Empire's End

Fifteen / Inferis

Adam lay beneath a pile of refuse, silently observing the inhabitants of the latest town. They were typical rotters, standing in the road and in storefronts and under trees, staring at nothing, asleep for all intents and purposes until something came along to stir their senses.

This was the first time he had experienced the drop in temperature as winter approached. A thin layer of snow lay atop him and in the alley where he rested. It was prickly and bitter cold, permeating his flesh.

The dead began to move.

They were looking down the street, toward a point he couldn’t quite see, and they were starting to shuffle in that direction. Adam slowly pulled himself from the garbage and crawled toward the mouth of the alley.

There was a dead man in the road holding torches: two in one hand, one in the other. Attracted by the flames, unafraid, the other undead crowded around him.

He started throwing the torches into the air.

Juggling.

He began to walk backwards. He was leading them out of the town!

Adam leapt to his feet ad strapped the scythe on. He didn’t understand what this was, but it had to be stopped—

The hammer caught him in the base of the spine and sent him hurtling into the street.

Dizzy with pain, Adam started to push himself up. The Strongman’s massive weapon swung into his side and he was in flight again, sailing away from the Fire Juggler and smashing into the shell of a pickup truck.

The Strongman ran at him like a behemoth straight out of Hell. Adam threw the truck door open and deflected the hammer long enough to get on his feet. He broke for the other side of the street.

What was happening?

“He talked his performers into turning with him. They were willingly infected — most of them anyway.”

The Strongman, a tableau of inked horrors across his muscular torso, bore down on Adam with the hammer held high over his head. Adam feinted left, bolted right. The Strongman moved with him, graceful for his monstrous size; and Adam was knocked through a window into a general store.

He crashed through a counter and slammed into the wall. Pain erupted in every joint of his body. He saw red. He’d never experienced anything like this before — and he was afraid.

He felt something clamp down on his leg, and he was dragged back through the wreckage of the counter and swung into a metal shelf. Jags of pain like long, thin needles ripped into him. He was picked up and smashed down again. It was almost as if he were going to sleep now, the world darkening and slowing down around him. Was this unconsciousness? If he were knocked out, what would happen to him then?

He knew what would happen. He would be destroyed.

Adam lashed out with the scythe. He struck something hard. The hammer.

The Strongman stumbled back as Adam swung viciously, the blade streaking through clouds of dust scant inches from the rotter’s flesh. The Strongman looked around for an exit.

Adam ran at him—

And a cluster of rubbery limbs ensnared him, dragging him back into the shelves. He felt at least three arms tightening around his throat. He tried to swing the scythe backwards — the blade struck a wall and was pulled off his arm.

NO!

A smothering weight forced him into the wall. Struggling to free himself, Adam got his first glimpse at his assailant — a four-armed man with gaping, fish-like jaws.

The Geek’s arms were malformed, underdeveloped, but still strong enough to hold onto his prey. The elasticity of his flesh meant there was no slipping free. He had Adam wrapped up in his limbs and was gnawing at his face.

Adam forced his hand up through the tangle of arms and drove his fingers into the Geek’s eyes. The rotter snapped at him, thrashing his head about, but Adam pushed harder and sunk his fingertips into the sockets of the undead’s skull. Now he was the one with a handhold.

The Strongman could be heard heaving shelves aside. He was coming.

The Geek released Adam and pawed at his eyes with all four hands. Adam kicked the rotter into the Strongman’s path and ran for the back of the store. He hit a door, plowed right through it, and was outside again. The cold slapped his shredded face.

The scythe was still inside! He didn’t stand a chance without it. Before he could think of what to do, he heard footfalls, dozens of them — runners. They were coming around the building.

It was true. The King of the Dead and his traveling circus were real. As Adam fled down the back street, the image of the Fire Juggler flashed through his mind. Drawing the dead in with those spinning torches…

The circus was recruiting.

Something barreled into his legs and he went sprawling. It was a dwarf, with a pinched rotten face and spurs of bone, like horns, growing from its skull.

Adam scrambled down an alley and back toward the main thoroughfare. If he could just make it to that store!

A literal human pincushion staggered across the street toward him, skewers of all lengths stuck through its body. The metal rattled loudly as the thing came at him. From the sidewalk approached a stiff-legged, cadaverous giant, not as wide as the Strongman but taller. Yawning wounds in his flesh had been filled entirely with bone tissue, and outgrowths of bone threaded through the rotter’s limbs and ribs, weaving in and out of gray flesh. The aberrant skeletal growth made the Petrified Man look as if he were armored.

Transfixed with horror, Adam almost didn’t see the Geek pushing through the dead in the street. The locals were mesmerized by the Juggler; only these sideshow curiosities were pursuing him. They behaved more like animals than rotters. They must have developed a pack mentality, complete with hierarchy… which meant the King himself was nearby.

And he was.

As Adam ran away from the rotters, further into town and away from his scythe — he saw Eviscerato standing alone in the road, cane twirling in his bony hands.

Leaping into Adam’s path, he sent the cane crashing into his knee. Adam tried to stay upright and keep running but the rotter jumped onto his back, and then Adam was on his knees and the cane was choking him. There was no risk of suffocation for Adam — but there was the risk of his head being torn off.

Eviscerato bit into Adam’s scalp. Adam grabbed the cane and tried to force it away, but Eviscerato was too strong! The world began to go dark again.

He went limp. The very last thing he saw before losing consciousness was the Fire Juggler’s approach, and the last thing he felt was searing heat.