Antioch

  Sarah had never heard words like index, cited or career.

  Andalynn clarified. “Because of my work.”

  “Oh… sailors don’t marry?”

  Andalynn laughed. “No! I mean, yes they do, but I am not a sailor, not really. I loathe the water. No, before the outbreak I was an elected official. I sat on the President’s Advisory Committee to the Grand Duchy of Englenov.” She made an elegant gesture in the air with one hand.

  “Wow, what’s a doochy?”

  Andalynn had always found the correct pronunciation of the word “duchy” to be rather comical, especially considering the grandeur it was often intended to convey. And, the Duke of Englenov had been such a ridiculous man that he could have been called a “grand doochy” without having to explain the meaning of the term’s misuse or mispronunciation. Andalynn started to chuckle.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “The word is pronounced dutchie. It is the territory governed by a duke or duchess.”

  “Oh…”

  Andalynn smiled warmly and continued. “I cannot think of a better word for what I am now than sailor, but the truth is that my survival required I become one in spite of myself.”

  “Ditch said you were with soldiers before. Is that what you were? A soldier?” She was eager to hear Andalynn had been some kind of warrior.

  “No, I was a politician... The soldiers found me hiding in the cafeteria of the capitol building. They saved my life.”

  Sarah screwed up her face again. “I don’t understand. Why did you lead everyone ashore and teach them about the bauran? Why didn’t the soldiers do all of that stuff?”

  Andalynn’s smile faded away. “Because they all died.” Sarah crossed her legs again and waited for the story. Andalynn took a moment to decide if she wanted to tell it. Then she picked up her gun belts and put them on the bed. “These belonged to Sergeant Sebastian, referred to by his men as Bas. He gave me his pistols because he did not have enough rifles to, in his words, waste one on a priss. Despite my being a priss, he felt it was important for me to carry a weapon.”

  “Can I see one?”

  “You may, but you must be careful. Do not point it at me.”

  Sarah held it in both hands like she was cupping water. “Wow, it’s heavy!”

  “Yes... pistols are interesting weapons. While rifles are useful for survival, these are only good for killing people.”

  Sarah became uneasy and handed it back.

  Andalynn checked it with comfortable dexterity and then holstered it in her lap. “These are Three-Fifty-Seven Springstien Pythons. Bas liked to say that God did not make men equal, Springstien did. From what I understand, Captain knew him.”

  “Who, Bas?”

  “No, Springstien. In the twelve days I traveled with Bas, I never fired these. We had a system for eliminating bauran from a distance that worked rather well. That part of the System did not involve the effective range of a pistol. And silence was always more valuable than target practice.”

  Andalynn looked away. “On that twelfth day, deep into the outbreak, we were searching an abandoned building for supplies, scavenging. A group of bauran happened upon us and followed us in. We tried to run through, to escape by the rear door, but… it was locked. We were trapped.”

  Sarah twisted her blanket into a knot. “What did you do?”

  “Nothing. When the bauran attacked, I did nothing. I was too frightened. I cowered like a child and watched those brave men die, fighting. Then I died as well, without having fired a single shot.”

  “But…”

  “I assume that is when Zeke found me.”

  “Oh!”

  Andalynn checked the other pistol. “These will be empty before I die again.”

  Sarah said, “Wow,” and sat for a while, thinking about the story and about how Andalynn had fled the common room before. “What happened when the people on your ship got sick?”

  Andalynn nodded. “It will come out anyway. You must understand, they were not monsters at the time, only frightened people, but if I did nothing… they would have endangered everyone aboard.”

  “What did you do?”

  “I used the pistols.”

  Sarah swallowed.

  “We were incapable of treating the infection. We could not allow anyone to turn.” Andalynn stared at the weapons in her lap, tensing the muscles in her jaw, thinking about Biggs in Meroe.

  “Were you always the one… that… um…”

  “No one wants to do something like that. From the first time, I could see it was my responsibility.”

  “Oh, that’s awful. I’m sorry.”

