12. Vampires, the Least of Our Worries
Nick prodded Jackie’s lifeless corpse, nervous that the vampire would return to fighting strength at any moment. Thankfully, he remained pale, bloodied, and very dead. “Poor bastard. Finally gets his castle and gets impaled on shoddy roofing supplies.”
“Don’t tell me you actually feel bad for him,” said James.
“I can feel bad for someone and have no regrets.”
“That almost sounds like growth?”
The sound of stone crumbling beneath heavy bootheels stopped the conversation and both men spun to look at the gaping hole in the castle walls. Shirley and Marie strode down the rubble like a pair of conquerors.
Nick gave Jackie’s corpse a final kick and then walked over to them. “Well, it looks like you have been busy.”
Marie walked with uncharacteristic lightness as she picked her way through the rubble and into the throne room. Her eyes went from the reptilian corpse embedded in the masonry to Jackie’s impaled form. “Well, that was lucky.”
“You did that?” asked Nick. “What was it? And how?”
Marie walked across the throne room, looking up at the ceiling in awe. “There really is just a castle sitting in the middle of the swamp.”
“Did you hit your head?” asked James.
Marie turned her eyes down and smiled at him. “No, but I held my own against a rougarou and tossed it through a castle wall, so I’m reveling in that a bit. Seems fair, right?”
“A rougarou?” asked Nick before James could respond. He cursed himself for his repetitive, barely multiple-syllabic responses. Walking over to the rubble again, he could see it. A clawed hand was sticking out and the mix of scales and skin were a dead giveaway. What bothered him was a series of stitches just beneath the wrist.
“No ordinary rougarou,” answered Marie.
“Yeah,” agreed Nick. “This one has been animated.”
The door at the far end of the hallway shuddered in its frame.
“Do we have time to discuss what it was?” asked Shirley, drawing her pistol.
“No, it would appear we don’t.” Nick cursed the vampires and their vendetta. “I just thought it would take them a little more time to feel the loss of their master.” He scrambled, picking up every piece of sharp wood in the rubble and shoving them anywhere on his person they would stay put. “I think we’ve just interrupted a vampire orgy, and I don’t want to be here when they find out why.”
Lopsang loped over and did the same.
“Vampire. Orgy.” Shirley said the words slowly, waiting for clarification. When Nick offered none, she began backing away toward the hole in the castle walls.
“We couldn’t see much, but it sounded nasty,” offered Lopsang.
Shirley simply blinked at him.
“Come on Shirley, you have to be used to this by now.” James rushed over to join the others in picking up wood.
Marie went to a wall and yanked a coat of arms off it. A shield and two halberds fell to the ground. The weapons looked like they had been intended purely for decoration, but were still pointy in the right places. “These might help.”
Nick looked over at the weapons. “Not against a vampire they won’t.”
Marie shrugged. “Something tells me that’s not our only problem.”
Shirley picked her way back up the rubble to get a better look at the swamp.
Nick firmly secured as many stakes as he could and followed. The moon was sinking on the horizon and he could see a tint of light in the darkness coming to replace it. “Well, if they try to follow, they won’t be a problem for much longer.” He quickly rushed back and grabbed one of the halberds. It was heavy, awkward, and another perfect example of why he detested medieval weaponry. Early combat had put far too much emphasis on brute force as opposed to finesse.
Marie reached to her side and pulled out a shining silver tube. With an easy click, she extended it to its full length. “Ray is nearby. That rougarou has his prints all over it.”
Nick felt a tinge of worry at the lack of emotion in the sentence. Sure, he had killed a few lovers in mortal combat, but they hadn’t been lovers for very long. A marriage was another story entirely. “We’ll finish this together then.” He hefted the halberd and tried to find a winning smile through the pain the action caused him.
“Uh, friends?” asked James from the top of the rubble pile. “We have a problem.”
Nick ran to look, already having a horrible sinking feeling of what he was going to see. The swamp’s cool placid shimmer was no more. Now, hundreds of red eyes dotted the water line, rising from beneath the surface and marching with a single purpose toward the castle. He tried to count, failed, tried again, and then gave up. “That’s a shitload of zombies.”
“I believe that is the technical term.” Shirley counted the mags strapped to her arms and legs. “James.” She unclipped her second pistol and tossed it to him. “You’re a better shot than he is.”
James caught the pistol and checked the chamber. “About time someone recognized that.”
“Shut up kid, don’t get cocky.” Nick swallowed his offense knowing that while hurtful, Shirley’s comments were true.
Marie looked out over the swamp. “There,” she pointed across the trees.
The open swamp abruptly ended with a thick group of mangroves. Purple light shimmered across the treetops, flowing like an airborne river before cascading down into the group of undead rising from the waters. As the seconds passed, more bodies continued to float to the surface, struggling at first, but quickly finding their footing in the muck.
“Where the hell is he finding so many dead bodies?” asked James.
“The swamp is a great place to dump them,” replied Nick and Shirley in unison. Both stopped short and looked a little sheepish.
