Now, Kansas
They swept westward like a tsunami.
Not even the smallest settlement escaped their hungry maw.
The people they defeated ended up in their stomachs or ended up joining the blessed sacrament.
A scant few ran to the west for their lives and the closest large settlement that they knew about.
Was it coincidence or design that it was the very place the Flesh Eaters were going to?
The landscape was dotted with farms.
One such large farmhouse loomed at the top of a small, grassy hill.
The fields surrounding it were overgrown.
The moon wasn’t visible in the night sky, but Michael could see well enough with the natural night vision provided by his transformed state. He heard the movements of creatures out in the darkness. They kept their distance. He smelled the iron tang in the air and putrid remains of dead carcasses leading up to the farmhouse.
“Why does it smell so bad?” Donald whined.
“Monsters or mutant animals,” Lincoln grunted.
“Yeah, I know that, but you’d think it’d smell like the fl—”
“Don’t compare the sacrament to filthy meat!” Sunny snapped.
“Okay, jeez, sorry…”
“Quiet,” Britt hissed. “I’m trying to listen.”
Several teams were gathered together. Hidden by a large oak and a dense patch of bushes. Not that any hiding place was guaranteed when you were up against Skills and spells. For all they knew the people holed up in the farmhouse already knew they were there.
The leaders argued over a plan to storm the farmhouse.
A large group of people had escaped from the last settlement they had conquered.
The chase had gone down the road a few miles to the north before a lucky set of shots had stopped two of the vehicles forcing the enemy to continue on foot.
“Michael, you have the best ears. What are they saying?” Britt whispered.
“They’re deciding who gets to go first.”
“What else? What about tactics?”
“That’s all they’re talking about.”
He listened and sighed. “All junior members are going to form a perimeter to make sure that no one escapes.”
Several of the people around him growled in displeasure.
“What? Why? This band is basically all junior members,” Donald whined.
The not so fat young man was right.
Out of the 70 or so people circling the farmhouse, only 20 weren’t considered junior members.
“Not enough meat to go around,” Sunny pouted.
“It’s fine. We earn our status. We do our best at the tasks assigned to us,” Britt said.
The leaders broke apart and gave their orders.
The woman leading the collection of teams that Michael’s was a part of wasn’t anything at all like Fred.
She was a serious-faced old woman that looked like she had been carved out of granite.
She explained their part of the plan in terse terms and left them to their devices as she and the handful of senior level members went off to begin their assault on the farmhouse.
“This is bullshit,” Donald whispered.
“Don’t sweat it,” Michael soothed. “We’ll be hitting Wichita after this.”
“I know, which is why we need to level. They don’t need to. None of us have hit ten yet.”
“Three levels in a couple of weeks isn’t bad,” Lincoln said.
“I know that, I’m just saying we should’ve gotten the chance at more if they were being fair.”
“That’s enough, Donald. We have a job to do. So quit whining and get it together,” Britt said.
“Sorry…”
“It’s fine. Just don’t lose focus. This might be our last chance at a live combat situation before the real battle and I want this team to do it perfectly—”
Any other words Britt was going to say was swallowed by the eruption of gun fire and spells from the farm house.
“I knew it,” Michael said.
The enemy hadn’t been taken by surprise. Despite the darkness they knew that an attack was coming.
Michael’s senior brothers and sisters abandoned stealth.
They transformed fully and charge up the small hill, through the thick grasses and stalks of various vegetables grown wild.
Flames illuminated the dark landscape as fireballs streaked down from the second floor windows.
Big-bodied Flesh Eaters plowed right through the enemy fire and through the wooden walls like they were made out of cardboard. The thinner, quicker ones used the distraction to scale the walls and penetrate through the windows to silence the mage-types and shooters.
The fight was short and violent.
In a matter of seconds several fires doted the landscape.
“There,” Michael pointed.
A small group of figures escaped from the side of the house and down through the tall grass.
Right toward his team.
“Lucky!” Sunny gave him a feral grin.
“No, Sunny! I see children. We take them alive. Lincoln, Charlie, go, we’ll back you up,” Britt barked.
The team sprang into action, but the time it took to give orders cost them.
Another team reached the escapees first.
Desperate shouts.
Growls, snarls.
Screams.
Gun fire.
Skills.
Spells.
Silence.
When they reached the site they were greeted by smiling faces smeared with blood.
The sweet tang on the air cause Michael’s stomach to rumble.
“Want some?” one of the other team beckoned.
“What the hell?” Britt snapped.
