Redemption of the Dead (6 page)

“I’m dead,”
Billie said. She lifted her legs and set them around the branch as
well, hoping she could muster the strength to inch her way up. She
tried, but she quickly lost purchase and slid down a foot or two,
her fingernails tearing against the bark, the inside of her
forearms scraping along its rough surface. The interior of her
thighs burned from the friction of her rapid descent.

Eyes wide,
overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught of pain, she could only just
hang on and nothing more.

“No,” she
said, trying to catch her breath, “must try. For Hank. For me. For
Joe. For Des.” She grit her teeth. “For August.” She screamed
behind tightly-pressed lips as she attempted to climb the branch
again; the raw skin of her forearms lit up in fiery pain every time
she moved them along the bark. She made it up a couple of feet,
getting back to where she’d been before she slipped. She clung hard
to the branch.

Hard.

Harder.

Wood snapped beneath her.

The undead
had latched on to the bottom of the large branch, clawing and
pulling on the fan-like clump of smaller twigs and branches, trying
to climb up. Each jolt of their weight against the branch wreaked
havoc on her arms. Blood leaked down her skin, pooling in her
armpits and dripping down her sides. Arms numb, it was hard to tell
if she was even holding on anymore. She actually had to look at her
arms to make sure.

The branch shook. Billie slipped a few
inches, her arms getting torn up even more. Screaming from the
pain, the terrifying thought of becoming zombie food setting her
heart into an all-out gallop, she looked around, checking for any
last-second options.

“Hold on!” she shrieked at
herself.

But she
couldn’t. She slid down the branch, the flesh on her arms tearing
to ribbons, the zombies below quickly getting closer.

Some fifteen
or twenty feet from the ground, Billie let go, rolling her body in
the air as hard as she could to the side, and landed on her right
shoulder and hip some ten yards from the hungry undead.

The right side of her body numb, she
tried to get to her feet, only to collapse.

“No! Get up!” Her words floated away
from her then echoed in her ears loud and clear.

Had they been her words? Hank’s?
August’s? Nathaniel’s?

What words?

Darkness rimmed her vision.

“Noooo . . .” she groaned, eyeing the
undead as they made their way toward her.

Billie
dragged herself along the ground, arms stinging and bleeding. She
came up near a large bush that had long since lost its leaves.
Reaching out, she grabbed its stems and slowly pulled herself up.
Her left leg worked—barely—her right was useless.

Hobbling, she pushed her way into the
forest, not looking back or wasting any more precious seconds on
the undead.

She slowly
moved around trees and in between skeletal bushes, hoping to find
some sort of haven.

But there was nothing.

Just dead trees, bushes, shrubs and
rocks.

Rocks. The ground beneath her had
changed to rock. She was outside the forest, along the
lake.

The zombies got closer and broke
through the bushes.

Barely able to walk, Billie screamed
at them, raw and visceral. Her primal shrieks didn’t faze them and
they kept moving forward.

Backing up, running out of room, she
bordered the edge of the rocks and the gray waters
below.

“I’m tired,”
she said, the words trickling out. The hard realization hit her
that despite any hope she once had even just moments ago, it was
all gone. This war, these creatures, angels, demons and everything
in between—no more.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, maybe to
Joe, or to Nathaniel, or even herself.

The undead
reached for her.

Billie backed up and pushed herself
off the edge of the rock into the gray water below.

* * * *

One year ago
. .
.

Bethrez entered Vingros’s chamber not worried he would chew
him out for putting an end to Holgrack’s commandership. If
anything, Vingros would be glad the sniveling worm was out of the
way as, though he’d never admit it, Bethrez knew Vingros had
regretted the decision of promoting Holgrack to commander after
Holgrack had returned empty-handed from a recent battle, without
the influence on even a single soul.

Vingros liked the dark,
Bethrez knew, and only on occasion permitted himself the luxury of
a dimly-lit torch to light the otherwise gloomy den.

“I can hear you breathing,”
Vingros said, his voice coming from where Bethrez knew the large
demon kept his throne.

“The portal is ready albeit
there is one problem before testing.”

“Don’t tell me, it’s in the
wrong location.”

“Yes, how did
you—”

“You idiot! I know what’s
going on in my circle and am apprised of news before all else, save
the master himself.”

“Yes, my lord, but I
thought it best to come to you to let you know that we are ready
except that one detail otherwise we await the master’s command to
open the portal. Is he aware of—” Bethrez thought better of the
comment and kept his mouth shut.

“I will send others to move
the portal—”

“I wish it were that
simple, but the portal is larger than the room it’s constructed in,
thus cannot leave without being dismantled.”

“Oh, Bethrez, you
disappoint me. Do you not remember that as master of the Fourth
Circle I am able to bend the very depths of the earth to my
whim?”

“No, my lord,” he lied.
Fact of the matter was, ever since being tasked with creating the
portal, the work had taken up most of Bethrez’s time, and if not
all his time, then his thoughts, pushing out all else.

“The portal shall remain
where it is, but I will use the rocks and stones to move it to its
rightful location. I ask you, once there, will it be
ready?”

Bethrez grinned. “It will
be ready, however, I request to be present upon first usage,
namely, the first one through. If it fails like before, then I will
be shot back here. If it succeeds, the doors to the Earth will open
and we will all go through.”

“The master will not
tolerate another failed experiment. You have had over six hundred
years to get it right.”

