The Lost Gods (3 page)

One

The Siege

Adam and Jesse stood on top of a ramshackle pla
tform constructed with scrap wood. A large crowd of reanimates huddled together below them. They were safe inside a fort made of odds and ends they had salvaged from the now-empty town of Silverdale, Washington. Six months ago, Silverdale was an idyllic suburb: full of evergreen trees, lush flora, natural beauty, and without much crime and the bothers of urban life. Now it was devoid of everything, including its residents. The dead had supplanted the living, except for an amateur wrestler and a former junky.

It was the end of fall. Clouds hung heavy and dark during the day, and sunlight was an abstract concept. Rain sullied their moods, but harder rains and winter storms were yet to come. The cacophony of gunshots, explosions, fires, and screaming ceased months ago
after the town succumbed quickly to the undead. All that remained in the county were thousands of reanimates per square mile and a few humans and animals scattered like dandelion florets in the wind. The dead were at the top of the food chain. Instead of surrendering to the new apex predators and becoming a hot, screaming meal, Jesse and Adam dug in and made themselves a defensible home in the middle of a parking lot at the local mall.

Jesse looked over the barricade at the undead. He squinted when he met the soupy, empty eyes of a bloa
ted reanimate wearing a tattered and soiled black suit.

“Why are so many
of them in suits?” he asked Adam.

“Probably what they were buried in,” Adam answered. Adam was holding a pump-action 12 gauge shotgun. His tall lanky frame seemed unable to bear such a large gun, but Adam had surprised Jesse time and again with his strength. Adam had once said while flexing his sinewy biceps, “They don't look like much but these guns still shoot.” Jesse smirked and let Adam have his ego
-stroking moment.

The
crowds of reanimates were sporting their funeral garb. Some wore ornate robes, military uniforms, or nothing at all. Despite their varied appearance, they all craved the two last morsels of goodness left in Silverdale.

“I'll never get used to it,” said Jesse, in his low voice and his slow, precise diction.

“I know, man, it's like it's never going to go back to normal. These fucking things never go away. They just keep coming and coming, and they’re so quiet. It freaks me out, man. I kinda wish they would make some noise. All is can hear is them shifting around.”

“I meant the smell,” said Jesse as he locked eyes with that same corpulent reanimate wearing the soiled suit.

“Oh — yeah, fucking penguins smell the worst,” said Adam.

“Absolutely, but I kind of like how the old ones smell. It's earthy. Like a wet, rotting tree.”

“You serious?”

“Yeah.”

“That's fucked up,” said Adam. He turned toward Jesse. His face contorted like he had just eaten some bad food. The undead below continued banging against the makeshift fort.

“Don't judge, gotta break up the horrible stuff with the not-so-bad stuff.”

Adam looked back down at the crowd and found one of the older creatures. It was small and so thin that it looked like it might crumble into dust before the night came.

“It's like, I can look the penguins in the eye, and I can hope that they understand me. Like they still have fee
lings, but the old ones, man, I just see death: no compassion. And those eyes. Man, I've lost more sleep because of those than anything else,” said Adam.

“A zombie in a suit will still eat you
.”

“Yeah,
but he'll do it a lot quicker.”

“Getting eaten is getting eaten.
”

“I don't think so, man
. I mean — I think drawing it out would make it worse. Gives you time to think about it, and the pain probably doesn't go away. You ever had something sprained or dislocated before?”

“No, I was really lucky that I never got hurt wrestling. I saw a lot of guys get hurt though. Had a few victories that ended poorly for the other guy.”

“I guess you can imagine that some pains don't ease up. I'd be willing to bet getting eaten is one of those types of pain.”

Adam winced after he spoke. The lines in his face made him look older than his twenty-two years. The years that he spent on crystal meth spoiled his comple
xion and ruined his teeth.

“Here's hoping neither of us finds out what it feels like to be eaten,” said Jesse.

“I'll drink to that.”

“Please don't mention alcohol
.”

“Hey! I miss it, too. We'll find some soon, and we'll get good and liquored up.”

“Bullshit. I don't think getting a brewery, winery, or distillery up and running is going to be on too many people's must do list,” said Jesse. “Not to mention that any one that knows how to do that stuff has probably been eaten and digested by now.”

“It can't be that hard
. Just step on some grapes and you've got wine.”

“Alcohol is a little more scientific than that
.”

“When I was in county, we used to put those little cups of fruit cocktail in a bag, put in some moldy bread, and store it in the toilet until it fermented. That or we'd use ketchup. Anything with sugar turns into alcohol eventually.”

Jesse looked at Adam with the same disdain Adam had displayed at the beginning of their conversation.

“I'd ask how that tasted, but I'd like to keep my lunch down.”

“It tasted like shit, but it worked.”

“Maybe we should focus on our new-found friends for a bit
.”

“Ah, our esteemed guests,” said Adam and he gave the crowd a mimed tip of his imaginary hat.

Jesse laughed for a bit, but his bemusement faltered as he surveyed the situation. There were hundreds of reanimates lit by the soft, orange light of sunset. Their fort bordered the outside of a department store. Surrounding it were gutted cars. Jesse and Adam had used what tools they found in the town's home improvement store to take the cars apart. They constructed the fort’s walls with the frames of cars, chain link fencing, and corrugated tin roofing scavenged from around town. Adam had welded them together with an acetylene torch. Despite his checkered past, Adam proved the more useful of the two when it came to handyman duties. Jesse could smash ten reanimates into useless piles of flesh and bone without breaking a sweat, but the intricacies of welding escaped him. Adam had taken to calling Jesse his bodyguard, yet Jesse felt he owed Adam his life. Adam’s skills had kept them safe and in relative comfort for the past few months.

