Zombie War (part 2/2)

 

As the green flame continued to burn along the ground, a voice boomed across the field. "Show yourself. Such an interesting specimen you are, able to still think, rationalize, even drive a small, if pathetic, force against me despite being a supposed mindless drone. Give yourself to me, and oh the discoveries I shall make as I pick apart that corpse of yours," he said with a smugness. I lay motionless in the dirt, watching him high above scanning the field looking for me. I just needed one moment, one moment of weakness and I could take everything of his.

Tasha provided it for me, firing her shotgun pointlessly at the figure almost thirty feet above her head, shouting like a lunatic. "Go fuck yourself you birthday party reject!"

His voice still boomed across the field as he laughed. A green hand the size of a small car appeared in the air. The wizard's undead stood motionless as he focused on his conjured hand, guiding it toward the ranting zombie.

My turn, I thought as the CRACK! of a .308 Winchester cartridge silenced his laughter. Or that could've been the bullet putting a hole in the wizard's chest. A very large hole, I thought, tilting my head curiously, looking at a hole I might've been able to throw a football through. More curious was the wizard did everything besides what I expected - which was to die. No blood sprayed from the wound, so screams of agony or rage filled the air. Continuing to radiate his green magical energy thirty feet in the air, he let out a groan and simply said, "Do you understand how hard this will be to patch with living flesh so hard to come by?"

Green lines wove themselves into the hole punched with my bullet, crisscrossing like a spider's web. Tasha's screams brought me back from watching the wizard magically patch himself, the mage hand now closing on her, fingers tightening. I emptied the rest of the magazine, each bullet punching a hole in the wizard's body like a sledgehammer in drywall. The wizard was right, Breather's were getting scarce and it would be too hard to create another Pale Mind, especially one as smart and, more importantly, loyal, as Tasha. Those holes though were a lot bigger than they should be, I thought. The wizard put more of his focus on patching his crumbling body, his green glow dimming slightly as he lowered himself back onto the balcony.

That's when the clues fell into place, just as a group of strong, green hands grabbed onto me, much stronger than a set of bones should be without muscle or tendons. They grabbed and pulled, spreading my arms wide and my face flopped hard into the dirt. Barren fields that should instead be used as farmland, no living game animals in the woods to hunt, a body held together through magic - it wasn't just a wizard, he was a lich, the soul of a wizard possessing his own corpse!

From the mouth of the skeleton keeping me pinned to the ground came the words, "Found you at last, Thinking One. A curious specimen indeed. But I'll discover how you work soon enough." Bare hands tore into  my body and though I couldn't feel pain, I felt a twinge of fear beginning to grow inside me. How much were they going to rip out of me to find what even I didn't understand? Could I recover from all of this, or should I be as worried as the lich was about the lack or even possible extinction of the Breathers?

I reached out to the horde, drawing them back to me to help wrench the wizard's enhanced undead off of me. I reached out to Tasha, letting her know everything I found out in case the lich captured me. I spread my consciousness as thin as I could, reaching into as many virus-infected zombies as I could find to turn them on the lich's undead. I knew I was still pinned to the ground, but I was also everywhere across the field - struggling against skeleton hands, smashing through ranks with a Hunter's strength, crawling with a half-burnt body to rescue myself.

And I was also inside the mansion. I stood, statue-still with weapons in hand as if simply awaiting orders. I was lying upon a table, limbs missing or swapped with another's. I was seventeen different bodies and more surrounded by almost twice that number of undead I couldn't "reach." That fool, I thought, attempting to reach as many virus-infected as I could, he really didn't understand what the Horde truly was - the virus made us all one. I awoke twenty-three, bringing them into my Horde, and marched them through the manor, searching for a staircase to the second floor where the lich still watched my body being torn apart section by section.

My body! I released my hold on a few of my new Shamblers to find that the lich's enhanced ones had nearly ripped me to pieces, currently my head just barely attached to my neck. I wouldn't be able to reach the lich before they fully broke me apart. The horde is one, and I am the horde. I searched the mansion again, a gambit I wasn't sure would work, and that's when I found her, the perfect one.

