Tale of the Dead Town (16 page)

“Well, I’ll be damned. The ol’ mayor sure took his sweet time moving on this, and
now it looks like we’re talking about more than half the town—this place is a freaking
undead paradise,” Pluto VIII muttered, walking down the street on Lori’s beautiful
legs.

A presence soon stirred in his vicinity.

“Came to play, did you?” Pluto VIII muttered, and Lori stopped in her tracks.

In the feeble darkness stood a motionless figure with black gloves on. The weird atmosphere
seemed to radiate most strongly from his body.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Pluto VIII laughed. “I don’t know where the hell you’re
taking this town or even why, but it’s all over now. I’ll make quick work of you,
then get off this ride—once I get what I’ve got coming, of course. The know-how that
made you immortal should fetch me a nice price elsewhere, too. It’s too bad you won’t
get to see your buddies multiply, but you’ll have to get over that.”

Though it was unclear how exactly Pluto VIII manipulated Lori’s supposedly nonfunctioning
vocal chords, he had her talking a blue streak. He then made a broad wave of his right
hand in his foe’s direction.

The instant it looked like the flash of black was going to buzz through the foe’s
heart, the vampire sailed silently over Pluto VIII’s head. With a speed that staggered
the imagination, the vampire launched a kick.

Evading the blow with unbelievable agility for a man in a young lady’s body, Pluto
VIII hurled his disk-shaped weapon with a scooping motion. The weapon’s aim was true,
and it quickly ripped the vampire open from crotch to chest and showered the road
with bright blood.

“Got ’im!” Pluto VIII shouted through the beautiful girl’s face.

It was only a second later that same face froze solid. The darkness behind where the
fiend had collapsed had just sent forth a tall youth of unearthly beauty.

“No, not you . . . ” Pluto VIII groaned. “It can’t be . . . I mean, even a dhampir
. . . You couldn’t just take a stake through the heart . . . ”

“Too bad.” D’s soft voice ripped Pluto VIII’s heart from his chest. “Tell me what
you discussed with the mayor.”

Pluto VIII backed away. Though he was looking for a chance to run, he realized that
would be impossible.

“The girl’s parents told you something, didn’t they?” D said, but Pluto VIII couldn’t
even tremble at his softly spoken words. “Probably where they hid the procedure and
formula they’d perfected for making humans into Nobility. Why would they leave something
like that here in town when they ran off? Answer me that.”

“Because they were ready to die.” Perhaps Pluto VIII had reconciled himself to the
notion of fighting D, because his voice was incredibly calm. “Think about it. They’d
always had an easy life, safe and secure in their little town. What could they do
out on the Frontier? Even if they had the tools for it, they still didn’t have the
heart. And Mr. and Mrs. Knight knew it. But what the two of them accomplished was
just too big for them to throw away. Maybe they wanted to help the future generations
or something, but I’m sure the better part of it was due to the lust for fame. And,
after some consideration, they couldn’t think of anyplace safer to hide it than this
town. Is that a heartbreaking tale or what? Dying like dogs, forgotten out in some
far corner of the Frontier after all they did . . . So, you know, I figured I might
as well use what they found to earn myself a little coin . . . ”

“Did you kill the Knights?”

“What do you mean . . . ?” Pluto VIII’s eyebrows rose. He looked ablaze with indignation.

Ever serene, D continued, “I don’t think it likely a pair of chemists would fail to
notice their trailer’s nuclear reactor was malfunctioning. They went outside and got
eaten. Now, no matter how sheltered those scientists might’ve been, there’s no way
they wouldn’t have known how dangerous it was to go outside on the Frontier in the
dead of night. Unless, of course, you promised them they’d be safe.”

“Hey, wait just a minute there!” Pluto VIII protested, sticking out his right hand
to stop that train of thought. “Not to toot my own horn or anything, but I saved the
little lady.”

“Yes, because I was there. Molecular intangibility lets you go right through radiation.
You couldn’t bring yourself to let the dragons eat her, but figured you could kill
her easily enough inside the vehicle—and that’s where you made your mistake.”

“You’re unbelievable. You’re just a walking heap of suspicion.” A smile zipped across
the pretty young face Pluto VIII was using. A wicked grin he hadn’t shown before.
“Though you’re right about some of that stuff. You know, when I first met you I got
a real bad feeling, and it looks like I was right on the money.”

“What was the mayor’s aim?” D said, as if he hadn’t heard a word of Pluto VIII’s chilling
admission. “To turn all the townspeople into Nobility—into vampires?”

For a brief instant, D’s longsword danced out and split the twilight with stark, white
flashes. A pair of figures who’d been closing on him from behind silently fell to
the ground.

