She could hear shouting coming from beyond the walls of the zoo. Yelling voices, growling animals and moaning corpses. She knew things had come to a head inside. The one named Angela was fighting with the one named Gregory. Fighting for control. It would be a good lesson for Angela, for Angela would soon be controlling something herself.
Still, Beulah disliked the chaos of it all. It was ugly, haphazard. She had done her best to shape Sharon’s chaos to match her purposes. To feed into her plan to end what Sharon had started. And it was working so far. But still, she hated the material Sharon had produced.
She scanned the area in the dark rain for a few more moments, finally spotting what she'd been looking for. Across the parking lot, in front of the gates to the zoo. Sharon stood there, her back to Beulah and her arms out. Beulah knew what she was doing. Reveling in the chaos and death she was causing.
"Typical," said Beulah. She set out across the cars, her bare feet nimble on the wet metal. The corpses inside the cars groaned and reached out. The occasional cold hand closed on her ankle. She pulled free easily and kept walking.
She reached the end of the lot and hopped off the last car. She crossed the sidewalk to the gate. Sharon dropped her arms as she approached.
"Hello, Beulah," she said.
"Sister," said Beulah, stopping a few feet from her.
Sharon turned. Rain ran down her matted blonde hair. "Have you enjoyed the last few days? It's been quite a display, hasn't it?"
Beulah strode over to her. "I told you before, they are living creatures. You can't do this!"
"Seems as though I can," said Sharon, not backing down. "I told the world to reject them. The planet is purging them from itself. Chaos will rule again."
Beulah shoved Sharon and she flew back into the gate. It crumpled against her spine. Sharon stood, shaking water from her air.
Beulah stepped closer. "I'll stop you.”
Sharon smirked. “Not kill me?”
Beulah shook her head. “No. We can’t die, sister. I’ve realized that would be too dangerous. But I can stop you, contain you. I've always stopped you and this time will be no different."
Sharon stepped over and punched Beulah across the jaw. Beulah's fell to one side, smacking her face into the sidewalk. Blood pooled in her mouth. She swallowed and stood. The wound was already healing. Sharon stepped around her, facing her as she stood.
"Just accept it, sister," said Sharon. "I've won. You can't control everything. Everything can't be a pattern, a plan. It's not natural!"
"Chaos isn't natural!" yelled Beulah, punching Sharon. "If you had your way, everything would die wallowing in its own waste!"
Sharon turned back from the punch. The dark bruise on her temple was fading. "Only the weak! The strong would survive! Like it's supposed to be! The strong live and fuck and make more of themselves! At random!"
She rushed at Beulah, slamming her shoulder into her. Beulah flew back across the sidewalk, landing on the windshield of a parked car. It cracked and split underneath her. The corpse beyond it groaned and reached, scraping dead fingers across the glass.
She stood. Sharon strode across the lot, her black dress soaked in the rain.
"You're wrong, Sharon," said Beulah, spitting water from her mouth. "Everything is a pattern. Everything is a plan. You think you've won?"
"Looks like it to me," said Sharon, walking across the pavement.
"You haven't seen the end yet. I've known about this plan of yours for years now. I've got a plan in motion to fix it. To restore order!"
"Your order?" said Sharon, stopping when she reached the hood. She looked up at Beulah.
"I am order!" Beulah screamed, jumping from the hood. She landed on Sharon's chest, driving her to the pavement. Sharon crashed onto her back, splitting the concrete under her. Beulah straddled her, closing her hands on her throat. "I hold the universe together!"
Sharon smirked up at her. "And I make it interesting." She bucked, flinging Beulah off. Beulah flipped up and over, her hands slipping from Sharon's throat. Beulah landed on the concrete, the top of her head against the top of Sharon's.
Sharon starting laughing, cackling up into the rain. The sound enraged Beulah. Beulah reached over her shoulder and grabbed Sharon by the hair. She stood, twisting her arm to keep hold of Sharon. Sharon yelled and clawed at her hand. Her fingernails dug into Beulah's flesh. Blood seeped out and soaked back into her skin.
