The Bone Puppets: A Hard SciFi Zombie Soldier Story Read online

  “She doesn’t expect us to bust into the freaking Street-sweeper hangar, does she? Because that’s suicide.” Elias laid a hand on Riff’s shoulder. The younger man looked up and his brows drew back in agitation.

  “Umm…Yim hasn’t exactly shared the plan with anybody. Not past that fact that we have to somehow get into that hangar and make away with one pretty little jetliner.” Riff chuckled, combing his fingers over his perpetually mussed bangs.

  “Crap.” Elias pressed his fist to his teeth.

  “Another day at the office, Eli.” Riff cut him a quizzical look.

  “Yeah, well we’d better get rolling if we don’t want to face the firing squad. Yim’s only happy with me when I score her some smokes.” Elias stood up and hauled Riff to his feet.

  Riff studied Elias for a moment, lips pursed with hundreds of questions.

  “I hate that I owe her, don’t you?” said Riff. “She saved you from the streets, she saved me from the ghettos. We’re in deeper to her than we actually can pay back, huh?” Riff hung his head. Elias patted his shoulder.

  “Yeah, I hate it too. But what choice do we have? If we double-crossed her and escaped to do our own thing, she’d come after us first. Meredith Yim’s whole M.O. is pretty much about revenge and making sure people get what’s coming to them.” Elias held the tent flap open for Riff. He cringed. It was painful for him to admit he wanted the same thing as his shady boss. Maybe he was running with the right crowd. It was still too soon to be sure.

  They stepped out into the poisoned sun and the ashen planes that had once been the East Coast. Far away they could see the lights of the Atlantic’s fire.

  “They say that used to be water.” Riff pointed toward the coast.

  “Yeah. I think it’s crude oil spills for miles on end that makes it blaze like that nowadays. The Crescent dumped whole boatloads of oil into the oceans when they took over, to kill the fish so people couldn’t live off the sea…Or the oil, since having it would mean they could drive their own cars and ships and maybe attempt to escape. ” Eli spat in the dust and started strapping on his Thompson.

  “I know I’m not supposed to ask, but…Like, what the hell happened to the world, man? I mean, why?” Riff nodded toward the flame shoots that stood like trees over the horizon, disappearing as soon as they shot forth.

  Elias looked him steady in the eyes for a long moment, trying to think of the best way to answer that question.

  “Greed and mad science don’t mix, kid. When governments start relying on mad science to get what they want, that’s an instant set up for disaster. Then, you throw something into the regular fruit basket like magic…It equates to the garden view you see about you.” Elias clapped Riff on the shoulder, trying to smile. Riff nodded, staring at his feet. Elias felt himself sigh inwardly. This kid had a big heart. Maybe too big for this rat’s nest. He prayed with what slim shards of his faith remained that the human vultures this society had created wouldn’t eat him alive before long.

  *****

  Chapter 4

  “Gather around, gentlemen,” Meredith Yim shouted. “If we’re going to do this right, we’re going to have to have a little 1-0-1 time before we reach the drop zone.”

  She stood in the center of their camp, a roaring fire in front of her. The blazes wreathed her with mad brushstrokes of light. Decidedly angular features and prominent eyes added an air of fierceness to her default expression, but in the light of the flames, she was a war-goddess. Beautiful in a fear-inducing way. Elias was honestly afraid of her most of the time.

  “Dropzone? So, we’re dropping into these tunnels?” Elias cleared his throat. He had to look assertive if he wanted to get any straightforward answers. Meredith regarded Elias and Riff equally as the least of her team members. They would have to scrap for it if they wanted to climb the food chain in the wake of their overthrow plot’s official inception.

  “Ah, you. I love your sense of humor. Or wait? You’re serious?” Yim paused, holding a finger up. The others chuckled. Elias looked skyward to avoid their eyes. He couldn’t let them see the animosity for them burning within his own. His skin had to be a rhino’s hide thick or he would never rise in the ranks.

  However, he had to question his own motives. Of course, it only made sense to want to improve his life. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? But was rising in Meredith Yim’s ranks going to improve his life in the long run?

