The God Zombie, page 15
“Do you trust this puny skeleton to fight?”
Forneus looked down at the tiny skeleton, and the snakes inside his chest lit up. “Every soldier plays a part. Do not diminish their capabilities based on your idea of what a soldier should be. Our goal is to rid the world of the Huturo, and we should use every fist to help accomplish that.”
“Maybe, but I’ve seen the Huturo. This tiny skeleton will only last a second.”
“What do you suggest?”
“Let’s stagger our attacks with the weakest out front. Their mobility is limited, and their bones are frail. Let’s use them to draw the Huturo out.”
“Agreed.”
Isadora moved through the crowd of zombies to Arlo’s side. “Does John even know you’re alive?” she asked. “The last thing I remember is that he thought you were dead in the caverns of Black Forest.”
Arlo’s eyes lit up. “You’re right. John doesn’t know,” replied Arlo.
The snakes in Forneus’s chest began scurrying, illuminating the forest. Arlo could tell the news excited him.
“Excellent. If John believes you’re dead, this gives us the element of surprise. We’ll keep your presence hidden as long as possible. You and Isadora should monitor the attack from the shadows. For now, it’s best to see how successful these souls will be in attacking the Huturo. Hopefully, we’ll find a weakness and exploit it. For now, let’s give these soldiers some practice by surrounding the city and attacking all the Huturo within the city limits.”
“Where will you be?”
“I’ll do my best to track down John. There’s a good chance he’s still in the children’s hospital, but with so many of the Huturo ravaging the city, I don’t know. John probably has your mother nearby with a lot of Huturo protecting them. It’s best if we don’t attack immediately. If he realizes our plan, John will kill your mother and call for reinforcements from Hell. I’m not sure we can handle that. We must thin the Huturo’s numbers before we rush John’s position.”
Soon Arlo heard the wings of something enormous flying above them. He looked up and saw a colossal crow circling the group. The bird passed over the group of zombies and landed safely atop the building. After shaking the heavy rain from its wings, it tilted its head and stared at the zombies. Seemingly filled with disdain, it crowed again, its cawing sounding like laughter.
“Let’s meet back here at sunrise,” said Forneus.
Forneus walked to the building entrance, sat down on a stone, and leaned against the wall. The worms and snakes in his body lit up, and Forneus lowered his head. Soon the creatures in his body became stone, and the light dimmed until Forneus collapsed into a heap of bones. Arlo looked up at the bird and saw its eyes blazing with fire. The creature spread its enormous wings, rose in the rainy sky, and turned toward the city.
Arlo grabbed Isadora’s hand. “Stay close to me.”
Isadora chuckled, her laughter sounding like an old engine. “You stay close to me,” she replied.
As Arlo and Isadora moved through the forest toward the city, the skeletons gathered in groups while the recently deceased fell to the back. After organizing themselves, the group of brooding monsters broke into a sprint toward the city.
The Lesson
People were running through the mall, terrified and screaming, with dozens of Huturo in pursuit. An overweight woman, scared and out of breath, wasn’t keeping in step with the mob of people and fell.
“Please! Someone help!” she cried.
Before she could climb to her feet, she was pushed down again and crushed underneath the weight of the fleeing mob. It was pandemonium in the mall as the lights flashed off and on; the ground trembled as the mass of people pushed their way through stores, over benches, trampling any stationary person in their path. They could hear the demonic laughter of their pursuers rising amongst the madness, taunting them, terrifying them.
A teenager looked back into the rushing crowd for his friend but couldn’t find him. They’d come to the food court together to grab a slice of pizza before going to the movies. Sure, there had been rumors floating around the school—strange things that happened to a classmate over the weekend, whispers of an unknown plague that made his classmate’s family sick—but he never listened to rumors, especially if he didn’t know the person. He and his friends chose to ignore it, chalking it up as another weapon adults used to keep kids from having fun. The boy and his friend both heard the news on the radio about sheltering in place but figured someone had their wires mixed up since the mall was still open. Now his friend was gone, lost in the scramble of the crowd.
