Nightmare of the Dead: Rise of the Zombies (9 page)

She couldn't move fast enough. Fiery pain raked across her back while she struggled to free her arm. She cursed herself for her foolish weakness; she'd put herself in perfect position to die.

The remaining nightmare-hellion sat upon her bloody back. When warm blood gushed out of her shoulder, the sharp needles of pain in her body did nothing more than evoke a sense of anger; she was mortal, after all. Would this be her second death?

After the sudden gunshot, the beast slumped forward over her. With her left arm trapped beneath her recent kill and her would-be-killer slumped over her, blood oozed out of her shoulder, and the black world blurred.

The dead body was pushed off of her back, and her arm was freed while McPhee grunted from the effort.

Stars danced in front of her eyes. She tried to see his face in the dark, but it was impossible. Instead, she grinned and tried to talk, "Figured you for a coward."

Her thoughts became a jumbled puzzle of pain. Her hand ached and her shoulder bled. The adrenaline in her bloodstream crashed, and a torturous day of pain and terror dragged her down beneath heavy waves of exhaustion. Perhaps if she slept again, she would awaken in her home beside a slumbering husband. The nightmare would be over.

"No need to thank me," he said. "I got no use for a wounded outlaw. You'll slow me down. As much fun as it was to meet a legend, I have to look out for myself."

"You talk too much," she breathed through her teeth.

"My wife used to say the same thing."

McPhee's laughter followed her into unconsciousness.

May 20th, 1863
:
You Can See Me Now

"
A good soldier who will give anything for his president," Doctor Lynch affectionately stroked a swath of hair away from the young soldier's eyes.

Inside the lab beneath the Confederate hospital camp, the machine labored to manufacture more of the doctor's macabre recipe. A crude mask that seemed more like a skeletal claw had been placed over the young soldier's lower face. It sucked and pumped each breath into an apparatus that had been fashioned out of spare metals and wood. The young man's festering, wounded stomach produced a foul odor from his rotting intestines. The production of the gaseous substances was the most crucial to the development of the recipe, although it wasn't the only required component.

The youth's eyes fluttered open, and he writhed against the iron restraints.

"The waking nightmare," Saul tittered while rubbing his palms against each other. "Yes, I know it hurts. I would like to promise that will be over soon, but I cannot."

A long rubber tube that was connected to the man's penis filled with urine. The tube filled another jar sitting beside the apparatus. Saul gathered a towel stained with russet splotches and blotted the sweat that collected on his patient's forehead and neck.

"We must begin the procedure," Saul said.

A gust of wind howled through the tunnel while Saul labored in his cave. The entire laboratory had been built for him by engineers who'd been paid out of the Confederate war chest. Saul's bid to join the Nightmare Collective and complete his dream project was made possible by a demonstration he did for the president, and after Davis agreed, the Collective became interested. The hospital camp and lab were built according to Saul's needs, and he'd been fortunate enough that several battles happened close enough to his lab.

Now, all he had to do was deliver.

Lamplight illuminated the woman in the wheelchair beside the door, her head hanging limply beside her left shoulder, strands of greasy black hair falling in front of her eyes.

The Collective wanted you to prove the dead can return to life. You've created something far worse. Meanwhile, you've abandoned…

"I haven't abandoned her!" Saul shouted. He danced around the table and laughed while grabbing a knife and forceps from his case of tools.

He'd lived with his mother's accusations his entire life. It didn't matter who'd hurt her enough to damage her physical body, all that mattered was that Saul loved her more than anything, and all of his goals revolved around her happiness. When he finally joined the Nightmare Collective, they would give him the funding and laboratory he needed to restore his mother to prominence. It wasn't fair that he was the only one who could hear her voice. Her wisdom should be shared, as it once was.

The power of his weapon would have to be demonstrated at Vicksburg, but he needed to collect enough infection and human suffering to make a mixture powerful enough to transform the city's entire garrison. With his added hallucinatory narcotics, the transformation from man to walking corpse could be completed, and with enough canisters, the siege of Vicksburg would be lifted. 

"Look at me," he said to the soldier. "I'm going to remove the infection in your stomach. You will survive the procedure for a very long time, but eventually, you will die. Perhaps it will be from blood loss, or maybe it will be from shock. I wonder if it was worth it to
you.
I mean, the cause for which you fought, the lust for battle that drove you into my arms. Did you kill a man? Did you deprive two parents of a son? Have you inflicted harm upon a slave? What must you know about suffering? You've been free your entire life, haven't you?"

The man's scream was muffled against the spider-mask. Fresh tears trickled along his temples, and Saul quickly dabbed at them with the stained towel.

"Suffering is truly relative," the doctor suggested. "While these moments will be agonizing for you, it will end. You will not see the night, yet, there are others who've endured far worse on a daily basis. I say this not to make you accept what has happened, but for you to realize how insignificant this moment truly is. Beyond yourself, your sacrifice means nothing. I will help save your country, but for an ideal that is exclusive to me."

When she recovers her memory, she will remember why she betrayed the Collective. She will know why she changed. You believe that her tendencies are natural, and she'll willingly return to us, but she fell in love, and her strength diminished. Santiago will kill her first.

"Mother! Her sensibilities were corrupted by exposure to the negros. I agree that she's an invaluable weapon for the Collective, and I've done what I can to bring her back into the fold, but if Santiago feels she must die, then our own goals remain paramount! We can't allow
her to
destroy the future of the human race!"

But he had a special variation of Transmortification reserved just for his beloved sister.

