Path of the Horseman (4 page)

One of those schemes ended up rising past the
flames of Hell, and settling here on Earth.

We don’t know exactly which demon lord sent
up their minions, but in the end it didn’t really matter. Their
goal was to take advantage of the lost and hopeless. And they did a
good fucking job.

Countless humans were desperate for help.
They were hungry, they wanted to protect their loved ones, they
wanted to be stronger, they wanted to live.

They were willing to sell their souls.

“Speak of the Devil and he shall come” wasn’t
a saying meant only for Lucifer. Speak any demon’s true name, and
he’ll come knocking with a grin and an oath to sign in blood.

Give up your soul, and you live forever.
You’re stronger, faster, and the Plague won’t touch you. Of course,
there will be some side effects. Your eyes will be bloodshot, your
skin will turn virtually transparent, and you’ll develop a taste
for hemoglobin.

Nobody ever reads the fine print during an
apocalypse. No wonder the demons were making so many Soulless.

After killing every human on the planet– or
so we thought– our job became kill the demons and the Soulless. The
Second Coming didn’t belong to those power-hungry freeloaders. They
were sadistic fucks that would smile in your face before tearing
out your throat. Aside from appearance, the Soulless no longer
resembled anything human. There was no cure for them. They died
when their demon master died. Killing them was a mercy.

Or as Kade would say, “a sport.”

Having humans alive after the Tribulation
changed everything. Everybody knew that demons lied. Except when
they told the truth. That was one of their favorite games,
actually. Lie to a person continually and completely, until you
drop a truth on them that hits so close to home they won’t believe
you. Demons know a lot of tricks, and that’s one of the best
ones.

Even if it was true, how was I supposed to
believe it? I hadn’t seen a single person, not even my brothers, in
half a year. The only other creatures walking around were simply
different kinds of dead. If there were any animals left alive, they
were damn good at hiding. My virus had been extremely effective,
and my brothers were excellent at cleaning up the remains…

The air of earth tasted even more delicious
when we finally ascended from the pit. I closed my eyes and tasted
the wind, felt it caress my new human face with the warmth of the
sun.

But I could feel the sin beneath the touch.
The smell of oil and pollution tainted the sweetness I had breathed
in moments ago. My brothers whispered of the overindulgence, greed,
and destruction tainting God’s world. His most beloved creations
had ensured its demise.

We were here to stop them. I was chosen to
lead.

Four Horses stood outside of the gate, eager
to ride into battle. I walked to my Horse, a tall, strong white
steed with hair the color of fresh snow. I stroked the animal’s
thick neck. He bowed his head, watching me with obsidian eyes. He
had been waiting for me for centuries. I smiled at him.

“
Bacillus,” I said. “That shall be your
name. I cannot imagine a more perfect creature to herald the
Tribulation. We shall save this world by erasing all those that are
killing it.”

The steed bowed his head again in approval. I
smiled, watching my brothers sweep themselves on top of their
Horses. All but one.

He watched me as he stood by his pale Horse,
an old, grey beast with ghostly pale hair. My brother’s eyes were
clouded, his mouth turned into a deep frown. It took me a moment to
search my memories and understand what was written on his face.

It was sadness.

I did not understand, and before I could
question him, he lifted himself onto his Horse, and prepared
himself for the beginnings of humanity’s annihilation…

I’d been so caught in the memory that I
didn’t even realize I’d walked into Henderson yet, let alone that
I’d arrived in a suburban housing district. But I blinked away the
past and looked around. Even though it was starting to get dark, I
could squint my human eyes enough to see where I was going.

I knew my brother wouldn’t be in one of these
houses, which saved me on search time. Simon was tough, but he
wasn’t like the rest of us. He liked to cement himself in one place
and never move from it. Simon hated travel. Looking around, I could
tell he’d come out of his hidey-hole at least a couple times.
Slumped against the white garages of pale, cookie-cutter bungalows,
were dead bodies shot full of arrows. Single black shafts were
stuck through skulls of vacant eyed Plagued, blood splatter washing
against the walls.

