Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

Bethany lay in a pool of blood. Her blue eyes stared at the ceiling. Her body was gnawed and mutilated, but apart from a smear of blood across her neck and jaw, her face remained untouched.

She’s dead, Mario thought. The noise and chaos of the crowd around him seemed to recede behind a static-filled buzz. A detached part of his brain knew the sensation was shock.

“He pushed her. He pushed her right into the zombie,” Miranda’s trailing voice whispered.

It did not make sense. Bethany was a doctor. That made her valuable. She helped keep this place going. Even though she had feared the Prophet, she had also felt a responsibility to the people of New Jerusalem. Mario had seen it firsthand, how she tried to hide her disgust and fear and do what good she could in this awful place. She had even helped him, a stranger, by hiding the antibiotics and serum.

Oh shit.

“Look!”

Miranda grabbed Mario’s arm, jarring him into the present. He followed the line of her pointing finger to where Bethany lay on the ground—twitching.

“Oh no,” he said. “Oh Jesus.”

All around them, the screaming and crying grew louder as the fallen from the Faith Walk began to twitch and jerk. Mario had not thought the distress of the people of New Jerusalem could get worse, but as those who had died began to reanimate, he feared there would be a riot. The corpse that had been Bethany lurched into a sitting position, twisting their direction, a redundant pink lung visible behind broken and splintered ribs. Already Bethany’s face was taking on the look of the zombie she had become: sunken eyes and vacant stare, hollowing cheeks and blackening lips. She struggled upright and swayed, turning her head slowly from side to side, as if overwhelmed by her rebirth.

Bethany—the zombie, Mario corrected himself—began to stagger toward the Prophet and Tamara. The mangled corpse of the zombie that lay next to the Prophet and Tamara, what was left of the disemboweled young woman killed earlier, writhed as if in agony. So close to prey, but repelled at the same time. It reached out and grazed Tamara’s head. Tamara jerked away and screamed. The Prophet raised his head and noticed the zombie, the lust on his face mingled with annoyance. He reached out with his hand and shoved the zombie away.

The Prophet turned his attention back to Tamara. Mario could tell he was trying to quiet the terrified girl, but it was no use. The light brush of the zombie’s fingers had pushed her over the edge. She would not, could not, stop screaming. The Prophet’s face darkened with anger. He reared back on his knees and backhanded her across the face. When she did not stop screaming, he hit her again. Furious, the Prophet rolled Tamara onto her stomach, shoving her face into the blood-soaked ground as he resumed the pursuit of his rapine prize.

In the row in front of Mario, Dalton and two of the other archers were physically restraining Finn in what had become an all-out wrestling match. A member of the Prophet’s Guard was pushing through the aisle in their direction when a sudden shriek cut through the noise. A middle-aged woman ran toward one of the newly minted zombies. Her husband? Brother? She must have jumped into the pit because she wasn’t trying to get away. She ran to the zombie as if running to a lover, barely struggling against its death grip as it started to devour her.

Mario looked around, taking in the rising chaos. He had to get back to the infirmary and see if the vaccine serum was still there. If Bethany had been killed because she had tried to help him, then their situation was more precarious than they had realized. He looked around the balcony. Members of the Prophet’s Guard were stationed at the doors that led to the exit. Other Guardsmen pushed distraught spectators back into their seats.

They weren’t going to let him go willingly. He’d have to improvise.

As the Prophet’s Guardsman making his way down the aisle to Finn drew near, Mario stiffened his body and pitched himself into Dalton and Finn. He rolled his eyes back in his head and began to shake. He heard Miranda and Doug both cry out his name.

Dalton turned back to see who was shoving into him, making his job of holding on to his cousin more difficult. Mario caught a glimpse of Finn’s overwrought face.

Everyone in his group, Mike and Connor, Miranda, Doug and Seffie, were all shouting at once. Mario felt a strong hand grab and shake him. Prophet’s Guardsman, had to be.

“Stop it!” the Guardsman roared.

“He’s having a seizure!” Miranda shouted.

“We have to get him out of here,” said Dalton, his voice ebbing and flowing as he continued to struggle with his cousin. Mario wasn’t sure if he was talking about him or Finn.

“The Faith Walk is not over,” the guardsman countered. “None can leave until it is finished.”

“If you want to distract from the Prophet’s veneration of the maiden, then go ahead and arrest us!” Dalton barked.

Mario felt other, more gentle hands seize him.

“It is not—” Uncertainty filled the guardsman’s voice. “Go.”

Mario was hauled up and thrown over a bony shoulder in a fireman’s carry.

“I’ve got him,” Doug said as he started away from the others.

Mario kept shuddering his entire body, which made Doug stumble. He hated doing this to his friends, but there wasn’t time to explain. He caught a glimpse of Dalton and one of the archers dragging Finn along behind them.

The sounds of Finn’s struggle grew worse as they started up the stairs. Finn did not want to leave, but Mario agreed with Dalton. If Finn stayed any longer, he was liable to get himself killed.

As Doug and the other archer worked together to get Mario into the harness and pulley system that had lowered him down an hour earlier, he let his body go slack. Only one pulley operator for the two-person crank system was there, a middle-aged man who protested. Dalton was busy shoving his cousin toward the rope ladder.

“You must come with us,” Dalton commanded.

“I cannot leave her like this!” Finn protested.

“And you cannot do anything for her,”