Knights of the Apocalypse (A Duck & Cover Adventure Post-Apocalyptic Series Book 2) (15 page)

That horrid wail grew louder as the beast
brought back a stump and stared at it with lifeless eyes.
 

It was obvious that the creature was no less
dangerous with one hand. Jerry grabbed the young kidnapper by the collar and
pulled him to his feet as another Aztec emerged from the river.

“Go!” He pushed the kid towards the princess.
“Get her out of here.”

The creature lunged at him from the river.
There was no sense behind its attack. There was no method. Its only goal was to
get its teeth as close to its victim as possible.

Jerry slashed with the machete and cut deep,
but the wail didn’t change. He wondered if the beast even felt the wound across
its abdomen. He brought the blade back down and hacked deep into his neck.

Warm crimson blood spurted from the wound as
Jerry dislodged the blade with a kick that sent the creature falling back into
the water. He turned to run and saw for the first time the carnage that was
unfolding. The mutants were everywhere. Their wails filled the air like the
scream of a jet engine as they howled in unison. The sound kicked his stomach
into a knot. The sight made him sick.

The conscripts
weren’t only losing
,
they were being eaten
alive
. Several had set upon Colin. Only his legs were visible. They
kicked in a futile attempt to get free.

Several more had made their way to the middle
of the river, as it turned red with Patrick’s blood.

Shane and Joshua had fought their way back to
the road. Several of the beasts lay dead at their feet.

Ken screamed and Jerry turned in time to see
him pulled to the ground by a trio of Aztecs. He tried to crawl away from his
fate. He was so desperate to escape the teeth and claws of the beasts that he
left parts of himself behind. He broke free. Covered in his own blood, he
crawled from the dog pile and tried to run. He didn’t make it far. They dragged
him back by his intestine.

Two rushed at Jerry. They were dressed in
soiled rags. Some were so shredded they wore essentially nothing. Their faces
were bags of skin and they appeared all but dead. Driven by anger, it didn’t
matter that most had little meat on their bones.

Jerry had cleaved through the head of one
before he saw it to be a woman. They moved too fast, too erratically, that he
could not even distinguish a face until it chomped at him. Whatever had turned
them had been indiscriminate. The beasts were men and women, old and young, and
they were all monsters.

The woman fell dead at his feet as a hand
clamped down on his shoulder. He spun and raised the blade.

“Don’t hit me, idiot.” Shane was standing at
the foot of the retaining wall and tugged Jerry towards it. “C’mon!”

The pair climbed the short concrete barrier
and dashed into the street.

The two men caught up with Joshua, the
princess and her kidnapper. They were no longer fighting amongst themselves.
They looked from one another and back to the beasts searching for an answer.

“Back to the bus,” Jerry shouted as he
pointed north of town.

“I’m not going back!” the princess screamed
and put her sword at Jerry’s throat.

Jerry knocked it aside with the hatchet and
ripped the blade from her hand. “No one’s going anywhere if we don’t get
somewhere safe. Right now the bus and the arms of your loving prince are our
best bet.” He handed the sword back to her. “We’ll figure things out from
there.”

The weapon was back in her hand before the
young man could react. He looked at her as she gave a sad and silent nod.

“It will be okay,” Jerry said.

“The hell it will.” Joshua raised his blade
as the Aztecs approached.
 

Jerry kept an eye on the retaining wall. The
creatures that had attacked at the river seemed to be satisfied with their
carrion below, but more were still emerging from the buildings and alleyways of
the New Mexican town.

The group of five ran for the bus. It wasn’t
close, but it was a chance.

More and more creatures appeared before them.
Their shrieks drew more numbers to their group and soon a wall of cannibals had
formed in front of them.

“It’s no good,” Shane said as he slowed.
“There’s too many.”

Jerry scanned the street and turned to his
right. “In here.”

They followed as he ran into a fast food
restaurant and stepped through the shattered window that had once been the
door.

“There aren’t any walls, Mike!” Shane argued
as he followed.

