As I stepped out of the portal to Agartha and onto the rotting timbers on the other side, I could hear the wood creak beneath my feet. A few seconds later, I landed lightly on my feet next to Priscilla, and turning on my flashlight, I glanced over my shoulder to see that we had emerged from the wrecked bow of a Viking longship. A carved wooden dragon's head stared down at me as I noticed that somehow, the ship managed to crash its stern into the side of a hill. The poor skipper must've been laughed at by his drinking buddies in Valhalla upon being forced to tell the yarn about how that happened. However, Priscilla and I had better things to do than to ponder this archaeological mystery, and we began making our way through the dark forest around us.
As we ventured deeper into the woods, strangled screams began to reach my ears, and I willed my stomach to stop churning as my clammy hands drew my Beretta from its shoulder holster hidden beneath my jacket. The weight of Death in my hands was almost comforting as we stepped past the trees, and in the distance, I could see a campfire flickering in the early morning darkness, and it illuminated the open flaps of a tent situated near the road.
The sounds of fire crackling and water boiling and bubbling grew louder and louder as Priscilla and I drew closer, and we could now see a man poking at the burning coals beneath his pot with a charred stick. His face was tanned and wrinkled from time spent out in the sun, and it was covered with a full, dark gray beard. The rest of his body was clad in full cowboy getup: hat, jacket, spurred boots, and all. Resting against the log the cowboy sat on was a lever-action Winchester rifle that looked like it was old enough to have actually helped win the West.
Priscilla signaled for me to stay back behind the cover of the nearby tree trunk as she stepped forward, unarmed, but the cowboy looked unsurprised to see her as he glanced upwards. "Morning. You and your friend hiding behind that tree over there hungry?"
Priscilla hesitated a moment before wordlessly beckoning me over, and holstering my weapon, I jogged over to join them. As we sat cross-legged on the ground, the cowboy smiled at us as he reached for the spoon inside his hanging pot. "Don't worry, kids. You haven't gone back in time. I just happen to be the last of the cowboys."
The cowboy then gestured to the contents of his pot: baked beans, cooked to dark orange perfection amidst the brown sauce gurgling in the pot. It smelled good, and I heard my stomach rumble. The breakfast Priscilla and I had in her London flat seemed ages ago. Bowls and spoons were passed out to us, and as the cowboy ladled out the beans, Priscilla spoke. "My name's Priscilla Ross, and this is Chase Mercer. What's your name?"
"Name's Boone — Jack Boone. I'm a… troubleshooter." The cowboy answered as he dumped a load of baked beans into my bowl. We then ate in silence, and the baked beans tasted just as good as they looked and smelled. The sauce was sweet and tangy, and the beans settled my stomach, though I suspected I was in for gas later on.
Soon, I was three-quarters of the way down, and Priscilla's amber eyes stared at the ever-diminishing contents of my bowl. It had always baffled Mom how I could eat so quickly without choking, and she would always joke about how I should be in the military with that kind of speed. Then again, I am part of the Templars' crusade against the darkness now, so I guess that makes me a soldier, in a sense. "So… What're you doing out here? Are you a member of one of the societies?"
Boone shook his head. "Nah, I come from the South… the real old South. My partner Wolf and I ride for a higher authority. When you need to know us, you'll know us. Say, how old are you?"
"Fifteen." I answered, and Boone simply nodded.
"Well, it sounds like you got a whole lot left to learn about the Secret World, kid. And when you're all learned up, then you gotta understand what you learned. Kinda like peeling the layers off an onion. Probably be as much weepin' involved too, won't lie to you."
I nodded in silence as Boone glanced at me from his food. "I don't mean to talk down to you, though. You and me and her — we're the same. We're just more experienced, is all. And experience don't count for much these days. We've been stretched out thin as gauze, and we need all the cool heads and steady hands we can get. Thought I had a measure of the absolute darkness in this world. The darkness waiting its turn, patient as all hell, to come through. Turns out I was wrong. So, guess we both got some learning to do."
"Looks like it." I said as I scooped up another mouthful of beans into my mouth and started chewing. "They say you learn something new every day, and for me, that saying hasn't been more true since the day I joined up with the Templars."
