Steampunk Zombie

“Thought you said those flashes of light were just dry lightning,” said Rebecca as she craned her neck to the left.

Adrian pulled his horse up beside her and gazed into the far distance. All last night, the pair of cousins had watched the black sky bright up intermittently with flashes of white-green light. It was like seeing shadows flicker across the tree line from the dancing flames of a fire, only these reflected off of the cloudy, starless sky.

There had been no sudden crash or thunderous eruption. All that drifted through the night wind was the low groans of the dead as they meandered through the trees. Adrian and Rebecca took turns on watch, but their attention had been primarily glued to the peculiar flashes.

“Thought they were,” Adrian countered.

Rebecca dropped her head and stared attentively at the bolts of light. They were harder to see in the day. The sun fought for space in the sky, leaving the flashes’ appearance less frequent.

“We should head that way,” suggested the woman.

Adrian whipped his head to the left and stared at his cousin with narrowed eyes and a crinkled forehead. He gazed at Rebecca as though she bore a dozen heads.

“We have a destination to get to, Rebecca,” Adrian stated with a harsh emphasis on the woman’s name. “We’re only to veer from the road if it’s for vital survival purposes.”

Rebecca met her cousin’s eyes. She lifted a finely combed brow and brought her lips to a pointed smirk. “You have a lover in Savannah, eh?” she teased. “Did you plant the watch? Is your heart in Savannah?”

“No times three,” Adrian huffed. “I just don’t like my plans detoured.”

“That’s right,” chuckled Rebecca. “Little boy Adrian always threw fits when order was broken by the other little children.”

Adrian stared ahead with a bored expression while his cousin engaged in laughter at the childhood memories. She leaned forward to slap at her cousin’s thigh. Adrian pushed his jaw outward and peered down at her through two slits.

“I have a welt there. I’m still mad at you,” stated the man.

Rebecca rolled her eyes as she sat back upwards on Gizmo. “Such a baby,” she muttered.

The younger cousin’s attention went back to the lights in the sky. Although the sky was oddly dark, there was no sign of rain. After the past days’ worth of showers, the air was only slightly damp and the clouds moved calmly.

“I just need to see what it is,” Rebecca insisted. “I’ve seen flashes like that in a show, but never so large and high up. Come on, Adrian.”

“I doubt it’s the circus,” Adrian muttered under his breath.

Adrian knew that he didn’t have much of a choice in the matter. Rebecca was a stubborn woman. If she wanted to do something, she was going to do it regardless of whether or not she was given someone’s blessing. No man had ever been able to successfully tame her and Adrian wasn’t about to try now. Biting his tongue and swallowing his frustration, Adrian nodded.

Rebecca squealed as her lips spread to reveal two rows of bright teeth. She reached to her side to grab at Adrian’s sleeve and shake him gleefully. Adrian’s chest slowly rose and fell before he went to fix his crumpled shirt.

“Just in time, too,” beamed Rebecca. “Look.”

Adrian followed the woman’s eye line to see a horde of crippled corpses breaking through the trees several yards to their right. At the pace they were going, it would be inevitable for their paths to cross with the cousins’. Adrian’s knuckles cracked as he tightened his grip on the reigns.

“Alright, let’s go,” he said.

Adrian and Rebecca clicked their tongues and the two horses took off. Their hooves pushed dirt into their bellies as they veered off the trail and cross the large field. The stems of cotton had previously been trampled, leaving the air thick with balls of white fiber.

The trees on the other side of the large plantation were placed closer together. Adrian and Rebecca had to eventually dismount their horses to avoid all the low branches aimed for their heads. Their boots pushed against the fallen leaves, causing the cousins to hold their breath as they neared the flashes of light.

Only a likely fairytale in a storybook could have possibly prepared the cousins for the sight they now stood before, but neither had grown up with their nose pressed within a binding of pages, and they were left to gawk at the magnificent manor and all the delightful horrors that surrounded it.

The house stood three stories high with four white pillars along the front and the walls made of orange brick. The windows were tall and framed with white wood. Although its original appearance was intimidating enough, it was the high, chain-linked fence that surrounded the front yard, engulfing the fountain in the middle, and pushed along the trees that really caught their attention.

Little bursts of green electricity shot through the fence, gliding along each link like a snake squirming in for the kill. The loud snaps and crackles of the bolts as they shot along the twelve foot high fence left the cousins jumping back when sparks fell from the top. It was like watching the little chasms of power from the ray gun one-hundredfold.

As if the manor’s barrio wasn’t enough to suck all the breath from Adrian and Rebecca’s lungs, the things moving within the caged yard had them both dreading they had ever ventured away from the road. There was seven in total and they moved slow like some of the more chewed up corpses, but they were beefed up with copper armor and a glass helmet that left their heads visible like the jars of animal parts both cousins had seen in shops growing up.

They had large, heavy, rectangular packs mounted on their backs. The neo-green luminescence traveled from the tubes against the packs to the conduits bolted to the creature’s bodies. While some of their heads and outer limbs remained the familiar leathered skin and tattered muscle, some of the glowing corpses had intricate detail drilled into their bodies.

