Authors: Edward Teach
The Rider staggered backwards, then with a rasping laugh drew in his breath, so much that his belly distended with the pressure of the volume. Romeo took a step backwards and fumbled with his revolver, as the buzzing sound of insects grew louder. Cisco had a gut-twisting realization, and hurled down his gun as he dove for the flame-thrower. He rolled onto his back and squeezed the trigger just as the Rider made a belching sound and spewed hundreds of locusts from his mouth into the air at the two bikers. The gout of flame caught the insects in flight and burned them to a crisp.
Cisco was screaming as he got to his feet, still squeezing the trigger of the flame-thrower as he rushed forward to get closer to the Rider. The jet of flames engulfed the Rider, and even though he belched forth several more swarms of insects everything burned. By the time the flame-thrower’s tanks went dry and the weapon sputtered out the Rider was nothing more than a charred corpse half-smeared across the asphalt.
The two men quickly recovered their wits, and rushed to the gas station. They had expended all of their fuel reserves using the flamethrower, and would be stranded with an empty car if they didn’t refuel. Luckily the pumps still had pressure and they were able to refuel completely, though the flame-thrower had been so over-used that it had melted beyond repair. With their tank full and their hearts heavy, the men left the settlement and turned northwest, vowing not to stop till they’d crossed the state line.
Jesus said, "Whoever has something in hand will be given more, for they have the power to take and to keep, and whoever has nothing will be deprived of even the little they have."
THE HORSEMAN OF WAR
His disciples said to him, "Who are you to say these things to us?"
"You don't understand who I am from what I say to you.
You love the tree but hate its fruit, or you love the fruit but hate the tree."
He looked out across the dried riverbed and squinted, the sun and dust creating a shimmering haze before him. Men with masks for faces danced in the heat waves, the fringe of their leather bouncing as they moved. In their hands they held drums and feathers, and he continued to make his way down the path as the sounds of their whispered chanting echoed softly off the walls of the canyon.
Romeo sat in silence as they drove, letting the vision wash across him, doing his best to cope with the pain of it. He looked out across the desert and scrubland, his eyes coming to rest on a lone walker who had wandered off the road. He watched the creature shamble onwards in the other direction, to what purpose or end he could not fathom. What force drove these creatures he did not know, but he knew that Jesus was the answer. Somewhere out there, just past the horizon, the undead messiah moved towards his goal and Romeo knew he must follow. To whatever end.
The young man told Cisco about his vision, and they mused as to who the dancing men might be. Cisco had heard of the Native American tribes in the southwest crafting dolls called kachinas, a sort of spirit that was part of their ancient faith. They had seen plenty such dolls, cheaply made and expensively priced in the gift shops and gas stations throughout the region.
They had been making good time, stopping only to re-fuel and rest for a few hours at a time. They had continued to keep an eye out for gas stations and had enjoyed good luck with finding fuel to keep the tanks and containers full. They would park, re-fuel, and sleep on the rooftops of the stations for a few hours. Often there would be one or two walkers who would have wandered into the area by the time they were awake and ready to leave. In small numbers the zombies were not overly difficult to kill, and with Cisco’s tire iron and Romeo’s machete they could quickly dispatch one or two of the creatures and get moving again. They never stopped for more than three to four hours, preferring to avoid the possibility of attracting more than just a few walkers and find themselves in an accidental siege situation.
They kept moving, putting mile after mile behind them as they followed Romeo’s visions and seeming innate sense of direction towards their goal. If they strayed from this invisible path they’d found themselves on Romeo’s headaches would grow unrelentingly more intense until they’d righted their course. It was crude, but they felt that progress was being made.
As dusk began to creep across the landscape on the second day they saw a large dust plume in the distance, and soon could make out several headlights. They parked on the road and Romeo looked out with the field glasses. There were five vehicles, one of them an actual school bus. They did not have the look of psychopaths, as there were no spikes, grisly trophies, or an abundance of mounted weapons. Cisco remarked that they might as well stay on the road and see what these people were moving towards, or away from. It felt somehow important to connect with other survivors.
It was then that they noticed two more vehicles approaching only perhaps a half-mile behind the first. As they watched the pair closed distance with the convoy, and gunfire erupted between the two groups. One was a humvee military assault vehicle and the other was a police patrol car. Romeo and Cisco looked at each other, knowing that they must act, but hesitating as to which group to side with. Their decision was made for them as the lead humvee pulled alongside the school bus and began strafing it with machine gun fire. They could see that there were unarmed survivors inside.
Both men leapt back inside their charger and Cisco turned the ignition while Romeo chambered a round in his rifle. The attackers weren’t psychopaths, but they certainly had murderous intentions, and that was enough for the bikers to enter the fight on the side of the convoy. Cisco kept the vehicle on the shoulder of the road as they approached the roadside battle. The convoy had devolved into a confused tangle of vehicles, their forward momentum halting as the patrol car cut off the lead convoy truck by ramming it off the road.
The charger slid past the patrol car as Romeo moved the grate and emerged from the makeshift sunroof with rifle in hand. He quickly drew a bead on the gunner in the humvee and fired three times as they closed distance, his first shot going wide, his second pinged off of the armored plating of the turret, and the third punching through the gunner’s mouth and exploding out of the back of his head. Cisco swerved at the last second, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision as the humvee’s driver panicked and lost control of the vehicle. Romeo ducked back into the vehicle as Cisco banked hard and pulled the car around to circle over to the patrol car.
