The Crusader of the Damned
James Orman Cannon III
The barrel of the .357 was well-cleaned and shined. It was a Custom Magnum SP24 Mississippi Army-issued revolver that held eight rounds. The pistol was neatly and securely placed into its black holster; 24 extra rounds were kept in an outside pocket. The green and black uniform was neatly laid out on the table. An M-24 Assault Rifle was slung over the back of one of the chairs.
Isaac Jacobin splashed some water on his face and looked at himself in the mirror. He saw his own deep, light brown eyes, his slightly crooked nose, and pale, gaunt features. Inhaling deeply, he walked slowly into his kitchen and let out an exaggerated exhale. Opening up his refrigerator his stomach growled with hunger. The fridge was empty, and only a tray of ice cubes occupied the freezer. “Damn...” he said, “I gotta go to the HQ to get more freezer food stamps.”
He walked into the living room and glanced at the clock, then picked up the TV remote and turned it on. The announcer came on and a picture of the outer fence came up in the upper left corner of the screen, on the other side of the fence there were distorted and deformed faces encrusted with blood and gore looking in at the camera crew. The anchor’s voice came on: “Good morning Possum Lake, This is Susan Chung with EWTN news. It’s 5:30a.m. this chilly winter Wednesday. Today’s high is in the lower 40s and we expect no sunshine, as usual. The date is December 16, 2036. The situation with these so-called ‘zombies’ has escalated to an extreme. General Swartz and General Graham have decided it best to put up extended city walls and to close the gates to everyone on the outside. The city guard has been ordered to take down any resistance to the new defensive orders. In other news the resistance group known as The Peoples Order of God or TPOG has made a movement to take the southern part of the slums known to most as the UnderCity. Despite the desperate attempt of the city guard to defend the UnderCity, it was lost...”
Isaac pushed the power button on the remote and stared blankly at the screen. He had been with the City Guard for four years, ever since the virus started to spread. The cell phone in his jacket pocket beeped. He jumped off the couch and ran over to the table and pulled it out. The screen read 12 missed calls. He pressed the OK button and it read 7 new voice messages. He called his voice mail and listened to all seven. The last one was the most important. It was from his commander.
“Jacobin! This is Commander Jackson! 25 men died tonight because they did not have a leader! You have the choice of demotion from Commander to Private, Execution, freedom, or civilianship. You should die for this, but that’s against protocol... Good-bye Isaac.”
He started putting on the uniform as he looked into the mirror. His pistol fit snuggly into its holster. The handle of the gun was shaped perfectly to his hand. The barrel was one inch longer for greater accuracy. He had an eight-shooter instead of the regulation six. After killing so many, Jacobin had earned the nickname “Widowmaker.” He picked up his rifle and started doing his ritualistic morning cleaning. His rifle had an extended barrel with a 32 round clip instead of the standard 24. The shoulder strap was fit perfectly to his body length.
Suddenly, there was a knock at his door. As a reflex, he pulled the revolver from its holster. As it swung toward the front door, light from the full moon outside shimmered from the barrel and flashed off the chrome crucifix on the wall. “Who’s there?” Isaac asked in a raspy voice.
“It’s me Sir,” said a familiar voice on the other side of the door.
He sighed and walked towards the door while sliding the pistol back into its holster. Walking past the entryway, he glanced at the security screen attached to the camera outside his apartment door. He saw about a dozen shadows being cast on the wall just off screen. He had to look again to examine the shape of the shadows. There were outlines of helmets and rifles as well as the picture of his friend in full gear. He thought to himself, “No Mick... not you... please lord not him...” he ran back across the room towards the large sliding window that lead to the balcony.
Just as he slid out the small opening, the door flew in, splintering the wood and sending the alarm screaming. Metal windowpanes slid down over all the windows and nearly took off his hand as he moved around the corner. He looked down at the police cars on the streets far below. In a desperate attempt to escape, his head thrashed from side to side looking for a place to run. The sirens grew louder. When Isaac glanced down to see why, he saw the police crafts driving up the side of the building toward him. Panicking, he jumped from the ledge out into the cold winter air.
It felt as if he were falling for hours. The wind was strong and had blown him twenty or thirty feet off course from his landing spot. He stretched out his arms like a bird and stabilized himself, the pressure from the air making him dizzy. Everything in his view started to turn white. ‘No... I gotta... gotta stay awake... can’t pass out...’ Everything then suddenly went dark.
