The August Selected writer is Daniel Brown
Please feel free to email Daniel at: misternutt2014@gmail.com
DAYCHILD
by Daniel Brown
My first mistake was to leave the gathering so late.
My second was to leave alone.
Half an hour after I had left the party, I found myself stalled on a back road in the middle of the woods. The car’s engine steadfastly refused to start, and the gas gauge was (of course) on empty.
And the sun was going down.
Everyone knew not to drive the Wastes after hours—once the hunting time began, it was common knowledge that few of the Daychildren had the power to survive the roving undead. Why the cult leaders and faux-shamans of the New Order had chosen such a kitsch title as Daychildrenfor their acolytes and Dayfathers for themselves is beyond the reach of such freethinking rationalists as myself. Still, I had to admit that after the blast which brought the new world into being, the priests’ tight methodology kept many alive, and out of the reach of zombies.
I am a Scribe, and given the privilege of a car to travel to the various remote centers that housed what remained of our once proud civilization. What had likely been a biological war had been dubbed The Curse by our new and rather superstitious leaders. Warlords would probably be a better term for them, in all honesty, as they had quite simply gripped a Bible in one hand and a sword (or MP-5) with the other.
I was one of the privileged few to have been educated before the event. There I was, a bookish Daychild stranded in a car in the middle of the Wastes as the undead roved through the countryside. Large-framed and tall, I was decidedly un-athletic
The Doctrines expressly demonstrated the folly of remaining in any closed vehicle after the onset of night—the zombies would break the windows. Maneuverability and speed were the chief assets in any such situation. I was armed only with my small survival kit. It included an antique from a past age, a Colt M1911, which was excellent for extinguishing the undead one headshot at a time. Even more useful was my Louisville Slugger.
I got out of the car, stumbled onto the road and began to walk rapidly.
The highlands were to my right (the East), and the Lowland Plains stretched down to my left. In an attack, I could seek high ground and defend myself as my ancient forbears had done.
The wastes in my district stretched between Newtown and what was once Louisville, now known as Salvation. The road to Salvation, unfortunately, was going to be long, arduous, and unattended by light. On foot, it would take approximately ten hours in the very best of conditions, with a marathon runner’s physique and endurance. If I could avoid raiders, bandits, and the Cults, I could expect to find shelter within a day’s time. If not…well, it was not worth thinking about, certainly not at the beginning of the journey.
I began picking my way along a bombed-out section of highway, and I was exhausted. I sat down on the hood of an ancient, rusted El Camino, pulled out my water bottle, and leaned back to drink—empty.
I would have to leave the road after all.
I began to clamber my way up the hill towards the tree line, where there was a steeple visible in the distance; not necessarily a good sign, as churches were forbidden to Daychildren, and known gathering places for the Undead.
Even so, it was better at least to look than to choose to die thirsty.
The churchyard was empty. The graves were silent, and a few headstones lay in pieces, smashed by vandals and cultists. A few had been dug up by looters. Tattered corpses and skeletons lay on the desolate ground, stripped of any jewelry or fine clothing by looters and rotten flesh torn by scavengers (animal scavengers, I hoped).
Churches nearly always possessed clean wells from the dark days before the Curse—municipal water sources on both sides of the war had been poisoned by the increasingly desperate armies. As a result of the water poisoning, the power outages, and the bombings, the survivors had fled to the country. Farming once again flourished, and the virgin earth once again provided clean food and water to the new communities that found an unaccustomed foundation in the churches.
As I stood before the church door, I pulled out my old-world LED light and Colt handgun. The church door creaked open on ancient hinges—stealth was clearly not an option. I swore softly and thrust the door open as quickly as I could, sweeping the vestibule with my light.
The hall was littered with bodies, many half-eaten and stinking. The smell was nearly unbearable. Gagging, I reached up and nudged my ventilator unit into place over my nose and swore again—the unit refused to click on.
Dead batteries.
I tapped the ventilator frantically with the edge of the pistol as I surveyed the rotten corpses. Suddenly I stopped. There was a dull thump from behind the second set of vestibular doors. I froze for what felt like an eternity.
