_______________
You have a choice of where to head to first. Will you run off in a random direction and help who you can, or will you go directly to the people you know and help them first?
A) Random. B) The police station. C) Vivian's place. D) Mikki's parents. E) Your old job.
A ten second timer popped up while I was still reading the options and another warning appeared below them.
Warning: Your choice will have severe consequences.
Goddammit. I thought as the options disappeared.
_______________
Mikki made the decision for me by going downtown to where the most recent broadcast was made. It seemed like a good place to start to her, so that was where we went. When we turned onto the main road, we noticed that there was no power to any of the buildings. The streetlights were still on, which was a bit weird.
Mikki slowed down the jeep as we approached the spot where the news van was still parked. There on the ground next to the rear tire was the camera, as well as what was left of the cameraman. That was something I had forgotten to tell Luke. The zombies in the real world didn't make more of themselves by biting people and turning them into zombies. They just eat whatever they can get into their mouths.
There was also magic involved, because the zombies didn't get bloated or filled up, no matter how much they ate. It was a quirk that I hadn't seen in years and I had forgotten it. There was no time to call him at the moment, though.
We stopped just short of where the police vehicle was and started to get out, then Jillian took the initiative and shot a zombie that was gobbling down the remains of the police nearby. Mikki quickly loaded me into my wheelchair and I looked up at her as she passed me my sawed-off shotgun.
“You push and reload when I need it and I'll shoot. Deal?” I asked.
Mikki nodded her assent and strapped the machete to her hip, then we headed down the street locked and loaded with Jillian expertly shooting any zombie she saw. Her marksmanship was spot on as she picked them off with head shots. To say there wasn't much left of the heads after an M-16 round was an understatement. The bullet fragments as soon as it hits flesh and spreads out. In dead flesh? It was like an explosion.
I really needed to get one of those.
I noticed a few things as we moved slowly down the street and started taking out the single zombies we could see. Apparently, a shotgun blast to the chest of a zombie didn't leave much left. The biggest thing I noticed was that there were no blockades on the roads or alleyways and nothing was cordoned off by the police to protect the civilians. There were no safe areas where someone fleeing could rest and reload their weapons, if they had any.
As we moved, I felt a tingle move down my spine and felt a familiar pull. I motioned to Mikki to turn me around and noticed an overturned car on a side street with a group of three zombies trying to get inside to what looked like an unconscious woman and a child.
“Left.” I said and claimed the single zombie on the left side of the car. Jillian nodded as I switched to my handgun and then we opened fire at the same time. We knocked down the three of them with perfect head shots, which made a bit of a mess on the car and the street. We weren't concerned about that. If they were flesh eaters already, it might take them only a minute to get mobile again and to come after us. We had gotten their attention away from the car, at least.
I turned on my cell phone to check the charge, which I should have done right from the start, while Mikki and Jillian rescued the mother and her kid from their seat belts. Hopefully, we would be long gone before any more zombies showed up or the ones on the ground roused themselves. I called Luke to tell him about people not turning into zombies if they were bitten, and there was no answer.
“Dammit.” I said and started to tell Mikki and Jillian about how I had felt the zombies nearby before seeing them, when my phone rang. “Hello?”
“Thank God I finally got you.” A man's panicked voice said over the phone.
“Sanchez? You sound...”
“I've been trying to call you at home for the last ten minutes. Where the hell have you been?”
“My phone was off and I'm downtown right now, trying to help with the zombie situation.”
“Good. Forget the downtown. They're just the stragglers. Get your ass over here to the police station.”
“The police...”
“Geezus, David. Don't argue. We need your help down here!”
“I'm crippled, Sanchez. I don't think...”
“I don't give a rat's ass what you think. You are my supernatural expert and we need that expertise right now!”
“I was dismissed. The letter said...”
“Are you really going to let a piece of paper stop you from helping people? You're already out here breaking the law anyway, so shut the hell up and get over here!” Sanchez nearly yelled and hung up on me.
I looked up at Mikki and thought about telling her about the other side of the conversation, when she said that she heard what Sanchez had said and agreed with him. We were out there anyways, so we better get there, fast. Jillian just put her hand on my shoulder and nodded. I looked at them both resolutely and came to a decision.