  Andalynn gave a shrug of a nod. “I was afraid for it to come out like that earlier, so soon after our arrival, but what we did on the ship… what I did on the ship, was necessary. I had no choice. I apologize if I have disturbed you with this information.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I understand. I’m not a child.”

  ***

  Sarah lay awake for hours that night, flinching at small noises. When she finally slept, she dreamt of bauran in the common room. Had she ever seen one, it might have been a nightmare. Instead they all looked like her handsome fifty-six-year-old grandmother, someone Sarah deeply loved. Out of character however, the zombie-grannies slopped food on the floor, left poor tips for Sarah and called her a doochy.

  Sarah hated the doorbell in that dream. It kept ringing. And every time it rang, another rude, frugal grandmother marched in to make a mess. Then one of them put a strong hand over Sarah’s mouth. She couldn’t get away. She woke up early in the morning, before sunrise, stifled by a real hand that smelled like sour milk.

  Andalynn’s lips touched Sara’s ear. “Do not make a sound. Keep your head beneath the blanket. When I tell you to hold your breath, hold it for as long as you can and do exactly as I say. Do you understand?” Sarah nodded and Andalynn released her. A pistol clicked.

  ***

  The doorbell rang. Margot sat up in bed next to Fergus. Chairs started groaning on the floorboards downstairs.

  Fergus said, “I didn’t lock the door. I forgot.”

  “Ooh, Fergus! What are we going to do? Sarah... and Daniel!” She put her hands over her mouth, thinking the worst.

  “It’s probably just… one of them, up for a snack. Or Marabbas. I’ll go have a look.” Fergus rubbed his face and got out of bed.

  “Be careful…”

  ***

  When the bell rang, Daniel woke up halfway, trapped between sleep and consciousness. He stared in the direction of his door, into the empty darkness. Then he heard footfalls on the stairs. The terror of the tree house returned. Daniel tried to move but his body wouldn’t respond. He tried to call out but he couldn’t make a sound. His door opened. A silhouette stood against the dull, red glow of the dying hearth.

  From down the hall, Fergus said, “Who’s there?” The figure turned.

  At that moment Andalynn burst out of the door between them and opened fire, shouting, “Hold your breath! Hold your breath!” Fergus yelped and leapt back into his room.

  The gunshots jolted Daniel into a fully conscious yell. The figure stumbled back as Andalynn blasted it, aiming with the pistol flash. It collapsed. She swapped out for her second revolver and emptied it into the corpse.

  Then Andalynn ducked back into Sarah’s room, shouting, “Everyone put a blanket over your head and get outside right now! Right now! Hold your breath! Hold your breath!” She repeated that at top volume while grabbing her own blanket. She couldn’t find her mask.

  Margot said, “Ooh, Fergus! Oh no!” and stepped over the corpse, feeling her way down the stairs behind her husband.

  Fergus said, “It’s ok, Pepper! Everything will be ok!”

  Andalynn shouted at them, “Hold your breath!” and reloaded as she followed. “Keep your covers on! Outside! Outside!” When she felt the night air on her ankles, she ripped the blanket off. Three others stood in the street, blind, like they’d forgotten to cut
the eyes out of their ghost costumes.

  Andalynn clenched her teeth. “Someone is still inside!” She grabbed the shortest head. “Who are you?”

  “Daniel, ma’am!”

  Fergus and Margot gasped and pulled off their blankets. Their daughter was still in there. Andalynn ordered them to stay where they were. Back under cloak, she ran up the stairs, stumbling over the corpse at the top. Sarah was sobbing in bed. Andalynn grabbed two fistfuls of the girl’s covers, nightgown and hair and yanked her to her feet.

  Sarah blubbered, “Please don’t shoot me with the pistols!”

  At a loss for any other word, Andalynn said, “Unprecedented!” and dragged the squealing girl from the room.

  They thudded down the stairs and out the door. That time Andalynn was relieved to find all four of them. Fergus and Margot snatched up their child frantically, bedclothes and all.

