Empire (31 page)

    They'd surrounded the house.

    Standing along the fence, studying the crumbling manse with its dark, broken windows, its ivy-covered stone walls, studying what for all intents and purposes appeared to be a home abandoned to the elements.

    Yet, they knew that wasn't the case.

    The front door opened. Simeon came out and stood in the yard.

    He examined each of the undead that stood silently before the gates. A female with half her scalp missing, a scrap of fabric caught between her teeth. A squat rotter that had died in his teens, his muscular arms purple and streaked with cuts. An adult male barely holding himself together - his hands clutched at a ponderous bloated stomach that wept dampness through his button-down shirt.

    They were out there, Simeon was in here. They weren't to be allowed in. If they did come in, they would take his meat. And Tetch would be angry; he wouldn't help Simeon find more nourishment.

    Bailey emerged from the back door and surveyed the yard before him. Rotters were crammed into every available space along the fence. Some of them had wrapped their thin fingers around the iron bars and were tugging.

    Tetch was still observing from the third floor. He heard feet scraping behind him and turned to see Prudence's silhouette. She tilted her head, expecting an order.

    "Just go downstairs." He told her, in a strangely reserved tone. "Stand outside the study. Lily isn't to be let out. Is that clear?"

    With a half-nod, Prudence left him.

    "Prudence!" He shouted. She reappeared. "Bring Bailey and Simeon inside."

    Another slight sway of the head. Tetch returned his attention to the yard below.

    Deep in the swamp, huddled beneath the sprawling mass of an ancient tree, Voorhees whispered "Shit."

    "We'll never make it past them." Jenna breathed. They could see the undead milling around the Addison house. They must have followed Tetch's truck into the swamp. For one terrible second she considered the possibility that Lily had been pulled - or thrown - from the back of the pickup and into the ferals' grasp.

    There was a rustle behind them. She yanked the revolver from her pants and spun, but Duncan was in the way, and she couldn't she what was threatening them in the dying light.

    Voorhees whispered again. "You."

    The man on his horse stood before them like something out of a fairy tale. Duncan had become accustomed to describing things as something "out of a nightmare", but he wasn't frightened at all.

    The former Death read little more than curiosity in their faces. He was no longer able to disappear from the view of mortal men, and along with that ability it seemed he'd also lost his unmistakable presence as the Grim Reaper. He was just a strange man.

    "I can help you get inside," he said.

    Jenna stepped out from behind Duncan. Remembering what Lily had said, she asked, "Are you an angel?"

    "Not anymore." The man answered.

    At the gates, the dead began rattling the bars with fervor. They knew there was something in there; as to whether or not it was meat, there was only one way to find out. They rocked against the gates and moaned.

    The man in black swept the scythe through the crowd, turning his steed sharply in the soft earth and making a second pass. Before they even knew what was happening, several of the undead found themselves falling, legless, armless - then the scythe swung low and burst their skulls.

    The horse collided with the horde and the man in black fell. He landed in a crouch, severing the feet of rotters as they crowded in around him, then rose to open their chests and spill their guts. They collapsed against him, gnawing madly - but before they could do any damage their energy had left them.

    Voorhees watched in disbelief as the undead were killed by the dark man's simple weapon. The horse reared up and drove its hooves through the hearts of rotters, pinning them down so that the scythe could slice their throats with ease. Those who hadn't already fallen victim to the dark man began staggering away from the gates.

    The scythe struck a padlock, and through a brilliant rain of sparks, the chains holding the gates closed fell away.

    The undead grabbed at the horse's kicking legs and overturned it. They plunged their hands into its clay-like flank. The man who was Death turned away as a part of himself was torn to pieces.

    Voorhees slapped Duncan's shoulder. Duncan sprinted through the gates, swiping the widowmaker at any rotter within range. One of them grabbed at the back of his shirt; Jenna filled the zombie with bullets, giving it pause long enough for the dark man to split its body from groin to gullet.

    Tetch saw it all from the window. He ran across the hall into a room filled with boxes and tore through them. A pearl-handled .22 fell into his shaking hands. Hearing a commotion downstairs, he instinctively cringed behind the boxes.

    "It's him," he was saying, over and over again.

    Voorhees entered the foyer and caught Prudence at point-blank range. The shotgun kicked her waifish body into the stairs with a roar. She sat up. He aimed into her expressionless face.