“Uh… offering to share, but you can just say no instead of being a bitch about it. What’s your problem?”
“Those are— were kids. Our orders are to take them alive.”
A shrug. “Yeah… so, we screwed that up. Got a little excited for the action. You can report me. I’m the lead, so it’s my fault. I’ll own it. Look, just to show that I’m not a dick or anything, your team can share.”
“No thanks.” Britt eyed her team. “You can do whatever you want.” She stalked away.
Michael followed her immediately.
“Damn it,” Donald muttered before he too left.
Lincoln and Charlie were next.
Sunny gave a disgruntled growl as she, too, joined the rest of her team.
“Thank you. You didn’t have to do that. I would’ve been fine with you staying and eating,” Britt said.
“We’re a team,” Sunny said unhappily.
“Yeah, what she said… except without the bitterness,” Donald said.
“Shut up! Fatso!”
“Whatever, midget! And I’m getting there,” Donald poked his belly.
“Let’s head to the farmhouse. Maybe they’ll share,” Lincoln ventured.
They climbed the small hill, skirting the growing fires.
The stone-faced old woman met them. She was drenched in blood though she had already returned to her human form. “What do you want?”
“Orders, ma’am,” Britt said stiffly.
“More like you’re hoping for a free bite, like the rest,” the old woman tsked.
“No, ma’am.”
“Well… there won’t be any. They had a couple of high-leveled people going by the casualties we took,” the old woman grunted. “We need all that meat to heal up.”
“Losses, ma’am?”
“Five veterans. Gone to the next world. Where prey is plentiful and the hunt is eternal.”
“Our condolences.”
“Don’t want it, don’t need it,” the old woman scoffed. “This is what we do for the sacrament. We eat or die. Nothing more. Nothing less. You young people will get it one day. If you survive that long. Eat and grow strong. That’s all that matters in the end.”
The old woman turned her glare to the spreading fire and paid them no more attention.
The next morning found them back on the road in a familiar place.
The back of the truck was an uncomfortable ride, but they didn’t mind it so much this time.
They were headed to the destination they had set out for over two months ago.
Wichita awaited.
A large city with over ten thousand people.
How many levels would they gain?
How much strength and power?
----------------------------------------
“Well… shit…”
Cal drifted high in the sky.
When he had first heard of the Meat Parade he had pictured Flo in her monstrous form. Pale-skinned, sharp teeth in a mouth much too-large, sharp claws, wiry muscles that contained superhuman physical strength.
The thought of a parade of such beings running down the street in a mad rush to cram human flesh into their mouths was properly horrifying.
Watching a convoy of assorted vehicles stretching for miles on the highway was uncannily normal.
It could’ve been a mundane militia group with their mismatched weapons and armor.
There wasn’t any sign of monstrosity. At least not physically.
The contents of their thoughts was another matter.
There was no mistake that this was the Meat Parade.
One of them.
He sensed the others traveling on different roads all coming from the east.
They were going to come at Wichita from every direction.
He couldn’t take obvious action.
The slightest misstep might alert Zalthyss, if it was on Earth, to his presence.
He flew closer to the ground miles ahead of the convoy and utterly ripped the road apart with his telekinetic power. Then he placed several spike strips taken from police stations across the roads. He repeated the actions in front of every convoy moving through the state.
The lead vehicles would get flat tires, then they’d notice the torn road. They’d think of enemy action. Of the potential for an ambush. That would make them more cautious. Slow their advance as they sent scouts ahead.
The eternal church should’ve been doing this already. It boggled his mind that their plan had been to sacrifice innocent people to slow the advance while they defended from their wooden walls.
First of all, they didn’t have enough people to defend every inch of the wall since it surrounded the entire city. Sure, they had good sight lines from the watch towers, but so did the Meat Parade.
This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.
It was either malice or incompetence and he couldn’t risk scanning deeper to find out which.
In any case a half hour’s work would hopefully give him more time to discover the truth about the eternal church. If Zalthyss was already here. Hiding, waiting.
He flew to the eastern most settlement from the city.
It was a small suburb protected by barricades made out of car wrecks and other junk.
The metal was scored by numerous cuts and gouges.
He had flown slowly and in sight, allowing the people to see him coming.
Armed men and women met him as he landed in the middle of the street.
“I don’t have time to explain. There’s something called the Meat Parade—” a burst of fear and sheer terror flooded his thoughts, “— coming down the road. Might be hours away. If we’re lucky that could stretch to a day or two. Please gather your essentials and meet up right here,” he pointed to the ground.
