Order of the Dead (16 page)

38

Brother Mardu, the founder of the Order of the Dead, that great and horrible
brotherhood of myth and legend, could deny it no longer: he was losing his
mojo. At this very moment, just when Senna and Alan were giving themselves to
the throes of passion, Brother Mardu was in the midst of an internal struggle,
trying to decide what to do about said loss of his charms.

All the oomph was gone. His donut had
been robbed of its cream, and the deflated shell that was left was not only
stale, but crusty and sour, too. The balloon whose skin had once been so taut it
verged on bursting was now flaccid, dangling helplessly from its string.

The Order of the Dead was crumbling,
and it was as if a chain reaction of disempowerment had been set in motion and
was now in full force. It was too late to reverse, and though Brother Mardu
sensed that this was so, he kept these feelings sealed in a padlocked and chain-wrapped
box in a far corner of his mind.

No one could be allowed to see it,
because if he couldn’t control them anymore, everything was fucked.

Fucked.

The only thing that mattered was advancing
the virus, moving its chess pieces ever onward. And with that had come power,
and had he let the feeling of it corrupt his mind?

Sometimes he felt that without power,
there was no point, and that he couldn’t go back to the way he’d been before,
not after having so much, after commanding—no, not just commanding, but also
enthralling—so many. Perhaps that was how he’d lost favor with the virus to begin
with, by losing sight of what he really was, and perhaps that was why that huge
and throbbing mojo, which he’d mistaken for his own and not a borrowed power,
had been stripped from him.

It was true that at times he’d
forgotten himself completely, and that was when it had started—the syringing
out of the cream from his engorged donut. It was when he’d begun to think that
they were worshipping
him
rather than
it.
That it was
his
made-up
religion, rather than the truth of the virus. That
he
owned
it,
instead of the other way around.

And so of course they’d dare to try to
take the power from him, because the virus had taken back what it had given.
And they weren’t just considering it now. They were planning, scheming, playing
up the conflicts that hadn’t been there only months before…or had they always
been in the background, kept in their place by the virus’s power, before he’d
muddled it all up?

How the hell had the Order—
his
Order—split up in the first place?

And there he was doing it again,
presuming too much. That was exactly how it had gotten away from him. He’d
forgotten the delicious cream was the virus’s, and not his. That was when he’d
lost the virus’s ear, and they’d kill him if he let this go on much longer, of
that there was no doubt.

I’m the one who’s supposed to dictate
these things, he thought. I’m running the show. This is my motherfucking show.

And there it was
yet again,
the
whole forgetting himself thing.
He
wasn’t the one running the show, he
was just the medium, and he wasn’t even that any longer.

Flying into a rage was very tempting
right now, and he was close to it, but that would only make matters worse. What
he needed to do was take decisive, unemotional action. Play with a permanent
poker face.

They can’t see my anger. I’m
above
that, above
them.
They’re weak.
They
are.

The problem was, no matter how good he
promised he’d be, swearing it over and over again in his head, the virus’s
voice wouldn’t come back. And maybe he’d lost it for good. Maybe. And then
what?

If that was the case, and he was
growing increasingly sure that it was, he would still make a last ditch effort
at regaining his foothold and crushing the spirits of all those who were trying
to overthrow him.

What was clear beyond the shadow of
any doubt, whether the virus was on his side or not, was that the fear bucket
needed a refilling, and a serious one. He’d used to give to the virus on a
regular basis. Now, it had been a long time since.

And he’d used to keep viral pets, too,
ones whose teeth and tongues were extracted, their lips burned shut, and the
other orifices sealed. He’d used to make them himself, while the rest of the
Order, his
followers,
watched, and then the foul, mutilated things would
be set free to roam within the Order’s grounds.

The
creations…
no, the
mascots,
were still dangerous; the virus was frantic to spread out of them, and that had
kept everyone nicely in line, trembling at the sight of them, and, he was sure,
taking said trembling with them to their bunks even when the beasts were out of
sight. The last of them had been let loose long ago, and why, exactly, had he
let that happen?

And how long was it since he’d last
given to the virus? Three months? Six? Longer, virus forbid?

There had been a series of almost
involuntary changes, and they’d put a hole in the fear bucket, and, gradually,
without the
giving
and the pet zombies, liquid dread had oozed out of
the bucket, and the brothers and sisters had begun to feel safe, and that was
never good. Feelings of safety led to a cuddly warmth in the belly that festered
and turned into mutiny, and that had proven true here, because here was Brother
Mardu, the failing and perhaps already-failed captain of the cult’s ship, on
the verge of losing it all.

And what the fuck was he, a Flesher?
No, that, he certainly was not, and would not allow himself to be. The Order
wasn’t just a gang of cannibals. The Order had a purpose.

But, be that as it was, he knew he
couldn’t compete with the Fleshers even if he tried. That much he had to give
them. They had what they did down to a science.

And they would take you in too if they
thought you could carry your weight, and they would keep you as long as you
kept on bearing your load, bringing new meat in to the group to be shared. Once
you stopped, and if you failed to perform for long enough, you’d be putting in
your pound of flesh literally.

More than a few found this arrangement
appealing, but what the newcomers were ignorant of was the fact that most of
the ‘new meat’ the Fleshers were brought, walked in on its own in the form of
those looking to join the club. Newbies had a way of not measuring up these
days, on account of the human steak well was drying the fuck up.

