“Baron!” Barilla called shakily, kneeling alongside his child soldier.
The Baron turned to face him. What a sad figure he carved, clutching his revolver for safety. He wasn’t even injured. At least Martin, that meat slab of a man, had put an arm behind Stubs’ shoulders, offering human comfort and a mote of rest.
It struck d’Holbach that if he hadn’t grabbed the dock boss and thrown him forward, Barilla might’ve hesitated until the sniper ventilated him, a second victim.
Tears were already on Barilla’s cheeks. “It’s Stubs, they shot Stubs!”
“I’m sorry,” the Baron answered, and it was an honest apology. He’d wanted to escape without casualties. Now, blood pulsed out of Stubs’ wound with the regularity of a short clock, running down the last minutes at the end of a short life.
“Can you lay hands on him?” Barilla asked, nearly begging.
“Not with my current prestige,” the Baron replied, stepping further into the safety of the shadows. He held the Zombie’s hat at his waistline, bowing his own head. “I’m truly sorry.”
The boss fixed him with an indignant glare. “What do you mean, you’re sorry? You promised healing for my son, didn’t you?”
“When I had more prestige, yes—”
“He’s shot!” Barilla yelled, as if raising his voice could change the facts of the matter, the little quirks of history and the costs of magic that were conspiring to seal this young man’s fate.
Phyllis swept around from where she was comforting one of the younger boys, knelt by her boss, and grabbed his upper arm with her thin fingers. “He can’t help!” she said sharply, gritting her teeth with barely restrained frustration. “Stop yelling!”
“Stay calm,” Martin whispered to Stubs, pulling him in a little closer.
Barilla twitched like he’d been slapped, staring into her eyes. “Phyllis?”
“Listen to me!” She shook her boss’s arm once, barely shifting his mass. “We need to defend ourselves! Either we get out, or the Anastasia boys bail us out. Either way, you don’t help Stubs by yelling at the Baron. Do you understand me?”
“Yeah,” Barilla said breathily.
“Good.” She let go of him, standing up. “Everyone, keep an eye on the inside doors! I don’t want anyone coming in here without a gun barking an answer!”
Barilla nodded, catching onto her meaning and rising up himself. “Arm up, boys! You heard the woman! Anyone comes through a door, we drive ‘em back!”
His gang echoed his command with a half-hearted cry of bravery, all while retreating to the darkest, safest corner of this room. The Baron slouched after them with Phyllis at his side, watching as this would-be Red Hook gang armed itself at Barilla’s command.
One member was pulling out loose .22 cartridges from his pants pocket, fumbling, dropping them on the floor. He had a hollow aerial antenna shoved through a rubber golf handle for a barrel. The round was jammed into the hole, set to be fired by a strip of medical tubing punctured by a screw. The other boys saw what he was doing and scrambled to pick up the fallen rounds for themselves. Zip guns of all shapes and sizes were unfolded and loaded. Tubes ripped out of old coffee percolators were just the right size for a barrel. Soft chunks of pine, normally used for whittling, were already shaped into crude handles with clothespin triggers.
“Don’t fire unless you have to,” the Baron commanded them. What he really wanted to say was, don’t use zip guns, but there wasn’t much of a choice here. Barilla was waiting for his youngest soldiers to arm themselves in the approved way. Despite supporting and exploiting youth gangs, the Cosa Nostra never supplied them with real guns. Illegal firearms were too expensive to waste on scads of volatile children who’d rarely pay the mob back.
“We’re ready,” Barilla said, when the last and youngest boy had armed himself.
The Zombie turned away from the open window, coming over to meet them in the corner. He glanced over the armed children, scowled for an instant, and then met his friend’s questioning eyes.
The Baron’s raised eyebrow was a silent question: see anything out there?
The Zombie answered promptly, “It’s a powder keg. I think Schuler is crawling on his belly behind a row of steel mailboxes, dragging his ass like a slug. Gutshot—for now.”
“How do you know?” Phyllis asked, huddling in closer to speak with them.
The Zombie glanced back towards the shattered window. “Fresh blood was smeared across twenty feet of sidewalk. I don’t know why he hasn’t healed himself already.”
“He’s a madman,” the Baron said plainly. There was no easier answer.
“Gods,” Phyllis muttered.
“Where’s he going?” the Baron asked, clutching the Zombie’s hat at his waistline.
The invincible man took a deep breath—this time for the emotional expression of it. “I think he’s heading for the panel truck parked about a block away from here.”
“Panel truck? How big?”
“A half-ton Chevy. The kind you’d use to carry people.”
