‘Just hang in there for a little longer, okay?’

  Grizzly grabbed Hex by the arm as he turned away. He yanked the medic in close.

  ‘Don’t let me turn.’

  ‘I won’t, old friend. I will make sure of that myself.’

  ‘You are all fucked,’ laughed the young girl standing beside Rogue. Echo, Cloud, Sparrow and Joker didn’t even give the zombie girl a glance, as they continued to move the debris that blocked their way. She turned her eyes towards Hex, noting that she managed to get a rise out of him. ‘I have seen your faces. I know your scents. My father will demand to have your heads delivered to the Great Council. You are all going to die. You can fight and struggle to escape the Shadow, but even if you get free my father will execute the mother fucking lot of you...’ Hex put the girl down with a fist to the side of the face. She simply laughed. ‘The dead don’t feel pain you dumb piece of shit. Hit me as much as you want. It isn’t going to change the fact that we will skin you alive.’ Hex raised a boot to stomp down on her, but Rogue held out a hand.

  ‘Leave the girl alone. She is just frightened.’

  ‘Fuck you, demon master,’ she snarled, getting back to her feet.

  ***

  The group pushed on beyond the barricade that had slowed them down. Rogue’s light began to dim, allowing the darkness to move in closer. The group jogged on, moving as fast as their slowest man. All eyes scanned the darkness beyond and behind. A low laughter echoed all around them. The Shadow knew it was only a matter of time before the light went out and they would all be dead.

  ‘The Pegasus House is a dying breed,’ said the zombie girl. ‘Why do you fight what is? Humanity is gone. Humanity should have died with Earth, but still, you cling to the faint hope that you will continue. Don’t you get that this is the extinction of humanity? The four other Houses have evolved into something new, but you cling to what was. Your time is up.’

  ‘Can someone shut this bitch up?’ asked Joker.

  ‘The dead rule now. The living is no more. Pegasus House will be gone by the end of the week.’

  ‘Stop,’ Cloud brought the group to a standstill and pulled a bandage from a pouch on his webbing. ‘Hold her.’ Joker and Echo grabbed her firmly by the arms, as Cloud reached for her mouth. ‘You need to stop fucking talking, do you understand?’ The girl moved so quickly that they hardly caught her movements. She twisted her head and bite into Cloud’s hand. ‘Fuck!’ He pulled back, leaving flesh and tendons between her teeth. ‘You mother fucking bitch.’ A gun was placed against the side of the girl’s head. ‘No!’ Commander Cloud ordered, ‘we need her alive. We need...’ he looked down at the stump of his right arm. Wide eyes looked at the severed hand on the corridor floor.

  ‘I’m sorry, Commander,’ said Hex, slipping his machete back into its holster.

  Cloud yelled out in one long agonising scream as pain consumed him.

  The others looked at Hex.

  ‘Without medication, it is the only way to stop the infection from spreading.’

  Cloud continued to scream, as blood poured onto the floor.

  ‘We keep moving,’ said Rogue, pushing forward into the darkness.

  ***

  ‘How far away are we?’ asked Rogue, as he held the diminishing ball of light.

  ‘It is just up ahead,’ countered Echo.

  Grizzly let out a painful groan and collapsed to the floor. Rogue continued forward, whilst Hex and the others came to a stop. ‘Keep moving,’ growled Grizzly through clenched teeth. He howled in pain and cradled his stomach.

  ‘What are you doing?’ called Rogue, finally realising what was happening.

  ‘He is turning,’ said the dead girl.

  ‘Get to your fucking feet, soldier,’ ordered Cloud.

  Grizzly suddenly flipped onto his back and released an agonising screen. Eyes full of madness looked up at his friends, as he clawed his fingernails across his face, slicing open the skin. The older soldier thrashed wildly on the floor, groaning in pain. His teeth chomped at the air as if willing his friends to fall into his mouth so he could feed on their flesh. They all watched as Grizzly turned from one of the living into one of the dead. They had all seen the change, but it never made it any easier.

  ‘Fuck...’ cursed Rogue.

  The ball of light disappeared.

  The corridor disappeared into the darkness.

