by Byrd, Daniel
"Makoto, what the hell?!" Alexis shouted after him, but he didn't pay her any mind. The samurai was back at the table, snatching the tape player from it as two deadmen ran towards him. Alexis took aim, but the beam from the flashlight was hindering her vision. The shot was too risky. "Makoto!"
There was a very debilitating problem with Makoto's choice; holding the tape player against the hilt of the sword in the same hand hindered his ability to attack due to the risk of dropping the device. He understood that Alexis couldn't effectively help him, so he defaulted to booting the monster's shin and tripping it to the floor while the second stumbled over it and managed to grab hold of Makoto's dead left arm as he turned to flee. Panic struck as he realized that he was trying to carry extra weight, and when she managed to make out the figure of a head nearing her ally’s arm, Alexis closed her eyes without thinking. There was a cringe-worthy sound, and when Alexis managed to will them open again, her eyes fell on the image of a blade clenched in the teeth of the zombie. Makoto had managed to keep it from biting him with a quick thought to jab the blade between the creature and his flesh, and the creature was still trying to get to his dead arm, continually biting into the blade, blood pouring from its mouth from the wounds it was taking as an unconscious compromise. Makoto tried to force it away, but the being was much stronger than it should have been, despite the position it had put itself in. Makoto grunted and strained with all of his might, but there was no getting the thing off of him easily, even as he twisted and pulled in an attempt to cut the wight's head open and retrieve the sword. The freak had an unnaturally strong bite, because it wouldn't let go. It was like a tug of war game with a dog, but this was for his life. In his strife he noticed the encroaching shadows of three more zombies stumbling in front of the beam of light as he struggled with just one.
"Not so fast, you dead-fuck-freaks!"
Makoto didn’t even have time to address whatever the hell was happening. Two gunshots violated his overactive senses and caused him to falter in his contest of strength with his relentless opponent. He was about to make another attempt at ripping the blade out of the mouth of the freak when it violently jerked its head back. Makoto was left dumbfounded as the Masamune fell from the zombie's mangled mouth onto the bloody tile. Alexis had winged the side of its head. His hand fumbled to keep a tight grip on the cassette player, though he wished it would've dropped instead. There was no beating an invulnerable creature with something so tiny, so he did the next best thing and slugged it in its grotesque, snarling face. Its back hit the floor as Makoto turned to Alexis and tossed the player to her. She fumbled, but managed to grasp it in her left hand before looking up to see Makoto's figure bending over to grab his sword from the floor. He stood upright and grimaced at the figure on the floor that was reaching out to him. For Alexis, it was a haunting scene. Makoto's silhouette raised the sword up as a hand reached up to him from the floor, and after a brief pause, the samurai brought the edge down into the creature, and the hand flopped to the floor. Makoto withdrew the blade and looked over his shoulder, satisfied with the lack of new contestants to the fight.
"Are you okay?" Alexis asked, unsure of what else to really talk about after something so intense. Her hearing was still trying to buffer, but she assumed the samurai wasn't going to give a straight answer anyway. Makoto gave his sword a swing to throw the blood from it before sheathing the weapon.
“Dead-fuck-freaks?" he inquired. Alexis just stared at his figure for a moment before realizing that the movement of his shoulders were signs of his amusement. The big guy was laughing.
"What?" she asked. Makoto approached her, his chuckling now audible.
"You are peculiar under stress, Hawkins."
"Is that the right word?" she pressed. Makoto stood beside her, back to the scene and contemplating what to do next.
"Grab your flashlight," he ordered her, "we need to continue searching."
"Are they all dead?" Alexis asked hesitantly, eyes scoping the shady bodies and limbs scattered about on the floor leading to the light. It was a gruesome scene unlike any she'd ever laid her eyes on before. She’d just survived a battle in the dark against actual zombies who had every advantage.
"Use your ears, Hawkins," he suggested. Alexis and Makoto stood silent in the aftermath of the slaughter, and as the ringing died down not a sound could be heard, yet she swore that if she listened carefully she could hear the blood flowing from the corpses.
