Redemption of the Dead (3 page)

The undead on the shore watched him,
but did not go near the water to get him.

The man wore
black dress pants and shoes, a deep purple collared shirt, his
hair—at least from the back—blond and neatly cropped.

Billie tried to inch forward to get a
better look, but the moment her foot moved, a harsh tingle rushed
to her core as a well of fear and unease burst forth inside her.
She found herself anxious and breathing rapidly within
seconds.

“Remain there, Billie,” Nathaniel
said. “You, too, Hank. Neither of you want to be near his
presence.”

“Oh, you don’t need to tell me twice,
your angelness,” Hank said.

That’s what that rush of pronounced discomfort was,
Billie thought. She
shuddered.

The man on the lake walked across the
water; in front of her, Billie saw Nathaniel shake his head slowly
from side-to-side.

Is he afraid, too?
she
wondered.

Nathaniel turned and joined her and
Hank.

“That was some waterworks,” Hank said.
“Disney-quality, if you ask me.”

Billie didn’t comment; Nathaniel didn’t
acknowledge him.

“Lucifer has arrived,” the angel
said.

Talk about stating the obvious,
Billie thought.

Nathaniel
gave her a look that said he knew what she had thought, but it
didn’t seem to bother him.

Billie looked past him. Across the
lake, the moans of the dead filled the air as they greeted their
master. They welcomed him as if they knew him, or at the very least
recognized him.

“Does he know you’re here?” Billie
asked Nathaniel.

“No. My
presence has been well hidden. So far as he is aware, his arrival
has gone unnoticed. He is no doubt basking in what he sees as a
success. I, for one, cannot wait to take my sword to
him.”

“He’s a bad
seed,” Hank said. “True thing. Even the way he showed up is a
complete mockery of God.”

“You’re a smart man, Hank,” Nathaniel
said.

Hank’s face went flat. “You got that
straight.”

Billie quickly raised and lowered her eyebrows:
Yeah, right.
To Nathaniel: “I don’t want to be up here anymore. I
don’t want to be in this forest at all anymore either. Can you get
us out of here?”

“I can, but that is not what we are
called to do at this time.”

“So, what
are we” —she made quotation marks with her fingers— “‘called’ to
do?”

“Surveillance.”

“Spy stuff,” Hank said as if he was
helping.

Though she
knew the guy couldn’t help it, he was getting on her
nerves.

On the other side of the lake, Lucifer
had disappeared amongst the throng of the dead and was out of
sight.

“Can he see us?” Billie
asked.

“No. He is not
omniscient
,” Nathaniel
said.

“Does he know
we’re
here? Um, Hank
and me?”

“You have been concealed as well for
the time being.”

“Time being?
Great. Just great. So at some point whatever’s hiding us is going
to be gone and he’s going to come after us.” She threw her hands in
the air. Her words were choked with tears. “Nice. Go from watching
my friend die to almost getting killed to seeing the devil come and
knowing he’ll come after me eventually.” Her heart ached as she
thought of August. Though she had known him for only a short time,
he had been a mentor and a friend. Her mind drifted over to Des and
what happened when they arrived back on the Richardson Building’s
rooftop in the helicopter. Des, having been left behind prior to
their leaving and entering the past, had come to greet them.
Instead, he had somehow gone from human to shape-shifting zombie
and tried to kill them. August shot him to save Joe’s life, but Des
. . . the one on the rooftop wasn’t the one she’d known. He had
been her friend when the undead rose. Together they exchanged info
and ideas on how to survive. He’d been human.

Returning
from that bizarre Storm of Skulls had created a new timeline where
the undead—which turned out to be possessed souls, living and
deceased—had not only developed the supernatural ability to shape
shift, but some were also enormous and as tall as some
buildings.

Billie shed
a tear and wiped it from her eyes; she felt a hand on her shoulder.
She turned. “Nathaniel, I—”

But it wasn’t Nathaniel.

It was Hank. “It’s going to be okay.
Nathaniel said as much. You got to trust him. He’s an angel, you
know.”

“I know, but
I think I’ve been through more than you have. No
offense.”

“None taken.”

“I
just want to go home, you know?” Except she knew there wasn’t a
home to return to. The Haven—the last reasonably safe place in
Winnipeg—must be crawling with the undead by now. Besides, it
wasn’t
her
Haven. That one was lost when the
timeline shifted.

Billie
looked past Hank down the length of the large branch holding them
above the ground, hoping to see the angel.

He was
gone.

* * * *

After
keeping out a sharp eye for anyone—undead or otherwise—coming near
the large pine tree, Joe was relieved when Tracy opened her eyes,
stretched and groaned. He knew it was ill-advised to let someone
fall asleep after a head injury, but he kept on the alert for any
sign she’d stopped breathing or suddenly went still. Sleep healed
the body. A fact of life.

“What time is it?” Tracy
asked.

“Not sure. Close to dark, though.
How’s your head?”

“Feels like I just ran into a brick
wall, but I’ll manage.”

“How many fingers am I holding up?”
Joe held up three.

“Five,” she said.

“Um . . .”

“Three.” She
smirked.

At least she seems in good spirits.
“We best get a move on when you’re ready. We’re not
far from a multitude of possible hideouts. Just pick the
safest-looking one and let’s roll.”

Tracy
stretched her arms and legs once more before slowly getting to her
feet. She briefly swooned once standing, but used the tree trunk
for balance.

Out on the
lawn, the cool night air made Joe shiver. Tracy felt it, too, he
saw, because she hugged herself as she walked.