Lopsang joined them, holding a pointed shield in one hand and a halberd in the other. “I’m uncomfortable with how quickly that answer came to both of you. I guess we’ll talk about it later.”
“No promises,” said Shirley. “Marie, if we stop Ray, do those corpses return to resting on the bottom of the bayou?”
“I don’t see why not,” answered Marie.
“I don’t mean to be a downer, but that’s not normally how zombies work.” Nick had fought undead more times than he cared to count. In his experience, they would march endlessly until someone turned their brains to a pulp.
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“Well, we don’t have enough bullets to stop them all, but we can put up a hell of a fight,” said Shirley
Marie looked at Nick. “It will work. See that purple light?”
“Kind of hard not to.” Something was different about Marie, but he couldn’t quite tell what.
“It means Ray isn’t fully reanimating them. It’s the same as in the crypt. He’s like a puppet master pulling too many strings.”
Nick had to admit, it sounded nice, and as far as undead logic went, it tracked. “Alright, then let’s cut the strings and hope to hell it works.” Nick tested the weight of the Halberd in his hands again. It wasn’t ideal, but he’d done better with worse. An image of a rusty shield against a pissed-off werewolf came to mind and he felt a painful memory throb through his jaw. That had been an unwinnable fight, and he came out the other side.
Lopsang put a hand on Nick’s shoulder and squeezed. “This is not how we die.”
Nick looked out at the slowly approaching zombies. They were running out of time to make a decision. “You sure about that?”
Lopsang thought it over. “Well, this isn’t how I die.”
“Thanks for that.”
James came up beside him and pointed to Nick’s forearm. “Still got a few grains of sand in there, right?”
Nick looked down at the tattoo. As usual, it was impossible to tell if the sand had shifted. “God damned Vasquez couldn’t have installed a percentage meter. Alright, screw it, let’s clear Marie a path.”
On the horizon, the rising sun turned from tinges of orange to blood red, casting dim rays of light across the swamp. Steam rose off the shambling bodies as they moved through the water. At least it’s a beautiful morning. Nick took off at a run from the parapet towards the nearest cluster of zombies. He tried not to watch, but out of the corner of his eye, he saw the entire hoard shifting directions. “Their vision is based on movement!” he yelled.
“Pretty sure that’s T-Rex, dumbass.” James fired a shot a little closer to Nick’s ear than he would have liked. A zombie’s head exploded in a fine shower of black gunk. “That’s one for me, none for you.” James took up a defensive position and started firing.
“You had to start counting.” Nick ran into the water, feeling the cloying mud beneath his feet, hoping no hands would reach out of it to pull him under. He didn’t have long to worry.
The surface three feet away bubbled and roiled as a fresh member of the undead rose. Water dripped down sodden rags, splashing on the water, punctuated by the staccato fire of James’s pistol. The zombie attempted to open its mouth, but years of decay and bloated skin made it nothing more than a grimace. Red light illuminated its eyes.
“Now you’re just showing off, Ray.” Nick said it directly to the zombie, hoping the necromancer would see it in some way. Then, he swung the halberd in a wide arc, coming to bear squarely on the side of the zombie’s head. Wet flesh ripped and tore, spilling hideous, long-trapped gasses into the air. Nick did his best not to gag at the stench as his axe tore clean through the creature’s head. The zombie fell backward into the mire where it bobbed up and down like a grotesque cork.
“That’s one for me,” called Nick.
The rattle of James’s pistol stopped momentarily. “I think I’m at eight. Lost track.”
Shirley was next to him, still firing. “Will you two stop measuring for one second?”
Despite it all, Nick blushed slightly. He and James found themselves briefly unable to make eye contact.
“Clear me a path, remember?” Marie waded through the water in front of Nick, shoving her spear through a zombie’s head with ease.
In his distraction, Nick hadn’t noticed how close the hoard was. He was now within spitting distance of the front line, and the numbers were staggering. Stretching out on either side of him was a wall of slow-moving undead. He thanked his lucky stars that they were slow-moving, and didn’t seem to be terribly intelligent. It came with the territory. A few smart zombies were worth more than a hundred of their counterparts, but sometimes it was easier to raise more and hope for the best.
Marie continued through the front line, clearing her way toward the forest.
Nick moved in behind her, taking out the zombies that would otherwise be closing in. He found a group clustered close together and swung the halberd. It passed through the first zombie’s neck without incident, severing it cleanly. However, as it hit the second, the blade got caught on bone, stopping suddenly and jarring Nick’s arm.
The creature tried to turn and see what was happening but found itself stuck.
Nick held on to the pommel of the halberd, but barely. He struggled, trying to free it from the creature’s neck, but the rusted blade was stuck fast.
The third zombie took notice and turned towards Nick with outstretched arms. Unlike the other, it could open its mouth and gnashed dull green teeth.
“Oh fuck this.” Nick dropped the halberd and leveled a kick at the zombie it was stuck in.
