Cultwick: The Wretched Dead

by J. Stone

  “Almost there,” Alan commented with a heavy breath.

  “Just gotta get him inside,” she replied.

  They passed a few rebels armed with rifles, as they entered the building and made their way toward Rowland’s lab. Pearl, however, spotted Germ going in the opposite direction.

  “Germ!” she shouted. “Where are you goin’?”

  “Ah, Madam Hicks,” he replied, looking befuddled. “We’ve had to move to a bigger area. Master Rowland has been seeing to too many injured to fit into his laboratory.”

  “Jonathon was hit,” she explained. “We’ll need to follow you there.”

  “Right,” he commented. “I’ll show you the way.”

  Germ hurriedly walked through the hallway taking several turns through the factory, until they arrived at an emptied out hangar. Cots were spread throughout the hangar room, most of which were occupied by injured rebels being attended to by whatever staff was able. Pearl and Alan sat Jonathon down on one of the beds, while Germ went to find Rowland. Germ soon returned with the professor who lifted up the bloodied cloth and quickly looked at the wound.

  “Can ya help him, Professor?” Pearl asked.

  “Of course,” he succinctly stated. Rowland picked up a syringe and injected it directly into the wound at Jonathon’s neck. Immediately, the flesh began to knit itself back together. After a few moments, Rowland took the cloth and wiped away the remnants of blood, leaving behind a healthy, normal looking neck.

  “Is that it?” Pearl asked.

  “He will need to rest, but he should recover,” Rowland said.

  “Yer pretty handy,” she remarked.

  “Not nearly enough,” he replied before walking away to tend to other patients.

  After a brief pause, Alan asked of Germ, “What was that about?”

  “Master Rowland has lost a considerable amount already,” Germ said. “It seems it is starting to wear on him.”

  “Anything we can do to help, Germ?” Pearl asked.

  “We can manage, ma’am. Besides, aren’t you supposed to be helping Madam Clover with one of the turrets?” Germ replied.

  “Shoot!” she exclaimed. “I should really get back there. She can’t man that thing on her own.”

  “Come on,” Alan said. “I’ll make sure you get back there alright.”

  “Good luck, Germ,” she said, as the two of them left the makeshift hospital room.

  Alan and Pearl left the factory and began the trip back to the turret. They hurried through the streets, not wishing to abandon the rebels stationed at the front lines of the battle. It quickly became clear that isolated groups of corpsmen had made their way into the town, and Pearl realized she was unarmed. Her shotgun was still back at the turret, and Alan had left his rifle behind. If they were to run into one of the groups of corpsmen, she thought, they could have trouble dealing with them.

  Her fears were actualized, when she spotted a slow moving group of corpsmen crossing a street two blocks away, their shiny black helmets reflecting the light of a nearby building fire. She and Alan both attempted to stop, their feet skidding on the loose rubble encompassing the streets. The noise caused by their abrupt stop attracted the attention of the corpsmen, however, who immediately opened fire on the pair. Pearl pushed Alan into an alleyway, and they both fell to the ground behind the cover of the buildings.

  “Come on,” she said, standing back up.

  When she looked down, Pearl saw that Alan had been shot. Blood leaked from the side of his head onto the dirty road below him. His eyes, however, were still open and looking up at her. The gunfire continued, and it was nearing her position. She knelt down and brushed her hand over his face, closing his eyes.

  “Sorry, Alan,” Pearl told him, as she left him for the meandering back alleyways of the city.

  Pearl ran to the end of the alley, where she was met with a tall brick wall. Behind her, she could hear the sound of the corpsmen following her, so she looked for another option. Hanging haphazardly off the side of one of the buildings was a ladder leading to the roof.

  It being her only option, she began to scale the rickety rungs of the ladder. She neared the top of the building, when the corpsmen turned the corner and opened fire on her. One of the bullets whizzed by her, brushing her hair back, while another collided with a section of the ladder that bolted it to the wall. The ladder came free from the building, and she, along with it, fell backward. She crashed onto the top of the building behind her, while the ladder cracked in half and fell down to the alley below.

