Chapter Nineteen: The Third Brother
Five minutes ago, Harold and his four loyalest patrons had been sitting in the dark, quiet bar – as they had done all night and all day before it – while the zombies wandered by outside without so much as looking at the Heck.
Fifty seconds ago, someone outside had whistled and the pub had been surrounded with figures bumping against the windows. Figures shuffling round in ragged clothes.
Five seconds ago, the front and side doors had flown off their hinges and knocked aside the furniture Harold had put there as a barricade. Who had alerted the zombies to them? Who’d destroyed his lovely fortications? Why? Did someone want him dead?
Harold welcomed the zombies with round after round of shotgun fire. Bits of old friends splattered against the dark walls. The friends themselves slumped against the floor and those behind tripped on them.
“What’s happening, boys?” he called out.
“Fuckload of corpses!”
“Language, father.”
Harold grabbed shotgun shells off the counter of the bar and got three of them in the gun before he lost his nerve and raised the shotgun. To his left, someone tossed a flaming spirit onto a group of zombies, not that it stopped them coming forward. They fell after a bit, but those behind stepped on them or fell onto the ever-growing heap. Like a bonfire. A walking bonfire.
The bar filled with dark smoke and the stink of cooking meat. Blinking through his tears and gasping for breath, Harold put his three shells into the nearest three zombies, but five took their places.
“Away from the bar!” Harold shouted. “Against the wall!”
The five Archians got as far from the bar as they could, which was to put their backs against the shelves of spirits. Glasses and bottles tumbled off higher racks as they stumbled backward. Harold felt something smash on his shoulder and glanced down to find it had been the Church of Tipote’s triple-distilled “Brawler” whiskey, damn near the most alcoholic – and expensive – thing in the bar.
Down beside him, the padre was bleeding from the head. Another bottle had hit him.
There was no time to help him, though. Harold grabbed the box of shells off the counter and reloaded his shotgun. The padre got to his knees, then his feet, so at least he wasn’t dead.
Unlike the other hundred people in the pub. Harold had never seen it so busy. Pity they weren’t buying.
Undead faces with dead white eyes moaned for his flesh. Their arms reached over the counter, but none were smart enough to climb onto the bar itself.
Harold pumped the shotgun and fired again into the mass of bodies. Six flaking and red-blotched hands pulled the barrel out of his hands, dropped the weapon, and continued reaching for him.
This was the end. The absolute end. He should light the rest of the damn spirits and burn them all. The other fires had been stamped out by the zombies in their rush to reach him, but if he threw three or four in quick succession… that would be it. The whole bar would go up.
Harold reached for the whiskey.
Someone grabbed his arm. Harold pushed him away.
“We have to, father. It’s—” He didn’t bother finishing. No point. There was a bite-shaped tear in the father’s cassock.
Harold grabbed the pastor’s arms and wrestled. “Come on! It’s me! It’s Harold! You remember me! Every Sunday, nine o’clock, double whiskey, regular as you like!”
The Church of Tipote’s minister opened his mouth. “Blarg!”
Harold shoved him away as hard as he could. The father’s legs bicycled upward as he slipped on the wet floor.
“No!” Harold reached out.
The pastor hit the hardwood headfirst. Harold heard the cack as his skull split open, saw the thick dark blood that ran through the spirits on the floor like oil through water.
Harold stepped cautiously toward him, as if this might all be a joke. It must be. It couldn’t really be happening. Couldn’t b—
Five dead arms grabbed Harold and hauled him, screaming, onto the bar.