Taboo Descendants and the Multi-Dimensional War
CHAPTER XXXII—DEATH TO THE UNDEAD

I stopped in my tracks, not sure what I had seen. Everyone around me kept walking. Her eyelids fluttered again.

I leaned in closer to the ground, this time surer of what I had seen. It was then that her eyes opened and look blankly into mine. She started to moan in agony as she attempted to pick herself up off the ground.

I backed away from her with haste and tripped over a different carcass. I managed to get back on my feet with no more than a scrapped knee. I was too afraid to scream.

I started to wave my hands frantically at the others in my group who were about thirty feet in front of me. I begged them to stop in my mind, but I was too distraught for my abilities to work. I had to focus. I put my hand on the side of my head and willed them to come back.

Ary was the first to register my mental S.O.S. She turned around to look for me just as another dead body began to move nearby. I backed away from the man as he reached for my ankle.

The young woman in the ‘Lit’ shirt attempted to stand on her feet and continue her pursuit. She stumbled towards me like a drunkard, her body slick with blood. I tried to shove her backwards, but my hands slipped into her dangling intestines.

My hands covered in warm blood, I found my voice and screamed, alerting the entire team of my distressed situation. They doubled back to retrieve me, moving through at least fifty deceased individuals in the open courtyard. If they all came to life, we would be severely outnumbered.

Horrified and disgusted, I finally shoved the dead girl to the ground and reached for my frozen dart gun, holstered on my hip. I shot her five times in the torso to no avail. I landed the sixth shot right between her eyes. She fell backwards and hit the ground. Her body finally restful once again. I ran towards the others, shooting the waking undead as I went.

This night could not get any worse.

I heard hysterical female laughter and I spun around with my gun at the ready. The voice seemed to have no source. I shot a couple of darts into the air just in case the woman was invisible. I had neglected to ask Sbapoid how many darts were in my gun. I had shot at least thirty of them during my effort to rejoin the others.

I looked down and noticed that the cartridge of my gun continued to fill. That gave me the confidence I needed to proceed with impunity.

When I reached the others, I could tell that Ary was flustered. She, too, had been using her weapon, but to no avail. The walking corpses were being struck with the nano-space-bug-bullets, but they could not feel pain nor coldness, so they were undeterred.

“Yesenia!” Sbapoid hissed. “Flip the small lever on the side of your weapon.”

“But—” Ary said hesitantly, “Isn’t that the kill mode?”

“Yes,” he answered. “But they’re already dead! If you don’t want to put the poor bastards out of their misery, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to take you to the underworld with them.”

She did as he instructed just in time to re-kill an elderly tourist who was no more than two feet off her shoulder. The man, wearing a Paris Saint Germain football t-shirt and leather loafers, hit the ground and began to convulse. It was disgusting to watch.

Hurting people felt wrong, but Ary and I had no other choice. This was the definition of do or die.

“What’s happening to him?” she exclaimed queasily.

“The nano-bugs have been doused with an attack pheromone upon their exit, prompting them to devour the host. They are penetrating the skin, muscle, tissue and bones with their powerful mandibles. This should render the host immobile.”

Just immobile? That’s an understatement.

Ary turned a shade of green. Her complexion was light enough to see her becoming nauseated. Her cheeks were puffy as if she held something in her mouth. I turned my head, but still heard the splash of her vomit on the stone slab.

The hysterical laugher was there once again, accompanied by a ringing of bells. I knew that the bells signaled Nevaeh’s arrival to the battlefield. I looked up as she flew over us, just missing our heads with her talons. She dropped a small bomb on a family of undead tourists who made their way towards us in a group. Human remains were ejected from the blast in every direction.

I wondered where Nevaeh would land when I felt a wave of hatred wash over me. The maniacal laughter. The evil presence. It can only mean one thing. A Zux is near.

