Wizard Dawning (The Battle Wizard Saga, No. 1) (3 page)

But Bjørn needed him; he had to help.

Grampa Thor stepped closer and said calmly, "The horses will be better off if we leave." Sig hesitated, nodded, and then sprinted down the aisle to the back of the barn; Grampa limped behind.

Sig paused at the back door, and turned to the empty stall on the left. "This way. Zombies outside there." He whispered, motioning toward the backdoor before opening the lower door of the stall that led outside, He bent to exit and then held the door until Grampa ducked through. He shut it quietly.

Grampa whispered, "Did you feel them again?"

Sig nodded.

"Do you feel any between us and the house?"

Sig moved his head around slowly, eyes unfocused. He whispered, "No, they're over there and there"; motioning to the rear and far side of the barn.

"OK, let's get to the house. Shotguns can disable them. Do you have the katana I gave your Dad?"

Sig nodded. "It's in the den."

"Perfect." Grampa replied calmly.

Sig sprinted to the house. On the front porch, he skidded to a stop, turning to see Grampa limping behind. A zombie appeared from around the barn on the right, lumbering to intercept Grampa, moving almost as fast.

Grampa looked behind and shouted at Sig, "Get the samurai sword and shotguns. Don't wait. Give Meredith a shotgun and shells. Then come back."

Sig ran into the house shouting for his mother. He found her downstairs in the basement by the gun safe. She handed him the sword, and swung the safe door open. "I heard him shouting. Take what you need. I have my shotgun. I'll guard the back from the kitchen." She sounded calm, as befitted the County Woman's Skeet Champion for the four out of the last five years, but he saw anxiety in her eyes.

Sig nodded, gave her a strained smile, seized shotguns, and stuffed boxes of shells into his shooting vest and more into a backpack. They only had four boxes of buckshot to split between the two 12-gauge shotguns. The rest was heavy turkey shot. Hopefully it would be enough.

He heard Grampa's curses and thumps from outside. Taking the stairs two at a time, he toted the shotguns, sword, and backpack. He dropped the backpack and sword at the front door while he shoved shells into the two guns. Retrieving the sword and backpack, he stepped out on the porch.

At the top of the stairs, Grampa held one zombie away with a pitchfork and chopped at another with the machete. A third, missing an arm and a leg on one side, twitched where it lay at the base of the steps. Several more shuffled toward them across the yard. Others came around the corner of the barn.

Sig remembered Grampa's words as he raised his shotgun to blast the head of the zombie on the end of the pitchfork. At this distance, its head disintegrated as the blast knocked the zombie backwards. Chunks of head and brain sprinkled the snow. The zombie slid off the pitchfork, and fell backwards. It thrashed like an insect on its back trying to right itself.

With a last machete chop, Grampa severed the other zombie's head. The head thumped as it bounced down the stairs. Grampa held out his hand. "Give me a shotgun."

Grampa's businesslike demeanor helped calm Sig's racing heart.

Sig handed it over. "It's loaded." He extended a box to Grampa. "Box of buckshot." Grampa stabbed the machete into the porch floor so it stood erect—ready at hand. Then he placed the box of shells on the porch rail before raising the gun to shoot the headless zombie in the leg. It toppled over. It can grab."

Sig pointed his shotgun toward a zombie coming up the steps and blasted it in the head. It stumbled to a stop. He blasted again at its knee and it toppled over. Before he could push more shells into the shotgun, another zombie lurched across the porch at him from the right. He unsheathed the sword. With a single sweep, its keen edge sliced through the zombie's neck. Its rotten state made the task easier. The zombie stumbled around aimlessly.

Sig reloaded. His next shot knocked that zombie over the porch rail. When Grampa bent to grab shells from the box at his feet to reload, another zombie attacked. Sig shoved his shotgun toward Grampa. "Here." Grampa dropped his shotgun, took Sig's, and shot the zombie.

Sig picked up the shotgun Grampa dropped and reloaded.