“Any other signs of the enemy?” the Baron asked.
A curt nod. “There’s at least ten men on that side alone, twitching for a target. Shouldn’t be long till the whole thing explodes.”
“How do you know?” Phyllis asked him.
“It’s been loud,” the Zombie said plainly. “They need to finish up here before anyone arrives. My guess is they’re here to kill everyone.”
“But why?” Phyllis asked, still struggling to fully understand.
The Zombie shrugged. He couldn’t provide the obvious answer, if only because it’d give away the truth of the whole scenario in front of many witnesses. If someone had swallowed the Cat, the easiest way to discover its location was to shoot its bearer and see that they survived. Everyone else could just die, conveniently eliminating all other witnesses.
“At least they’re afraid of you, right?” Phyllis asked the Zombie.
He smirked but didn’t answer the question.
“Are you telling me they’re not?” she pressed. “But you have the Pact! They should be terrified!”
“I know,” the Zombie said softly. “I’ll just have to be more terrifying.”
She paused, frowning doubtfully. After a second, her mind seemed to change along with her expression. Eyes opened wider in fearful recognition. “You really mean that?”
“He does,” the Baron whispered. “Zombie, change of plans. We can’t move our casualties, so I’ll need you to secure the building. Assume there are enemies inside with us.” A quick flick of the Zombie’s hat indicated the rooms toward the waterfront, including the quadrant of the building they’d originally avoided because of an open garage door. “Sweep the place, close any open doors, and make an example or two.”
“An example,” Phyllis whispered, scowling. “You mean to be cruel.”
The Baron rubbed his bald head with a sweaty palm. “I hate it, but it might be the only way these boys make it out alive. Unless you have a better idea, because I’ll entertain it.”
“It’s not my choice,” Phyllis whispered. “I’m not invincible.”
The Zombie let a sly smile spread across his face. He reached into a pocket and removed the penny knife, unfolding it and showing Phyllis the cheap blade. “If it’ll make you happy, I can make an example or two without making it too painful. How’s that sound?”
Phyllis recoiled the tiniest iota. “I’m not making that decision.”
The Zombie laughed softly, truly joyful. “Then I’ll choose it for myself. It’ll hurt, and then it won’t. A kind murder.” He gestured with the knife, splitting their little huddle apart, and he marched for the back of the building, laughing at his own words. “So very, very kind!”
The soulless and invincible man stalked towards the back of the room, aware of the Baron’s gaze resting on his shoulders. He was proud of himself; the most moral, godless man alive was letting him off the leash, approving of his vanity and power.
This diminutive, fragile knife would retrace the lines of his legend, carving men into corpses, and each one would become a unique word in a primeval language. It was a method of communication, more compelling than ephemeral words of breath and tongue. To predators, it was a crimson triumph. To their prey, it was a single word. Run.
Each interior wall had two sets of swinging doors, set some distance apart. He chose the doors on the left, closer to the outer wall, angling to cut off any escape. He couldn’t make an easy example out of someone who died alone in an alley, and after a child had caught a bullet with a kidney, the Zombie was starving for some public vengeance.
He stopped at the final moment, peering through the gap between the swinging doors. One man was standing near the open garage door, waving someone in. He was late 30s, white with buzzed brown hair, holding a pitted Garand rifle and wearing old WW2 fatigues—sensible, since the combat uniform was all wool. Ex-soldiers, American, which jarred with the Zombie’s expectations. Weren’t these Soviet-aligned mercenaries?
The man coming inside stopped to whisper to his colleague. This one was in his forties, black and grey hair, holding an M3A1 submachinegun—a Grease Gun.
Two people were guaranteed indoors now. Almost certainly three. The Zombie raised two fingers back towards the Baron, then raised a third and waggled his hand for uncertainty. No need to check if the Baron understood. Soon, there’d be far, far fewer people.
The Zombie pushed shoulder-first through the swinging doors, letting them close across his trailing arm before catching them shut behind his back.
Two mercs snapped to attention, vaguely pointing their weapons. A third merc was in fact on the right side of the room, holding an M1 Thompson SMG and peering through the doors that they’d avoided only minutes before. So three examples to make—Garand, Grease Gun, and Thompson.
“Gentlemen,” the Zombie said warmly, brandishing the penny knife.
Thompson swept around, keeping his barrel towards the ground.
The man with the Garand suddenly flinched. Did he know?
Grease Gun already had the dust cover flipped up—effectively, the safety was off. He rushed to finger-cock the bolt.