  The dead girl acted instantly. She yanked herself away from Sparrow and sprinted off the way they had come. Glow sticks were popped, as a dull green light offered limited illumination. They could all see the dead hostage running off into the distance. Sparrow acted on pure instinct. Every single one of his friends had died on the mission to kidnap that girl. He had got her this far, he wasn’t about to let her escape now. His feet were moving before his brain had a chance to even review the situation. Sparrow sprinted off after her.

  ‘Help me!’ roared Echo, as Grizzly dived onto him.

  Laughter echoed from above.

  They looked up at the grey cloud that shot overhead.

  ‘RUN!’ ordered High Priest Rogue.

  ‘Go!’ Ordered Cloud, he pulled his sidearm with his left hand and pressed it against the side of Grizzly’s head. Echo had a forearm pressed into his friend’s throat, holding him off, as Grizzly’s teeth snapped only hair lengths from the tip of his nose. A single gunshot painted brain matter against the wall. Grizzly dropped to the floor. ‘Move, you lazy fuckers.’ Commander Cloud squeezed off round after round, as the Shadow monster danced in the glow of the green light, evading his bullets as if they were moving in slow motion. The other’s sprinted with everything they had towards the transport ship.

  ***

  ‘Where the fuck are you, you little bitch?’ asked Sparrow, as he returned to the makeshift barricade they had dismantled. He held a pistol in one hand and a glow stick in the other. The sound of metal clanging against metal could be heard coming from the storage room beside him. The young soldier turned his pistol towards the doorway and inched forward. He was unaware that the dead girl was stood directly behind him. A carefully tossed screwdriver into the supply room was all that was needed to distract the young man. The girl licked her lips as she looked at the back of his exposed neck. She could practically taste the blood flowing through his veins. She wondered what type of scream he would make at the point of death. There were so many variations of death cries. Many of her friends preferred a quick kill because the sound disturbed them, but not this girl. She loved the sound of death. She loved the look of fear in the eyes of her prey. She loved the build-up of anticipation before she made her move. The girl moved, but to her surprise, Sparrow was faster. The young man spun and fired. It was pure instinct. A single bullet hit her square between the eyes. It was an instant kill shot. She fell down on top of him, knocking him to the floor. ‘Fuck...’ he sighed.

  ***

  ‘The dead wait for us,’ said Rogue, pulling a three-foot-long axe from beneath his black robe. Joker drew his two long samurai swords, testing the weight in his hands, as his eyes watched the level indicator above the double doors of the supply elevator. Hex unsheathed his machete, as Echo slammed a fresh magazine into his semi-automatic machine gun. In the middle of the group was Babylon, carrying the drugged up Breaker. With each passing second, the elevator passed through the floors. They all fixed their helmets and secured the chin straps.

  The elevator jolted to a standstill with a metallic crunch.

  The double doors groaned as they opened.

  The cold wind of the dead world whipped into the interior of the elevator.

  The backdrop of the brutal space battle illuminated the darkness of this barren planet. An incredible light show of tracer fire flickered across the heavens, as fiery explosions went off like some kind of firework display. The sheer intensity of the battle consumed the heavens, but there was so much going on that you simply couldn’t take it all in. All eyes fell to the dirty brown transport ship sitting on the landing pad beyond them. It was more of a relic than a ship. They all shared similar concerns, although not one of them voiced it, could this contraption still fly? The transporter was about the size of a double-decker bus and twice as long. It was meant for a crew of eight and should have been decommissioned a century ago.

  A hundred plus zombies were ambling between the elevator and the transport ship.

  ‘At least we know what happened to the colonists,’ said Babylon.

  The rotting corpses turned towards the bunched up soldiers. Not a single one of them was like the un-dead girl that had travelled with them through the tunnel. She had eaten more than her fill of flesh to regain her true identity. The zombies before them were the brainless ones that acted on pure instinct. It meant they were slow, predictable and stupid, but this didn’t make them any less dangerous. One on one they would be easy to kill, but when a horde came together, they become dangerous, almost as if a hundred minds were linked as one.

  ‘Move out!’ Rogue ordered as he stepped out swinging his axe.

