Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (10 page)

“
We just have to have t
rust in
the power of
our G
ods
,” he said with
beaming
confidence. “All will be well.
Come
on
,
let’s get moving.”
He could sense their almost palpable hesitation but he managed to herd them
in
through the opening. As they edged
their way into the pyramid
,
they
found themselves standing at the mouth of the long corridor that
led to the main chamber.

As the priests walked, their torches flickered, sending weak tendrils of light to lick upwards only to
have the darkness high above consume it
. Dimly visible were the towering, carved sentinel statues evenly spaced out along the entire length of the passageway. D
evils, demons and ghouls
stared emptily, yet somehow forebodingly
,
down at the priests from high with
jewel-encrusted
eyes that seemed to follow the groups progress as they nervously continued towards their goal.
The last
statue at the end of the corridor depicted Supay himself, as
the last
guardian of the chamber. As shown on the plaque at the door, he held
a severed head
in each hand
.

The men
stayed
huddled together a
s they passed the
massive
statue
, almost scurrying to reach the centre
of the pyramid. The
y were in
side
the
main chamber
now. This wa
s where the people of Huacas
once
praye
d to the lord of the underworld,
and
this wa
s where they would raise
up
the army
of the Ukhu Pacha
.

Taipi
was the only one happy, soon he
w
ould
have the soldiers
he needed
to defeat the Spaniards and rescue the
King
...if
that was possible,
then
t
hey
would be treated as heroes throughout the
whole
Incan Empire
,
and Minco would be dismissed as unnecessary
.
If the king could not be saved
,
then
it was
so much the better.
Taipi
liked this idea and he already had
thought
s of keeping
hold of
the dead soldiers
for a
time.
With this new
army,
Taipi c
ould take control of the city
with ease
. Perhaps the Time of
the
Kings was
now
over. It was time for a new ruler, and Taipi, High Priest of Cuzco, would become Emperor.

“There,” one of the priests
called out
in a voice trembl
ing
with
fear
. “The a
ltar and the
effigy
of Supay are
over there.” With one
shaking hand
,
h
e pointed
towards
a long
,
dark marble altar
with a
golden image of
Supay as its
centrepiece
. The
group of
holy men
gathered around the
small
, plain
effigy
, looking bemused
.
At only a few inches
tall,
i
t was not what they
had
expected
to find
, but it was not going to stop their plans.

Taipi
took
some
parchments from
a compartment hidden in
side
his robes and with
great
care;
he
laid them out on the
dark
altar. They were
very
old, tattered and stained
,
and
The High Priest
struggled to make out some of t
he symbols
in the
guttering
torchlight
as he chanted its
ancient passages.
He was soon lost in
those
words,
all his powers channelled into his work.

Time seemed to crawl
once more
as Taipi
and his followers
continued
with the
chanting
,
and sweat broke out in beads on their foreheads.
However,
just as the other priests began to breathe a little easier in
the
hope that nothing would come of their efforts, a low, rumbling sound rolled to the surface at her feet. The
ground
beneath them
began to vibrate
gently,
and then abruptly,
stopp
ing
just as
Taipi finished
reciting
his spell.

Nothing happened
at first
. The
stony
silence had returned
, and the air
around them
felt heavy with it.
The
priests looked
for signs of life or movement
but all they could sense
was
that
unearthly
- and unsettling- quiet
. Taipi
quickly
rum
maged through the parchments search
ing
in vain
for
something he
might have
missed,
for what could have
gone wrong.

“Mayta...
look
...
the statue!”
Taipi followed the priest’s gaze. The
eyes on the
little
table effigy had begun to emit a
dull
,
red
dish
glow.
They all
felt drawn to
it, t
hey felt calmed, almos
t hypnotised by the pulsing light
, drawn to the beauty of it
s presence, to its strange glory
. As the group of men
watched
,
the
ir
eyes p
ulsed
faster
and faster
,
until they
glowed with the consistent deep red of dark garnets
.

“It
is
happening
,
my children,
” Taipi
said, unable to hide his exhalation
. “M
y
prayer
s have been answered
by the g
ods
!
Be ready,
my faithful
,
soon we shall have the power to control
h
is army.
”

Deep, heavy c
rac
k
ing
noises echoed around the
large,
seemingly
empty chamber.
Taipi and his priests peered
deep
into the darkness
,
loo
k
ing
for
the
source
of the thunderous din
. One
of
the priests
scream
ed, child-like,
point
ing at the approaching apparitions.
Soon the priests
were
surrounded
.

The army of Supay had arrived.

Everything had gone directly to Taipi’s plan s
o far
.
Over twenty undead denizens of the Forbidden City had materialised in the
darkness, solidified into reality,
and now,
stood
directly
before the priests of Cuzco
in all their evil glory
.
Taipi
saw
that
they were once
both
m
en and women,
and all
long
since
dead
. T
heir bodies
were
rotted
down to
just
sinew and
bone
with
only
a
few threads of flesh that had mummified over the years
.

One
of the bodies
came closer than
the others
did
,
stopping only when it
stood face
to face with
the proud looking
Taipi. The
creature appeared to have been a young man
, barely
in his teens when he’d been taken. Unmoved, the
High Priest
stared directly
into its
lifeless
eyes
, eyes that should have rotted away decades ago. His own reflection stared
right
back. The monster
’
s
putrid
head tilted slightly
, patches of black hair still clinging to its ashen scalp
as it
regarded the person who had a
woken
it
. Its
grey-blue lips parted
slightly
. A nearly inaudible wheeze came rushing past its yellow teeth as if it
tasted
the air, tasting
them
.

“You wi
ll come with us,” Taipi
said, voice booming with authority as he addressed the undead soldiers, then he directly spoke to the figure
before him
. “You
will obey only me,
for I am
now
your master.”

The undead
gave no indication that they heard, or comprehended the High Priests words. They did not acknowledge him as their leader, nor did they attack. T
hey
just
stood
there
motionless
,
their dead grey eyes firmly fixed
on the intruders.
Taipi
’s
impatience and
ire
at their disobedience
grew
stronger
by the second
.
“I
t is I who has
raised you from your slumber
. You will
accompany us
to Cuzco
at once
.”

Taipi
slowly
raised his hand and pointed back down the passageway to the
doors. The undead
boy’s
eyes
followed the movement of his pointing finger and not at the direction
that
it was aimed
. Its own
withered
hand shot up in a flash
, wrapping sinuous fingers around
Taipi’s wrist.
Its grip was adamantine as it pulled
the
priest
’s arm forward
and plunged his fingers into its cold, dead mouth
.
The teeth bit down and Taipi felt pain and then a
white-hot
sheet of agony as its teeth ground through flesh and bone, tearing away the tips of the first two fingers. He was stuck fast. He could only look on helplessly as the
undead
feasted eagerly on the sweet, moist flesh. Its h
unger was strong
-
it had been
many
decade
s
since
these creatures
last had the chance to feed.

Screaming
frantically in pain, not caring that he sounded like a woman,
Taipi struck the undead boy
repeatedly
about the face and head
with his good hand.
The
b
lows
had
little to no effect
,
save to bring its teeth down harder and faster on Taipi’s own flesh, causing himself
even
more pain and damage
.
The creature
was
far
too strong
for him
,
and nothing
on earth
w
ould stop its
long
-
awaited
feast
.