The Queen of the Dead Read online

  In the heat and sorrow of Mexico, he never ran from a fight. Becoming a priest didn’t change him much.

  Outside, people climbed over the tops of cars while police-issue revolvers and pump-action shotguns fired into the clambering mess of shadows without pause. Nobody was trying to make arrests or bring anyone in for questioning. Color drained from the world and was replaced by gun smoke; featureless bodies wrestled other bodies to the cement.

  The flashing lights returned to focus and Father Joe looked for the first person he could help. These honorable men and women were at the mercy of an uncontrolled mob, the likes of which didn’t fear the threat of death. The mob was a serpent that slithered over humanity and poisoned the air with its fetid stench.

  He stepped between two people who locked arms against the passenger door of a squad car. After wrenching the attacker away, blood squirted over Father’s hands, as the victim dropped into his grasp. He dragged the police officer backward, and he found it odd that he could note the shine on the man’s shoes. Where could he take him? The man held his face and screamed into his hands, and Father did the only thing he could do, his mind unclear, thoughts thrown to the wind by the storm of violence.

  The Act of Contrition tumbled from his lips.

  Warm liquid gushed over his fingers; the officer’s ankle was seized by a hand, and Father could see the attacker for what it really was, or might be. The world was silenced by his moment of awe: vacant eyes inset into a thin skull, a shirtless Caucasian with mottled flesh scarred by disuse, ribs stretching against flesh, gray sweat pants hanging from the thin waist of a man who might’ve declared himself dead years ago. Whatever thirst for vengeance against mankind possessed him, Father couldn’t identify it.

  The thin man yanked on the officer’s leg. Father wasn’t about to play tug of war; he gazed into those blank eyes and said, “Help these people, damn you!”

  The man didn’t reply. There was no hint of recognition that words had been directed at him; he bent down and grabbed the screaming officer’s leg.

  Father glanced around at the other aggressive shapes. Officers were fleeing the scene, running into the comfort of the abyssal-dark suburbs.

  His hands were sticky with blood.

  Father Joe was calm, just like he used to be whenever he entered the boxing ring.

  The thin man ignored Father. He was casually sitting on the concrete with his hands wrapped around the powerless officer’s ankle. The policeman kicked and attempted to push himself away, dropping his hands from a syrupy face that shone like a sea filled with oil revealed in the glow of a firestorm.

  Old habits die hard. Demons scratched at Father’s innards and clawed their way through his throat. A roar pushed out of his mouth and his fists clenched. He swung hard at the thin man’s face without asking another question, without begging for mercy in the name of Heaven or Christ. The man’s head rocked sideways and he fell on his shoulder. He looked like a wounded alien from a bad science fiction movie in which all the costumes had been purchased at the local Halloween specialty store.

  The thin man was nearly turned over onto his stomach—the savage lust which manifested itself through a fist and a battle cry dissipated into air from the priest’s frozen lungs. His heartbeat faded into irrelevance as he looked into the open backside from which kidneys and intestines had been ripped, leaving a gaping hole as if a malevolent puppet master had designed the body.

  The man was peeling himself off the concrete from a blow that would’ve knocked out a rhinoceros. Sure, a long time had passed since Sangriento Joe stepped into the ring, but this guy didn’t seem to feel it.

  Kathy had told him a dead man attacked her, was shot, and kept coming.

  A warm spotlight lingered on him, and he was aware of the helicopter hovering in the sky above.

  The wounded officer on the ground behind him screamed anew. Father snapped his head around to two more people crouching near the officer’s arms. The officer’s wrists were sandwiched between two sets of teeth and flesh was peeled from bone like fresh lasagna forked into a hungry mouth, saucy blood leaking over the officer’s navy blue sleeves.

  “Father!”

  Ninkovich pointed his revolver at the new attackers and fired shots into their heads. He lowered his gun and fired into the wounded officer’s head, too. There was no hesitation, as if the choice had already been made for him.