Jerry slid over the front counter and moved
through the kitchen. He soon found what he was looking for and called to the
others. He directed them up a ladder that led to a panel in the roof. “Up
here!”

Shane went first and bashed the hatch open.

Jerry watched the Aztecs crash through what
was left of the plate glass window and fill the dining room. The counter slowed
them for only a moment.

Shane called down as the last of the group
made the roof and Jerry scurried up the ladder two rungs at a time.

He rolled on to the roof as Josh and the
kidnapper heaved an AC unit across the roof and dropped it on the access hatch.
There was no other way up to the roof. They were trapped. But they were safe.
Jerry sat to catch his breath.

Shane sat next to him. “Great. I’m trapped in
a Burger King with a princess and surrounded by man-eating mutants.”

“It could be worse,” Jerry said.

“I don’t know,” Shane said. “I fucking hate
Burger King.”

FOURTEEN

This particular
Burger King had never known such a crowd. Built long after the Beanie Baby and
Pokémon fads had faded, it had never once experienced a rush. Now that it was
serving human, it drew quite the crowd.

The wails had kept up
all night long and the refugees on the roof were feeling the lack of sleep. If
the screams had fallen into any kind of rhythm, sleep would have been possible,
but their shrieks were so distinctly horrible that they did not even blend in
to the noise of a crowd.

Jerry looked over the
edge of the roof at the rabble below. If he looked hard enough he could see the
men and women the beasts had been. Their clothes barely held at the seams and
were so soiled with dirt and age that every garment, no matter its original
color, had turned to the same shade of filth.

The young man that
had stolen the princess was named Aaron. He had not left the girl’s side since
they made the roof. The group had done little to try and separate them. In
fact, the group had done little at all but sit and listen to the wailing.

For a lack of
anything else to do, Shane paced the roof. He gestured to the young couple.
“So, what are we going to do about these two?”

“Just try it,
asshole.” Aaron didn’t bother standing up to deliver his threat but he tapped
the sword across his lap.

Shane laughed. “I’m
pretty sure I can handle you, pretty boy.”

Jerry gave up on
finding sleep. “Nobody is handling anybody. Our best bet is still to head back
to the bus.”

The princess shook
her head. “I’m not going back.”

“I know it’s not
ideal,” Jerry said. “But it’s the safest place.”

“You take her back to
that bastard and she’s as good as dead,” Aaron said. “You might as well just
kill her now.”

“He sent us to rescue
her, smart guy,” Joshua said. “Why would he want her dead?”

“Oh, please,”
Anna
said. “You’re not a rescue party. You’re a PR stunt.
Nothing more. That prick doesn’t want me back. He wants me dead. He needs me
dead.”

Jerry looked at the
princess. “The king told me that your death would start a war.”

“He’s right,” she
said. “My father would kill him.”

“Your father?” Shane
asked.

She stood and
stretched out her arms before twirling once over the town. “He’s the king on
this side of all the crazy. His royal majesty, the great and honorable Rodney.”

“I didn’t get the
feeling that Elias wanted a war,” Jerry said.

“Rodney?” Joshua
muttered.

“Of course he
doesn’t,” Aaron said. “He’d lose.”

“What do you know?”
Josh jumped to his feet. “We have the bravest knights in the world.”

“Our knights have
guns, you dumb shit,” Aaron said.

Anna explained. “My
father is a little less strict about historically accurate weapons. Why do you
think you were sent to bring me back? If my dad finds out how they treat me …”

“War again,” Shane
said. “I get it. So why would the prince want you dead?”

The princess curled
her lip and tucked her chin. It was a look every man knew. Shane had asked a
question whose answer should be obvious. “I’ll give you a minute to think about
it. It should be fairly obvious, if you don’t pass out from exhaustion first.”

Shane pointed back at
her. “I don’t like you.”

“The prince wants the
war,” Jerry said.

“That’s what you’re
getting from this?” Shane asked. “Why would he want a war he can’t win?”

