After The Apocalypse (Book 2): Church of Chaos (16 page)

Chapter 27

The pain in my side made me feel like I was being stabbed, but I had no choice except to keep running. I watched the ground ahead of me as best as I could. Tripping would be a fatal error at this point and I didn't want to die.

The gate that would let me escape from the corridor was less than 300 feet away, but it was 20 feet in the air. I would have to climb up a ladder identical to the one I had just climbed down.

My breath was coming in fast, painful gulps as I narrowly managed to dodge a zombie that had come lumbering towards me out of the shadows. My feet kept slipping on the soft, muddy ground. I focused on running. One foot in front of the other. Zigzag to the left and then jump to the right. Avoid the legless zombie that's rolling towards me. I jumped over that one and nearly fell when my right foot landed in a substance that was either mud or blood. I wanted to close my eyes but I couldn't risk taking my eyes off of the path that was ahead of me for even so much as a single second.

The zombies were still behind me. Or, at least, I figured they were still behind me, judging by the noises. I wasn't stupid enough to turn around and try to look for them. If they were going to catch me and eat me, I'd just as soon not see them coming.

The ladder was maybe 100 feet away now. The platform that towered above it was shrouded in darkness. I briefly thought I saw a figure near the top, but I couldn't focus on it long enough to get a good look. Another zombie appeared in front of me. I got the briefest impression of a gaping mouth and snapping teeth as I flung myself sideways to avoid the monster. I fell, landing hard on my right knee. Pain shot through my leg as a zombie grabbed me by my hair and yanked me backwards.

I landed hard on my back, kicking and screaming as the zombies closed in around me. I struck out at the zombie that had dug its clawed, ruined fingers into my hair.

“Let me go! Let go!” I smacked the drooling, rotting undead nightmare hard in the nose as it abruptly let me go. I kicked out at it, a gesture that did nothing except stub my bare toes on the zombie.

I staggered backwards, well aware that I had cut my leg when I'd fallen. A quick glance down revealed that it wasn't a bad wound. I could feel a thin trickle of blood running down my shin. The zombie I'd just freed myself from was sniffing the air as if he had just scented a tasty steak being cooked over an open fire. I took a step backwards as more zombies caught up to me.

A huge zombie with its face obscured by a mass of thick, tangled hair made a grab for my arm.

“Get back!” I screamed.

Much to my surprise, the zombie abruptly stopped reaching for me and stepped back.

More zombies approached as the dream I'd had only a few days before abruptly came back into my mind. In my nightmares, I could control zombies.

“Stay back. All of you. Don't come near me!” I yelled. The horde of zombies were forming a circle ten deep around me. Not a single one came within four feet of me. It was like I had an invisible bubble protecting me from them. I could smell their rotting flesh. I could hear them breathing. My skin broke out in goose bumps despite the humid night air.

Seth's prophecies said that I could control zombies.

“Get away from me.” I practically choked on the fear in my own words. “All of you. Get away from me. Leave me alone. Forget I was ever here.”

The zombies hesitated and then, slowly, the shambling crowd began to break up.

I watched with a mixture of wonder and utter terror as all but a few of the zombies moved away from me, abruptly disinterested in having my flesh as a midnight snack.

“Go on.” I looked directly at the handful of stragglers who were still watching me. I tried to make my voice steadier when I spoke again. “Leave me alone. You're not going to eat me tonight. Or ever. Or ever eat anyone again. Go away.”

One of the zombies let out a low hiss and then turned away from me. He looked like he was fighting against my commands.

A female zombie in a ripped dress snapped her teeth at me even as she too began to walk backwards away from me. Clearly, whatever control I had over the undead wasn't voluntary on their part.

Nor did I have any idea how long it was going to last. With a quick glance behind me to check that my path to freedom was clear, I hurried to the ladder that would lead me to the unlocked gate.

None of the zombies approached me as I grabbed hold of the ladder. I climbed up the rungs as quickly as my shaking legs would move.