  The clouds parted overhead, showing some of the street. Andalynn couldn’t smell anything on the wind. She said, “Take the blanket off, Sarah.” Sarah dropped it on the ground. Andalynn looked down at it. “Pick it up! You might need it!” Sarah dipped her knees to do as she was told, her face floating like a tragic-mask on a stick.

  Andalynn said, “Fergus, we need to reach the church as quickly as possible. There is at least one more of those things out here.”

  Fergus said, “Follow me!” The five of them jogged away in their nightgowns, blankets tucked under their arms.

  Daniel said, “How do you know there’s another one?”

  There was no emotion in her response. “Because that was Drake.”

  Sarah started to wail. Andalynn watched their backs as they went. She decided against telling the girl to be quiet. If there were any other bauran lurking the streets, Andalynn thought it best to lead them to Michael.

  It wasn’t long before she saw something in the night behind them, its movement before its shape, a steady, loping speed. It gained on them. As the bauran closed in, Andalynn noticed that much of its flesh had decayed. What remained swung like satchels from its frame, its leathery, skeletal form beneath. Its right hand was gone, baring the two jagged bones of its forearm like the fangs of a serpent.

  Andalynn said, “How much farther, Fergus?” and fired a shot on the run. They jumped from the unexpected blast and shrieked when they saw what chased them.

  Fergus said, “We’re almost there!”

  Andalynn missed again. Their bare feet left the painful cobblestones. They ran faster on the grass and the bauran slowly faded into the night behind them. Then they were dodging through the headstones.

  Margot said, “There it is!”

  The church took form in the moonlight ahead. Lot sat on the grass in front of it, gaping at the coming group. Behind him, the heavy door was shut. Andalynn narrowed her eyes on that door - it was locked, she knew it.

  She snarled, “Get Michael! Get Michael!” turned and planted her feet. Daniel and the others flew by Lot and into the church; the front door was never locked. Lot watched them run in and then looked back across the yard at where Andalynn’s pistol barked and flared in its smoke like a tiny thunderstorm.

  Lot hopped up, shouted, “Fwah!” and bolted inside.

  Bullets ripping through it, the bauran closed distance with every flash. It slammed into Andalynn and they both hit the dirt. Then it sat up on her stomach and started punching her with the barbs of its broken arm - shuck, shuck, shuck. Screaming, she shoved her pistol under the ghoul’s jaw and pulled the trigger - click. It was empty.

  John, Michael and Abraham leapt up from their mats in longhandles. Everyone had just burst in shouting urgent versions of what was happening outside:

  “Andalynn’s out there!”

  “She’s shooting at the devil!”

  “I… I just arrived!”

  John rushed to Daniel. Michael sprinted out the door.

  The blasts and the screaming had stopped. Their bodies appeared to be still but Andalynn’s second pistol was clicking into the ghoul’s dead weight. She’d drawn it dearly. Michael flung the corpse away from her like a dusty rug. The clicking stopped.

  The smoke touched his eyes and they glowed. “God’s mercy…”

  Andalynn’s face had been raked from the bone. Her flesh hung in strips. Her breath rattled in her throat and hissed. Michael knelt beside her, gingerly replacing what he could. The light faded from his eyes until he couldn’t tell blood from ink or earth in the dark.

  Abraham arrived and watched them for a few tense seconds. He understood what Michael was trying to do. If he opened the way without replacing her flesh, the healed wounds would be grotesque. But, Abraham could also see - from where he was standing - the riin thinning to a shimmering thread within her. He said, “No time for that, Michael. She’ll die. Do it now.”

  Michael put his blood-slick hand on her forehead. Golden light exploded through the churchyard.

  14 Templar

  Ditch woke up at five o’clock in the morning. Still dark outside, his room was a black hole. He rolled out of bed, hit the rug and started doing pushups. He’d woken up that way for twenty years. It didn’t matter if he’d been sleepless in the creepy woods for three nights or if the sun was coming up at the wrong end of the day; he was awake and he needed to do pushups.