“Because the prince
has the guns. His Dog had no problem firing on the men on the train. The prince
is probably sitting on a stockpile, just waiting to overthrow the king and take
over with the promise of winning the coming war.”

“Overthrow the king?”
Young Josh wasn’t buying it.

“That makes sense,”
Shane said.

Josh threw up his
hands. “Overthrow his own father?”

The princess laughed.
“Elias, or, aka Greg, isn’t anyone’s father. Robert was just a kid playing the
prince at the fair. They figured it just made sense for him to keep playing the
same role.”

“I don’t care who he
is,” Josh stomped over to the girl. “We were sent on a quest to bring you back
and that’s what I’m going to do.”

“I’m not going back.”
The princess leapt to her feet and held up her sword. Aaron stood beside her.

“Both of you stop.”
Shane stepped between the two and pointed to the edge of the roof. “Did you
forget about them? We have to get to the bus. What other choice do we have?”

Aaron didn’t move.
“We’re going to Farmington. Her father is there and will keep her safe. That’s
all I care about.”

“You want us to
travel the rest of the way through Aztec?” Shane asked.

“We’ll stay off the
highway,” the princess said. “We can make it.”

“We?” Shane shouted.
“You’re not going anywhere, except back to Silverton.”

Aaron lifted his
sword. “Try it.”

Shane bent down to
grab the katana he had set against the wall. Jerry grabbed him by the shoulder
and pulled him to the ground. “Skip it. You’re both tough, all right. But we’re
going to help them get to Farmington.”
 

Shane jerked away.
“You’re not buying this shit, are you?”

Jerry nodded. “We’re
going to help them.”

“Why?” Shane threw up
his arms. “Because it’s the right thing to do? It’s chivalrous? You’re starting
to sound like those idiots back in the castle.”

Jerry said nothing.

“Doing the right thing
died out with the rest of humanity,” Shane yelled. The group of Aztecs wailed
in response. Shane rushed to the edge of the roof and screamed back at them.

Jerry didn’t raise
his voice. “We take her back, she dies. A war starts. More people die. Maybe
me. Maybe you. Maybe Brae. If we help them, we avoid all that.”

“And where does that
leave us?” Josh asked. “They’ll kill us for helping her get away.”

“How will they know?”
Jerry asked. “They’re sitting back in the bus. We’ll tell them we couldn’t find
them.”

“Then it’s back to
the mines for me. You’ll join me, and Brae will keep …” Shane’s voice trailed
off.

Joshua began to
laugh.

“What is it?” Jerry
asked.

“Nothing.” Shane cast
a threatening look at the kid before finishing. “It’s just not what I want.”

 
“We can figure all that out when we get
back. And, you may not believe me, but my fate will be much worse than yours.”

“Then why?” Shane
asked.

Jerry smiled.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”

Shane huffed.

“Turn back if you
want,” Jerry said. “But I’m going to help them.”
 

“You’re right.” Shane
sighed and nodded. “You’re right. And, like I told your wife, I’ve got you. So
I’ll help your dumb ass do this.”

Jerry stood and put
his hand on the man’s shoulder. “Shane, I promise you I will do everything
possible to keep everyone out of the mines. Mostly because I don’t want to end
up there myself.”

Shane laughed. “Look
at you … a tough guy. How many times have I had to save your life already?”

Jerry smiled and shrugged.
“I’ll make sure it was worth it.”

“Forget that. How are
we going to get off the roof?” Shane asked.

The pair stood and
looked at the frenzied mob that had gathered around the Burger King.

Jerry shrugged.
“We’re going to need a distraction.”

“To hell with both of
you!” Josh screamed and raised an axe above his head. “You’re traitors to the
crown! I’ll kill both you myself.” The conscript charged at Jerry screaming an
inhuman shriek that blended with those from below. The crowd below echoed his bloodlust.

Before Jerry could
move, Shane shoved him out of the way and caught the ax as it dropped toward
his head. He spun the young conscript around and pushed him back.