I felt my head severed from my body and raised in the air for the lich to see. Then I was lying upon a four poster bed, arms crossed over my chest. Though definitely magically-preserved, I could still feel the virus in the body, dormant until I reached it and brought it back into the horde. Unsure of my location, I focused drawing the rest of the horde to me.

"Very good!" boomed a voice not twenty feet from me, "Bring me all of the Thinking zombie. Every little scrap could hold a clue." Then came the sound of footsteps nearing the bed. "My love, this one may finally bring us the information we seek to cure you," the lich said, cold fingers stroked my clammy face. His finger paused. "Though perhaps there's another out there still. I can feel it pushing my cretins, moving them against me." He chuckled, removing his hand from my face.

I felt vibrations in the air as the lich's hands waved about, his voice muttering a language that grated on my ears. The first of my new horde stumbled into the room, mouths agape and arms flailing. Then the connection again just disappeared, the stench of burning meat filled my nose. "Tsk, tsk, tsk, that foolish child. My minions will search for the other, bring it back as a spare," he said. I felt his breath on my neck, then his lips pecked my cheek.

Instantly, I was upon him. Reaching out as fast as I could, grabbing with my basic zombie strength. My mouth opened and I pulled him close as hard as I could. I felt a jolt of shock in his neck, then resistance as he realized what was happening. It was too late though as I struggled forward, lifting my head off the pillow. Teeth closed around chalky flesh and ripped it away. Rather than chew, I spit the flesh away before going in for another bite. It took all my strength but we couldn't waste time satisfying the zombie's naturally bottomless hunger. By then, the lich's shock passed and he shoved me back while stumbling to the balcony, his hand pressed to his cheek.

"How?" he sputtered, eyes wide and hand pressed to his rended flesh, a natural Breather reaction though futile as the lich's body had no blood to bleed.

I fell back to the pillow, smiling as I imprinted the look of fear filling the lich's face into my mind, though I'm sure if he looked closely he would've seen the same fear reflected back to him. Could the virus spread through a body without blood to carry it? "We are the Horde. The virus makes us one, and you brought us here into your home. Right here, into the place you thought safe," I taunted, laughing, hoping to buy time to formulate a back-up plan while knowing that there wasn't one. I'd jumped into the only viable body that could support a consciousness, any other nearby would just make me slightly smarter than the average Shambler. "As for this body," I said, finally pushing past the stiffness and getting the body upright, "I first want to say that I didn't pick it because I knew it special to you. That's a cruelty I've left behind in my death. Nor did I choose it simply because you've kept it so well preserved, though that is part of it. No, I took it as it was the only virus-infected that you hadn't wrapped your magic around, and judging by the smell of burnt flesh I'd say I chose wisely." Almost losing my balance, I lifted my new corpse from the bed and onto unsteady feet. I then made my way to the lich, a wide grin spread on my face.

The lich raised his hands and I felt a charge in the air. "You foolish, foolish child," he sputtered with fury in his eyes, "If what you're telling me is true - that my beloved Isabel is gone- then what would be the point of keeping you alive? Getting her back was the only hope I had, and the only hope you had of leaving this room intact. I guess neither of us will be getting what we want."

He began to chant, a couple words that felt like a cheese grater on my ears. Then, he just stopped, puzzlement spreading on his face. In response, I laughed. Finally, his hands dropped while bewilderment gave way to a simple dullness. "Well, that's an interesting development," I said closing the distance between us. "I wasn't sure if the virus could spread inside a corpse with no moving blood." I walked a circle around the lich, looking over him from top to bottom. I stopped in front of his glazed face, a finger caressing his cheek. "But I guess nature finds a way, or something like that. The magic. The very thing you've used to keep this preserved corpse on its feet is what spread the virus. It really is ... well, magical."

Out side, the sounds of fighting died away and several minutes later I felt Tasha enter the room. "Franks, are you in here - shit!" she said, raising her shotgun on the motionless lich.

