The Lost Gods (16 page)

“I'm not following,” said Jesse. He put the cap on the jug and set it down on the grass. There were only a few ounces left in the jug. Deep, slow breaths replaced Tim’s laughing. He passed out on his back. Blake leaned in like he was going to tell Jesse a secret.

“We're all Danielle's husbands, basically. I mean, we never got officially married or anything like that, but we all, you know, do it.”

“Oh.”

“Don't get me wrong, man,” Blake continued slurring a bit, “It was weird at first. I know I felt intimidated, 'cause my nights are always after Nathan. But, Danielle, man, she's something. She's such a strong woman, but she builds you up, you know? You ever had a girl like that. One that really makes you feel like you're som
ething.”

“Only recently,” said Jesse.

“What?” Blake asked. He cocked his head.

“Nothing, go on.”

Blake continued blathering about his relationship with Danielle and about the pitfalls of being in a polyandrous relationship. Jesse was elated that Blake had forgotten Jesse’s slip of the tongue.

“The upside of all of it is that she doesn't expect much out of me. Back when it was all normal, women would—.”

Blake stared into the distance.

“Women would what?” asked Jesse. Blake said not
hing, and Jesse tilted his head to try and meet Blake's gaze.

“I'm going to sleep now.”

Blake stumbled away and entered the keep. He slammed the door behind him.

Jesse opened his backpack and took out his life vest. It reeked of seawater and sweat, but pungent smells no longer bothered Jesse. He laid it on the grass and used it as a pillow. His arms and face throbbed, but the exhau
stion of the day forced him into a deep sleep.

…

Moonlight drenched the field outside of the keep in a soft blue haze. She walked into the light. The woman wore a bronze chest plate and held a leaf-shaped short sword. Jesse could not make out her face in the poor light. He tried to walk toward her, but his legs would not move.

“Stand your ground,” she said.

“Why are you armed?” asked Jesse.

“We are at war, Jesse,” she responded with a harsh tone. “Where are your weapons? How will you win without them?”

Jesse looked down. He was naked. His jacket and pack were gone. His heart raced at first, but it slowed when he remembered he was dreaming. She only came to him in his dreams. He looked back up at her. He could see the outline of her prominent nose. Shadow obscured her other facial features.

“I can't win a war by myself.”

“Then ask them to join you.” She pointed her sword at the stone keep. The keep and wall disappeared. Nathan, Blake, Danielle, and Tim appeared in the field – fully armed and wearing battle regalia. They stared into the distance.

“They are ready, but you sit around like a defenseless child waiting for his mother.”

“I'm tired,” said Jesse feeling the weight of his words. “I need sleep.”

“If you continue to be weak, the
galla
will let you sleep for eternity. They would be happy to grant you that wish. All of humanity can sleep forever. They are as good as dust if you do not fight for them.”

“The
galla
?”

“You know them from their screams. They are d
emons of the underworld: servants of the goddess below.”

“What can I do? I'm just one man. There are billions of them. I me
an, look at me. I'm wounded. I'll never survive.”

“A single person has changed the course of history more times than I care to say. A single spear thrust en
ded the ancient world, and you can strike the blow that ends this war.”

“How?”

“You'll know when the time comes, but today is not that day. Today you fight to survive. They are coming for you and they are too many.”

“How can we win then?” asked Jesse feeling the fear in his core. He looked up at the moon. The moon floated in the grand abyss, apathetic to the concerns of the li
ving. Jesse looked back to where she was standing before, but she had disappeared. He turned around to see if Nathan and the others were still with him, but they too were gone. A hand rested on each of his shoulders and hot breath tickled his ear.

“You will win with your fury. Your rage will inspire the others. They will rally to your cause, and together you will crush the dead. You will rend their rotting flesh. You will smash their dry bones. You will annihilate them. You will win your freedom from this stone tomb and then you will come and find me. The others will help you, but only if you inspire them. No one follows a coward, but a common man will follow a hero onto a field of demons.”

Jesse said nothing, but he felt regenerated. Her words moved through him. He closed his eyes and felt her hand caressing his body. She ran her fingers over his wounds. His tight, sore muscles became loose and ready for what was to come. His wounds closed. His head cleared and his vision sharpened. He could feel his muscles strengthen like he had been working out daily and eating right. The swelling on his head disappeared and his gashes closed. A pulse of red light shot across the back of his eyelids.

