Empire

25 Death in the Family

The afterdead made their way out of the shelter as the roof caved in, forming a maw with a thousand fiery tongues that belched smoke into the sky.

Aidan held his blackened fingers out in front of him and counted his siblings. They were three short. Three still inside, including Harry (but not Sawbones, as he'd fled earlier), and all of them were probably now covered in flames as Harry had been. There was some formality that Tetch had taught them to observe in such an instance, but Aidan had forgotten it. He searched the streets for Sawbones.

The man in black climbed down from his white horse and drew a scythe from his robes. Aidan's corrupt innards roiled at the sight of him.

Uriel had retrieved the rifle and loaded fresh rounds into it with his cracked, charred hands. He took aim at the man in black and fired.

The man flew back, struck the curb, folded over like a doll and lay still.

His flesh would not be tinged with smoke. It was white and unblemished and Uriel's mouth watered as he shuffled forward, leading the pack.

Death stayed in the prone position and listened for their approach. The rifle hadn't left a scratch on him. He needn't have even reacted to the impact except to draw the rotters in. And now…

NOW

He rose, robes billowing out as he swept the scythe in a broad arc, black eyes rolling over white and reflecting nothing in their depths. The setting sun played brilliantly across the blade as it glided toward Uriel, halving the barrel of the rifle, halving the zombie's torso, sending a geyser of brown filth spraying from dead arteries.

Uriel slumped into Prudence's arms. She dropped him and came at the man in black. He turned the blade flat and hit her across the face with a clap that shattered bone.

Sweeping his cloak around his back, Death swung the scythe under his arm like a pendulum. One of the rotters had circled behind him; its groin was skewered and the filleted remains emerged from its backside, on the bloody tip of the Reaper's blade.

Death gripped the scythe's handle with both hands and hurled the impaled rotter into the others. They fell in a heap of tangled, thrashing limbs.

Aidan struggled to his feet and reached into his suit jacket for his knife, taken from the butcher block in the manor kitchen. Its size was pitiful in comparison to the other's blade, but the other wouldn't be able to kill him. Shouldn't…

Peering over Death's shoulder, Aidan saw that Uriel was still motionless in the road. He frowned.

The scythe pierced him beneath the chin and parted his tongue on its way through his mouth; he felt foul liquids erupting inside his head, felt his limbs go numb as his brain was speared, and then nothing as Death lifted Aidan off the asphalt and dangled him before the others.

The white-eyed spectre glowered at them, at their senseless gaping faces. He jerked the scythe free.

"Come. Come at me."

They didn't. Four of them left, they stood together and stared at him but did not attack. They were wary of this new threat.

Why did these empty things seek to protect themselves? What purpose, what order was there in their existence? He knew now that the undead had existed as long as there had been life on Earth, but he'd not sensed them, not felt their cold blue flames until the plague began. Man had made the plague. Perhaps that was why he had finally been allowed to see them, and why he felt a responsibility to deal with them.

It was his responsibility, that was all. He wasn't angry at them. He wasn't vengeful.

It wasn't possible. Death felt nothing.

But, watching the rotters as they stood their ground and stared that same blank stare, all four of them — impatience stirred within him. He wanted to feel his blade pierce their flesh, resistance yielding as their insides were split, then entire bodies torn asunder; he wanted to destroy them with his bare hands, but his hands couldn't extinguish their candles. No, he could only reap the miserable things using their own bones. He who marked the passing of each and every life found his sole purpose defied and defiled by them, found himself forced to adapt to THEIR laws, to meet them on THEIR turf.

Walking corpses.

An absurdity.

He stepped forward and swung the scythe with the intent of cleaving each and every single one of them in two.

The first caught the blade in its side and stopped its progress with both hands.

The handle was yanked from Death's grip. He lunged at it, and one of the females raked her thin gray fingers across his face. His eyes rolled back and his flesh opened beneath every fingertip as if fleeing from the zombie's touch. He spun away, blind, clutching at his face; an arm snaked around his waist and hands began ripping at his cloak.

He tried to summon the horse, but its wounds mirrored his own and it was folding over on the asphalt. He thought of a stillborn child he'd seen the morning before, ferried to the landfill by its haggard mother, another caught helpless and unaware in a world that shouldn't be.

In Mike's apartment, Cheryl was squatted on the toilet seat, clutching her abdomen. The dull ache was growing into something worse and there wasn't any sort of medication in the place. Maybe there was a little something stashed away back at Lee's…? No, she shouldn't venture out alone, even with a gun. She could barely get around the apartment. Bunching herself up on the toilet seat, squeezing tears of pain from her eyes, Cheryl rocked back and forth and tried to think of something else.

