Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies (17 page)

"I think that's Jack Warren!" McPhee shouted. "He was one hell of a card player! He could cheat the Devil's wife out of her britches!"

"Run!" Neasa shouted while struggling to free herself. Her bonds were tight, and even with Santiago watching with his arms crossed tightly over his chest, she had to find a way to break free. She needed just an inch of space.
Ambala refused to turn and flee. Her own sense of pride prevented her from escaping the splayed hands of the nightmare-creature. With a thousand curses exploding out of her mouth, she wrestled with the gory monstrosity.

The storm clouds that had arrested the sky for three days suddenly dissipated and withdrew to allow a powerful beam of light to spread
slowly
across the gnashing, crooked teeth of a hungry, outstretched jaw. The eyes were large, unfocused bulbs set within the sockets of a fleshless, hairless red skull. The wicked tongue rolled out of its mouth as it brought one hand up over the woman's shoulder and grabbed her short hair in its fist. Ambala's head was titled back. 

"I'm the one you want!" Neasa screamed at the top of her lungs. "Let her go!"

Santiago chuckled.

"Listen to yourself!" McPhee laughed hysterically, slapping his knees while leaning into a tree to balance himself. "You're begging for her life! Oh, my!"

She could feel her bonds loosening as the creature overpowered Ambala. It scraped the top of Ambala's forehead with its upper jaw, drawing lines of blood that slid over her cheeks. Golden light expanded over the pyramid of dead men and across the trampled tents. A legion of flies escaped from between the mutilated bodies as an intense heat burned across the forest.

Almost there. Just a little further, and Ambala could live. Her heart raced as the creature bore down upon Ambala, whose limbs shook from the strain.

"Just hold on! You bastards will pay if she's hurt! Please just hold on!"

The freedom fighter was finally pushed to her back as her strength surrendered. Her sense of pride forbade her from crying out or screaming. A long time ago, she learned that she could depend only on herself; if she couldn't fight for her life, then she was no good to the world of the living.

"No!" Neasa couldn't rush it. Escape would only become more difficult. "Give her mercy!"

There was a part of her that wanted to take those words backs because they seemed strange to her tongue. She was begging, but everything she'd felt in a handful of days, every moment of peace and calm that she experienced, was being stolen from her. Emotion overwhelmed her ego and drowned the cold, heartless woman in a river of fresh tears that flooded her eyes.

Ambala gritted her teeth and thought about her mother. She bucked her hips to throw the creature off, but it pinned her arms into the dirt and steadied itself across her midsection. Its vicious hands raked across her skin, and she kicked and writhed against the grotesque figure. The putrescent gas made possible by its rotted, bony frame warmed her face with the sun's light, though the creature's hands were cold and wet. The smell reminded her of slave pens where sick, forgotten old men withered and died in their own waste.

She couldn't let herself die, not now. There was too much more to do, too much life
to live
. There was hope now that she had Neasa.

Fighting back with all of her strength, she managed to free her wrists from the creature's long, bony fingers. Its hands frantically slashed away at her chest with untrimmed, elongated fingernails stretched out over skeletal phalanges. More pain, and more blood. She bucked and writhed, but it was no use.  

"Tell me!" Ambala shouted. "Tell me that you love me. Tell me what it meant to you."

"Just hang on! Keep fighting!"

Bone exposed between stretches of muscle, wide, wet eyes glittering with the promise of flesh. She'd felt those teeth before. One death was as good as another, but there was something she wanted, and she could stay alive for just one more moment to hear it, finally. Blood was in her eyes, and the creature's strength was impossible. Each breath was a glorious victory.

"Say it!" Ambala grunted, expelling the last vestiges of strength. "Say the words, and I can tell you the name you gave me, the name you shared with me our first time…"

"Damn you, just fucking keep fighting! Keep fighting!"

The creature's tongue flicked out of its mouth.

She arched her back and looked into Neasa's eyes, "I'll see you in Hell."

"No!" Neasa screamed.

Ambala opened her mouth one more time as the fist crashed down upon her teeth and shattered her jaw; stars danced in front of her eyes, and when the second fist came down, she could hear the nameless woman screaming, and Ambala decided that she wouldn't choke on her own teeth or blood. A fist crashed upon her face a third time, shattering her nose. Before the fourth blow, she regretted her last words—she should have professed her love, for all time.

The fourth blow broke a blood vessel in her eye and knocked her unconscious. She never knew about the sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, or tenth blows. After the
seventh,
she suffered a concussion. On the
tenth,
her cheekbone caved in completely.

The cannibal scooped a handful of Ambala's face into its mouth and chewed enthusiastically.

Neasa broke free of her restraints, but the rage and desire had fled. She melted into a sobbing heap, curling up into a ball with the lasting image of Ambala's gruesome death burned into the back of her eyelids. Where was all of the training Mother had imbued into her soul, the awesome vitality of a professional killer? She should kill every man who stood watching and bring her vengeance to bear upon the entire world. But Ambala was still dead, and she never told her the most important thing anyone could ever say to another person. A sharp pain in her stomach felt as if her insides had been burned away, leaving hot ash where her organs should have been.

There was once a little girl in the Shenandoah Valley who couldn't be saved.

Nothing else existed in that clearing. Over the sound of her own uncontrollable sobbing, she could hear the flies, and despaired. This was a moment she deserved, but not now, not when she'd designed or at least teased herself with the fantastical dream of another type of person that she could be, or at least try to be.

