Saint Pain (Zombie Ascension Book 3) (2 page)

Now, there were hands upon his shoulders. A hand covered his mouth. Helplessly, and with his gaze focused on the mirror-version of himself, he felt compelled to watch. He wanted to watch. He was curious and interested. This was something he never could have anticipated, and there was no rational explanation, no experience that could explain or define what he witnessed.

And he watched himself being ripped apart. Never once did the mirror image cry out or struggle. The mirror image accepted its bloody fate. Skin was peeled away from the skull by the assembled hands; there seemed to be hundreds of hands at once, and blood spurted out as if the head were being popped open, crimson spray painting the wrapped faces of the undead lords. Limbs were wrenched from their sockets; and pieces of Jim Traverse’s reflection disappeared into a misty cloud of gore.

***

Jim Traverse realized that he had been afraid one other time in his life. The feeling surprised him; the fact that he was afraid
now
and could remember what it felt like.

A dirty, grimy hand reach for his throat and seized him. Jim was lifted into the air, his feet dangling, the impossible strength from the long-dead pharaoh squeezing his throat.

This was it.

But his perception was filled with a vision composed of nightmare. Knowledge filled his mind, and he was helpless against the images that assaulted his memory.

These were the lords of nightmare, the gatekeepers of Hell. They could not die and had been imprisoned in this ancient tomb. An eternity of questions were answered, and these overwhelmingly transitioned to images of horror.

He saw ditches filled with murdered Holocaust victims; plague carts heavy with diseased corpses pushed through the mud of rain-battered roads; Rome was on fire, children and slaves screaming in the streets; history’s atrocities were the manifestation of a nightmare. A curse visited upon the blood of Hell’s gatekeepers.

Images tormented Jim’s mind. As a boy, his kidnapper had trained him to become the methodical killer that he was, and now, after all the violence and bloodshed that defined his existence, there was another level of torment. Another level of knowledge that would forever change him.

Jim was not afraid of this change.

He was afraid that he would not live to see such glorious slaughter.

Unless he was chosen.

This is why he was sent here. His team was composed of the world’s most efficient assassins, and only one could be re-purposed.

The terrible kings shared their visions with him again. An entire plain of corpses. Tornados lingering outside of sprawling metropolises that had become nothing more than colorless layouts, as if the buildings had been built of featureless blocks, and there was no noise, no life, no color. Jim saw a plain of corpses, and the sun was setting. His visions shifted. Horror upon horror upon horror. Throughout the collage of visions he could hear Rose’s voice, her words replayed from intimate encounters they had with each other. 

From this vision, Jim’s mind whirled around, and he saw the plain of corpses again, bodies left to rot in the sun. Here was a world purged of flesh. Purged of iniquities and expectations. Entire cities reduced to ash, mortality and inevitability bringing mortal man and all of its ingenuity and waste to nothing. All struggles and wars were nothing more than a prelude for the ultimate annihilation. Mankind seeks its own destruction, hoping that a better version of itself might survive, a version that could govern itself, start over, build Utopia from the ground up.

A world purged of emotions, standards, ideas. A world in which one survivor might have the impetus to become God and start anew.

This was Jim’s fantasy.

I know what you seek
, the voice of young Rose said in his mind.
You believe it to be an impossible fantasy, but the fantasy is part of a dream, and dreams can become nightmares. We are the nightmare. We are always here.

When Jim’s eyes snapped awake, he immediately thought the entire thing had been nothing more than a hallucination; he had been drugged. He was in a helicopter, his mind groggy and confused. A lapse in personal judgment caused this to happen. He was still alive and surrounded by teammates, the chopper vibrating as it carried the soldiers to another destination.

But not everyone was in the chopper, and Jim had to wipe sleep from his eyes, found his limbs weak and unresponsive. There were only two other members of the team that had been assigned the Egypt mission inside the chopper with him.

Never before in his life was he denied the ability to control his fate; not since Georgia Cone defined his every breath. He lay there on the helicopter floor, unmoving, waiting.

Two other veteran Black Ops killers—two other men who should have been dead. Jim tried to rationalize whether or not the undead lords were real, and he had been thrust into a new nightmare in which he couldn’t understand reality.

This might be the hell that had always awaited him.

But why these two men? Ron Sutter, a big American from the Southwest with a long, thick beard stretched down to his chest. Stephen Richards, a career officer who had ambitions to generalship, a well-groomed man who believed in efficiency. Like Jim, these men had been considered expendable. These men had been thrown into a mission that was certain to kill them.

“What’s up, Jimmy boy?” Sutter asked while he chomped on a thick cigar.

“We survived,” Jim said.

“Yuppers,” Sutter said. “Did you see what happened to Rakesh?”

Jim understood that Sutter was implying Jim had killed him. “No.”