39

I can make another one just like it, Brother Mardu thought, recalling the last
of the pets he’d owned, his heart summoning up a boldness that had become
foreign of late, and all at once his stomach began to turn sour. The idea of it
was already making him sick, and he’d just conjured it up. Even the straws he
was grasping at wouldn’t be still.

No, there would be no more pets, but
he’d have to give tomorrow, and even the thought of it, of the ritual that was
the bread and butter of the Order, was like a vacuum pulling the scant contents
of his stomach upward, and giving was arguably nowhere near as…
intrusive
as sealing a zombie’s holes to keep the virus in.

Giving was a simple turn, and yet,
thinking about it was making him want to vomit up the brittle, half-chewed
mouthfuls of hardtack he’d made himself swallow for his last meal of the day. His
lip quivered. What the hell was that? Anger? Hunger? Or…fear? Fear of his own
followers, in whom he was the one who was supposed to instill fear? Shit. He
was
getting soft. What the hell was happening?

I’ll drill the fear back into them, he
promised himself. I’ll put that fucking drill in their mouths and bore into
their teeth until all the goddamned hope is out of ‘em.

But could he? What was it with this
self-doubt? Where had it come from?

What it came do was that he could do
this and he could do that, but until the virus was back in his ear, it would
all be worthless. That was where his power came from, and now its source was
missing. Maybe it was because of the drop-off in giving. But there was so
little to give now, surely the virus must know that, must
understand
that.

And the changes he’d made, the
compromises he’d made with Acrisius, they’d been for the greater good,
necessary. Couldn’t the virus see that? It was so obvious how could it not
understand? Tradeoffs had to be made now. That was the only way left to keep moving
forward.

It hadn’t always been like this.
Before the outbreak—
long
before it—he’d been a locomotive chock full of steam,
and then, after the virus had found him, overflowing and damn well bursting
with mojo-madness.

And now what was he doing? He was tumbling
head over feet into that dark well of his past, thinking about the
before
and
back then,
a fool’s errand reserved to those with limp mojos who
were on their way out. There was nothing to see in the past, and he knew that.
Whatever the solution was, it was evading him, and still, his mind kept trying
to reach back into the time before the outbreak, as if there was something to
glean from the events of his…
other
life.

This made him angrier, and now he was right
on the cusp of flying off the handle, but that would only make matters worse.
They couldn’t see him lose control. He had to focus on something else. Any more
on this and he’d go over the edge, and then there would be blood. There would
have to be blood soon enough, but not yet. It wasn’t to be let in a
disorganized way. But the damned plan just wasn’t forming.

He wanted to scream. He wanted to cry
out to that grey-skinned relic towering over him, the
fucking
thing.
What if he got up right now, tore the thing down and let it loose among them?
Them.
It had used to be
us,
and that was just a short while ago. Six months?
Nine? A year? Why couldn’t he remember?

Now, suddenly, it was him and them.
Maybe that was the thing to do: let it loose—it had no arms or legs but it
would wriggle after them with appreciable enthusiasm, he was sure—and watch the
panic. No, he wouldn’t just watch, he’d go at
them,
too, with his bare
hands, go out fighting, like a man who still remembered what it was like to
have fire in his loins, what it was like to be a king.

Where has the virus gone? Why don’t I
hear it anymore?
Why?

Calm yourself, he thought. Don’t let
them see into your mind. It’s not as bad as you think. There’s still Acrisius,
he’s on my side, and that huge motherfucking slave of his, Saul, too.
Brother
Acrisius and
Brother
Saul, yes. I’ll talk to Brother
Acrisius,
and maybe listen to what he has to say for once. Maybe I’ve taken on too much.
He’s not a stupid man, not by a long shot, maybe it’s time I listen to him.

They were an odd pair—Acrisius and
Saul—the diseased semi-paralytic and his servant, who was a model of physical
perfection, like a Greek god or whatever, carved from stone and the whole
shebang. That image pleased Brother Mardu, because he knew he was trying to
hold on to something that was drying up and crumbling, and maybe Saul, since he
was carved from stone himself, might have a fix for this: maybe mortar and
clay.

Saul was dumb as a brick, from what
Brother Mardu could tell, but maybe he’d have something worthwhile to
contribute. At this point, Mardu was desperate enough to take anyone’s counsel,
so long as they were loyal to his side.

I’ll find a way back, he thought,
somehow. This is mine, and I’m not running away from something I was entrusted
with, from something I built brick by moldy brick with my own hands.

And he wasn’t the one who needed to
figure things out, anyway, it was the fucking traitors. They were the ones who
needed to figure their shit out, because when he rooted them out he’d kill them
all, one by one, and slowly. He just needed some proof that would stick.

Or did he? Fuck proof. He’d just start
killing. After tomorrow’s business was done, he’d pick them out at random—well
not really at random, as there were a good number he had on his killing
shortlist—and begin to cull the herd.

That was always a good thing to do,
and how he’d forgotten it he didn’t know. Herds
always
needed culling.
That would get the fear going again.

And now he was back to the certainty
that it was a problem of fear deficiency, which he was sure could be solved by
refilling the fear bucket…with the blood of a brother or two, and perhaps a
sister as well. Fuck, he’d kill most of them if that’s what it took.

The point was this: the Order was his,
and his it would stay.

That would leave more food for him,
and for those who chose the right side. In fact, the flagging faith in him and
the Order’s principles was being churned by hunger in the brothers’ and
sisters’ bellies.

When the food stopped coming regularly
to their table—which had been more than a year ago, sixteen months to be
precise even though Brother Mardu was too spacey and hungry himself to
remember—that was when beliefs and allegiances had begun to shift.