____________
He awoke to a disgusting aroma that was like a mix between rotting flesh and formaldehyde. Everything was still dark. His first thought was that he was blind, but he decided to look for a light switch instead of convincing himself that he was. Isaac started to feel the walls around him and felt for a door, keypad, or light switch. The room was large. There were cold patches of ooze that reminded him of coagulated blood from the undead men and women he had felt on his hands when he was fighting in the field. He continued to feel around the room even though theses oozy patches brought back terrible memories. Every now and then some would seem warm. He had to convince himself that these were not blood.
After almost an hour of constant hunting, he finally came across a keypad. He pushed the ON button and lights started to flicker all around the large building. It was much bigger then he had thought it was. The hour he had spent trying to find the keypad covered only a small portion of the wall. It looked to be a warehouse of some kind. Blood splotches and bodies were strewn all over the floor. All had been executed or raped and murdered by members of the City Guard. Knowing this brought back memories of an incident with another guard member once in the past. His friend Joe had asked him to help ‘escort’ some of the young female TPOG resistance members. Joe had said, “Hey man, some of these girls are as young as fourteen. Don’t you want a piece of that?” Isaac always started a fight by calling him a disgusting virus to mankind. They always escalated to physical pain. Even though Isaac always put Joe in the hospital, he kept coming and asking. Eventually, Isaac agreed to go. In the escort truck, one of the other guards started to molest one of the fifteen-year-old girls. She started to cry. Isaac took the butt of his rifle and brought it to the guard’s jaw. The sound of shattering bone echoed through the large cargo truck. Blood spewed from the man’s nose, mouth, and eyes, splattering the walls and roof. He shot two rounds into the man’s back screaming with rage, “You sick bastard! Try to touch her now!”
Isaac turned to Joe and lifted the barrel of his rifle to the man’s forehead. Slowly he started to pull the trigger. His finger twitched and he closed his eyes. The sound of the rifle shot rung in his ears for five months. The doctor said it was just his guilt, but Isaac insisted it was the sound of the shot in the truck. He was awarded for stopping a “Menace to Society” and promoted to Commander. The women on the transport that night ‘mysteriously’ disappeared and Isaac somehow found a 15-year-old girl on the road and adopted her.
He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed a well-memorized number. It rang for about five minutes before a sleepy female voice answered. “Hello...” came a voice on the other end of the line.
“Hey sweetie!” said Isaac in a cheerful tone “I need your help, ok Mel?”
“Yea dad... what do you want?”
“You know the warehouse? The one where the guard takes... um... you know...”
“Yep... A couple of the others and I will be there in about fifteen minutes, okay?”
“Ok baby girl”
The phone clicked and went silent. Isaac closed the phone and slipped it into his pocket. He pulled the revolver from its holster and sat down on one of the steps outside of the building. Waiting gave him time to think. He thought of the days before the virus when he was making love to his fiancée, playing baseball with his workmates, going out for a night of partying and other things like that. Then his mind would drift to a day called V-Day or Virus Day. He watched the zombies maul his future wife and kill her. He saw all of his closest friends die and rise to kill. He always kept a small snub nose revolver in his car. He used it kill the infected and keep them from suffering. Life at that time was a struggle for him. The pistol would slowly drift to his head, then he would change his mind, deciding to help more souls rest in peace.
A crashing sound came from an alley across the street. The gun was again lifted to the direction of the noise by instinct. Some sort of creature came from behind a dumpster; long hair matted with rotting flesh and blood covered her face. She was partly nude with ribs protruding from her torn nightdress. Her feet had barely any skin left on them. She had bright red glowing eyes. Fresh blood was dripping from her face, meaning he was not dumped here alone. He pulled a silencer out from the side of the holster and screwed it on to the end of the barrel. He lifted the pistol in her direction, and without hesitation pulled the trigger. Nothing happened, the hammer came down but there was no bang. He pushed a button on the side of the revolver and the chamber rolled out. There were no bullets in it. He started to panic and reached into the front pocket of his holster for extra rounds. There was only one bullet left. He pulled it out and loaded it into the chamber. He flicked his wrist and the chamber snapped closed.
He carefully aimed the pistol for a head shot and pulled the trigger. A silent puff emerged from the end of the silencer and the bullet moved toward the undead woman. The bullet struck her where the bridge of her nose met her forehead. An explosion of coagulated blood and decaying brain tissue erupted from the back of her head. There was a thud as her cold white body hit the ground. Isaac unscrewed the silencer and put both the revolver and the silencer back in their appropriate places. He pulled a bar from the elevated metal staircase to defend himself against the undead. A groan came from the same alley from which the woman came.
“Oh no...” Isaac whispered, “This can’t happen... no!”