"I will keep my eyes open, if that helps," he stated as he moved ahead of her, head shifting from the left to the right with every step. Alexis sighed and followed suit until they reached the flashlight, where she knelt down and retrieved it. Her first idea was to shine it around them and really get an idea of what they had just killed. Bodies littered the floor all around them, all gray and rotted. Never in her life did she think she'd be in a situation like this. Not specifically on a secret floor inside of her former employer's HQ accompanied by a large, Japanese samurai who spoke little words and surrounded by dead bodies, but the whole zombie part. Zombies were science fiction, and only belonged in books or on TV and movies. This was just too much, and her mind was having a hard time processing it all.
"Hawkins, if you are going to take the time to look about the carnage, you can at least play the audio tape."
"Oh!" she exclaimed as she fiddled with the device she had grasped to the flashlight in her left hand. "Right…"
Makoto listened intently to their surroundings as Alexis fumbled with the things in her hands, finally holstering her gun and pointing the light to the player. She was used to CD players, not something like this. She had to wonder if this is what the older generations meant when they complained about youth these days? Her finger finally found the play button on the side, and the audio crackled before a voice spoke calmly. Though the audio was distorted, the voice sounded foreign, but not the kind of foreign that Alexis was used to. Rather, it was foreign to this country. It was American.
"Greetings. If you are listening to this, then you managed to either avoid the trap, or managed to survive it. Either way, I must congratulate you on your success. However, I must inform you that either method you chose doesn't entirely matter, as you’ve tripped a silent alarm on the way down here, and should expect company at any minute now."
"Well, shit," Alexis muttered. Makoto didn’t pay her any mind, and continued to listen to the tape as the voice continued.
"You probably have a lot of questions. I can assure you that they will be answered in due time, assuming you're listening to all of this and not a dead or wandering body at the moment. I wouldn’t bother trying to escape, as you're stuck down here as is. You may as well get comfortable." there was something reminiscent of a laugh, though with the distortion it sounded very demonic. "That would mean that you’ve possibly killed my subject. We had spent a while on that one too. Oh well, it can't be helped. If you're alive, I look forward to meeting such a dauntless individual…or individuals. The UN couldn’t even find this room, so I had to assure that any attempts to come back here were met with fierce resistance. Tiamat Unbound hid a lot of things down here, you see. Most of those things are gone, so your meddling is rather futile. Still, if you are alive, we would like answers."
The playback ended there. Makoto began to emit a low growl, angered by the news of their fruitless endeavor. Alexis was concerned about something else entirely. "Hey, Makoto?" she began, trepidation in her voice.
"Hawkins?"
"The voice mentioned a subject…"
Makoto nodded. "Yes, and I assume we have already disposed of them."
Alexis shook her head, "No, I think he was being specific. A subject."
Makoto was growing impatient with her theorizing. "Meaning?"
"Meaning that there's something else here with us," she stated shakily, putting the tape recorder into a pouch on her side and drawing her pistol as she stabbed the beam into the dark crevices of the room. Makoto's hand was ready to draw his sword at a moment's notic
e as he tried to focus on on any unnatural sounds.
Finally, a faint, raspy noise came from the room to the side again. Makoto had made note to inspect the interior after confirming their safety, but it appeared that it would have to wait. Makoto and Alexis slowly approached the doorway, step by cautious step. A figure was moving inside the room, and when Alexis moved her light to it she illuminated another macabre individual who immediately was drawn to them. This walking corpse had spikes protruding from it, and stitching all over its body, as if limbs had been replaced in exchange for better ones. It snarled and made three steps in its advance as they prepared themselves, when something from behind the figure smashed its head into its torso with a sickening crunch. The object in question was a ball chained to a large hand, and before either of them could even begin to wonder what the hell it was, the body the giant hand was attached to emerged from the shadows, stepping onto and over the former creature. Its two heads looked down upon them, and each mouth let out a will-crushing roar.