The teenager looked back, trying to pick out his friend’s face amongst the group. Still, the only thing he saw was the occasional red-faced monster rise from behind, eyes wide, cackling, the horrific screams of a victim, and then the mist of blood rising above the group.
The Huturo monsters were the definition of evil. They snatched victims randomly, tearing off their heads, and ripping out their spinal cords. They threw the remaining torsos ahead into the fleeing group, reveling in the screams of the terrified victims as chunks of flesh fell on their heads, spraying them with blood and feces.
“Daddy!” screamed a little girl.
Her father had been pulling her through the crowd when her hand slipped away. Now she was on the ground amongst the rush of hundreds of people trying to escape. Suddenly a Huturo spotted the child. With a gleeful shriek, it ripped apart a man standing nearby, shoved his head and spine inside its chest, and scooped up the little girl from the ground.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH! DADDY!” the child screamed.
The father saw the Huturo dangling the child in the air and rushed forward. The creature taunted the man by running one of its long fingers underneath the child’s neck, mimicking a knife slicing the child’s throat.
“Sarah!” the man yelled. “Don’t worry! Daddy’s coming!”
The man pushed over several people and slid on the blood-covered floor, crashing against a railing. He immediately regained his footing and sped toward his daughter, knocking over an elderly gentleman. Finally, when he was only a few feet away, he dove for her foot, grazing it with his hand before falling again. The Huturo cackled at the man’s folly and dropped the girl to the ground. Its long spiderlike fingers grabbed the man and ripped his body apart. The child sat on the floor, trembling and whispering in disbelief at what she saw. The Huturo’s chest opened like a butterfly, plugging in the spinal cord dangling from her father’s head as the child watched, unable to speak. Soon her father’s face, frozen in an excruciating expression, came back to life, now with a more sinister look, eyes filled with blood. The Huturo and her father turned to her and smiled before bounding into the group to grab another victim.
The terrified crowd exited the mall, everyone screaming and scattering into the flooded streets. The light rain was now a torrential storm, winds whipping wildly and water puddling the sidewalk. But there were even more of the Huturo outside. Dozens of the creatures splashed through the water, their red skin glistening in the darkness. The monsters enjoyed ripping apart the crowd like a buzzsaw from Hell, decapitating the fleeing and plugging them into their bodies before tearing bodies and tossing the corpses aside.
A Huturo grabbed a middle-aged woman and was about to rip her head off when she became angry and decided to fight back. The woman bit into the Huturo’s finger, and black blood sprayed her face. The Huturo fell back in surprise and inspected its hand, glaring at the woman. Suddenly the woman fell to the ground and began screaming—she didn’t realize the Huturo’s blood had scorpions inside, and the tiny creatures scurried across her face and into her hair, pinching and biting.
The Huturo monster, still angry from the bite the woman delivered, turned to retreat but stopped. A group of soldiers was standing behind it, guns aimed.
“Fire!”
The soldiers shot the Huturo in the chest, and it cried out, alerting several monsters nearby. The creatures, furious at witnessing the attack, grabbed a nearby victim, ripped his head off, and tossed the torso into the group, sending the soldiers sprawling. As the Huturo stood holding the man’s head, it suddenly dropped it to the ground and rushed its attackers with wide, blood-filled eyes. The Huturo’s jawbone disconnected, opened its mouth wide, and bit one of the soldier’s heads off. Releasing a bloodcurdling scream, the monster slammed its arms to the ground, and the arms detached, transforming into an enormous scorpion. The arachnid rushed the men, but they shot it before it was close, and it exploded.
“Help!” one of the soldiers screamed.
The other men turned to see two Huturo standing behind them, each with a soldier in their grasp. When they tried firing on the monsters, the Huturo jumped in the air, ripped the heads off the soldiers, and put them inside their open chests.
“Jenny!” yelled a woman through the mayhem.