“Let's drop the woman and kid off at the hospital on the way. It's going to be bad enough out here without having to worry about them, too.”
We quickly made our way back to the jeep and Jillian loaded the mother and child into the backseat and got in herself. Mikki put me into the passenger seat and my wheelchair in the back. We drove to the hospital for a short pit stop on the way to the police station and Jillian helped the EMTs get the woman and kid onto stretchers. Thankfully, there weren't any zombies near the hospital, so we had no trouble dropping off the mom and her child and getting them the proper medical treatment that they needed.
Jillian hopped back in and Mikki drove us at a faster speed than I thought was safe. We rounded the corner on the road to the police station and found out that Sanchez was right. All the zombies downtown, even though there seemed like there were a lot of them, were just the stragglers, because the main body of the zombie horde was advancing on the police station. They were essentially laying siege to the police trapped inside.
Mikki didn't hesitate as she stepped on the gas and tried to drive her way through the mass of them. The crunching and squishing sounds were loud as the jeep plowed into the mass of dead bodies. That didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I felt another familiar pull of power, just like I felt before, and I now knew that it was my affinity with the dead.
My power recognized these shambling monstrosities and wanted to join them. The pull was so strong that I reached for the door handle to get out while the jeep was still moving at a fairly high rate of speed. In fact, I rolled out of the open door and hit the pavement hard enough to scrape up my arms and hands into a bloody mess as I caught myself and started to roll.
Mikki hollered my name at the top of her lungs and jammed on the brakes to stop. She shouldn't have, because now the jeep was pretty much stuck in the middle of a mass of zombies. I finished rolling and stopped on my back, only to look up and see a dozen or so corpses looking down at me. For some reason, I wasn't scared. I had no fear that they were going to eat me.
I didn't fight against them when they picked me up by my armpits and hung my arms over the shoulders of two of the zombies. I didn't try to struggle from their grip because I couldn't get away anyway. Like I had told Luke, zombies weren't superhuman strong. They just have no inhibitors to stop them from hurting themselves when they use every ounce of their normal strength.
At their touch, I felt the familiar pull even stronger; but, there was something wrong. I was missing something essential and I wasn't sure what it was. I looked down at my bloody hands and remembered when I had felt the power before. It was when I had raised Alfred Anders as a zombie earlier that night. I had felt something like a ritual being performed and now I knew what had happened.
Someone had raised an entire army of the dead.
The zombies around me were only a small group and it looked like they were trying to prevent me from going to the police station while the rest moved on. I looked back down at my scraped up hands and I knew that they couldn't stop me. My blood was a very powerful magical cocktail, even in small doses, which was why I spend the time to perform the ritual to crystallize it. It was worth the time and effort to not have to bleed myself out every time I had to raise a zombie.
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The zombies holding me up had noticed the blood and didn't move to take any or tried to bite me. It was then that I realized that none of them had eaten flesh yet. I smiled and flared my power intentionally and drew their attention to me, then I placed my bloody palms on their heads and whispered part of the zombie raising ritual. I felt a connection to them immediately and they became 'mine'.
In a desperate move to try and control the situation I was in, even though I didn't have any kind of ritual circle, I pooled as much blood as I could in my hands. I flung it at all of the zombies around me as I spoke the same magic phrases as if I was raising them from the grave. I was only slightly surprised that it worked so well. Desperation was like that and would let you justify pretty much anything.
As each drop of my blood fell and touched each of the zombies, I felt the lines of power between us grow and increase in strength. It felt so wonderful that I had to pause in my work and let myself adjust to the feeling, before I let it overwhelm me. I continued and soon had a dozen zombies in my little entourage, then two dozen were at my beck and call, and I pulled on them like batteries.
I remembered doing something similar for the were-cats during the last full moon, so I used the zombies and took their power to add to my own, added my power to theirs, then sent it back again. I cycled it through several times and the power built up and up until I couldn't contain it any longer.
I need more! I thought to myself and sent a pulse of power out to the mass of zombies in front of the police station. I felt all of them, both outside and the few that had found a way inside, and yelled at the top of my lungs. “STOP!”
