Steampunk Zombie

It wasn’t the shrill cries of the night wind that kept Adrian up for most of the night, or even the frequent and violent tossing and turning from his cousin, but it was instead the faint, sluggish footsteps of the dead that continued to pace back and forth under the second story window. Adrian watched the orange flame of the vanilla candle dwindle down to nothing more than a wisp of smoke. His consciousness came and went.

It was a little after midnight that the silence of the night was overcome by the hushed presence of wandering and tormented souls, so when a terrified neigh and a ravenous gurgle erupted in the early hours of dawn from where the hefty barn sat, Adrian was up and out of bed within seconds. His boots clunked against the wooden steps as he flew down the stairs. He flung the front door open only to be stopped on the porch dead in his tracks.

Adrian erected his shoulders, pulling them back so that his chest puffed out a bit. He sucked in the corners of his lips as he counted. There were only seven, but it was enough to cause the two horses inside to thrash about their stalls in a panic as a horde of the dead proceeded to beat and claw at the barn doors. They threw their heavy, dead bodies against the warping wood. Adrian gripped the blade in his belt as he jumped down the porch steps. He didn’t see the creature hidden behind the spindles of the railing until it had let out its guttural cry. Adrian ducked, spinning around on his heels just as the creature swung its arms. He pushed up against its stomach, and then stood up with enough force to bring the blade up into its leathered jaw.

This brief interaction was enough to draw the attention of a few of the creatures trying to get into the barn. The group slowly began to disperse and Adrian was able to use his dagger on the first three, but as he pulled the blade from the throat of a moldering woman, an endless parade of the dead began to pour from around the barn. Adrian wiped the blade across his shirtsleeves, first on one side and then the next. He let the weapon fall into the holster on the side of his belt before pulling out the Volcanic Repeater.

He fiddled with the pistol in his hand and the brought it right to the forehead of a charging mad man. The bag of brittle bones screeched just as Adrian pressed the end of the barrel into the man’s soft forehead. The creature’s guttural cry was cut short and the sound of a bursting weapon overtook the yard.

Adrian’s chest heaved and his eyes rapidly moved from body to body. His forehead wrinkled and his stare intensified as he continued to push towards the barn and fire the pistol at the same time. Fear had never bothered with Adrian much, but in this moment he was starting to experience a mild amount of concern. He ducked just as a woman leapt for his back. He spun quickly – kicking dirt up in the process –and pulled the trigger. The bullet bit through the woman’s neck and charged up her throat into her brain.

Adrian’s rough hands pressed against the splintered wood of the large doors as he finally made it to the barn. He could hear Gizmo and the thoroughbred neighing wildly and kicking at the stall walls. Their hooves beat into the ground and their lips flew back against their teeth. It didn’t sound as though any flesh eaters had broken into the byre, but Adrian couldn’t be too sure.

“Shit!” he spat as the unwanted sound of an empty barrel clicked. He looked down at the pistol in his hands and shook it violently, but it had reached its limits and was unexpectedly empty a few rounds earlier than Adrian had anticipated.

He switched the Volcanic Repeater for the clockwork knife, bringing the shiny blade into the charging scalps of the oncoming dead one by one. With each assailant’s dropping body, Adrian was being forced back against the barn until he found himself with little room to move.

Adrian’s chest burned as he whipped his arm sideways. The blade slashed across the necks and shoulders of a few corpses. Some fell to their second death but others pressed on. Adrian could feel the sweat sliding from his hairline as the space between them quickly depleted.

Adrian felt something hard bore into his left shoulder. The force was strong enough to push him back against the barn doors just as a large rock flew into the boards to the right of his head. He watched as a forceful shower comprised of rocks of all sizes tore into the mass before him. The smaller stones threw off the balance of the dead while it took the larger nuggets piercing their heads to put them down entirely.

Adrian threw his arms up, ducking slightly as he protected his head as best he could. He felt a few rocks pelt his body and winced at they left welts beneath his clothing. The unorthodox ammunition took out chunks of the wood, as well, until finally only Adrian was left standing. He slowly lowered his arms, eventually catching sight of his cousin standing several yards before him with the smoking Rock Launcher in her hands.