“Well, sheeit. Cocksucker probably worked for ISIS, anyway. Fucking A-rab.”

Ron Sutter held a record for most ISIS insurgents killed in one mission. In the same mission, he did not lose a single soldier under his command.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Richards said, “but we’re not going to start killing each other. This isn’t survival of the fittest. Not like it was supposed to be.”

“The game’s changed,” Sutter said. “We could have left your skinny ass to rot with the A-rab and the rest of the crew, but I told Richards I like your haircut and that shit-eating smirk you got; there’s a soft-spot in my heart for you. Richards didn’t want to kill you, either.”

“Like he said, the game’s changed,” Richards added. “We know what you saw. We had a similar experience. I can’t say we felt the same, or we… suffered… the same, but we’re here. We’re alive.”

“And we know it’s never happened like this before,” Sutter said, his tone finally serious.

“I see where this is going,” Jim said. “We’re going to make a deal, or a pact. The three of us will be like the three men in the
Pardoner’s Tale.
It’s only a matter of time before we try to kill each other. I expected to be the only man to return from Egypt.”

“That’s dramatic as hell,” Sutter said with a loud laugh. “Are you always this serious? Dude, we got an opportunity. You want to go solo? I’m cool with that. I’ll save us all the trouble and off myself. You think I give a shit what happens next? I made my peace with who I am. Both you handsome bastards got all kinds of plans. I don’t have plans. I’m a soldier, and I like to kill shit. I’ll die doing it someday. It could be now, could be later. Don’t we all think this way? I’m not trying to be a poet like you are, Jimbo, but shit, it ain’t all that complicated.”

There was only one possible conclusion to Jim’s career, and Sutter and Richards shared the same destiny; they weren’t going to retire in a plush mansion and live the quiet lives of mysterious, independently wealthy bachelors. Sutter was right: death was inevitable, and for them, it would be violent. It could be no other way. Egypt was supposed to be their last mission.

But they were coming back, and Jim saw a new destiny, a beautiful dream. After spending their entire lives murdering people for money, they might have a chance to murder everyone. The money didn’t matter anyway. Maybe it never mattered. They killed because they could, and now they could realize the ultimate potential that only men who could not deny that genocide was the only true path to human purity.

“We can have the power of hell,” Richards said. “We can wipe everyone out. We can give these… people… what they’ve always secretly wanted, what they’ve always tried to do to the species. We already have the Rose project, and we know our superiors have someone who could help us. Someone very, very important.”

Jim searched his memory and tried to make sense of the knowledge that had been shared with him. There was a girl, a woman whose bloodline was part of the ancient race that had been buried in the Egyptian nightmare-tomb. The power-elite had sent Jim, Sutter, and the others into the tomb so that one of them would return and help foster the development of the apocalypse, an experiment that had been tried before by the shadowy figures who manipulated world governments. There was a girl who had been bred to destroy the world.

Richards had mentioned Rose, and it wasn’t her. Richards was already trying to plan ahead, but Richards didn’t understand that Rose belong to Jim. There was another woman, a redhead whose ancestors could not be killed.                            

Jim looked into Sutter’s face and watched the big man’s lips split into a wide smile.

“We’re gonna have one helluva time,” Sutter said. He turned and spat onto the helicopter’s floor, a big wad of phlegm only an inch or two away from Jim’s fingertips. “Rock and roll. Oh yeah!”

Jim wondered if Sutter would ever stop laughing.

TEMPLES OF HATE

VEGA

The supply chopper was three days late. Vega could hear it; the thundering rotors were still a few miles away, but everyone was probably scrambling for it by now. She was getting tattoos done on her hands, mostly because she just wanted to feel the pain.

The tattoo artist looked up from his work. A dove with its wings spread out on each of her hands, sort of her own twisted joke.

“Not bad,” she said.

The man’s name was Suede, a man of dark flesh who had once worked with the man she shared the house with. “Do you mind if I…?”

“No, go ahead. Thank you.”

He practically ran out the door. She stood and approached the doorway to watch people scramble toward the school. They dropped tools and water bottles. Small children pointed and wailed.

Vincent approached the house, walking over the lawn upon which scores of zombies had once been cut down by his gun. A year ago. Over a year ago. He wiped sweat from his face with a black and brown stained towel that used to be white. He was leaner. Everyone was leaner. He wore a blue tank top and a pair of black Dickies and work boots. Dust was caked on his shoulders and arms.

“Not going?” she asked, flexing her sore hands.

The sunlight caught the glint of his platinum teeth when he smiled. He planted his foot against the porch and leaned over his thigh.

“Thinking we need some time,” he said.

“Been planning this all day?”

She knew he was going to smile, and when he smiled, she smiled. Her face betrayed her, no matter how many times she tried to command the muscles in her face, her lips had their own plans.

His thin, ropy arms were slick with sweat. Behind him was the neighborhood. Their neighborhood. A home they built together.