  Sooner or later, Elias was going to have to acknowledge a simple fact about himself. His past was inconsolable. No amount of dissociative amnesia could make it more bearable. Because he hadn’t actually forgotten any of it. He’d simply filtered it to the back burner of his thoughts, recalling it only when his mind coasted along on autopilot. If he could somehow attain the autonomy of a clean-slate mind, maybe mingling with this company would make more sense.

  So, what did he run for? For the assumed fortunes found at the end of this road? He looked up at the surrounding landscape and shuddered. There was no guarantee of even a small victory in this endeavor. The ashes of New England lay all about them. Behind their small camp lay the ruins of what had once been a Catholic church. All about him was scattered the destruction of people who had taken pride in their own purposes. Even the worthiest causes had succumbed to flames. So what did agendas matter now?

  Elias recalled a day when America was a place of faith and prayerful people. If the natural and Eternal had mingled in this strange after-life world, what was the reason for faith? What should Elias pray for? In many ways, he was already dead. He sighed.

  “I’m only serious when I need to be, Meredith. You know that. The Street-sweepers are child’s play. Give me something with teeth!” Elias spat in the dust. His eyes never left the church, its hollowed insides and the skeleton of its once-colorfully-stained glass now fire-blackened windows. His soul was much like this place. He didn’t exist with a purpose, he merely continued. He was as much a Bone Puppet as any of the animated corpses scouting the night these days.

  “Take every assignment I give you as seriously as if it was your last, Mr. Walklate. You want to run with the big dogs? Walk, don’t run. Don’t skip like you just stopped hobbling on your knuckles.” Meredith Yim tossed Elias a large duffle bag full of metallic objects. Its weight brought Elias to his knees. The older men laughed. Riff groaned. Elias wasn’t as physically strong as the others, with muscles permanently damaged by the continuous torture he once endured.

  “Ooh, I forgot about Christmas. It’s been a long time since the Grinch stole it.” Elias sighed. Absently, he tried to remember how he recalled pop-culture from his childhood. There was a dim window of color there, the memory of TV monitor screens that always surrounded him and learning how to hack into channels when he was on his own. Elias shuddered, swallowing down the instance of random recollection. He opened the bag. It was full of parts that when assembled would form the shape of a small launch pad.

  “Mr. Walklate, would you care to share with the class what the lovely artifact is that you’re holding?” Yim folded her hands. Elias looked up, disgusted. He shook his head. If he kept his cool, he would come off assertive to the other guys. If they thought he was weak and couldn’t take constant tongue-thrashing from the boss, they would kill him and eat him. This was standard gang procedure these days, as much an initiation as defacing public property used to be for fraternities. One thing was certain in the youth’s confused psyche. If he wanted to continue to exist long enough for self-discovery he was going to have to live. To live among wolves would make him human, this much he hoped.

  “It’s the pieces to an old Russian TOPOL missile? Before civilization turned to confetti under our feet, the Russian society had geared up many super-weapons to contest the U.S. and then the Crescent with. TOPOL missiles, portable missiles mounted on the backs of trains and the like, were once considered to be powerful scare tactics by regional militaries…” Elias blinked back the horrible images this had recalled to his mind.

  “But when pract
itioners of the dark arts discovered dimensions beyond our own and the physical science of other worlds, these weapons became obsolete. The Crescent could travel between the worlds and use magical practices to master psychological warfare tactics. They could steal ideas straight from the minds of their makers away in alternate futures before they were even conceived…” Elias looked down at the machine parts in his hand. He wondered if this was one such device, and not the original Russian missile he thought it was at first glance.

  Meredith Yim clapped sarcastically. She rolled her eyes.

  “Ah, yes. Good job, Boy Scout. You got somewhere within a few thousand yards of that question. Yes, it is the pieces of what was once a TOPOL missile. Pieces which look an awful lot like another device that exists after the great Science-and-Magic power merger of the early 2020’s!” Yim applauded Elias, tossing her hair out of her soot-stained face.