  He settled into a rhythm, mouthing a song and hitting the beat with his breath. He tried to be quiet to avoid disturbing his roommate, another of the ten sailors at Betheford’s. Across the darkness the roommate whispered, “Hey, Ditch, are you awake?”

  Ditch frowned and kept working. “Yeah, man, sorry, didn’t mean to wake you up.” Then his frown bent into a scowl. Didn’t wanna wake you up at all, nerd. Now you’re gonna talk talk talk.

  “That’s alright. That’s no trouble at all, actually!” He was excited to be sharing a room with Ditch, who he thought was just the coolest. “Hey, Ditch, why do you sing when you exercise?”

  Ugh. “Cause I get bored countin’ that high.” Ditch would have preferred to bunk with one of the other marines but hadn’t wanted to make a big deal out of it at the time.

  “Oh, right!” The roommate slapped himself audibly on the forehead. “Because you can do so many! You’re really strong, aren’t you?”

  Ditch cringed, unable to think of a way out of the conversation without being a jerk. “I’m real light.” He weighed one hundred and thirty-nine pounds of lean muscle.

  “Hey, Ditch, will you sing that one that goes, hold you dooown, hold you dooown? You know, the one you sang in the woods on the way here.”

  Ditch thought about it for a few presses. He was singing anyway, under his breath. If he sang out loud, the roommate would shut up… No one had ever asked him to sing before. He said, “Yeah, alright.” He adjusted his breathing and his work to a more aggressive tempo and dropped his accent for the lyrics:

  Black straps that bind them back snap,

  And they strip the concrete up from the street,

  Their raging pace rakes the road away,

  And leaves hell to breathe a gravel wake.

  -

  The broken line behind them, smoking, hides,

  The light of the sun, like night has begun,

  In this eclipse, Apocalypse,

  They break and run and make the earth quake.

  -

  Their skin is gnarled confusion,

  Bruised and ripped in,

  Revolution, used then,

  To state the place that anger takes, they,

  -

  Faces blistered, fused and twisted,

  Lose the reasons they resisted,

  And regret,

  And lament their hard and wicked visit…

  -

  They left a scar where they existed.

  -

  Even breathing your last breath,

  The life is burning in your chest,

  They try to hold you down,

  And rip it out.

  “Hey, yeah, that’s the one!” The roommate said. He start
ed to sing along.

  “Even breathing your last breath,”

  “The life is burning in your chest,”

  “They try to hold you dooown,”

  “And rip it ooout”

  The roommate slapped the bedpost, keeping good time. They both sang louder and higher.

  “Even breathing your last breath,”

  “The life is burning in your chest,”

  “They try to hold you dooown!”

  “And rip it ooout!”

  Ditch thought his roommate might be some kind of musician the way he handled the tune. He’d never known. Hey, this guy’s alright! They shouted the fourth chorus.

  “Even breathing your last breath,”

  “The life is burning in your chest,”

  “They try to HOLD YOU DOOOWN!”

  “And RIP IT OOOUT!”

  An angry banging came through the wall from next door. “Hey! You hold it down! We’re trying to sleep over here!” Ditch and his roommate shut up, realizing they’d gotten carried away. Then they started to snicker like a couple of kids at a sleepover. Ditch kept doing his pushups.

  The roommate’s smile was in his voice. “Yeah, that’s nothing like the music I’d heard.”

  “That’s the Broken Toes. They were just startin’ to build, you know. Could a’ been alright, but…” Ditch blew a raspberry to represent the destruction of civilization, “Pppbbbttt.”

  “That song’s from before? I thought it was about the bauran. What is it about?”

  “I don’t know, man, it’s like, symbolism, or somethin.” Ditch had often thought about the meaning of that song. He felt it had helped him to survive, in a way. But, he didn’t want to get into any of that with his goofy roommate, musician or not.

  “So, it doesn’t mean anything at all?”

  Ditch lost his rhythm and scowled again. “Yeah...”

  “Hey, Ditch, I wish I could have seen them play.”

  “Yeah, but… I mean, they were ok, but their cello player’s always go’n way over the top. Too much weedledee-wonk, you know?”