drew the bowstring to my cheek, sighting down the arrow’s shaft at the back of a deader’s head twenty yards away. The paracord silencers at either end of the bowstring, as well as my smooth and practiced release, muffled the twang. The brightly-fletched shaft hit the mark, burying itself in the zombie’s skull with a thunk. My target collapsed, falling to the soft soil without alerting its companions.
One down, twenty-three to go.
I emptied my quiver by repeating the process, following the herd at a distance and retrieving arrows along the way. Unfortunately, hunting the undead in this manner was causing me to lose arrows, as the aluminum shafts often bent as the zombs fell. Lamenting the loss of half my ammunition, I finally lost my patience and slung the bow over my shoulder so I could draw my sword.
Eight zombs left. Super easy, barely an inconvenience.
Another lesson I’d learned was that it paid to move with a purpose when taking on deaders in close combat. The last thing you wanted was to give a mob a chance to close ranks on you—better to keep them spread out and deal with them one at a time. The hand-and-a-half sword’s blade was damned near three feet long, impossible to draw from the over-the-shoulder rig in which I carried it. So, I unslung it, discarding the scabbard and rushing the first zomb as I drew the sword.
At least, that’s what I had intended. But as I started after the closest deader my foot landed in a hole, the entrance to some animal’s warren or den. Since I’d been running at speed, I continued moving forward while my right foot and ankle remained solidly lodged a good six inches underground. Oddly, I heard my tibia and fibula snap before I felt it, then I was falling face first into the mud—all the while trying in vain to stifle my screams of pain so I might avoid alerting the deaders marching through the trees up ahead.
It shames me not in the least to say that I failed spectacularly on that count. Whether it was the loud, sickening crack my bones made as they splintered or the growling cry of agony that escaped my lips, or my sword clattering against a rock as I fell, I’ll never know. What I did know was that I’d inadvertently alerted the remaining herd to my presence, and I now had eight starving zombies trudging my way.
I wondered, as I had many, many times since I’d been stranded in this hell on Earth, whether I might be transported back to my own timeline if I died here.
Fuck that—I am not going down like this.
With a thought, I began to shift into my full Fomorian form.
Even with the benefit of rapid healing in my shifted state, I still had to pull my leg from the hole and line up the bones so they could heal quickly. If I left them alone, eventually my body would figure it out, but I didn’t have time for that. With a fierce growl and much cursing, I set the bones by hand and held them in place until they knit back together.
And none too soon, since the first of the hungry horde was nearly upon me. Revenants and nosferatu steered clear of me in this form, and sometimes ghouls did as well. But zombs were too dumb to know when they were facing their end. They’d keep coming at me until I took them out.
Better me than the kids back at camp.
Early on, I’d learned that my thickened skin was nearly impossible for deaders to chew through, but they could still infect me in other ways. A stray speck of gore in the eye or a drop of bloody saliva in the mouth and I’d be fighting off the infection for weeks. It had already happened once, when I’d gotten swarmed scouting for supplies and survivors in Brenham. I’d played it off like I was suffering from the flu, but the nausea, fever, and chills had been far worse than any flu I’d ever had. Even with frequent trips away from camp to shift so my rapid healing factor could do its work, the illness had lasted for almost a full month.
Not caring to relive that experience, I hobbled over to a fallen tree and snapped off two branches as thick as my arm. Then, I began to lay into the deaders, using the huge lengths of wood like escrima sticks as I whaled on my enemies.
I struck an older man who sported salt and pepper hair, a golf shirt, and khakis upside his skull, pulping it and splattering the contents of his brain pan all over the zomb behind him.
Poor bastard, he was probably enjoying his twilight years out on the links before this shit happened. Most people plan for retirement, but nobody ever plans for a zombie apocalypse.
A young woman in an old-fashioned waitress skirt with half her face missing moaned and lunged at me from my left. With her bottle-blonde hair, pigtails,
black and white oxfords, and vestigial make-up, she almost looked like an extra from Grease. She’d likely been looking forward to a long and happy life when the shit hit the fan. Maybe she’d had a hot date planned after work—who knew?
Fuck, I hate it when I do this. Why do I torture myself, wondering what these people were like when they were alive?
I teed up and took the woman’s head off with a vicious forehand swing, forcing myself to watch dispassionately as it sailed out into the lake.
I do it because eventually I’m going to get back to my own reality, that’s why. And when I do, I’m going to rain hell down on the fuckers who are planning this. Who have planned it. Er, who are going to plan it—aw hell, I fucking hate time travel.
I dispatched five more zombs in like fashion, crushing skulls with an attention to detail that bordered on reverence. There was no telling how much these unfortunate souls remembered, or whether or not their minds were trapped inside their rapidly decaying brains. All I knew was that I’d hate to be one of them, so I took great care to release them completely, smashing their brains out rather than merely incapacitating them.
There’s one missing.
I heard a twig snap behind me. A glance over my shoulder revealed a zomb had flanked me—a tall, husky teen with a crew cut and missing nose, in a red letterman jacket that said “Burton High School Band.” This one had a little pep in his step, and it wasn’t due to his age.
A ghoul—there’s always one hiding in the pack.
That was the thing with deaders; some were trickier than others. You never knew when a ghoul might be laying low within a zombie herd, blending in so they could catch you by surprise. Ghouls were smarter, faster, and stronger than the average deader. Not smarter by much, mind you, but sharp enough to sneak around and attack you from behind.
I spun and punted the thing with a crisp mae geri that sent the creature sailing. His flight ended as he was impaled on a broken tree branch, some eight feet off the ground and fifteen feet away. Searching the area for additional threats, I came to the conclusion that the ghoul had been the last of the bunch.