I turned my head in the direction Nevaeh flew and saw a woman standing on a nearby wall. She was tall, dark and gorgeous in a long, yellow dress. She wore jewelry made of, what I was sure to be, humanoid bones. Her necklace, bracelets, and earrings were crafted of smaller bones, most likely from hands and feet. I came to this conclusion based on the skeletal hand that lay upon her bosom as the pendant of her necklace. It was small, but fully intact, like that of a humanoid child.

The deep-toned female watched us from her elevated position with a grin that could turn one’s blood cold as ice. I did not immediately know who she was, only that she was a Zux soldier. She felt like a sour stomach to my empathic abilities, despite her undeniable beauty.

Her hands were raised in the air, swishing back and forth like an orchestra conductor. When Nevaeh reached for her, talons first, she dodged the attack by quickly leaning away. As she turned away from us, she struck Nevaeh forcefully in the back where her two sets of wings connected to her spine.

Nevaeh descended with a crash on the other side of the wall. I wanted to go to her, but we had our hands full shooting, maiming, and dismembering the activated corpses. I felt that this dark-skinned goddess was responsible for the movements of these deceased people. Possibly, if she was taken out, they would perish as well.

I must have sent out another mental distress call, because at that moment, Kachina showed up in a black, two-piece outfit, the shirt short-sleeved and the bottoms capris. The ensemble was made of flexible metallic material, designed to move seamlessly with her motions. I had noticed that the entire Veex squad worn similar dark clothing, but I did not question it.

Astonished, I watched as Kachina’s black, two-piece metal suit began to change shape. In fact, Kachina’s entire body began to morph.

I realized that I was not familiar with her ability. I wondered what she was capable of as she grew both taller and bulkier. I thought back to what Jules had said before we departed the vessel, “Kachina, using your abilities, you will face Captain Malikah, queen of the undead. There will be no lack of animated corpses for her to fight with, so try and protect the others. Take any form that you deem most useful.”

It was apparent, as she dropped down to all fours, that the most useful shape for that moment was an Alaskan Grizzly, the Kodiak bear. The ground shook as she ran swiftly past us in pursuit of the Zux captain, Malikah. The undead formed a barricade to protect their queen. They reached for Kachina’s bear body, but they could not touch her. As it were, she could not harm them either. She ran straight for Malikah, who did not budge. She knew they could not use their abilities to directly harm one another. Kachina walked in a half-moon shape around Malikah on the wall, trying to replace a way to get to her. Malikah smiled.

Kachina roared in frustration. I could see bear saliva flying from her mouth. The Zux captain roared with laughter, her head tilted back. Both roars sent a chill down my spine. Kachina knew she would have to fight Captain Malikah hand-to-hand, but was at a spatial disadvantage.

Without warning, Captain Malikah fell forward onto the limestone floor below. Nevaeh, who had kicked her off her pedestal, took her place atop the wall, temporarily triumphant. One of her wings was severely bent and most likely broken.

Captain Malikah bounded to her feet, wild with fury but still laughing. Just as quickly as the bear had materialized, it was gone and Kachina landed a hard right cross directly on Malikah’s chin. The captain’s mad laughter immediately stopped, replaced by swift jabs and knees. The two women went at it like they were in the UFC octagon. It was the fight of the century.

Distracted by her opponent, Malikah’s corpses fell to the ground unmoving.

“Let’s go!” hacked Oluh at my shin.

I jumped. I had forgotten how quietly he could sneak up on someone. I had just seen him half a football field away sinking his single saber tooth into the ear of a brisk-walking, yet grossly obese, dead woman. She had immediately collapsed as her skull began to deteriorate, a result to Oluh’s oral poison. Eventually her skull caved in, leaving the rest of her body to collapse in a great fat heap of flesh on the ground. After having watched him kill the undead with such ferocity, standing next to him again felt somewhat frightening and awkward.

“If we leave now while that crazy witch is distracted, we can escape,” Oluh urged in his squeaky voice.

He was right on all accounts. We needed to go. It would take both Kachina and Nevaeh to hold off Captain Malikah and she still had plenty of dead bodies at her disposal. The slaughter at Mitla, I realized, was done to enable her to build an undead army.

