Empire

43 The Cavalry

On the second-floor landing, Voorhees stopped the others and pointed downstairs.

A few ferals had entered the foyer. Their glassy eyes met those of the living.

"I've got this." The cop muttered. "Find Lily, and stay with her."

It was then that Tetch rounded the corner and emptied the.22 into Duncan.

Mark made a quarter-turn and slumped over the railing overlooking the foyer. He looked into the eyes of the ferals below. Somewhere in the recesses of his mind, Jenna was screaming. Suddenly feeling heavy, he slumped to the carpet.

Voorhees, halfway down the stairs, fired a shot and opened the wallpaper beside Tetch's head. He retreated to the hall from whence he'd come. Jenna heard his feet on stairs as she fell beside Duncan; and saw that Mark was dead, and she felt the last of the terrible scream scraping through her throat and past her teeth.

It was quiet in the house.

Voorhees whirled around and blew a rotter's chest open. It caught hold of the banister and held its ground. Voorhees dug through his pockets. No more shells. "I'm-"

Jenna was gone.

The rotter grabbed his arms. He threw it down the stairs and swung the shotgun like a club into the next zombie's skull. The widowmaker, down in the foyer — and more undead crowding through the front door…

He steeled himself and charged down the stairs.

On the third floor, Jenna's feet clapped down in a layer of dust. She searched the darkness: there were several doors, all of them slightly ajar. She recalled distinctly the clicking of Tetch's empty pistol before he'd fled the scene of Mark's death. "You don't have a gun," she whispered, a sob threatening to break her voice.

He threw open the nearest door and flew at her.

They slammed into the opposite wall with a fearful racket, dust falling in torrents; he slapped her across the face, grabbed at her neck. He pressed all his weight against her.

She bit into the webbing between his thumb and forefinger. He howled, trying to jerk his hand back, but she clenched her jaw as tightly as she could and gave him entire body a shove — his hand tore open like crepe paper. Blood followed him across the hall in an arc. His head cracked off the wall-

And he was on her again. He shouted incoherently and snatched her throat in his good hand. She slammed a knee into his groin. He grunted, but held fast. She felt her head crashing into the wall over and over and over, and the world began swimming away, leaving an oppressive blackness. Tetch roared distantly. She fumbled with his arms, his chest — he was hard like a tree and his roots were snarled viciously about her windpipe.

She grabbed his balls through his pants and twisted with the last of her strength.

He released her as his mouth fell open; no sound came out. He seized her wrist. She put her weight into the twist. She could feel his balls squeezing together in her palm. Tetch's eyes filled with tears, feet dancing on the floor. "MURDERER," she rasped.

Something gave.

Tetch fell back, and upon impact he let loose a thousand screams. Her foot caught his gut as he tried to roll into a fetal position. She pried him open and kicked him in the sternum. Fell atop him, raked her nails over his face. Blood beaded on his crimson cheeks, and he let out a tortured cry. She drove her fist into his teeth. Again. Again. His lips were swollen purple and he couldn't scream. His hands swatted feebly at her. She parted them and hit him again. Again and again, and she was going to beat him to death, she knew it-

But

Lily.

Jenna grabbed Tetch's hair and yanked his scalp until he cried. "I will ask you once," she said through her teeth. "Where is she?"

Tetch gave her a broken smile. A senseless, red-and-black broken smile.

It bought him the half-second he needed.

He seized both her breasts in a vise grip and dug his claws into her flesh. Jenna shrieked, and he threw her to the floor, scuttling away like an injured spider. Grabbing a 2x4 lying against the wall, he put everything into the swing.

It folded over her shoulder with a CRACK. Pain exploded through her mind. He grabbed her hair and slammed the broken board over her taut stomach. WHAP! She grabbed at her hair, her abdomen, she kicked her feet — her legs went limp as he hit her again. WHAP!

"You came for my little girl?!"

WHAP!

"You think you can take her from me?!"

WHAP!

"You think you can take ANYTHING from me?!"

WHAP!

He dragged her across the floor. Shock gave way to burning pain across her torso. Pulling her through a door into one of the empty rooms, Tetch twisted her blonde locks around his fist. Every inch of her scalp screamed with agony. She was sure that it was all about to come off — that he'd rip the skin from her head with his bare hands…

He let go. He let go and kicked her in the back of the head. She slumped forward. The 2x4 finally snapped in half when it struck her forehead.

Tetch straddled her. "Oh. Oh god." He saw the blood soaking through the crotch of his pants. More blood dripped from his nose and mouth onto her face. He smeared it over her eyes. "Kill you. I'll kill you. Right now." He grabbed her breast, clamped his fingers around her nipple. She groaned, eyes half-shut — he twisted and they opened wide.

She slammed her palm into his chin. He spit on her, and she elbowed him off, bringing both fists down on his back. He coughed up blood and began a desperate crawl across the room. She followed relentlessly, beating on his head, until he stopped, about to collapse.