A sacrifice made for the sake of nothing. A life lost in the middle of a nameless swamp, the concept of pleasure and happiness dampening the grass that swayed gently while the creature gorged itself, the woman's physicality disappearing with each fistful that was shoved into its mouth, the chewed pieces sliding out of its empty stomach and back onto her corpse. The grass, slashed with her blood, swayed.

Clouds slid over the sun and shut out the light.

May 28th, 1863: Next Year's Pain

Wagon wheels bounced over the road. Plumes of smoke lifted from the plain as towns burned. They were alone on the road—there was nothing ahead of them or behind them.

She should have been thinking about vengeance or justice. The two concepts seemed interchangeable. In another time, as another version of herself, the woman would have ached for the blood of the men who took Ambala from her. But it was a version of herself that had perished in the Shenandoah Valley. That woman died when the shotgun-toting mother appeared on her porch to die defending the home she'd spent her years dreaming about, the family that needed her maybe because the father and husband was off fighting in someone's war.

It was useless to feel sorry for herself, but the killer instinct that inspired her trigger fingers was gone. Even if she remembered everything from her past, she thought only about the scared little girl shivering beneath the blankets, waiting for Mother's riding crop. No matter how many men she may have killed in the past, it was an identity she couldn't own. The desire to continue the struggle had been sapped. After she killed Santiago, or McPhee, or her brother, Ambala was still gone.

Santiago let McPhee drive the wagon by himself and went into the back to sit beside Neasa. She looked up into his dark face and waited for him to talk. Did he want to taunt her, remind her of what she lost?

"I'm finished with the Collective," he spoke quietly.

"We'll throw you a party," Neasa shrugged and looked away.

"You don’t remember what we were. I see what you've become, and I do not want it. Killers die or go soft over time. You should not mourn your lover's death."

He was silent for a moment, as if unsure how to continue speaking. There seemed to be a lot he wanted to say. His hand rested on the hilt of the officer's sword he wore, and the muscles in his jaw bulged while he bit off words; he'd carefully rehearsed his speech and wanted it to be perfect.

"You were my mentor. You made me."

"For what?"

"You'll never be that woman again, I see that now."

"What's your point? I think I can be my own woman, whenever I feel like it. I don't owe you anything. Besides, you're not my type, Santiago. If there was anything between us before, it's gone. The Collective got in the way. I know I couldn't do it anymore."

Santiago seemed to ignore her comment. "The Collective is behind the designs of every major government or company. We belonged to an ancient order that sought one thing: immortality. Your brother believes he has found it, or at least, he is close."

"That's not all the Collective is interested in," she ventured.

"True. Otherwise, why would they need us? I see an opportunity for myself. If you were me, or perhaps, if we were having this same conversation three years ago and the roles were reversed, you would do the same. I will seek the road to awe, and give my life for a power that you can't comprehend."

"Why are you telling me this? Why do you think I care about all of your murder-philosophy?"

"A student should be able to surpass or kill his mentor. I should do this for you, but I will not. I am trading your life for my road. Your brother wishes to see you, though I regret what cannot be. My memories are now my own."

She was tired of his boring ruminations. He clearly wanted her to ask more questions, to inquire about their shared history, but none of it really mattered. Santiago was nothing more than a reminder of what she'd been denied her entire life, something he'd taken from her when he allowed Ambala to be devoured.

"Is Neasa Bannan dead?"

Santiago smirked. "You shot her yourself, at Harper's Ferry. You respected her. You thought it was an honor to end her life. You've been using her name for some time."

"Who am I?
”

"I'm no longer sure. I don't recognize you now, though I know who you used to be." He sighed and waited to resume speaking, as if frustrated that she wasn't giving him the response he wanted. "Your brother is going to kill many people soon. Soldiers and civilians. Children. Those creatures you have seen are only the beginning."

She sighed and said, "You think my brother can keep me in chains?"

"If you're going to sulk about a woman's death, th
e
n yes, I think he can."

"I lost a part of me. She had a part of myself, a part I never knew or understood until she showed me."

"I don't understand. Perhaps you taught me too well."

"Compassion is possible. I remember…we had a rule about children. You ran a little boy down with your horse. I never wanted you to do that."

Santiago leaned forward. She could see his eyebrows furrow over his dark eyes, and his left nostril flared. "You are wrong. I remember a different incident. There was a woman on a horse…"

"No.
You're
wrong. I would never have killed a child."

Santiago leaned back. "There is much you don't remember. Maybe it's for the best that you don't know this woman you once were. Perhaps you would be afraid of her. She has given many men nightmares."

"Are we finished?"

"What will you do after you kill Saul? I suppose you could find another lover. But you think that you will change completely. There will always be a part of you that belongs to the Collective. I discovered long ago that your soul is broken. It's too bad your memory no longer serves you. There is much more we could discuss. You might even apologize to me, though I would simply find it amusing more than anything."

"You love to hear yourself talk. I'm not going to miss you."

"This, I know."

After he left, she couldn't help but wonder what he wanted from her. He was trying to say goodbye, but for what? For an emotionless killer, he must have felt that he was fulfilling some honorable obligation that owed itself to the code he lived by. He'd spoken as if their shared past had been involved
in
a more deeper friendship between them, but nothing surprised her anymore. She felt nothing but contempt for him. There was no one alive who could miss him, or wonder what his life
would
ha
ve
been like if he'd been a different man.

For the sake of the soul that she wanted to revitalize, she would have to kill her brother. There was nothing else for her future besides his death at her hands. She would do it for Ambala, but most importantly, she would it because she had to.