The Village of Dead Souls: A Zombie Novel (41 page)

A pinpoint of light appeared in the distance. It grew in size as it moved closer. The sound of footsteps grew in volume and echoed off the walls. Transforming from a blur, the light became a lantern carried by a woman. The Greek man called out to the person, "Who approaches me and from where do you hail?"

The woman with the lantern stopped while she replied, "Prometheus? Is that you?" She continued walking until her face became visible.

"Patricia," he responded, "I see I have returned to the future world once again. How long have I been absent?"

The dead lady pirate, wearing thick leather gauntlets, tall black motorcycle boots, and welding goggles draped around her neck, set the lantern down and wrapped her hands around her old friend. "Prometheus, it is so good to have you back. There have been many changes in this world since we last spoke some six months ago."

They released their hug and she picked up her light. Prometheus glanced down at his new body
,
but could only see the green clothes issued by the military to civilians. "Without a reflection glass, I do not know what kind of body I occupy. Would you please describe how I look?"

Patricia scanned him in the dim light and said, "You are in the body of a young man, maybe late twenties, with shoulder length dark hair. The clothes would indicate he was from one of the compounds protected by the soldiers."

"Did he die from the Omega plague?"

"I doubt the plague is what brought his demise. In this new day, there are very few who are dying from the Omega. My guess is this young man came down here to take the poison and commit suicide. It seems suicides are about the only bodies left for us to inhabit. Why the livings come down here to die, I don't know." She picked up the light and waved her hand forward. "Come with me. We should get back to the others. It is not safe this far out."

As they walked through the darkness, Prometheus noticed
at
the edge of the light, decayed bodies lay on the edge of the underground tunnel. He realized he had not seen too many bodies in this world. He wondered why they did not transform into re-ans. Patricia noticed his interest in the dead and explained, "All these people had been injected with the fire
,
so when they died, they could not be re-inhabited. Some died in battles with us
,
but most came down here to take the poison."

"What is this poison which seems to be so popular with the descendants?"

"I don't know exactly what it is. The humans come down here, take a green pill, sit on the ground and eventually they fall over dead. For some erroneous reason
,
they chose this time to give up."

They rounded a corner and he saw a light in the distance with the silhouettes of other living dead gathered in the center. "What do you mean by 'this time
’
?"

The lady pirate glanced at him and said, "The humans are winning their war. Our numbers are on the decline."

They walked into the circle of light and she announced, "Look who I found in the suicide tunnel. It is our old friend Prometheus."

General Brown stepped up to the Greek man, slapped him on the shoulder and said, "Prometheus you old goat. Did you bring any coffee with you?"

On the other end of the group
,
he saw a woman emerge into the light
from the shadows
. She wore
full-length
leather welding coat, tall hiking boots, a leather corset, a brown felt top hat and motorcycle goggles perched on her forehead. Two undead
well-armed
soldiers stood by her side. As she tilted her head up, the light reflected off her bright green eyes and she said, "Prometheus my old friend, it is good to have you back."

The Athenian smiled and replied, "I see you are still trying to attain your final strings of life
,
my good sister Salsa."

Brown interjected, "Yeah, it's hard to find humans who have not been vaccinated.
A
few
times,
we almost lost her in battle. So, we stopped taking her out on raids and adopted a safe house system. We move Salsa to a different location each night and bring the captured humans to her. Say, while you were gone and socializing with the gods, did they happen to tell you where we could find some coffee?"

Ignoring the question, Prometheus asked, "What is this I hear about our numbers on the decline?"

"In the months since we last saw you, the living have appeared to get the upper hand on the Omega Virus." Salsa answered. "We don't know if they found a cure or if it just ran its course. However, the vaccine has taken its toll on our population. They've turned it into a weapon. In some
areas,
it's used very effectively against us in a gas form. Even
though,
we don't
breathe
it in, it somehow permeates our skin and gets inside of us."

Patricia chimed in with, "Speaking of moving
,
Salsa, it is that time of night." She looked at Brown. "General, will you take her and her guards to the cavern below the old train station? Prometheus, why don't you come with the rest of us on our nightly search for a human without the
fire?
"

* * *

Patricia held her hand up
,
indicating she wanted the others to stop. Standing behind a boulder in the dark forest, Prometheus saw a group of humans sitting around a fire in the clearing. The lady pirate motioned for Midnight to join her at the front of the tree line. “Can you see anything from here?”

Midnight strained to view any
disease
in their bodies. “It is difficult to see from this distance
,
but the man over there in the dark shirt might be clean. I need to get closer to be sure.”