“Is this…is this the source?” muttered Rebecca as the cousins crouched on the other side of a long bunch of shrubbery.

“I don’t know,” murmured Adrian.

“They’re dead, right? But kind of like robots?” wondered Rebecca.

“Robots?” Adrian asked, unfamiliar with the term.

“I’ve seen some…in the larger cities. Big machines that move like stiff old people. They’re not dead, but they’re not alive…and they don’t try to eat you,” said Rebecca.

“These look like they could crush you entirely with just one hit,” groaned Adrian.

“Adrian, look!” Rebecca gasped, both with a tone of excitement and nervousness. In that moment, Adrian didn’t even care that his cousin had gripped his arm tight enough to wrinkle his attire yet again.

There was sudden movement at the base of the tree a few yards in front of them and to their left, just where the corner piece of the fence stopped. The wooded ground moved upward as though a mole was about to sprout from the earth’s bottom. Adrian pulled Rebecca closer to him so that she was more hidden behind the bush.

The clumps of dirt rolled to the side as two doors were pushed upwards, like a hatch to a tunnel camouflaged below. The figure that pushed upwards was hidden in the shadows of the trees, but appeared human. It moved with control of its body and seemed to know exactly what it wanted to do. The doors were pushed back downward and the figure took off into the trees.

As much as the scene before him intrigued Adrian, he also feared its unfamiliarity. He went to reach for his cousin when he realized she was no longer beside him.

“Rebecca!” he spat as he watched his cousin walk in a crouched fashion towards the hidden entrance. The noise around them was loud enough to muffle his frustrated hiss and the modified creatures in the fence to his right hadn’t noticed him.

Rebecca ignored the man, eventually forcing Adrian to follow after her with a clear look of annoyance. Before he could even open his mouth to chastise her, Rebecca stated with a nod, “The door is unlocked.”

“So?” Adrian quickly huffed. “Doesn’t mean it’s an invitation inside. C’mon, let’s go!”

“But, Adrian,” pouted Rebecca. “I’ve never seen anything like this, so I’m sure you haven’t either. Aren’t you the least bit curious?”

“Curiosity kills people, Rebecca. Now let’s go!” growled Adrian.

Rebecca pulled her arm away before Adrian could grab it. She let one of the small doors fall open. The steps downward were narrow and made of stone. Dead leaves appeared to make up the floor below. Rebecca looked at Adrian defiantly before stepping into the tunnel.

“Rebecca!” Adrian hissed. “I will leave you!”

“Go ahead!” Rebecca called back, her voice amplified by the narrow space. “I’ve always been the more adventurous one.”

Adrian rolled his eyes before looking in the direction that the figure had taken off in. He narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips, seeing nothing and engaging in an internal battle on whether or not he should leave his little cousin behind.

Growing overwhelmingly frustrated, Adrian eventually jumped into the tunnel. He closed the door above him so that nothing dead could follow them inside. Expecting the space to immediately swell with darkness, he was surprised to see a wire pinned along the right side of the stone walls. Little bulbs of light glowed along the tunnel.

“This is probably the most fun your cattle ranch life has ever had, huh?” Rebecca asked with a taunting grin.

“This isn’t fun,” grumbled Adrian.

“But it could be,” countered Rebecca.

Adrian kept his thoughts to himself as he followed Rebecca down the tunnel. It was like walking through a grave. The top and bottom of the space was made of earth, while the sides were nothing more than gray stone pushed into he dirt. The whole space felt damp and Adrian and Rebecca both had to walk with bent knees and bowed heads.

“It ends,” Rebecca said as she came to another set of similar, uneven steps.

Adrian took the lead as he pushed against the wooden door above them. This one was much smaller, just a singular square that allowed for only one individual to climb through at a time. No light poured through as the door met smooth, black stone. Adrian warily peeked through the top. The door opened up between the wall and a marble statue of a naked woman.

Rebecca bat at her cousin’s legs, wordlessly urging him to keep going. Adrian’s frown grew as he moved into the hallway. Rebecca shut the door behind her before meeting up with her cousin.

The space was dark. Tall steel covers ran the length of the windows in the foyer, hallway, and front of the manor. The walls were made of bumpy gray stone with a few areas of smooth black stone – the same material that made up the floor. A blue runner ran throughout the house. The walls were covered top to bottom in pictures and devices that neither cousin had ever seen.

“I don’t think anyone is here.” Even though she had spoken in just a whisper, Rebecca’s voice had carried down the hall and towards the ceiling.

“Famous last words,” muttered Adrian as he followed behind his cousin with his hand resting over the pistol on his hip.

“Some of these doors are locked,” Rebecca said as she pulled on a brass boar’s head. All the handles of the doors were made of a different animal. “I wonder if there’s more secret passage ways.”

“It’s probably best if we don’t find them,” insisted Adrian.

The cousins turned down another hallway and were met with a silhouetted figure towards the end of it. Adrian ran into Rebecca as she stopped short. The figure was clearly alive, moving slightly as it’s breathing continued effortlessly. It stood like a round ball with two arms.

“Well,” drawled the voice. “If you’re already here, you might as well stay.”