The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (30 page)

The living dead turned and staggered off in the darkness, leaving the humans holding each other next to the building.

Living dead staggered through the remains of the library, with the early morning sun streaming down on them. Through the broken windows, across the remains of the city center, smoke from the previous night's fires continued to loft through the air under a gray sky. The nightly battles with the military had reduced the business district from a forest of shining
skyscrapers
to the desolate ruins of a ghost town. Black and gray scorch mark, twisted metal, broken glass, and concrete fragments with protruding rebar dominated the landscape in all directions. Blast holes filled the streets and exposed the portions of the steam vents which once brought heat to the older buildings. The original red
bricks,
which formed the first roads and had been paved over for the past
century,
once again came to the surface.

Prometheus stood at the large table listening to the morning gathering of the council. Captain Bartholomew pointed to the two new arrivals both
wore
hunting attire with gunshot wounds to the chest and head. "We be having here
Rainart
and
Isaiah
who have journeyed here all da way from a land called
Texas
. They be bringing us news from other clans."

Rainart, who wore a blaze orange hunting vest over a brown t-shirt with a shotgun hole blasted through his chest, stepped up to the table and explained, "Many of our clans across this land and those beyond the great sea have been eliminated. The livings have come up with a potion which will eliminate our souls from these bodies and send them on to another world." He looked at the large wound in his chest. "I guess they will be killing us more dead than we already are in this world. We have heard from many o
f
our brother clans their numbers are no longer on the increase. In some areas the returned souls have been eliminated entirely and the humans have reclaimed their land once occupied by re-ans.”

Patricia replied, "But this may not be such a bad situation as it be our purpose to help our descendants survive, not eliminate them. This increase in population must mean they are no longer dying from the Omega plague."

Isaiah interjected, "Their deaths from the Omega virus continue to rise. Our numbers are declining because if we try to feed on livings, who have ingested this potion, our soul will leave this body in a most painful way. We have watched many of our brothers regain the ability to feel pain only to experience the most torturous suffering imaginable. It is giving the livings the opportunity to collect more soldiers and build their armies up to greater numbers."

Bartholomew pointed to the city map stretched out on the table. The
area
in the city, which they
occupied,
had been circled. “Aye, me
men,
tell me the living soldiers have pushed their ranks all the
way
up to this river. They be having more troops and more machines which belch out the black smoke and make the ground rumble.” He pointed to an area north of the train station. “Over here, they have spotted two of those demon dragons the moderns call tanks. With our armory in short supply, we will have hard luck storming those beasts with
mere
side arms and swords. It be more fierce an opponent than any Spanish man-o-war I ever done battle with on da sea.”

Greg polished the blade of his sword with a scrap of leather while scanning the map and said, “Clan Titus, led by the warrior woman Hellion, still has a good supply of modern munitions. Many of their weapons can cause great damage to these beasts. We used many of these to bring down the metal flying dragons. I have not seen any in the air for many days and nights. It may be possible we have hunted them into extinction which only benefits both or our clans. Perhaps we can talk to Hellion and make some kind of trade.”

“Ever since that she devil took to be leader of that village, they are no longer interested in siding with the likes of us.” Bartholomew replied.

“The only way we be getting weapons from their clan would be to take them in battle.” Patricia said as she placed her hand on the pommel of her sword.

Greg checked the faces of those at the table. “I do not wish to fight against our brothers even if they disagree with our purpose for this world. We must find another way to defend ourselves against these metal
wyverns
.”

An explosion across the street rocked the library and sent glass and debris flying across the room. Those in attendance, staggered and tried to keep their balance as a cloud of dust and smoke rolled through the building. A gray skin zombie ran into the room and announced from the doorway, “The heavy dragons are here and they are belching out the fire and thunder.”

As another explosion shook the ground from just outside the entrance to the building, Vic ran toward the door carrying bottles filled with gasoline and rags protruding from the tops. “Follow me my friends, I’ll show you how we fight these bastards.”

Captain Bartholomew followed behind the man from
Chicago
and asked, "How we be fighting these dragons with these little lanterns?"

"Trust me these will work. It's how the Russian people fought off German tanks during World War II."

In the bright sun, outside
the library, an M1 Abrams tank sat one block down the street and rotated it’s turret toward the library. The gray colored heavy machinery had been completely blanketed with living dead like ants on sugar. They all tried with no success to stop the enormous piece of metal pounding it with axes and clubs. The side streets filled with so many undead trying to join the fight, it looked like a parade.