They stood at the top of the stairs blasting advancing zombies. The yard around the porch looked like a body part yard sale. Many still twitched, some even trying to rise.

Only two continued to advance toward them. Sig and Grampa rested and waited for them to climb onto the porch.

Sig heard a shotgun blast and looked to Grampa. Grampa looked at him. Neither had fired. Two blasts in rapid succession sounded from the back of the house.

"Mom!"

Sig turned and ran through the house to the kitchen. Meredith stood in the back doorway and blasted again. She glanced back with desperation as Sig burst into the room. "I keep shooting and they keep coming."

"Shoot them in the kneecaps. Then they can't walk."

She shoved two shotgun shells into her gun and fired again, aiming lower. "That works. Thanks." She gave him a strained smile over her shoulder.

"Watch out if you get close to them." He said pointing at a zombie twitching on the ground. "They can still grab you." Over her shoulder, he saw a zombie on the ground, one headless zombie wandering aimlessly, and a third with gaping holes through its body trying to mount the steps. He put his hand on her shoulder. "Let me through. I'll use this sword. Save ammunition."

He sliced through a leg on each of the mobile corpses. They both collapsed, but the one with the head still arm-crawled up the steps. Sig severed its head and kicked it to roll erratically across the backyard.

Looking back up at his mother, he realized he didn't hear any firing from the other side of the house. Carrying his sword and shotgun, he sprinted around the house. When he rounded the corner to the front yard, he felt relief when he saw Grampa at the head of the stairs, kicking body parts off the porch.

Sig bent with hands on his knees and took several deep breaths. Grampa looked over and said, "OK, now we chop them up some more to make sure they can't move. Do you have axes?" Sig started to walk until Grampa said "Go, go" and then he broke into a jog toward the woodshed behind the house. He returned with two axes.

Grampa took a double bladed ax and walked through the litter of bodies, chopping dismembered corpses into smaller pieces. Sig reluctantly followed his lead with the other ax.

Meredith walked out of the house, "That's all in back. I don't see any others."

Sig looked up just as a zombie followed her out of the house. "Mom! Behind you!"

She ducked and ran forward down the steps. Sig raised the axe and hurled it at the zombie. The blade thumped into its chest and knocked it backward onto the porch. The tip of the blade sticking out of its back pinned it to the porch floor.

Grampa hollered, "Good throw."

Sig looked over at him. "I practiced throwing with Dad. That's the first time I've done it since…" He picked up the sword from where it leaned against the porch and walked over to chop the zombie on the porch into manageable pieces before it could free itself from the axe pinning it.

Meredith had a disgusted look as she stood watch with her reloaded shotgun while Sig and Grampa continued dismembering barely mobile corpses.

Sig looked around and said, "Are we done? There are even more here than I thought worked across the road. Over a dozen. Maybe fifteen or twenty." It was weird, bodies chopped up, but no blood on the snow.

"Count the feet and divide by two to figure out how many," Grampa said.

Sig looked over at him, shook his head, and collapsed to sit on the porch steps.

Grampa walked over, plopped down next to Sig, and said, "What's wrong? We just saved our bacon and wiped out more than a dozen zombies. You should be happy, not despondent."

"I always wanted to have magic. Now this." He waved at the body parts littering the yard. "This is terrible. It makes me feel like I've fallen into a septic tank. I'm glad I don't have magic." Sig looked at him. "But you have magic don't you? You made Bjørn speak and you made the zombies visible."

Grampa sighed. "There's magic and there's magic." He nodded toward the zombies. "That's black magic, evil magic… Necromancy. No, you don't want that kind of magic. We fight that kind of magic."

He gave Sig a measured look. "Yes, I have magic. I planned to let you know in a less dramatic fashion when I talked to you about your magic."

Sig said. "I told you I don't have any magic."

Grampa clapped him on the shoulder. "Let's check the inside of house before we clean up this mess out here. We can talk about it later." He put a finger to his lips. "Don't mention my magic to your mother yet."