Joshua stumbled and
crashed into the knee-high ledge that ran the perimeter of the roof. He
teetered only long enough for his expression to show that he realized full well
what was about to happen.

The mob of mutants
didn’t let him hit the ground. A broken neck or cracked skull would have been a
blessing. They caught him mid-fall and began their feast as the young man
screamed for mercy that no one was willing deliver.

The princess screamed
and ran to the far side of the building with Aaron close behind her.

Shane and Jerry
watched as Josh disappeared in a flurry of pale hands and bared teeth.

“There,” Shane said.
“A distraction. It was nice of him to volunteer, don’t you think?”

“Hey,” Aaron called
from across the roof. “They’re leaving.”

The two men joined
the couple on the far side of the Burger King and watched as the Aztecs moved
away from the wall where they had faithfully screamed all night long. They
moved as one towards Josh’s fading screams.

“Go.” Jerry pointed
to a dumpster below and threw a leg over the edge.

Aaron grabbed him by
the shirt and held him back. “You’re nuts.”

“The group by the
river is still down there.” Jerry pointed to the bridge. “One may be enough to
keep them occupied.”

“I’m not confident in
maybe,” the young man said.

Jerry pulled his
shirt free and dropped onto the dumpster lid. There was arguing between the two
men on the roof but he could not make out the words. The princess said
something and the two men quickly dropped to the dumpster. They helped the girl
down and hopped to the ground.

Jerry put a finger to
his lips and ducked into the next building.

It was doubtful the
town of Aztec had ranked high on any prewar target list. It hadn’t taken any
direct hits and the buildings remained mostly intact. But, as they moved behind
and through the structures, it was obvious that the town had not escaped the panic
and looting.

Store shelves were
empty. Windows were smashed in. Almost every store had a burnt trashcan, the
skeleton key of the apocalypse, near the shattered remains of the front door.

They moved quietly,
careful to avoid stepping on the glass that littered the floors. They ducked
behind counters or shelves whenever they heard a wail approaching. They were
few and far between, and the creature responsible passed quickly on its way to
the feast of Joshua the conscript. The boy was a hero after all.

“This shouldn’t be
this easy,” Shane said.

“You want to go back
and try again?” Aaron asked.

“Shut up, you little
shit.”

The princess shushed
them both and stayed closed behind Jerry as he navigated the streets, parking
lots and buildings of the New Mexican town. The farther they went, the safer
they felt. Aztec sightings dwindled to nothing as they reached the edge of
town.

“That kid must have
been delicious,” Shane mused. “I haven’t seen a single mutant.”

“We’re not there
yet,” Aaron said. “We’ve got to get back to the river.”

“We have people
meeting us downriver just south of town,” Anna added. “They can take us the
rest of the way. Then my father can help us.”

Shane shook his head
but followed as Jerry led the group from the highway back towards the Animas.
They moved quicker as wails began to grow in the distance. There was obviously
not enough
conscript
to go around. He wondered if the
mutants could remember. Did their minds work well enough to recall seeing more
food running about their town? Mutants came in varying degrees of stupid. These
were so animalistic that he doubted they could remember much of anything.

A bottling plant was
the last facility at the edge of town before the river. The parking lot was
massive and the open space made Jerry nervous. They had gotten lucky so far and
this would be the perfect setting for it to run out. If the creatures came now,
there would be nowhere to hide. He ran as lightly as possible and found what
cover he could, ducking behind the delivery trucks and cars that had been left
behind.

Asphalt turned to
dirt and then the dirt turned to shrubs as they approached the riverbank. They
had made it through town.

Shane was the first
to the top of the bank. He waved the group over. Aaron ran to join him. Jerry
was about to move when he felt a hand on his arm. He turned.

For the first time
since they had pulled her from the boat, the princess’s eyes were soft and
kind. They had lost their murderous edge. She spoke softly. “Thank you,” she
said. “Thank you for rescuing me.”

Jerry smiled. He took
a deep bow with an outspread arm. “After you, m’lady.”

Anna returned the
smile, curtsied and ran to the river’s edge.