The Sword of Saint Michael Page 5

  No one had come looking for George. That was good. But first she wanted to know how long she’d been asleep, apparently fighting off the infection on her neck. She pulled off her bandage and felt for the wound. Her neck was smooth—remarkably, the wound had healed completely.

  How could she tell what day it was? Her fitness tracker and cell phone were dead. With cell phone devices prohibited on the vigil, she had drained the cell phone’s battery to avoid temptation—but where was George’s phone? Maybe it was shut off, preserving the battery? She finished her meal, went back inside, and searched his body, finding his smart phone in his jeans pocket. When she pushed the button at the side, there was no response. She pushed all the other buttons—no luck. Pushing each button down for a long time elicited nothing. It was as dead as George was. Was there a landline? Maybe she could use that? Or maybe she could plug in the smart phone and gain some charge, assuming she could find the charger lying around?

  Not so fast. She paced around the room. What would the police think? Even if I had time to bury him, he would still be reported missing. Would I get away with killing him? My prints are all over this place. Plus, he had been sick and without a weapon. How could I justify self-defense? Even though that’s precisely what it was?

  That she’d used her sword would seem a little weird, and she certainly couldn’t say he had been dead before attacking her. That last part she doubted, anyway. She could explain her prints in George’s house—she had been there before. She would have to say she’d been in the cabin the whole time, and only now did she find the body. But as for the murder weapon, there might always be traces of his blood on her sword if she didn’t clean it properly. Could she dispose of her grandfather’s sword?

  No. Her grandfather would not want his sword disposed of—even buried temporarily—and he would want her to tell the truth and face her fate. So, she would tell the truth, except for the George already being dead part—no one would believe that anyway.

  Should she leave George’s body the way it was or remove it from the house? Her story would be more credible if she left the body where it was, or at least dumped outside, but it seemed so . . . disrespectful.

  She retrieved blankets from his bedroom, and as she started to cover the body, she noticed his head was oddly misshapen. It had been bashed in and fractured with a lot of matted, dried blood in his hair. When she felt the skull, she realized that although the skin was unbroken, a part of his skull was missing, not just cracked. A part of the skull was actually missing.

  Ignoring the maggots, she broke the skin of the depression with the end of her sword, cutting a hole inside the perimeter of the missing part of skull. She then pulled it off. What she expected to see was brains, but she saw none. She shined her flashlight into the hole in his skull. There were brains in there, but someone had removed a chunk.

  Jocelyn finished covering George with a pile of blankets, and then took a long hot shower as she hadn’t had a proper shower or bath in over a month. She would bury him under the cover of night.

  Saint Michael still didn’t respond to her. Neither did Skunk. She meditated and traveled on a shamanic journey, and, to her astonishment, encountered no one. On her journey, she went to the jungle she liked to go to sometimes, but none of the various foliage would talk with her, as if they were all asleep and couldn’t wake up.

  Her apprehension was strong. She had come to rely on her guides, but now she was on her own.

  Then she suddenly realized she had taken no meds while recovering from whatever that was. She was susceptible to all kinds of delusions and hallucinations if she missed taking them. So, she took her final dose.

  She was surprised she hadn’t started hearing the voices yet.

  Laughter came from outside the house, and Jocelyn fled to the front bedroom, shutting the door behind her. She crossed the room and peeped between the beige curtains. Four people were walking on George’s driveway. They looked weird—pasty white in the face, one with a sore on his cheek similar to George’s. Three men and one woman—the woman carried a shotgun and a few shells on a belt. Did they suffer from the same affliction as George?

  She didn’t trust them. Would they attack her the same way as George? George used no weapons, yet still attacked ferociously. Add a shotgun to the mix, and she wondered how much damage they could do to her if she waited for them to attack? Should she attack first? Clearly, George must have told them she was in the cabin. That’s why they brought the shotgun. They knew she was in training to become a powerful shaman, and these small-town types, being invariably super-religious, had come to kill her. It would be perfect. No one knew she was here at all, except for them, and to them, she was a threat.