This line of nice, expensive homes was as
trashed as every other community I’d seen. The chain-link fence on
my right had been twisted and pulled down from countless husbands
and housewives dragging their panicked kids to what they thought
would be safety. Blood was smeared along the concrete incline,
disappearing over the hill and leading to what I imagined was an
impressive pile of bodies.

The houses themselves still retained their
white paint, but the parking spaces in front of the garages were
either covered in skid marks, oil, broken sedans, or dried gore.
Every window in every house was smashed or poorly boarded up. Some
of the windows were blackened on the outside from fires that
started internally. The road was covered in death. Blood pooled
under piles of meat and bones, chewed so badly by the Plagued I
couldn’t tell the difference between it and the waste from a
butcher shop. Once I passed the hamburgered human, who had been
dried out in the sun and no longer reeked of blood, I saw a Plagued
eating a corpse.

The undead creature was on its hands and
knees, pulling at the arm of a dead girl. I walked closer, and saw
that she couldn’t have been more than fifteen. Chunks of skin were
missing from her cheeks. She had no ears and her lips had been
chewed off, leaving strings of skin to hang over the width of her
yellowed teeth. Her neck looked like it met a combine harvester.
Her chest had been cracked open to reveal a dark red cavern of
broken ribs and torn organs. Her arms and legs were clawed and torn
down to the bone. There was no skin on her fingers.

She must have been dead for months, but the
Plagued woman devouring her didn’t seem to care. It kept gnawing on
the dead girl’s hand, ignorant that I was standing over it,
watching with my hand clenched tightly around my machete.

I wondered what this girl had done to deserve
Heaven’s wrath. Was she really so terrible that she needed to die
like this? Having her pretty face turned into meat for an infected
monster? Being left alone so other monsters could play vulture with
her corpse?

I stabbed the Plagued in the head so hard
that the machete went directly through its skull. I felt the
shudder of the impact race up my arm, listened to the crunch and
scrape of bone against metal. I twisted the blade and yanked it
out. The Plagued collapsed onto its side without so much as a
scream.

The monster was dead, but I still wasn’t
satisfied. I needed to kill something else. I needed to take on a
nest of Soulless or fight another demon. I needed to do anything to
keep myself from looking at the mutilated girl. As I walked away, I
tried to tell myself that the girl was in a better place. Heaven
took care of its residents.

Except that I knew how Heaven treated those
it claimed to save. After all, my brothers and I were still
alive.

***

I had to give it to Simon– he knew how to
live in style after the apocalypse. There’s no shortage of places
to call home with so many dead, but Simon picked the best
place.

Ravella Hotel and Resort is right on what
used to be Lake Las Vegas. Now it’s just a deep dip in the parched,
cracked desert. I approached the tall, dead palm trees and walked
into the front doors of the once glamorous resort.

I made my way through the front lobby of the
resort, which looked like a bomb had gone off inside it. The walls
were peeling and charred black, paintings and pictures torn from
their places during the madness. The floor was a cracked, dull mess
of smeared dirt. Fabric couches were ripped to shreds, tables had
been toppled and broken with pieces missing. Glass from the broken
lights littered the floor. Chandeliers hung crookedly from their
chains, one wind gust away from collapsing.

I thought the lobby was in rough shape, and
then I moved into the main grounds.

Every tree and carefully trimmed brush was
now a pile of twigs. The windows of the rooms were blown out,
burned, some of them even dripping with what looked like old blood
stains. Blood painted the stone paths while bodies lay slumped over
chairs, staircases, and banisters.

The bodies ranged from human to Plagued to a
couple Soulless. Most of the Plagued and Soulless had arrows in
them, so I paid special attention to them. Simon wasn’t much for
physical combat, but he was a damn wonder with archery.

Which is why I couldn’t understand why there
were still some Plagued walking around the resort. Was Simon out
looking for supplies? Was he asleep? Were these his roomies?

