“A lot of company?” I echo, turning back to our surroundings, “But there’s no one …” Alive.
There is, however, a city full of corpses.
The trembling ground grows more and more intense. As it shakes, several buildings in the distance collapse.
“Pestilence!” Famine shouts, “Get your ass out of that building!”
Pestilence, however, is nowhere in sight, and if he heard the Reaper, he isn’t listening to him.
Along the highway, a nearby corpse picks herself up. I spin, only to see more rise from behind us. The more I look, the more I see—in the buildings, on the streets that line the highway. The dead reanimate, their rotting faces fixed on the group of us.
For a second, all they do is stare blankly. Then, as one, they begin to run at us.
Chapter 72
Los Angeles, California
October, Year 27 of the Horsemen
Judgement Day is happening—in the City of Angels, no less.
I tighten my grip on the dagger as the dead charge towards us. A few minutes ago, the weapon had seemed excessive. Now, it feels like it won’t be enough.
I count our opponents—one-two-three, five-eight-ten-twelve-fifteen. And more keep coming.
“Get ready,” War says as the corpses close in on the three of us.
I tense, raising my weapon. The Reaper spins his scythe one last time, the blade making an ominous chopping sound as it slices through air.
And then the dead are on us.
The revenants go for War and Famine, their teeth bared. They’re so much worse than the corpses that came for me back in San Antonio, when Thanatos had first tried to capture me. Those ones had been dead for minutes. These creatures, however, are pure putridness, their skin mottled and sagging and decayed—or eaten—away in places.
And the smell. What little I ate this morning comes up.
The revenants ignore me as I sick myself, which is fortunate for me. Otherwise, I’d probably be missing an appendage or two. Instead they move around me, their viciousness focused entirely on Death’s brothers.
War laughs like a maniac as they come at him. He slices through the mass of dead bodies, congealed blood and other bits going flying as he takes off their arms or slices them below the legs.
I join in then, despite everything in me recoiling at the sight and smell of the revenants. I pry one away from Famine, kicking the woman in the chest.
Her body makes a sickening sound as it hits the ground, and I grimace. I swipe at another.
“Aim for their legs and arms,” War commands the rest of us. “The goal is to render them useless; there will be no killing them.”
I glance over at the massive horseman just as he swings his sword like a baseball bat, cutting through a line of opponents. I avoid looking at them as they fall apart.
This is the sickest situation I have ever been in.
War meets my gaze. He nods to my blade. “That one can cut through bone, though I’d aim for joints,” he says conversationally, even as a revenant jumps on his back. He grabs the creature by the neck and tosses it off of him and into more approaching undead, knocking the group of them over.
“Think of it like you’re carving a turkey,” War continues as, on my other side, Famine swings his scythe around his body, mowing down the dead encircling him.
I flash War a horrified look, even as I swipe my blade at the shoulder of a nearby revenant. “I’m never eating meat again.”
War flashes me a ferocious grin, then turns his attention back to his attackers.
I do aim for the joints, cutting through shoulders and wrists and elbows, the rotted flesh falling apart beneath my blade, their blood and other unmentionable juices getting on me.
These are not people, these are not people, I have to remind myself.
The dead keep coming, even as mounds of writhing, broken bodies pile up around us.
Across the way, I catch sight of Pestilence on the roof of the building he’d eyed earlier. There are only a few revenants on the roof, and as I look, I see the horseman kick an undead man off the side of the structure, the corpse’s body pin-wheeling as it falls. But even as I watch, more dead are climbing up the walls. They’re not getting very far before their grip gives out and they plummet back to the ground, but more are moving within the building.
Near me, Famine drops his scythe, scowling as his eyes take in the hordes of dead swarming the highway as they rush towards us. The Reaper moves his hands as though scooping magic from the air, his fingers splayed. His arms shake with the effort.
From deep beneath us, the earth shudders.
Asphalt and concrete cracks as massive, twisting plants rise from the ground. Vines and branches snatch the undead as they run by, coiling around the corpses like snakes. I can hear the sick sound of hundreds of bones breaking. More unnerving yet is that there are no screams of pain. The dead make no noise at all as their bodies are crushed.