Pyramid of the Dead: A Zombie Novel (24 page)

“Thank you,
kind
sir,
”
Inguill
said
, taking his free hand in hers
and holding it tight
. “That will be just fine.” She gave him
another
enchanting
smile. “And please,
may I ask your name?
”

“Ninan Cuyuchi,” he said
brusquely. He gently broke her grip and moved
ahea
d
,
his axe
once more
at the ready.
He seemed almost
angry with himself for agreeing to help.
“Come on, let
us...
”
He broke off suddenly, tilting his head as though straining to hear a sound.
Ninan
placed a
hand on her shoulder. “
Wait,
I can hear something.”

Inguill strained her ears but heard nothing. “What is it?
” she asked, keeping her voice
as
low
as possible
.
“
I
don’t
hear anything.
”

“Get ready to run,” he said as he scanned the jungle around them. “They’re coming.”

The
n she heard them. G
runts and groans were
coming from
directly
behind them
. T
hey were getting louder and louder
as the
y
advanced
.
Ninan’s fear
that she ha
d been followed had
now
been
justified.
It seemed
that a
mass of
the undead soldiers
had
gotten
hold of
her
scent
trail
and were
rapidly
closing in on them.

“I’m
so
sorry
about this,
Ninan
.
I’m sorry
that
I got you involved,
” Inguill said
with heartfelt regret.
“
If w
e
can
just
reach
Huacas
,
all
of
this will be ended.”

Ninan had no time to listen to her
apologies.
He
took hold of Inguill’s hand and ran
.

“It’s not too far now,” he
still
whispered
,
as if that
mattered now
. “Once we get to the river
road
we can
build a
distance
between ourselves
and them
.” He
was trying
to
soften the truth, let Inguill have a little
bit of
hope
but
he need not have bothered
to waste his breath
. Inguill had seen enough
on
this day to have learned that they would never be rid of them that easily
.

Just as the sound
of
fast
running water
could be heard above the calls of the
undead
,
the beasts
finally
caught up with their prey. B
ursting through the trees behind them
, the creatures
lunged
after
them
with vigour
, desperate
for a
taste of their flesh.

“Keep m
o
v
ing!” Ninan shouted
to Inguill. “You need to g
et to the river!
H
urry
up
!
” With one last look at her face
, Ninan skidded
to a halt behind h
er.
He turned, holding
his axe high as he
waited for the beasts to arrive.

“Ninan!” She scream
ed
, stopping a little
further along
the pathway
. “Come with me
,
” she pleaded. “Please
!
W
e can
both get away from here
!” She wanted him to
run
after her
but
she could see by the rigidity of
his posture
that
he would not
be
going anywhere
.

“Finish your mission,” he called back. “
Find your friends and s
end these
damn monster
s back to where they came from.”
H
is back was to
her
and she wished he could see her
eyes
so that he would know that she understood the magnitude of what he had done for her. Instead, she honoured his
sacrifice;
she ran.

She
glanced back
only
the
once
and
saw him
attacking the horde
as it reached him. D
ozens of the
undead soldiers
had
surrounded him as he fought
a
vain
battle
.
His axe sent a few back to
the
underworld,
but h
e never had a chance to survive and soon, he was borne to the ground under the weight of grasping hands and snapping teeth
.

As s
he
ran, his screams rent
the atmosphere and became indelible in her mind. Tears slid down her cheeks as he
r lungs burned but
still she ran.

Th
os
e
precious
few seconds that Ninan
had given her was
more than
enough to allow
Inguill
the chance to get
ahead and
out onto the road
he talked about
.
As she
stepped
on
to
the
dry,
dusty path that ran alongside the edge
of the
mighty ravine
,
s
he
stopped and stood
still
for a few seconds
.
The view
looked
all
clear
in both directions
but
Ninan
had
never
gotten the chance to tell her
whether
she was
to
turn
left or right.

R
oars
of hunger bellowed
behind her
,
signalling
that the undead were back on
t
he
ir hunt
. The hunter was no more and now, they searched for
some more
fresh blood
.
Inguill made her choice without debat
ing herself
further
. She turned to the right and began sprinting as fast as she could
.