I heard a crash and tinkling of broken glass, and a shuffling sound. Moving slowly, I clicked off my light and inched towards the sanctuary doors. One was ajar and, heart pounding, I pressed towards the opening.
The sanctuary was lit by candles—scores of candelabra were arranged around the room. The flickering lights revealed a wooden altar at the head of the pews. A few bodies slumped in the wood seats, and at the altar’s side was the wood covering of the well that I so desperately needed to be full of clean water.
And all around the room, draped from the rafters, were the bodies of the dead congregants, hanging from makeshift nooses…belts, ties, strips of clothing. The bodies were naked and looted.
I was picking my way through the pews, headed to the well, when there was a terrific crash. The altar flipped forward, scattering candelabra, silver, and moldy communion elements everywhere as it seemed to leap in terror away from the darkness behind it.
I froze, covering the shadows with my gun. Slowly, a figure emerged. The tattered robes of a wild-haired priest billowed as he shuffled forward. He was thin as a skeleton, but as his sunken eyes searched the dark, I saw a flash of intelligence.
“Don’t shoot, I’m not a zombie! I’m a priest, or at least, I was.” He groped like a blind man with his hands as he hissed the words.
Then he began to sound crazy. “Bell and book, bell and book. Alice, bring me my chalice!” He shuffled to the dangling corpse of a girl and plucked a glass from her pale hands. The rotten cord of a broken noose dangled from the priest’s neck.
He tried to drink, but the glass was empty—he screamed and cast it to the ground, shattering it. The priest fell to his knees and began to weep.
“Gone, gone, all gone!”
I spoke. “Hello, Father.”
The sobbing ceased immediately. “Who’s there? Lord, is that you?”
I stepped forward slowly, weapon only half-raised now. “I’m a traveler.”
He squinted in my direction. “Lord, why did you leave me?”
I stared, unable to speak.
There were tears in his eyes, but I kept moving, filling one of my bottles with the clean water. He continued, “We tried to hide, but it was too late. The zombies came. We barred the doors, but not all of the flock made it inside.”
“Yes,” I murmured as I took a drink of the clean water.
“We had to leave them—we had to. The zombies ate them and then they tried to come in. The people were afraid. A few tried to run away and they broke out but the zombies caught them. They ate them somewhere in the woods—we could hear their screams as they died.”
The priest hesitated, then said, “After a special blessing, I told the flock it was time to go to the Father. I helped them all hang. When I sought to follow them, God’s punishment had begun. No sooner had the darkness closed over my eyes than the noose broke.”
He raised his hands beseechingly towards me as he limped forward. I could hear his broken hip rasp and click as he moved. “Then I was alone, until you came. Did you come to save me?”
He squinted harder at me, seeming to see me for the first time.
He screamed then, a long, loud, keening sound of horror and rage and despair, the sound of holocaust and extinction. He rushed towards me, his bones rasping and clicking—and I caught the stench of long-decayed flesh as his ancient robes tore, revealing skinny arms and leathery flesh.
This was not the Undead…this was a human torn apart by madness.
I screamed, not wanting to shoot a human. I pushed his frail body and he fell backwards to the floor, shrieking and gibbering as I scrambled to my feet and turned to rush into the night.
I found myself surrounded by zombies.
Seeing a break in the crowd, I ran for it, loading my last magazine. As I crested the hill, I looked over my shoulder. The Undead were shuffling in my direction, and the priest was still staring at me from the church door.
He was smiling.
*****
I was about twelve miles into my journey when I heard the clicking of bones again. I thought I had imagined it; I stood still and listened to be sure. There it was – a faint click, click, clicking.
I turned—the road curved behind me, under the trees. I couldn’t see anything…
There!
The faint outline of a cowl—the priest had followed. Somehow, with broken bones and hardly any sinew intact, he’d kept up. I stared in disbelief.
I turned and opened at a brisk walk. If the priest wanted to follow me, so be it. It was another ten miles before I saw the gates of the city again.
That was when I heard a distant thump and a mournful cry for help.
I kept walking, blisters burning.
“Please! Don’t leave me!”
