The Age of Zombies: Sergeant Jones (20 page)

The tunnel was roughly four miles long, thirty yards wide, with spacious chambers attached at either end. The underground compound stretched beneath the desolate, grassy plains of what is now known to the human race as Inner Mongolia, China. From this compound, Zoruth saw the entire world through the eyes of his subjects. He directed their deepest motivations and desires, keeping them loyal to the Orobu and its ultimate goal of domination.

Zoruth had lived here completely alone, free from both enemy and injury. Not a single soul, neither human nor Orobu, had ever stepped foot into his chamber alive. Zoruth was fed and cared for religiously by two attendants, who captured sick and dying humans from neighboring villages, dropping them through a locked trap door so that their lord and master could eat.

There were ancient legends that circulated through the local tribes that a giant man eater lived down deep in the earth. His very name struck chords of fear so deep in the villagers that anybody who uttered his name would be shunned from the tribe. There were other stories that followed the legend of the giant cannibal. Stories of a giant death worm, pinkish in color, that spat toxic venom, and sent electric shocks through its prey. The stories usually involve both figures. They were intimately linked in the minds of the nomadic tribes.

Zoruth never saw the world above. He only saw a world within. Or rather, many worlds within. Millions of worlds within. Every one of his subjects, both awake and in hibernation, were intimately connected with Zoruth. He saw through each of their eyes. He heard the whispers that they heard. He could feel their sorrow, their hunger, their elation, their violence. All of these feelings compounded in Zoruth’s heart, driving him into mad fits of wailing and self-torture, or conversely, oceanic waves of bliss and solace.

Every night Zoruth shattered his own heart into millions of shards so that they could be scattered into the dreams of the entire Orobu race. They glistened in the hearts of his three million subjects, reflecting the light of their dreams, beaming it back to Zoruth so that he could direct their destiny.

These three million subjects had been in permanent hibernation, deep beneath the Ural mountains, for nearly nine millennia. At times their dreams suffocated Zoruth. They swirled around him like toxic sludge, filling his every pore, seeping into the marrow of his bones and the crevices of his brains. For days, weeks on end, Zoruth would bash his own head against the rocky walls of his chamber to shut out the noise.

But to no avail.

It’s not that Zoruth was weak. He possessed powers that the human imagination would struggle to even concoct in their dreams. In the last few years Zoruth’s powers had seen a manifold increase. He was intimate with each of his subjects in a way that he could remember in no other time. But the power was becoming too much. It was tearing his very being to shreds. Soon, there’d be nothing left. Zoruth knew that the prophecies were coming to a head.

Zoruth was the fourteenth ruler in the lineage of the Orobu. He was revealed to the previous ruler in a prophetic dream. Zoruth was just a young boy when he was snatched. His last memories aboveground involved sparring with his friends, raids on human villages, dancing beneath the moon, the heat of the sun on his skin. Now his skin was a thick gray leather. His eyes were gray, his tongue, his brain, everything was gray and old. He lived on the dreams and passions of his subjects alone. He was their master, the center of a hive mind that directed the action of his race. But he was utterly alone.

He was also a subject. He was a subject to the desolation of his chamber. He was a pitiful slave to the needs of his race, which collectively stood on his shoulders alone. He was a peon in the face of the tide of history, which was crashing in all around him now. The Orobu race was ready for its awakening. Zoruth stood at the zenith of his power. His only task remaining was to pass it on to his successors.

Tonight he would summon them.

Zoruth snuffed out the torch flames. He sprawled out on the cold limestone floor of the tunnel. He shut his eyes and whispered ancient incantations in the forgotten tongue of his people. Zoruth knew who the successors were going to be. He had known for over five thousand years. They were also revealed to him in dream.

The inky blackness of the chamber was suddenly split by Zoruth’s blood curdling cries. He focussed on the image from his dreams: the twins, Radoula and Boul. He writhed in pain as he forced his will into the twins’ minds. They would carry the Orobu race into the future. They were the twin stars that the prophets of his race had spoken of for millennia.