Sig drove the pickup truck with the hydraulic dump bed into the yard while Grampa piled body parts together with the pitchfork. Mom watched from the porch as Sig then pulled the front–loader out of the equipment barn. He scooped up the piles of zombie parts, and poured them into the dump bed of the pickup.

While he did that, Grampa spoke with Meredith. She went inside and Grampa hobbled over with a pitchfork and flipped the few leftover parts into the dump bed. "Is Mom going to call the police?" Sig asked.

"I clean up my own messes. Besides, chopped up zombies would ruin the police routine in this nice little town. I don't want to put them through that."

"What are we going to do with all these body parts? Drop them in the dumpster out back?"

"Isn't this the land of 10,000 lakes?"

"Yeah, and all the lakes are frozen. They started thawing but this freeze hardened them again. Were you planning on dumping them on the ice and take bets on when they fall through, like we do with old beater cars?"

Grampa got into the passenger seat of the dumper truck. "Take me to a good size lake that's still well frozen; one with a public launch."

Sig got in and started the truck. "What happens when someone finds them?" He received a snore in reply. Grampa's chin rested on his chest. How can he sleep?

Twenty minutes later Sig eased the truck down a snow covered launch ramp at the biggest lake in the area. After Sig shook him awake, Grampa took the samurai sword and walked ahead of the truck onto the frozen lake. Sig followed for one hundred and fifty yards across the glistening white before Grampa signaled him to stop and turn the truck around. No lake cabins were visible through the leafless trees.

After he turned the truck, Sig got out to watch. With the sword, Grampa etched a ten–foot circle in the ice. Then he scratched strange figures inside the circle. When finished with the ice drawings, he leaned on the sword like a cane and gestured with the other hand.

Sig heard him muttering foreign sounding words while gesturing.

Before Grampa finished the incantation, haze, like steam, rose from the etched area. The fog intensified.

Sig watched intently, trying to see into the thickening clouds. After a few moments, it thinned and drifted away in the light wind. As it dissipated, Sig saw dark water where the circle had been. Grampa groaned and dropped to his knees, clutching his chest.

Sig rushed to his side. Grampa shook his head and pushed him away. "Dump the zombies in before it freezes. I'll be OK. Look, it's already starting to freeze. Hurry."

Sig backed the truck close, lifted the dump bed, and got out of the cab. Parts slid, splashed, and disappeared into the dark water. Those that missed the hole, he flipped into the water with a pitchfork. Through the pitchfork, he felt some parts still quivering. Crackling noises replaced splashes for the last few pieces when they broke through the rime forming in the opening.

Grampa was snoring when Sig got back into the truck. His skin looked grayer and he slept all the way home. At least snoring indicated life.

When they got back to the farm, Grampa yawned and stretched before getting out. He looked around the yard. "That's the good thing about zombies; no blood to clean up."

Sig grimaced. "That was disgusting. I need a shower."

"Good idea. Go up and shower and I'll talk to Meredith. I'm sure she has questions, probably more than I can answer. I'll join you upstairs when you're done."

†††

Sig finished dressing before Grampa knocked on his door. "Can I come in?"

"Sure, come on."

Grampa scanned the room. Sig's latest karate gi hung from a hook on the closet door; a black belt draped over the hanger. Grampa started Sig on martial arts at five years old, arranging to pay for all his karate lessons. Sig outgrew quite a few gi in the twelve years since he started. He excelled and was the youngest to attain each belt rank.

On a later visit, he started Sig on kendo classes. Sig's shinai practice swords rested in a rack above his dresser along with his fencing swords.

Inside his bedroom door hung a poster with the top fifty Chuck Norris facts (such as "Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice" and "Chuck Norris likes his ice like he likes his skulls … crushed.") An Einstein poster, the one with his tongue out, hung on the wall.

Sig started to take the chair at the desk and motioned for Grampa to take the bed, but Grampa shooed him out of the chair and sat down. "I've been driving all night. If I lay down, I'll fall asleep."