  George had seemed innocent enough. Now that she thought about it, he always looked a little pale, but at the time, she surmised he was some kind of albino. But what if he was a space alien? What if they all were? The lack of a heartbeat and blood—and the hole in the skull—was proof of George being an alien. And what if they’d infiltrated the town church? Then she’d be a threat because she could see the truth better.

  As a Doctor of History, she was conversant with the story of how Indians contracted smallpox from white settlers and soldiers. While the white man had partial immunity to it because of exposure over generations, the Indians possessed none. As such, smallpox decimated their population. So, it made sense that the aliens caught something from the humans, and the ugly, large, pustules were the telltale sores.

  Her heart raced. Aliens—when had they invaded? It must have been when she was on her vigil—or maybe they’d always been here. She shuddered as she peered through the gap in the curtains again, careful not to part them too wide. Now the sore on the one man’s cheek had vanished. Somehow, they seemed to heal quickly. Yes, definitely aliens. One wore a white t-shirt with a dark-red splatter pattern. Blood. They must be on a killing spree.

  She swiftly exited the bedroom, crossed down the hall, entered the living room, and retrieved her sword.

  One knocked on the door. She froze. A long pause. Knocking. A longer pause. Pounding.

  “Hello, George?” a man yelled while still pounding. “Are you there?”

  She gathered her wits. Carrying her sword in one hand, she walked—as quiet as possible—back over to that front bedroom. She closed the door and laid down on her back on the floor, making her way under the bed. Lying as still as possible, she gripped the hilt of her sword at her side.

  The front door opened.

  “Yep, it’s unlocked,” came a disembodied male voice, a different one this time. “Oh my god, that smell!”

  The woman gasped.

  “Oh my god,” the third man exclaimed, “more blood!”

  Excited footsteps ran all over the small ranch house, with the aliens calling out “George!” The woman entered the bedroom Jocelyn was in and called out George’s name.

  They called George’s name outside.

  Definitely aliens. Now if they caught her, they’d assume she killed him. Which she did, but out of self-defense. She guessed they wouldn’t see it that way.

  Underneath the bed felt like a coffin. Jocelyn’s heart raced, and she was having trouble breathing. She realized she was having a heart attack—she could die under this bed and no one would even know about it.

  The aliens were now calm and talking amongst themselves. Jocelyn’s blood pounded in her ears, but she still heard the muffled noise of conversation, with the occasional high-pitched clicks indicative of an alien language. The volume of the aliens went up for a short while—again, muffled chatter and more clicking—then it died down. Jocelyn studied the world’s languages in college, but this was utterly foreign, definitely not like any human language.

  Now she was dizzy. This was it. She would die without ever being found.

  But she couldn’t face the aliens. She was no match for them. Her abdomen grumbled. Hadn’t she learned you evacuate your bowels when you die?

  And she struggled to contact her guides
. Silence.

  Dizzy again, she tried to catch her breath.

  Chapter Seven

  Day Zero

  Alexander ran across the parking lot, passing zombies busy eating brains, and made a beeline for the supermarket. The automatic doors at the entrance seemed to take forever to open.

  Inside, more zombies chowed down on brains. All were occupied, except for a middle-aged man in a blue windbreaker, who snarled and chased after him.

  He ran for his life to the back of the store, though he couldn’t see the doors to the employees-only area. He guessed its location and chose the right back corner. The zombie gained on him as he fled down the pet food aisle. Double doors with no handles appeared in view. They swung wide for him as he slammed his shoulder into them.

  Vin wondered how long he would have to wait in the traffic jam. Luckily, he could listen to his grunge music on satellite radio—it passed the time so far, but he still hated this kind of traffic. He closed his eyes for a bit, knowing the traffic could start up at any time . . .

