Chapter One

And the Dead Shall Walk

A small ship was flying from a dark planet, but already, it was beaching black smoke and white clouds of the precious air from inside of the ship. Its path was erratic and its movements suggested of a dying thing.

Inside, its passengers fought to stay alive and to keep the ship alive, just long enough to reach a planet that will allow them to live.

"Are we going to be able to make it?" A middle aged black man asked as he clings for life to the back of the pilot's chair. The pilot didn't say anything as he grimily held on tightly to the controls and fought to keep it going.

"Riddick!" A kid yelled and pointed off to the side of the view screen. "Look, there's a planet!" The dark green and blue planet seemed like heaven to their eyes.

Riddick steered the ship towards the planet and nursed it along. But when it hit the atmosphere, it began to buck and shake so hard that its crew was afraid that wasn't going to make it. The hull was glowing bright yellow and pieces of it started to fly off.

Riddick managed to get the ship to level out a bit, but it was still freefalling towards the planet, which they could now see a jungle.

"Hold on!" He yelled, moments before they shoot through the jungle, leaving broken branches and burnt leaves in their track. Then all was quiet.

Riddick moaned as he lifted his head up and looked around. The front area of the ship was crumbled towards him, almost trapping him in his seat. He felt something trickling down his forehead and he reached up and gingerly touched it. His fingers came away red with blood.

"Jack? Imam?" He called out as he unstrapped himself from the pilot's chair. He was answered by a soft groan and he carefully made his way to the sound. His shine-enhanced eyes were able to pick out Jack's small form among the rubble.

"Riddick...?" Jack mumbled as he helped her to sit up. She looked relatively unharmed, but for the nasty gash on her upper arm. He hoped it wasn't broken because it would make their situation worse.

Jack looked around, "Where's Imam?" she looked up at him as he scanned the rest of the inside of the ship.

"Don't worry about him." Riddick replied as he stood. He was finally able to make out the holy man's form lying still towards the back of the ship. He carefully made his way to Imam and checked his pulse.

"Imam's alive." He called back over his shoulder to Jack. He saw Jack's relived grin as he turned back to Imam who was starting to stir. When the holy man opened his eyes, he didn't seem to please to see Riddick hovering over him. Riddick didn't say anything, just gave him a quick sneer and moved towards the back of the ship. Luckily, the hatch still worked and he was able to open the door manually.

He was greeted with a clamor of animal and bird voices that all seemed to be announcing the arrival of this new invader. He turned back to the other two in the ship. "Well, at least there's water." He said with a shrug.

The three of them were seated on various rocks and fallen tree trunks tending to their individual wounds. Jack had elected the help of Imam to bandage her arm when Riddick suddenly stopped bandaging his leg and looked towards the jungle.

"What?" Jack asked as she looked where he looked; Imam looked up from her bandage. Riddick didn't say anything, just gestured to her to be quiet. He moved quickly, but fluidly as he reached for his shiv and melted into the jungle. Jack and Imam stood as they looked around at the edge of the clearing they were in. Suddenly, they heard an animal scream and as they turned to it's source, Riddick reappeared. He had a medium sized animal slung over his shoulder. He dropped it down in front of them and started to work on cleaning it.

"What are you doing?" Imam asked disgusted. Riddick looked up at him.

"I'm making dinner."

By then, Riddick had the animal cleaned and cooking over a good fire that Jack had made for him. When he was done cooking, he cut pieces of it off and served it to Imam and Jack with the fruits that Imam had found while they waited for the meat to cook.

Jack sighed with satisfaction as she set aside the bone she had been gnawing on. Imam was sampling a fruit he had found. They were fortunate that they were able to find a device that can tell them what's safe to eat and what's not. She smiled and leaned back into the leaves and vegetation.

"It's like heaven here compared to that hellhole." She commented as she stared up at the fading sunlight that forced its way through the heavy tree coverage.

"We might not get a chance to get off of this planet though." Riddick warned. Jack just ignored him. He scoffed and leaned back against the trunk he was sitting against and turned his focus towards Imam. The holy man was off away from their group praying.

"Death's spawn is here." A soft voice whispered. "A boy that's not a boy... Angels cry." A young woman made her way along the jungle ground and slinked under a fern on her stomach. Pale green eyes peered out from under long, tangled brown hair. She scanned the jungle around her, but all she saw were the native animals and birds moving among the huge trees. Mackenzie moved forward and up to her feet. She was now clad in the remains of her pajamas that she had worn in the institution. But she was covered completely in a thick layer of plastered mud and vegetation that covered what her tattered clothes couldn't.

"Show me the way?" She asked, almost timidly. She carefully picked her way through the debris until she could see in the distance, the faint glow of a fire. She hunched down behind a rotted tree trunk.