  A single swing of the double-bladed weapon removed three heads.

  The group came out as one.

  The horde moved with excitement towards the scent of fresh blood.

  Joker twisted and turned, ducked and dived, as his swords cut through the air with the elegance and grace that his master had taught him. Limbs flew into the air, as the dead were scalped or felt the tip of the blade piercing through a soulless eye. Hex hacked and nothing more. He looked like an angry lumberjack with a machete in hand. He hacked, hacked and hacked some more. Within in a handful of seconds, his face was painted red by the blood of his enemies. He wore brain matter on his body armour like some kind of trophy. Echo stuck close to Babylon, covering the sniper as he carried their injured comrade. The young soldier squeezed off controlled bursts, delivering only headshots to the dead that were closest to them. The group pushed forward, as the horde closed in. Thankfully, the transporter was only fifty foot away. By the time the majority of the horde had closed in they were over halfway there.

  Echo and Babylon headed up the ramp first with Breaker slung over the sniper's shoulder.

  Rogue, Joker and Hex stood like men possessed as they cut down anything that approached.

  Echo pressed his hand against the palm reader.

  This was not his ship, but space marines could access any vehicle on par with their rank.

  The door opened with a hiss.

  The barrel of his machine gun scanned the small dingy corridor, as bright lights flickered on. The coast was clear. ‘Get your arses moving,’ he bellowed, leading Babylon into the interior of the ship.

  ***

  Sparrow jogged back through the underground tunnel. If he was quick, he might be able to catch up with the others before they left on the transport ship. It was foolish of him to head after the girl. He knew this. She could have easily been the death of him. What did he gain? He gained absolutely nothing. The girl was now dead. All he had done was lost all his friends and nearly died.

  Sparrow came to an abrupt stop.

  He tapped the penlight torch in his hand.

  It hardly shone at all.

  A sickening slurping sound was just ahead of him.

  Loud gut curdling crunching could be heard.

  He didn’t need light to know what it was.

  It was the sound of bones being broken.

  Sparrow held his sidearm out in front. He inched forward. It was the only way he could go. It was the direction of the transport ship. If he didn’t keep pushing forward, then he would die. And what was where he saw it. Four foot in front of him was the floating grey being that looked like it was made from smoke. It held Commander Cloud’s dead body in its arms, as it chewed through his torso like a man eating a bucket of fried chicken legs. The creature regarded Sparrow with lifeless eyes. It’s face looked like something born from the depths of hell. It floated there in the middle of the tunnel, eating Cloud.

  Sparrow knew what he had to do.

  If he tried to run the thing would kill him.

  If he tried to fight the thing would kill him.

  If he tried to do anything, the thing would kill him.

  Sparrow pressed the barrel of his gun against the side of his head. The creature just watched, as it sucked a lung out through the gaping hole in Cloud’s chest. A single gunshot blew Sparrow’s brains out of the side of his head. Before his body had hit the floor, the Shadow reached out, grabbed his leg and pulled his dead body forward. His corpse would be the next course of this gruesome feast.

  ***

  Echo dropped down into the seat, strapping himself in. Babylon was in the pilot’s seat. The transport ship lurched heavily to the side, as a cruiser exploded above them and to the right. Gunfire flickered by, as fighter jets rolled back in complex dogfights with the alien crafts. Babylon pushed the throttle forward, forcing this old craft to give everything it had. Echo could feel the engines protesting, as the entire shipped threatened to shake apart. A battlecruiser was heading for the fiery vortex sitting in space. A black void sat in the centre of the vortex. The void had no depth, no colour. It was a black that was darker than the surrounding space. They all knew the lack of depth not to be true. This was a passageway to a different place and time in the universe. Every single ship was heading for that spot right now. Missiles whistled by as one of the living alien battleships roared in pain. Explosions rippled along its black skin, as internal organs the size of footfall stadiums splashed out into space. Loud thuds crashed against the hull of the transport ship, as they passed through a wall of debris. Babylon dipped and rolled, twisted and turned, whilst pushing the transport ship straight towards the vortex in the sky. All around them their comrades laid down supporting fire, as they did their best to support all civilian vessels in their escape to freedom. Echo watched as one by one the fighter jets erupted into bright balls of intense fire, each one a soldier of the Pegasus House. How many people had they lost on this day? The death toll for this battle alone had to be in the tens of thousands. It was a sad day to be human, but in this brutal existence, every day was a sad day to be human.