"Stop," I said sitting up on the bed in my new host. Tasha pointed the gun at me before switching it back onto the statue-still lich standing in the corner of the room. Motioning for Tasha to lower the gun, I said, "I'd rather you not break our new prize before we've had the chance to really play with it."

"Franks," she said with the gun again trained on me. "New body?"

I shrugged. "Obviously, Managed to find a suitable replacement cared for by our new magician," I said gesturing to the lich who slowly turned to the left, raised his arms at the elbows, spread his fingers, and then lifted itself onto its toes while bending at the knees. Then he turned right and repeated the dance.

Tasha's shoulders sagged, relaxed as she let out a breath of relief. "Fucking Thriller. Really Franks, you are so lame." She leaned the gun against the wall and lay down next to me. "We lost a lot but at least I'm going to sleep in an actual bed tonight."

"Don't get too comfortable yet. We'll still need to search the grounds for this thing's soul container or else it could manifest a new body once this one dies. And he's not going to be very happy with us when that happens." I started to get up and then paused. "But you're right. Perhaps better to enjoy our victory now, leave the work for later."

Based on a Reddit Writing Prompt about the Undead taking over the world, I decided to write a story blending two of my previous zombie stories: One involving Thinking Zombies and the other a post-apocalypse zombie virus. Don't want to read my old work? Don't worry, neither do I. The short version of both are 1) If a zombie eats enough brains it becomes smart, and 2) A post-apocalypse involving multiple zombie outbreaks. I'd been planning to extend my "Land of the Undead" story into another serial for this blog but (if you know my relationship with research) that hasn't quite worked out as planned. So, when I saw this prompt (months ago) I decided to write a short thing set in that world, you know, to hone in on more of what I had planned. If you're reading this (as I always say, "Why waste your time?") and it felt long, my bad. Originally I'd planned for the final boss to be a wizard and that Franks would make some comment about tools before shooting the wizard in the head, the end. Then I thought about it more, never a good idea as my thoughts once again got out of hand and decided to make the wizard actually a lich and then Franks needed a way to infect him (because I couldn't think of anything else). I know, what the fuck.

Also, wow, it's been a long time since I've posted anything. Umm, there's a reason for that and it isn't just because I'm lazy. I mean, it isn't a good reason either but still I think it's a valid reason. This also led to a decline in my reading from July to September. As always, I've got a bunch of stuff planned, even started, just need to find the time and motivation to keep writing.

Zombie War (part 1/2)

 I crouched along with my five lieutenants creating a circle in the mud. Around us swayed the rest of my undead horde: some gnashing their teeth, others grasping at the empty air, none of them quite still. Embarrassment and rage took hold of me for a moment and I splattered the muck with a fist before regaining composure, smoothing it out once more. "That fucking wizard reduced us to nearly half our numbers. Such an insult cannot go unpunished," I said motioning to our undead surrounding us as I drew a crude map with my other hand, my ashen flesh contrasting sharply with the dark-brown twig I'd plucked from the ground. Tools, I thought, looking thoughtfully at the stick, such a shame that so much of it was lost now that the living were gone. Or at least now that they'd become just another endangered species of this planet.

"Franks," said Hate/Love hesitantly, trying to find the words. Hate/Love, the newest of our Pale Mind collective having recently fed on enough fresh brain matter to awaken a consciousness. Not enough to remember his past but enough to read the words on his knuckles. "Magic isn't real,, right?"

I glared at him, "I don't know Hate/Love, the fire shooting from his fucking hands seemed pretty real. Maybe we can ask our roasted Shamblers if they think it's real? Besides, I'll bet a couple years ago, you wouldn't have said zombies, especially ones that could talk, were real, yet here we are." I pulled a sharpened bone from my belt and stabbed it into my chest for emphasis. No fear of injury, no pain, just in and back out with only a couple bits of necrotic flesh falling out of the wound and stuck to the bone.

"Sir, you really shouldn't be doing that, especially with food scarce as is," said Tasha though with more annoyance than actual concern.

Waving the bone, I said, "One hole in my chest means nothing if we can't get passed that damn wizard."