  After landing on the roof, an explosion blasted near Samuel’s factory. Looking in that direction, she could see the Dreadnought Prime being driven out of Pendulum Falls and dropping a series of bombs on the town. As it headed east, she knew that the turret would lie directly in its path.

  Pearl stood and walked to the edge of the building, where she could look out over the town. She spotted the turret, where Erynn was, but her heart skipped a beat, as she watched a bomb drop from the Dreadnought and explode near the gun. Even at her distance, she was knocked back, and she fell to the roof, shielding her eyes from the blast.

  Once she stood up again, she returned to the edge of the building to inspect the damage. The troop of rebels that had previously been lined up along the wall was completely wiped out. The turret itself appeared to have been badly damaged - the walls were cracked, smoke was billowing from the top of the structure, and the cannon had been knocked loose from the weapon.

  She looked around for a sign of Erynn, but Pearl didn’t see anything to indicate her location or condition. Even Tern was nowhere to be seen.

  She began to look for a way back down, so she could go look for Erynn, when Pearl heard a shrieking cry from the alleyway she had been in. Cautiously peering over the edge, she saw a group of corpsmen gnashing and clawing at the soldiers that had chased her. The attackers ripped off their targets’ masks and spewed a black, vomit like substance into their faces. The attackers soon backed away, and as a group, all the corpsmen got up and left the alley together.

  Pearl looked back to the turret, where Erynn had emerged from the turret and found Tern in the rubble of the explosion. She was soon fired on by a group of closing in corpsmen and Erynn and Tern were forced to retreat back into the turret.

  It was then that a strange thing began to happen to the corpsmen. Though no one was attacking them, Pearl could see them recoil in pain, as blood spurted out from them. They fell one by one, until the corpsmen surrounding Erynn were all dead on the ground.

  Erynn could be seen peeking out of the turret, inspecting what had just happened, but she looked just as confused as Pearl was. She stepped out, holding Pearl’s shotgun, and began to walk toward the bodies with Tern following along behind her, when a woman with long black hair appeared. Erynn stopped and took a single step back, but the other woman continued toward her pointing a finger out toward Erynn. She stopped, once she was an arm’s length away, placing her finger to Erynn’s head. After a moment, Erynn collapsed, but Tern caught her before she landed on the ground. The woman, meanwhile, had vanished completely from Pearl’s sight.

  Pearl found a series of stairs leading to the ground, and she quickly descended them. She hurried toward Erynn, but before she could get there, a motorbike charged loudly toward her. The woman driving the rackety vehicle, stopped the motorbike, skidding its wheels, and she aimed the long barrel of a gun at Pearl and fired. She was hit with a small pin that discharged a painful burst of electricity through her body.

  She fell to the ground with a spastic thud, as her limbs contorted and jerked from the shock. Erynn was close enough to have witnessed the attack, so she stood and started to run toward Pearl. Before she made it far, however, she toppled over and dropped the shotgun, grabbing her stomach in pain.

  Gritting her teeth, Erynn issued a command to Tern, “Help… Pearl…”

  Tern complied, and he began to run toward Pearl. The woman on the motorbike, however, aimed the same weapon at
the automaton and fired again. Tern was able to gracefully dodge the pin, as it came barreling toward him, but a second shot was launched that connected with him. His frame went rigid, and his body came crashing to the ground.

  “Ha! Great for people and automatons,” the woman cheerfully noted, getting off her vehicle.

  The woman had long black hair that ended just after her shoulders and flapped with the wind. A pair of goggles was strapped on and resting on the top of her head. Around her eyes was a thick layer of black eyeliner and her lips were covered in a dark lipstick. Seemingly indifferent to the cold, she wore a short, low-cut, gray shirt that exposed both her stomach and chest. Over the shirt, she wore a black, leather jacket that covered only a bit more of her skin than the shirt did. Under the jacket, a pair of shoulder holsters peeked out with a pair of pistols strapped inside. Her pants were made from a shiny black material, and they were exceedingly tight on her legs, showing her every contour, as she moved. On her feet, she wore a pair of hard leather boots with a metal tip over the toes.