About five gruesome male figures poured from the alley. They looked at the body of the dead female zombie. One of them grunted with what seemed like anger. They started to charge for him. As he swung the bar to hit the leader of the undead attack party, the sound of a gunshot came from a rooftop nearby. The head of the leader exploded in a disgusting red and gray mass of ooze. Four more gunshots sounded and the others dropped simultaneously. A black Jeep with red and blue trim pulled around the corner with four people in it. The flag hanging from the radio antenna proudly flew a cross with the letters TPOG above it.
“Thank you God and Lord Jesus Christ!” he exclaimed while pulling the crucifix from his necklace to his lips to kiss it.
“Get in Dad!” said Mel. “Get in here before more of those ugly bastards come out here!”
He jumped in the back of the truck and kissed his adopted daughter on the forehead. The jeep sped off toward the city.
____________
The building was grass green, covered with camouflage nets. There were bunkers and underground entrances to the fortress hidden in the brush. In the four years TPOG existed, the guard had not found it. The whole journey there, Isaac explained what had happened to him and to his house. She has always been a kind understanding Christian virgin girl. She was one of those good people who wanted to wait until marriage for sex. Isaac had always loved that about her. That’s what made her so special to him.
She gave him all the bullets he wanted and an exact replica of his rifle. This was his first time in the base. Mel had been trying to get him to leave the guard for a long time to join the TPOG. He walked into the main office and dropped his city guard badge on the table.
“Sir,” Isaac said “I’m here to request that you accept me into your order. Christ is my king, my savior, and my guide”
“Name please,” said the TPOG General.
“Isaac Jacobin.”
“Isaac... Widowmaker!”
“Sir! I’ve changed!”
The TPOG guards moved towards him and the general waved a hand to stop them. “Let him explain,” said the general with an emotionless tone. “Call me Father Jacob.”
“Father I am sorry... Please,” he said.
“Let him live.”
“Thank you so much Father... Thank you...”
“These men will guide you to the equipment room. There you will find your badge, ID card, Stealth Generator, and uniform,” he said as three men in black and dark green uniforms walked in. “Welcome to The People’s Order of God, Brother Isaac.”
Isaac walked toward the three men. One opened the door at the back of the chamber, one walked through to lead, and one followed behind Isaac to ensure his safety. The underground hallway’s floor was uneven and the walls and the ceiling were falling apart. There were large cracks and potholes in the ground, roots coming through the roof, and the walls were falling in at some places. The hall was more like a wide and tall tunnel. Ahead of them was a checkpoint. When they were close enough to make out the shapes at the checkpoint, he took a photo in his mind.
There were three guards, each of them had an M-16 and were in full armor. The scene reminded him of something from a video game. There was a large metallic object that looked similar to a metal detector. He recognized it as a Bio-Scanner. Bio-Scanners were metal objects that scanned one’s body for dead tissues. It was meant to keep infection out of a populated area. Isaac passed through without any hesitation. He was followed by two of his escorts. The third escort hesitated and seemed unsure of himself. When he finally moved through the scanner, a loud alarm emerged from the machine. The first of the full-armored checkpoint guards immediately raised his rifle to the man’s head. He then pulled the trigger and a small burst of fire erupted from the barrel of the rifle. The man’s head exploded in a mess of red and black, partly coagulated, blood. Isaac felt sick to his stomach. The two remaining escorts grabbed his arms and dragged him along the path.
“We’re very sorry about that sir,” the first escort said “He was what we call...”
“Infected...” Isaac cut him off. “I used to be a member of the City Guard... remember?”
“Sorry sir,” said the second escort, “Just follow us.”
The group continued along the path. Isaac pulled his rifle close to him. It gave him comfort.
____________
The black jacket and armor fit him like a glove. Its gold-embroidered cross was stunning. Above the cross there were four letters: T P O G. He turned and looked at his reflection in the mirror and pictured himself as a Catholic Crusader. The only thing he was missing was a large sword to hang across his back. At this moment that sword was a rifle. It was similar to an M-16 assault rifle except that there was a slightly longer barrel and a larger magazine. The door opened and the priest’s voice pulled him from his fantasy. “I hear that you’re a good shot with a revolver.”
“Yeah... pretty good with a rifle too.”
“Yes... Mel has told me all about you, thanks for not showing up to that battle last night.”
“It’s no problem, just a favor for my lovely little girl.”
Isaac walked across the room and looked into Father Jacob’s eyes. They exchanged a look of understanding. Isaac continued past the priest and was handed his pistol at the entrance into the underground. He adjusted his badge and smiled at the door guard. He opened the door and the priest walked up behind Isaac.
“I take it you know what to do?”
“Yes, Father.”