Every zombie around the station, in the station, and down the street stopped. The police didn't notice right away and continued to fire into the mass of bodies crowding the doorways and windows. I felt so connected to the zombies that I could almost feel the bullets passing through their dead flesh. Just like them, it didn't hurt. Nothing could hurt me like this. I almost laughed as I pushed that crazy thought aside.
_______________
You have a minor choice to make. Will you keep your friends close or push them away?
A) Tell Mikki and Jillian to stay by your side. B) Tell them to leave you alone and go to safety.
I'm pretty sure I can word it much better than 'leave me alone'. I thought and sighed mentally at how Mikki was going to react at my choice. It has to be B.
_______________
I spoke out loud to Mikki.
“Sweetheart, could you go over to the police station and tell them to stop firing at the zombies? It makes them irritable.” I said in a calm voice.
Mikki gave me an incredulous look.
“It doesn't hurt them, since the bullets just pass through; but, they can still feel it.” I said. I didn't add that I could, too. She didn't need that kind of motivation.
Mikki widened her eyes slightly and nodded, then she quickly made her way towards the cops in a circular route. She wanted to make sure that she wasn't going to be shot by the cops she was trying to warn. While she weaved through the zombies and over to the police station, I pushed out another pulse of power, focused it on the zombies, and spoke normally. There was no need to shout as they all turned towards me.
“Don't fight. Leave the humans alone.” I commanded them.
The zombies turned their heads towards Mikki, Jillian, and a few of the police officers almost at once.
“Them, too.” I clarified and the zombies almost looked defeated as they looked back towards me. What kind of ritual was used to give them this level of autonomy, even though they're half rotted and shambling? I asked myself.
Without a second thought, I received my answer. Images like a badly recorded movie ran though my head and showed the ritual I had just asked for. It was very similar to what I used, with one major exception; there was a human sacrifice. Well, actually it was a were-cat.
I didn't know who it was and the thought that came to me in answer was that it didn't matter. Life gives death the semblance of life, apparently. For some reason, I didn't shy away from the zombies, even knowing someone had to die to give them life. I thought about it and realized that it wasn't their fault, that whoever did the ritual was at fault. If I could save these zombies from a ‘life' like this, then I would.
I turned to Jillian, who was just standing beside the jeep with her mouth slightly open as she stared at me. “Jillian, I'm going to tell the zombies to come to me. I can't do that with all the cops in the way. Could you go and tell them to move out of the way and not to attack the zombies when they move?” I asked in as sweet of a voice as I could manage. “Oh, and tell Mikki not to worry about me and to stay here.”
“How will you know when I tell them?” Jillian asked, looking puzzled.
I glanced at the two zombies holding me up and was about to tell her that I could feel through them, when she started to protest about what I was doing and made a movement toward the group of zombies around me. I think she thought she was going to 'rescue me' from them and my anger bubbled to the surface and started to kick in and spread out to the zombies.
I couldn't see their faces from this angle; but, the zombies around me must have been reflecting my feelings pretty well because her face blanched a little as she was surrounded by dozens of angry faces. She looked at me and nodded, then she went in the same direction that Mikki went.
I closed my eyes and I concentrated hard on all the zombies as I focused my attention on the ones closest to the police. Through a dozen or so eyes, I only had to wait a couple of minutes before I saw Jillian holding Mikki back after telling her and the police what I had said. I didn't wait to see when she would break free of Jillian's restraining grip. I pushed out another pulse of power and told the zombies to come to me, both with my mind and with my voice.
Some of the police gasped as all the zombies immediately turned at once and started walking back down the street towards me and my group of zombies. I could barely see Sanchez off to the side. He was looking after his boss Rick, who had been bitten on the arm a few times and was bleeding pretty badly.
I took my cell phone out and called him. I could have called him before and gave him both messages that I had given Mikki and Jillian; but, I had wanted them out of the way and out of danger.
“Sanchez.” The sergeant said.
“Hi, Sanchez. It's David.” I said and lifted my hand and waved to him over the heads of the zombies.
“Jesus Christ, David!” Sanchez said. “You're really doing this?”
“Don't use the Lord's name in vain, Sanchez.” I joked.
Sanchez couldn't help but laugh. “Goddamn.” He said. “How are you doing this? They're all leaving!”