With that momentary weakening of D’s uncanny aura, Pluto VIII was swallowed by the
darkness. “It’s too late, D,” he called back. “Too late. These folks have all been
infected by the mayor’s failed experiment. And now they’re just gonna keep on multiplying.
This town is finished. Well, it’s just what the mayor hoped would happen. Trying to
turn human beings into perfect Nobles is just flat-out impossible.”

He was probably right. The visitor two centuries ago, the mayor, the Knights—each
of them probably had a dream. The town rode on a dream, was in fact made of dreams.
And now the town was waking from that dream. Waking with the worst possible results.

“I didn’t wanna have to throw down with you,” Pluto VIII said, “but there’s no way
around it now. Let’s do it. I’ll see you again in hell, fates willing!”

The instant D realized the baneful air directed at him was melting into the darkness,
he shut both eyes. His longsword went into action. It had no problem at all slicing
the disk blade into pieces that scattered through the air.

D charged. Around him, the wind roared.

There was nothing Lori/Pluto VIII could do. D’s fist sank into the girl’s delicate
solar plexus, but it swept right through her body as if her body was mist. Once again,
the superhuman ability known as molecular intangibility had come into play. Lori’s
body had been transformed into a runny, shifting shadow.

D turned around. Like a tuft of grass fluttering in the breeze, the shadow billowed
down the street and faded into the ground without a sound. Not bothering to watch
the black tip of its head disappear, D looked instead into the distance, at the vast
expanse of sky and earth.

The route some mysterious hand had put the cursed town on carried them now over ruins
that stretched as far as the eye could see. Massive stone pillars, canopies, and streets
stood naked and dejected in the lights shining from the belly of the flying town.
Though it went without saying that all of these ancient constructs were cracked and
crumbled and otherwise reduced to terrible rubble by the ravages of wind and time,
for some reason this land had an even ghastlier atmosphere. Out on the Frontier, ruins
that’d belonged to the Nobility weren’t particularly rare. Nevertheless, this land
didn’t stir the deep feelings of loneliness usually associated with such sites. This
place suggested only one thing—an unsettling evil. And D alone knew the form that
evil would take.

From out of the shadows of meandering rows of stone pillars, shapes stirred as if
they’d noticed the coming town—human shapes, moving as if enraged . . . or overjoyed.

“At last . . . we’re here . . . ” said a desperate sigh of a voice that made D turn.
It was a dark, blood-spattered figure lying in the road a few yards away. Even after
D saw that it was the same unnatural creature Pluto VIII’s disk blade had bisected,
his expression never changed.

“So, you were the one guiding the town?” He put the question to the corpse just as
he would to any living person.

“That’s right. Everyone in town has what it takes to become one . . . ” he said, his
voice weak, his breath ragged. By “one,” he no doubt meant one of his kind. “This
is where . . . all the failures meet. Not alive, but . . . unable to die. Cursed with
an endless hunger, and a future without dreams . . . no place could be more fitting
for the people of this town.”

“Six more hours?” D muttered. That was how long it was until dawn. Such a short time
for the tremendously long engagement that was about to begin.

“The failures number over five thousand . . . Will the living prevail, or will death
sing its song of victory? No . . . It won’t be either. That’s what makes this the
perfect fate.” His final words mixing with laughter and a death rattle, the figure
collapsed on the ground once more, never to move again.

Destruction echoed from somewhere in the distance. No doubt the vampirized townsfolk
were attacking another house. Even if the law enforcement bureau had gone into action,
with things this far along they wouldn’t have been able to handle the situation. Besides,
they’d probably already succumbed as well . . .

Glancing briefly down the road—in the direction of the hospital—D set off for the
navigational control center. In no time at all he was there. About a dozen workers
were thoroughly engrossed in inspecting their weapons. An extraordinary tension filled
the room.

On seeing D, the mayor showed more relief than hostility. “I suppose I should thank
you for coming,” he said.

“Take a good look down there,” D said softly. “This is the end of the road you started
them on. Down there, five thousand things that couldn’t become Nobility are waiting
for five hundred living people. They think the residents of your town will make fitting
companions.”

“They were failures.” The mayor looked tired. “But we were going to be a perfect new
breed of humanity. A creature with the mind and heart of a human and the immortal
flesh of a Noble, reveling in an eternal life free from the filth of the mortal world.
I may have failed, but the Knights succeeded. And as soon as they did so, they tried
to get out of town.”

“The vampire who attacked your daughter was one you made, wasn’t he?”

