Empire (25 page)

    There! She found the lighter and struck it. One of the birds looked up from its feeding, beak crimson, eyes black; feathers and flesh were missing in patches from its body. She could see the tiny bones in its thighs, pushing through well-worn holes in dead flesh as it stamped its feet. She'd led it and the others like it right to the wounded bird, to their living prey. Screaming, Lily kicked them all into the darkness.

    A man pushed through the trees and groaned at her.

    He was dead. A chain dangled from his hand. He had no lips, and his bare genitals were flayed away. He clicked his teeth at her and advanced.

    Lily ran a wide semicircle around him and continued through the trees. She just had to get out of the swamp, to the city. There were people like her there, she knew that now. She knew Tetch had tried to kill them. He was a liar and a bully and if there were people in the city that he hated that much, then they must be nice people.

    But, emerging onto a paved road, she saw only a few scattered rotters, and when they saw her they began running.

    She looked down a side street and spied something beyond the swamp's silhouette: a huge bonfire. That was the source of all the smoke. There had to be people there! "HELP!!" Lily screamed, pumping her legs until they were numb, until she felt like she was about to pass out. She stole a single glance over her shoulder and saw the rotters gaining. The one with the chain was using it to knock the others back. He wanted her all for himself, like Tetch. "NO!!!"

    Lily careened breathlessly over a sand dune and came to a stop at the edge of the burning landfill. A foul odor swept into her nostrils. She nearly threw up, but then she saw the other rotters milling about the flames.

    The chain man grabbed her shoulder, then pain rang through her skull. He brought the chain down on her back; she pushed away from him, turning, and was hit in the chest. The world spun and roared around her. Sand was in her nose and shoes and the other rotters were coming. A fierce heat came off the burning garbage, making it hard to keep her eyes open. The chain man swung and missed. THUMP. He gathered the chain up and prepared to strike again. She ran into the fire.

    There was a smoke-filled path between the mountains of refuse. Her lungs about to burst, she couldn't help it - she inhaled deeply and was wracked with crippling coughs. The chain man, stepping through the flames, watched dumbly as his legs caught fire. He spied Lily and resumed his shambling pursuit.

    She ran again. Slammed into something solid: a wall, a shed. The door was open. She fell in, pulling the door behind her and grappling blindly with the deadbolt. Something brushed her legs and she shrieked through a throat scorched raw, but it was only a cot.

    The chain crashed against the door. Her mind stopped working then.

    Outside, Gene watched the ferals swarm over the flaming hills and writhe as they began to be consumed. He knew what the fire could do, both to himself and to the child-meat - he also knew that there was a place in the landfill where the child might think herself safe.

    Starting forward, he searched through his pockets for the key to his shed.

    "She's going to die."

    Voorhees tried to take Jenna out of the stairwell but she pushed him off.

    "Didn't you hear what I said, O'Connell?"

    "I heard. I'm staying."

    A blanket of coats had been placed over Lauren, and she lay on the landing near Thom's corpse. Her glazed eyes stared at nothing. Her lips moved, but she wasn't saying anything, at least not that Jenna could hear.

    "Yes, I can hear you." Death said. He knelt beside Lauren and studied her face. "Not long now."

    "I don't...I don't want to die." She whispered.

    "It won't hurt anymore."

    Tears welled in her eyes. "I know. But Jen...she's going to be alone. She needs me."

    The woman in question was standing on the stairs; a young man with a bandage around his leg embraced her. The spectre realized something, though he wasn't sure what it meant, and looked back at Lauren. "It's you that needs her."

    "Yes."

    "Do you love her?"

    "Yes."

    "What does it feel like?"

    Lauren met Death's black gaze. "It...hurts." He thought at first she was talking about her wound, but she could no longer feel that. She was slipping away, a pinprick of flame sputtering in a pool of wax. "It's an ache. A beautiful ache. God, I love her...please take care of her. Just...just don't let her suffer."

    There was nothing he could say. But he did. "I will," he lied.

    The light in her eyes went out and didn't come back.

    Jenna buried her face in Mark's shoulder. Voorhees grimaced, pumped his shotgun and walked out. Reverend Palmer stepped silently past the couple on the stairs and whispered a prayer over the departed. Death wondered if there was anyone who heard such things.