But he wasn't. He turned and slugged her in the nose. It popped audibly.

She stumbled to the floor. It creaked as Tetch leapt back onto her and began pummelling her face with renewed vigor. Each strike brought a flash of light, and she let her hands fall at her sides, thinking of Mark dead downstairs. Her head was thick with blood and pain and she wanted to be free, with him. Tetch's gleeful cries faded.

The floor yawned and gave way beneath them.

She landed flat on her back, knocking the wind from her lungs — he landed on his knees and felt knives erupting through his legs and spine.

They'd fallen into a vacant bedroom. Tetch wrapped his arms around a bedpost and tried to get up. Jenna jumped onto his shoulders. With a pained cry, he staggered back and struck the edge of a vanity — the mirror exploded behind Jenna. Glass rained over the floor as they both went down again.

He grabbed a shard and slashed at her legs. His entire face was red, his eyes bloodshot. He pushed the glass dagger into her thigh with deliberate slowness, nodding along as she screamed. She tried to stop the glass and flayed her fingertips wide open. He leaned into it. "DOES IT HURT YET? DOES IT HURT? TELL ME IT HURTS!!"

"YEEEEEEESSS!!!" She shrieked. He roared, drove it deeper. She battered his grinning face, but he fed on the pain; he laughed and spat, "BLEED ME. BLEED MEEEEEEE."

Jenna flailed her arms above her head and found the leg of the vanity. She brought it down on him and he fell away.

Still laughing. "Why are you even trying anymore?" He gasped. "You want to be dead. YOU WANT IT!! Let me give it to you. Tell me you want it." His fingers picked up another long shard of glass.

Her entire body was throbbing with numbness. She lay there and stared at him, his chest heaving with exhaustion. She could barely breathe. And she DID want it to be over.

"But not you," she whispered. "Not you."

She lifted a thick shard to her throat.

He heaved himself at her, and she thrust it at him; the glass chewed deep into her palm and she thought maybe it hadn't penetrated him at all.

Tetch sat up. It had.

He coughed up a gout of blood, spattering both their faces, and fell against the bed with a groan.

"Where…is she?" Jenna asked.

He sneered. "'Where is she? Where is she?' She's DEAD. DEAD!!"

Jenna's eyes fell to Tetch's waist, just below where the glass had embedded itself, and she smiled grimly. "No. You wouldn't kill her, not ever."

Crawling to him, she pulled a ring of keys from his pants pocket. He clutched pleadingly at the air. "Don't take her. Please…"

Jenna made her way to the door. She could barely see it through the blood blisters swallowing her eyes.

"I'M BEGGING YOU!!!" Tetch howled. Meat tore and wept inside him. He couldn't get up. He beat his head against the mattress. "PLE-EA-EA-EA-EASE."

He heard the door open, then quietly close.

In the foyer, Voorhees yanked the widowmaker from one rotter's face and buried it to the hilt in another. The undead's neck cracked with a sharp twist, and a second turn ripped its head clean off.

Still they were coming. He'd been forced to retreat up the stairs, and every rotter he dropped was replaced by three.

Behind him, Jenna was knocking on the walls. "Lily!"

She heard the girl's cry two doors down from the bedroom.

Voorhees met her at the top of the stairs. "It's no good. We can't…"

The man in black cut a mighty swath through the foyer, sending corpses through the air. The scythe skewered rotter after rotter and sent them reeling, lifeless, just ugly dolls scattering across the marble.

"Let her out." Voorhees shouted. Jenna unlocked the study door and collapsed at Lily's feet.

"C'mere!" Voorhees cried. He waved to Lily, who was staring in horror at Jenna. She began to kneel — and Jenna pressed the keys into her hands. "Go, baby."

Voorhees scooped Lily up and rifled through the keys. The truck key was there. He leapt down the stairs as the dark man pushed the undead wave back.

"Where's the truck?" Voorhees yelled as they ran outside. "In the back," Lily said, staring at the doorway, looking to catch another glimpse of her angel. Wasn't he coming? Wasn't he-

A rotter careened into the door and it slammed shut.

Voorhees backhanded a shambling ghoul and threw open the truck door. Lily clambered inside. Voorhees plunged the key into the ignition; for one awful second, he couldn't turn it. Then it gave.

Headlights illuminated the zombies coming around back. Some of them came out the back door of the house. He gunned the engine and swerved around them, not willing to risk a breakdown just to splatter their gaping faces. Lily covered her eyes and pulled her seat belt over her head.

Out the gates and a sharp turn left, going back around the manor, heading for the west wall. With the wall's condition, and this many undead, there wouldn't be much of it left standing. No point in speeding eastward through the city…

His eyes checked the gas gauge, at one-quarter full.

Not much point in speeding anywhere.

The truck bounced over fallen slabs of concrete and out of Jefferson Harbor. Lily raised her head and let the belt pull snug against her chest. She glanced, once, over her shoulder, then out into the endless expanse of the badlands.

"Where are we going?"