  “In today’s sorry excuse for a society, we have signal splitting devices that combine different wavelengths of energy to unite the natural and the supernatural, gentlemen. These are set up to look like missiles and once they reach a certain charge they can even be detonated like missiles.” Yim studied her men’s blank expressions. They were obviously not following. She sighed and nodded.

  “Alright, from the top. In extended reality, natural energy is the energy and matter of the physical world. Earth, water, fire, ice, and electricity— those are all Earth-world energies.” Yim gestured with her hands, waiting to see if they were following. They seemed a bit more focused, at least.

  “Different kinds of magic and magical properties are the equivalents of earthly elements to alternate dimensions in the Cosmos. The spiritual places described by Christianity and other religions, like Heaven, Hell, Nirvana, and so on— those are all real places. They just happen to exist in different portions of the Universe that each have different ‘elements’ and their own equivalent of our laws of physics…” Yim paused again. She cleared her throat. For a moment, even she seemed daunted by the task she was proposing to them.

  “The device Mr. Walklate is holding is, in fact, an old TOPOL missile, but will serve as the perfect decoy of another device called a Totem. Totems are objects made up of materials that have both Earth-natural and supernatural charges. Such a device would be indispensable to a Resistance group because it would allow for travel between this dimension and any other Spirit World that exists out there in the wild blue yonder. It is of paramount importance to the Crescent’s reign that none of us peasants actually come by something like this. Because if we owned such equipment, if we could learn to make something like it that would mean….” Yim drew a deep breath, winded from this explanation. Elias interrupted her, against his better judgment.

  “It would mean that we could escape to places they wouldn’t have control over if we wanted,” he said. “It would also mean that the only way we knew how to make one was by stealing blueprints they kept under careful lock and key in their strongholds.” Elias caught his breath, stumbling over his own words. He’d spoken out of turn and all of Yim’s men were now poised ready to pounce on him.

  Post-traumatic stress kicked in. Elias felt his consciousness seep from his body like he was having an out of body experience. He saw himself as if he was watching himself on television. His shoulders squared and he stood to attention, assuming the indoctrinated media personality of his sessions.

  “Their only viable theory about how we got said blueprints would be that their super-power system had been inconceivably compromised. There’s no way they could tolerate that,” Elias continued. “Neither could they admit to being weak like that either. Which is why instead they would confiscate us and lock us in the deepest guts of their prison systems. You want us to get caught with it so we will be escorted to the same lock-up that they keep the only remaining jetliner on the Eastern seaboard.”

  Elias was breathless and jarred as he came back to himself with the force of an airsoft cannon decompressing in his throat. Crewmen bared their teeth and fingered their weapons. They were stunned by his words. One of the omegas had cut his way through the ranks, proving he had the smarts to cut to the bone of this cause after all.

  Riff stood behind the others, a small vindicated smirk teasing his features. Elias swore he saw him wink, but he couldn’t spend a lot of time looking his direction. That would show concern for his friend, which would make him an easy target for the others in the crew. Corporate punishment was never something Elias had experienced before, but he knew the psychology of it. He was terrified and thrilled by the thought that he finally had a close enough relationship with someone that he had to tread softly to cover for them.

  “You’re a lot cleverer than I thought given how cooked your brains are…Huh.” Yim lit a cigarette. She took several long draws from it, drinking it to inoculate what apprehensions remained in the wake of this mission.

  Yim nodded, at last, grinning with darkness that sent Elias questioning the balance of good and evil. She walked a fine line between the two, and it was hard sometimes to tell which side of the line she fell on. Elias hoped she fell on the side of right, because he was following her and he was uncertain which side he fell on himself. Maybe he should find his own path? He didn’t know what that would look like.

  “He’s right. The plan is simple. We make like we’re sneaking along the Blood City’s gates, hoping to sell the old Totem to enemies of the Crescent. We get arrested on purpose so we get carted down to the old Chesapeake Fire Tunnels. After that, well…You’ll get an update of the plan when we make it that far.” Yim snuffed her cigarette. She pulled a sheathed dagger out of her jacket’s inside collar and tossed it to Elias.