I reached the top of the ladder and flung myself onto the platform, not caring how I landed. I wound up on my back, staring straight up at the cloudy night sky. I gasped for breath, struggling hard to draw enough air into my lungs. I felt like I was going to pass out.

“Well, that was a show I haven't seen before,” a voice muttered from beside me.

My heart froze in my chest. I turned my head in the direction of the voice, only to see a zombie sitting cross-legged on the platform less than three feet away from where I was laying.

Chapter 28

I would have screamed, but I didn't have enough air in my lungs. The zombie laughed as I rolled away from him and nearly fell off the platform to the dirt below.

“Not having a good day?” The zombie had probably been a good looking guy before he'd turned into the monster that was currently staring me down with oozing, bulging and clearly infected eyes. I frowned at him. Zombies weren't supposed to get infections, and yet this one had pus oozing down the left side of his face.

His scalp had mostly peeled away, exposing bare skull with occasional tufts of hair poking up like patches of weeds in a sandy lot.

I swallowed my own bile and tried to think. This wasn't an ordinary zombie. I had absolutely no idea if I could control him with my voice or not. “You came from the Cube, didn't you?”

The zombie looked startled. He opened his cracked, rotting lips and bared his teeth at me. I abruptly realized the expression was supposed to be a smile. “Well, well. Brains, beauty and the ability to control a horde of zombies. I'm impressed.”

“The ability to control zombies is new. I think. I don't know. I've never tried before,” I said with a shaky shrug. “How did you get here?”

“Here as in Ra-Shet or here as in the west gate?” The zombie's voice dripped with sarcasm. “I walked. Either way.”

“I meant out of the Cube,” I said.

“Oh. Well. That was fun. I volunteered to be part of an expedition into the outside world. We were supposed to be looking for another structure that could provide more housing and more resources.” The zombie shook his head. “Turns out, Bud Moon wasn't trying to find more housing. He's already got himself a real nice house.”

“He experimented on you,” I guessed.

“He did. He tried to sell me for my meat first. Turns out there's a real market for uncontaminated food in this city. These folks aren't interested in eating 30 year old canned beans.”

“I know. I've seen the meat market.”

“Really?” The zombie asked. “What's it like?”

I saw no point in lying. “People in cages. People crying. People screaming. It's horrible and I'm going to have nightmares about it for the rest of my life.”

The zombie shook his head, making one of the chunks of hair fall off. The little piece of scalp landed on the platform with a barely audible thunk. “I never got to see it. I heard it was bad.”

“You never went to the meat market?”

“I tripped and fell down a river bank when we were a few days outside the city. I cut my leg open. It got infected and we didn't have any medicine. Bud promised he'd have medicine for me when we made it into the city. He took me down into that bunker behind his house. He tried to tell me it was his own personal hospital ward, but I didn't really believe him by that point. After all, every other word he'd said to me had turned out to be a lie.”

“Everything they tell you in the Cube is a lie.” I couldn't keep the hurt or the betrayal out of my voice.

The zombie laughed again. “I guess I don't have to ask how you got yourself thrown into the pit of hell. You know too much. Back in the Cube, that mouth of yours would be more dangerous than a room full of weapons.”

“My mouth got me into trouble,” I agreed. “I took a public stand against the Powers That Be. In a roundabout way, that's how I wound up here.”

“Taking a stand against the Powers That Be is a lot more dangerous than I ever thought it would be,” the zombie nodded. “I wish I could inject all of them with the same 'medicine' they injected me with.”

“Bud Moon injected you with his zombie serum, didn't he?”

“I think the answer to that question is obvious,” the zombie said snidely. “He told me it was an antibiotic.”

“He injected my mom too,” I spoke the words so quietly that I was surprised he even heard me. Especially considering that his left ear appeared to have fallen off quite some time ago.

“Who was your mom?” The zombie asked.

“Carolina Augustus.” Even saying her name made my heart hurt.

