The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

Hearing his name, he pointed to his chest and said, "Hod."

John gently took hold of the caveman's hand, brought it to his own shoulder and said, "John."

Hod replied, "Ohn."

Placing his hand on the Athenian's shoulder he said, "Prometheus."

Hod pressed his lips together, moved them around and
attempted
several times
to say the name of the Greek man, but gave up and placed his hand back on John's shoulder and said, "Ohn."

Titus stood in the center of the room and announced, "The good Gunnar Benwa would like to take a small group out under the cloak of darkness to help us gather supplies. He needs some volunteers to assist him."

From the position near the windows, Gunnar continued, "For some reason, the messages we wrote on their streets have had the opposite effect of our intentions. The descendants have moved away from the areas with our
writing,
instead of embracing the message
,
as though they are afraid of what we had to say. However, we can use this to our advantage and go to
those
areas and scavenge for supplies with little concern of attack."

Prometheus stepped away from door and said, "I will accompany you into the city."

A man wearing a motocross jersey, pants and motorcycle boots with his neck slightly out of alignment with his shoulders
,
spoke up. "In my land, if we had a formal message to give, we used the language of pictures
,
instead of the symbols the men from
Greece
wrote."

Titus asked, "And good sir, what shall we call you and from where do you hail?"

The dirt bike racer rolled his head toward his shoulder
,
which let out a loud crack. "I am called Nemi of Egypt. The upper kingdom is where I have my home and make my trade bringing bails of cotton up the river of life."

Constance
joined the conversation. "I believe
,
Mr. Nemi
might
have a point. If the living cannot understand our writing, perhaps a simple language of symbols and pictures could
transfer
our intentions more efficiently."

Gunnar appeared to think about what the others suggested and pointed to Jennifer. "History teacher, what do you think?"

"I think
Constance
may be onto something. Simple pleasant pictures
might
show the living we are not here to harm them."

Princess Rachel spoke up, "I am adept at telling stories through pictures. It
might
be of some benefit for me to accompany this group out into the streets."

"There we have it." Titus announced. "Gunnar shall lead this group back out on the streets of this fine city to gather needed supplies and convey our message to the descendants in another form."

* * *

General Brown stood in front of the unit of police officers in the alley of a downtown street. "Congratulations, you're
now
all property of Homeland Security, enjoy the ride. I'm sure you've seen the videos all over the Internet. These round ups go pretty much by the book. No resistance, no trouble, they simply
gather
to get away from the smoke and like cattle, they'll move into the truck. For some reason, they like to come out at night and scavenge through the abandoned buildings. This makes them an easy target."

One of the officers raised his hand and asked a question. "Is it true they are taken to an island in the Pacific, where are allowed to live freely."

Brown gave a smile and shook his head thinking how gullible the public had become. "We've set up close to thirty thousand fake profiles on all kinds of social media sites. We're the ones spreading those rumors
of this ideal quarantine to keep the disease from spreading. There's no island, no secret utopia. These re-ans are housed on military bases all over the world. Trust
me;
they're never going to leave. Most of them can't survive the medical and scientific tests we put them through."

* * *

A cough echoed through the wood paneled courtroom. Judge Patterson sat up and leaned forward resting his elbows on the bench. "I'm sorry
counselor
, what did you call your organization?"

Chris Schring, the rather tall and slender attorney with wire rim
glasses,
stepped to the side of the table and replied, "ZOOM, your honor. It stands for Zombies and Others On the Move. We are an
egalitarian
movement dedicated to the rights of zombies."

The silver haired judge sat back in his chair and shook his head. "You have stood before me in the past with all kinds of fringe clients and outlandish
arguments,
but this one is by
far,
your best.
B
y
best,
I mean
the
top of the nutcase list. You really want to represent these disease ridden bodies who don't know they are dead?"

"Your honor, these people have been automatically cast to the lowest levels of
society,
based entirely on the fact
that
they have been given a second chance at life and nothing else." Chris reached in his briefcase, pulled out a document
,
and held it up. "There are hundreds of thousands of re-animated citizens
,
currently being held prisoner on military bases all across this country and other parts of the world. They have not been charged with any crime or given the opportunity to speak with an attorney."