The Zombie smiled broadly and took big, friendly strides into the middle of the room, arms wide as if he intended to hug an old, dear friend. “I’m glad to see you!”
Grease Gun crammed the wire stock against his shoulder and shouted, “Get on the ground!” Ironsights wavered for only a moment as he took aim, center of mass.
“Wait!” Thompson yelled.
The Zombie strode towards Grease Gun, staring down the barrel. “Three guesses who I am—” he began.
Grease Gun pulled the trigger for almost a full second. The first shot went low, tearing into the belly of the Zombie’s shirt. The next one jumped high, ricocheting off his sternum. Then the soldier had control, and the last five shots all grouped tightly on the Zombie’s chest, peppering him. Flecks of wool and cotton fluttered like confetti.
Most rounds had shattered or ricocheted, but one came to a stop and rolled off the Zombie’s chest. He caught it with his spare hand and paused, holding up the pristine bullet to the daylight streaming in through the garage door. The echoes of gunfire faded into horrible silence. Three sets of eyes stared at that tiny piece of proof.
The Zombie smiled, flicking the bullet away, and raised the knife in a hammer grip. “That’s one guess,” he declared. Then he rushed Grease Gun.
The merc with the Garand tried to shout something, but Grease Gun guessed again with a second salvo, holding down the trigger until the Zombie rammed into him bodily, knocking the SMG loose at the same moment that he slashed the side of the man’s neck with the penny knife. It felt fluid, the controlled stroke of an artist painting his masterpiece in the middle of a car crash. Flesh parted, and a bright merry jet of arterial red shot through the sunlight. Grease Gun stumbled backwards, howling in terror like an animal unleashed, spinning around and already bolting for safety, even as another two heartbeats of blood jetted out in smooth flows.
“That’s two!” the Zombie yelled, turning away from an already dead man. Grease Gun blacked out from immediate blood loss and collapsed behind him, a tumble of limbs.
Thompson was yelling into a walkie-talkie, “Zombie in the back!”
Garand sprinted for the door past Thompson, fleeing deeper into the building. Dangerous, but a rifle wasn’t an SMG.
The Zombie charged Thompson, who smashed his radio into the floor, dropped his weapon, and raised his hands just before the Zombie drove the small knife into his chest, right into his heart. One last spasm of muscle, felt through the handle. Then a wet gasp of surprise.
“I surrender,” Thompson croaked. Last breath. Last words.
“Too late.” The Zombie gripped the wooden handle and turned away from the man, yanking up like he wanted to pitch the knife overhand. For a mortal, this would’ve torn the handle out of his grip or hyperextended his shoulder. For the Zombie, all possible injuries were prevented by generating immense forces. Tight in his grip, the blade jumped explosively upwards, slashing through lung and heart until the leading edge bit into a rib, literally jerking Thompson a half inch up while snapping the blade off at the handle.
The merc collapsed backwards onto the floor, gurgling and thrashing as blood poured from his new chest wound like a tapped maple tree. Would-be killers of children deserved no less, and Garand was still in the building. One last threat.
The Zombie threw the knife handle aside and sprinted past Thompson, already running faster than most cars on city streets. When he hit the swinging doors, one flung open with a thunderous bang, and the other tore off its hinges with a calamitous roar of metal screws tearing loose. Debris tumbled ahead of his charge, a tremendous spectacle, but he’d made the wrong choice. The room was empty, and a set of doors on the right were swinging closed.
Garand was circling through the building, but the Zombie was moving too fast to turn. He gave up, going limp, and slammed belly first into one of the old factory tables, folding over the edge before stopping dead without any transfer of momentum. Good enough.
“Baron!” the Zombie bellowed, all the warning he had time to give.
Bedlam and a shout were all that was needed.
The Baron took a knee and waved the Zombie’s bowler like a commander’s flag, indicating the doors they’d entered through. “Over there!”
Like a flock of birds taking flight, Martin ducked next, then Phyllis. Barilla and his street gang knelt last, bringing up their weapons in quivering hands.
The tables between them and the far doors wouldn’t provide any real cover, but even a moment of obfuscation might save them, the Baron’s life, and the lives of many more.
A mercenary in military fatigues shoved through the swinging doors, already aiming his Garand. He twitched at the sudden sight of a line of kneeling men, then pulled the rifle towards a target and pulled the trigger. A round bit into wood, spraying lacquered splinters.
Barilla answered with a crack of his revolver, a powerful shot flying wide left of the merc’s head. Chips of brick scattered, while the merc made a wish.
