The Apocalyse Outcasts

by Peter Meredith

  Winded and shocked about how easily everything was falling apart, Sadie knew she had to get out of sight. Down the hall, there was a door and she ran to it and prayed: “Please God!” as she turned the knob. It was locked. She banged on it and screamed, “Open up! I’m human. I’m human!”

  The zombies crowded from both directions and one was nearly on her when the door opened and she was yanked into the room.

  Her ghoul mask had been knocked to the side and she couldn’t see who was around her or what was going on, but she heard with perfect clarity: “It’s one of them. Kill it!”

  “Stop! No, I’m human, look.” She pulled up the mask to show them. There were six Believers in the room and they all breathed a sigh of relief. Sadie did as well. Though none of them had guns, they were all armed in some manner.

  “Why do you look like that?” a woman asked.

  Sadie touched her shawl and then forgot the question altogether as she remembered the zombie bite. She turned her arm over…”Oh thank God.” Because the nights were still chill, Sadie had worn a long sleeved shirt and a hoodie beneath her robe. Counting the shawl, she had four layers of clothes on and the zombie’s bite had only gotten through three.

  “Thank God?” one of the Believers questioned. “Don’t you mean, thank the Lord’s prophet?”

  “Yeah,” Sadie agreed while her eyes flicked about. She was in a long room with many desks, each aligned precisely with its neighbor. Upon each was a spinning wheel and spools of white yarn. There was a second door across from her; Sadie broke for it, leaving the Believers gaping.

  They had been momentarily confused by the zombie attack and by her outfit, but she knew she was likely three seconds from being recognized, maybe not as herself, but definitely as an outsider. Perhaps out of instinct alone, they rushed after her, but she was speedy fast and was through the door with a ten foot head start.

  They stopped at the doorway and would not go further, and for good reason: more zombies. Sadie booked past them, flying at an unnatural speed. One even had her dead to rights. It came from another corridor and was already moving at an angle that couldn’t be cut, but she kicked into a gear she didn’t know she possessed and scraped by with only the length of a fingernail separating them.

  Her mask blew off the top of her head and without it her zombie-shawl was useless so she let it go. A door opened to her left and a man appeared looking both ways. “In here!” he cried, waving her in.

  She was out of options and she rushed in, pulling her robe tight around her throat and sliding up the sleeves of her hoodie that were peeking out.

  “Was there anyone else out there?” he asked. She thought about the group trapped in the spinning room, but she shook her head. They would have to take care of themselves. He glanced out from the protection of the door once more and then pulled his head back in looking dejected. “We’re falling back to the Exorcism chamber…I’m starting to think we should never have left it.”

  “Oh, yeah,” Sadie said, keeping her head down.

  “Come on.” The room they were in was for storage. He walked her to the back where another door stood open and from there they went down a wide hall. A number of believers were working at the end of it, stacking chairs and boxes and really anything they could to block it up. There was still a small opening at the side and they squeezed through—Sadie reluctantly.

  She was supposed to be finding Neil, something she had foolishly assumed would not be that difficult. There was no sign of him, or Grey or Eve or Sarah. The only person she recognized was Abraham. The false prophet came storming down the hall surrounded by women in blue robes.

  Sadie hurried past the barricade and found herself in a large open room whose main feature was a white stone pyramid rising up in its center. The room had a gut-churning, nasty smell to it.

  “I have been betrayed,” Abraham said in a carrying voice. He looked around the room, his eyes blazing and his fists clenched in outrage. The two hundred or so Believers that were there refused to meet his eyes. Every last one of them dropped their chins and stood looking down at the floor, quivering in fear of his rage. Sadie did as well, though she snaked looks left and right, hoping to see Neil and Captain Grey among the people.

  “Betrayed and abandoned! Where are the rest of the Sisters? Why didn’t any of them come to my aid?”

  “They may be dead, my Lord,” one of the Sisters answered. “The halls are being overrun. They probably didn’t escape.”