  “Think you’re learning a little bit at a time. Hope so, anyway. You’ve got guts, son. Guts I don’t mind spilling. Not quite indispensable to me yet, but maybe a bit useful.” Yim winked, sizing Elias up again.

  “I’ll give you a hint. The latter half of my plan…The acquiring the plane part of it anyway will require some seriously risky business. I can’t trust short stuff, not yet. All these boys here are too high up the food chain to be put on the firing line that way. Understood?”

  Meredith Yim grinned. She winked at Riff, who took a step backward. Elias sighed. If he acted like he couldn’t handle this, Yim would take it out on Riff. That was her sure-fire way of manipulating Elias to do whatever she wanted him to do. Whether it was right or wrong, Elias knew he had to maintain peace with the vigilante road-queen or risk the untimely and totally unnecessary death of his best friend.

  “You got it, princess.” Elias saluted Yim. The other men scoffed.

  Yim went to a small table she’d set up next to the fire. She loaded a Beretta M9, smiling at the vintage aging of the metallic handle. She picked up a flask of whiskey and drank a long swig, throwing a splash into the fire to make it stand high above them. Fire was lost in this world of red and smoke. To them, only the rise in the flames could serve as any kind of symbolism. Their rebellion was underway.

  “We ride for the Blood Gates. I won’t lie to you, gentlemen. I’m looking forward to the prisons. Because the Blood City has prisons unlike any other garrisons that history has ever known. There in the darkness is breeding every festering merger between scientific breakthrough and magical prodigy to ever plague human history. We will have our fill of flesh and bone mucking our way through there. The hollowness in my soul, after all, they have taken from me will be somewhat filled with the slaughter that will ensue…” Yim’s voice rose to adapt to the mood of her speech. She had been practicing this for a long time. Elias held his breath. He found it hard to trust her, but he knew that she was the best at what she did. She’d convinced him of her credentials, if not of her morals.

  Meredith Yim rolled her eyes, noticing him staring at her.

  “I feel a silent vibe coming from even the most assertive of you, gentlemen. You question the long-run game of our quest into Africa. In a vague world like this, where there’s just as much magic as there is science
, it’s hard to distinguish absolute power from all the other gimmicks of this contrite landscape.” Yim closed her eyes and leaned her head back. She basked in the cloud of smoke that rose from the heart of their fire. Elias felt a sudden chill settling in his joints. He rubbed his elbows, trying to ignore the feeling.

  “You have never known the kind of raw power like the power of the Witchdoctor…” Yim raised her hands toward the sky. Elias felt his heart rate accelerate, as if she was calling out to some dark power. He had never stopped to question if his strange mob leader was a practitioner of dark arts. How else would she have known about the great Witchdoctor or his Hollow?

  “Of course, were he any other mediocre practitioner, then how could he be credited with the breakthrough society made in the alchemy of science and magic?” Yim said, and smiled.

  “His great genius gave rise to the age we live in…It shaped the century and it gave shape to your fearless leader.” Yim looked around at them, grinning, mesmerized. She felt the need to explain their mission at least one more time.

  “Time for a bedtime story, children. Gather in...Hustle!” Yim snapped her fingers. She leaned her heel on a blazing log that stood vertically and separated from the fire. The fire wreathed her leg, snapping and crackling her leather trousers. Her flesh bubbled, but she didn’t flinch. She didn’t even grimace.

  “Impressive, no? You’d be surprised all that you can live through. Mr. Walklate knows a thing or two about the psychotic supernatural energy torture I have just described. I have experienced it myself. It gives me the power to literally absorb oxidation. I am fire and the perfect storm!” Yim closed her eyes. Thunder rolled beneath their campfire, rattling the logs. Had she summoned it somehow?

  “This mission, gentlemen, is to discover the origins of my creator and your creator. Our world shaper, the father of all supernatural anomalies. The Biblical Cain himself. Affectionately known by the Crescent and the Founding Fathers of this post-apocalyptic estate as The Witchdoctor, the chief practitioner of astral medicine.” Yim paused. She closed her eyes and rolled them in her head, emulating the REM state of sleep.