"These things you are trying to defend are biting people and infecting them with a
virus,
which turns the victim into a zombie. As for speaking with an attorney, I don't know if you've
noticed,
but they can't speak. They just make moaning sounds and do a lot of pointing." Patterson replied.

"This is exactly our point." Chris moved around to the front of the table. "These people are in need of medical attention. There's no doubt they will have mental health issues. Keeping them in prison is a violation of their civil rights."

"The dead don't have civil rights."

"They are the non-dead, your honor."

"Dead, non-dead, zombies, re-animated, it doesn't
matter. Civil
rights are for citizens who still have blood pumping through their veins." The judge picked up his gavel and brought it down on the block. "Your motion is denied."

As Chris stepped back around the counsel table, he saw Hellion and Pink approach the bar from the gallery side. He placed his documents back in his briefcase. "Sorry guys. I didn't think Judge Patterson would bite on this one, pardon the pun. We still have other options
,
which we can explore. There's a class action, individual representation-"

Hellion interrupted, "That's okay." She glanced at Pink. "We didn't think this would work and
we
have already set our next plan in motion."

Closing his briefcase, he turned to the two women. "Is this plan going to require me to bail you out of jail again? This isn't going to be another
Seattle
,
is it? I have news for
you.
I like coffee and I don't care about the donkey that carried it down the mountain
,
as long as it means my java is hot and waiting for me when I wake up."

Hellion pushed one of her dreadlocks back behind her ear. "A Beast Of Burden is another term for slavery and you know any day when the sun rises, there's always a chance
,
you'll have to bail me out of jail."

* * *

The
streetlights
lit up the empty city block. Scattered trash, boarded up windows, doors, and missing
tires
on the few parked
cars,
indicated the area had been vacated by the living for some time. Concrete barriers blocked the end of the street
,
marking the line between the living and the undead. Prometheus walked out of the abandoned store with a sack full of batteries, matches and flashlights. He watched Gunnar use a piece of chalk to draw
a boat with a dragonhead bow
on the sidewalk. Holding up the bag
,
he said, "I'm not sure what these items are or for what purpose they serve
,
but the good Vic of Chicago told me to gather as many as I could carry."

The Viking stood from
drawing
his picture and glanced into the bag. "I'm sure they will be of good use once the moderns explain it to us." He scanned the block where several other zombies scavenged the
trashcans
and any stores they could access. "Where is Hod? I have not seen him since we left the warehouse."

Prometheus pointed down the street. "He arrives from yonder."

At the end of the block, Hod walked around the corner
,
holding a broom handle
that
he had converted into a spear
,
complete with a hand chipped flint tip. Over his shoulder, he carried two dead rabbits strung together at their feet. He wore the police officer's utility belt over his other shoulder like a bandoleer
,
with the
nightstick
hanging at his waist. Watching the primitive man approach, Drew, with a handful of newspapers, stepped up to Prometheus. "You can dress them up
,
but can't take the hunter out of your caveman."

The ancient Greek offered only a confused expression as a response. Hod noticed the drawing of the boat on the ground. He handed the rabbits and his spear to Gunnar and took the chalk out his hand. Down on one knee, he drew primitive cave drawings of what appeared to be a large buffalo type animal and stick figures of men hunting it. Hod stood from his drawing and told the story of the hunt
,
but Prometheus and the others could not translate his language. The primitive man in the officer's body, proceeded to act out the story. He pointed to the buffalo drawing and placed his hands at the side of his head, protruding his fingers like horns. Bending over and simulating a charge into Drew's stomach
, he
then grabbed his own and pretended to die.

Prometheus made the observation, "It appears our friend Hod met his death while hunting this horned creature.

Hod knelt down and drew three more stick figures, two large and three small people. He pointed to the tallest person and said, "Hod."

Drew replied, "He had a family with three kids."