Tattered Remnants Read online

  The war was on; the zombies were in it for the win. There was a line of Talbots on the deck and none of them were shooting in our direction. We had no cover. The threat to them was closer and more real. Somehow, we were the cavalry in all of this, and I didn’t think we were going to make it. At some point, Travis had grabbed the bombs; Justin and he were lighting multiple fuses. The truck rocked from the closeness of the explosions, we were now being pelted with debris, much of it zombie rubble. So much was going on, my mind was in hyper-drive. I had my zone of influence, and that was all I could control. I don’t know when the barrel of my rifle split or when fragments of the bullet splintered into my forearm, never even felt them. It was Trip who ripped it from my grip and sent it off into the crowd, where the smell of cooking flesh erupted when it stuck to the side of a zombie man’s face. He thrust his own, and a magazine that he had in a pocket, into my hands.

  I didn’t even think to thank him as I hit the bolt release button and started savagely meting out justice again. There was no one in or on that truck, save Wesley and his mother, who was crouched protectively over him, not fighting desperately for their lives. BT even had his rifle resting on the doorframe while he pulled the trigger. Aiming was not necessary.

  “Hold on!” I yelled when he approached the first zombie channel dug into Ron’s yard. I lurched forward, barely catching my head from bouncing off the roof. I left a bloody wake where my arm had hit. Tracy’s scream flared through my mind. I didn’t even think about what I was doing when I got on top on that roof, down the hood and jumped onto the zombie who had grabbed her hair and was trying to pull her from the window. I slammed the butt of my rifle so many times into the side of his head it collapsed under its own weight. He died with thick swaths of her hair in his hands. I’d bludgeoned him to death. The truck was still moving past, and I turned the rifle back around. I was yelling so loud, I could feel my vocal chords being shredded.

  Nancy was ripped from the back of the truck.

  “Mike!” BT yelled when he saw me.

  “Go! Get them inside!” I launched, slamming my shoulder into the zombie’s head, pushing him over. Blood spurted from a bite-sized wound in Nancy’s cheek. Teeth cracked around my hand guard as the zombie bit down in an attempt to keep feeding.

  I reached down, pulled her up, and tossed her into the outstretched hands of Stephanie, who was still within reach. Mark grabbed onto his mother’s side and helped to pull her aboard. I caught a glimpse of a wide-eyed Tracy in the side view mirror before she was obscured. Zombies pressed in from all sides. The end was nigh. Don’t listen to the fucking bell because it’s tolling for thee. Not quite the poem but fitting. I was out of rounds, my hands blistered as I grabbed the barrel, but that mattered little. Just giving the zombies a little char flavoring if they got to eat them. The rifle held up for the first half dozen or so smashes, then there was the unsatisfying crack of plastic giving way. Soon, I’d be swinging just the upper receiver, and that wouldn’t have enough heft to do the damage it needed to. I had just enough time to see a trio of women dressed in heavy gothic garb not more than fifty yards to my side before I was swarmed over.

  11

  The vampires moved forward, the zombies they passed completely ignored them—actively avoided them, in fact, as if they were a black hole upon the fabric of reality and to approach would sweep them up into an alternate reality where zombies were hunted for sustenance.

  “I smell them! I smell them!” Sophia had gone ahead of the two women and came back running. A large smile dominated her delicate features. Within the hour, they came to a large, gated community. A ten-foot-high, steel-plated door on a track led into the housing area.

  “Do not come any further!” a man guarding the gate said in an authoritative voice. He stood inside a small shack built a few feet taller than the fence.

  “Sir, but we have come so far and we need help!” Sophia said, stepping out of her dress as easily as if it had been a wrapped towel. She stood there, placing her left index finger on her bottom lip. Her lithe form accentuated in all the ways a man could find attractive. The guard started stuttering.

  “Humans are so predictable,” Charity said when the gate began to roll back. “And delicious.” She cut open her tongue dragging it across her teeth.

  “Be careful. They may be predictable, but they are still dangerous. Let us find out how this place works before we feed.”

  “You are right.” Charity sighed, letting her canines slide back.

  “You should cover up, ma’am.” Another guard had come out. He looked embarrassed to be gazing upon Sophia’s nude form, yet he could not take his eyes from her.

  “Dangerous? Look how stupid they are. Ruled completely by their groins. I could rip his throat open and he would still be looking upon her breasts,” Charity whispered to Payne as they strode closer.

  “Please forgive my sister; the zombie invasion has not been kind to her mind.” Payne said.

  The guard’s eyes grew wide for a moment as he seemed to see the other two women for the first time.

  “There’s … there’s children here. She can’t be seen like this. Decent folk just trying to um….” He lost his train of thought when he looked over to Sophia, who was running a finger along the inside of her thigh.

  “Even now, he is among the most evil presence he will ever encounter, and yet his manhood grows engorged. They are fools.”