Patricia gave silent hand signals
,
telling her soldiers to spread out
,
and surround the human camp. She moved her archers back into the shadows of the forest. Prometheus watched them move quietly through the trees to their positions and thought about how much their soldier training had advanced in his absence. With the band of living surrounded, Patricia led the charge.

She ran into the clearing
,
wielding her sword
,
as the others did the same from all directions. Caught off guard, the humans scrambled to find their
weapons,
but
the dead
quickly pounced on
them
. Midnight moved around the battle signaling who had the vaccine in their veins. Pointing to various humans she would say, “He has the fire…she has the fire…fire in his blood.”

If she pointed to a human, it became their death sentence as they turned into a threat to the dead. The zombies would quickly run them through with a sword or pike killing them instantly. As she came to the man in the dark shirt and long blond hair, she held up her hand. “Stop.” Midnight moved closer and scanned his body in detail. “This one does not have the fire.”

Behind her, only a few humans remained alive and continued to fight. Two of the zombie soldiers began to tie up the descendant by his arms. He let out moans and hissing sounds
,
but it was clear he was afraid. Patricia grabbed one of her soldiers by the arm to give him instructions. “Take Midnight around to the remaining humans so she can-“

Before she could finish, a small red dart hit the zombie soldier in the neck. He immediately fell to the ground and went into convulsions as he screamed in pain. Another living dead fell to the ground screaming with a dart in his shoulder. More small red darts zipped through the air and hit trees and the ground. Soldiers with the human military poured out of the forest with blow darts and flamethrowers. Patricia grabbed Prometheus, pushed him toward Midnight and the captured human. “Take them back to the safe house. I’ll stay and hold them off as long as I can.”

As the Greek man stumbled forward, he said, “But how will you-“

The pirate cut him off. “No time for arguments. Go!”

Arrows flew from the shadows of the trees hitting the humans and taking them down. Prometheus, Midnight and the two zombie soldiers picked up the prisoner and carried him into the darkness of the trees as Patricia and her army fought off the living.

* * *

Daniel lifted his eyes from his microscope and noticed the higher than normal level of activity around the camp. He stepped out of his makeshift lab tent and watched as soldiers moved quickly to gather supplies. Pink walked past wearing dark sunglasses and her knit hat pulled low on her face. The scientist said to her, "You know you stand out more when you wear those sunglasses." She stopped and turned to him. "We haven't seen the sun in months. This gray cloud cover is the perfect light filter. With all the smoke haze in the air, I would think those dark glasses would only make it more difficult to see."

Pink took the sunglasses off and placed them in her pocket. He asked her, "Do you know what all the commotion is about?"

She stepped closer to keep their conversation quiet. "They're getting ready for some big raid. Scouts have found the re-ans are protecting some female. Speculation is she must be some kind of zombie queen or something
, because of the
way they move her around and keep bodyguards on her at all times."

"So they're going to capture their queen."

"Yeah, maybe she's the key to their reanimation. If we have her, we just might be able to bring all of this to an end."

"I'll talk to the General and see if I can study her when they bring her into camp."

As fragments of dirt blasted past their bodies from the explosion, the
dust cloud surrounded them. A magnesium flare floated above the battle scene casting a white light through the smoke filled air. Prometheus brought his head up from behind a large concrete boulder to see human soldiers quickly scatter from rubble pile to rubble pile. Greg called out to his archers to let their arrows rain down on the opposing army. Before the projectiles became airborne, the dead samurai led a charge with thirty of his fellow zombies. As they reached the humans and engaged them in hand-to-hand fighting, the arrows from the archers poured down. They pierced the bodies of both the humans and the living dead.

Many of the living soldiers tried to take cover under piles of debris
,
but most became victim to the projectiles. The dead samurai and his men looked like pin cushions
,
as they fought off the humans with the
arrows
protruding from all parts of their bodies.

General Brown stood from his covered position and called out to his small group of undead, "Let's get him underground." The re-ans carried their kidnapped human toward the entrance of the burrow. Brown grabbed Prometheus by the arm and said, "Hey
,
old man, we need to get out of here before their reinforcements arrive." He pointed to the three story skeletal remains of a former skyscraper. "They will try to flank us from over there and cut off our access to the tunnel. Let's move before that happens."

The Greek man quickly followed the General to a set of stairs hidden between two large mounds of rubble. The primitive steps carved into the dirt led downward into the tunnels. At the bottom of the staircase, Brown lit an oil lamp and handed it to Prometheus. "Here, you can be the front of the train."