  “Run while you still can,” Ninkovich said.

  Father wanted to debate with him, to condemn him for murdering a man for the sake of “mercy” until God was ready, but Father wasn’t sure he had an argument to offer.

  He grabbed the officer by his shoulders. “Come with me. Get as many men as you can and help me…”

  “It’s too late,” Ninkovich said, the strength in his body having fled; Father felt like he could shake the man until his soul jarred itself free.

  “IT’S THE END OF THE WORLD, COCKSUCKERS!”

  Father and Ninkovich both turned to see a man standing atop the roof of a cruiser with a heavy, double-bladed battle-axe in a gauntleted fist. With wild black hair and a dark beard extending to his chest, the newcomer wore full plate armor, reflecting the glow of flames while streaks of blood were splattered on the surface like an infant’s attempt at coloring in a book with crayons.

  The man jumped down onto the concrete, barely able to keep his balance while he stood upright.

  Father dragged Ninkovich away. “Come with me—”

  Smoking tires screamed against the pavement as a truck slammed into the barricade. The driver-side door opened and a middle-aged man with a baseball cap on his head stumbled out of the cab. A pale police officer missing half a face and most of a thigh leaned against a cop car, smearing blood along the vehicle.

  A boy jumped out of the truck with a hunting rifle in his hand. He tried to help the driver to his feet, but he stopped and looked up at the man who was supposed to be dead.

  Father forgot everything. There was nothing to remember, nothing worth thinking. He leapt over a crawling body while bullets continued to fly over his head. He pushed someone else aside—he was remotely aware of something wet and sticky on his fingers. It was like being in the ring all over again; drown out the noise of the crowd and focus. The sound of the bell, the crunch of bone, the referee’s voice—he was deaf to everything else.

  He scooped the boy into his arms and turned around as two screams pierced his ears on either side of him; a woman inside the truck was being dragged out of the passenger door, and Father grabbed for her ankle while the boy cried out for his mother.

  Blood squirted along the dashboard and soaked into tufts of blonde hair that whipped about as the woman struggled.

  Father turned around and found the maimed policeman, who barely had a face or a leg, wrestling with the truck driver.

  He held the boy in his arms. People were being murdered all around him. Blood washed over his black shoes, and the helicopter fled.

  This is what Hell must sound like.

  It was Father’s turn to die. Another police officer, an African American woman, stared at him as if trying to figure out if he was an alien or human. The flesh in the middle of her face had been ripped away. Her lips, nose, and forehead were gone, leaving a red-stained skull set between flesh on either side as if her head was attempting to burst out of a shell.

  Her hand reached for the boy.

  Father slapped it away.

  Her hand reached again.

  Father slapped it away.

  “Macon! Save him, Father. Save my son!”

  The truck driver fought with two corpses now. Limbs thrashed between grunts and curses.

  The priest covered the boy’s eyes. They were surrounded by the dead.

  A burst of blood popped out of the woman’s head. She wavered for a moment, and then crumpled to the concrete.

  “Father!” Kathy waved at him with a gun in her hand. “Come on!”

  More hands reached, and Father couldn’t see the faces. He co
uld smell the blood and see the bright lights, but he tuned out the screams. Holding the boy to his chest with the hunting rifle between them, he stepped over the dead-again woman while the boy’s father was devoured.

  Tears blurred his eyes and warmth ran down his cheeks.

  Remembering Ninkovich, he watched as the armored warrior swung his axe around his head. Blood splashed into the man’s dark beard and hair, and he whirled his entire body around in an unbalanced, teetering cyclone that hit everything in its path. The chaotic strike was hardly effective at hitting anything except for Ninkovich, who put his hands up to stop before the edge of the blade swept across his neck. His throat opened and Father thought of Kool-Aid pouring from a pitcher.

  Ninkovich fell to his knees.

  He couldn’t tell which people were alive or dead. The armored man danced between hundreds of corpses, bouncing between them while swaying drunkenly in the armor.

