Zombies II: Inhuman (2 page)

The dead were becoming excited. Dozens upon
dozens more of them came out of the surrounding buildings and
alleyways pouring into the street. Thorne took aim and downed one
of the closer ones with a head shot from his revolver as the APC
pulled up to him. Nate leaned out and waved him over. Thorne darted
for the cover of the vehicle slamming its heavy metal door into the
face of the creatures as he jumped inside. Nate opened up with the
anti-personal machine gun on its turret cutting down the deaders
around them.

"Stop playing around, damn it!" Thorne yelled
at him.

"Ain't no cause to get riled man," Nate
joked. "Just hit it already."

Thorne slid into the driver's seat and the
APC plowed through and over the dead as it headed north. Thorne cut
the engine as they pulled up to the hospital Nate claimed was his
home. There were thousands of deaders in the streets. The APC
rocked from the pounding of fists against its armored hide.

"Now what?" Thorne asked.

"Dude, a little faith please," Nate remarked.
"Climb out on top of this thing and I'll get you in. Trust me."

Thorne had no choice. He climbed up through
the gun turret out onto the APC's roof looking down into the sea of
hungry faces around him. He knew the things were going to flip the
APC at any moment. Wind blew over him and he felt Nate's arms
around him. The world became a blur as he was hurled upwards. Nate
had darted out of the APC running down the street, dodging the dead
as he built up speed then headed back like a streak of lightning
taking Thorne in his arms.

He carried him up the side of the hospital
and in through a window on the eighth floor. The next thing Thorne
knew he was bouncing across the hospital's tile floor as Nate
dropped him and fell to his own knees panting. Nate appeared on the
verge of passing out. Sweat dripped from his black hair and he
glared at Thorne.

"You weigh a freakin' ton dude," he
commented.

"One hundred and seventy pounds, actually,"
Thorne replied as he started to get to his feet as a hand fell onto
his shoulder. He looked up into the face of a stunningly beautiful
young woman. She had short brown hair cut well above her shoulders
and wore a green dress that was breathtaking. She smiled at him as
electricity shot through his body and his world went black.

Thorne awoke in a hospital bed. His hands and
feet were bound to the bed by leather restraints. The young woman
sat next to him with her hand placed open palmed on his chest.

"Nate told us what you do. Even think about
getting into my head and I'll fry you to a crisp," she warned
him.

Nate stood off in a corner of the room. A
tall blond man stood at the foot of the bed looking down at
Thorne.

"Welcome to our home," he said in a voice
which was anything but friendly. "I am sorry about the restraints
but even such as us can't take chances these days. You've met Nate.
The young lady beside you goes by the name of Arc. You may call me
Victor."

"I thought there were supposed to be four of
you," Thorne commented.

"There are," Victor assured him as the image
of a man appeared in the room. His body was transparent and
shimmered as it floated above Victor. The ghost-thing waved hello
and vanished into the air as quickly as it had manifested.

"Yes," Victor nodded, "As cliché as it is,
his name is Apparition. He is only with us sometimes. As I
understand it, he was once like you, Thorne, but upon his death he
evolved so to speak. It's hard for us to communicate with him but I
believe he claims his body is still out there on the streets
somewhere, perhaps one of the creatures outside this very hospital.
We do not know for sure nor does it matter. Obviously, the state he
exists in keeps him from helping out much. But what of you Thorne?
What you have become surely is rather pointless in a world filled
with the dead."

"I make do," Thorne informed him coldly.

"Do your gifts work on the dead?" Victor
asked. "Or are they truly mindless?"

Thorne remained silent. The girl called Arc
glanced up at Victor. "Let me fry him. He's too dangerous to keep
around."

Thorne stared at her. How could someone so
beautiful be so cold? How could she think so little of life in a
world where it was so rare?

Victor raised his hand. "You have two choices
Mr. Thorne. You're either one of us or you're dead. Can you be of
use to us? Do your powers work on the dead?"