    Her head was pulverized by the second shot. Tiny fragments of bone fell over her convulsing body as it slid to the floor.

    "LILY!!" Jenna hollered. Duncan started up the stairs.

    Bailey kicked open a door behind the staircase and heaved an axe over his head as he charged. Jenna pulled the revolver's trigger. Click-click-click.

    Voorhees shoved her aside and blew a chunk out of Bailey's side. He stumbled forward, bringing the axe down. Voorhees blocked it with the shotgun. They both fell.

    Duncan turned at the top of the stairs to see if Jenna was following. A hand closed over his shoulder, and Simeon groaned.

    He hurled Duncan into the opposite wall. The world leapt out of focus as Duncan's head smacked off the wood, and he felt Simeon grappling with him. The widowmaker - where the fuck was it?

    Jenna grabbed Bailey around the neck. He bit into her wrist and she closed her teeth around his ear. Prying him up off of Voorhees, a scream building in her chest, Jenna walked her fingers up the rotter's papery gray face and plunged them into his eye sockets. They went in much easier than she'd expected. Bailey began flailing in a panic.

    "Get off of him!!" Voorhees cried. "I don't have a shot!"

    "Don't - need - one!" Jenna growled, and she brought Bailey's head down on the marble floor with a sharp CRACK. Then another, and another - brackish brain matter erupted from his skull, and he stiffened. Paralyzed and blind, Bailey spat up a mouthful of bile and lay silent.

    Duncan let out a cry from upstairs.

    He was lying on the widowmaker - its cold steel dug into his back as Simeon tried to bite his throat. He heaved the rotter down the stairs and rolled over to retrieve the blade.

    Simeon sat up - Voorhees pumped the shotgun--

    Duncan whipped the widowmaker down the staircase and into Simeon's eye. A good third of his face was sheared away. Voorhees blasted him across the foyer.

    He and Jenna headed upstairs to join Duncan...

    And outside, the dark man was trying to hold the gates closed, but was pushed back by the undead mob. They came at him en masse. He rose, scythe in hand, to face them for the last time.

    On the second-floor landing, Voorhees stopped the others and pointed downstairs.

    A few ferals had entered the foyer. Their glassy eyes met those of the living.

    "I've got this." The cop muttered. "Find Lily, and stay with her."

    It was then that Tetch rounded the corner and emptied the .22 into Duncan.

    Mark made a quarter-turn and slumped over the railing overlooking the foyer. He looked into the eyes of the ferals below. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Jenna was screaming. Suddenly feeling heavy, he slumped to the carpet.

    Voorhees, halfway down the stairs, fired a shot and opened the wallpaper beside Tetch's head. He retreated to the hall from whence he'd come. Jenna heard his feet on stairs as she fell beside Duncan; and saw that Mark was dead, and she felt the last of the terrible scream scraping through her throat and past her teeth.

    It was quiet in the house.

    Voorhees whirled around and blew a rotter's chest open. It caught hold of the banister and held its ground. Voorhees dug through his pockets. No more shells. "I'm--"

    Jenna was gone.

    The rotter grabbed his arms. He threw it down the stairs and swung the shotgun like a club into the next zombie's skull. The widowmaker, down in the foyer - and more undead crowding through the front door...

    He steeled himself and charged down the stairs.

    On the third floor, Jenna's feet clapped down in a layer of dust. She searched the darkness: there were several doors, all of them slightly ajar. She recalled distinctly the clicking of Tetch's empty pistol before he'd fled the scene of Mark's death. "You don't have a gun," she whispered, a sob threatening to break her voice.

    He threw open the nearest door and flew at her.

    They slammed into the opposite wall with a fearful racket, dust falling in torrents; he slapped her across the face, grabbed at her neck. He pressed all his weight against her.

    She bit into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He howled, trying to jerk his hand back, but she clenched her jaw as tightly as she could and gave him entire body a shove - his hand tore open like crepe paper. Blood followed him across the hall in an arc. His head cracked off the wall--

    And he was on her again. He shouted incoherently and snatched her throat in his good hand. She slammed a knee into his groin. He grunted, but held fast. She felt her head crashing into the wall over and over and over, and the world began swimming away, leaving an oppressive blackness. Tetch roared distantly. She fumbled with his arms, his chest - he was hard like a tree and his roots were snarled viciously about her windpipe.