"Stop it!" yelled Sharon as Beulah dragged her across the parking lot by the hair. She kicked at the pavement.
Beulah pulled Sharon to the closest car and stopped. She lifted Sharon up by her hair to look her in the eyes. Sharon spit into her face. Beulah shook it off. "You have a few years, sister. A few more years of this, before my plan is done. Then all will be normal and then I'll deal with you!" She flung Sharon around, letting go of her hair. Sharon spun out across the tops of the cars, before finally smashing against a windshield and stopping.
Beulah stood in the rain, panting. Sharon stood on the hood of the car. Her wounds were closing, blood seeping back into her skin.
She pointed at the walls of the zoo. "You think the woman in there will go along with your schemes?"
Beulah wiped water from her face and hopped on the nearest car hood. The corpse inside groaned and slid rotting, slimy hands across the glass. "She's strong. She's practical. She'll know what has to be done."
Sharon laughed, jumping to the next car, closer to Beulah. "Her son is one of your chosen ones!"
That stopped Beulah for a moment.
“That's right," Sharon said, jumping to another car. Its cloth roof bowed under her weight. Dead hands dug at the cloth, making it undulate beneath her feet. "I know about the children. I know who they are. I'll find them, and I'll neutralize them. Before you can trigger your stupid plan."
Beulah jumped to the next car. They were close now. "I can protect them. Make it so you can't find them."
Sharon jumped to her car. She stared into her eyes, the blonde hair wet and matted to her cheeks. "Perhaps. But it doesn't have to be me doing the killing. You made them immune to the dead, right? You can't protect them from the living. And you aren't the only one who can manipulate people."
Sharon shoved Beulah back. Beulah flew downward, her back colliding with the bumper of the car behind her. She felt her spine crack. The car moved backward, groaning against the cars pinning it in. The whole lot groaned and shuddered as cars shifted.
Sharon hopped to the hood of the car, then down to the pavement. She circled Beulah like an animal waiting to strike. Beulah sat up, her spine popping back together. She stood and punched Sharon in the stomach. Sharon slid back across the wet parking lot, into a nearby bumper. The car crumpled around her legs.
Beulah straightened, the last of her vertebrae snapping into place. "You lose this time, Sharon. I've foreseen it."
Sharon pushed away from the car. She stomped back over, her wet bare feet smacking the pavement. “I get visions too, sister. And I know how vague they can be."
She grabbed Beulah by the collar and whipped her around. She hoisted her up and slammed her down on the crumpled hood of a car. Sharp metal dug into Beulah's back.
Sharon leaned over Beulah's face and grinned. "But I had a vision that wasn't vague at all. That woman, in there," she nodded at the walls of the zoo, "covered in your blood."
Beulah grabbed Sharon by the shoulders and wrenched her downward. Their foreheads met with a crack and Sharon stumbled back, a bloody split spreading down her forehead. Beulah climbed to her feet and hopped off the car. She stomped toward Sharon, feeling the wounds in her back heal. "That's not possible," she said. "And you know it!"
Sharon grinned, the wound in her head healing and her blood seeping back into her skin. "I saw it, Beulah. Clear as day."
She grinned wider, like an animal showing its teeth. "She kills you, sister."
West jerked awake. It was early morning. He'd fallen asleep in his rocking chair, and as comfortable as it was, it still hurt to sleep in.
He leaned forward, gripping his cramping back. "Damn it all to fuck town," he said. He was in his attic, where he'd sit in his old rocker and watch out the window. From up here he could see anything coming long before it got to his house, or to the walls he'd built, or the traps he'd laid around his property.
His muscles loosened and he eased back into his chair. The chair was coated with dust stuck to a layer of grime that had built up over decades. West didn't care. It was his dust and his grime. He sighed at the relief in his back.
He wondered what had woken him. There was nothing out of the ordinary. His poor dog Peacock was barking and snarling downstairs, but she always did that. Always had ever since the day she'd gone crazy. She'd nearly killed West, but he'd managed to get her tied up. He'd made a post for her and a strap to keep her from hurting anything. He fed her every day, always from a distance. She'd eat it, all the while staring at him with pure hate. He wished he could pet her again. That was one of his few pleasures.