The voice was that of a demon but a pitiful old man. I slowed as I reached the crest of the hill. I was nearly there, but curiosity and pity slowed me to a standstill. Slowly, the emotion forced me to turn around and squint to the shadowy road below me. I could barely see the fallen, ragged form behind me. The man’s hip must have finally snapped.
And now he was weeping—great, heaving sobs.
I kept him covered in my gun sight the whole time I approached. The sobbing priest covered his face with his hands. I could see the bones of his mutilated left hand in the moonlight, and his leg was twisted at a dreadful angle beneath his bony body.
“Why did He abandon us?”
My heart was cold as I watched the weeping face down the sight of my pistol.
“We never meant any harm. Why did He bring hell to earth?”
I shook my head. Unbelievable, to be talking about theology with this seemingly human-zombie hybrid who had tracked me for miles. “You tried to kill me at the church, and now you’re going to talk about theodicy?”
The priest gave a soul-wrenching sigh and lowered his hands, looking up at me. “I am not talking about God. I mean my brother, Father Mark. He founded the city at the end of the road.”
My blood chilled. “You know Dayfather Markon?”
The Priest gave a snort. “I know Father Mark. And I know he ran away to found that city right up the road there. I know that he’s not what he seems.”
I didn’t know what to say, and then he leered at me with broken teeth and said, “He’s your leader, is he? Your Pastor, your spiritual guide?” His bones groaned as he shifted his weight.
“I’m not much for church, father.”
The priest spat. “No matter. I didn’t used to be either. Look, whatever Markon says, don’t trust him. He had as much to do with this plague as anyone else.”
His eyes seemed a little clearer now—whatever madness had seized him in the church, he merely looked sad and broken now. “Please. Some water. For an old man.”
The priest’s mournful eyes were locked on the canteen at my belt. I glanced down, but wanted answers before he got any water. “What do you mean, he helped the plague? Markon teaches us that the plague happened generations ago, many decades before any of us were born.”
“Water first. Questions after.”
I gave in. My hand trembled as I loosened my canteen and held it out.
“Closer, my son.”
I hesitated, then leaned a little closer. Was that a gleam in his eye? Before I could react, he slashed out with a claw and snatched the water. I leaped back, raising my weapon.
But the old man ignored me entirely, taking water in great gulps. I could hear it sloshing around inside his chest as he drank. How many organs did he have left, I wondered?
“Better.” The priest smacked his lips. “Your questions are wise, and you are more intelligent than you seem. You won’t live long under Markon, if this is so. He doesn’t like smart people. That’s why I am what you see before you now. I am only half-human.”
The priest smiled wanly.
“Markon was not always a man of God. We both worked for the government. Army, NSA, STALKR. They never told us they would use it to make the Plague. They reassigned us to deep cover, so we entered the church. And we were so effective when we arrived in our diocese, people never pressed the matter.”
The priest drank again, and his eyes filled with anger.
“He began withdrawing when news came. How long was it? Ten years, twenty years ago? No more. Surely no more. But the reports came of spreading madness and sickness and death. The great cities of the West first, beginning in Georgia and Maryland. Rumors turned to the CDC of course, but by then there was no point in questions. The revolutions and civil wars began by the time anyone could even think of a solution. And all I could do was pray.”
The priest’s eyes narrowed in rage.
“I’d resigned my old ways, and I never knew what was going to happen. But I think Markon knew. Because Markon left us. To create his new world without us. And without the sheep who loved him. And trusted him. We decided to leave the world. But of course, my noose broke.”
A red foam began to fleck at the priest’s lips. “Go now. You wish to return to your master.” He fairly spat the words. “Tell him Brother Marcus sends greetings.”
I edged away, palms sweaty on my pistol grip. The priest growled.
“Don’t forget your water. I’ll die quicker if you take it.”