Zoruth tore at his calloused, gray flesh like an unleashed psychotic. But he couldn’t even injure himself. His skin had become impervious to attack. It had grown thick and dumb in the thousands of years that Zoruth lived in the tunnel.

The twins were on a private jet headed to London when they were suddenly overwhelmed by Zoruth. They were drinking gin and tonic cocktails and chatting about the meeting they were going to attend with Joru and his executives. Suddenly their bodies went limp and their minds scrambled with the intensity of Zoruth’s will. They had felt Zoruth’s presence as a background noise, always present, never intrusive. This level of communication with their master was excruciating.

Radoula cried out for death, and Boul suffered in interminable silence. The initial shock of being directly penetrated by their master faded after a minute. Their minds cleared. A vision appeared of Zoruth. He was alone, sitting on an oak stool in the middle of an empty room. A single incandescent light bulb swayed above his head. It glowed with an muted orange flicker. Zoruth mentally spoke to the twins.

“You are chosen,” he said. His gray tongue slipped out between his meaty lips. “Come to the sacred land. The next step is upon us.”

The twins commanded the pilot to land immediately. They ended up in Paris, and through a series of flights were quickly escorted to Inner Mongolia. They met up with Zoruth’s attendants, who brought the twins to the secret trap door that descended into the tunnels.

Radoula
 and Boul padded their heavy feet down the spiral stone staircase that would lead them into Zoruth’s dank chamber. It harbored an unimaginable stench, a rotten smell that had developed over thousands of years. With every step down into the chamber the twins felt closer and closer to their master. They knew little of his true nature. They knew little of why they were really here.

The twins reached the bottom of the stairwell. Above them Zoruth’s attendants locked the trap door that shut the chamber off from the world. It was completely dark now. For a moment Radoula thought her body glowed in the inky black tunnel. But it was merely an illusion. A trick of the brain. She could feel her arms stretched out before her, but if she trusted her eyes, there was nothing but unending space.

“We are destined,” Boul whispered to his twin sister. “That’s why we have come. I can feel it deep down. We are destined.”

Something stirred behind them. It sounded like a massive animal. And at the same time it sounded a hundred miles away, lost somewhere in the sea of black.

“Nothing enters this chamber alive,” Radoula said. “Not since Zoruth arrived. I feel that you are right, dear Boul. We are destined for greatness.”

Suddenly, a resounding thud echoed through the chamber, followed by rapid, heavy steps down the tunnel. The twins felt a whoosh of air as the large figure ran by them. “Follow me,” a voice said. Zoruth hadn’t spoken a single word to anybody for twelve thousand years. His voice was scarred by thousands of years of silence, yet was more powerful than any voice the twins had ever heard. “Follow me to my pool.”

The twins followed the hollow cackles that sounded out before them. They took each step as slow and sure as possible. Radoula stubbed her foot on a pile of bones, causing them to crash all around the twins. They couldn’t see the bones, but they could hear the terror and screams of death locked in them, like shadows long waiting to be released.

“Follow me,” Zoruth said. He was inundated with waves of joy. The time was drawing near. It was close now. He would soon be released from the royal shackles that bound him to this hole. He could now go into the beyond, and lays his head in peace with the Great Orobu. “You are getting closer. The pool is just up ahead. I have much to say to you. Speed up, use your legs, trust the power of the Orobu.”

The twins clasped each other’s hands, and ran forth into the darkness. They seemed to be carried by an invisible wind that swirled in the impenetrable shadows behind them. But all of it was created by the master Zoruth. There was no wind. There were no shadows. The whole bit was hatched from Zoruth’s own mind, spilling over into the minds of the twins. This was Zoruth’s power. This great web of telepathic resonance that he shared with each and every Orobu.

Radoula and Boul rushed forth into the dark and crashed into the hot waters of Zoruth’s pool. They recovered quickly, and within a minute they found the ledge of the pool. They posted up and awaited Zoruth’s next word. They could hear their master breathing in the dark. They felt his energizing glow, as if they were in the presence of a god.

