Empire's End

Forty / Losses and Gains

“Where’s Lily?” Cam demanded.

Halstead got to her feet in the tunnel and looked around haplessly. “I don’t know. She was right beside me, and then I fell…”

“She must have taken off down the tunnel,” Tripper muttered. “Lily!”

Taking Meyer’s lanterns from the floor, they began the search. There wasn’t a sign of the girl anywhere. She didn’t return their cries. And she didn’t have any reason to fear them — did she?

“Wait.” Logan pointed up ahead with his gib-covered chainsaw. “Movement.”

He motioned for everyone to move over against the wall. Logan crouched and squinted, fighting to keep his balance, still drunk.

“We’re human!” came a call. Three figures appeared in the lantern light.

“Dalton!” Logan yelled.

A soldier, a cop and what looked like a doctor. Could’ve been worse, Halstead thought to herself. Could’ve been saddled with three lame geriatrics.

That, of course, made her think of Voorhees. She’d been trying not to think of him this entire time; indeed, as Cam had so succinctly put it, she had concerned herself solely with saving her own ass. Now the girl was missing because Halstead had gone down the ladder first. And her partner, a good man, an honest man, was lying bound and blind in a building that would soon be in flames.

I’m shit. I couldn’t even finish the job Thackeray entrusted me with… and now Gaylen burns. Somehow it’s all my fault. It must be. I’ve let everyone down.

“Logan,” Dalton said, “we’ve got an evac route through an old rail system. Do you have any other survivors down here?”

“Maybe.” Logan burped. “Trying to find the kid.”

“Are you drunk?” Zane asked in disbelief.

“I wish I was,” Rhodes grumbled.

Logan pointed down the tunnel behind himself. “There’s a bar up there—”

“Shut up,” Tripper snapped. “We’ve gotta find Lily. We can’t leave until we find her.”

Dalton eyed Tripper’s guns with suspicion. “Where’d you get your hands on those?”

“Soldiers traded them,” Tripper answered.

“What for? Why would anyone trade away arms? That’s a crime.”

“Ask him.” Tripper angled his thumb toward Logan.

Dalton grimaced. “Logan. You didn’t.”

“I’m a man. I have needs.”

“All right,” Cam shouted, “back to Lily. She’s about thirteen with long brown hair. She couldn’t have gone far.”

“Then let’s find her,” said Dalton. He turned to lead the way.

The search was fruitless.

They backtracked half a dozen times, screaming Lily’s name until they were all hoarse — no response.

“What if she didn’t even come down here?” Halstead gasped.

“Then we left her up there with what was left of those kids,” Logan said. “Sorry. I really am.”

“We can’t just write her off like that!” Cam cried. Tripper put his arms around her.

“I hear something.” Dropping into a crouch, Dalton crept toward the next corner. He heard the snapping of bone. A grunt. Blood splattering.

Dalton leapt around the bend and trained his rifle on the figure hunched there.

It was a man — a living man. He looked elderly, but based on the rotter at his feet, he still had some strength in him. The man had torn the undead’s head clean off.

“Are you okay?” Dalton asked. Bit? he thought.

The man held up his hands and said softly, “Okay.”

“We can get you out of here. Are you with anyone else?”

“No, alone.” The man looked down at the rotter’s twitching remains.

“Don’t worry about that,” Dalton said, taking the man by his elbow. “It’s not going anywhere. Nice work.”

The man nodded absently. Dalton led him back around the corner, checking him for any bites or scrapes in the lantern light. “Survivor!” he called to the others.

“What’s your name, pops?” Tripper asked.

“Eugene.”

“Well Eugene, we’re getting the hell out of here. You with us?”

The old man nodded. Halstead frowned at him.

What was he chewing?

Like a shadow on the wall, Adam stole into the West Avenue Church of Christ and, kneeling behind the pulpit, set Lily on the floor.

“I want you to stay right here until I return.” As he spoke, Adam surveyed the enormous room with its rows of pews and ornate stained-glass windows, newly restored since the establishment of the Great Cities. It was filled with dark places — but also silence. He didn’t sense a threat. Maybe God’s presence still had some potency after all.

“Where are you going?” Lily asked.

“To take care of the undead,” he replied. “I’ll be as quick as I can. Just stay here — don’t make a sound, and wait for my return.”

He stood up. “Reaper!” she cried.

He knelt back down. “What is it?”

Leaning forward, Lily tenderly kissed his fire-scarred face.

“Thank you,” he whispered.

“And my name is Adam.”

A mob of rotters looked up to see a pale horse standing in the middle of the road. Astride it was a dark man with a gigantic blade made from bone, joined to his arm like an extra appendage.

Before they had the time to blink, he was bearing down on them.

The scythe plunged into zombie after zombie, slicing clean through them, splitting decaying bodies in half and sending gouts of gray entrails into the air. The horse tore through the snow at a frenzied pace, driven by the kicks of its rider, and the scythe cut trough air and flesh alike without resistance.

Adam turned at the end of the road and started back. The remaining undead were scattering, flailing their arms and moaning at the futility of their last moments. He skewered heads, severed arms, sent torsos flying. Adam rounded a corner and streaked down a side street to meet a new pack.

The Siamese was at the head of it. Scuttling forward, it roared in twin tongues and made to tackle the horse. Adam pulled back, causing his steed to rear up — and he swung around its body to meet the Siamese mid-charge and split the twins from sternum to waist. The thrashing halves of the Siamese tumbled into the snow and lay still.

A torch struck Adam’s head. He fell from the horse and rolled quickly to his feet. It was the Fire Juggler; the rotter hurled another pair of torches at Adam. He spun aside, avoiding both, and leapt to engage the monster.

A pike spread his abdomen. He snarled and turned to see the Fakir drawing long needles from its throat. “Try this,” Adam said, and slammed the scythe through the rotter’s heart.

The Juggler caught Adam by the arms and hurled him to the ground. More rotters crowded at the Juggler’s back. Adam tried to lift the blade, but the undead pressed all his weight down on Adam’s arm.

He made not a sound in his struggle; it was eerily silent as the undead closed in and fell upon him.

Then they exploded outward in a wave of fractured bodies, Adam rising up like a phoenix and sending the scythe screaming through the horde. He caught the Juggler on the tip and sent him crashing into a brick wall. Slumping down on one of his own torches, the Juggler groaned. Fire spread across its torso, and its pickled meat ignited like the wick of a candle.

There was an animal cry from the far end of the street. Looking up, Adam saw the King of the Dead standing there, clutching his cane and howling like a banshee.

You underestimate me, beast, Adam thought. Never again. He was more than a man, a force of nature, and he would cleave the unnatural into pieces until there was none left.

Eviscerato vanished from sight. Another two dozen rotters took his place.

“Come to me,” Adam growled, and climbed atop his horse.

Then he went to them.

The battle raged on beneath an ever-darkening sky, with flames rising over the tops of buildings and the smell of burning death no longer just a grim omen.