  The next thing he remembered was a lot of honking coming from up ahead. He opened his eyes. The string of cars, a dozen or so visible before the bend, had not moved while he dozed, but soon he noticed movement ahead.

  It was hard to believe. Two albinos with visible pustules on their faces smashed the driver’s side window of each of the lead two cars. They reached in through the now-open windows . . .

  What the hell? Was something wrong with both drivers?

  Vin felt a jolt from behind. His Silverado propelled forward, and his collision detection warning fired, braking before hitting the car in front. Great. Wonderful. It started as such a nice, fortuitous day, and now his buzz was ruined. He exited his truck to exchange insurance information.

  The old Corolla behind him, clearly with no collision detection, had also been struck from behind by an old Subaru. The Subaru driver emerged from his vehicle. His nose was flattened, his face a bloody mess. Nonetheless, he was casually walking as if nothing had happened to him. He walked up to the car just behind Vin and pulled on the door handle, but the car wouldn’t open. He then smashed open the window with his bare fist and pulled the screaming driver out through the window, throwing him down onto the asphalt. Bloody-face jumped onto the prone victim and sat upright on his chest and pummeled him repeatedly with both fists in rapid succession.

  This all happened five feet away from Vin.

  Vin had seen enough. He went back into his car and retrieved ammo from a bag on the floor. He loaded his brand new shotgun, pumped the slide-action, pocketed as much ammo as he could carry, and exited his vehicle, shutting his door behind him.

  Now bloody-face was repeatedly bashing his victim’s head against the asphalt.

  Vin had trained for this kind of situation since he was eleven. Within range, he aimed the shotgun. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” Vin said awkwardly. He knew the attacker should have been able to hear him, but he kept bashing the man’s head into the ground. Maybe crushed-face was the “good guy?” Even so, the other man was subdued enough. The attacker now killed in cold blood.

  It occurred to him the attacker may be a cop, and he didn’t want to be branded a cop-killer. He made a split-second decision and aimed at the attacker’s thigh—that would get his attention.

  He fired. Bloody-face’s upper leg exploded.

  And bloody-face didn’t seem to notice.

  Alexander ran through a storage area with two avenues of evasion: one, a bathroom with a lock on it; the other, double-doors with no lock that he guessed from the location was the refrigerated section.

  Alexander knew he was remarkably intelligent. These zombies were fast, strong, and animalistic. They were savvy enough to break down front doors and search for prey, but if they weren’t diligent enough to search every nook and cranny, he had a chance. Maybe cold air would blunt the zombie’s sense of smell enough? And if he couldn’t be seen, smelled, or heard, maybe the zombies would pass him by.

  In desperation, he blew through the swinging doors, looking for a place to hide. Luckily—for him to survive this, a lot of luck would be involved—a large empty crate stood halfway down the right side. He ran over to it, climbed inside, and put the top on as best as he could. Light shone through a small crack. He dared not take any more time to secure the lid.

  Not one second later, the doors burst open with a fury. Horror and dread crept in. If he hadn’t guessed correctly, he was about to get his skull cracked, have his brain eaten, and become a zombie.

  He held his breath. When he couldn’t stand it any longer, he began to let out air slowly through his nostrils. All the while, heavy footsteps echoed about the room until they got close. Through the crack, he saw the zombie hover and look around.

  Alexander thought about moving away from view—if it looked directly in the gap, the zombie would spot him for sure. But he feared any noise he would make, so he froze, stopping his exhalation.

  Then the zombie disappeared from his view and the doors swung again.

  Did it leave? Or did more come? He chanced a slow, deep breath in through his nose.

  Soon his stomach grumbled, and he felt an acute tightness and an urge to evacuate his bowels.

  Must be nerves.

  Shit.