“They come for you, Jesse. Wake up.”

…

Jesse broke out of his dream and sat up. Everything was calm and everyone was still sleeping. The sun had barely risen, casting its yellow light through the clouds. He stood up, and for
once, he did not feel sore, tired, or depressed. He was born anew. His hand ran across his face. Where there had been deep cuts there was only skin and stubble. His gashes and hematoma were gone. He checked his arms. The skin was cleared and healed. His forearms were rock hard. Jesse walked to the gate. His gait was light and loose, but he felt heavier, stronger. He looked down his shirt and saw chiseled muscles and a form greater than he had possessed in his peak when he wrestled in college. The slender, almost sinewy Jesse that had washed up on the sandbar outside of Eureka was gone. A champion remained. A smirk, long missing, crossed his face. It was the same smirk that he used to give his opponents in college before each wrestling match. It was the smirk he had given to a mugger in downtown Seattle that wanted to steal his wallet. It was the smirk that he flashed his first female conquest after she initially turned him down.

He heard a distant, rhythmic pulse. He looked for a way to get up to the wall, where Tim acted as sentry the night before. He found a narrow rope ladder anchored to the stone wall near the keep. Jesse climbed it and scanned the field. A ways out he saw with his new, sharper eyes what the woman in his dreams foretold. Marching in his direction was a huge mass, an army, of reanimates.

“Get ready!” Jesse bellowed. “They're coming!”

Nine

Ten Soldiers Wisely Led

Danielle, Nathan, and Blake ran out of the keep's door. They had weapons in hand, but not their armor. Jesse looked down at them from the narrow walkway atop the wall. Nathan stopped at the base of the wall.

“What is it?” asked Nathan.

“Trouble,” said Jesse. Nathan said nothing for a time, and just stared into Jesse's eyes.

“Shit,” said Nathan quietly. He faced Danielle and Blake. He raised his eyebrows and said, “Suit up.”

“Tim! Wake up!” Blake yelled as rushed back into the keep.

Tim sat up. “What is it?”

“Get your shit,” said Danielle.

She and Tim hurried after Blake into the keep.

Nathan looked back at Jesse and asked, “How bad is it?”

“Bad. We win or we all die. Got any spare weapons?”

Nathan smirked, but his eyes told a different story to Jesse.

“Yeah, we've got a few spares.”

Nathan entered the keep. A second later, Blake came out of the door, adjusting his lamellar armor. Jesse watched him as he swung his mace at half power to warm up his shoulders and back. Blake bounced up and down in preparation. He came up the ladder and Jesse paid close attention to his expression. Blake paused when he was far enough up to see over the wall. He stared out toward the approaching army of reanimates.

“You've got to be fucking kidding me,” Blake said. He climbed the final rungs and stood next to Jesse.

“What do we do? We run right?”

“You can't run from death,” said Jesse. “I ran from Washington and, well, look.”

Jesse gestured out at the mass of bodies, which were now several hundred yards to the east. Blake bent over and put his hands on his knees. Jesse set his hand on Blake's back.

“We don't run. We kill them all.”

“Impossible,” said
Blake and he began to hyperventilate. “Fucking— impossible— there are thousands of them.”

“Just think of them as mannequins. Smash one and move on. Before you know it they'll all be dead again.”

“What about those other things?” asked Blake. “They fucked you up last time, man.”

“The
galla
,” said Jesse, repeating the word that the woman in his dreams had used. “They'll be leading the group. I ran into a group like this before.”

“
Galla
?” asked Blake.

“Yep, some kind of demon apparently,” said Jesse. He took his hand off of Blake's back and Blake stood up straight. Blake looked at the army for a moment. He turned toward Jesse and studied Jesse's face.

“What did you do?” Blake asked.

“We fought for a while, but then we had to run.”

“So why shouldn't we run?”

“Adam and I couldn't have won. We weren't pr
epared.”

“And we are? For all that? I don't fucking think so.”

“Look at this place. You built this. Look at your weapons. Those are built for war, not for clearing out supermarkets. It seems like you all have been preparing for this your whole lives.”