  Pearl attempted to stand, but another wave of electricity was discharged through her system.

  The woman grimaced and said, “Eh, I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. That little dart is pretty clever. Every time you struggle, it’ll just give you another chunk of volts.”

  “What do ya want?” Pearl asked, looking up at the woman from the rubble.

  “Friend of yours sent me,” the woman explained. “Well, not friend, so much as a creepy guy that wanted to, and I’m quoting, ‘reacquire’ you. And not sent, so much as paid me to find and return with you.”

  “Who would want me?” Pearl asked.

  “Not really sure,” she answered, stowing the weapon in a back compartment on the bike. “I only met the go-between. He was the creepy one. No idea how creepy the guy who sent him was. That’ll be your problem soon, but I’m guessing he’ll be even worse.”

  The woman pulled a tether from the back of the vehicle and dragged it toward Pearl. She then wrapped the cord around Pearl’s wrists tying them together. Pearl vainly struggled, as the woman picked her up, slinging her over her shoulder, and carried her to the motorbike.

  As the woman sat Pearl down on the seat, she instructed, “Now if you behave we can make this easy.” She flipped a switch at the side of the bike, and the loose tether was quickly sucked back into where it had come from, tightening around Pearl’s wrists and pulling her close to the bike. “In case it wasn’t clear. That’s the easy way. Hard way is I knock you unconscious occasionally and you risk a lot of brain damage. I don’t recommend it, frankly.”

  Pearl gritted her teeth from the tightly restricted tether around her wrists and the dart still lodged in her chest that was occasionally shocking her.

  “I’ll take that as a vote for easy. Good,” her attacker declared.

  Still appearing to be in a great deal of pain Erynn stood and pulled her pistol from her waist. Shakily, she aimed the barrel of the gun at the woman, as she sat back down on her motorbike with Pearl behind her.

  “You’re not really going to try that are you?” the woman asked. “You can barely even stand, much less aim right. You could hit your friend here. Not willing to risk that are you?”

  Erynn closed one eye and attempted to steady her gun with both hands. Sweat dripped down from her brow, and she heaved several heavy breaths in the cold, winter night. The woman started up her motorbike with a kick of her boot and twisted the grip of the handlebar. She smiled derisively, as Erynn ultimately dropped the gun and fell to her knees, trembling.

  “Thought so,” the woman said, beginning to drive the vehicle forward.

  As she was taken away and out of Pendulum Falls, Pearl looked back only to see Erynn collapse to the rubble.

  Chapter 9. Fiona and the Slaughter

  Fiona had left the two corpsmen, Ethan Dalton and Harrison Clark, as well as the former mayor, Thaddeus Bowden, in Pendulum Falls for use on a rainy day. She knew that the Cultwick Empire had sent a huge army of corpsmen to attack the city, and Fiona felt that was justifiably rainy. Newton had, after all, indicated that this would happen in one of her visions.

  Fiona had also sent one of her sisters to assist in the efforts at Pendulum Falls, Hillary Verdan. While it was true that Hillary had been completely paralyzed by her accident, it was also true that Fiona’s infection had granted her and all the other sisters a gift. Hillary’s ability manifested itself in the form of a telekinetic power. At the time of her infection, Hillary could not move anything below her neck, which meant she was completely unable to move. With the telekinetic gift, however, she was able to control her body with a power of mind over matter.

  Hillary was a relatively young woman when she was injured in the accident, but with her time spent in Bedlam, she had grown old. Her straight, black hair had begun to turn gray at the root, and her freckled face was riddled with wrinkles from the onset of time. Fiona fully intended for Hillary to live out her remaining days free of any restraints or restrictions.

  Ethan and Harrison emerged from their shelter, staggering toward the front lines of the battle. Thaddeus, meanwhile, left for the factory, where she had acquired Malcolm Connor, knowing that the Chromework Confederacy was operating out of there.

  Her two corpsmen soon arrived at a group of soldiers firing upon a building on the outskirts of town. The corpsmen gave them no pause as they arrived, allowing Ethan and Harrison to knock off the soldiers’ masks, remove their own, and vomit a black bile into their faces. In a matter of minutes, the unit, which was twelve strong, was in her possession.

