Chapter 1.
Crusade
Be thankful for what you have. You never know when you might lose it.
“Mommy!” my daughter screamed, tearing up something primal within in me. A mother should never have to hear their child scream like that.
“It’s going to be okay!” I lied, crying over the gut-wrenching crunching of bone and flesh. Blood stained the tarmac. Neighbours lay dead, their limbs strewn at impossible angles. Blood pooled beneath them. And some were still moving. Black sludge oozed out of their open wounds. Bitemarks on their necks. Ripped throats. No one could survive that. Yet, they rose.
My child backed ever further down the alley. The brick walls flanking us should have given us a semblance of safety. But they made me feel trapped. Trapped inside a cage with beasts wearing the faces of those I’d once befriended.
Why?
A deafening thud sounded out as a car swerved off the street, turning hastily to avoid the undead horde rising to consume the living. The car impacted with the solid brick wall of a shuttered store. The owner didn’t let us in. He probably had good reason. But I would never forgive him. Not that I would have time to forgive him.
The rapidly paling, blank eyed, gurgling and shambling corpses turned from their previous meals turned comrades and looked my way. My heart leapt.
“Cheri…I need you to run…”
Maybe I could distract them. Maybe she could survive. Maybe…
“Mommy…”
I clutched her by the shoulders, steeling myself. I had to be strong. For her. Because the world was unfair. Because someone had to be strong and do what was right.
“I love you. Always remember that. When they aren’t looking, you need to run and not look back.”
She shook her head, tears falling down her cheeks.
“I’m scared. I can’t.”
I repressed a choked sob. I felt tears falling unchecked.
“You have to be strong, Cheri. For me…”
Her eyes were puffy. Red. And her skin pale. But she rubbed her tears away. She nodded. I felt my fears melt away then. Pride glowed in my heart. And I knew what I had to do.
I embraced my daughter, one final time, and stood in front of her.
The undead loomed ever closer, distracted by other corpses and the chaos on the street. There were too many of them. But I wasn’t going to fight them. I couldn’t. But I could be a distraction. That’s what she needed. And that’s what I could be. Till the very end.
“I love you, darling,” I said, and ran towards the abyss. Zombies looked up at me. Hungry. Angry. I didn’t know what they could feel angry about. I should be the one filled with rage. But, right now, I didn’t feel any fury.
My daughter would survive.
For that, I was happy.
Black and red blood sprayed at my feet as the zombie before me collapsed onto the ground, a fist sized hole in the back of its head. I froze, the sounds of gunfire and the roar of the undead filling my ears. The zombies turned towards the bang, just as a further shot fell from nowhere and decimated another zombie’s head.
Before the zombies could choose between me or the invisible sniper, a man wearing a tiger print martial arts outfit sauntered into view, at the end of the alley. He cracked his knuckles and punched the air itself. Zombies’ limbs flew off, slapping against the walls. All the fleshy shrapnel somehow missed my daughter and me.
The tiger man stood still. Confident and unshakable as the remaining zombies charged him, growling and spluttering their displeasure. Flames erupted from just behind him, searing the horde. The nauseating stench of burning flesh awoke me from my shock and I ran back to my daughter.
“Don’t look!” I insisted, even if it was too late.
Some of the flaming corpses collapsed in heaps, one on top of the other. But others continued to charge the tiger man and a one-armed sorcerer who had joined him. In two swift jabs, as if boxing a bag, the tiger man annihilated the zombies. Their burnt flesh splattered across the alley. I recoiled from the display, just as I heard groans and more gurgling.
With horror, I looked to the wall at the end of the alleyway. My child’s schoolteacher looked back at me, his eyes milky white and blood pouring from his neck. He was clambering over the wall.
“Your fire just makes a mess, flame boy,” the tiger man chided, his voice nonchalant. As if he was playing a game of dice.
“Says the guy who keeps repainting the walls with necroblood,” the sorcerer replied, as he let out a jet of flames, scorching the wall behind us. Heat washed over me, but I didn’t flinch. The sorcerer’s fire turned the paling and greying zombie flesh to a scorched black.
The sorcerer turned to the tiger man with a satisfied smirk, just as the undead responded with a collective wail. Like a tidal wave, zombies charged the other side of the wall, causing dust to fall as they clambered over one another to get through. The sorcerer let loose another barrage of fire, but the zombies weren’t impressed.
Silly me. I thought I was saved. But you couldn’t stop the tide.
“Get behind us, ma’am!” the tiger man said, taking a step forward and falling into a boxing stance.
“Mom…” Cheri murmured, calling my attention to the entrance to the alley. My heart skipped a beat.
More of them. Shambling, sniffing, snorting. How could there be so many?
“We’re encircled in the alley between grocer and mechanist,” the sorcerer spoke, calmly, into a cell phone attached to his shoulder. “We’ve got civvies, Wolfie. Time for some of that furry magic.”
“Roger, One-Arm,” a female voice came over the speaker phone, just as the zombies charged towards us.
The tiger man dove in front of us, just as a bullet found its home in a zombie’s head. The tiger man let loose with two swift jabs, caving in zombie ribcages like he was hitting them with a sledgehammer. He followed through with a sweeping kick, cutting them off at the knees, before bringing his heel down on a final assailant, exploding its head into a gooey bloody mess. I had long given up covering Cheri’s eyes.
“Wolfie, what are you waiting for?” the sorcerer chimed, unrelenting as he sprayed gusts of fire towards the zombies clambering over the wall.
He cut off as a young woman landed between us. She had raven black hair, a black leather jacket with torn off sleeves, and her arms were clawed and covered in black fur.
“Took you long enough,” the sorcerer jabbed, with gritted teeth as he kept up the fire. I’d never seen a pyromancer keep up their flames for this long.
The woman with the furry arms turned to me. Her eyes glowed gold, but her smile was friendly. Disarming. Even if she was wearing black lipstick and mascara.
“We’re going up, miss. It’s safe on the roofs.”
I wanted to ask how we were meant to do that. The woman squatted down to Cheri’s level.
“You’re going to be okay. We’re the Crusaders.”
My eyes widened. That was something I did understand.
“Ma’am,” the girl I realised was a werewolf asked. “I can carry you up one at a time…”
“Take my daughter, please,” I insisted, no hesitation.
She nodded.
“Mom?”
I stroked Cheri’s head. “It’s going to be okay, darling. I’ll be right up.”