“That’s right. I made two, and both of them escaped. One of them turned his fangs
on my daughter, the other one is spreading his germs all over town now.”

“Half the town’s already been turned into vampires. If you want to hire me to do it,
I’ll take care of them.” Despite the present situation, a Hunter was always a Hunter.

“Is this the end of everything, then?” The mayor put both fists to his forehead. And
then, looking at D, he smiled with satisfaction. “No, not yet. So long as there are
still decent folks in this town, my dream will never die.”

Frigid light filled D’s eyes. If one was mad for having a mad dream, then the mayor
was already out of his mind.

Abruptly, the ground tilted forward. Some unsecured machinery crashed against the
mayor’s shoulder. No blood came from him, but blue lightning crackled out of the wound.
He was a cyborg.

“Touchdown in seven seconds . . . ” a technician clinging to a control panel exclaimed.

The town from the sky was descending to the earth it was never supposed to meet.

“Six seconds . . . ”

In the ruins below, countless things were starting to stir.

They’re here! They’re here! More of our kind have come!

The grating sound of lids being pushed open on coffins of stone, wood, or steel, and
the putrid stench. Pale hands protruded from the graves, and crimson eyes gazed out.

“Four seconds . . . ”

As Lori headed for a dilapidated building, Dr. Tsurugi came running up behind her.

“Three seconds . . . ”

The town was silent. As if no one had been there from the very start.

“Two seconds . . . ”

A disk blade gleamed in Lori’s right hand. It was actually a solidified chemical compound
that would disappear once it’d served its purpose.

“Zero!”

Before the jolt threw the people into the air, the thunder of the impact shattered
the windows of every house. Lori and the physician rolled across the ground. The shock
wave became a heavy wind that blasted through the town, knocking houses at an angle
and snapping off trees. Half of the townspeople were injured in some way or another.
The other half were actually injured as well, but it didn’t bother them.

“Engine nozzles have been damaged.”

“We have cracking in the convection pipes.”

Voices shot back and forth across the control room in confusion.

“How long will it take to input a new course and get airborne again?” the mayor asked.

“Four hours minimum.”

“Do it in two.”

“Roger.”

D ran to the entrance. Warped by the impact, the iron door wouldn’t budge an inch.
D hit it with his shoulder. By the time the door hit the ground, sending scraps of
metal flying every-where, D’s form was already racing down the darkened streets.

-

With silent footsteps, death’s countless shapes were closing in on the town. Scrawny
hands imbued with the strength to snap trees in two reached for the entrance hatch
on the bottom of the town’s base. The air outside began to stir with the dim sound
of them pounding away at the door with their fists.

“They’re getting in!” a bloodstained controller cried out.

“Relax. Even with the strength of a Noble, they couldn’t break through that hatch,”
the mayor said as he smeared repairing compound on his shoulder wound. “We just have
to hold out for two hours. Hook some power lines into the outer walls and the barrier.
Juice them to a hundred thousand volts.”

“Roger!”

Soon, the whole town was enveloped in pale light. The front rank of vampires reeled
backward, smoking and giving off sparks. All of them had their hair standing on end.

“We did it!” one of the operators shouted.

“It’s no use. The voltage is too high,” another worker muttered.

One after another the shadowy figures emerged from the darkness. From behind stone
columns and under domes. Out of the very ground. New bodies piled on top of the charred
ones. Fire burst from the new ones, too. Planting their feet on the shoulders of the
ones below them, they put their hands to the outer wall and began to scale it.

“They should be dead . . . but they’re climbing up it,” someone said.

And to that, someone else replied, “The Nobility are immortal . . . ”

“Raise the voltage!” the mayor ordered. “We’ll burn them down to the marrow of their
bones. Deputies and security, head outside and shoot any intruders. We can’t let a
single one get on board.”

The light had lost its bluish tint and was now stark white. The figures scaling the
outer wall crumbled like clay figures cracked by the hot sun.

“They’re running! We’re saved!” someone shouted jubilantly at the sight of the retreating
figures on the control room’s screens.

“Don’t let your guard down. They still have time yet. They’ll be back again for sure.
And we can’t count on the barrier. Get outside and start shooting.” As the relief
of the present crossed the mayor’s face, so did the fears of the future.

-

Dwas out in the middle of the street. The glow of the barrier had vanished, and, aside
from the lingering stench, the town was peaceful and quiet. The people were now either
locked in their homes cowering from this new threat or out seeking the blood of others.
It seemed the latter had all became one with the darkness while spreading their death.

Figures appeared in front of D, and behind him as well. Crimson eyes filled with an
atrocious hunger, they edged closer. It seemed that almost everyone in town had been
turned into a fiend. There wasn’t anyone left for him to protect now . . . aside from
two people.