  Until the side of his head popped open. The armored savage stumbled onto his side and crashed in a heap at the feet of the dead.

  “Let’s get the fuck out of here!”

  Kathy again, a gun smoking in her fist. Father charged forward and ran past her. He had to get back to Frank and the others. He managed to get the boy, and he had Kathy. He’d done some good out here. He had to clear the shock from his system and keep his ass going.

  Last round. Three more minutes. The crowd screams, anticipating the final blow, the knockout punch. Someone has to lose.

  Not Sangriento Joe. Not on Earth or in Heaven.

  Now he could feel his blood pumping through his veins. He was aware of his own breath, his heartbeat. For the first time in years, he was excited. Nothing felt better than victory, especially a victory made from bone and blood, fear and violence.

  ***

  “You killed a man,” he pointed out to Kathy while they ran down the street.

  “Ask me tomorrow if I give a fuck,” she said.

  He set the boy down. Other survivors followed them, beating their feet against the concrete to escape the melee at the barricade. None of them were police.

  There was no way he could agree with Kathy’s decision to kill a man. If she could reconcile the decision to shoot a man in cold blood, why didn’t everyone just kill each other? Was it already happening?

  Macon didn’t seem shaken up by what he’d seen. Both his parents were murdered in front of him. His face was full of freckles, but there were no tears. He carried the rifle over his shoulder like an expert. The gun’s weight didn’t stop him from keeping pace with the priest.

  Dread shapes silhouetted by flames loomed against the horizon behind them. The undead would follow.

  “I think we’ll be safe,” he said to Kathy between gasps. “I have an idea. I have crucifixes… if we can just nail them over the doors… maybe… just maybe…”

  It sounded insane to his ears, but to question it now would be to question everything he’d already seen, and everything he believed to be true.

  Kathy said, “If we can all get crucifixes, maybe I can get back to my parents safely. They need me, Father. You get me a crucifix and I’m outta here.”

  Survivors scattered around the compound while Father led Kathy and Macon up to the room where Frank and the others waited. He would keep his promise. Kathy was good enough with a gun, and maybe if he could get back outside and gather all the survivors, he could grab weapons from the failed barricade.

  Inside the room, Frank sat in his wheelchair. The walls around him were painted in gore while dead bodies, savagely ripped to pieces, lay on the floor at his feet. Three haggard faces looked at the priest, Kathy, and Macon. One of the bodies sat up, flaps of skin hanging from an old woman’s face.

  “You forgot about Mrs. Waters,” Frank said, “you fucking idiot.”

  There she was, standing among the dead bodies: Mrs. Jane Waters, who was supposed to receive her final sacrament from Father Joe. She chewed scraps of flesh in her mouth like someone might gnaw busily on beef jerky.

  Father couldn’t look away from the dead faces that were stuffed with chunks of human skin. Blood dribbled over their chins like creamy salad dressing, slipping over lips and dripping onto the carpet.

  Kathy fired her gun.

  CHANELL

  (Eight Hours Ago)

  The black Mercedes S-Class peeled rubber along Woodward Avenue while the engine roared. A figure standing in the middle of the road stopped and looked into the bright headlights. Most people would have moved. Most people, if they could think, if they could reason, would have moved the hell out of the way.

  The corpse flipped heels-over-head and slid off the hood.

  The Mercedes navigated through the maze of burning cars. The drivers and the passengers had stepped out of the vehicles and now stood in the street, their flesh charred, their hair singed, their eyes lidless, and their twitching, skeletal bodies moving through the smoky haze.

  Chanell always wanted a Mercedes, and it was even more fun to drive the stolen car with Tyga’s, “Do My Dance” rattling the doors and windows. Her brother, Louis, leaned out the passenger window and sprayed his Uzi into the faces of shambling corpses. The rear windows were rolled down, and the other members of their crew, Carter and DJ, both opened fire with their Berettas. The combined gunfire was louder than Tyga’s beats, and Chanell slowed the car to a crawl so they could spend their bullets.