Ten of them spread out all over the resort
didn’t pose a threat to me, but it was a
huge
resort. Just
because I could see ten now, didn’t mean thirty weren’t lurking
behind the gazebos or suite entrances. I hadn’t healed myself from
the fight with the Soulless, and walking for close to three hours
without food had tired me out. Pulling on any of my powers right
now would make me pass out. I needed to find a place to crash,
which meant I needed to avoid the corpses and find my damn
brother.

Keeping an eye on the Plagued and the shadows
of the towers surrounding me, I meandered through the resort
grounds until I found the main path leading to the pool. Sunbathing
chairs and their stained pads created a disgusting metal hurtle for
me to step over. I hoped there would be some water in the pool, but
surprise, surprise, I was let down. The inside was dried out and
striped with yellowish brown rings from the dirty water that had
once been inside. Some of the white vases and ferns on the sides of
the pool were either knocked and smashed at the bottom or teetering
on the edge. Lying in the far side of the pool was a pile of three
emaciated corpses. I was about to turn away when I noticed
something lying under the heap of bodies. It looked like a fresh
arm sticking out from the pile of dead legs.

A living human arm.

Vance’s words zipped through me again. Was
there a person trapped under there? Could it be a human that had
survived?

I didn’t wait to find out. They could be hurt
and dying. I jumped into the pool and ran across its length to the
pile of bodies. I skidded to a stop by the corpses, dropping to my
knees and grabbing the arm.

It came out with one sharp tug, since it was
just an arm that had been severed at the elbow. There was a sliding
noise followed by a heavy crash. I spun around, seeing one of the
vases had collapsed into the bottom of the pool behind me, spilling
dirt everywhere.

No way the Plagued wouldn’t hear that in this
too quiet resort.

Shit.

I looked at the arm, trying to see what had
happened. Around its wrist, barely visible, was a metal wire. It
wasn’t very thick, but it was strong. More than capable of being
tied to the shrub in the vase and pulling it off the edge with a
little extra strength.

Double shit.

I dropped the arm and looked up. I was in the
deep end of the pool, so I couldn’t jump back out. But on my right
was a metal staircase. I ran for it and grabbed the lower
landing–

The fucking thing shuddered and came out of
the wall, screeching like a banshee as the rusted metal skidded
down the stone.

Triple shit. Luxury hotel my ass.

Dumping the ladder into the bottom of the
pool, I looked over my shoulder to the shallow end. I wasted no
time sprinting for it, stopping as I watched a Plagued man take a
step and tumble into the pool with me.

It was kind of hilarious. It literally
stepped into open air, pivoted forward, and landed flat on its face
with a loud
smack.
I couldn’t stop the snigger that escaped
my lips. Then the corpse started to push itself up. Its face was
flattened from the fall, its nose pretty much crushed into its
head. That didn’t stop the Plagued from continuing to stand and
lumber toward me.

I drew the machete over my shoulder and
started walking for it. There was another sudden
smack
behind me as another Plagued collapsed into the pool. Then another
on my left. Another behind me. I was quickly becoming surrounded. I
grabbed a knife from my belt, looking for the one that would reach
me first.

The sharp, deep
twang
of a bowstring
was barely audible, but I saw the arrow well enough when it flew
four inches from my face into the eye of the first Plagued that had
fallen into the pool. It dropped instantly, unable to recover from
the hole punched in its brain. Too bad three more had collapsed
into the pool when I wasn’t paying attention.

Since I still had some distance on them, I
turned and kicked out. My foot landed in the stomach of the Plagued
on my left, knocking it back so I could take on the other two. I
drove my knife into one Plagued’s head, then dragged it around so
its friend couldn’t bite me. I reached over the back of my dead
meat-shield, and stabbed the machete into the face of the next.
There was a wet crunch behind me, like someone just punched their
hand through a pumpkin. I snapped my head to the right, watching a
Plagued drop like a bag of rocks thanks to the arrow sticking out
of its skull. Now that my line of vision was cleared, I could see
over the ledge of the pool to the balcony of the building behind
me.