A young man with hair dyed a fiery red pointed a finger at him. “Yo, you’re saying a lot of weird shit, so I’m gonna have to ask you to repeat that in normal human.”
“You know Heddy? A Knox? I’m saving you cause I made her a promise. Well… actually, I said I’d ‘try’. So, one could argue that this is enough. I mean. Is it really my fault if you refused my help? Anyways,” he floated back into the air, “I figure there’s about forty people here, so I need to find a bus. It’ll be easier for you. Everyone needs to be here when I get back. You’re all racing death or worse, so please move with a purpose.”
The words, along with the slight mental push, worked.
When he returned with the bus the entire community was where he had told them to be.
“Where are you taking us?” the fiery-haired young man said as they began the boarding process.
“Back behind the walls.”
“Into the city? Fuck, bro, they kicked us out. No way they’ll let us stay.”
“We’ve got a plan. Some tricks to let you hide.”
He didn’t answer any other questions.
Telepathic walls kept most of their fear from reaching him beyond the level of whispered murmurings.
Time, practice and experience helped with that.
It was constant effort on his part, though in recent times it had gotten easier.
Although, after spending time away from large groups of people the burden on his walls had noticeably increased after reaching a city with over ten thousand souls.
That was one of the reasons why he lived 30 miles away from his family when he was in SoCal. Just him, Nila and the little guy in a shitty hotel casino.
He flew the bus through the air shielding it from being noticed by anyone that happened to look up. Which was surprisingly few. He supposed it made sense. He hadn’t seen any large flying monsters in the area. Merely mutated birds and the occasional mutated flying insect. Dangerous in their own right to the weak and careless, but nothing compared to wyverns, drakes or thunderbirds.
He brought them down in the RV park. Near his own bus.
Nila met him.
“Sorry for dropping this on you, but I need to get the others. The Meat Parade’s coming and they’re coming from all directions,” he said.
“It’s fine, but shouldn’t we warn them,” Nila said.
“The eternal church? At best they won’t listen. Since they planned to leave them out there,” he gestured toward the people disembarking the bus. “At worst they’ll want to question us and that’ll bring a whole set of new complications.”
“Where are we supposed to go now?” the fiery-haired young man scowled.
He pointed to the empty, abandoned RV’s scattered throughout the park. “Hide in those for now. Wait for Knox. Listen to Nila. She’ll keep you alive if anything goes wrong.”
“We’ll stick to the plans,” Nila said. “Hurry! But be careful. Love you,” she kissed him.
“If you hear—”
“I know. I’ll scream in my brain as loud as I can,” she smiled.
“I’m serious. It’s fast. If I’m faraway—”
“I can handle it long enough for you to get here, no matter how far you are.”
“I love you too. Take care of yourself and the little guy.”
He zipped back into the sky, dragging the empty bus behind him.
The people already knew about the incoming Meat Parade. So it only took a small nudge to get them to cooperate. It still took time for the suburbs and tent cities to gather their things and their people.
Precious time that ran out.
The Meat Parade hadn’t reacted to the broken roads and traps as he had hoped.
Instead of proceeding cautiously they did the opposite.
They didn’t slow their advance. Didn’t send out scouts and skirmishers.
They rushed forward going around the impediments with their off-road capable vehicles.
Cal got four bus loads of people back behind the walls when the Meat Parade reached the areas just outside of the city.
There were still three settlements he needed to evacuate.
----------------------------------------
“They’re here!” Knox gasped in her face as Heddy opened the door to head down to her shop.
Heddy jumped back with a scream, fumbling at the knife tucked in the back of her belt. “What the actual fuck! I could’ve stabbed you!” she finally succeeded at drawing the knife.
“The Meat Parade’s coming. They’re hours away.”
“Are you sure? How do you know?”
“This lovely young black lady appeared in my house and told me that I needed to hide our people like that guy you sent my way… Cal… he brought them into the city somehow. The young lady didn’t elaborate beyond telling me that they were hiding at an RV park near the south gate and that more would be coming.”
“How are you going to move them?”
“I have no idea!” Knox threw his hands up. “I thought Cal was going to sneak people in small groups, like four or five people at a time.”
“With the Meat Parade almost here the church will put most of its fighters on the walls… probably… less eyes on the street… but it’s still daytime. You’ll have to wait till it’s dark.” Heddy thought. Focused on this one problem. She didn’t know if she could function if she truly allowed her mind to think on the Meat Parade and what was surely to come once they reached the city.