Jesse looked back at Adam, who was still smiling.

“Do you think it'll hold?” asked Jesse.

“Don't worry about that,” said Adam. “It'll take more than this lot to bring down these walls. These bastards don't hit that hard, and this fort was welded by the best. We are safe, especially in the grand suite.”

Adam pointed to the small tree house that he built with spare lumber from the hardware store. Thick support beams elevated the house and it had a roof and window covers that were removable.

“I still can't believe you built that,” said Jesse.

“Hey man,” said Adam and he smacked Jesse's right arm. “Backhanded compliments are not appreciated.”

“I didn't mean it like that. I just mean that you outdid yourself with the tree house.”

“Technically,” said Adam, and he put on his best 'harrumph harrumph' tone of voice, “it is a small dwelling on stilts.”

“Oh, so now I'm the dumbass?” said Jesse. “I get it, I get it. You’re handy and I'm not.”

“You’re handy, college boy, just not with a wrench, or a welding torch, or a screwdriver, or a.…”

“I learned other things.”

“Fuck of a lot of good it'll do you now,” said Adam, “Learning when Sir Bumblefuck took over India in the 19th century or when Picasso first entered his red period, or whatever the fuck, isn't going to help for shit nowadays.”

“I also learned how to execute a flawless single-leg takedown,” said Jesse. “So watch it.”

“I'm just busting your balls,” said Adam and he put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. “I wouldn't be here without you. You may not be able to operate a wrench, but you smash them zombies like nobody else. Times change is all I'm sayin'. There was a time when going to college and learning all that random shit mattered and now it doesn't.”

“It might matter again someday,” said Jesse. They both stood in silence for a moment.

“Someday,” said Adam, “but not this day.”

“Speaking of which,” said Adam. He got down into prone position and aimed his shotgun at the nearest r
eanimate. Adam squeezed the trigger with the care an artist would move a paintbrush. A deafening blast rang out from the shotgun and the chest of a suited reanimate caved inward. Scraps of black fabric, coagulated blood, and viscera exploded from the creature. Its torso fell to the side, but its legs remained upright for a moment. It looked like it was lazily stretching, never taking its soupy eyes off of Jesse and Adam. The creature tried to take a step forward and fell onto the asphalt with a hollow thud. It squirmed for a moment, but then it stopped.

“That's one down, eighty-billion, or so, to go,” said Adam.

“You say that like you have something better to do,” said Jesse.

The undead behind the fallen reanimate moved fo
rward trying to get closer to their prey.

“My schedule is actually quite full,” said Adam.

“I hear you. I always pictured the apocalypse having a lighter workload,” said Jesse.

“You were wrong,” said Adam.

“Dead wrong,” deadpanned Jesse. “You see what I did there?”

Adam shook his head and said, “No — just, don’t.”

“Are we going to kill all these guys, or was that just for show?” asked Jesse.

“Can’t, that was my last shell.”

“Seriously?”

“I don't joke about shit like that,” said Adam. “I hope your arm is limbered up.”

“It always is,” said Jesse, “I keep my shit on point.”

“What now, dear leader?” asked Adam. Adam always deferred the responsibility of making plans to Jesse, e
xcept when it came to construction and maintenance.

“Well, the noise will bring the nearby ones over to us, and then we'll use the last of the oil and gas to light them on fire,” said Jesse.

“What for?” asked Adam. “That doesn't kill them.”

“I know, but I just really like watching them burn. It reminds me of camp.”

“I have no words for how genuinely fucked up that is,” said Adam.

They waited in silence on the platform of their jury
-rigged fort. Over the course of an hour, hundreds of reanimates made their way through the empty city toward the fort. When the leaderless army of supernatural cannibals shook and pounded at the gate with enough force to worry Jesse, he doused the first few rows of undead in gas and lamp oil. He climbed down from the platform and produced a matchbook. He struck a match and a tiny yellow flame waved in the soft breeze. A decayed arm shot through a gap in the fort wall. The sharp edge of corrugated roofing tore off the thing's abscessed skin. Jesse jumped back and dropped the match. The arm flailed around, grasping at air. Jesse grabbed it by the wrist. He used his other arm as a fulcrum and broke the creature's limb. It flopped around, still connected to the creature's body. Jesse struck another match. He tossed it through a small hole in the wall. Nothing happened for a brief moment. A dull flash lit the area followed by the unique sound of flammable liquid igniting. Light poured through the gaps in the wall. Jesse moved next to the wall and watched.

They both looked out into the flaming mass. Dead skin melted, and soiled, ratty clothes charred and disa
ppeared into smoke and ash. They were mesmerized by the way the creatures did not falter or react to the flame. They just continued to hammer their burning skin and bones into the fort's walls.

“Who takes first watch?” asked Jesse.

“I'm not volunteering. I'm tired as fuck.”

“Rock, paper, scissors?”

“On three.”

Adam
held out his left palm facing up to the twilit sky.