Without any
weapons, he kept on extra alert. All they had on their side was the
ability to run, but with Tracy in her condition, he didn’t know how
far they’d get if it came to it.

The power
was out in this area of the city, the details of each household
difficult to see without walking up the driveway and taking a
closer look. Joe quickly made up a mental checklist as to help
speed up the process: houses with broken windows were not to be
neared, neither ones with open doors; if the front looked okay, the
back was approached with extreme caution, with the hope the back
doors and-or windows were intact like the front’s; the house
couldn’t be beside another with broken windows, whether just the
one side or both; and the simplest one—if one of the creatures
could be heard near or within the house, they would automatically
move on until the sound ceased.

“It’s cold,” Tracy said. “Feels like
the temperature suddenly dropped five degrees.”

“Don’t know
how that’s possible considering the gray clouds have kept the
weather in check since this all started. No heat. No rain or
snow.”

“You don’t feel it?”

“No, but I’ve also trained myself to
ignore small things like that.”

“It’s a shame,” she said. “I was
trained to notice every single detail, whether internal or
external. To survive, you must be prepared for all eventualities
and be aware of what’s going on around you.”

“To each his own.”

“
Her
own.”

He smirked then tapped her on the arm.
“How about this one?” He pointed to a bungalow up on the right.
Though he’d have to get closer to be sure, the front windows and
doors seemed to be intact.

“Let’s hope so,” she said.

“Stay behind
me.” He led the way and verified his find by examining the
entrances at the front. A wooden fence ran against the house off to
the side, bordering the backyard beyond. Joe went up to the gate,
Tracy right behind him. He undid the latch and let themselves in.
He listened for any sound of the creatures, but heard nothing.
Slowly, he and Tracy entered the yard and began to check over the
house the moment a window came into view. There were two on the
side along with a door to an attached garage, three windows on the
back, and one on the furthest side. All seemed to be
fine.

Joe approached the garage door
and silently gripped the doorknob. With a gentle turn,
he eased the knob over until it stopped moving, then, standing off
to the side and ready to use the door as a shield if needed be, he
opened it.

He listened
for movement. Nothing. He slowly peered around the door to look
into the garage. The single-car garage was dark and it was
difficult to see anything at all.

“I don’t like this,” Tracy
said.

“Me neither, but it has to be
done.”

Joe moved into the doorframe and
whistled. “Hello?”

No sound came from within.

“I think it’s all clear,” he
said.

“Think? You
think
? No good, Joe.
You and I both know not to take guesses.”

“Stop it. I haven’t made any final
decisions. Was just telling you what I found.”

“Well, then make a decision because we
can’t stay out here.”

“Okay, let
me think.” He put his hands on his hips. It was too dangerous to
chance it with this house without knowing what precisely was in the
garage. Even if an undead had been in there but was killed and laid
there truly deceased, there might be others in the area, or
if—

A soft
scraping sound came from below his field of vision. It sounded
again, and when he looked down, a rotting hand was reaching for his
ankle.

Joe jumped
back, knocking into Tracy. She stumbled but regained her
footing.

“Let’s go,” she said.

Joe stood there, watching as the
creature pulled itself out of the shadows of the garage and across
the doorframe toward them. When it pulled itself out, Joe saw its
legs had been severed at the hips, dry and crusty strands of muscle
and sinew dragging behind it. The creature opened its mouth as if
to wheeze or hiss, but nothing came out.

“Let’s go!” Tracy shouted.

Joe slowly
shook his head. “Not yet.” He glanced around the yard, looking for
something he could use as a weapon and put an end to this thing on
the ground. He did a quick jog around the back of the house, but
came up empty. Then it hit him. He went up to the leafless oak
tree, jumped up and yanked down on a branch that was about as thick
as a D battery and as long as a baseball bat. After a couple
jump-and-pulls, the branch snapped, the dry wood making a nice
jagged break on one side of its shaft.

Joe adjusted
his grip on the branch and moved quickly toward the zombie. The
thing still kept crawling along the ground, every so often reaching
out with its dead hand as if it thought it could grab him from that
far away. Joe went right up to it, stomped on its hand, pinning it
to the ground. The next instant, he drove the branch like a stake
through the creature’s head. The zombie’s face slammed into the
ground as gray brain and thick, black blood bubbled out of its
skull. The creature stirred so he yanked out the stick then stabbed
down beside the wound he just made, creating a new one which broke
the rotting skull enough to completely crack off the side of it.
Its brain slid out, as did tar-like blood and a few
maggots.

“Okay,” he said, standing, “we can go
now.”

* * * *

3

From Hidden
Places

N
athaniel hadn’t
returned
in over an hour. If
the gray clouds hadn’t continuously blanketed the sky, it would be
near dark soon and time to pack it in. She didn’t want to stay here
any longer, not with the devil somewhere across the lake. Billie
was getting tired and stretched wide and big, letting go a long and
loud yawn.

“Sure, let them hear you,” Hank
said.

“Sorry,” she
said and blinked the yawn-tears from her eyes. “I don’t want to
stay up here much longer. Do you know why Nathaniel
left?”

He shook his
head. “I don’t know a lot of things, but I do know that everything
happens for a reason, and I don’t mean that in a vague ‘oh, it’s
all part of a master plan, but I’m not going to say who’s behind
it’ way or whatever.”

Billie was
surprised at how lucid Hank was at the moment. She didn’t know what
was wrong with him, but this was the first time he was talking like
an average person versus someone who was limited in their
understanding of the world and had a hard time figuring things out.
She just hoped he wasn’t in his “character” mode again.