I felt like vomiting. I wanted to turn and run from those piercing, bloodshot eyes. But without water, I had no guarantee I would make it the rest of the way to Salvation. And the priest was helpless with his broken hip. I leaned carefully in and extended a hand. I would snatch the canteen and run as fast as I could…
With a scream, Brother Marcus thrust himself up from the ground toward me with all the strength in his good leg. There was a dreadful snap, and his bad leg fell to the ground as he lunged for my throat. I screamed, but he knocked my pistol aside as I fired. The gun fell to the ground as I fell before the inhuman strength of a living skeleton. Marcus’s bony fingers ground into my neck and I choked and gagged. I tried to hit him, to break his grip, but he was just too strong. Everything began to dim as he forced me to the ground.
“I cannot die. That is my curse. Do you understand?” The priest spat in my face. “I cannot die. I am one of their experiments, and I can’t die!”
My gun was close, and I could see it from the corner of my eye. Marcus tried to adjust his grip on my neck, and I lunged for it, but his grip was too tight and my hand fell short.
“So now that you’ve shown me the way to Markon, I will find him. I will sicken him with the same plague that maddens me and denies me death. I will watch him rot and writhe before my eyes. And then I will burn him to ashes. With the world he has built.”
The priest choked on the red foam in his mouth and was racked with a series of coughs. He lowered his gaze and his grip loosened. With a scream, I shoved him back and rolled over to grab my gun. By the time I whirled, he was already lunging at me. Still screaming, I fired wildly, rounds hitting the gravel road, passing harmlessly through his cowl, glancing from his bony shoulder and jaw, and finally, mercifully, through his forehead.
The priest fell at my feet with a small groan, tattered garments billowing around his skeletal frame. I stared and trembled while the smoke rose from my pistol. I saw him lying on the ground, knowing he could not die.
I walked away.
*****
Dayfather Markon listened carefully to the tale.
“And after your engine failed, you walked the whole way?”
I nodded quietly.
“And you were unmolested for the entirety of your journey?” His voice was skeptical.
“Except for a handful of undead, I made it back safely. I have nothing unusual to report.”
He watched me for a beat too long and then smiled. Far too sweetly.
“Very well. I salute your fortitude, Brother. You are dismissed. Find some rest.”
He scratched his arm.
“And to ease your mind...”
I dared not look up as I bowed.
“Perhaps we will have an escort accompany you to your quarters.”
My heart was pounding.
“Dayfather, I hardly find that necessary.”
Markon’s smile was positively wicked as he met my gaze.
“On the contrary, Brother, I think it is quitenecessary. No inconvenience is too great for such an esteemed colleague. We must keep you safein the coming days.”
Markon scratched higher on his arm, and I could have sworn that there was a squeak. It was like the grating of fingernail on bone. The world stood still for a moment. Markon’s eyes never left mine.
And with that, I turned stiffly and stepped out of the chamber, knowing that my entire world was about to change. I could feel Markon’s eyes on the back of my head the whole way to the door and stiffened as he spoke a final time.
“Sleep well, Brother.”
I could still hear him scratching himself as I closed the door.
Sergeant Cole was waiting for me outside. His gun was already out.
“I’m sorry, Brother.” His eyes were sad.
“It’s okay, Cole. I understand.”
“Let’s step out back.”
He led me around the Temple to the back. We walked down the chilly hill, through the ancient churchyard, past the gravestones and mausoleums of forgotten generations. At the bottom of the hill, far from the Temple, a body bag lay neatly on the ground in the moonlight.
Cole pushed me into the shadow of a tree. “We have to hurry! He doesn’t know I’m on your side. He needs to hear the shots soon.”
He chambered a round and gestured me toward the body bag. We were being watched from the hill above. “He’s already planned everything. He will announce that you were lost in the Wastes in the morning.”
“So he wants my body dumped outside the city walls.”
Cole nodded grimly.
“I’ll send help as soon as I can.”
I shrugged. “You’re a good man, Cole. Now shoot, just don’t miss and actually hit me.”
The sergeant raised his weapon.
Cole shrugged, took aim, and fired into the air, then told me, “Good luck out there.”
Daniel Brown recently wrangled his B.A. in English from the University of Louisville. When not working soul-crushing day jobs and writing by night, he enjoys an unhealthy obsession with zombies and science fiction. Daniel also enjoys jogging, learning new things, and meeting new people (preferably living). His novel Starshadow is available on Amazon Kindle.