No, not the baby. Think of…of what. Kittens? She'd once seen a litter in a cardboard box devouring their mother, long dead from the strain of labor. The kittens had been born infected, yes, but weren't nearly dead yet. Maybe it was just in their nature.

To give birth to an infected baby, the dying child of a dying mother, there could be no greater heartbreak in the world. Yet Cheryl had known women who'd insisted on carrying their pregnancies to term after being bitten. That wasn't human nature though, was it? Weren't people supposed to be more rational than that?

Maybe not. Maybe the plague had forced Man to acknowledge what was true all along, she thought. What was rationality, but people turning their back on instinct?

Perhaps the spread of the plague and the decline of rationality had been the reason why undead sideshows enjoyed brief popularity. Her brother had taken her to one such show in a foul-smelling circus tent, with hand-painted signs declaring HORRORS OF THE DEAD WORLD! COME FACE TO FACE WITH THE FLESH-EATERS ROAMING THE AMERICAN BADLANDS! CERTIFIED BY THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

That last disclaimer meant that the sideshow didn't cultivate plague for their own use, nor did they display human rotters. Any group alleged to do so was classified as terrorist. No, this was an all-animal attraction promising wild beasts decaying before the audience's own eyes. Cheryl had protested all morning long but her brother wanted to see and, well, he sure as hell couldn't leave her home alone for an hour. So they'd sat in the hot tent amidst morbidly curious others and waited.

A spotlight clapped on and illuminated the sawdust-covered floor in the center of the bleachers. A man in a crimson top hat and suit vest paraded into the light. His face was painted white with black circles around the eyes. His grin was all too similar to that of a lipless rotter. The man plucked his hat from his head and bowed all around. "I am EVISCERATO!!"

Cheryl snorted at the name. Her brother elbowed her with a stern look. "What," she whispered, "am I supposed to show this guy respect?"

"Don't cause trouble." Her brother answered in a low voice. "These people are-"

"AND NOW," Eviscerato bellowed, "THE FIRST OF OUR CARNIVAL'S MANY UNSPEAKABLE HORRORS, A FEARED PREDATOR TURNED GHOUL!!" Handlers in blood-stained jumpsuits emerged from the shadows, pulling on chains. The chains were fastened around the neck and limbs of a grizzly bear, most of its face eroded away, leaving a fanged skull that emitted a warbling cry.

Cheryl moaned and grabbed her brother's arm. He ignored her, studying the animal.

Eviscerato danced around the bear and its handlers, shouting taunts. The bear seemed oblivious to his presence; indeed it didn't appear to have either of its eyes. All of its claws were intact, of course. If she squinted Cheryl thought she could see bolts keeping the grizzly's paws in one piece.

The handlers pulled the bear into a standing position. It made a sound of protest and its belly shifted. The thing's innards were sloshing around in there. Was it able to eat? Did they even feed it, and what? Unnatural as the beast was Cheryl found herself pitying its condition.

Waving his arms like a madman, Eviscerato approached the standing grizzly. "LOOK!" He cried, pointing like a rude child at the distended belly. Then, another handler trudged out, this one holding a chainsaw. Eviscerato accepted it from him with a flourish.

"I want to go." Cheryl stammered. She squeezed her brother's arm until he shoved her hand away. "It's just another rotter, Cheryl. Jesus."

"It's an animal — it doesn't know-"

"None of them know! Shut up!"

The saw came to life, and there were scattered cheers from the audience.

Eviscerato drove the sawteeth into the bear, just above the groin, and spilled its guts over the floor.

A short, squat man tumbled from the yawning wound and splashed down in a soup of gore and sawdust.

He rose to one knee, thrusting his bloody fists into the air. The audience laughed and applauded. Cheryl slumped against her brother.

"They just stuck him in there beforehand and stitched it up," he would explain later. "They probably reuse the same bear until it falls apart — it's not ALIVE, Cheryl, why the hell do you care? It's not like it's a goddamned puppy and even THOSE things don't have feelings." He'd try to rationalize it: "I wanted you to see once and for all that there's nothing there, nothing in those animals. I should've known you'd react this way."

Months later she heard on the radio that Eviscerato had been mauled and infected by a wolf during one of his "performances". He'd spent his last days doing illegal shows where he'd taunt human rotters, letting them bite him, even biting them back.

She hadn't felt sorry for him.

Cheryl was stirred from the memory by a knock on the door. Mike had a key…maybe it wasn't Mike. She reached across the sink for the pistol he'd given her and stood up.

Cheryl hobbled out of the bathroom and across the carpet to the door, quiet as possible, and she looked through the peephole.

There was a dead man there. He was holding a shovel.