squeeze. Something inside me tears, a cold burning inside my chest I’ve never felt before, driving me back to the floor. Panic runs through me. Am I having a heart attack, or have I pushed myself too far this time? Maybe I’ve finally run too much juice through the pipes and this is me burning out.
But the magic doesn’t fade and I don’t die so I figure I’ve got at least a couple minutes to finish what I started. I push tendrils of unseen force, threads of pure will wrapping around all of these poor bastards who went from bitter commuters to hunks of meat in the blink of an eye. I reach out through those threads, feel their last thoughts, their final panicked moments care of this crazy bitch.
She walks toward me, picking her way gingerly past the corpses, laughing nervously, as if this all some weird joke and could everybody get up now and not be dead? I can’t tell if she’s fully realized what she’s done. Whether she’s freaking out because of me or all of the bodies she’s just created. How about we make it both?
The hand of one of the corpses, a slack-jawed, empty-eyed girl slumped back in her seat, reaches out and grabs the hem of her sleeve. The woman jerks back, slashing at the body with the knife. The arm doesn’t let go. I don’t let it let go.
She pulls away, stepping back into another dead commuter, who wraps her in his arms. She screams and stabs back at it, the blade sinking into dead flesh. I bring another corpse up from the floor like I’m pulling on a marionette’s strings. Then another, and another, and another.
She’s frantic now. Punching, kicking. She screams, swears at me. Calls me names in three different languages. One arm pinned, the other desperately trying to push the corpses away. The knife is useless. She can barely move it with all that dead meat hanging off her.
So this is what it’s like to have an undead army.
“Get them off!” she yells, her voice a high-pitched shriek. “Please.” Tears are pouring out of her eyes. If she wasn’t totally off the rails before she sure as hell is now. She’ll have nightmares for years. Not that I’m going to let her.
The train’s coming into the station. Maybe a minute, maybe less. I sure as hell don’t want to be here when it does. Being the last survivor in a train full of corpses is a recipe for getting shot at by a trigger-happy LAPD and being asked too many questions I can’t answer.
So far I only have the corpses weighing her down, holding her in place. But that’s not enough. Not for me and sure as hell not for them. I pull myself to my feet, the pain in my chest spreading. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a massive coronary. Though the vertigo is passing, I’m still having trouble standing. I head up the aisle toward her, thinking I should grab that knife, but then I hear the automated announcement saying we’re coming in to the next station. Crap.
Instead, I edge toward the door as the train slows, brakes shrieking and throwing up sparks. I have one of the corpses pull the rear doors apart. The wind, already blasting through the blown-out windows, roars through the open door. Time to leave.
Once I’m gone the corpses won’t keep moving long. But it’ll be long enough. I push out my will with all the fury and anger I can to fill those empty brains.
“Kill her,” I say, and jump.
I hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb some of the shock. I feel the flare of magic as spells in my tattoos take most of the impact. I had them added after getting the crap beaten out of me multiple times. A broken nose leaves a lot to be desired.
Even with all that I take a beating. Jumping from a speeding train’s gonna leave a mark no matter what. There’s a wrenching in my shoulder, pain flares, eclipsing the burn in my chest. The train recedes in the distance and I half roll, half crawl to something like standing and limp toward the side of the tunnel.
First priority is getting as much distance between me and
But the magic doesn’t fade and I don’t die so I figure I’ve got at least a couple minutes to finish what I started. I push tendrils of unseen force, threads of pure will wrapping around all of these poor bastards who went from bitter commuters to hunks of meat in the blink of an eye. I reach out through those threads, feel their last thoughts, their final panicked moments care of this crazy bitch.
She walks toward me, picking her way gingerly past the corpses, laughing nervously, as if this all some weird joke and could everybody get up now and not be dead? I can’t tell if she’s fully realized what she’s done. Whether she’s freaking out because of me or all of the bodies she’s just created. How about we make it both?
The hand of one of the corpses, a slack-jawed, empty-eyed girl slumped back in her seat, reaches out and grabs the hem of her sleeve. The woman jerks back, slashing at the body with the knife. The arm doesn’t let go. I don’t let it let go.
She pulls away, stepping back into another dead commuter, who wraps her in his arms. She screams and stabs back at it, the blade sinking into dead flesh. I bring another corpse up from the floor like I’m pulling on a marionette’s strings. Then another, and another, and another.
She’s frantic now. Punching, kicking. She screams, swears at me. Calls me names in three different languages. One arm pinned, the other desperately trying to push the corpses away. The knife is useless. She can barely move it with all that dead meat hanging off her.
So this is what it’s like to have an undead army.
“Get them off!” she yells, her voice a high-pitched shriek. “Please.” Tears are pouring out of her eyes. If she wasn’t totally off the rails before she sure as hell is now. She’ll have nightmares for years. Not that I’m going to let her.
The train’s coming into the station. Maybe a minute, maybe less. I sure as hell don’t want to be here when it does. Being the last survivor in a train full of corpses is a recipe for getting shot at by a trigger-happy LAPD and being asked too many questions I can’t answer.
So far I only have the corpses weighing her down, holding her in place. But that’s not enough. Not for me and sure as hell not for them. I pull myself to my feet, the pain in my chest spreading. I’m still not convinced this isn’t a massive coronary. Though the vertigo is passing, I’m still having trouble standing. I head up the aisle toward her, thinking I should grab that knife, but then I hear the automated announcement saying we’re coming in to the next station. Crap.
Instead, I edge toward the door as the train slows, brakes shrieking and throwing up sparks. I have one of the corpses pull the rear doors apart. The wind, already blasting through the blown-out windows, roars through the open door. Time to leave.
Once I’m gone the corpses won’t keep moving long. But it’ll be long enough. I push out my will with all the fury and anger I can to fill those empty brains.
“Kill her,” I say, and jump.
I hit the ground hard, rolling to absorb some of the shock. I feel the flare of magic as spells in my tattoos take most of the impact. I had them added after getting the crap beaten out of me multiple times. A broken nose leaves a lot to be desired.
Even with all that I take a beating. Jumping from a speeding train’s gonna leave a mark no matter what. There’s a wrenching in my shoulder, pain flares, eclipsing the burn in my chest. The train recedes in the distance and I half roll, half crawl to something like standing and limp toward the side of the tunnel.
First priority is getting as much distance between me and
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