Winston Charles and The Eastern Kingdoms

Part Three

He was a Zombie. The young girl wasn't entirely human. And I really didn't want to know what the older girl was. Was I the only human that was going to survive?

Let me start over.

After Jaeques finished the seal, the younger of the two girls woke up and saw Jaeques and tried hide both her and the girl ineffectively under the bed sheet. Jaeques let them be. When the older one woke, the younger one whispered to her and both stayed put.

The undead invaders, however, did not stop. They took the floor below us quickly and started on this floor, but stopped in the middle and took to the higher floors. Which took them little time at all, and in fact they were back down here in less than an hour.

Knock knock. Someone knocked on the doors, and said this: "This is your captors. Please exit the room voluntarily and we will not harm you immediately. If we have to break down the door, we will turn you all. Also, we have a message to the Warlock with you. You have three minutes to comply. Thank you and have a nice day."

'Thank you and have a nice day'? Really?

The girls, left with no other options, decided to come out from hiding and follow me and Jaeques outside. Leaving nothing of ours behind, like we actually did, we stepped out into the hallway, which had been widened significantly, and sat down in a line. Jaeques, had been obviously separated from our company.

It's about then I got a good look at our invaders. The soldiers were shorter than the adults they had captured, but wore rather old gear. Dusty leather battle tunics and helms. Worn down swords or axes with rotten wood shields. Despite being undead, they looked just as composed and relaxed as human soldiers.

There was one undead that stood out from the group though. They looked to be another Warlock. They were wearing a blue and gold version of Jaeques robe, but instead of the large, demonic runes on Jaeques, they were thin, practiced, modest, and weren't as prominent as Jaeques'. And unlike Jaeques, who had his entire face and some shadowed with his hood, this one hid their face with a mask that was a combination of hay and rusted metal. Mostly rotten hay, though. They were also holding two staves, one covered in some kind of black tar.

"Brother, you let me down," they said, obviously female.

"Don't call me that." The two of them talked for some time, talking about this and that, when the woman brought up possible punishments from the Dark Lady.

"From Lady Windrunner? I'm not part of the Scourge."

"So you didn't leave the Forsaken?"

"No, I just had to make a delivery and then head over to the UC and do what the Lady wanted me for." From there on it became harder to understand, so I stopped listening. Some time later, the younger girl dozed off and the older one, which for now I shall call Orange, prodded me.

"What?" I whispered.

"Smell that?" she asked. I sniffed the air. Nothing.

"Smell what?" I asked back. She looked at me like I missed something.

"What does the dead smell like?" she hinted.

"Like death? Decomposing flesh, a corroding stench- Oh." It occurred to me. When you go see a movie, most actors don't notice a zombie until it's upon them. It seems that they smell bad since its portrayed like that, but these guys are the same but… they smell like air, not the sickening horror.

"Oh what?" the woman asked, turning toward me. If I wasn't mistaken, when I looked at her, she had red glowing eyes seeping through her mask. "Do you have something to say, young ma-" Ding!

Someone's cell went off. Luckily for me, she paused and turned toward the sound. Jaeques, freed from the woman's chatter, walked over to the source and plucked the phone from the girl's hands. "Hey!" she said, instinctively rising and quickly retreated.

"Sai has one of these," he mumbled, and after a moment, turned toward me. "Winston, can I see your WCD?"

"It's called a cell phone," the girl told him.

"Yeah, you can borrow my WCD, but it's dead," I said, ignoring her. Then I caught myself. "Err, it's out of battery." I stood and walked over to Jaeques, the soldiers tensing up. After handing it to him, I walked back and sat down.

"Whose this 'Sai'," the female undead asked, irritated.

"None of your needed information," he replied.

Clearly irritated, she turned toward my direction and walked over, but instead of focusing on me, she turned toward Orange. "What is your name, girl?"

"Cressord," she said hesitantly.

"Cressord… Cress, turn around, put your head down," the woman instructed. Cress complied. For the record, I asked her what was her name. "Sydonia," she told me and beckoned one of the guards, whispered instructions to him and he moved off, told some other guards and began picking people at random.

They group of random people were loaded onto one of the elevators and escorted down. 6… 5… 4… 3… 2… 1. It should have been obvious by then. They were turning us, not exactly killing us off. The screams from every floor below before and the new screams now came as no surprise. So why wasn't I scared? Was I enjoying this?

When the group came back, there were no humans to speak of. The new guards could be told apart from the old because they only were razed with the actual zombie look, still retaining some of their skin color, despite patches of the undead's greenish gray. What surprised me more was a hairbrush and bag of hair bands one of them was holding. Umm… what the hell?

I prodded the younger of the two awake and was about to asked and tell her some things, but when she opened her eyes and saw the people leaving she stood and walked with them. I reached out to grab her but she moved too fast and was out of my reach in a moment.

The guards handed the bag and brush to Sydonia and stepped back into line.

I watched wide-eyed slack-jawed as the young girl entered the elevator and the elevator doors closed. I couldn't believe that I just sent someone to their death.

The messenger waited until the last of the orcs exited the room and were out of earshot. "We have captured the Warlock Jaeques amongst the humans on the Otherside. We have determined it should be less than half a day before they arrive on this side. Do you want me to alert the town of Brill to prepare to receive him?"

"Yes. No one but the guard is to assist him until he is secured, and if they want to 'assist' him it is to escort him here. Is there anything else you would like to say?"

"No. Only that Apothecarian Warlock Sydonia is leading the capture and she has taken Lesser Apothecaries Cyondine and Kleptica with her for turning."

"Ok." And with that, the messenger left the Dark Lady's presence to the town of Brill.