Something flew past the Hunter with the speed of a swallow. D knocked several more
away with his left hand, and all the rest sank into the chests of the approaching
figures.

Cries of pain split the darkness. The missiles were wooden wedges from stake-firing
guns. The men from the law enforcement bureau didn’t have time to fire a second volley,
as people pounced on them from the roofs of various houses.

D’s longsword flashed out, and several figures who’d been run through the chest fell
to the ground. All of them were townspeople.

“Can’t hold them off any longer. Prepare to abandon ship,” D ordered the frightened,
faltering lawmen as he lowered his bloody blade.

“We can’t do that. There are tons of them outside. Wherever we go, they’ll kill us.
We’ll just have to wait for daybreak,” one of them said in a hollow voice. The only
emotion coloring it was a deep shade of despair.

“Then do what you like.” D turned and left without another word.

The town would rot away silently, as if this had all been decided two centuries earlier.
For the town’s people, tomorrow would never come.

As D hurried down the street, a pale figure rushed at him from the right side. Without
even turning to look that way, D simply swept his right hand horizontally. When the
figure fell with fresh blood gushing from its chest, D recognized the face. It was
the little girl he’d saved from the colossal birds. The fangs jutting from her mouth
slowly vanished.

-

Dwalked on. Before he got to the hospital, he was attacked several times, and each
time was but a single exchange. Once he’d killed one, there was no one willing to
make a second attack. The unearthly aura around D cowed even the dead.

D came to a halt in front of the hospital. The white building was completely destroyed.
If the two of them were still inside, even a miracle wouldn’t be enough to save them.
Gazing at the rubble for a while, D turned.

A shadowy figure stood there like darkness congealed. Under either arm he carried
a body. Dr. Tsurugi and Lori. “They’re both okay, D,” Pluto VIII said. “But I don’t
think you’ll be able to get them safely out of here the way things stand now—plus,
we’ve got us a fight to finish!” And, with the last word, he let the two bodies fall
to the ground.

D sprang instantaneously.

Pluto VIII’s body transformed into a black stain, and two disks flew from him. There
was a silvery flash of light. The disks ricocheted away.

Shrinking and shifting, the black stain returned to the form of Pluto VIII. A dark
line ran down his forehead. “Thanks,” he said. “Noticed I didn’t have much time left,
did you?”

Bright blood spilled from Pluto VIII’s mouth, but it wasn’t the result of any wound
D had dealt him. Just as he/Lori had been about to kill Dr. Tsurugi, the jolt of the
town landing had dealt a grievous wound to Pluto VIII’s real body wherever he’d left
it sleeping.

“There’s one thing I have to tell you . . . ” Pluto VIII groaned as he slowly sank
to his knees. “I took her body against her wishes. Tried swaying her with offers of
telepathy—but she fought me to the very end.”

“I know,” D said, nodding. “But I’m sure she was always grateful to you for saving
her, too.”

It was unclear whether D actually caught the smile chiseled into Pluto VIII’s face
at the moment of death.

D went over to where the two bodies lay. They both had a pulse. More surprisingly,
some of their cuts had been crudely bandaged. Pluto VIII must’ve done it. He was a
strange man.

Screams rose in the distance. Residents were being attacked by former residents, by
neighbors who finally had a goal, thanks to this need to turn everyone into vampires.

D put his right hand on the physician’s brow. His eyes opened immediately. As his
dim gaze bounced from left to right, there was a glint of will in his eyes. Staring
at D, after a moment he asked, “Did you save us?”

“Not me. Him.”

A sorrowful gaze fell on the lifeless form. “I just can’t figure that . . . ” the
physician muttered. “What about the town?”

“This town died a long time ago. Now true death has come for it. But I’ll get you
both out of here safely. Rest assured.”

“I give up . . . ” Dr. Tsurugi said. “You’re just too much for me. I finally see why
she
felt the way she did.”

“What are you talking about?” D asked.

The physician said the name of a village, and D’s expression changed. It was as if
he’d just been touched by a gentle breeze in midsummer. Several years earlier, he
was in that village, locked in a fierce battle to the death with a vampire to protect
a brother and sister who lived on a ranch on the outskirts of the small town.

“Are they both well?”

The physician nodded. “Extremely. The little guy helps his sister out like a grown
man, and their ranch is even bigger now. I would’ve loved to stay there doing what
I could for the rest of my days, but it seemed she had her heart set on somebody else.”
Finishing his inspection of Lori, the physician nodded with satisfaction and straightened
himself up.