  Emily Schumer had the whole tea party laid out. Inside her dollhouse in her backyard, six chairs surrounded a small table. All her princesses were there—Princesses Anna and Elsa from Frozen, Princess Ariel from The Little Mermaid, and Princess Belle from Beauty and the Beast. She was wearing her own Princess outfit—Snow White. And her best friend Allie was Pocahontas—on account she was Native American. Both had been to Disney World, separately, with their families, this past summer, and that was where they had gotten their costumes.

  The other princesses were dolls. But to Emily they all were real. Pretend real, but still real. In pretending, that is.

  They drank real tea. Well, that was pretend, but it was real liquid. She had filled the cups from the teapot full of “tea” her mother had given her. Her mom said it was tea, but when it came out as cold water, Emily didn’t mind. She was good at pretending. Besides, she was too young for tea. That was for older, but her parents had never told her how old she had to be. But she was sure it was old.

  She couldn’t wait to become a grown-up. Then she could have real tea parties—not the real ones that were the pretend kind. Emily was five, and her friend Allie would turn five next month, in September.

  Her mother said all the princesses could drink the tea this time. She showed her by pouring the “tea” onto Anna’s mouth. It fell down onto the doll and got it wet, but her mom said afterward she would dry them with a hair dryer.

  She loved her mom. She loved her dad and her brother, too, but her mom was someone special.

  Emily was drinking her tea when she heard the strange sound—kind of like a thud and a crunch at the same time. It was awfully loud. She wondered what could make such a horrible sound. Curious, she told her friend to stay and be a good hostess while she looked at what the noise was about.

  “But Emily, I want to come too,” Allie pouted.

  “I call dibs!” Emily exclaimed. She called dibs, which meant she won.

  “But why can’t we go together?”

  But to play a good hostess, one of them had to stay. Pretending wasn’t really pretending if you stop pretending just because of a silly noise.

  So, Emily left the dollhouse and ran around the side of the house—the noise seemed to have come from the front. What she saw caused her to stop dead in her tracks.

  Her little brother, lying on the grass in a pool of blood, dead, with his brain being eaten.

  Suddenly, she felt warm urine trickle slowly down her legs. She heard her father say, “Run, Emily, Run!”

  Getting more and more soaked down there, she looked up toward his voice. Her father was in the doorway—someone had smashed the door. A woman with long black hair, covered in dried blood and ugly sores and very white skin,
bit her father on the neck. Blood gushed out.

  She noticed her mother on the front steps, on her back. A man with the same super-white skin and ugly sores straddled her chest, beating her head with his fists. Then he grabbed her head and repeatedly hit it onto the corner of a step. Meanwhile, she saw her father crumple and his eyes roll into the back of his head.

  Stunned, Vin stood there for a few seconds taking the situation in. The victim lay dead, and blood was everywhere. The albino, whose leg bore a large crater, black, red, and the white of bone, pulled the skin and hair from the rear of the victim’s head and opened the victim’s skull.

  Cop or not, Vin had to put a stop to this. He rushed up to the albino. Not noticing Vin at all, the albino now was eating the victim’s brain.

  Vin shot the albino in the head at close range, and small bits of hair and blood hit Vin in the face. The momentum of the shot propelled the albino against the victim’s car door as a big cavity now occupied the albino’s skull.

  The albino lay still. It was over.

  How am I going to explain this to the police?

  He sat down on the asphalt next to the two dead men, placing his shotgun on the ground nearby, closed his eyes, and took a few deep breaths. He hadn’t killed anyone in his life before. Even though he loved guns, he had not wanted the military life, content to be an engineer and part-time martial arts instructor.

  As he thought about his life, staring at the dead bodies, the albino moved. He sat up and looked at Vin, who stared, transfixed. Then the albino took a swing at him. Vin deflected the attack with his left arm and punched him in his head wound. The albino snarled, and Vin jumped back in time for the albino to miss grabbing Vin’s neck. Vin picked up the shotgun, stepped back, and shot the albino again in the head. The albino slammed against the car door behind him.