“Jammed!” he roared, freezing the cylinder of Barilla’s revolver in place, even as the mob boss still pulled the revolver’s trigger twice more, uselessly.
“Miss!” the Baron wished, not for his sake but Barilla’s. It was only a second of blessed protection, but even as the word was shouted, Garand fired again, blowing a hole into the brick just past the dock boss. A little prestige drained away; it’d only been a slight modification of trajectory, practically a coincidence, but it’d been a miracle all the same.
Six zip-guns went off like a string of firecrackers; two bullets punctured the merc, once in the arm, once in the stomach. There was screaming from both kids and men. One kid dropped his wooden handle; the tips of his fingers on his left hand were gone. The Garand rifle struck the floor a moment later—the merc’s left arm had fallen slack, but he wasn’t stopped. Riding a wave of adrenaline, he pulled a 1911 from a quick-release holster, fired twice while trying to account for the tables, hit the floor, then a street gangster’s throat.
Then the door burst open behind him, and the Zombie tackled him bodily onto the floor, slamming him into the concrete. The 1911 skittered across the concrete; the merc yelped.
The Baron saw an opportunity, unexpected but valuable. “Keep him alive!” he ordered.
The Zombie rolled off the fallen man and sprung to his feet with marionette strength—twitching strangely, launching his body up and around with divine forces, protecting fingers and ankles from twisting and bending till they broke. He kicked the Garand across the floor towards Martin and picked up the dropped 1911. A momentary glance was spared for the fallen mercenary. The merc was rolling over onto his back, holding both hands over his gut wound and glaring daggers at the Zombie.
“He’s alive!” the Zombie called cheerily. “For now!”
Martin scooped up the rifle, just inches away from the long stretches of sunlight cast by the windows, and he darted back, fearful of who might spot him through the gap.
Two of the kids were crouching over their collapsing brother. Phyllis joined them, trying to assert some adult sanity onto tragedy. The others were shushing the teen with freshly ruined fingers, saying that he’d be just like Stubs, and they all loved Stubs. Stubs who was still dying against the wall, shivering with a hand clutching at his kidney.
The Baron didn’t hesitate. “Zombie! Grab his ankles. Drag him past the windows.”
The Zombie snapped his fingers and saluted. The 1911 was carefully tucked into his belt; everything else was merely a matter of strength. The groaning mercenary slid with his shoulders against the floor, until he was pulled into the safety of the shadows and the glaring attention of Baron d’Holbach. The Zombie dropped his legs with a thud of boots. The mercenary twitched miserably, teeth-gritted. The pain must be growing.
“Pistol?” the invincible man asked the crowd, offering the merc’s 1911.
Barilla holstered his revolver and took the weapon gladly.
“I’m going to shut the garage door,” the Zombie said.
The Baron waved him off with his hat, a silent agreement. Then he knelt alongside the wounded man and stripped his radio. It was intact. “You can’t dodge and live,” he told the wounded man, “and I know your friends won’t take you back. Just this morning, they shot one of you after he surrendered to us. So if you want to live, you’ll follow my orders.”
The merc muttered, “Radio serial bullshit.”
“What?” the Baron asked.
“He had a family.” The merc’s eyes closed, wincing. “That’s all.”
That was a curious assertion, more personal than expected. “You know who got shot?”
“Yeah, he was shot because he had a family.” The merc coughed. “It was a favor. Dead men get funerals. Losers get outed as Commies.”
Martin was standing by them, watching the doors alertly. He glanced at the merc but didn’t see a man, just a dying enemy. The Baron had seen soldiers and murderers with that empty expression. “Fuckin reds,” he muttered.
As Commies. The truth began to assemble itself in the Baron’s mind. “Your employers are blackmailing you?” he asked.
“Of course,” the merc replied. “They paid us to fight Pinkertons in the 40s. They have our names, receipts, records. We were muscle for the CPUSA.”
“You’re the dregs of the Communist Party,” the Baron concluded, hearing all his suspicions confirmed in five letters. CPUSA. Until today, they were an entirely unknown occult resource. Now, the Baron began to grasp the scale of the enemy arrayed against them.
The garage door in the other room clattered on its rails, shutting.
The merc laughed, a hacking sound. “It’s enough to ruin lives.” He frowned. ”Who’d want to hire the wife of a Communist? Who’d hire his son? Better dead.”
Before the Foley Square Trials in 1949, the Communist Party USA had been a significant secular power in America—mixing organized crime, anti-war movements, and unionizing labor under one crimson banner. Like all radical organizations, they’d collected a goon squad of hitmen and militia members, some of them soldiers back from the war, others covertly trained by the KGB. Whether or not they’d been part of a true fifth column was unknown, but in criminal circles they were widely known for opposing union-busters and government plants.