Jenny turned to see her best friend, Laurie, standing on the other side of the street. “This way!”
Jenny darted between two Huturo and into a large group of fleeing people. After arriving at an abandoned car, she fell to the ground, slid underneath the vehicle, and came out on the other side. She quickly removed several scorpions hanging onto her blonde hair and sprinted to Laurie.
“How do we get out of here?” asked Laurie, tears streaming down her face. But Jenny had no time for tears—her whole body was teaming with adrenaline. After searching around frantically, she spotted their exit.
“There!” said Jenny, pointing to the forest just beyond a few small buildings.
She grabbed Laurie’s hand, and the two women jumped over several torsos and slid underneath another car. When they stood up, they were in front of a pawnshop. Without hesitating, Jenny grabbed a brick from the ground and hurled it into the glass door. They ran into the shop, past the owner and his family huddling in the back, and out the backdoor.
“There!” said Jenny pointing to a linked fence at the edge of the parking lot. The women ran to the fence and were about to climb when they heard a loud noise behind them.
“Jenny!” yelled Laurie.
They turned around to see two Huturo burst out of the building, holding the owner’s and his wife’s heads in their hands. The creatures saw Jenny and Laurie, shoved the victims’ heads into their chests, and ran toward the women.
Laurie landed on the other side of the fence first and turned to help Jenny. Just as she did, Laurie felt something sharp on her head. Suddenly blood was everywhere—in her eyes, her face, and pouring down the front of her shirt.
“Jenny,” Laurie said weakly. “I’m hurt.”
Jenny was about to land on the ground when she stopped and hurried back to the top of the fence; a skeleton with thin gray hair had bitten into Laurie’s scalp while another had its arm inside her stomach, tugging at her organs. Jenny looked around, terrified—hundreds of skeletons and zombies were running out of the forest toward her. Jenny quickly looked back at the pawnshop and saw the building explode as dozens of Huturo burst out, sprinting toward her.
“Shit,” whispered Jenny.
Jenny fell from the fence and sat on the ground to await her demise.
But something strange happened.
The Huturo saw the zombies sprinting out of the woods and stopped. The monsters tilted their heads in curiosity, unsure what to make of the army of undead monsters racing toward them. As the zombies grew closer, the Huturo registered a visible panic, flashing panicked looks amongst themselves, trying to figure out their response.
Three skeletons arrived at the first Huturo and jumped on it viciously. Without hesitating, one bit into its head, peeling back the crimson skin with its teeth, trying to reach the sweet brain inside the Huturo’s skull. As the creature drank the venomous black blood of the monster, the zombie ignored the hundreds of tiny scorpions shooting down its throat. The other two skeletons bit the Huturo’s chest with ravenous ferocity, their green eyes burning brighter at the sight of blood. The Huturo attempted to fight them off, but the skeletons were too mindless, too hungry. A strange metallic noise came from deep inside the Huturo as it seemingly registered damage to itself. The creature tried to push one zombie skeleton off, but the other undead bit off two of its fingers, sending scorpion-filled blood spraying everywhere. With their old teeth, the zombies continued tearing into the Huturo, sucking the arachnid-laced blood leaking from its skull, trying to get at the brain.
Finally, the Huturo flung the attackers away, and its chest flew open, filling the air with the smell of rotting meat. The three human heads inside the creature’s chest cavity shot out and began flailing wildly like the tentacles of an agitated octopus. The faces on the end of the spinal cords were wrinkled and twisted with anger.
“Yooooooou,” they hissed. “We will kill yoooou.”
Suddenly the Huturo’s body became erect, and all the crimson color in its skin changed to dark gray. With its chest open and the life drained from its body, it fell to the ground. The three flailing skulls stopped moving, and their spinal cords stiffened, making them stand upright in the Huturo’s corpse, like a totem pole. Slowly, the skulls melted and dripped down the spinal cords into the dead Huturo, filling it with a strange green liquid. The other Huturo saw the damage to the other creature and began crying like children. They made angry, vengeful faces at the zombies before leaping over the destroyed building to continue chasing victims on the other side.
