Dead Legends (Book 1): R.I.P. Van Winkle (21 page)

“What are you waiting for? Kill him!” Jeff yelled again.

Rip turned to his wife and son. “What if he wasn’t lying? What if I kill him and complete the curse? If I kill the Horseman, I could die as well,” Rip said.

Rip looked at his family. If there was a chance that he could die, he sure as hell wasn’t going to take it now. He dropped the broken blade, now covered in his own blood as well as the Horseman’s.

“No. I won’t lose either of you again. For the first time since I came to this hellhole of a world, I know exactly what I’m going to do,” Rip said, determined.

“And what exactly is that, sarge?”

Rip spun around. Hobbling his way down the aisle was Hacker, bloodied but alive. A large, wet, crimson wound was near the top of his left shoulder. In his right hand, he held his M4.

“How did you…” Rip started to ask.

Hacker held up his rifle. “Those men of Crane’s are shitty fucking shots. Did you know that? When in doubt, shoot it out, right?”

Rip smiled a grim sneer. “You’re damn right, Hacker.”

Hacker stumbled over to where Rip and his family stood. He sat down hard on the front pew, just feet away from the headless and now armless Horseman.

“So what do we do with this fucker? We can’t kill him, right?” Hacker asked, exasperated.

Rip grabbed the broken blade and stalked to the armless and headless Horseman. With a great amount of fury, he cut off the Horseman’s legs just above the knees, the blood pouring from the wounds.

“All righty then… I suppose that works,” Hacker said.

Rip reared back and stabbed the broken blade into the center of the Horseman’s chest.

“His head. Wherever his head is, that’s how we kill him. I say we leave him like this, that way there is no way in hell that he can come after us,” Rip said.

I will find and destroy you, Geoffrey Irving! The Horsemen of the apocalypse will not stop until we find and destroy all of you!

The Horseman’s voice was still in his head, but noticeably faded. The supernatural power that he possessed was fading, and it was evident in his voice. Jeff, Katrina, and Hacker all gathered around where the torso of the Horseman lay.

“What do we do now, Dad?” Jeff asked.

They heard the moans and wailing of the undead as they pounded against the door of the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. The double doors of the church bowed and flexed as the undead beat against them, desperately trying to get at whomever was inside. The Horseman may be incapacitated, but he still controlled the zombie horde outside of the church.

Rip was unfazed. He grabbed the three people he had left in this world and huddled them together. It was a feeling unlike he’d ever had. Family.
His
family.

“I promise that I will do whatever I can to protect you. I will not fail you,” Rip said, welling up with emotion.

Hacker patted Rip on the back. “That’s all well and good, sarge, but like your boy said, what do we do now? There’s a couple thousand really pissed off zombies waiting to get in here, and something tells me they aren’t real happy with us right now.”

Rip broke the huddle and walked to the center of the church. He stared at the doors as the undead beat on them. The wood began to splinter at the hinges. At any moment, the zombie horde outside was going to come bursting through.

“He said he was Death—one of the horsemen of the apocalypse, right? By my count, that means there are three others that need to be taken care of…”

EPILOGUE

THREE DAYS LATER

The old man shuffled along the road, pushing his worn but trustworthy pushcart along as he did. His dirty fingers stroked his long, wavy beard as he thought to himself. After travelling most of the day, he started to look for somewhere to rest his fatigued body. The zombies hadn’t shown up much today, just a few here and there, so as soon as he could find a building to hole up in, he would call it a night and get some rest.

A sign on the side of the road caught his eye.

The old man walked over to the sign and, after reading it, decided to follow the directions. It seemed like the perfect place to crawl into for the night. Thirty minutes later, he was nearing his destination.

Only something was wrong.

As the old man approached his home for the night—the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow—he saw something that he had never seen before, even in the abysmal world that he lived in. Strewn about in front of the church and all around were bodies.

Thousands of them.

As the old man shuffled forth, he noticed that all of the deceased bodies were those of the undead. Whatever hell had come through here had left its mark, killing hundreds, if not thousands of zombies. The old man was perplexed. He certainly did not want to mess with whomever had caused this amount of destruction, but he did need shelter for the night. He meandered his pushcart through the mass of bodies until he reached the base of the steps leading into the church.

A thunderous noise behind him drew his attention back.

Fearing he had awoken whatever evil had caused this devastation, the old man turned and kept his head down. He was but a humble traveler, he would tell them and meant them no harm. It worked many times before, and he prayed it would work now.

“I… I am sorry, good sir. I dunno what has caused all this death and destruction, but I am just a-passin’ through. I don’t mean ya’ any harm.”

“Do not avert your eyes, old man. I also mean you no harm,” the deep but reassuring voice said.

The old man grinned and slowly raised his head. “That’s mighty fine of you, stranger, but…”

What he saw he could not understand and his words failed him. Standing before him was a man—no, something
like
a man. He wore armor fashioned from the bones of dead animals and rode a brilliant white horse. The horse and rider were surrounded by thousands of flies. The stench coming from the horse and rider were more overpowering than the stench of the undead lying at his feet. The old man stammered, but no words came out.

“I am Pestilence, and I seek the man named Irving.”

TO BE CONTINUED…