“Are you insane?” Adrian roared. “You could have killed me!”

“Could have,” shrugged Rebecca as she fought to maintain her grip on the heavy machine. “But didn’t.”

Adrian’s face was red with fury, but he chose not to argue with the woman. The gamble with the rocks proved to be a much more favorable probability than Adrian attempting to take on the remaining beasts with just a single knife. His arms ached as he reached up to fix his hair and pat down his clothes.

A few corpses groaned from where they had been dropped. Adrian proceeded to pierce every skull until all dozen of the dead where forever immobile. He stepped up to Rebecca who had let the butt of the giant gun fall to the ground. It was half her size and rather bulky. Adrian freed the woman of its weight.

“Thanks, I guess,” Adrian muttered.

“There’s a lot of them,” Rebecca said as she brushed the gravel from her hands onto her clothes. She nearly tripped over her feet as she followed Adrian towards the house but kept her gaze on the sprinkled bodies across the lawn. There were about thirty of them.

“We must be near a city or a large town,” sighed Adrian as he laid the Rock Launcher on the table. He proceeded to pack up their stuff.

“I should make some breakfast first –” Rebecca tried to insist.

“We don’t have time. The noise already attracted that lot. Can’t say how many more are on their way,” said Adrian. He moved around the woman, leaving her to dance out of his way as he started to gather her things, as well.

“Okay, well, we can at least have some of this bread as we ride,” stated Rebecca as she pulled leftovers from the night before. “And I found a can of marmalade to help it go down.”

“Alright then,” nodded Adrian as he stepped back onto the porch.

Rebecca remained in the cabin for a little while longer as Adrian took to the barn. He kicked a path between the rotted bodies. Gizmo and his horse whinnied once sunlight poured into the barn. They reared up, nervously, and it took Adrian a good several minutes to calm them down enough for him to put on the saddles, reigns, and all the cousins’ bags.

Adrian pulled himself onto his horse, grumbling loudly as the welts from the rocks left his body sore and slow. He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and led Gizmo out the barn behind him. Rebecca walked down the porch steps and mounted her horse. They walked over the creek before picking back up on the trail.

“Sleep any better tonight?” Adrian asked after several yards of silence.

“I did,” answered Rebecca. “Did you?”

Adrian shrugged. “I’ll sleep well when I’m dead.”

Rebecca frowned at her cousin’s response but chose not to push it. The day was unbearably hot for the end of summer in the south. The loud chirping of cicadas sounded all around them. It masked the heavy breathing of the dead for miles, forcing Adrian and Rebecca to ride across the plains on edge as they neared the Alabama/Georgia boarder.

“The trees are already bare,” Rebecca noted as they came upon a trail rooted deep. The trees around them looked charred, stripped of leaves and scarred with ash.

“Something has the crows going wild,” Adrian stated as he peered into the steel blue sky.

Hundreds of black birds swirled above them. Their caws back and forth were as loud as gunfire. Adrian and Rebecca watched as they settled on the trees in the distance before bursting back into the air with angered screeches. As the cousins neared the trees, the crows’ behavior was then justified.

“Oh my god,” gasped Rebecca.

Scattered across the limbs of the three large trees along the left of the trail was fifty or so bodies. The corpses hung from braided nooses, twisting from the gentle wind and curiosity of the crows. The branches were naked of leaves, the only decorations being the bodies of black men and women as they dangled with broken limbs and lifeless expressions.

But what made it even more unbearable to look at was the fact that none were truly dead. Although their eyes were clouded over and their necks were torn and raw, their hearts and lungs were nothing more than leathery sacks, and their brown skin was now a grayish blue, they still hissed and wiggled. They reached below them for Adrian and Rebecca, struggling to break free so that their insatiable hunger could be teased with a bite of flesh and a gulp of blood. They were dead, but not dead dead.