  “They didn’t escape? They didn’t escape? I find that hard to believe. Look up there and tell me what you see?” He pointed at the pyramid. Sadie didn’t see anything special, but the Sister’s eyes went wide at what she saw. Abraham began nodding and smiling nastily. “That’s right. She escaped. She slid right out of her chains and waltzed right to my suite and took Eve! She took my Eve and then she escaped!”

  Sadie gasped at the news. Sarah had escaped with Eve, which probably could only have happened with Neil’s help. That meant Sadie was wasting precious seconds listening to Abraham whine. As casually as she could, Sadie glanced back at the hall she had come in from—she couldn’t go that way. It was mostly blocked and there were twenty people she’d have to fight her way through.

  “Yes my Lord,” the Sister was saying. “I’m sorry my Lord.”

  “Yes, you are,” Abraham agreed. “You will all be sorry, for the Lord God has wrought this calamity upon you all for your lack of faith. That is His message! We shall stop these hell-spawned creatures and we shall rebuild and the Lord will demand more out of each of you. He shall demand sacrifice!”

  “Amen!” the Believers cried. Sadie mouthed the word and then glanced to the other two exits. These were also blocked.

  Abraham went on, strutting in front of his followers. “This chamber is to be renamed and rechristened. Henceforth, it shall be known as the Sacrificial Chamber!”

  “Amen!” they echoed.

  “Sins will no longer be forgiven or even tolerated. No longer will your soul be purified by fire. From now on your soul will be sacrificed for the greater good!”

  “Amen!”

  Amen? Sadie couldn’t believe her ears. They just said amen to being sacrificed. She had to shake her head at the crazy that was all around her.

  Abraham lifted his hands up high and said, “The sacrifice will begin now, with her.” He pointed right at Sadie who thought that she had kept herself hid pretty well behind a tall man in front of her. “Who are you?” Abraham asked.

  Sadie froze with her chin down, hoping that he had pointed to someone else, but she had been the only one moving, the only one glancing from side to side, the only one that stood out from the rest. People drew away from her as though she was diseased. Finally one of the Sisters came up with gun drawn and Sadie looked up at Abraham.

  His eyes went wide. “You! I should have known. I should have…but, but it’s ok. It all works out. You will be the perfect person to christen this chamber. Sister Jill? Go see if the fire is still lit.”

  His eyes shifted to the pyramid and now Sadie saw the smoke drifting up from its peak. Her knees gave out.

  Chapter 42

  Neil

  New Eden, Georgia

  Despite being shot twice, Captain Grey had enough energy left to slap some sense into his companion. His hand was hard as a rock and when he slapped Neil in the face, it had the same bracing effect as being hit with a canoe’s oar. Neil blinked and wobbled his jaw around on its hinge and a headache began to thump in his temple, but he also shut up, which was the main purpose to the slap.

  A human voice in the midst of so many zombies would spell the kind of trouble that no amount of vaccination could cure. If Neil had kept up his blabbing, as Grey always called it, the beasts would have torn him apart. Thankfully, the zombies were too preoccupied by the fleeing Sisters and charged after them in their usual reckless manner so that Neil only had to worry about getting trampled to death.

  In the most realistic manner he could contrive, Ne
il moaned and forced himself to his feet. He stood over Grey, bracing himself against the wall and although he was small, he was coordinated and balanced, and managed to keep from being bowled over by the masses of undead.

  They came on like a wave, the ones in back pushing forward relentlessly, but also mindlessly, reacting with all the forethought of a stampede of rogue elephants. At one point a zombie tripped, causing a massive pileup and for a moment the wave became a trickle. Neil took full advantage; he reached down, grabbed Grey’s arm and pulled him across the corridor to one of the intersecting halls, leaving a long red smear in their wake.

  A couple of dozen zombies watched this with something like interest. Here was what seemed to be one of their own, dragging another zombie. It wasn't in their version of normal and they charged.