Thorne frowned. "Kind of, I can sense the
dead as well as I can sense the living. Knowing where and how many
of them there are around me is what's kept me alive."

"Hmm... Like a radar sense for souls.
Interesting," Victor mumbled.

"And they are pretty much mindless. I can't
bend their wills and make them eat themselves or anything if that's
what you're wondering. There simply isn't enough left in them to
work with that way. I have though on occasion with great effort
been able to shut off the senses of one or two of them just enough
for me to slip by unnoticed but it's like trying to drive a car
with your hands tied."

"I see," Victor announced. "You are better
than the norms. You may stay with us if you like as long as you
understand that if you touch our thoughts or scan us even passively
without our direct consent I will personally rip you to shreds and
feed you to the monsters in the streets below."

"Fair enough," Thorne agreed wondering how
Victor was going to know if he used his powers but he was not
stupid enough to ask.

"Unshackle him Nate," Victor ordered. "Our
new brother needs to see his home."

Arc led Thorne through the hospital's
corridors. It was clear she disagreed with Victor's choice to let
him stay. Thorne could hear the veiled anger in her voice as she
showed him around.

"As you can see we've made this place
livable. We grow our own food both on the roof and in several
interior gardens as well. Not that we need to. Nate can acquire
almost anything that we need within a hundred mile radius or so.
We've a well stocked armory that we have put together should we
ever need it and a large cache of medical supplies from the
hospital itself. The entire top three floors of this building are
ours and completely cut off from the rest of the building. If
you're not Nate or a ghost like Apparition, the only way in or out
is a long climb. Our living quarters are located here on the top
floor. You, Nate, and I have rooms on this side of the building.
The other side belongs to Victor."

"We get rooms and he gets a wing. Seems
fair," Thorne joked.

"Victor needs the space," Arc growled. She
paused in front of a green door. "This one's yours."

Thorne glanced inside. The room looked more
like a mad scientist's lab than a place to sleep. There were
computers, reams of paper, notebooks and tools everywhere. He
spotted at least three devices that appeared to be microscopes of
some sort. "Copy," he muttered.

"Look," Arc warned him. "You can clean out
the junk. Samuel's gone. The bastard defected. It's not like you're
going to have trouble finding a bed in this place to drag in
here."

"Who's Samuel?"

"I'd rather not talk about that okay? Ask
Victor if you want to know."

"What do you mean defected?"

"Switched sides, sold us out, betrayed us-
take your pick. We're at war Thorne and you've just joined the
winning side. Be thankful for it." Arc walked off without another
word leaving Thorne standing alone outside his new room.

Thorne spent the next few hours getting used
to the hospital and selecting a bed for his room. It was work
getting the bed dragged into the room and a space cleared out for
it. He found himself wondering how Samuel had slept in this room
much less lived here. He managed to stack all of Samuel's notes and
things into a single corner vowing to take a look at what they were
before he discarded them but now it had been a day and he needed
sleep. It had been a while since he'd slept in a real bed and he
was looking forward to it.

He stretched out and felt his eyes already
beginning to close from exhaustion. Sleep came easily to him but it
was far from peaceful. He dreamt of the dead waiting on the streets
below. Yellowed teeth, slick with something red and warm, gnawed at
him as ragged fingernails dug into his flesh.

A knock that sounded like machine gun fire
tore him out of his nightmare. As he awoke he realized Apparition
had been with him in his dream. The man had screamed three words
over and over again as the dead ripped Thorne apart and the ghost
watched on. "Victor. . .The end. Victor. .. The end."

Thorne pulled himself out of bed as the knock
became even faster.

"Hey man, you dead in there or what?" he
heard Nate yell.

Thorne opened the door. Nate stood in the
hall with a plate of food. "Figured you'd want breakfast amigo.
Victor wants to talk with you pronto so I didn't think you'd have
time to hit the kitchen."

Thorne eyed the plate, his mouth watering.
"Are those real eggs?"

"You bet," Nate answered. "Snagged them from
a farm just outside of the city."