Chapter Eleven - From Embers
Joel awoke on a queen-sized bed in a bright room. He squinted as his eyes adjusted to the daylight flooding in from the window. There was a TV on a dresser across the room. It was on, and tuned into a broadcast from a local news network. The footage was of two news anchors on one half of the screen discussing something with a man on the other half. The volume was too low for him to listen to any of it. There was a ticker scrolling across the bottom of the screen. Joel struggled to read it, and the glare from the sunlight didn't help. He was confused. He didn't remember falling asleep in the bed, or in the unfamiliar room. Where am I?
He looked out of the window. It was blurry, but there was a clock tower in the distance. It's still there. London is still here. It was just a dream.
He breathed a sigh of relief and stared at the ceiling fan. As he watched it rotate around and around again, he reflected on the rest of the dream. He was surprised he could recall so much. He remembered the perimeter that was set up around London, and all of the innocent people that were gunned down for getting too close to the British Forces. He remembered the race through the city to save his son from the bombings and the undead. He remembered the woman whom he'd saved from a horde of those things. What was her name again? Katherine, right?
He tried to move his right hand to push himself up, when he noticed something weighing it down. Someone was holding his hand, and it took him a few seconds to realize who it belonged to. Beside him, asleep in the chair next to the bed, was the woman whom he'd saved in London. It hit him. No.
He felt the weight of the world push him back into the mattress. He closed his eyes and fought back the tears. Katherine had awoken, and smiled when she noticed he was awake, but it fell from her face when she noticed his perplexed expression. He didn't know what to feel. Seeing her meant that he hadn't dreamt any of it…but London was still here. Wasn't it?
He pushed the sheets off of him, and discovered his clothing was gone. He had been stripped to his boxers. His uniform was nowhere in sight. Katherine had leapt up and was standing by the door, her face flushed.
"Where are my clothes?!" Joel demanded.
"They're drying."
"Drying?! What the hell for?! Why...how are you here?!"
Katherine turned back around, concern written across her face. "Don't you remember?"
"I remember meeting you...I think…but that was a dream...wasn't it?"
Katherine shook her head. "No. Joel, what are you talking about?"
Joel's heart was racing in his chest. "But the clock tower! London...it's all still here!"
"What?" she asked, approaching him now. "What are you talking about?"
"The clock tower, Big Ben! It's still there!" he exclaimed, pointing to the structure a few blocks away.
Katherine took a deep breath. "Joel, listen to me. That's not Big Ben. That's the clock tower of Gravesend. London is nothing but smoldering craters now. It's gone. The British Armed Forces have moved on. There have been other sporadic outbreaks in the country. Those monsters…they’re everywhere.”
Joel felt his blood running cold. His head was light, but his chest was getting heavy. "How did we get here?"
"You were in shock, and wouldn't move. I grabbed your arm and pulled, but you wouldn't stand up. You just stayed on your knees and..."
Joel knew the rest, but he didn't want to believe it. He covered his face with his right hand and gritted his teeth. "Why aren't we dead? How did we escape?"
"I finally got you to your feet, but you weren't responding to anything I was saying. I put your arm over my shoulder and started to head for the car, but then I heard the planes. They began dropping bombs on the other side of the river. One landed right on Westminster Hall. It blew the top half of Big Ben into the bridge, and sent it all into the river. I knew we couldn't escape in the car, so I ran for the river. I tossed you in and dove after you. You hit your head on some of the debris from the bridge collapse, and almost drowned, but I managed to keep you above the surface. I thought it was time to return the favor for saving me. As we floated away, I saw the planes take over the sky. It was terrifying; wondering if a bomb would fall on top of us at any second. I ended up getting knocked unconscious myself. We drifted down the river until someone on a dock saw us among the bodies. He picked us up in his boat, and brought us here. He and his wife have been taking care of us. They're really good people."
Joel was still staring at the clock tower. Now that he thought about it, it did seem much shorter than Big Ben. The brick wasn't even the same color. Then it's all true.
Katherine was waiting for Joel to do something. She was scared to approach him. He finally turned his head around and looked into the mirror over the dresser next to the bed. He was showing teeth as his breathing became quick and audible. "Joel?"