“Actually, I'm not sure that I have total control. That's why I had Mikki and Jillian tell you guys not to attack when they moved again. There's no telling what they will do. I can only guarantee the ones directly around me, since I've... ah... bloodied them. I can't say the same about the ones down the street near you guys.”
“Oh, crap! Hold on, David.” Sanchez said.
He must have put his phone in his pocket rather than put me on hold, so I focused back on the zombies coming towards me and felt that some of them were still inside the building.
“Stanton, stop that! Get away from them!” Sanchez yelled, then I heard a stifled scream and a bit of banging, then nothing. “David?”
“Yeah, I'm still here.”
“Stanton's hurt bad. There are a couple of zombies banging against the barricade over the door to get outside and he decided they needed help ‘leaving'.”
“Oh, shit.” I said.
“Yep. He figured they would need a good hit to the head and tried to give them a hand. He got one down and then they... took his arm.”
“Sanchez, I'm really sorry.” I said.
“Hey, it's not your fault.” Sanchez said.” It's not like you sent these things.”
I gasped. I kid you not.
Sanchez took that as confirmation that I had had nothing to do with it. “If you'd had anything to do with it, being accused as a prime suspect wouldn't have been such a shock to hear.”
“Jesus Christ.” I said, except I wasn't using it in vain. It was a prayer. I remembered the serial killer case Luke and a bunch of his reporter friends had been working on, with the list of victims that I knew, and I now knew what the real connection was. It wasn't that I knew them at some point in my life, it was that they had hurt me personally at one time or another during my life.
That was an emotional hit that shook me up pretty badly. More of the zombies shambled around the ones already gathered near me to try and get closer to me. If I didn't know any better, I could swear that they were trying to comfort me.
“David? Are you okay?” Sanchez asked. “Hello? David? Are you there?”
I must have been quiet for some time. I looked down at the phone I had completely forgotten about and held it to my ear. “Sorry, Sanchez.”
“You sound really shaken.” Sanchez said. “I'm the one who should apologize. If I had known you would take that comment so hard, I never would have said it.”
It was a hard thing to hear, but I composed myself. “That's okay. It was just... a hard dose of reality.”
“Yeah, I guess it would be.” Sanchez said. “So, what are you going to do with all those things?”
It took me a moment to realize that he meant the zombies. “I'll take them back to where they belong.”
“And where exactly is that?” Sanchez asked, disbelief in his voice.
I looked at the two holding me and felt them respond with the longing for the earth that they came from, just like Alfred Anders when I had ended the ritual. They wanted to be put back to rest, too.
“I can't tell you where right now; but, I'll know it when I find it.”
Sanchez sighed. “David, I can't let you just wander around the city with an army of the dead while you look for somewhere to bury them.”
How do you plan on stopping me? You couldn't stop them without me, so how would you stop both them and me? I asked myself while I composed what I should really say.
I wasn't sure what had been going on with me lately and the messes I've been involved in. If anything, I was pretty sure that all of this power was starting to go to my head. That was not a good thing.
“I don't have to wander around.” I said into my cell phone. “I can't explain it. It's just... something I know I can do. I would ask for a police escort; but, I doubt you guys are up for it right now.”
Sanchez laughed in spite of himself and the situation we were all in. “Alright, I trust you. Just make sure that you call me as soon as you get these things back to where they are supposed to go.”
“Consider it done.” I said. “Oh, before I forget, tell everyone that was bitten that they aren't going to die and become zombies. That only happens in the movies. All they might get is a nasty infection. Human mouths have more germs than any other animal and these things have been in the ground for a while.”
“That's a fucking relief.” Sanchez cursed and I thought I heard him holster his weapon.
“Let everyone know will you?” I asked and ignored the implication of him having his weapon out and his boss beside him with several zombie bites. “You better tell the news stations and the newspapers, too. We don't want a rash of suicides by bite victims not wanting to become zombies, or a bunch of people being mobbed and killed so that they won't turn and become one.”
“Damn, that's a really bleak outlook you have there.” Sanchez said. “I like it.”
I chuckled. “More like it's realistic.”
“Yeah.” Sanchez said with a sigh and a bit more than a trace of guilt. “It is.”