  ***

  Rogue knelt in the narrow sleeping quarters, as the ship bounced and rocked with each explosive that rumbled beyond the hull of the ship. Anything not nailed down to the floor crashed and smashed from the shelves and scraped across the floor. In the centre of the room was a portable communication tripod. A three-dimensional hologram of an old man wearing a black hood was stood six inches high upon the tripod. The man’s face was concealed by the shadows of his robe, but holographic debris was falling down all around the man.

  ‘Report,’ said Grand Priest Raven.

  ‘I have made contact with one of the originals,’ reported Rogue. ‘I have travelled through the mind of the beast. I know the origin of the outbreak. I can transfer the coordinates to the fleet.’

  ‘No,’ the Grand Priest fell to his knees, as the holograph momentarily disappeared.

  ‘No?’

  ‘Pegasus House has fallen. The dead are striking all our worlds, colonies and space stations. Humanity has lost this war. The fleet will be returning to the homeworld for our final stand.’

  ‘But...’

  ‘The council has spoken.’

  ‘Yes, Grand Priest.’

  ‘Take your ship to the planet of origin. There must be a way to stop this. God would not bring you this far for it to be meaningless. There has to be something on the planet of origin.’ Larger chunks of holographic debris fell down around the Grand Priest. ‘The hope of humanity rests upon your shoulders, Rogue. God has chosen you to save our people.’ And with that, the holographic man blinked into darkness.

  ***

  The six space marines stood around the table with the built-in screen in the centre of the room. A star map was displayed on the screen. ‘We have separated from the fleet and entered the wormhole,’ said Echo, clearly disapproving with the decision by the tone of his voice.

  Rogue cleared his throat, as he looked at the marines one by one.

  ‘The Grand Priest has given us a mission of the highest priority. I have come into contact with one of the originals.’

  ‘What is an original?’ asked Breaker, the marine had been stripped off his armour. His broken leg was now encased in a plaster cast. Hex had already written some interesting profanities down the white plaster cast.

  ‘This war with the dead all started a long time ago,’ began High Priest Rogue, ‘it began thousands of years before it reached Earth. We all know that Earth was struck by thousands of asteroids carrying the zombie virus and the dead of a thousand worlds, but the zombie outbreak didn’t start on Earth. We were attacked by the dead. For decades the priesthood has been searching for the location of the original outbreak. If we understand where and why it started, there might be a chance we can stop it.’

  ‘You mean like go back in time and stop it from happening?’ asked Joker.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Great. Let’s build a time machine then,’ added Hex.

  ‘We are flying through a time machine right now,’ explained Rogue, as if he was conducting a class for under ten-year-olds back at the church. ‘The wormholes are time machines.’ He held up a hand as the others all began to speak at the same time. ‘In the final battle for Earth humanity raged an all-out attack against the Queen of the dead. Star opened a wormhole above Earth, which allowed her to escape Earth and continue her war on all living beings, but she picked Earth because she needed a human to bring her into the physical realm.’

  The others looked confused but said nothing.

  ‘This is a war of Gods and monsters,’ said Rogue, ‘we don’t know everything, but we know enough. Earth wasn’t attacked by chance. The dead attacked us as they wanted Star to be brought into the physical realm when a certain zombie impregnated a living human. Star then opened a wormhole so that she could lead her armies back into her forever war. Every wormhole has one hundred potential locations. They are linked to set places in space and time. So, we have just entered a wormhole. Let’s call it point A. We had one hundred locations to pick from, and each location is not only a place in space but in time. No two wormholes are linked to the same space in time. The wormholes are like a complex maze through the multi-verse and through time. We are currently travelling to point B, but we are not travelling in a straight line. Let’s say point A is 2010BC, point B could be 800AD or 30889BC.’

 

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