"Humans never change you know, even millions of years later." She whispered, her eyes almost glowing as she moved up and over the log with feline movements. She froze.

A deer like creature that came no taller than her knee came cautiously into the small clearing she was in. The mud and vegan that coated Mackenzie helped her to blend in with her background, even though she was in full sight.

"My love, I'm hungry." She whispered inaudibly to the deer creature. "My precious, I smell your blood." She crept slowly towards the creature as it ducked its head to snatch a mouthful of a lettuce like plant.

She was reaching out to the creature, her fingers only a hair's breath away from its neck when it jerked its head up alarmed and bounded away. She screamed in rage and whirled up to a standing position. But all she saw was a large form move quickly towards her and grab her roughly by her arm and slam her against a tree, a glint of silver traced its way to her throat. She winced and looked up at her attacker.

Silver eyes and a smooth, shaven head encircled by black goggles, as her eyes traveled down, she saw his massive shoulders and his flexed muscles as he held her against the tree. She smiled at him, almost in an alluring childlike way, as she traced her free hand along his side, starting at his belt, up to his arm and down to his hand where he held the knife to her throat.

"My love, you scared life away." Mackenzie said to him accusingly. "I hunger for redness, where can I get it now?" Riddick's brow crinkled in confusion at her. She wasn't acting normally, rather she seemed very unconcerned about the shiv he held against her jugular.

"How did you get here?" Riddick asked, his rough voice masking any emotion he may have felt. She shrugged.

"Death brought me here. He taught me the taste of copper. Can I taste you?" Mackenzie asked, then yanked his hand away from her neck and sank her teeth into the fleshy part of his hand. He yelled and jerked his hand away, dropping the shiv in the process. She deftly caught the falling shiv and sliced it across his other arm, causing him to let go of her.

He turned to see her crouching on the rotted log, tracing the shiv across her skin in complex patterns, leaving a welling of red blood in its path. A trickle of his blood glimmered at him from the corner of her mouth as her eyes locked with his with predatory intenseness.

"Who are you?" Riddick asked, braced to move quickly if he needed.

"Me? I'm Mackenzie." She replied and turned her focus to the shiv. "I'm special you know. That's what Dr. Forman tells me. But he has a black tongue, but not forked. Not like Dr. Mott and Dr. Hellion." She gave a soft shutter and sunk the shiv deeply into her forearm. "I hurt..." she whimpered and let the shiv fall from her limp fingers to the ground. Riddick moved towards her slowly, she didn't seem to notice him as she cradled her injured arm to herself. He carefully picked up the shiv and put it away and reached out to Mackenzie, the tips of his fingers brushed her skin.

"NO!" she screamed and slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me! It burns!" She wailed as she grabbed at her head. "Die! I want to see you DIE!" She screamed at him as she launched herself towards him, her eyes bestial.

His eyes widened in startlement and he only had time to bring his hands up to catch her as the force of her leap knocked him down into the vegan. Her hands were claw-like as they forced their way to his throat. Riddick kept his cool, even though he was at first caught off guard. He twisted his body and flipped her over onto her back and pinned her down, but even then, he had trouble restraining her. Her limbs were everywhere at once.

Suddenly, Mackenzie went limp and her eyes became soft and liquid again. She traced her free hand along his jaw. "Momma never did understand. But you could." She whispered to him. He sat up, still sitting on her legs in case she attacked him again. She propped herself up onto her elbows and smiled at him.

"You're strong. They always gave me the strongest nurses, but I always took them down." She licked the corner of her lip. "You taste good."

Riddick sighed. He finally figured out what was behind her behavior. "You're some mental case that escaped, aren't you?" He asked his voice rumbling in his chest in annoyance. Another problem he didn't really wanted to deal with.

"Shh..." She held a finger up to his lips and tilted her ear towards his chest. "The mountain speaks." He just sighed and rolled his eyes as he stood up and grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her up to a standing position. She just purred at him, which only served to fuel his annoyance.

"Riddick!" Jack looked relieved to see him appear from the jungle, in spite of the fact that both of them were muddy and bloody. Imam stood when he saw that the other man had a filthy woman with him. Riddick dragged her to the fire and shoved her down next to a trunk. She hissed at him and clawed at him.

"Where did you find her?" Imam asked as Riddick sat down at a distance from her and picked up some of the leftover bandages. Mackenzie was now watching the fire entranced.

"She was in the jungle not far from here." Riddick nodded back the way he had come as he wound the bandage around his forearm. "She's some kind of mental case, she acts like it."

"She sure looks like it." Jack commented, and caught the attention of the woman in question. The younger woman silenced at her cold green eyes.