As the path narrowed
to barely a couple of feet
in width, a woman
appeared
directly
befor
e her. She snarled and groaned as she
paced towards her
.
The
woman
appeared to be close to Inguill’s age but her once
youthful skin was
now all
but
scraped
away
,
leaving
a few
torn and bloodied
tatters of flesh to dangle from her
bony
face
.
Inguill
turned to
wards t
he other way
but three more of the undead creatures
staggered
out of the
thick foliage on either side of the path
.
Inguill was
surrounded
.

There
was no escape route left
.

Groaning and slavering with excitement and delight, the walking dead
quickly
encircled
around
her and moved in to attack.
They
stopped a few feet away and let out a chorus of screams
,
possibly deriving
some
sort of
twisted pleasure from
her fear.

Inguill knelt down and grabbed
a jagged edged branch that appeared to have been broken
during a storm or perhaps during the passing of these creatures.
With
heavy-handed
swipes
,
she tried to keep the beasts at bay.
The undead attackers
ducked
away
and
leaned out of range of
her feeble att
acks
.
If these things could laugh, she
thought
, they would be laughing
at her
now, mocking her fear, taunting and goading her until
she
wore herself out
.

As the last of her energy slipped away
, Inguill did
the last thing
that
she could do, she
screamed.

15
- The Journey
to
Salvation

Back o
n the road to Huacas

After Minco was saved by the Spaniards

It did not take long a
fter being rescued in the clearing by
Pizarro
and his men
for
Minco’s mind
to
return to
thoughts of
Inguill.
Had she
even
managed to
escape
from
the beasts at
Tarapoto
? W
as she
still
somewhere
in the jungle running for her life or had she
been caught
and devoured
by the hungry horde?
Co
uld
she have even joined their
growing
ranks
?
He wondered if he would have the chance to tell
her
he loved her
. H
e hoped
that
she knew
that already
but
he
wished he
could say it all the same
,
and
the burden of having remained silent
for all these years
weighed heavy in
his heart.

“
Well,
”
Pizarro
began. “T
hings may be looking up
at last
. We seem to have lost them.
”
Pizarro
strode
a
longside Minco on
the
narrow
path. “Hopefully
,
things will remain
quiet until we
can
get to
Huacas
.”

Minco did
no
t
even
bother to
answer
him
, though he
was surprised that the Spaniard would be so
casual about their situation.
Minco himself
suspected
that
a few more surprises
would be
ly
ing in wait
ahead.

“What
’s
happened to your woman,
Inguill,
”
t
he
Spaniard
asked, finally noticing her absence.
“
Was she taken
by the beasts?”

“We got separated
back at the last town
,” he replied
almost
despondently.
“
I
have
no idea where she is
or even if she made it to safety
.
”

“
What did I tell
you
, you fool
, y
ou should never have taken her with you,”
Pizarro
snapped back
. T
he anger
was
clear in his voice
. “What the hell are we going to do now if breaking that damn statue doesn’t work?
I
can only
guess that you haven’t got a clue.
” He shook his head wildly
, hysteria creeping into his voice as he went on
. “
I’ll tell you this
,
my
Incan
friend
, you’d better hope it does
work
or the blood of your people will be on
your
hands.”

Minco stopped in his tracks.
“Leave me alone,
Spaniard.
D
o
n
o
t push me
further
or I’ll finish you
myself
where you stand
.” His hand dropped to
the
well-worn
handle of
his axe.
Pizarro
stopped too
, glancing
back and down at the weapon.
Next
to the
distinct
possibility
of becoming one of those
monsters
or simply being eaten
alive, what would that fate be?
He sighed, frustrated and almost careless with such grim options before him. He turned away and kept on
walking.

Pizarro
’s continuous
show of petulance
had finally gone too far
. Minco had taken enough nonsense from the Spaniard to last
him
a lifetime. The Spaniard’s
blatant
disrespect
would not be overlooked
again. His hand tightened
on
his
golden
axe and he set off
down the path
after
Pizarro
.
As he got
closer,
h
e drew the weapon and raised it above
his head
, aiming for a thrown
strike.

At that
moment,
he heard her. In a split second, Minco felt a rush of delight. Then the realisation hit him. She
was screaming
in horror
.