  She split the unit up into several groups. One, led by Ethan, continued on to find another group of corpsmen that she had seen further away from town, Harrison’s group wandered south where they had heard an explosion, and she sent two to follow Thaddeus to the skyship factory. Hillary, meanwhile, moved on her own.

  Filling the wintery night sky were dozens of skyships from both the empire and the rebels. Hillary felt that among the best way to acquire more minds for Fiona was to take down one of those vessels. She levitated herself into the clouds and landed on one of the Cultwick skyships, preparing to gorge herself on the flesh of the empire. The deck of the ship was covered with corpsmen operating high-powered guns that littered the sky with bullets.

  “Add them to my collection!” Fiona shouted from within her sewer tunnel.

  Using the powers of her mind, Hillary twisted each of the guns around on their operators, and the corpsmen were all knocked back by the swiveling gun barrels. With the guns reversed, Hillary mentally pulled each of the triggers firing bullets into the men and the ship itself. The rifles were so powerful that they not only killed each of her targets, but actually tore through the men and into the sides of the skyship.

  “Whoops,” Fiona said, as the skyship began to crash.

  Her mind moved to the southern team, who found a small contingent of soldiers walking away from the large turret that had been set up on the southern border. The turret had been destroyed, and she presumed it was by them. Harrison and the other five corpsmen attacked this small unit. Harrison lunged at the largest one, tearing at his neck and sinking his teeth into the man’s flesh.

  “Alonzo!” one of the other men shouted.

  Fiona quickly discerned that the one Harrison had infected was Alonzo Bishop, a young and boisterous explosives expert and the man responsible for blowing up the turret. Bishop was led by a corps veteran named Sergeant Silas Skinner, and Fiona discovered that he would be a more difficult target than most, when Silas dispatched all of her pets, including Harrison.

  “Bully!” she shouted in her sewer tunnel.

  “Check him,” Silas instructed to one of the other men.

  Though Fiona controlled Bishop, she decided to have him play possum and not move. The other man held two fingers to Bishop’s neck, but his pulse had stopped when Harrison had ripped out his neck.

  “He’s gone,” the man announced.

  “Then let’s
move,” Silas instructed. “We’ve got a job to do.”

  Fiona recognized that his goal was to reclaim the Dreadnought Prime from the skyship factory where it was being held. Due to this, she switched her focus to Thaddeus, who was hiding just outside the factory, but he had been joined by the two corpsmen she had previously sent. In addition, four more Cultwick soldiers that her pets had acquired on their way there joined them. She sent four of the corpsmen to the skyship itself as a last line of defense against Silas, and sent the other two soldiers to find more pets. Thaddeus was sent on a separate mission inside the factory.

  In the air, Hillary had abandoned the ship and jumped over to another. The first skyship had collided with the earth and was roasting in flames. Fiona sent some of her disposable pets into the fires in an attempt to collect the salvageable corpsmen.

  On the second ship, Hillary mentally sliced a gash in her palm and watched as the blood spurted out. Rather than fall, however, the blood rose as was Hillary’s bidding. She then flung the blood around the ship at such a high velocity that it penetrated skin and body armor of the corpsmen on board. In one fell swoop, Hillary brought more than two dozen men into the fold. Hillary moved on, while Fiona sent the corpsmen below decks to bring the vessel down. She needed more men in the field, she had decided.

  Fiona checked on Ethan Dalton and his team, as they made their rounds through the Cultwick battle lines. They had converted sixteen more to her cause, and the infection was beginning to rapidly spread throughout the army.

  Back to Bishop, who had been abandoned by Silas and his unit. He stood and walked toward the factory as well, in an attempt to catch back up with his team. Several rebels passed her way, but Fiona instructed Bishop to let them go. Her quarrel was with Cultwick, not the confederacy. Besides, she had only just collected Alonzo Bishop, and Fiona wanted the matching set. Through Bishop’s memories, she knew the names of Silas’ whole squad - Donald Dooley, Larry Priest, and Robert Lawless.