Bethrez wished to explain that to enable his fellow demons
access to the Earth en masse and in the manner of which mass
possession was possible, was not an easy feat as safeguards from
the battle long ago had been put in place to prevent such a thing.
It took over two centuries alone to thoroughly study each and every
safeguard and realm-lock before even an attempt at a means to
disarm them was possible. Construction on a single prototype portal
took anywhere between eighty to one hundred and thirteen years. Yet
Vingros wasn’t interested in such things, he knew. He was also
aware their master was on a clock himself, one that couldn’t be
outrun unless such a device was constructed.

“Depart now, Bethrez. I
will call when I have need of you.”

“Thank you,” Bethrez said
with a bow then left the cave.

* * * *

5

Hang Ups

T
racy slapped
Joe
in the face, sending a hot
sting across his cheek.

“You’re
unbelievable,” she said. She was stunned he’d lock her out of the
basement, and what for? So he could play hero and take out a rotter
all by himself? Yeah, that’s real impressive, not to mention stupid
and dangerous. She knew he’d killed many undead creatures on his
own before, but what she didn’t get was why he’d suddenly cut her
out and take one on with her right there. It’d be one thing if she
couldn’t handle herself, or had been severely hurt, or even had
simply not been present—but when she stood right there beside him
when the creature emerged? What gives?

“What’s your problem?” he
said.

“What’s yours? Why did you lock me out
of the basement?”

“I . . .
didn’t want you to get hurt.”

“Don’t feed me that crap,” she said.
“We might not be best friends, but I know you well enough to know
there was another reason.”

“Honestly, there wasn’t. I saw the
thing, you were by the door, I pushed you out in case the worst
happened.”

She threw up her arms and shook her hands by her head,
frustrated. “Are you listening to yourself?
You’re
the
one who backed me up the stairs by the door.
You’re
the
one who thought that somehow the worst would happen when we were
together versus the worst happening when you handled that on your
own. And without a gun!”

“I knew what I was doing.”

“That
doesn’t matter. You willingly went head first into death and shut
me out. What’s going on, Joe? Did something else happen? Is it me?
Seriously, what’s going on?”

H
e looked at her, eyes
empty of emotion or concern, just . . . lost.

Is he over the edge? Did it finally happen and just came
out of nowhere?
she
thought.
I understand his
pain and his battle against the undead. I get all that, probably
better than anyone else he’s ever met. Just don’t get how he could
suddenly snap. Thought there’d be a progression, if that was going
to happen. Thought there’d be signs.

She loudly
exhaled and shook her head. “I-I don’t know what to say. Just think
it was a stupid move on your part.”

“Think what you want. The thing is . .
.” He didn’t finish.

“What?”

He simply folded his arms.

“No, no, come on. Don’t start to say
something then cut yourself off. Give me a break. I hated that
before the world fell apart and I hate it now. Spit it
out!”

He turned around and headed toward the
kitchen. “Going to go look for something to eat. Sorry,
Tracy.”

She gritted
her teeth and stared after him with squinted eyes. “Stupid
idiot.”

“Heard that,” he said from the other
room.

“I don’t care,” she
shouted.

The house went quiet. She ran her hands over her hair,
smoothing it back. Quietly, she said, “Maybe you should ask
yourself why
you’re
so upset.” But she already knew the
answer.

It was so simple, so
obvious.

She’d grown to care for
him.

* * * *

There was
nothing food-wise in the kitchen. The water was off. Even after
checking the master valve, nothing was running into the house. Joe
swallowed back his thirst and sat alone on the bed in what seemed
to have been a teenager’s bedroom. KISS posters dominated the
walls. Clearly whoever had lived here was a fan. He browsed the CD
rack and there were a dozen of their albums, their edges covered in
dust.

Tracy was right: it had been a
bonehead move to try and take on the zombie by himself, especially
since he was unarmed. He was thankful he was still alive, though
there was a brief moment while taking on the creature that he
thought it might be for the best if the thing killed him. Finally,
then, he’d be free of this world, the heartache, this disgusting
reality of undead monsters and supernatural forces.

Except when you hit the other side,
he thought,
then
you’ll be spending eternity with the supernatural anyway. You’ve
seen enough to know that.
He
just hoped he’d make it to the right side when his time
came.

Misplaced
affection had been the real culprit. His love for April, her
untimely death, undeath, then death again—Joe knew full well he’d
never get over her. Not completely. At best, he’d remain as he was:
used to a life without her, the pain of the past always present and
hanging over the future. But this world, the one he was in, the one
he and Billie and August emerged in after the Storm of Skulls—it
wasn’t theirs. April could still be alive here. If so, he’d have to
find her. There was no choice.

But Tracy . . .
he
thought. The girl was growing on him. He saw so much of himself in
her that it was surreal he even found her, never mind actually got
to spend lots of time with her. She understood him, he knew, his
mission, his pain. She was on a similar quest of her own, this
undead world a twisted salve to their pulsating wounds.

He’d pushed
her out of the basement for the same reason he immediately tore off
into the gray rain the day it first fell: to ensure the girl he
cared about was safe. Something had come over him the moment he saw
that creature emerge from the freezer, an instinct to protect her
overriding any thought for his own safety.

“She would
have been fine standing right there with me,” he said to himself.
“She could take you down if needed and would probably have no
trouble doing so.” He touched his cheek where she slapped him. His
skin was still sensitive.