  All they needed to do was find Vincent; these were his guns. Cops didn’t come around their block, what with Fireball taking care of shit. If they could find Fireball, they could find Vincent, and if they could find Vincent, they could go to war.

  Carter and DJ reloaded while corpses dropped alongside the car. Chanell sped through a gap and drove along a dark stretch of road. They had to get downtown if they wanted to find Vincent. They had passed Highland Park through a makeshift barricade of abandoned cop cars. Damn fools couldn’t keep Detroit on lockdown.

  To the left and right, the side streets were as dark as ever without working streetlights, and a tall, gothic cathedral burned next to a Baptist church. There was a break in the crowd of corpses in the street, as many of them had been dropped by gunfire.

  Chanell looked back at DJ and Carter while her brother, Louis, reloaded in the passenger seat. She pushed a strand of hair out of her eyes. She was pissed that her weave was ruined; it was the first rational thought she had in the past hour.

  DJ uncorked the bottle of Cristal and took a long draught, while Carter checked their weapons.

  “All we got is 9 millimeter,” he announced. “Not much left. Gotta conserve…”

  “Fuck that!” Louis turned around. “Keep sprayin’ these muthas… gotta take it all back! This shit’s ours!”

  Chanell could feel her sweaty palms shaking against the steering wheel. Her body was numb, and she needed a moment to calm her nerves. She had always been a clear-headed woman, even when she had sunk into a world of depravity and lust before she found the man who saved her life.

  With the crowd of dead behind them, she parked the car along the curb. Like Vincent, she loved this city, from the pot-holed streets that were never plowed during the winter, to the casinos where they would roll up together in a black stretch Hummer. She loved it when he draped a mink coat over her shoulders and they ran the roulette table together. She didn’t mind when some cheap-ass hoes hovered over his shoulders while he gambled. Vincent belonged to her, but he was a man of power and respect. He needed the dime bitches to keep up appearances, but she was the one he shared the dream with.

  He would go legit. One day, the people would love him. Once all the crews were united under his guns, the violence would stop. He had the money to make a run for it, so once he had the votes, being mayor wasn’t a stretch. Not for him.

  Nobody knew him like she did. He was in the city so much that everybody thought he lived there, but they had a home together in Grosse Pointe. When all the shit came down, Chanell couldn’t wait to see him again. It didn’t take much for her to argue
with the loyal men who hung around their house that they needed to find their boss. They already lost Chris, who crashed their Escalade into a tree.

  “Y’all need to keep your shit together,” she said. “We’ve got to stay focused. I don’t want you getting so twisted that you can’t even see straight!” She knew she was the only sober one among them.

  Louis shook his head. His chest heaved from the adrenaline which surged through his veins. The Kevlar he wore beneath his blood-spattered Tigers jersey was useless against the nightmare creatures that roamed around Woodward.

  “You don’t even know what those things are. We just know they ain’t on the same team. The lockdown didn’t work. Look around you—they tried to protect this city, keep everyone in, and everyone out.” He stared at his lap and sighed.

  DJ whispered while looking through the rear window. “We can’t just sit here and wait for them to come get us.”

  Carter slammed the Cristal again “You know what those things are. You know exactly what they are.” He passed the bottle to Louis, who took down a swig.

  “Why’re we stopped?” DJ asked. “I want to get to Vincent just as much as you, but we’re not gonna make it by sitting here. We need to move.”

  Chanell turned back to the steering wheel, but instead of turning the key in the ignition, she stared. Vincent always took care of her; she’d lived on government checks and needles in her arm, until Vincent woke her up to reality. Until he made her realize how strong she could be, and how beautiful she was.

  There was so much fire, so much chaos—what if he was hurt? What if one of those things got him?

  Louis put a hand on her arm. “You can do this. We need you to drive, okay? Hey, look at me.”