In another context, they might’ve been heroes for the working man. Here and now, they were utterly compromised, dying for the sake of families that’d be better off without them.
“Are you working for Malik?” the Baron asked.
“Just some Russian,” the merc said. “They’re all fucking insane.”
“Stop chewing the fat,” Barilla said bitterly.
“We need to interrogate—”
“He’s a fucking dog!” Barilla shouted. When the Baron failed to snap back, he seemed surprised by his own anger, as if he was offended because nobody fought with him. “Nothing to say, you piece of shit?” It was hard to tell if he was talking to the Baron or the mercenary.
“They shot a child,” the Baron replied, “so, yes, I’m pissed too.”
The Zombie shouldered through the doors. “Shut and locked!” His eyes darted around the room, and all semblances of a smile died on his face. “How’s the kid-killer?”
The Baron waved him over. “They’re CPUSA goons. Suicidal, more or less.”
“Bobby is dead,” Phyllis declared, standing up from the kid who was shot in the neck.
“Fuck!” Barilla checked the safety on the 1911.
“Want me to kill him?” the Zombie asked the Baron.
The Baron’s impulse was to say yes; he’d watched the shooting. But his mind overruled his heart. “Stay your hand. We can use him.”
“Fuck this!” Barilla said, aiming the weapon.
“Put that down!” the Baron shouted at Barilla. “We need him!”
“He’s dead!” Barilla shouted, nevertheless lowering the pistol.
“Boss!” Stubs called to Barilla. The sorrow in that voice was so sharp, so desperate that every adult in the room—even the Zombie—turned to face it. “I want to go, Boss.”
Barilla’s anger was snuffed. “Stubs, buddy, I’m sorry.”
“I’m cold,” Stubs said bitterly. “Tired.” His hands were clenched over his kidney wound, but there was still blood seeping from the ragged hole. At a glance, his missing fingers appeared like a fresh amputation. “I want to see a doctor.”
“A doctor can’t help,” Phyllis said sadly.
“I mean a surgeon,” Stubs muttered. “At the hospital.”
“How?” the Baron asked, jumping on this point before Barilla or anyone else could complicate the reality. “You want to surrender?”
Stubs nodded rapidly. “Just me, yeah. Only me.”
Shit. The last minutes had been dominated by chaos. From the first gunshots until Stubs’ last, sad words, too many people had been talking at once. Emotions were running high—blood inflamed both fear and rage—but the word surrender was stronger still. It dropped the dead weight of gloom across the gangsters.
For the first time, they seemed to notice that they were in a factory line, crouched in the shadows. Long ago, sawdust had been poured out and swept away, leaving oily crusts of it in the corners, browning and pushed against the brick. A flattened cardboard box laid under a table. Dust had traced their motions, their violence. Blood smelled like it was everywhere, appeared like it was on everything. So bright and arresting, the thinnest layer implied landscapes of gore and injury, drowning beneath sanguine seas.
Outside the shattered windows, a spring wind blew half-heartedly. Gulls could be heard by the distant water. Whenever a kiss of outside air passed over them, it carried the chalky stench of limestone gravel roads.
It didn’t seem like a warzone. It wasn’t the kind of place where a boy like Stubs, hardly a man, should have to surrender to save his life. Yet unbidden, the Baron had offered it, and Stubs had accepted the suggestion. There was no other way out, at least for Stubs. Either he surrendered or he died. He was fatally wounded and couldn’t possibly run.
“Are you sure?” Phyllis asked Stubs.
“I want to live,” Stubs said.
“Then you have to try,” Phyllis replied. She squinted at the Baron. “Any ideas?”
The Baron was holding the merc’s walkie-talkie in one hand, the Zombie’s hat in the other. These were his only tools, and he’d have to use them both. He pointed the stubby radio antenna at the wounded merc. “Is this tuned in?”
The merc closed his eyes. “Press to send.”
The Baron held his thumb over the button. He needed to tell the CPUSA mercs that Stubs wanted to surrender, but if the walkie-talkies were part of a tightly-controlled radio network, they would only receive extremely important traffic. By keeping the radios a secret from the enemy, the Baron might learn something valuable, something that might save multiple lives. He needed a way to send a message without communicating their casualties in the factory. Only one person in this room could really manage that.
He kneeled by the merc’s head. “I need you to say something on the radio. I want you to tell your boss that a kid they shot wants to surrender.”