The zombie frowned. “The name rings a bell, but I don't remember her. Not that my mind is what it used to be. She may have come to the bunker either before me or after me. I don't know. I seem to be losing my ability to keep track of time. The days have all run together since I wound up in this pit.”

I swallowed and cast a glance at the gate that opened out into the woods outside of the city. I could see the latch quite clearly. “The gate's not locked.”

“Where would I go?” The zombie asked with a shrug. “My family would be terrified if they saw me like this. The infection that started in my leg has turned my bones to jelly. I can barely move. Sure, I could go through the gate like the rest of them did, but then where would I go?”

“The rest of them?” I couldn't help repeating his words.

He nodded again. “Our batch of serum didn't have the results Bud was hoping for. He's trying to create zombies that don't rot at all. We rotted within days.”

“He told you that?”

“No. He was screaming at the doctor who he has working on concocting his serum. I happened to overhear him telling the man what a total failure he was as a scientist. Personally, I almost wonder if the sabotage wasn't intentional. I didn't exactly get the impression that Bud and the good doctor were on the same page.”

“Oh wow. Every time I think this mess couldn't get any worse, I find out about something even more horrible.”

The zombie snorted back a choked laugh. “
You
think
you've
got it bad?”

“My friends and I are trying to stop Bud Moon,” I explained.

“Doesn't look like you're doing a very good job of it,” the zombie commented. “Seeing as how you're stuck between me and a horde of mindless monsters.”

“I need to get out of here,” I told the zombie. “Please. Let me get past you and out the gate. My friend Seth, he can stop this whole nightmare. He'll take Bud Moon down. He'll take the Powers That Be down. No one else will have to suffer the way you have.”

“You have a lot of faith in your friend,” the zombie said softly.

I thought about what he'd just said and realized he was right. “I trust Seth. I don't always agree with the way he does things, but he always gets the job done.”

“Well, I suppose that's something.” The zombie looked vaguely thoughtful. As thoughtful as a zombie could manage to look at any rate. “He won't be able to stop Bud peacefully. The only way to stop Bud Moon will be to kill him. Your friend got the stomach for killing monsters?”

I blinked and then nodded, remembering what Seth had done to my mother and Drake less than 24 hours ago. The events of this morning already seemed like they had happened such a long time ago. “Have you ever heard of the Church of Chaos?”

“Not until after I left the Cube.” The zombie rubbed his chin with his rotting fingers. His nails had all fallen off. “Supposedly they're all half-zombies of some kind, but no one knows how they succeed at only partially changing. It's the mystery Bud is trying to unlock. The members of the Church are supposed to be pretty dangerous. Bud doesn't think that the Powers That Be can take control of the city or the land surrounding it unless they find a way to beat the Church at its own game.”

“Seth is the high priest of the Church of Chaos.”

“I see.” The zombie smiled and waved one hand towards the gate. “I'm not stopping you from leaving. I haven't stopped anyone from leaving. Oddly enough, I have no desire to eat human flesh. It's the one part of being a zombie that doesn't seem to have kicked in yet. Technically, I don't think I'm actually dead yet either. I might start to eat flesh after I die. I don't know. I'm not looking forward to finding out.”

“That's horrible. I'm sorry for what happened to you.” I meant the words.

“Me too,” the zombie said. “When your friend catches up with Bud Moon, ask him to do me a favor, will you?”

“What kind of favor?” I asked.

“Tell him to make sure that Bud dies slow.”

I swallowed the lump in my throat and then nodded. “I have a feeling that Seth will take great pleasure in making sure that Bud feels the pain of everyone he's ever tortured.”

“Good,” he replied. “And be careful outside this gate. I wasn't the only zombie-hybrid that Bud turned loose in this corridor. I'm just the only one who stayed behind.”

“How many were there?” I asked.

“Maybe 10. Maybe 20. I'm not sure. They weren't all from the group I came in with. Some of them were so decomposed that I doubt they'd still be able to hurt you, but I can't be sure. No one can be sure of anything now. All the rules have gone straight to hell.”