"I killed him."
Katherine's heart sank. "Joel, what-"
"I remember. I was just shooting at everything in sight. He was in the middle of them. I don't know why he was there. Maybe God was teaching me a lesson. Maybe it was His way of getting back at me. I killed the only thing I had left in this world."
Katherine didn't know what to say. It was an awful thing to say. Why would Joel think someone thought he needed to suffer anyway? She struggled to find the words, but he continued.
"They're both dead because of me. My wife, my son...if only I was around..." he gripped the sheets until his knuckles went white. "If only..."
"Joel, you're wrong."
Joel stared down at the sheets and started to laugh. It got louder, and his body jumped with each swift inhalation. Katherine backed away to the door when it suddenly opened up. An elderly man was standing behind her, staring wild-eyed at the man going hysterical on the bed.
"What the bloody hell did you tell him that woke him up laughing?" the man asked in a husky voice.
Katherine began to tear up. "The truth."
The old man opened his mouth. "Oh." He then spoke to her as if oblivious to the scene. "Well, when he's done, bring him downstairs. Martha just made a fresh pot of tea, and I think the company may do him well."
Katherine nodded. "Okay. Thank you, Mr. Elliot."
Mr. Elliot descended the stairs as Joel continued to lose himself inside the room. Katherine put one foot forward. "Joel..."
She was lost. The man she revered as her hero was now broken. He slowly swung his legs over the edge of the bed and pushed himself up. His feet hit the floor, and the laughter stopped. He stood up straight and sighed heavily as Katherine stood frozen, awaiting whatever action he would take next. He grabbed the lamp on the dresser next to the bed, gently lifting it up. Without warning, he snatched it from the wiring and sent it flying into the TV. Katherine gasped and covered her mouth, backing away from the scene. Joel lifted the night stand beside the chair and sent it over the bed into the wall on the opposite side of the room. He was in the process of snatching the mirror off of the wall when Katherine did the only thing she could think to do.
As he raised the mirror over his head, she rushed to him and threw her arms around him. Joel stood in place with the mirror above him. Katherine squeezed tighter as he lowered the mirror in his right hand and let it fall to the floor, glass fractured in the frame. Slowly, he brought his arms up and wrapped them around her. Mr. Elliot returned in the doorway, and after glancing at the scene, quietly made his way back downstairs.
Joel stared past her towards a painting on the wall. It was of the very clock tower not far from them. His vision blurred as the tears resurfaced, because the monument only reminded him of his failure in London. He pushed himself away from Katherine and stepped over to the window, where the golden sunset illuminated the streets below full of cars, all trying to leave the city.
"Joel."
Joel was fixated on the world outside of the room. Death is better than this place…it's better than living with what I've done.
"Joel, let's go downstairs. Mr. and Mrs. Elliot have been kind enough to feed us and offer us their home. We should let them see that you're awake."
"I am awake. You’re not. Look at that," he said as he pointed to the fleeing citizens below, "they're hopeless. They can run, but no one knows how to stop this. You should have left me. At least Hell is more bearable than this."
Katherine grabbed him and brought him around to face her. “Don't talk like that. Joel, you doubt yourself. You won't forgive yourself for what you did. I understand-"
"Do you?!" he shouted at her. “Do you understand?! I murdered my own son! I shot him! I put a bullet through his fucking head! Nothing will ever get that image out of my mind! Nothing will tear that sin from me! Nothing you say will fix that!"
Katherine lowered her head. He was right. Nothing she could say would help him. She held her hands to her head and walked out of the room, leaving Joel alone to turn back to the window and glare at the people below. The sun was setting, and the last rays of light faded behind the buildings. He placed his hand on the window and stood alone for what felt like an eon. The placid passing of time as he reflected on his life steadily brought his mind into a depression where not one gleam of a peaceful thought reached him. The images of his son in his arms tortured him. His hands were covered in blood in his sight, but as he blinked away the tears they were clean. I had forgotten about that. The river washed it away…