Thorne took the plate sitting down at one of
the room's worktables.

He shoved a computer to the side and started
shoveling the eggs in his mouth.

"Take it easy man. You're not going to be
starving anymore like you were out there."

Thorne looked up at Nate to say thanks but
Nate was long gone.

He took a bite out of a piece of toast and
wondered what Victor really wanted from him. He longed to take a
look into Victor's mind but he'd promised he wouldn't and his life
depended on that promise if Victor really had a way to know when he
used his gift.

Thorne found Victor waiting for him on the
roof. The tall blond man stood like a king on top of the hospital
looking out at the horizon.

He paid no attention to the thousands of dead
who wandered about below. "I trust you slept well," Victor stated
not even bothering to glance at Thorne.

Thorne moved to stand beside him. "It was
certainly a change from being down there."

"Thorne, I am not going to lie to you. The
room you are staying in belonged to my father, Samuel. He hurt us
all badly."

"Samuel," Thorne answered. "Arc mentioned him
yesterday. She said he betrayed you, switched sides."

"It's true. The world may be dead but we're
still at war, Thorne. I'm not talking about the dead. They are
seldom a real threat to such as we. It's the norms that are the
danger and it's them that my father left us for."

"You mean people? There are still people left
alive out there?"

"Yes. The last great holdout of mankind lies
just beyond this city. When we first took shelter here my father
approached them and sought an alliance with them. He thought that
together we could start over, bring the world back from its knees
rather than merely watch it slide slowly into death's waiting arms
as it is now. But can you guess how they reacted?"

Thorne shook his head.

"They came for us Thorne like a mob hunting
down Frankenstein's monster. They called us freaks. They feared us
more than they did the dead. Some of them even blamed us for the
dead tearing their way out of the ground. They sent a group of
heavily armed killers in place of a diplomatic party to eliminate
our threat to their existence once and for all. They broke into our
home, wounded Nate and Arc before I could intervene and would've
killed us in cold blood if they had been able. I fed them to the
dead in pieces. It was clear to me then, Thorne, that if the world
is to be reborn, it must be people like us who take charge.

"My father disagreed. Even then he couldn't
be made to understand the truth. We held a meeting and the other
four of us of agreed that we would take the norms sanctuary by
force. They would be made to see that we were not a threat. They
would serve us and help us begin again. My father would have
nothing of it. Outvoted though, he had little choice but to go
along with our plans. When the day came, he turned on us. You see
Thorne; my father is a tele-mechanic and a genius. He understands
machines in way no one can. Even in this barren world I have seen
him create technological marvels beyond anything mankind ever
achieved in all its glory."

"So how did he stop you? I mean there are
three of you and Nate alone is like an army. It doesn't sound like
his gift was aggressive enough to handle you guys."

"Oh, my father didn't use any powers against
us. As you say, his gift was not of that line of abilities. He had
built ways to stop us, fail-safes if you will to keep us in line.
He saw us as the great betrayers of mankind not himself. He took
out Nate first with a net actually able to contain him. He used the
hospital's sprinkler system against Arc. It was brutal. She took
days to recover. He even hurt me."

"Hurt you? Are you invulnerable? Is that your
gift?"

"I am many things," Victor turned to face
Thorne staring into him.

"He's building them an ark."

"An ark? I don't get it."

"He's building an ark to leave this world
behind for the stars. He must be stopped before they allow him to
lead them into the void. Nothing awaits mankind up there but death
as surely as if they stayed here without our hands to guide them
and keep them safe. Will you help me save the human race
Thorne?"

"How? I'm just one person Victor."

"Samuel doesn't know you exist. It's unlikely
he has devised a way to counter your power. You can kill him with a
thought Thorne and afterwards your gift will make you the perfect
watchman to help keep the norms in check until they see the truth
of things. You would have a chance to create a paradise with me
unlike any this world has ever known. Eventually I believe we'd
even be able to reclaim this entire planet from the rotting grasp
which holds it now."