Yzee was already ascending the steps beyond the courtyard two at a time. They headed towards the Palace of Columns and my son. The rest of the team jogged and scurried to catch up, but Yzee was no longer moving, only staring straight ahead. When we reached Yzee’s side, we could see why they were momentarily transfixed. North of our location and immediately West of the Palace of Columns was a vast open area filled with a bloody battle. There were three separate Tepon fights being fought out at one time.

In the far corner of the green space, Yasmin, the Zux navigator and our navigator, Tala, duked it out via fighting proxies. I described it to myself as a zoo deciding to have an all-out war with a haunted hardware store. Seriously, I had never seen anything like it before. Dogs attacked lawn mowers, birds of prey were attacked by pole saws, and snakes were mangled by chain saws. It was beasts versus machines. If it would have been a movie or a cartoon, it may have been funny, but these were real animals that were dying to protect us.

In the middle of the field, a dust cloud had a difficult time smothering a manifestation of ball lightning. I realized that I witnessed Inga take on Vadim, the Zux astrophysicist. Though I generally despised Inga and everything that she stood for, I could not help but to be proud of her at that moment. I was also glad that we were on the same team. She was more vicious on the battle field with her energy generating ability than she was in an argument.

When the dust settled, a gigantic Caucasian male emerged. I knew the man known as Vadim was not truly Russian, but he could pass for one of their strong-men. He stood solid and towering over the tiny stature to Inga, but she was by no means afraid of him.

In a blink, she slid in between his open legs, sprung up off the ground and onto his back. He laughed at her when she began to choke him with her legs, but he did not laugh for long. When his knees hit the ground, he realized that he was in serious trouble. He reached over his head, took her by the shoulders, and threw twenty feet away. She somehow landed on her feet like a small snow leopard.

A figure appeared behind her, steadying her as she slid backwards. It was Rahim. She looked up at him and nodded in gratitude. After that, he vanished.

I looked around for him and found him once more on our end of the green space opposite to where Tala and her foe battled.

The man that Rahim fought wore a sadistic grin on his handsome face. He was two-fisting the handle of a long, slender saber with a curved tip. The man, known as Viet Quan—The Torturer, swung the saber at Rahim’s head, but not before Rahim could disappear once more. I stared at the decorated hilt of the saber, feeling eyes boring into me.

I realized too late that he had noticed us.

I was immediately overcome with horrid images. My mother dead, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling—my son dead, torn limb from limb by the Zux—then I was dead along with Ary, and every Veex and delegate—we were now the puppets of Captain Malikah.

Just as my mind was about to break, Rahim reappeared in front of the Zux military tactician and punched him in the nose, this move was what the war mastermind had been anticipating all along. Though his head fell back after the blow, he slashed at Rahim’s chest with his saber, forcing him to disappear once again. In a flash, Rahim was behind Viet Quan, his torso bleeding profusely. He quickly kicked the Zux in the back, then promptly disappeared again as Viet Quan hurdled to the ground.

I looked around at my allies and saw that they seemed more shaken up than before. Though I doubted that they had seen the same horror that I had seen at the mercy of Viet Quan, I was sure that they had witnessed something equally maddening in their mind’s eye.

“Shall we go now?” grunted Yzee angrily. I wondered what Viet Quan had forced them to imagine.

“Nothing else would please me more,” answered Oluh irritably. “That bastard better be glad that he’s fighting pretty boy Rahim and not me. He’d be dead already for pulling that crap.”

“If we move quickly, we should be able to work our way around the fighting and into the Palace of Columns where Kaya’s son is being held hostage,” Sbapoid instructed calmly. He was the only one who did not seem phased by Viet Quan’s torturous tactics.

Does he have anyone to live or die for? I wondered.

“Agreed,” seconded Yzee. The plasma-beam throwing jewel on their chest glowed ominously. “I am ready to fight to the death.”

“The faster we get there, the better,” added Oluh hotly. “I’m in the mood to do some more killing and I hope my next target is a Zux.”