Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (29 page)

Inguill put her hand on his shoulder. “
Wait just a moment longer. Let’s g
ive them plenty of time to get
well
away.”

She
thought he would protest but to Inguill’s surprise,
Pizarro
gave her a brisk nod
.
“
Very well
,” he said. “But just for a minute.”

*****

Back inside the
smoky
city
,
Minco and hi
s men
no longer needed to
search
for
any more of the undead
soldiers
, they found them
first
.
R
unning battles
had begu
n i
n the narrow streets
of Huacas
a
nd t
he time between each
of these
deadly
encounter
s
was
growing
shorter as
more
of the undead soldiers
closed in on their position
.
Before long
, most of the
muskets were
no longer of any
use. T
he beasts were
getting
far
too close and
while some of the men used the long barrels as handles and the butts for bludgeoning instrument, most discarded them for
the close combat
swords and axes.

They struggled
and fought
with everything
against the jaws, teeth and hands of their attackers
and with
every
new onslaught,
another
one
of Minco’s men fell
. Each of them taken
was dragged away
alive
and
then slowly devoured
nearby
, and it was a death that seemed to take an age. It appear
ed
that
the beasts
wanted their slow, agonis
ed
screams to be heard
.

As the street
s
filled with more and more of the undead
,
Minco realised
they could not last much longer. He and
just
six others
were all that was left
of their raiding party
.
He could only hope and pray
that
Inguill had made it
to the pyramid
.

Then he heard it;
a bell
was
ringing
in the distance
. Every
single
city in
Tawantinsuyu- all four parts of the Incan Empire-
had a
n alarm
bell to
be
sound
ed
when
either
danger approached or to call its citizens to the square.
Minco knew
that
Inguill
was
ringing the bell
. She was sending him the signal to come
to her
, the route to the pyramid was clear
.

This sound
gave Minco
some
renewed energy. H
e screamed at his men
as his axe felled
yet
another
one
of the undead
. “Get
back
to the pyramid!
Move
it
-
r
un as fast as you can!”

*****

Inguill,
Pizarro
, and the last of their party inched
in through the gates and made
their way through the deserted streets as they listened to the
distant sound of
gunfire. None of Supay
’s army
was
anyw
here to be seen;
they all
must
have gone
off
in the pursuit of Minco
and his men
.
At first
,
Inguill was happy
at this thought
, almost excited
with the
way things were sound
ing
. But when
all of
the gun fire
had
stopped, they
stopped and
listened in
a
tense silence. No more shots were fired and
she and
Pizarro
shared a
terrible,
knowing look.

“I’m sorry,” he said
, not unsympathetically, “b
ut w
e need to
continue. We mu
st ensure they their deaths are
not
going to be
in vain.”

“
No
,
you’re wrong,
” she said. “
It could be
quiet for
any
number of
reason
s
.” S
he
looked
frantically
around as if
searching for something
.
She paused to give
Pizarro
a strange and stubborn little smile.
“I
will not be giving
up on him
- not
yet.”
With that, she darted around the
corner
of a building
and out of sight
.

“Get back here
,
woman!”
Pizarro
shouted
after her
, his voice as loud as he dared
. “Don’t be a
damn
ed
fool!”

She ignored
him
and kept on running.
In a fru
strated rage,
Pizarro
yanked the
hat off
his head and threw it to the ground.
H
e kicked a tattered old barrel
that was standing nearby,
spilling its rotted contents
out
onto the street
.
He took a breath to steady himself and turning to face
his men
,
he poin
ted at
the
massive
black building less than a hundred yards away
. “Get over there
and
secure the doors to the pyramid.
I’ll get
the woman
and join you there.”
His
broke into a run, his
tired
l
egs
protesting as he
set off after the High Priestess.

Inguill knew
the courtyard
had to be close. E
verything else in
this
dark
, evil
city
had
matched what was back home at Cuzco
and s
he prayed that this would be
no exception
. She was
soon glad to be prove
n
right
. As she rounded
another
corner
, there
it was
,
in the middle of everything- a
small bell tower. She
ran to it and
grabbed
the thick and dusty
rope
, pulling
at it
with all her weight until it began to ring
.

“
Inguill.
.
.
stop..
.
Inguill!”
Pizarro
shouted as he
came upon the square
himself
.
S
he could
barely
hear his call
over the
deafening
sound of the
bell but
she
chose to ignore him
again
anyway,
she was
determined not to give up
on
her last hope of saving Minco
.

As
the heavy bell
tolled,
she felt a
hand on her shoulder. “Leave me be Spaniard,” she shouted. “
Please j
ust give me a moment
more
.
L
et me
make sure he’s heard the
signal and then
I’ll be away from here
.
”
There was something odd about that touch. It was not the thick, warm hand of
Pizarro
. She glanced back and froze as
she saw it was not the
grim
Spaniard
’
s hand but that of a
decade’s
old corpse.

Pizarro
had been trying to
warn her
.

The monster groaned as its grip tightened and pulled
Inguill closer to its putrid, rotting
jaws. It had not
fed on
flesh for years and thi
s sweet
,
young thing
that it held
in its hand
must have felt like heaven
, or is that hell
. B
ut b
efore it could
sink its teeth into
her
,
Pizarro
tackled the creature to the ground
.
E
ven
in his advanced age,
Pizarro
managed
to rise
before the beast and with an indignant roar, he brought his heavy
boot
onto the undead creature’s
face
. A sickening crackle and squelch reminded
Inguill
of large beetles being crushed and she fought back the urge to gag
.

The creature twitched on the stone; but
Pizarro
was not finished. He
stamped down on its neck
, producing the sharp, dry crack of a twig being broken
.
He rained blow upon blow
from the sole of his boot
down upon the monster
until all that was left
of its head
was a dark, viscous
mess.

“Enough,” Inguill shouted at the Spaniard. “
It
is dead.
Let’s get to the pyramid while we still can
.”

Pizarro
spun around to face her.
There was blind rage in his face but Inguill’s sharp eye did not miss the presence of tears dampening his cheeks
. He
gave her a single nod as she gently took his arm, leading him away
.

“You saved my life
,
Spaniard,” she said. “I’m sorry for what I sai
d earlier. P
lease
,
accept
my thanks for what you just did
.”

All he did
in return was grunt.

*****

Minco
and his men
he
aded
straight
for the sound of the bells but it was a
deadly
fight
,
every
single
step of the way. The soldi
ers of Huacas were desperate to get
a taste of their flesh and they
appeared to have
no
fear
of
their
swords and axes as they
swarmed
around
the invaders
.

One of the beasts
caught
a good hold of
M
inco
’s arm
as he swung his axe for what felt like the thousandth time. He tugged and pulled but
could
n
o
t break free
of the inhumanly strong grip that had hi
m
.
The soldier was one of the
recently turned Spanish
men and as it
closed in
to deliver a virulent bite,
Minco slammed
the top of his forehead
into its face, s
mashing its nose and sending a
thin
slice of
bone
u
p
and
into its brain.
In death, the creature
release
d
its
steely
grip
and
Minco was
free
again
.