“The alarms haven’t gone off yet. Do they even know that they’re coming? What if they don’t know?” Knox muttered curses beneath his breath as he paced in Heddy’s apartment. He snapped his fingers. “We have to wait till the alarm. They’ll tell people to go to their homes or to one of the shelters in the city center. That’ll be our window. I’ll have our people move from the RV park in small groups. They can avoid notice in the chaos. The problem is our network doesn’t have enough places to hide that many people. We were struggling to find more.”
“I can cram a lot of people in here,” she offered.
“What’s the maximum occupancy for your shop?”
“Downstairs? 40, but you can fit more if they don’t mind standing. They can also stay in my apartment. The buildings on this block are empty, but the church owns them.”
“Those are no good. They’re vacant, but someone will be alerted if we try to break in. Your plan is good, but there’s no going back for you if the church finds out.”
“That doesn’t matter anymore. One way or another my days are done here.”
In another place a hammer beat rhythmically on a heated chunk of steel.
Deandre struggled to maintain his concentration.
Hammering was normally automatic, but trying to infuse his nascent mana at the same time was akin to patting his head with one hand, rubbing his stomach with the other, all while riding a unicycle for the first time.
Still, he persevered and the metal slowly took the shape of a bearded axe head.
More importantly, he could see the mana slowly fusing into it.
He stayed at his home forge for hours, completely forgetting about the need to go to work.
Not even the blaring of the sirens could pull him from his moment of inspiration.
“They’re finally doing it,” Shrewed grunted. “There is no war in Ba Sing Se…”
“The fuck?” Trevor said.
“The alarm. The church called it late. The Meat Parade is outside the city and they’re only warning their people now.”
“I get that, but what was that other stuff, about Ba— whatever?”
“Nothing… damn kids,” Shrewed muttered.
“Danger sense picked up a few notches,” Jimenez said.
They were hiding on a roof top across from city hall.
The fourth member of their little group was currently inside, hopefully unseen.
“For us specifically? Or Dayana? Or in general cause it’s cannibal time?” Trevor said.
“Dayana… I think we need to—”
A burst of light out one of the street-facing windows sent glass shards flying.
“Get down!” Shrewed pulled Trevor down behind the rooftop wall.
“So much for the advance warning,” Trevor whispered.
He peeked over the wall and saw Dayana flicker across the street and into the alleyway on their left.
A group of armed men and woman poured out of city hall in pursuit.
“Guys, I think it’s time to go.” Trevor pulled a smooth stone from his pack. “Multi-projectiles,” he hurled it at the church fighters. One became many.
They ran for it.
Across rooftops and through alleys and streets.
The alarm provided the perfect cover.
They became just another group of people trying to get off the streets.
Several miles later they gathered in a deserted alley.
Dayana popped out of nowhere beside them.
Weapons relaxed.
“I hate you stealthy types. I’ve nearly crushed so many of you, so many different times. Then it’d be my fault,” Shrewed growled.
“Don’t worry, you wouldn’t hit me,” Dayana smirked.
“What’d you find out?” Jimenez said.
“Like Cal said. These church fuckers are dicks. They aren’t going to do anything about the people outside the walls. They’re planning to let the cannibals have their way. They’re just going to defend the walls. They think it’ll just be a simple matter of shooting bullets and spells as the cannibals charge like animals,” Dayana said.
“Morons,” Shrewed scoffed. “Their own scouting reports said that the Meat Parade was rolling over all the towns to the east. That don’t sound like the work of simple animals to me.”
“Cal thought the same,” Dayana agreed.
“What else did you find out?” Trevor said.
“The church is planning to conscript non-fighters. Everyone that doesn’t fit what they like,” she pointed to herself, “are about to find themselves armed and up on that wall.”
“Shit! That sucks!” Trevor snapped.
“And there’s another thing— it’s hard to explain, but— there’s like this music I’ve been sorta hearing in my head since we got here. It was like barely there, in and out sorta thing, that I thought I was just imagining— and, like, I heard it for real while I was sneaking through that building. Like music, but I did and didn’t recognize it.” Dayana said.
Eyes darted to one another.
No one wanted to be the first to voice what they thought or recognized in her description.
“We need to get back to let everyone know,” Jimenez said.
----------------------------------------
Hayden woke to the stench of acrid smoke.
It burned her nose and stung her eyes.
She coughed and wiped to no avail as she jolted out of bed.
Instinct called on the lightning that ran through her body like blood.
Nothing came.
Heart heart raced.
The sheets tangled around her as she tried to stand.