    Maybe they did, and maybe they lied too, telling humanity "I will."

    He had to return to the outside and hold off the undead. It was the only thing he could do. The Reaper melted into the shadows.

    Gene navigated the flaming refuse until he saw the shack, surrounded by hammering undead. He shook the keys in his hand, but the sound was lost amidst crackling flames and groaning. The girl had to be inside. With the shovel in his other hand he began to beat and pry at the backs of the other dead. Many simply stumbled away, disoriented by the smoke. Reaching the door, Gene worked the keys into the lock with awkward hands.

    Throwing the door open, he glanced in and immediately spied her under the cot. She tried drawing her legs further in, but it was no use. Gene dropped the keys and gripped the shovel handle tightly, lowering it in order to drive it into her body and tug her into the open.

    The girl did something unexpected then; rising up, she overturned the cot onto the shovel, then screamed and ran at him. She tried to duck around him, and he caught the collar of her dress, but the others had seen her and lunged forth as one. Gene let her go and stabbed at them with the shovel.

    The girl ran brazenly into the zombie horde. Their stiff arms swept over her, tearing out handfuls of hair and fabric, then smoke poured into the shack and Gene lost all sight of her.

    Rotters pressed against him in the doorway as if the child hadn't just escaped. Planting the shovel's head in the chest of the nearest one, Gene threw them back and set off in pursuit of his meal.

    A soft, steady sound, like a wind, led Lily away from the landfill, and she saw for the first time in her life waves gently crashing against the beach. The sight was horrifying and liberating all at once - she couldn't swim, she was trapped, unless she braved the waters and kicked her feet and prayed that the ability to stay afloat came naturally. She could swim and swim and swim and never see Jefferson Harbor or its ghouls again.

    There was one standing in the sand, looking out on the water; it turned, and she stopped dead in her tracks.

    It had a gun. It pointed it at her. She screamed.

    "What?" It spoke.

    It lowered the gun and walked toward her, then broke into a jog; it was a he, a living man! "Little girl? You're alive?" He cried. He took her arms and looked at them, then at her singed curls, and her face, smudged with soot. "Are you all right?"

    "They're just over the hill, in the fire." She stammered. "They'll come!"

    He nodded and, taking her hand, led her briskly down the shoreline. They both watched over their shoulders, but there didn't appear to be any pursuers; Lily hoped they'd all been burned up.

    "Are there more people?" She asked the man. He stopped and mulled the question over. "Yes," he finally answered, "and they can help you. I can't..." Turning his arms over, he showed her a series of bites on both and palms filled with blood.

    "I'll take you to them." Shipley said quietly. He looked back at the dark waves, the beckoning sea. It could wait. He could still save a child tonight.

    He took her hand again, and then a shovel crossed the beach like a missile and punched through his chest, clearing it of bone and muscle with a THUK before exiting out his back.

    Lily ran with a shriek that split the calm of the beach and restored the world to its nightmare order. Gene retrieved his shovel and shambled after her.

    "LILY!!!"

    The girl turned. She hadn't told the man her name - did the zombie know...?

    The man in black tore down the shoreline on his horse, scythe held high.

    Gene turned and raised the shovel just in time to block the blade, but was thrown back into the sand nonetheless. Horse and rider continued unabated toward Lily. She opened her arms and let him sweep her up.

    And so it was that they came to sit on an outcropping of rock far from the Harbor wall. Death gathered his robes around his feet and watched the ocean's ceaseless dance. Lily, picking bits of ash from her hair, gazed up at him until he returned the look.

    "Who are you?" She asked.

    "I am the angel of death."

    "Am I dead?"

    "No. It's not your time yet. That's why I was able to intervene back there."

    "But if it was, you couldn't have saved me?"

    "No."

    She frowned, and so did he. It was difficult enough explaining this to an adult, especially the ones that thought they could bargain for their insignificant lives.

    "Couldn't, or wouldn't?" Lily asked.

    He opened his mouth to deliver the standard response, the clinical, unfeeling response, to tell her that he had no influence over her insignificant life; but as he thought of the undead, particularly the one that had been after her, and as he thought of the fate that might await her, suddenly Lily seemed...significant.

    He had no answer for her. She nodded and looked out at the sea.

    On her other side, the horse lowered its head. She nuzzled it and watched its eyes close, its posture relax.