“You think you can trust him?” Phyllis asked.
The Zombie fielded that question. “Nothing to lose by trying.”
The merc grimaced. “I can’t report a surrender.”
“Is it no quarter then?” the Baron asked.
“No, we just can’t use the radio like that. Everything is code or shorthand. They didn’t give us a word for surrender.”
“What are the radios for then?” the Baron asked.
“Orders and intel.”
Stubs reached up with a hand, implicitly asking for someone, anyone to help him rise. “Please. I’ll just go out the door then. I’ve got to try. Got to.”
The Zombie was the only one unafraid of harming Stubs; he was the first to respond to that gesture of desire. Very carefully, he lowered his arm, letting Stubs grab hold of the cloth around his wrist. Then together, they rose. Once Stubs had his feet under him, legs shaking, he looked back to the Baron. “Front door?”
The Baron frowned. “Can you get him past the windows?”
The Zombie nodded curtly.
“Take him then,” the Baron agreed, waving the bowler towards the door. “Open it.”
“Are you sure?” Phyllis asked loudly.
Stubs spoke up, voice shuddering like his limbs. “I die here, out there, or I live. Please.”
“He’s sure,” the Zombie said. “He gets to choose.”
Phyllis exchanged glances with Barilla, Martin, and then the Baron. Every adult in the room came to a silent agreement that this tragedy had no solution; that a desperate prayer, traced in footsteps through a sniper’s line of fire, was the only way forward for Stubs.
The Zombie supported the young man, standing to his right, shielding his skinny frame from the windows. “Come on,” he urged. Together, they hobbled; twice, Stubs’ legs tried to give up, but he only sagged onto the strength of an invincible arm. The Zombie walked like Stubs’ was a paper thin thing, resting on a surface as steady and patient as stone.
Then they reached the front door, and the Zombie quickly leaned Stubs’ against the wall. “Keys?” he called.
Martin reached into his pockets and pitched his keyring across the space. The Zombie snatched them like a frog picking an insect from the air, then knelt before the door and unlocked the padlock. Chains rattled aside, and the door opened. Light and air flooded over the Zombie’s form, and he stood, facing the young man’s precipice. Out there, the light.
The Zombie peered out towards the sniper positions, towards where Schuler must still be crawling. No signs of motion. All waiting for the final act. If the Baron had asked to walk this path, the Zombie would’ve refused to open the door. But for Stubs, death was omnipresent, both in here and out there. At least somewhere in that brilliant sunlight, there might be a ray of hope, hiding.
He turned back towards the young man, letting the mechanisms of the body feel sympathy for the dying child. “Stubs,” he said kindly. “Before you walk out, I need to know that you know what’s out there.”
Stubs was holding onto his wound, leaning against the brick wall. “Know what?”
The Zombie glanced meaningfully towards the world outside. “They’ve shot men all morning. Shot each other. If you’re afraid, you can still die on the floor. With friends.”
“I don’t want to,” Stubs replied.
“So you’re gambling on another bullet, hoping for mercy?”
Stubs nodded tightly. “Yes.”
The Zombie stepped back, gesturing at the path to the sidewalk. “Then go. Be brave, kid. This ends on your terms, or it keeps going on theirs.”
Stubs pushed off the wall, stepping out into the light of day. He paused there, squinting at the painfully bright sky. “I am brave,” he said. Maybe he didn’t believe it, but there was a strength in his voice. He pulled his hands away from the wound, unbuttoned his white dress shirt with his good fingers, and gingerly peeled the clotted cloth away from his matted body hair.
“Do you want help?” the Zombie asked.
“No.” Stubs finished removing his shirt by pulling the left sleeve inside out. He grabbed ahold of the blood-soaked mass in his good hand, letting the rest of the shirt hang from his fist like a white flag. His wound was a rough pit in his gut, weeping blood. Then he raised his arm, and without a final word, he marched out into the sun and started waving towards the snipers that’d already killed him.
There was a click and a voice on the walkie-talkie. “Common vehicle spotted.”
The Zombie glanced back into the dim safety of the factory.
The Baron held the radio near the merc. “Translate,” he ordered.
“That’s a non-essential civilian,” the merc explained.
The Zombie looked back outside. The radio channel would be open to anyone scanning the waves. Their lingo disguised their intentions against the average eavesdropper.
“I give up!” Stubs shouted towards the street ahead. “I give up!”
The radio crackled. “Common vehicle, in the lane. Over.”
“Someone has him in their line of fire,” the merc said.