While his mother's voice continued to taunt him and remind him of his failures, he gritted his metal teeth and began to cut away at the flesh surrounding the stomach wound. Blackened and charred from the spreading infection, Saul cut away without any protection on his hands or eyes.

He dreaded this moment. Whenever he began the procedure, his brain reverted to a primal state, weakened by memory and the abuse h
e
suffered as a boy. He could hear his sister's voice taunting him whenever he played with his mice.

The loss of his teeth was a memory he would never forget.

***

Mother rode upon her horse with the reins clenched tightly between her hands, with an armed retinue following behind as they left the homestead. Saul held on tightly to the banister along the spiral, red-carpeted staircase of his family's ancestral manse. Through a large window in the
foyer,
he could see the horses gallop away.

He slowly made his way down the staircase. Saul knew exactly where his younger sister was.

Saul wanted nothing more than the freedom to play with his mice. She would tease him and would sometimes even kill the mice Mother brought home for him to play with. The eleven-year-old girl would call him "weakling" and "little girl." She would rip the pages out of his anatomy books and would leave dead spiders in his clothes. She spat on him. Punched him. Kicked him. Invited her friends to torment him.

At fifteen, his own dreams were being ripped from him by the meddling sister who'd been allowed free reign. Mother would laugh at his suffering—Saul learned a long time ago that complaining about his sister got him nowhere. He was encouraged to find his own way to deal with it.

In the darkness beneath the covers in the cool Irish evenings, he would fantasize about the pain he wanted to inflict upon his sister for everything she'd done to him. At first, he imagined himself fighting back when she would physically assault him. He'd tried it, once, and when she retorted, he easily wilted, and she'd been motivated to humiliate him in a new fashion.

Saul's fantasies slowly evolved. There was a variety of tools in the farmhouse that he could use to maim her. An axe that could be used to chop her up into little pieces. Would she keep laughing if he strung her up and slaughtered her in the manner of a pig? If he disemboweled the little bitch, would she still find a way to strike back at him?

During his waking hours, the mice began to feel his wrath. At first, he'd smash them with large leather-bound books in the library beneath the house. He would curiously observe the amount of gore and feel unsatisfied. The mice were dead far too quickly.

Once, his dreaded sister caught him in the library with his mice. He couldn't keep his knobby knees from shaking whenever she came near. She was well aware of the pain her very presence caused him, and she delighted in it.

"There you are!" she laughed. "It's time to play! You've been hiding down here all day, haven't you? It's cold and damp here—why don’t you come outside? Come on, big brother! Let's go swimming. Mother says you need to develop some muscle because you're all skin and bone. She's right! I've never seen a man look like you. Men are strong and big. What're
you
gonna be?"

She slowly approached the table where he sat with his book. He squirmed uneasily in his seat and stammered, "I don't, um, I don't want to. I mean I'm tired and I don't, um, I just want to stay here."

"Ha! I knew you'd say that. You read so many books, you're like a bookworm! You look like a worm. You squiggle and wiggle all the time, and you're so tiny. What book are you reading?"

He tried to nudge the book away from her, but when he did so, a spot of blood on the mahogany table was revealed in the lamp's glow. His sister frowned for a moment and then looked at her brother with fierce eyes.

"What have you been doing down here?" she balled her hands into tiny fists.

"Reading," Saul sank into his chair.

"I went looking for your mice. I know Mother brought more home for you. There was only one. Where's the other? Do you have it?"

He quickly shook his head.

"You should play with me. Mother says you have to share! Where's the mouse?"

Again, he shook his head from side to side. "I don't know."

She grabbed the heavy book and looked at the underside. How did she know? How could she guess?

Her mouth opened into a wide "O"
,
which suggested that Mother wasn't going to
be
very happy; he clearly murdered the mouse Mother brought home just for him. Saul was an ungrateful boy.

"You love these books so much," she said. "Maybe if I beat you over the head with
one that
would be easier than reading. It might be stuck in your brain so you'll never forget. I think it would be fun! Let's play that game!"

"Young ladies don't play games," he tried to challenge her. "You're a young lady. You have better things to do, I'm sure."

"Oh no, this is more fun than I could ever have. And besides, Mother said I don't have to be a lady if I don't want to. I can keep on playing with you, because there isn't anything more fun. Don't you agree?"

When he didn't answer her, she hefted the book into her hands and announced, "Well, you have to play. Because if you don't, I'll tell Mother what you've been doing with the mice. You're a sick boy. Why would you hurt these little mice? They didn't do anything to you, did they? They're so cute and adorable—why are you so sick? What's wrong with you?"

Saul loved his mice. Mother would be very upset with him, but there was no guarantee his sister wouldn't tell her, anyway. He didn't want to be beat with the book, and if he resisted, it would only make matters worse. Mother would take his sister's side in a dispute. She always did, no matter how hard he tried to make his matriarch happy.

And more than anything, he wanted to continue with his experiments. There were so many things he had planned for the mice.

"Go away and leave me alone," Saul squirmed uncomfortably.

"What're you gonna do about it? Go hide under Abigail's skirts? You let me do this, or there will be problems."

Abigail was the house servant who was nice to him whenever he needed to be comforted, or whenever he needed to hide from his sister.

"Put your head down!" she commanded him while she lifted the book level with her chest. At four feet tall with brown pigtails, her round, smooth cheeks joined the lively face in crafting the quintessential model of youthful innocence. No other man would have believed that she was capable of such viciousness. Saul understood her differently. He knew her in an intimate manner; she was the slave-master, and he was the slave. He feared her will and power.