“Rebecca!” Adrian cried when a small slave boy lunged out for the Appaloosa. Gizmo reared back, lifting his legs high in the air as the boy was yanked back by a short chain.

Five slave children stood along the trail, each burdened by a metal collar around their necks. Thick, heavy links kept them chained back to tall pegs. They screamed out with brittle teeth, long fingernails, and yellow eyes. Five small houses rested in the grass field behind them.

“Where’s their masters?” wondered Rebecca.

“They probably did this to them,” muttered Adrian with tight lips. His right nostril lifted in ire and disgust as he stared at the sight before him.

“But why?” asked his cousin.

Adrian shrugged. “Cause they’re mindless white supremacists who would blame a black man for snow in July or a strand of blond hair in their soup regardless.”

With that, Adrian jumped from his horse. He hastily pulled the dagger from his hip and brought it down upon each of the salve children pulling at their chains. His chest heaved rapidly as his anger continued to grow.

“Give me the Le Mat,” demanded Adrian as he moved to Gizmo’s side.

Rebecca’s hand hovered protectively over the revolver as she stared down with parted lips at her cousin. She knew not to argue with him when Adrian was mad, but she also didn’t see the point in wasting ammo and drawing any more attention.

“Adrian –” she tried to protest, but the man was too quick. He reached up and pulled the Le Mat from the holster hanging across the woman’s thigh.

Rebecca watched with tightened lips and a forlorn expression as her cousin lifted the revolver into the air. He took several steps towards the first tree and proceeded to fire rounds at the bodies. One by one, a few of them were put out of their misery, left to hang with only the wind to move them. The crows landed at their heads to peck at their eyes.

“Adrian!” Rebecca called out. “Just let it be! You can’t kill them all!”

Adrian didn’t like that his cousin was right. After silencing only two tree limbs worth of infected slaves, Adrian threw the Le Mat across the ground. He released an angered yell into the sky, his voice easily besting the screams and growls of the dead.

Rebecca sighed as she watched her cousin kick at the dirt. He punted the gun across the ground in frustration as he spat profanities into the air. Adrian eventually dropped down so that his knees were bent and his rear hovered above the ground. He pressed his chin to his chest and choked before finally grasping the revolver and heading back to where Rebecca waited.

“They were dead before they hung them. You don’t have to end them all,” she softly said.

“They all weren’t,” murmured Adrian. “Those children were still alive, left to run only the distance allowed as the dead bit at their necks. And those hanging on the lowest limbs, they were still alive. You can tell by how their legs are gnawed to the kneecaps.”

Rebecca’s nose scrunched into a sickly grimace as she took note of her cousin’s observations. It made her skin crawl and shiver. She found her hazel eyes burrowing into the ground from that point on.

Adrian shoved the Le Mat back into Rebecca’s holster before climbing back onto the thoroughbred. He kicked the horse’s sides until he was back in the lead. Rebecca urged Gizmo to stay parallel to their counterparts.

“I didn’t see him up there,” Rebecca said once the hanged slaves were out of sight and the screeching crows could no longer be heard. “Do you always look for him in a sea of black?”

“No,” Adrian quickly stated. “I have no reason to. He said he was going north so that’s where he is.”

Rebecca pursed her lips to the side and calculated her next words very carefully. “Do you miss him?”

Adrian’s throat tightened. “It’s been eight years, Rebecca. He’s as good as dead; both in body and memory.”

“That’s not what I was asking, Adrian,” stated Rebecca. “What Pap did was wrong. What you did was wrong. But despite all that, you and Calvin were best friends, a pair of kids who saw beyond the color of their skin. You lost status because of hi–”

“Rebecca!” spat Adrian. “Quit it! Just stop. Stop.”

Rebecca sighed, shaking her head as she picked at the horn of her saddle. “You can’t save them all, Adrian. You gave one man his freedom. That’s more than you can say for other white men,” she breathed before digging her heels into Gizmo. The horse picked up his pace and soon Adrian was left behind in the dust, watching his cousin canter ahead while he was left to brood in his own misfortunate history.