I didn't disagree. “Thank you,” I said again as I walked past the zombie and pushed the gate open. He made no move to grab me as I stepped out through the gate and into the dark, damp woods that surrounded the city.

“Hey little girl. Wait,” the zombie called out from behind me.

I hesitated. I was free of the corridor. I didn't have to go back. My fingers wrapped around the metal bars. “Yes?”

“Your name. It's not Pilar, is it?”

I was stunned. “It is. Why?”

“Because I finally remembered why I recognized the name Carolina Augustus. Your Dad's name is George. George Augustus.”

“Yes,” I confirmed.

“He went back for you.”

“What?” I was stunned and confused.

“Your Dad went back to the Cube. He came through here a little while back. Maybe a couple of weeks ago. Like I said before, my sense of time is shot.”

“My Dad wound up coming through the west gate?” I stepped part of the way back through the gate. I needed to hear what the zombie was saying. “Are you sure?”

“I knew George from the Cube. He worked in maintenance and so did I. He was the supervisor for third shift. I worked second. I didn't know him well, but I knew him well enough to be surprised when he came climbing up that ladder.”

“Was he-.” I hesitated, almost afraid of the answer I would get. “Was he okay?”

“He was alive. He said he went through the meat market but that he'd managed to escape from the people who bought him before they could kill him. He could have stayed in the city, but he wouldn't do it. He said Pilar, his little girl, was still in the Cube. He said he wasn't going to leave his daughter at Bud Moon's mercy.”

“Oh god.” My legs went weak and I abruptly found myself kneeling on the threshold that separated the west gate corridor from the outside. “Dad went back to the Cube for me?”

“That's what he said.”

I bit my lip as tears started to fill my eyes. “Oh god. Oh god. Why would he-?” I stopped myself before I even finished the question. “Never mind. I always knew he wouldn't have left me behind voluntarily. That's how I knew something horrible had to have happened when mom and dad were suddenly just gone. I came to Ra-Shet because I was looking for my parents.”

“And your Dad left Ra-Shet and went back to the Cube,” the zombie said. “He went back for you.”

“Oh crap.” I rubbed my face with my hands. “If only he'd have waited. If he had stayed here, I would have found him.”

“I would guess he never expected you to escape from the Cube,” the zombie pointed out. “How did you do it, anyway?”

“Escape from the Cube?”

He nodded.

“It was an accident. Sort of. The Powers That Be invited me to join the Scavengers,” I said. “I'd been very vocal about mom and dad going missing. They wanted me shut up. Drake Bledsoe tried to kill me. Seth saved me. We wound up here.”

“Sounds like you've had quite the adventure,” the zombie said. “I'm kind of jealous. No one saved me. Not that I could be saved at this point. Your father is a good man. He's a brave man. He told me he was going back to save his little girl and try to stop Bud Moon from killing any more innocent victims. Maybe you and your friends can help him.”

I swallowed and then nodded. “Maybe we can. Maybe we won't be too late.”

“Even if you're too late to save one person, that doesn't mean that you aren't in time to save the rest of them,” he said.

It was a valid and surprisingly profound point. I took a deep breath and did the best I could to pull myself together. Lola had betrayed Seth. I needed to get back to the Underground so that I could warn him. My Dad had gone back to the Cube to rescue me. I needed to go back to the Cube too. I needed to rescue everyone.

I smiled at the zombie who had shown me more humanity than most of the uninfected people who I'd dealt with in the last month. “Thank you.”

“You should probably go now,” he said. “Good luck.”

I nodded as I stood back up. “I'll need all the luck I can get.”

He was smiling as I turned away and went out through the gate for the second and last time.

I began following the edge of the wall, heading back towards what I hoped was the south gate. I didn't know how much time had passed since I'd first found myself on the platform. I forced my tired legs and aching feet to run. Maybe I'd get lucky and manage to avoid encountering whatever zombies were lurking in the woods that surrounded me. Then again, I'd never had much in the way of luck.