“There're five of us, as in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.”

Blake pointed to the horde of creatures and raised his eyebrows for emphasis.

“How many are there?” Blake asked, not wanting to know the answer.

“Not enough. We'll smash them.”

“Are you fucking high?
”

Jesse turned toward Blake. He brought his face close to Blake.

“What's missing here?” asked Jesse as he pointed toward where his cuts used to be.

“What the fuck are you doing?” asked Blake.

“Open your eyes,” said Jesse. Blake's cocked his head at first. After a moment, his brows rose and his eyes went wide. He shook his head and stepped back a few steps.

“That's not possible,” said Blake. Jesse grabbed him with arms that were stronger than they had been in years. Blake looked down at Jesse's hand with terror in his eyes.

“None of this is supposed to be possible,” Jesse said. “But it's happening anyways. It's been happening for almost a year. Nothing is going to stop them from coming — nothing except for us. We'll fight. Get ready.”

Blake looked into Jesse's eyes and started nodding repeatedly.

“OK, OK, OK, yeah,” Blake said, and he yelled a trembling war cry into Jesse's face. Jesse smacked him on the shoulder, and Blake climbed back down the ladder. Jesse followed. He found Nathan standing with his palms turned upward in a questioning gesture.

“Let's fucking do this!” Blake yelled as he ran past Nathan. Jesse followed a ways behind Blake.

“What's going on Jesse?” Nathan asked as he held out a hand to stop Jesse. “Wait a sec.”

“Your cuts — what the shit?” Nathan said.

“Healed,” said Jesse.

“Impossible,” said Nathan. For the first time since their meeting, Jesse saw genuine surprise in Nathan's eyes.

“Happened anyways. You said you had a weapon for me.”

“Yeah,” said Natha
n his face contorted with confusion, “here's a battle-axe. Seems like your style.”

“It'll work,” said Jesse taking the axe. The balance was perfect and the blade was razor sharp. He swung it a few times. It felt good in his hands.

“Danielle's bringing out my spare suit of armor,” said Nathan. “It's not going to protect you from everything, but it's better than nothing.”

“Good,” said Jesse. He watched Tim walk by and climb up the ladder.

“What the fuck?” Tim yelled his pitch rising with each word.

“It's that bad, huh?” Nathan asked. Jesse faced Nathan and put his free hand on his shoulder.

“We're going to win,” said Jesse. Danielle came out of the keep holding a suit of lamellar armor across her arms. She wore lighter armor than the others. On her hip was a fencing saber with an ornate pommel. She handed the armor over to Jesse. It was leather with steel scales, which had a dull appearance. It was marked, scratched, and weathered.

“It was his training armor,” said Danielle. “The first he ever had. Try not to die in it. It's got sentimental va
lue for both of us.”

“I'll do my best,” said Jesse. He slipped the armor on. It was missing a helmet, but Jesse figured that a helmet would ruin his visibility anyway.

“Danielle!” Tim yelled. “Bring all my arrows.”

“All of them?” Danielle yelled back.

“Yes,” Tim responded. “There's a bajillion of these things.”

Danielle ran into the keep and returned with a large wicker basket full of arrows. She dropped the basket near the ladder.

“All right, there,” she said.

Tim dropped down o
ff the wall and hoisted the basket of arrows onto the walkway. When he finished, he ran over to the group. The folks from Eureka stood opposite Jesse.

“Does anyone have a plan?” Tim asked.

“We should stay inside the castle,” said Danielle. "They can't get in here.”

“No, there's too many of them. We have to take the fight to them,” said Jesse.

“Fuck that!” yelled Danielle. “You can go out there if you want, but we're staying in here.”

“I am going out there, and if you want to live you'll go out there too.”

“What kind of crazy-ass logic is that?” she retorted.

“They'll climb over, or they'll push the walls down, or they'll starve us out. Either way we'll die. There's one way out of this. One, and that's to kill every last one of those things out there. We've got to stomp them.”

“There's too many,” said Tim. “Nathan, have you seen them yet? There's — I don't even know how many.”

“Wait a sec, guys. There's something else happening here. Take a close look at Jesse," said Blake. “I mean, r
eally look at him. Notice anything different?”