  “We will dine, Charity, but I want the entire feast, not just the side dishes. Sister, please put your clothes back on. The fine citizens of…”

  “Umm, of New Lynn.”

  “New Lynn citizens are more sensible than this. They have small children that will be frightened of your attributes.”

  Sophia licked her lips, bent over, picked her dress back up, and refastened it. When she was done, she caressed the sides of the man’s face. His eyes upturned at her touch. Then she let him go to join the other two as they strode in.

  Children were at play on the far side of the street. Women and men were busy, some chopping wood, others hanging laundry. At least one seemed to be trying his hand at furniture making with varying degrees of success. If the pile of broken wood in his front yard were to be used as an indicator.

  “I think I’m going to like it here.” Payne said while they strode in. More people turned to watch as the women walked past. Some had a niggling in the back of their minds that something wasn’t quite right. It was the children who saw through the facade the vampires put on. The women were consumed by curiosity, jealousy, and like the men, by lust. The vampires had long ago honed their abilities to manipulate the emotions of their prey. Even men who had a proclivity for other men found themselves desiring the trio. Lust and desire, the most base and debased of human emotions, had long been used in the seduction of their feeding. It was the children that had no such craving and could get past that. The game of soccer had stopped. One of the younger children had started to cry about the monsters. Charity turned and smiled, placing her finger up by her mouth in a shushing sound. Warm urine ran down the small girl’s leg.

  One of the small boys went running for the leader of their community, hoping that somehow he would once again be able to keep them safe. Within a couple of minutes, a tall, white-haired man strode purposefully toward the women who had stopped by the center of the town.

  “Welcome, welcome to New Lynn.” He led with his arm outstretched. As he got closer, he pulled his hand back in. His jovial smile faltered for a moment before he plastered it back on. “My name is Earl Blackstone, but most people just call me Judge.”

  “A pleasure.” Payne held her hand out to be grasped.

  Judge looked at it like it was a serpent wrapped around a spider.

  Payne looked at him curiously when he did not take her proffered hand. She smiled as she withdrew the offer.

  “This is a fine community you have here,” she said.

  “It is. We’ve worked hard to make sure we’re safe.” Earl looked over the women,
curiosity turning to unease.

  “Is there ever such a thing as safe? There are so many monsters in this world.”

  “Monsters in this world!” Sophia giggled as she echoed Payne’s words. She did a small spin before sitting down on a park bench, still giggling, heady from the intoxication of so much food, so close.

  “Are you three just passing through?” Judge asked, a cold chill caressing his shoulders and trickling down his back. He rarely carried his weapon within the confines of the wall. Now was one of those times he’d wished he had not left it atop his dresser.

  “Oh, I do believe we plan on staying for a little while,” Payne said.

  “He does not look at us the same way as the others,” Charity said as she studied his face. “Are we not lust worthy?” she asked him directly.

  “It’s clear to see that you have all the necessary parts to make most swoon, but I can see a little deeper than that. There is something lacking, lacking in all of you. I don’t know quite what it is, but I would rather lie with a sow than with any of you.”

  “Did you just compare me to a pig?” Charity intoned.

  “No, I think you misunderstood me. I like pigs.”

  “Are you a religious man, Judge?” Payne walked completely around his body, looking intently at him as if for some sign of his divinity.

  “Do I believe in the good Lord? Is that what you’re asking? Let’s just say our relationship is a difficult one.”

  “This is truly strange … only those with strong beliefs or an innocence of age can get a sense of our trueness.”

  “I have strong beliefs, maybe not necessarily the ones you are talking about. As for innocence, well, we’ve parted ways a long, long time ago.”

  “We should kill him. He’ll warn the others,” Charity said.

  “I’ll do it!” Sophia stood up.

  Judge wanted to run, run as far away as he possibly could until his aging heart finally gave out, but he couldn’t. He found himself rooted to that very spot as if his boots had been nailed in place. He struggled to move every, and any muscle, and found he could not do so.

  “What have you done to me?” He grimaced.

  “One does not like one’s food to run away from them, do they? I have caged you much like you would a rabbit.”

  “Food?” He labored to get out. “You’re not zombies.”

  “Oh, I can assure you, we’re worse.”

  “Much, much worse.” Sophia giggled.

  “Come, lead us back to your home. We have much to talk about.”

  Judge was manipulated like a marionette. He desperately tried to give a signal to those who watched their departure. Try as he could, he could not erase the idiotic grin he was wearing. If someone had taken a moment to look into his eyes, they would have told an entirely different story.

  “Interesting, I would have expected something more grand for someone calling himself Judge.” Payne was looking at a small Tudor-style home. It was kept in immaculate condition.

  “I lead a small community; I’m not a pretentious asshole.”

  “It’s a pity you’re not younger, I may have kept you around for a little while.”

  When they got inside, Judge found that he was finally able to move his arm. He swung it, violently striking Payne on the cheek. Moonlight Serenade played in the background.