“He’s not a threat,” the Baron said.
The Zombie had seen too many battlefields to expect mercy now. He’d already raged once about the unfairness of Stubs’ impending death. Surely, all those snipers could see him again, staring out at them. If they shot Stubs again, there’d be no need to scream a second time. In the Zombie’s heart, he’d simply schedule their deaths in due time.
Even if it took him years, he’d find them and kill them all.
Another voice on the radio: “Requesting permit to invent. Over.”
A third voice, “Affirmative. Permit issued. Over.”
“The common vehicle wants to… park. Do we open our lot?”
“Traffic administration will decide. Over.”
“Copy, traffic admin, the common vehicle is in limbo. Over.”
Through the radio’s static, most of the voices sounded incredibly similar. They were all clearly American, all clearly New England. The merc wasn’t even bothering to translate now; the intention was clear. The mercs were considering how to handle Stubs.
“I’m wounded!” Stubs shouted loud enough to crack his voice, stumbled a little further into the day, and whipped his bloody shirt sleeves like a flag. “I need a hospital!”
The radio said, “Affirmative. The vehicle is leaking oil. No aftermarket features either. I repeat, no aftermarket features. Please advise.”
Stubs’s good hand dropped. He was anemic, tired, dying. He didn’t have the energy to keep waving and shouting. He simply stared at something only he could see; a yawning future, reaching out to take him. On the shores of some eternity, the Zombie hoped.
“Traffic admin here,” said a man with a thick Russian accent, “clear the lane. Head on collision. Make it clean.”
“Malik?” the Baron asked the Zombie.
The Zombie sighed. “Goodbye, Stubs.”
There was a distant crack of gunfire, and Stubs grunted and slapped the missing digits over a penny-sized hole in his chest. His last words were audible. “My heart,” he uttered. It wasn’t a painless noise. It was sorrow and agony, squeezed out of emptying lungs. The CPUSA were merciless, and they’d taken his life. His legs shook. His limbs gave out from shock. He didn’t exactly pass out, but he collapsed and began fading into unconsciousness and death.
The response was sudden and loud behind the Zombie. Cusswords, shouts of disbelief, and more animal sounds emerged—moans, gasps, a young boy screaming.
The Zombie pulled the front door shut. The safety of the Baron was his first priority, but somewhere on his list of needs, he quietly added the eradication of CPUSA, the death of Malik, and whatever pains he could inflict on child-murderers. In the soulless theater of the mind, in the darkness that had no light nor any true perception, the invincible man swore to kill.
After a long moment of bleak fury, the Baron pressed to talk on the radio. “Monsters!” he shouted into the walkie-talkie. “You knew he was surrendering. I heard you—you chose to murder him. You are murderers of children!”
“Who is this?” the Russian asked. “Identify yourself please.”
“You as well!” the Baron shouted. “You gave the order. The blood is on your hands!”
“Is that the Baron d’Holbach?” the Russian asked.
“Of course it is,” the Baron said bitterly.
Barilla leaned in. “Who are you speaking with?”
“Shut up,” the Zombie said, trotting back across the room.
“It’s an honest question—”
“Shut your mouth before I break it!” the Zombie shouted.
Barilla shrank back. If the Baron was angry, the Zombie multiplied that mood tenfold.
“Is this Andrey Malik?” the Baron asked.
“You’re not sure?” Malik asked.
“Denisov will hear about this,” the Baron said, “he’ll know about your crimes.”
Malik laughed, the volume of his voice turning the sound to static. “He already knows! But this is no longer a question of knowledge. It’s a question of power—manpower, firepower, prestige—and I have it all here. I told you, we Bolsheviks can work alone.”
“If knowledge doesn’t matter, why did you murder that young man? Was it because he was a witness? Or are you just killing people for the hell of it?”
“I didn’t say that. Knowledge is a kind of power, and I’m not going to risk anything. You and I both know how important this search is. We understand the need for… discretion. Dead people don’t tell tales, Baron. You’ve heard the saying, I’m sure.”
“He didn’t know anything,” the Baron said, his lips practically pressed to the radio. “Nobody had to die here. Malik, innocent people don’t have to die for a well-kept secret.”
“I’m sure you’re right, Baron, but the only guarantee is death, and the easiest search happens to be the same method. You may think I’m a monster, but I’m a practical man. I won’t have New York crawling down my throat.”
“What are you going to do? Kill all of us?” He asked the question because only a fool would say yes in front of the Zombie, and he was pushing Malik to consider other options.