He ran
as
he had never run before,
even faster than when he had
run for his own life
. H
e hear
d
Pizarro
calling
after
him but
the words
did
n
o
t register.
All that mattered
to him
was Inguill
.

As Minco bulled
through the
last of the
thick
jungle
,
he came
to the ravine
called Amuchanto
, where
at last
he saw his love
.
Four of the undead surrounded her
and she was
waving a large stick
wildly around her in an attempt t
o keep them at
arm’s length
.
Even as he ran
towards them
,
he could see
they were
only
toying with her. They could easily have taken her
at any time
they wished
.
He bared his teeth in
to
a snarl.

Their
fun
was about to come to an abrupt
end.

As he arrived
, he sent
t
he first of the
beasts;
a tall
,
fat
and
naked farmer-
flying to the groun
d with a kick
to
the small of its
back. Before it could
recover,
Minco smashed his
spiked
truncheon
full force
into its temple.
The squelching
thud
that accompanied the strike
almost brought a
satisfied
smile to Minco’s face. His temper had been building
and these undead soldiers were going to
face the full force of his wrath
, they were going to pay dearly
. Without hesitation,
he set about the other three,
roaring
aloud
with every flash
and wave
of his weapons.

When
only one of the creatures was left, it was Minco’s turn to play cat and mouse
. The undead girl moved fast
, darting
in
repeatedly
to attack,
and
each time
it did
,
Minco could have
easily
ended her sad excuse for a life. Each
strike he made was aimed carefully at
her body,
rather than
her head.

Broken ribs
punctured the lungs, rendering her breathing liquid. Broken
arms
became useless and she could only charge forward with her body and use her head and teeth to attack. Finally, Minco broke one of her legs, bringing
the beast
crashing
down to the ground
close to his feet
. As it snarled and groaned at him
, squirming
towards him
, he delivered the fatal blow.

The creature’s head caved in and its face disappeared in
side
a mass of gore and ooze. Chunks of bone and flesh still clung to Minco’s truncheon, dripping to the dusty earth as he stood over the corpse, breathing heavily.

Ing
uill ran
to her love
.
She threw her arms around him, not caring that he was covered in
gore;
a deep
,
almost black liquid
that was
the congealed
blood the undead held in their bodies. She ripped a piece
of fabric
from her
golden
robe and gently cleaned
the mess from
his
stern
looking
face, taking great care to ensure that none
of it
went
near his mouth. Minco stood silent and stoic
while the
gore was cleaned away
from his skin
. His
anger was still
boiling just below the surface
.

“I
knew I would see you again
,” she whispered in his ear.
“I
knew
it
.” She looked down at the
lifeless
monsters
at
her
feet
.
“Wh
en I saw the
undead soldiers
,
I knew they had me
trapped
,
but
Minco,
I always knew
that
my prayer
to the g
ods w
ould be
answered.
” Wrapping her arms around him
,
she
kissed hi
m
.

“Well, well,”
Pizarro
said as he and the others
soldiers
at last
made their arrival
. “
The great Protector and the High Priestess are back together again.
”
He
could not help but
smile. “I cannot say I’m not relieved. We’d best be off, though. More of those things must be nearby.
”

His
sarcasm, however,
fell on deaf ears.
Minco and Inguill did
n
o
t ca
re
one iota
what he was
saying;
they only
had eyes and minds for each other.

Before another word could be said
,
one of the
Incan soldier
s
came running at full speed into the
little
clearing. He
was
shouting
something to Minco over and over again,
and though
the Spaniards could
n
o
t understand his words
, the panic-stricken expression
on his face said it all.
Pizarro
was right again, t
hey were coming.

“Let’s move
,” Minco shouted
out in Spanish
. “We need to get
down
to the
bridge
now
. I
t’s the only way to get over
the ravine
.” He
took
Inguill’s hand and
set off
at pace
along the
thin, dusty
path running
parallel to the ravine.
As
Pizarro
and his men
ran along the edge
,
they
could
n
o
t help but
look
down
, noting with unease the depth of
the rapidly flowing river below.
It was clear that n
o one could survive
a fall
down there
.