  “Oh yes, indeed, I would have loved to have gotten to know you better,” she said as she wiped the blood from the corner of her lip. “I will lay waste to your virtues. You will die needlessly in hate.” She said those words as she descended on him. Though he could not move his vocal chords to cry out, his screams threatened to blow out his lungs. Great volumes of air blew past his lips. Payne dragged her teeth across his carotid artery, puncturing it every so often to take a small sampling of his blood. “You are a unique one, Earl Blackstone. Perhaps if your relationship was not so cluttered with your God, you could have been a very important holy man. I suppose it is bad for you and good for me that this is not the case.” She laughed as she ripped a hole out of his neck. Blood arced like a water fountain. Sophia immediately moved in so that her mouth was under the downward trail of it.

  “There are people gathering on the lawn,” Charity said, peering out the window.

  “Splendid. Invite them in,” Payne said as she stood.

  “Are you sure?” She looked over to Judge’s still-twitching body. “Most of them are carrying weapons.”

  “Yes, but first start the record over.” Payne stood and absently brushed at the copious amounts of blood running down the front of her dress. Within ten minutes, Payne had torn the townspeople asunder, rending souls from bodies as easily as she had their blood. Their cries for mercy fell upon deaf ears. Within a week, the fifty residents of New Lynn had been reduced to twelve, and most of them were children. Two women had been allowed to live to keep them from crying uncontrollably.

  “I do not believe I have had so much fun since Bonaparte’s reign.” Payne stood on the porch overlooking the children, who were made to sleep on the grass in front of the house.

  “Perhaps we should not have gorged as we did. We could have made this community last for months.” Charity stood next to her.

  Sophia ran around the children, tugging on their hair, laughing in delight when they squealed.

  “We could not have culled the herd. There are not enough of them. They would have gotten suspicious, and then we would have been in danger.”

  Charity scoffed. “From cattle?”

  “A bull has been known to gore an unsuspecting rancher from time to time.”

  “I suppose there is some truth to that.”

  “There is also the Tomas affair. It has been a very long time since something has intrigued me to this degree, and I wish not for our quarry to make their escape. Although, I do not sense that. Tomas, and possibly the other, know we are coming, yet they wait.”

  “That’s good. Is it not? We catch up to them, decide what manner of punishment we wish to inflict, and we travel this new world seeking out more food.”

  “It does not concern you at all, sweet Charity, that they are not on the run?”

  “Should it?”

  “Tomas, at least, knows exactly who we are, and even though he does not possess a soul, he still carries the great burden of morality. He believes what we do to be great atrocities toward God’s children. He knows we will most likely kill him, yet he waits.”

  “Maybe he has struck his descensus.”

  “It is possible he has outlived his time, but he is still young as far as our kind go. Perhaps he is unafraid.”

  “Unafraid? Of us?” Charity was upset at the notion. “How dare he! I will give him something to be afraid of!”

  “Yes, we will, but we must be smart about this. There are unknown elements.”

  “We are the unknown elements!”

  “I do believe you may have dipped a little too deeply from the human well, Charity. Your emotions are getting the better of you. Tomorrow we will take the children and women, leave this place, and make our way to Tomas. Perhaps I can gain some more understanding as we go.”

  “Will we find a coach or some other suitable method of travel?”

  “I think walking would be more beneficial.”

  “The young will not make it.”

  “We will feed on the weakest as need be. I am going to use the ‘sight.’ I do not wish to be disturbed.”

  The next morning, Payne was even more confused than the night before.

  “Get them on their feet,” she ordered one of the children’s watchers.

  “It’s still early. They have not rested proper—”

  Payne reached out, quickly ripping the woman’s head down by the ear, tearing it halfway off. Blood poured from the painful wound. “We leave when I say we leave. Meat has no opinion in this matter.”

  Sophia began to lick at the tear on the side of the woman’s head. Payne held the woman in place a few moments longer, even twisting the ear from side
to side.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Ye-yes. We’re clear.” The woman had her hands halfway up. She knew better than to reach and grab the vampire’s hands though.

  “I said meat has no opinion. That means no voice. Nod meat, nod your acknowledgement.”

  The woman nearly imperceptibly moved.

  “I don’t know what that means. Nod more.”

  The woman screamed out as she bobbed her head. Payne kept her arm steadfast and the ear in a tight grip.

  “I will tear your fucking head off if you don’t answer me properly.”

  Her shrieks pierced the veil of the early morning as her movements ripped her ear completely off. Payne threw it by her feet. “Good.”

  Sophia hovered around the woman for hours, constantly drinking of the blood that fell from the jagged opening, until finally she could take no more and ripped through her neck. Sophia held her firmly in her grasp as the woman’s legs danced about wildly. Fear had caused her eyes to open wide; blood loss and shock made them close slowly. When Sophia was done, she let go. The woman fell to the ground considerably lighter than she’d been only a few moments before. Two children wailed for their mother before the lone remaining woman gathered them up.