Empire's End (35 page)

Ryland gurgled, tried to speak, but Clarke
put all his weight on the man’s throat, and wrenched at his head as
hard as he could, and before long there were no more words left to
say.

Ryland’s head, a chattering, pulpy mess,
rolled to the curb and was forgotten. Clarke stood up, looked back
at the Humvee.

Within, Cervantes’ mind was suddenly
assaulted by a crushing force that blinded his inner eye.

“My lucidity is... different from yours,”
Ryland’s head whispered. Clarke whirled to see Ryland’s body
writhing, churning in time with the words of the disembodied head.
His chest rose and fell with something that wasn’t breath; ribs and
flesh snapped apart. There was something inside of him.

“I used every resource at my disposal to try
and understand what was growing inside of me. What I was becoming.
And I found the words of the old gods who left their dark energy
here on our little insect-world... I found that I could be much
more than just the plague...”

Tentacles erupted from Ryland’s body and
snaked across the street to caress his head. Ryland moaned; Clarke
watched as his brains were pulled out through the bottom of his
skull, watched as the tentacles withdrew with their prize and
settled in the cavity of Ryland’s headless torso, cradling his
brain there.

Clarke heard Ryland in his head now, as if
the man had become pure thought. The brain pulsated as Ryland
spoke.

Ia! Ia!

Ryland’s body rose with the brain nestled in
a bed of throbbing tentacles. He began stalking toward Clarke.

I am more than a new flesh... I am a new
being... a new god...

Cervantes rolled out of the Humvee, clutching
his head, blood streaming from his open eyes. He rose to his knees
and saw the horror Ryland had transformed into.

He raised an M16 and let loose.

A hail of bullets shredded Ryland’s body,
sending him staggering back, his exposed brain jolting about as the
tentacles exploded outward in an effort to contain it.

No! NO! You can’t kill me! I am—

I—

A trio of bullets sailed through the night
and punched into the meat of Ryland’s brain. It flew apart like so
much refuse.

I...

Ryland crumpled, tentacles flopping weakly on
the asphalt. Cervantes’ head cleared, and he was able to think
again:
so much for the gods.
He knew they had no place in
this terrifying new world.

Clarke turned. Cervantes aimed the M16 at
him.

Clarke considered this situation for a
moment; here was meat, meat that had helped him in his mission but
meat nonetheless. Yet, that meat had a gun. And something else was
curious about that meat, something special about him that Clarke’s
bruised mind couldn’t pin down.

He turned from the soldier and walked
away.

Cervantes looked at the bite mark on his
wrist. He could sense that something was wrong, very wrong, that
this wasn’t a typical bite. Just as Ryland, whose disembodied head
continued to gnash its teeth, was not a typical zombie. Something
coursed through his veins and took hold of the cells in his
blood.

God... I’m infected.

He turned away as well, away from the fight,
from Ryland’s remains, and walked. He would need to tell others, on
the outside. He’d need to tell the world that its end had finally
come.