Vic used a cigarette lighter to light the end of a Molotov cocktail and ran toward the vehicle. With a massive muzzle flash, the huge cannon fired a round, which penetrated the second floor of the library and detonated inside spraying glass and concrete down on the street and adding to the brown dust and smoke cloud enveloping the battle scene. Vic continued his
charge,
as
an explosion on the street corner, immediately followed the second muzzle flash,
where Vic had recently stood. As the smoke cleared, only a small crater remained.

A line of soldiers brandishing flamethrowers moved in front of the tank
,
laying down a wall of fire torching the hundreds of zombies who tried to surround the living army. Bartholomew grabbed Prometheus’ arm and said, “Come me friend. This battle be already lost. We must pull our crew back to the underground bunker so we may continue our fight another time.”

* * *

In an abandon high school surrounded by sandbag bunkers and patrolling soldiers keeping watch, Daniel closed up his laptop and stuffed it into an olive green military rucksack. The sound of diesel generators chugged in the background. Heavy electrical cables ran across the floor to all the equipment like black vines on the jungle floor. The only
computer
in the
room
was constructed from scavenged electronics. The monitor consisted of a laptop screen connected to an old smart phone as the processor and memory storage. Most of the glass test tubes and beakers had been replaced with plastic water bottles and pieces of scrap metal pounded into the shape of cups and bowls.  

At the opposite end of the makeshift, primitive lab, three re-ans stood inside tight vertical steel cages. The bars were made from welded re-bar with rust spots showing signs of age and wear. Even though there was no room for them to move, their hands and legs had been chained to the ground with heavy metal riveted restraints and with
leatherhead
straps immobilizing them. The way Daniel and Lisa argued over the hiss and screeches of their prisoners, they had become immune the sounds.

Lisa placed several
ampule
s
of vaccine into a padded case taking extreme care of the valuable contents almost as if she handled nitroglycerin. “You can’t leave the project at this point especially after all we have done to get here. We still have distribution logistics and follow up with the other cities. The military is going to fly us to
Germany
for the meeting with the European team.
Berlin
is said to be 75% clear of re-ans as of last week. When this is all over, there's going to be all the post trial analysis and data collection. We're going to have foundations and governments throwing grants at us for the rest of our lives.”

“I don’t give a damn about this anymore. I'm done helping my fellow man for the greater cause.” Daniel cinched the top of his pack closed. “We came up with the cure. You can take all the glory for all I care.
All
I want to do is destroy those bastards and send them back to hell where they belong.”

“But we have so much more important work. We have to collaborate with Dr. Becotte in
Seattle
on the Omega virus. It doesn’t matter if we eliminate the re-ans if we are going to be wiped out by this next plague.” She swept her hand in front of her drawing attention the room. "As primitive as this may be, we are still one of the most advance labs in operation, today. We are in the best position to stop the outbreak."

Throwing the bag over his shoulder, he replied, “I have full faith in you and Dr. Becotte saving the world. You can have my Nobel
and
use it as a doorstop if you want. I’ve already talked to John Colton who heads the civilian brigade here in
Denver
. His unit is going to be made full-fledged soldiers,in a few weeks, which means they get to use the big guns…for as long as we still have guns. I have to report to him in the morning, and his camp is in the trees on the edge of the red zone by Sloan's
Lake
.”

Lisa stepped up to him, placed her hand on his chest, and said, “Look, I’m sorry about Wendy. I feel just as guilty as you
do,
but it’s time to move on now. When this is all over, it will be a new world for all of us. We are all going to be different people; a new society will exist across the world. You and I can start new lives together. How can we go through all of this and not be
together
in the end?”

“You want to see how I’ve changed. You want to see why we can't be together anymore?” Daniel gently pushed her aside and grabbed a syringe and an ampule with the vaccine. He filled the syringe and stepped up to the nearest caged re-an and jabbed the needle into her neck and pressed the plunger down.

The naked decayed gray-skinned woman with the rotted
teeth
and partially exposed
rib
cage
shook
violently,
while she let out a high-pitched
scream,
similar to the squeal of a hog being slaughtered. The undead woman in the next cage, shook with apparent anger groaning, hissing and spitting toward the two scientists.

Lisa called out, “What are you doing? You can’t inject the vaccine directly into a re-an. You know that’s going to-”

Daniel interrupted, “I’m well aware of what’s going to happen. I'm glad it's going to happen and I would do it personally to all the meat bags if I could.”

The female re-an injected with the vaccine continued to shake, hiss and spit up blood. Slowly, color returned to her skin changing it from gray to the peachy flesh tone of the living. Her white hazed over eyes cleared to show her brown pupils and her lips went from black to red as she changed back into a person. The excruciating high-pitched scream took on a deeper tone, sounding more human. Coughing up large amounts of blood, the dead woman turned her head toward Daniel and said the human words, “Kill me.”