Boone grunted. "It's a big storm that can reach all the way from New England to the old one. Storm of the century. Gotta say it's an impressive sight, the army of the Templars on the march. So's a herd of buffalo, and you don't want to find yourself standing in front of one of those, or be riding with them when they go over a cliff, neither."
I notice Priscilla bristle up slightly at Boone's words, and he spared a glance before continuing on as before. "It's good work you do, and proud, but that can make for a blinkered combination. Can get you all tangled up in trying to prove you're prouder and more good than the next guy."
"Hey, we're not—" Priscilla began, the wood of her carved spoon indignantly clattering against the wood of her bowl of baked beans, but Boone cut her off before she could escalate things.
"Think your bosses would have sent you and the kid special delivery if it didn't kick dirt on the Illuminati's shoes?" Boone asked, and Priscilla hesitated for a moment. However, that was all Boone needed to end the would-be argument before it could begin. "Well, I ain't here to pass no judgement. Find the measure of yourself, and if it should match up with the company you keep, well then, I tip my hat to you. Society is what keeps us apart from the dark. That said, don't get saddle rash from riding the high horse, okay?"
Priscilla remained silent as I nodded slowly, and Boone then took a moment to rearrange the coals with his stick again. "Sure, you can be divided in purpose, but… we've gotta stand united against the darkness. This ain't my first rodeo. I know we're gonna need all the unity we can get. Don't mean to say you've stepped into hell, but… When the wind blows west, you can just about smell the brimstone."
"So have you managed to figure out what's going on around here?" I asked, bringing another spoonful of baked beans to my mouth, and Boone shook his head as I chewed and swallowed.
"All I know is that death and fog came from the sea, or someone brought it back with 'em. If I was a gambling man, I'd put money on that someone still being around." Boone answered as he jerked his head in the direction of what I presumed to be the ocean.
"Are there any survivors still on the island?" Priscilla asked, and I felt a little better when Boone nodded.
"There's a bunch of 'em holed up in Kingsmouth town." Boone said as he pointed towards the road — Solomon Road, according to the green sign nearby. "Follow that main road and the sound of gunfire, and you'll come to the sheriff's office. Be careful, though — this forest crawls. Gets my fingers itching for two matters. One…"
Boone then snatched up his gun from its resting place against the log, and before we could react, he had raised the rifle to his shoulder and pulled the trigger, causing me and Priscilla to flinch at the sudden loud noise. If I hadn't been wearing my special earplugs, I would've gone deaf at such close proximity to the gunshot. "…The zombies. The other, figuring out a way to keep 'em down. It ain't right, the way the dead walk the earth. They deserve their six feet, same as everyone else."
Boone worked the lever of his rifle to chamber another round, he added, "I'm sworn to keeping guard here, and you two got places to be, but nothing's stopping you from culling the herd as you go. Hell, figure out what makes them tick, and how to make that ticking stop, and I'll buy you two drinks at the apocalypse. So, go on — saddle up. The end of the world waits for no man."
Priscilla and I both nodded as we set our bowls down and stood up to leave, and as I followed Priscilla out of his camp, I heard Boone call out to me. "Hey, mind holding up a sec?"
"What's up?" I asked as I stopped and turned around to face Boone. He was looking at me with a serious expression in his eyes, which were as dark as tanned leather.
"Kid… Whatever your reasons for being here, you find out what those people died for, and you bring a reckoning. Got that?"
"Got it." I said, and Boone nodded as he gestured for me to go.
The road to Kingsmouth town was littered with abandoned cars and fistfuls of meandering zombies. The walking dead looked to be about the same as any other zombie on TV (i.e. ashen skin, rotting flesh, raggedy clothes, bloody orifices, blah blah blah) but that didn't make them any less unnerving to see in person.
Bringing out her Benelli shotgun, Priscilla brought the gun up to her shoulder and squeezed the trigger. The first zombie went down as the buckshot fired from Priscilla's gun struck its center of mass, and now we had attracted the attention of the other walkers. My training then kicked in as I spotted a zombie charging towards us, and with two quick shots to the torso, the second walker was down. Then another undead growl reached my ears, and the icy snake of fear that had coiled itself around my heart suddenly squeezed tight.