Hearts and cartoon ponies caught her eye.
She looked around through the smoke and the tears in her eyes.
At the stuffed ponies scattered on her childhood bedroom’s floor.
“No…”
Her voice sounded different in her ears.
“This isn’t how it happened. There was no fire!” she snarled with all the rage at a memory she had long buried.
The night the spires had come.
A gremlin clawing at her.
Tangling up in her sheets as she thrashed and fought desperately.
Worried shouts from her parent’s bedroom next to hers.
An eternity as a small, strong monster, clawed and bit at her.
Her father and mother rushing in. The former roaring with desperation while he battered the monster
But what she tried to forget the most was the sound of her baby brother crying in the next room.
Until there was a wet sound followed by silence.
She heard the song then.
No.
The music.
Discordant strings.
Melodic ones.
Back and forth.
As if struggling to determine who would rule.
She recognized it.
It was new to her.
Moment by moment it changed.
Maddening.
She called on her power.
Nothing.
Only through me will you prevent this.
Words in the music.
No.
Music in words.
A feeling.
Certainty in knowledge.
Both.
Neither.
Open yourself and be freed from the cage of your memories.
Her bedroom wall and part of the roof ripped open with a cacophony of music.
She screamed in genuine terror.
The young girl’s voice filled her with disgust.
She had been so weak.
Why had her parents saved her instead of her brother?
The question haunted her.
Their deaths had forever sealed the answer.
Let the light of my song fill you.
Golden rays of light cut through the smoke and smothered the fires.
Wings unfurled as if to embrace her.
She felt the warmth.
Comforting.
Soothing.
“Hayden! Wake up!”
Her eyes snapped open.
Sleep to wakefulness in an instant.
Lighting crackled around her.
Nila’s armored hand held her by the front of her chest plate.
“Wha—” she was pressed to the back of the bus.
A burning smell and smoke filled the interior.
Amber was sheathed in her colored mage armor as she beat at the fire engulfing the couch.
Hayden had been taking a nap on it. She remembered.
Jayde and Marci rushed to open windows.
At the front of the bus, Monsignor cradled the crying toddler. A barely-perceptible yellow glow surround the pair.
“Stop. It. Now.” Nila’s voice was hard as steel.
“I—” Hayden scowled. The instinct to attack welled up within her. As it always had since she had lost everything she had known. She had learned that the only way to avoid pain was to inflict on your enemies before they did it to you. Then she realized that the toddler’s clothes were singed. The fight went out of her. “Sorry. I don’t— I— what happened?”
“I knew that you had issues with your powers and your temper. A little bit of static or a tiny jolt was one thing, but this…”
She couldn’t look at the smaller woman’s eyes.
“I… it was a dream.”
She explained everything that she had seen.
Nila remained angry, but that became mixed with concern as she told the woman about the golden wings, the song, the light.
“I didn’t mean—” she began.
Nila cut her off. “You have to be in complete control when you have the kind of power that you do. You almost killed my s— the little guy. If I had been any slower or if Monsignor didn’t have the ability to heal…”
“It won’t happen again. I’ll be ready for the enemy the next time it happens.”
“You’ll need to start sleeping away from others.” Nila turned to the others. “Anyone else having dreams with golden-winged figures and strange music?”
No one else raised a hand.
“I have been feeling a sense of… pressure,” Monsignor said. “Like all my doubts pressing in on me from all directions. Whispers hidden in— a song I can’t remember.”
“Does this mean that Zalthyss is here?” Amber’s voice was a horrified whisper. “Right, Cal warned us about this. He’s started his attack. Will we be next?”
“That isn’t certain,” Nila said. “You can’t let the fear— that’s what he wants.”
“The voice or song… or whatever, I can’t remember, but I think that’s exactly it. Like a bullshit, join me or suffer deal,” Hayden said. The exact details of the dream were vague and continued to slip from her grasp as the seconds passed.
“Easy then, if you find yourself in a horrible nightmare, just reject whatever the golden guy is offering,” Marci laid a hand on Amber’s shoulder.
“Perhaps faith and prayer will help us fight this temptation,” Monsignor said.
Dubious glances.
The woman sighed. “I don’t mean you have to be the same as me. I’m just suggesting you hold on to whatever it is you believe in. Basically, be true to yourself.”
“No, yeah, that’s good,” Marci nodded quickly.
Nila regarded Hayden. “I’ll let Cal know. And don’t be too hard on yourself,” she sighed. “He’ll be fine.”
“Guys! We’ve got a problem!” Jayde called from outside.