“What the fuck a
re you talking about?” said Danielle.

“He was maybe 180 pounds soaking wet last night and he was cut to pieces, but now he's gotta be 215, 220 and he's all healed,” said Blake.

Danielle and Tim looked, and after a moment, they saw what Nathan and Blake had seen.

“So he's healed. What difference does that make?” asked Danielle.

“I don't know, but I'm just saying that something is up,” said Blake.

“We don't have time for this. We've got to get out there and get ready,” said Jesse.

“Jesse's right,” said Nathan. “We don't have time to argue. We go out there and we fight, except for Tim. You stay on the wall and put some holes in them.”

“Yeah, you got it,” said Tim. He ran to the wall and climbed the ladder.

“Like fuck I'm going out there,” said Danielle. “Neither are you guys.”

“Like he said, they'll surround this place. Once they do, they'll push through weak spots in the wall, or those damned screaming things will come over the wall,” said Nathan.

“This is insane,” said Danielle.

“There's no other way,” said Nathan and he reached for Danielle. She slapped his hand away. Danielle stayed quiet for a moment. She drew her saber and dagger and she exhaled. She gestured toward the gate with her s
aber and said, “I'm not going first. Where's your sense of chivalry, assholes.”

“So it begins,” said Blake. He picked up his shield and mace and headed toward the gate. They exited the courtyard gate and left the steel gate open behind them, in case they had to retreat.

“Spread out,” Jesse commanded. Without thinking, they followed the order. Blake went to the far left, and Nathan and Danielle went to Jesse's right side. The reanimates were closing in, but they were still a hundred yards away. Jesse squinted and saw four
galla
standing in the front of the crowd.

A scream pierced the air followed by three others. The blaring noise created a hellish cacophony. The horde stopped. The five living looked out at the sea of reanimates. Jesse extended his arms out to his sides like a bird of prey expanding its wings. He roared at them. Nathan, Danielle, and Blake followed in kind. They
screamed, yelled, and cursed. They taunted the still army of undead. An arrow sailed over Jesse's head. It whistled through the morning air and planted itself in the forehead of one of the
galla
. The creature collapsed to the ground without ceremony. The other three
galla
screamed again. They marched forward. Jesse and the humans stayed put: ready for the violence to come. Tim began loosing arrows every few seconds. The arrows that hit true caused the creatures to fall and the reanimates behind them would trip over the fallen. This caused ripples in the lines of the horde. The three
galla
spread out and walked at the same pace as their thralls. Their eyes were on Tim and his arrows. An arrow flew toward the
galla
on the left, and it sidestepped. The arrow stuck into the knee of another reanimate. The creature limped onwards unaware of the wound.

“Aim for the heads!” Nathan shouted to Tim. “Don't worry about the screaming ones.”

“Got it!”

The massive group of the dead was within a stone's throw from Jesse. Jesse growled and charged toward the
galla
in the middle. It backpedaled into the ranks of the reanimates, disappearing into the mix. Jesse continued his charge and raised his axe above his head. He rammed into a reanimate in the front ranks, sending it stumbling into several others. He brought his axe down on the creature to his left, splitting its skull in half. He pulled back on the axe handle and began splitting reanimate heads like a carpenter hammering nails. He worked into the ranks of bodies with short, accurate swings of the axe, all aimed at the top of the head, followed by quick yanks.

The other humans closed in and began their assault.

...

Blake raised his shield and moved toward the
galla
on the left side of the horde. This one did not shy away from the fight and swung its clawed hand at Blake's face. He lifted his shield and absorbed the blow. Blake swung his mace at its right temple, but it ducked under the blow and raked at Blake's exposed side. Its claws scraped off some the leather on his armor, but it did not cut through to the skin. Blake planted his feet and pivoted his hips, swinging both his mace and shield at the
galla
. The shield connected with the creature's chest and shoulder and the mace smashed into its right arm. The
galla
fell over. Blake sprung forward and stomped on its back. It clawed at the earth and tried to get up, but Blake shifted his weight onto its back. He raised his mace above his head and swung downward. It bucked him off as he swung, but he corrected and his downswing landed flush on the back of its head. The flanged mace smashed the
galla
's skull. Blake pulled his mace out of the mess and yelled, “I got one of them!”