"We can't stand against the wizard's magic, Franks," said Richard, standing up and gesturing to the group. "Let's just cut our losses and move along. I'm sure there's other -"

I didn't let him finish. Couldn't lest I find myself wrestling control of the horde from another Pale Mind, especially one that I had brought up and nourished. With Richard's back turned, I stuck the sharpened bone through the temple of his skull into his brain. "The Bots and their AI overlord control the desert behind us and The Rage roaming this region tear apart anything this moves, including other undead. Our only option is to kill the wizard and take his manor. That's our path to safety," I said, dropping Richard's body to the ground. I eyed each of my remaining lieutenants in turn, taking note of Vic and Baby's hungry eyes. "Rich goes to the Shamblers," I growled, "His brains are no good for feasting but we should not let the rest of his stupidity go to waste."

"Franks," said Vic, his eyes now slightly downcast while eyeing the bone still dripping brain matter, "Richard has, um, had a point. Taking on the wizard isn't going to be easy. I, we just want to know that you have a plan."

I raised the sharpened bone before flipping it over and offering the blunt end to Vic, who hesitantly grasped it from me. "Tools," I replied. "Tools are what separates us from the other animals and it will be what grants us our dominance over them, as rabid and ferocious as they may be." Then I turned my back to the group, letting my mind join with the rest of my mindless horde.

With Richard dead, well actually dead, I felt a number of our Shamblers start to slowly peel away, mostly those furthest from the presence of myself and my remaining Pale Minds as we now were one less Mind to hold their numbers. I closed my eyes, focusing on the connection I held with every one of the undead in my horde, from the cognitive Pale Minds, the monstrous Hunters, and the mindless mob of Shamblers. Their connection to the horde faded until eventually they simply disappeared. In the next couple of minutes, I felt twenty-six of our number vanish from my control.

I opened my eyes. "A loss, but not as many as I expected," I said to no one in particular. "Perhaps I really should have let Richard have more the brains." With the remaining ninety-seven undead under my control, I marched us through the woods back to the wizard's manor maintaining cover in the trees while avoiding the open road. Though the Breathers were nearly extinct, it was still best wander as just another horde to avoid suspicions amongst the other forms of undead that populated the globe. Along the way, I gave a slight psychic "push" to any Shambler we happened upon, pulling them along like an avalanche picking up fresh snow as it races down a mountain. With only five Pale Minds, including myself, in my horde, I'd reached the limit on the number of undead I could directly control, but bringing along potential reinforcements couldn't hurt.

We made it to the edge of the woods without incident. Without encountering any living thing, actually: no Breathers, no wild game, not even a bird or rodent. I couldn't imagine the wizard having enough canned foods to survive this long. Perhaps the wizard survived with farm animals and crops hidden on the other side of the manor out of view? I held my horde at the tree line and allowed the wild zombies I'd pulled along to enter the barren field between us and the manor first. After crossing thirty-yards of packed dirt, the wizard made himself known as several dozen ragged ghouls rose from the ground. Standing apart from my horde and the more populous virus-created zombies, the wizard's ghouls stood in various forms (not just undead humans but animals such as wolves and deer) as well as in various states of decay from those that looked dead only a few days ago to bodies that were more bone than flesh. Standing out amongst the ghouls however were a couple of hybrid bodies, fusions of parts not just of different human bodies but mixtures of different species - human bodies with wolf heads, horse bodies with human torsos, and other more nightmarish mixtures. Most terrifying to me though was that many of his ghouls held some sort of weapon in hand (metal pipes, cleavers, axes, etc), curiously even those without a muscle structure to do so. The wizard's undead stood-statue still, letting the wandering undead bump into them as they slowly trudged in the direction of the manor.

"He's not lashing out at them like he did when we last entered his territory," said Tasha, watching along with me.

I nodded in agreement. "Perhaps he's saving his strength, testing these if they are -" I paused, thinking back to our first encounter: wandering to the manor grounds, probing these odd undead as I would others. "Dammit, he's looking for me. I tried to probe a couple of the skeletons, curious how they still moved. That must've been what triggered him to attack us the last time, me trying to get into the head of his ghouls to add them to our horde."