“Ah, well, about that,” Malik muttered, “you said it first, Baron. Not I.”
The Zombie narrowed his eyes at the voice on the radio.
“No!” the Baron shouted into the receiver, “Don’t throw their lives away!”
The Zombie stepped closer. “Friend,” he said, his hand extended. “Give me the radio.”
“Don’t kill them,” the Baron pleaded.
“Let me handle this,” the Zombie whispered.
The Baron held the radio in his hand. He didn’t know what would happen if he handed it over. He didn’t know if this would be another massacre like Salem. He couldn’t know.
“Trust me,” the Zombie said.
The Baron reached out and dropped the radio into the Zombie’s hand.
The Zombie caught it, spun around, and caught the eyes of Martin, who was leaning against the back wall with the Garand in hand. “Pick up the merc,” the Zombie commanded. “Help me put him on my shoulder. If I try, I might break him.”
Martin looked at Barilla and Phyllis.
“Go on,” Barilla said.
Phyllis nodded silently. There was no debating the Zombie at a moment like this.
The injured merc groaned and gritted his teeth when Martin lifted him up by his armpits. He let out a cry of pain when his wounded stomach was dropped over the Zombie’s shoulder. The Zombie wrapped him up in his arm like a sack of grain. “Hold still or you’ll shatter your ribs.” He shook the man lightly. “Try to stay up. The blood will rush to your head.”
“What’s he going to do?” Phyllis asked the Baron.
“No idea,” the Baron said.
The Zombie marched to the front door, kicked it open, and strode out into the sunshine. Stubs’ corpse was lying on the sidewalk outside Barilla’s Shoes, soaking in a pool of blood. It seeped through all the little cracks and grains of the concrete.
He lifted up the walkie-talkie and yelled into the receiver, “Attention assholes, this is the invincible man speaking! Have you heard of my Pact? Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d’Holbach named me the Zombie. He is the only creature on Earth that can give me an order without any risk of dying. If you kill him, there’ll be nobody left to control me. I won’t be stopped. I won’t tire. While I may appear bored, I am dead inside. I have the patience of death. I have its focus. My dear assholes, I could become your personal Grim Reaper. If the Baron dies, I won’t stop with your deaths. I’ll kill everyone who has known you, everyone related to you. I’ll kill the people you admire. I’ll destroy the organization that sponsored you. I’ll tear the world apart until nobody can remember you. I have sworn this pact before, many thousands of years ago, and you haven’t heard the story because nobody survived to tell it.” He let off the radio for a moment and pointed towards the spot where he believed the sniper was camping, near a hedge in front of a building down the block. Then he spoke again, “You there, behind the bushes. I have a survivor here. If you want him, he’s yours. All you have to do is swear that you won’t kill the Baron. Now, now, don’t ask your boss for permission. You aren’t swearing to him—you’re swearing to me! Go ahead and tell me on the radio. Say you won’t kill the Baron.”
He waited. There was a long moment of silence. No answer.
He pressed to talk: “Say it!”
“I won’t kill the Baron,” droned a half-dozen voices at once.
“Very effective,” Malik said over the channel.
The Zombie knelt, setting the injured merc onto his feet. The CPUSA goon wobbled and shivered, drunk and flushed from blood pooling in his brain, but otherwise well enough to not fall. “Go on,” the Zombie said into the microphone, “Go back to your comrades.”
The merc stepped forward, going around Stubs’ body. For several seconds, there was no response. Only wind, birds, and distant traffic. A boat motor, elsewhere.
Malik suddenly spoke on the radio: “All agents, instructions follow. We’ll uphold the Zombie’s pact. However, this protection doesn’t extend to anyone else. You will retire all expendable personnel you encounter. Further instructions will follow on the backup channel, as needed. Otherwise, remain radio silent until ordered to speak. Over and out.”
“All expendable personnel?” the Zombie muttered curiously.
The question was answered immediately. There were four shots fired, coming from locations all up and down the street. The injured merc twitched once, then fell down only a few feet away from Stubs. On his back, a couple of exit wounds began to blossom almost black across the grey of his fatigues. A major artery had been punctured, but even so he shouldn’t be dead that quickly. Someone must’ve shot him in the head.
“Eat shit,” the Zombie muttered. He’d exploded two birds with one impossibly well-pitched stone. The Baron would be safe, and that merc had been thrown to the wolves. Satisfied, he stepped back inside and shut the door behind him.
Author’s Note:
Whew! The fighting gets fiercer, but we’re not clear yet!
As always, thank you to the beta readers for helping with this chapter!
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