A man in swat gear had stepped out of the patrol car and was pumping round after round from his shotgun into the lead convoy car, riddling it with holes and killing both driver and passenger. The shooter was so intent on murder that he did not notice the charger picking up speed and barreling down on him until the last second. The man tried to leap to the side but Cisco cut the wheel in anticipation and pulverized the man with the metal grille, then crunching him under tires as the charger rolled over him.
The humvee had recovered and turned tail, speeding away in the direction it had come from. Cisco moved their car to the side of the road, and Romeo stood on the roof of the car while Cisco leaned against the side. They did their best not to appear threatening, though their armor plated charger and the scavenged M240 machine gun from the fallen gunner implied that they were not to be trifled with. The convoy was a buzz of activity as they checked their wounded, mourned their dead, and circled their vehicles defensively.
Eventually two men stepped out of the ring of vehicles and walked towards the charger, both armed with shotguns. Cisco called out to them that it was good to see other survivors in these troubled times, and the men agreed. What could have been a tense and possibly violent confrontation soon became friendly enough, even if still somewhat wary. The men told Romeo and Cisco that they were on the run from a new threat, as if the psychopaths and zombies weren’t enough.
A force of over two hundred men and women had appeared in the small town where the convoy had been taking shelter. They weren’t exactly survivors, as the men told it, but were more like an army. Most of the members of the force were military or police and using advanced vehicles and firearms. They had adopted a bizarre symbol that they had painted on all of their vehicles and weapons, and sewn into their clothing. They called it ‘the yellow sign’ and it looked like a three-limbed starfish, as the men described it. Within moments of the force entering the small town they had created a cordon with trained efficiency, and eliminated the few scattered zombies that still roamed.
The convoy had barely escaped the cordon, with at least half of their number left behind, having been trapped by the cordon. The convoy had been on the run from this force, which had formed in the west and were moving east, gaining members. The men told Romeo and Cisco that the force would kill anyone that would not convert and join them. The soldiers of this new army called themselves the Sons of Hastur, and claimed to be re-conquering the country from the grip of the zombies and the psychopaths, all in the name of the King in Yellow. The convoy had formed secretly and did their best to escape, only to be chased into the small town, then trapped within.
After the cordon this small remnant of the original convoy had done their best to escape, the attackers having only send a few vehicles to punish them. The men told the bikers that the main force had been pushing towards the Four Corners, recruiting troops to help them fight the psychopath horde that had been tearing apart the city of Farmington, New Mexico.
When Romeo saw the yellow symbol crudely painted on the side of the patrol car he told Cisco that this army must be working for one of the Riders. He recognized the symbol, having seen it emblazoned on the black shield of one of the Riders in his vision. Cisco had asked the men for directions, referencing his tattered road atlas as the men told their tale. It was dark by the time the two groups were ready to depart, and already the walkers had begun to gather.
After the third walker that had attacked the ring of cars the convoy survivors were eager to leave. As the convoy pulled away Cisco and Romeo watched their tail lights disappear into the darkness, then set their course along the road from whence they came. Thankfully the moon was full that night, and they were able to drive in relative safety without their headlights, wishing to remain un-noticed by any sentries or hunters who might be prowling the roads.
The city of Farmington was only a few hours away, and they knew that their chances of getting through alive would be much better under the cover of darkness. On the road atlas they could see that Farmington was directly in the path that Romeo felt they should go, and it seemed that confrontation with the Sons of Hastur was unavoidable.
Jesus said, "He who wears the Pallid Mask shall walk among you, and he will convert or he will kill. Whoever blasphemes against the Father will be forgiven, and whoever blasphemes against the Son will be forgiven, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either on earth or in heaven."
Jesus said, "Grapes are not harvested from thorn trees, nor are figs gathered from thistles, for they yield no fruit.
Good persons produce good from what they've stored up; bad persons produce evil from the wickedness they've stored up in their hearts, and say evil things. For from the overflow of the heart they produce evil. Have you seen the Yellow Sign?"
In the distance they could see the lights of a city under siege, the dull glow of a dozen fires punctuated by the staccato flashes of gunfire. Cisco had parked the charger atop a low hill outside of the city, and Romeo stood on the roof looking out with the field glasses. They had been observing the battle for nearly an hour, trying to decide upon the best course of action. Romeo could see that the Sons of Hastur had created a series of rough barricades around a central command structure that looked to be a small airport terminal. The fences kept the walkers at bay while the bulk of the force moved into the city proper to engage the sizeable mob of psychopaths that seemed to have taken over the city streets.
Groups of soldiers would return from the front to re-supply and re-fuel, then would go back out as another unit would return. From their vantage point Romeo and Cisco could see that the discipline and training of the Sons gave them a serious advantage over the psychopaths, and though out-numbered by the mad men they were steadily gaining ground. Then the Rider appeared, and the bikers knew it was time to make their move.
A man emerged from the command post wearing a pressed military uniform, bedecked in medals and ribbons, bearing a dress sword at his hip. The most striking feature about the man was that he wore a pale and haunting facemask, seemingly made of hand-carved wood. It had no real facial features, yet somehow was terribly menacing to look upon. He stepped up a series of metal rungs and stood atop the body of an Abrahams heavy tank. He barked orders at his men and several humvees and patrol cars formed a motorized escort as the tank left the barricaded are and moved towards the city.