No, it wasn't Peacock's noises. That was as common as air anymore. But something was wrong. Something was bothering him.
Frowning, he reached over his shoulder. A pair of battered binoculars hung from a worn strap slung across the back of the chair. He grabbed the strap and pulled it free. He ran the strap through his hand until he reached the binoculars. This whole time, he never took his eyes off the window. He was growing more and more certain that whatever was bothering him was out there.
He focused the grimy binoculars and peered through them. He scanned the area inside his walls first. All his stuff was fine. No animals or dead things had slipped through. Nothing staggering around or ripping things to tatters.
He moved the lenses to the sky. It was cloudy, but not too much. Nothing that would indicate a storm was coming. And besides, he'd slept through many storms. Why would a growing one wake him now?
Grumbling to himself, he settled on the far horizon. He saw it. A line of corpses, far away. Stumbling over the hill on the far edge of his property. The line was long. They almost looked organized. They stumbled over the hill and kept coming. Another line followed behind them. Then another. Then another.
Peacock was barking furiously from the first floor. Snarling like she was feral, worse than usual.
"Damn it, Peacock, shut up!" he yelled down the stairs at her. She didn't respond, or if she did it was only with more barking and snarling. He hated yelling at her, even in her current state.
He looked back through the binoculars. A huge mob of corpses headed toward his house. They kept coming over the hill in wave after wave. They were too many to estimate. There may have been thousands of them.
He lowered his binoculars and blinked twice. "Whore shit."
He stood from his chair so fast it rocked violently afterwards. He rushed around his attic, nimbly avoiding the stacks of rusty junk and moldy books. He whipped dusty tarps off a series of large levers built into the floor. He tossed the tarps aside, ignoring the clattering junk he knocked over to do it.
He'd never tested these on this scale before. He hoped they'd work. They were even better than the ones he'd installed at Angela's place. And those were works of art. These were his masterpieces. He hoped.
He rushed to the dingy window and squinted outside. The corpses at the front were in range. Maybe fifty feet from his walls.
"Shit on my grandma," he said, rushing to the first lever. He pulled it. Chains and gears rattled and groaned under his feet.
He ran back to the window and looked out.
Across his yard, in a rough semicircle that matched where the front of the mob had reached, a series of trap doors opened in the snow, directly under the corpses. The corpses groaned and fell inside what West knew to be deep holes. He'd dug them himself. One wave of corpses fell through. The ones behind them kept coming, falling in after them. This worked for several moments, until the holes began to fill up. Corpses groaned and reached out of the holes. The mob behind them walked over their heads and shoulders and kept coming.
West cursed and watched. The mob of corpses moved further in, drawing closer to the wall. He ran some quick calculations in his head and figured they were close enough. He rushed over to a second lever and wrenched it back. Chains rattled and gears turned. They rumbled around him as he ran back to the window. He peered outside, cursing and rubbing the grime away with his sleeve.
A few seconds passed. West wondered if his contraption had failed. The chains and gears shifted all throughout the frame of the house. "Dammit shit fuck," he said.
Then it worked. A wooden frame sprang up from the snow, iron spikes embedded in one side. The corpses in front were speared and held in place. Some were struck through the head. The rest were held fast, groaning and pulling themselves to pieces in attempts to escape.
Several other frames flew up across the snow, coming from all directions at once. The springs West had installed were strong. He was glad for that. The corpses were speared from the front, back and sides. Some shuddered and were still. Some tried to keep going, ripping their insides open and spilling organs across the snow. Part of him enjoyed the show. Part of him knew it wouldn't be enough.
A group of corpses passed over an area where he knew a large rack was hidden. He could see the outline of it, straining under the snow. The corpses on it staggered around, tangling into each other. They weighed the rack down.
"Dammit to shit stain," West grumbled. He ran back to the lever, wrenching it back and forth. He could feel something in the chains straining. He ran to a wall, where a large rusty crank was set. He turned it as fast as his old joints could manage. He felt the chains growing tighter and tighter. He ran back to the lever and pulled again, then felt something give.