I looked to see Priscilla spin around to meet the source of the sound, which was barely a few feet away from her. Priscilla kept her cool, however, and she responded with a high kick to the walker's face that literally decapitated the zombie and sent its head flying towards the windshield of a nearby abandoned car.
I winced in sympathy for the poor zed's head as the car's alarm went off, and all the other zeds started running towards the loud beeping cry of the sedan, like One Direction fangirls that had just spotted the objects of their affection through the tinted windows of their car. Taking advantage of their distraction, I conjured up a blue fireball with a snap of my fingers, and I hurled the fiery projectile at the undead Directioners. As it neared the zombies, the fireball exploded like a grenade, setting alight the zeds within its blast radius. As the undead got up, the blue fire burned away at their decaying flesh and torn clothing, but that didn't seem to bother them as they moaned and groaned like usual, as if they had always been on fire. "So what have we learned, Chase?"
"Well, Miss Ross, we learned that the undead are attracted to loud noises and can be set on fire." I said, doing my best impression of a young first grader. "In other words, they're just like every other zombie out there. They probably also lack pain receptors, judging by how they're still walking around while their faces are being melted off. They also like eating dead bodies, judging by how those two are tearing into that guy over there. So, can zombies turn other things into zombies? Like, reanimate corpses to join the horde or something?"
Priscilla shook her head as she looked where I was looking and raised the shotgun to her shoulder again, staring down the iron sights at the zombies. "No, not usually. Doesn't make their teeth any less dangerous, though. These things bite hard, and don't let go easy. I'll take the one on the left, you take the right."
I nodded as I brought my gun up to fire, and our ammunition found nice new homes in whatever excuse the undead had for brain matter. We then raced over to the corpse and inspect it for any sign of zombie infection. The skin and flesh of the face had been stripped off the yellowed bone by the zombie's teeth, rendering the person unrecognizable, and there were several laceration wounds from the walkers' nails. The meat on the arms had also been eaten by the zombies as if it were a chicken drumstick, so I didn't feel very humerus about the situation. If I hadn't seen worse during my tactical first aid training, I probably would've thrown up.
A loud roar then interrupted our inspection, and we jerked our heads to see a seven-foot-tall linebacker of a zombie charge towards us from the nearby woods, as if someone had just hiked the ball and we were the opposing team. As I froze in fear like a deer caught in the headlights of a car, Priscilla reacted instantly and pushed me out of the way hard with her enhanced strength before scrambling away in the opposite direction.
I grunted in pain as my back skidded across the ground, and I cursed myself as I reached to clear my Beretta from its holster. As I heard the bang of Priscilla's shotgun, I pushed myself up and readied a spell with my free hand. As I felt the flow of anima course through my arm, the electricity produced by my body began to appear and crackle upon my skin. I then thrust my hand towards the football zombie, and it howled in pain as the lightning coursed through its body.
I found myself breathing hard from the amount of anima I had put into the attack, but I forced myself to get back up onto my feet as the football zombie began lumbering towards me. Unfortunately, the football zombie was faster in getting to me than I was at getting up, and just as one of its meaty arms rose into the air to smash me into a paste, a welcome shotgun blast rang through the air. Warm black blood splattered onto me as a gaping hole appeared in the middle of the football zombie's forehead, and as the monster fell forward, I just barely avoided getting crushed by its corpse.
The football zombie's corpse thudded heavily as it hit the ground, and as the blood, sweat, and gray matter trickled down my skin and clothes, all I could think about was just how close I had been to getting killed, and the thought sent shivers up my spine. Being reminded of just how easily you can get snuffed out is unpleasant for anyone, especially a teen who's got their whole life ahead of them. My heart felt as if it had been replaced with a trembling chunk of ice, and I could only stare at the ground in front of me as I felt Priscilla hug me tightly from behind.
Good work, both of you. The information regarding the reanimated dead is useful, though not particularly surprising.
Jack Boone — now there's a familiar name. He pops up in reports everywhere. The man travels far and wide, and always seems to be onsite before our agents. His factional allegiances are unknown, though he does not appear to be associated with either the Illuminati or the Dragon.
It would pay to keep an eye on him.
R. Sonnac