Tasha stared at me, lifeless eyes still managing to parrot a glare before taking a group of Shamblers to blend with the roaming zombies. The rest of my horde waited in the trees, watching. Once Tasha wound a twisting trail halfway across the barren field to the manor, I motioned for my last three Pale Minds to take another portion of our Shamblers into the field. If the wizard suspected anything, no alarm was raised or at least not one that I could sense.

My three Pale Minds now halfway between the trees and the manor and Tasha a blur and outside the psychic bond of the horde, I urged the remainder of the Shamblers and all of our Hunters across the hard-packed dirt while I crawled amongst them. It was slow going, dragging myself and the roughly eight-pound pack through a sea of zombified legs and feet. After ten minutes it dawned on me that as a human, I wouldn't have had a clue where I was going amongst the zombified body parts. Thanks to the horde, though, I could "see" through their eyes, at least the ones that had eyes. The Shamblers were nearly blind though I could make out the shape of other zombies and the mansion through their cataract-ridden eyes. My Hunters though, or at least two of them, had nearly perfect vision thanks to the diet of fresh eyes in addition to the muscle and sinews I directed them to consume. Thanks to whatever strain of the zombie virus that infected my horde, you are what you eat.

Once I got halfway across the field, I gave the order. "Attack." On their own, undead don't attack other undead as there's no food in doing so. Under the control of Pale Minds like myself, we could guide Shamblers, Hunters, and others under our control to attack other forms of undead. And that's what they did. The Shamblers began grabbing at the ghouls, dragging them to the ground and ripping into them as if they were their usual living prey. My five Hunters were much more ruthless and effective, using their huge bodies and brute strength to smash through anything in their path as they barrelled their way to the mansion.

The wizard's ghouls were quick to respond - axes chopping, pipes swinging, fangs biting. Part of me still wondered how those made of just bone did that, though the simple answer was probably "magic." It was too bad that I would never get the answer as I planned to kill the only one with it. Though the ghouls had tools, we had numbers. In the time it took for the wizard's undead to aim a "killing blow" on one of my undead's brain, the horde was able to bring them down, like a crashing wave, and began tearing them apart.

Soon they changed tactics on us, seeking instead to disable and maim rather than outright kill. More of the horde had legs chopped or arms broken by the ghouls' tools, rendering their numbers ineffective, almost worthless. After all, what good are numbers if they're all crawling through the muck or grasping uselessly. Ready to counterstrike, my four lieutenants unslung shotguns - Benelli M1014 12 gauge semi-automatic models scavenged when we overran a Breather fort several days earlier - and began putting holes in the enemy. It was too bad I couldn't equip all of the horde with firearms but it was only the Pale Minds, those who ate enough brain matter to return their consciousness, that had the fine motor functions to load a shell into a tube and pull a trigger. Unlike ourselves, the virus-created, the wizard's magic kept his undead on their feet even with their brains blown-out. Instead, I had my Pale Minds focus their shots on the mid-section, severing spines from legs to drop the enemy undead to the ground for our horde to finish off.

As chaos reigned in the battlefield, a green light filled the middle room on the second floor of the manor - the wizard finally giving us his full attention. As the light grew brighter, other undead ran from the mansion, each one also emitting the same eerie ermine glow. Despite being the size of a normal human zombie, they appeared to move as fast and strike as hard as my Hunters which stood twice their size and weighed nearly three times that. Worst of all, these magically-enhanced undead outnumbered my Hunters four-to-one and more continued to rise. Then, the main event arrived as the wizard himself stepped out of the room, off the balcony, and floated in the air. His hands held in front of him, a green flame lanced down into the battlefield, burning his and my own zombies alike. I felt the connection with at least half the remaining horde simply vanish, unfortunately along with the connection to two of my Hunters and two of my Pale Minds. They'd be the hardest to replace as the world was running short on fresh, Breather brains to feast upon. I set my gaze upon the wizard, floating in the air, and wondering just how much stronger I might become if I ate his brain.