Vincent looked away in a vain attempt to hide his smile. He scrunched his eyes against the sunlight and watched people race down the street toward the high school where the chopper had already landed on the roof.

“Got the Champ taking care of it,” he said.

“The Champ,” she said.

“The football player.”

“I know who he is.” She pictured the man who looked like a Norse god, arms like tree trunks, eyes like sapphires.

“You’re disappointed?” Vincent asked.

“Why would I be disappointed? You spend all day trying to fix this place, trying to make it what it never was. You’re the one who’s going to be disappointed, not me.”

“I forget you know me better than I know myself.”

She leaned against the doorway and watched people scatter toward the supply drop. Parents picked up their kids, not to hold them close, but to have the ability to race faster down the street without dragging their children along.

“Your hands,” Vincent said.

Vega held up her hands.

“Suede did all right,” he said. “You like it?”

“Doing my part to represent world peace.”

He sprung forward and swept her into his arms. She had been hoping for this. She’d been looking forward to this time together in which he wouldn’t be so exhausted, and they wouldn’t lie awake at night, listening. Wondering. She felt lighter in his arms now, as if she’d removed layers of clothing she’d been forced to wear while working in a desert. She could smell his must, and it didn’t matter.

Vincent carried her through the empty living room and down the hallway. Past the kitchen where she had eaten a meal with Patrick Griggs and Sergeant John Charles. Into a bedroom with a mattress on threadbare carpet damaged by lighter burns and discarded ash. Rifles and bullets on the floor. Hundreds of bullets, like confetti from an old party nobody felt like cleaning up.

Vincent dropped her onto the bed and stood over her. He was already unbuckling his belt, thank God. She lifted the shirt over her head. He grabbed her waist and tore at her blue jeans. His arms wrapped around her. His sweat, his skin, his breath—all of him mixing with all of her.

***

Hours later, Vega sat at the table, and Vincent leaned back against the sink. The Champ sat across from Vega, a wall of tanned muscle and dirt. His large frame didn’t fit in the chair very well. Behind him was Mike Taylor, a retired Detroit beat cop.

“Let’s hear it,” Vega said.

“They’re not coming next month,” the Champ said.

Silence.

The Champ was a practice squad linebacker for the Detroit Lions. Blond-haired and blue-eyed, he was a hard worker whom everyone in the neighborhood respected. He did the toughest jobs and led more rescue and salvage forays than Vincent did, a fact everybody noticed.

But Vincent didn’t care. He wasn’t anyone’s leader. He had guns and the desire to rebuild here, at ground zero. There was nothing for him at the lavish Grosse Pointe palace he owned; this was his chance to do something right. It was his project, and people followed. They joined. He didn’t ask.

And so they grew. They expected Vincent to lead, and he reluctantly laid the groundwork for their little slice of paradise.

The more people they attracted, the larger they grew. They became a bigger target. Harder to control and police. People wanted leadership, organization, laws.

“Keep going,” Vincent said.

“There was another problem in Washington,” the Champ said. “Another coup.”

Vincent smirked and shook his head.

“Our friends in the chopper have to look out for themselves,” Vega said.

Taylor, the retired cop, cleared his throat. “We need a ship and a captain if we’re going to stick around.” A weathered old man with a smoker’s voice, he knew the city well enough to help provide direction and speak in metaphors.

They had been down this road before. All around the world millions of people had watched the video Jim made of Mina eating someone, and millions more were infected. The zombies made by the video were uncontrollable things—even though Mina had seemed to help Vega’s cause by convincing Father Joe to blow her brains out, there was no accounting for the people who were turned into the undead after watching the video.

As far as they knew, Mina was dead. Father Joe had killed the zombie that she inhabited.

“You still thinking about leaving?” the Champ asked Vega.

“We’re kicking ideas around, but we’re probably going to grind it out here.”

The Champ nodded. “We need you. We need you both. Nobody has combat training. Nobody’s been through this shit like the two of you have.”

“That’s not true,” Vega said. “It would be a waste if we sat here wondering when our time might be up. We can’t be afraid to keep living.”

The Champ looked at them for a moment. Bill Bailey was his real name. People around the neighborhood looked up to him, and Vincent tried to encourage him to do more.

“That sounds real cute,” Taylor said, “but some people are going over to Sutter. He’s got trade set up with people further north of here. Don’t know what he’s trading, but he’s bringing in supplies.”

“If folks feel safer with him, let them go,” Vincent said. “Ain’t nothing keeping you here.”

“You’re sitting on a pile of guns,” Taylor said. “You’re guarding it like it’s treasure. We could use it, get in good with this guy, join forces. Could be better for everyone.”

“Maybe better for you.”

“You need to be a selfish prick about your hoard?”

“Hoard? You seen the guns? Because I ain’t seen them.”