The creature stumbled forward and fell in the direction of the weapon, weighed down by its heft.
For once, medieval weaponry gets something right. Nick reached into his pockets and pulled out two sharp bits of wood. “These would work a lot better if you were a vampire like you were supposed to be.” Nick closed the distance between him and the gnashing zombie. He leveled one of the spikes and drove it into the creature’s right eye with a squelch. Black goo shot out, hitting Nick’s shoulder and missing his face by inches. “Do you have any idea how contagious that shit is?!”
The zombie gnashed its teeth in reply and reached out for Nick’s head. Blood oozed from where Nick had driven the spike in, but the zombie wasn’t deterred.
Nick lunged forward with the second spike, hitting the creature’s other eye. Then, with all his might, he brought his palm to bear, driving the spike deeper into the creature’s flesh. “Come on, the brain isn’t that far back.” For added effect, Nick grabbed the back of the creature’s head and pulled. It brought him closer to the creature’s teeth than he would have liked, but eventually, the soft bones of the eye socket gave way and the wooden spike sunk.
The creature fell limply, floating beside its brethren.
“I think that’s thre—” A hand grabbed Nick’s ankle and pulled it out from under him. He fell face-first into the warm embrace of the bayou. Zombie blood and the corpses of the fallen floated all around him. Nick shut his eyes tight and kicked furiously at whatever had pulled him down. One of his feet hit the wooden handle of the halberd. This guy again. He continued to kick, but the creature’s grip held firm around his ankle. The best he could do was hope to its fingernails wouldn’t break the skin.
His lungs burned from the exertion. What a way to go. Of all the ways he had imagined dying, drowning at the bottom of a swamp at the hands of a particularly grabby zombie hadn’t made the list.
All at once, the grip on his ankle loosened. A strong hand grabbed the back of Nick’s shirt and pulled him out of the water. He gasped for air and opened his eyes. The red glow of the sun had turned into a golden reflection on the surface of the water. Hundreds of silhouettes moved towards him and a chorus of moans filled the air. He sucked in lungfuls of air, thankful for the brief respite from death. Then, he realized the sound of pistol fire was no more. Shirley and James were out of ammunition.
“You alive?” asked Lopsang, dropping his grip on the back of Nick’s shirt and passing him a halberd.
Nick took the weapon and watched as Lopsang reached into the water and pulled the other halberd from the zombie’s neck before stomping down and finishing the job. With the massive shield in his other hand, Lopsang made the strangest-looking knight Nick had ever seen.
“That one counts as mine, by the way.”
Nick started to protest, but Lopsang was already moving. He hefted his shield and slammed it into an approaching zombie that flew backward. Exhaustion ran over Nick in waves, undeterred by near-constant adrenaline. Looking out at the approaching zombies, he saw the inevitable, they weren’t winning this fight. “What happened to Marie?” he asked as he joined Lopsang on the front.
“Looks like she can handle herself.” Lopsang drove his halberd into the swamp, pulling it back out bloody and covered in bits of gore. “She made it to the forest before James and Shirley ran empty.”
On cue, James jumped toward a zombie in front of them with wood spikes in both hands. He brought them down with repeated fury that almost looked cathartic.
“That just feels wrong.” Nick watched the anger in James’s blows. “I think he likes being the only resurrected one.”
Lopsang brought the corner of his shield up under a zombie’s chin and knocked its head clean off. Despite the effort, he chuckled. “James does love attention.”
James stood up, panting, and moved methodically to the next zombie. “You’re just mad Shirley gave me the pistol.”
“I am no—”
A throwing knife whizzed past Nick’s ear and landed squarely between a zombie’s eyes a few feet away. “Not the time, Nick,” scolded Shirley, running forward to retrieve her knife. “We’re in a situation here.”
Nick pushed forward, swinging the halberd with increasingly diminished energy. The axe was heavy, and he hadn’t been to the gym in years. Even then, it had been to confront a demon hiding inside the muscled exterior of a personal trainer. They were so damned good at getting people to sign contracts without looking. Nick swung and missed a zombie entirely. The force of the blade coming around nearly brought him to his knees, but he managed to hang on. As he turned, he stopped short.
Behind them, the wall of zombies had closed in. There was no clear path back to the castle. “Friends, we might be in deep shit.” He looked down at the hourglass on his wrist. A grain of sand drifted lazily from the top half to the bottom half. I guess it does still work, he thought in a daze.
“Tell us something we don’t know, Nick.” Shirley let another knife fly.
“They’re behind us too.”
Shirley looked over her shoulder in a quick motion. “Shit.”
“Yeah. James, I’m officially completing your apprenticeship. It’s been a pleasure.”
James stopped fighting for a moment. “Does that count? If we make it out of here, you’re not taking that back.”
“Sure, kid, whatever you want.”
“Alright then, let’s make it a good fight.”
Nick wanted nothing more than to sleep for a week. Despite that, he lifted the halberd. “Alright, to the bitter end then. Come on you soggy fucks, who wants next?”