  “Oh shoot,” Neil hissed. He pulled harder, his face turning red beneath the layer of grey makeup. There were a number of doors opening onto the hall and he went for the first one and once there demonstrated a very human action by reaching out and turning the door knob. The zombies, who had been befuddled at the concept of one zombie pulling another, let out a howl of rage and charged.

  “Shoot, shoot, shoot!” Neil cried, hauling the very heavy body of Captain Grey into what was only a simple bedroom and then throwing his weight against the door, slamming it in the face of the zombies. The beasts raged against the door, trying to hammer it into pieces to get through. It shook with each blow, but it appeared well constructed and Neil turned his back to it and looked down at Grey.

  His neck and left shoulder were covered in blood; his outer zombie gear was tacky with it. What worried Neil more was the hole in his chest and the way Grey's breath came out sounding like a series of weak hiccups. With fear growing like a branching weed in his chest, Neil dropped to his knees and ripped open Grey’s zombie shawl. He unbuckled the clip to the M4 strap and then yanked Grey’s BDU top open, sending green buttons flying and then he stared for a moment.

  “Get…it…off,” Grey said. The soldier was wearing a stiff, black armored vest that was indented right above the sternum. Neil fumbled the Velcro straps off the sides and then lifted the front plate section over Grey’s head.

  “Let me see,” Grey demanded trying to lift his head up to see how badly he was hurt, but couldn’t because of the wound in his neck.

  Neil pushed his head back. “Just a second,” he said, pulling out his knife and splitting Grey’s undershirt up the middle. The man was so heavily muscled that he looked to have been chiseled out of stone, yet he was still flesh and bone. His breastbone was an angry red and there was a blue-black wheal dead center.

  “Huh,” Neil grunted.

  “How bad?” Grey asked. Already his breathing was calming and his face looked less pale.

  “Your chest isn’t bad at all,” Neil said, leaning over the soldier and inspecting his neck wound. There was a chunk of flesh torn away from the muscle that connected his neck to his shoulder. It was bleeding like a bitch, in Neil’s medical opinion.

  Grey tried again to look at his chest and again Neil pushed his head down. “It feels like my sternum is cracked in two,” the soldier complained.

  “Well, it’s not.” Neil cut away a strip of Grey’s shirt and stuck it in the neck wound and then squeezed as hard as he could. The soldier glared. “Don’t blame me.” Neil said. “I didn’t shoot you. I’m just trying to stop the bleeding.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  When his right got tired, Neil switched hands. A minute later he switched again, but not before peeking under the bandage. “Almost. You have to tell me what this promise was to get you to come down here. It had to be pretty sizable to go through this much pain.”

  “I promise I’ll smack you upside the head if you ask again.”

  Neil laughed quietly. “I doubt you’ll be smacking anyone for a while. Maybe if you had said you’d kick me…”

  Gunfire out in the hall shut him up. The zombies stopped their pounding and seconds later someone began screaming. It went on for half a minute. Neil started to unsling his shotgun, but Grey said, “No. There’ll be a hundred stiffs out there now and you only have five rounds.”

  Secretly relieved that he wouldn’t have to put the delicate threads of his bravery to the test so soon after everything that had just happened, Neil went back to compressing the wound. It took a couple of minutes for the bleeding to stop and all the while Grey remained stoic. When the bleeding drew down to only a trickle, Neil, directed by Grey, cut another strip from his shirt and tied it down over the wound, running it beneath his right armpit.

  “It’ll have to do,” Grey said, with a grimace. “Man, I can still barely breathe. You should take the vest.”

  Neil was eager to, however he made a show of declining the offer to prove what a manly-man he was. Thankfully, Grey insisted and Neil put it on under his zombie outfit. He stood and stretched, getting a feel for the weight.

  Grey was slow to get up. “Alright, we’ve sat around jerking off too long. Let’s get moving, Hero.”

  It seemed rather insulting to be called “Hero” after Neil had probably saved Grey’s life and he was just about to become indignant on the matter when he saw the steady look in the captain’s hazel eyes. The man actually meant it!