"Crazy is only in the mind of the beholder." Mackenzie murmured and started to sway like a snake, her eyes locked on Jack's. "Being insane, it's powerful." Jack started to sway with Mackenzie's motions. "People want to be insane. There's no right or wrong, no good or bad, it's all gray." Her eyes narrowed to slits. "You want to be insane." She whispered to Jack harshly and quickly.

That seemed to snap Jack out of there trance and she sat back in surprise and alarmed. Imam looked at Mackenzie with disapproval, then over at Riddick who was unconcernedly wrapping his hand where she had bitten him earlier.

"We're not going to keep her with us?" Imam asked him softly as he looked over at Mackenzie.

"What's the matter, I thought you were a holy man?" Riddick mocked him.

"I am, but she is devilish. She has survived the jungle before you found her, she'll be safe." Imam replied as Jack inched around behind Riddick to put him in between her and Mackenzie. Riddick laughed.

"Do you want me to leave with her? I'm a killer and murder. No better than her in your eyes." Riddick challenged him. Imam opened his mouth, but was interrupted before he could say anything.

"Two gentlemen fighting for the virtue of a maiden." Mackenzie chanted as she stood up and looked up to the hole in the tree coverage. "The Black Knight against the Holy Crusader. The maiden controls the dragon, you know." She slowly made her way to Riddick and took the bandages he held. She sat down on the log not far from him and started to bandage the deep cut on her forearm. She looked up at Jack keenly.

"The Squire doesn't need to be scared of me, I'm not the one who's gonna kill her." She stuck her tongue out at Jack and leaned back over the log so that she was looking back at the jungle upside down, her hands playing with the vegan on the ground below her head. Riddick ignored her; he had decided that was the best method for dealing with her, and less provocative.

Imam stood up and walked into the crashed ship. Jack followed; she was shaken by what Mackenzie was doing to her. Besides, she was tired and it was growing dark. Mackenzie didn't act like she knew they were gone, she just hissed at the forest and clawed the air, still upside down.

Suddenly Mackenzie whipped herself to a standing position and screamed. Riddick leaped up, the shiv appearing in his hand like magic as he scanned the jungle around them while keeping a wary eye on Mackenzie.

"No! I won't go back!" Mackenzie screamed at the jungle. "I hurt..." She moaned softly as she sunk down in the vegan by the fire, clutching at her stomach. She started to rock back and forth as Imam and Jack appeared at the twisted hatch of the ship to see what the screaming was about.

"Dr. Hellion, I'm free... The dove bleeds... I'll die again... I'll die... I'll die..." She moaned as she rocked, with each word, she rocked faster until she threw her head back and screamed to the sky.

Shadowy figures formed at the edge of the firelight and a woman dressed in a long white lab coat and black slacks stepped forward. Her cold eyes took in the three shipwrecked people standing posed for action, and Mackenzie who was now creeping backwards on her hands and knees away from her towards the jungle.

"You found my patient." Her voice was smooth and sweet as honey, not as cold as one would've thought from her eyes. "Thank you. I'm afraid that Mackenzie is dangerous and unstable. She needs care and supervision." She gestured to one of the shadows and he stepped forward holding a type of a stun gun that Riddick was unfamiliar with. Mackenzie screamed at him as he fired the stun gun at him and a dart planted itself into her skin on the inside of her shoulder. She stood and turned to run, but he fired again and the second dart buried itself in between her shoulder blades and she crumpled.

Riddick tensed and moved forward, but stopped when the gun turned onto him. The woman walked closer to the fire, her men came into view behind her, twelve of them. She smiled at him as two of her men came forward with caution and bounded Mackenzie's hands and ankles with leather cuffs.

"Don't worry, she'll be okay. It's just tranquilizer darts. I am Dr. Tracy Hellion and I am her doctor." She held a hand out to Riddick, completely unconcerned about the shiv he held. He sheathed the shiv, but didn't take her hand. She shrugged and turned to face Mackenzie. In few short steps, she was besides her and was examining her.

"Good, she doesn't seem to be harmed" Her smooth alabaster brow crinkled in a frown as she turned Mackenzie's limp arms over to revel the cuts that traced over her skin and were still bleeding lightly. She looked up at Riddick for explanation.

"She took my shiv." He told her with a careless shrug, his relaxed mood hiding his deeper, tense predatory instincts waiting to be unleashed.

"And she let you take it back? She likes you." Dr. Hellion said as she returned her attention to Mackenzie. She stood, brushed her hands off and gestured towards her men and two of them picked up the limp woman. She turned to face the other three people.

"You're welcome to come with us to our compound." She invited gracefully.

"Thank you for your kind invitation, Dr. Hellion. My name is Imam." Imam said as he stepped forward. She inclined her head to him. She turned away and walked away into the shadows of the jungle. Riddick held back as Imam and Jack followed her. He was leery of her and Mackenzie's reactions to this doctor made his hackles rise. But in the end, he still followed anyway, where else could he go?