Arlo and Isadora stepped into the light. They’d been watching the Huturo from the shadows, intentionally holding most of their zombie army back while they searched for a weakness in the Huturo.
“Come on,” said Isadora. “Let’s check it out.”
Arlo quickly pulled her back into the shadows. “Wait. Something’s happening.”
A strange violet mist was leaking out of the Huturo’s body. Arlo’s eyes immediately fell on Jenny, the girl who somehow managed to evade the attention of both the Huturo and the zombies. She laid flat on the ground, tucked tight against the fence, hoping all the monsters would overlook her presence. Her strategy had worked, but now the mist was drifting close, forcing her to try to cover her face. Although she buried her face in her jacket, the fog still got inside her, and she began convulsing violently on the ground. The other zombies noticed and sprinted toward Jenny, but they stopped when she lifted her head. Jenny’s face was a throbbing mess of dozens of suctioning mouths puckering and sucking the air in search of food. Two large horns tore through her forehead, and her eyes were mouths with teeth, biting and sucking. Soon huge muscles bubbled beneath her skin, ripping off her clothes to reveal a body filled with the same deformity as her face—hundreds of mouths, all puckering and sucking for food.
Arlo was too preoccupied to remember to instruct the few nearby skeleton zombies to stay away from the creature. Two ran toward the monster, hoping to feast on its enormous mouth-covered head. As soon as they were close, the beast reached out with its massive arm and grabbed the skeleton. As it thrashed back and forth within the creature’s grasp, the monster held it close to its face, relishing the meal to come, each of the mouths on its skin making loud slurping noises. After a few seconds, the creature locked the skeleton in a tight embrace against its body and held it firmly. Although the zombie was only bones, all the mouths on the monster sucked loud and hard until the zombie began to diminish, growing skinnier and smaller until, finally, there was only dust.
“A vampire from Hell,” whispered Isadora.
Arlo nodded his head in agreement. “That’s what it is.”
But there was something more disturbing about what Arlo was witnessing. At the vampiric monster’s feet, a strange purple vine spread rapidly, multiplying across the ground. As soon as the vine touched the fence, the barrier melted. But the vines didn’t stop there. They crawled into the forest through the grass and the trees, killing everything they touched. Arlo looked at the dead Huturo lying on the ground, and saw the same purple vines crawling out of the body. The weed raced across the parking lot, making the asphalt bubble and melt before moving toward the building.
“Come on,” said Arlo, grabbing Isadora’s hand. “We need to meet up with Forneus. Now.”
Arlo and Isadora ran into the forest, leaving the monster alone in the rain, sucking at the air in search of a new victim.
The Unknown Anger
John stood on the stairs of the hospital with the Witch Asura by his side, staring out into the stormy field. The light rain was now a storm, blowing violent gusts of wind and raining so hard, puddles were forming in the yard.
Hundreds of children stood on one side of the field encircled by a large wire fence. Some drifted to the location after their parents became Huturo, transformed by the virus the children unknowingly passed along. Others were drawn to the area after John visited them in their dreams, turning them into mindless shells of themselves. They all stood silently in the rain, unaffected by the relentless barrage of stinging water and wind gusts.
On the other side of the field were hundreds of Huturo. They roamed the yard, pushing past one another, stomping in the mud, and gleefully laughing as more monsters showed up every hour. John smiled as he watched them, all traces of their fragility erased by the rain. He could feel their desire to kill growing, building like a thunderous explosion in the clouds. John knew that soon the Huturo would be unstoppable.
“John?” asked Asura. “Is everything okay?”
John smiled. “More than okay. Things are progressing just as my Lord said they would.”
“Will you enter the room to make physical contact again?”
“No. The rejuvenation process is too time-consuming. I’ll deliver a progress report through mental contact.”
“When?”