Isaac walked out into the ratty slum and followed a well-known route he took as a member of the City Guard. When he reached the large entrance into the main city he removed the pistol from its holster. The doors opened when he slid his old ID card and shortly afterwards an alarm sounded.
“Code Red! Code Red! There is an undead breech in sector one!”
Isaac looked at the pistol and ran into the city. He followed Central Drive and when he turned onto Main Street he pushed himself into a full sprint. M Corp’s ominous office building loomed over the largest street in Possum Creek. A guard in the checkpoint station squinted at Isaac before pulling his rifle up to his right eye, but before he could turn the safety off, Isaac raised his revolver and shot off two rounds into the guard’s skull. Isaac cleared the gate with one leap and rolled. When he stopped he looked back down Main Street and saw deformed bodies surging into the street like a tidal wave. He turned back and sprinted into the building. The clerk stood and started to say something, but Isaac already pulled the trigger before the first word could leave her lips.
“No more damn alarms! I’m so sick of the damn alarms!”
He ran up the escalator and dove into the elevator just before it closed. He pressed the button for the thirty-fifth floor. The elevator bolted upward and Isaac fell to the floor. The cranking elevator motors reminded him of all of the times he had been here to report to Commander Jackson. The elevator bell dinged and the doors slowly slid open. Two guards at the end of the hall both looked shocked as Isaac let another two rounds fly into their heads. Isaac swung around the corner leading to the commander’s lobby. When he reached the open door there were three guards with Mac-10’s sitting around a table playing cards. One of the guards lifted his Mac and shot off a few bursts in Isaacs’s direction. The bullets all hit the doorframe just inches from his face. Isaac quickly lifted his pistol and shot off his remaining three rounds. Two of the shots were headshots and one struck a guard in the chest. The guard’s raspy breathing and loud coughing followed the loud thud. Isaac slid the pistol into its holster as he shifted his waist to pull the rifle around to his front. He then lifted the rifle to his right eye and pulled the trigger. There was no gunshot, only a ping. He pulled the trigger and it was again followed by a ping.
Isaac shifted the rifle and saw it was jammed. He dropped the rifle and pulled a knife out of his boot. He threw the knife at the guard and it struck him in-between his eyes.
Isaac scanned the room carefully and then stepped out into the large, elegant lobby. There was a single office door on the other side of the room. He started moving towards it and jumped over the bodies on the floor. When he reached the door he tried to look in through the clouded office window, but it was useless. He could see that there was one single light on the desk and he could hear the clacking of keys from a keyboard or some ancient typewriter.
Isaac decided to kick in the door. It might shock Jackson and give Isaac the advantage. Isaac kicked the wooden door and it flew inward. The door was lighter than Isaac had expected. When he turned to the commander he looked into red eyes. There was blood dripping from his mouth and neck. Isaac lifted the pistol and pulled the trigger... but there again was no bang. He flipped open the chamber and saw that the gun was empty. No ammo. He reached down to his holster pouch and pulled out a bullet, but before the chamber was snapped closed the zombie was already in a full sprint in Isaacs’s direction. It lunged its blood-soaked lips and jagged teeth at Isaacs’s arms and he dropped to dodge the attack. He reached down to his boot and felt for the knife he had left in the guard’s face. He cursed and brought a steel-toed boot to the zombie’s jaw and sent the creature’s head flying off like a golf ball. The rotting corpse of the commander fell to its knees then toppled onto its side. Isaac stood and slowly backed out of the office.
“There is a chopper on the roof!”
He ran back to the commander and pulled a set of keys from the corpse’s belt loop. He looked down at the blood-stained keys and sprinted for a staircase on the opposite side of the lobby. When he reached the top of the staircase he jumped up onto the helipad and ran to the helicopter and got in. He was surprised to find that the chopper was unlocked. He put the key into the ignition and turned it. The starter roared and the blades of the helicopter started to turn. The door to the roof swung open and Mel came sprinting out followed by ten or eleven of the undead murderers. Mel jumped up onto the helipad and ran to the passenger side door. The door opened and she scrambled in. The zombies started to surround the helicopter and Isaac pulled up on the steering rod. The gust from the blades sucked one of the zombies into the blades and chopped its body into hundreds of small chunks.
The helicopter lifted from the ground and drifted into mid-air in between M Corp and another large building. Isaac steered the craft towards the rear wall and moved forward. They rode off together and started to make plans to return with more powerful weapons. Then the undead wouldn’t stand a chance. Isaac said one last thing before they were over the city wall, “Mel... I’ve learned something from this...”
“What’s that dad?”
“Seeing is believing... but in order to see you need to believe...”
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