“Twelve thousand years ago,” Zoruth said with slow, careful words. “The world was a cold, harsh place. The earth was covered in ice. The Orobu lived in peace, dominating the planet. Our civilization stretched across the globe, and spanned hundreds of thousands of years. We were a race of harmony and great achievement.”

Zoruth swirled his hands in the pools waters. He breathed in deeply through his nostrils, and out again through his mouth. He knew that the twins had an intimate understanding of the Orobu’s history. But nothing could prepare them for the next step, as their race sought to reclaim their destiny.

The twins were still in awe of the whole situation. This moment was imbued with magic. The wonder of what lay before them transformed them on the spot. They felt themselves becoming something more than what they ever dreamed possible.

“We built the mythic cities that the beasts, the vile human race, calls their own. The megaliths of Egypt, Europe, South America, Japan, Turkey, they were all born from our craftsmanship. There were three million of us walking the planet then. Each Orobu was a master of their own destiny. But the Orobu who are awake are few now. Most are buried deep in the earth, beneath mountains and snow. The ones who are awake walk on our planet as scavengers, pariahs, vultures, feeding on the waste of the human scum that have overrun our planet with their poison. We have long waited for the day when the sun rises and sheds its light on our race again.”

Zoruth stepped out of the pool, and circled it with steady steps. The twins wanted to say something, anything, to their master. But they were fully aware that Zoruth felt their deepest inner thoughts and longings. Words would be nothing but pollution now.

“I have seen the darkness,” Zoruth continued. “I have seen the light. I have rejected both. And now I am here with you, alone, burning in my own truth. I have seen the carnage and triumph of the human race, as it has spread all over our planet. I witnessed the construction of Sumer, the procession of Pharaohs, the craftsmanship of the Phoenicians, the madness of the Israelites. I was there with every Orobu as the Romans bathed themselves in debauch. I was there when London was founded. I was there when the first brick was laid in Paris. I was there when Paris fell out of Napoleon’s hands.”

Zoruth started to laugh at it all. The whole course of human history seemed insignificant when positioned next to the arc of Orobu destiny. Zoruth was taking another tiny step forward for his race’s fate. He was but a cog in the machine of destiny. There was much more to come. Zoruth’s laugh was raspy and cold. He couldn’t remember the last time he laughed. The twins smiled with their master.

“When we look at it from ultimate reality,” Zoruth continued. “Then all of it, all of what humans have accomplished, will propel the Orobu into the future. They don’t know that yet. They don’t know that the age of Orobu is now.”

Zoruth slammed his fist against the stone wall. It shook the foundation of the tunnel. Bits of rock and dust fell from the ceiling and onto the twins. Zoruth slammed his fist again and again. The twins stayed perfectly still. They knew not to disturb Zoruth. His wrath could very easily be unleashed upon them.

“We’ve lost every single one of our cities,” Zoruth said. His words were full of anger. “We are nothing but savages now. Animals orphaned. We seek out the dark crevices of this planet to hide away from the monster that is the human race, which can swallow us all. They hold the power. If they ever knew what we were, they would eradicate us without blinking. We restrain ourselves not out of gentleness or respect, but out of necessity. We must feed on them. We are bound to the morsels that their flesh provides. It is our curse.”

“And we will reverse it,” Boul said. He was surprised at himself that he uttered these words. But something deep inside him welled up and allowed them to come forth. “Our race will gain its ascendancy once again.”

Zoruth stepped back into the waters. He dipped his face into the scalding hot pool. He lifted his head back up and sighed. “These waters preserve our bodies,” he said. “They keep us alive for as long as we need, until we decide to shed our coil and return to the beyond, the Great Orobu, which dwells in each of our hearts, which is where I gain my power.” Zoruth swirled his hands in the waters, and splashed his arms and face. “There are three million of us. There are seven billion of them. We feed on their detritus for our survival, like rats in a sewer. But the tables are turning now. And I am too old to see the dawn of the age of the Orobu. It is your turn, both of you. The prophecies of the original Orobu, which have been passed down to me, told of twins who will guide our race into power that we have never imagined. It is your time now.”