Vincent turned his back on Taylor. A year ago, this would have ended differently. Vincent had never got along with cops, and Taylor was always on his ass about the supposed hidden trove of guns. Vincent never mentioned the guns to Vega.

Mike Taylor knew Vincent used to be one of the country’s biggest black market gun dealers, and they rarely talked. Taylor was an old man, but Vega enjoyed his company. He was a lot like Bob, her old mercenary team leader. She enjoyed listening to Taylor’s stories. His stories always had a happy ending. When Taylor was around, she would get a few laughs and she could forget about reality for a little while.

“What do we know about Sutter?” Vega asked. “Anything new?”

“Ex-military,” Taylor said. “He’s got some ex-military members with him. We know they’re staying at that big ass train depot, and they don’t like people coming close to their turf.”

“Why would he stay here?” Vega asked. “If he has the people and the supplies, why doesn’t he move out? And why would he want us to join him? He would have more mouths to feed.”

Taylor shrugged. “Why do we stay?”

“What’s he trading?” Vega asked.

Taylor shrugged again. “We should set something up with him. Get someone on the inside maybe, if it comes down to it.”

Vincent interjected. “Not so difficult to figure this out. He ain’t moving on because there’s plenty around here to trade. He knows about us. He’s trading people. Nothing more complicated than that.”

“You’re guessing,” Taylor said.

“Educated guess. And the way you go on talking about guns that don’t exist, I start to wonder if he thinks there’s something else around here. He can sit fat and happy in that castle of his because he’s got women and children right here.”

The implications hung in the air for a moment as they all figured it out.

“He’s farming us,” Vega said.

“Nobody would do that,” Bill said, his voice a whisper as if he couldn’t possibly believe that people were capable of such evil. “No way.”

“So let’s just keep everyone here, and wait for him to come for us.” Taylor raised his voice now with the realization that it was a waste to pretend he and Vincent could agree on anything. “Let’s just wait for him to decide what he wants to do. You’re keeping your guns for a rainy day? Thinking maybe we shouldn’t defend ourselves because you feel entitled to all the shit that you stole?”

Vincent approached him slowly, and both men met in the middle, sizing each other up.

“You think you own this city,” Taylor said. “Until your ass ends up dead because another thug gets tired of your bullshit and takes over, or you get dragged into jail. You’re just like every other gangster-wannabe this city has seen. You never cared how many people died before, so long as you got to be on top. Why would you care now?”

The fire in Vincent’s eyes flared out. He lowered his head, his shoulders slumped, and walked out of the house. Taylor stood there as if he was still waiting for the blow to come.

Vincent once confessed to Vega that Griggs, the former detective-turned-skin flick director used to bother him; whenever Griggs brought up the “baby killing” and argued that he was responsible for the things people did with guns, Vincent thought about it. He didn’t let it go. It used to bother him before, but after everything he’d survived and seen, Griggs had stung him.

Taylor shook his head, confused by the exchange with Vincent. “You have to talk some sense into him. His head’s not right. Hell, none of us are right. He can’t get over himself yet. He can’t let the past go. Has he said anything about those guns?”

“Take everyone who will follow you out to Sutter,” she said. “Don’t come running back when you find out they’re wasting time with the same arguments we’re having now.”

Let the past go. Let the nightmares go. Taylor was all talk, and poor Bill was just a muscle head without a clue, a giant with a heart of gold. They were survivors, too, but they were naïve. They wanted Vincent to let go of the man he used to be, and they didn’t realize that the old Vincent truly was dead, and the one left standing didn’t know who or what to be.

Just like her.

Her head injury lingered. Bright sunlight bothered her, and headaches were common. She had a hard time remembering things that happened before she touched down in Detroit with Bob and Miles, and her memory of that first night was shot to hell. Fragments. Pieces. Voices. She remembered heat and fear. She remembered running.

She remembered a little girl.

There was nothing more to say to Bill or Taylor.

***

Darkness. Shortness of breath. She was awake. Awake and breathing. Sweating. Sitting upright. Alive. Still alive.

In the dark, she couldn’t see. She couldn’t see anything, and she reached for the 9mm that was beside her pillow. She pointed it at the window. A moment ago, she’d seen a face there. There was a face that looked at her.

“Breathe,” Vincent said. He was in the room with her.

Her hands shook.

“Breathe girl. Take a deep breath.”

Moonlight on the windowsill. Her tattooed hands shaking. Sweat in her eyes. The face had been looking at her. Through the window. Looking down upon her.

“We’re safe. Take a deep breath. We’re all right.”

Her heart rate had quickened. Nerves jittery. Moonlight on the windowsill.

A warm hand gently touched her wrist and eased her down. She still held the gun, and she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the window. The gun was between her legs, her fingers wrapped around the grip.

“Shhh.”