  “Yeah, let’s uh…drop our socks and, uh grab our cocks,” Neil said feeling his cheeks grow warm.

  “You got that backwards,” Grey pointed out. When Neil made to restate the old military saying, Grey put a finger to his lips and opened the door. The hallway was littered with blood and bodies.

  “Which way?” Neil asked.

  “We got a trail of body parts, which way do you think?” Grey led the way. He was once again buttoned up and dressed as a zombie, though his gait was now extremely stiff. He swung his right arm out from his body, while his left he kept tucked up tight, clutching his chest. He wheezed instead of moaned.

  “I’ll go first,” Neil said in a whisper as he passed the soldier by.

  They followed the human wreckage, seeing fingers and hands, a scalp, and a dozen corpses, but what stopped Neil in his tracks was when he looked down on a Halloween mask. “That was Sadie’s.”

  Grey said: Humph. “I think those China-boys made more that one of these.”

  Neil wasn’t listening. Instead he pulled up his shawl and pulled the two-way radio from his belt. “Sadie are you there? Sadie this is…” Grey snatched the radio from his hands.

  After squinching his face from the pain of the sharp move, Grey said, “Did you forget everything I taught you? They can’t hear you underground and even if they could you never use names. Please!”

  “Fine, no names, but we still should try. This is Sadie’s mask, I know it. Look on the inside. That’s mascara. No one in New Eden uses makeup. To them it’s like a sign of not being humble or something.”

  Grey saw the makeup. “Yeah, ok, but I’ll do it. You’re too emotional. Green this is Blue. Come in Green. Green this is Blue. Come in Green.” He tried this for a minute before turning off the radio and handing it back to Neil.

  “We have to hurry,” Neil said, frantically. He was about to go running off when Grey took him by the arm.

  “No, we go slow. We go steady. We go by the book or you endanger all of us. Now, stay behind me.” Regardless of his words, Grey pressed on at a dangerous speed, passing slow moving zombies. With the carnage as a guide, there was no need to backtrack or stray away from the corridor and within three minutes they came up to a mass of zombies.

  Ahead were shouts and screams and sporadic gunplay, indicating a battle was in progress. Neil caught Grey’s eye and pointed at himself and then pointed ahead. He wanted to reconnoiter alone, but Grey shook his head. They both went, Neil taking the point because Grey couldn’t use his strength without moaning in an all too human way.

  The zombies surged forward and back like tides against a breaker and Neil was at the point of exhaustion when they finally got to the front. There they were confronted by what resembl
ed a great pile of trash heaped into a mound. There were overturned desks and broken tables and mattresses, and what looked like a washing machine. And there were corpses, real dead ones, everywhere piles of them. The zombies were dying by the score, but there were so many that it would be anyone’s guess who would win the battle.

  The Believers had formed a human barricade around their prophet in the aptly named Sacrificial Chamber.

  They were fighting as hard as they could, killing the zombies with grim efficiency as they straggled up and over the mound. Many of the Believers were dead and many more were injured and would turn into zombies in the next day or so but they fought on, sometimes with nothing but their fists.

  Grey pulled Neil close and whispered, “We have to find another way around.”

  Neil shook his head and pointed with a trembling hand. In the center of the room was a white pyramid and at the top Sadie was being chained to a stubby pole. Abraham stood directing some of his Believers who were bringing up armloads of wood.

  “They’re going to kill her. Grey, we can’t let them.”

  He had been loud but because of the fight only Grey had heard. Still the soldier put his finger to his lips. He then started to climb the mound. Neil tried as well but was waved back. Grey stopped at the top and took in the entire room in one long sweeping glance.

  “Follow me,” he said when he came back down. Wincing in pain, Grey pushed through the zombies until they were free and fast marching down the hallway alone.

  “There are about two hundred of those crazy Believers in that room and each one will be happy to lay down their lives for Abraham. If we go in there we’re going to die.”