Free After the Fall by A.J. Martinez Page A

me to go into the hole. Not knowing what was inside, I decided to go ahead and trust him.
    I descended down into a corridor and took in my surroundings. The inner side was lined with doors as far as I could see, until the hallway curved out of sight. I began to open doors and saw makeshift beds and plain furniture. These were bedroom chambers. Every fourth room was a storage room filled to capacity. The wall was actually a fortress of its own. This town was prepared for a long, bitter siege.
    At the end of the hallway I found a staircase. I went down to the first floor and saw the other side of the chamber I had entered when I first arrived. It was empty this time, except for a few bolts scattered about on the floor. I looked at the window slots and saw my handiwork piled high on the ground. Some of the limbs were twitching from postmortem spasms.
    To my left was a large crank wheel that controlled the opening and closing motion of the door. The handle below slid back and forth to engage the locks as desired. I left it alone and returned my attention to the wheel. The chain was broken, either through lack of maintenance or bad quality. I realized it was neither. This was twenty-first century chain, well greased and in good condition. I could not see how it had broken until I pulled it up and saw the section where it had been cut. The metal shavings scattered about confirmed this. Someone had sabotaged the door, but for what reason?
    Outside the window, I heard a strained wheezing sound. There was a man, or what used to be one, standing there and trying to look inside. It was dark both in here and the room, so I was virtually invisible to him. There were two bolts buried in his head. I remembered having placed one of them earlier. This one should be dead twice over and yet here he stood, looking blindly in my direction. I wondered at the strange phenomenon for a moment. Once my moment of reflection was over, I reached down for a bolt and rammed it in his open mouth, all the way to the spine, and down he went for the third time. I had a feeling I had not seen the last of him. This would explain why the world simply could not get rid of these undead. Some continued to rise as long as there was something left of them.

Gehenna
    Alaric woke to the pounding on his door. I stood on the other side, hitting so hard the surface wood splintered. Rhiannon opened the door.
    “What is it?” she snapped. It was pitch dark and she could not see me.
    “I need to speak to Alaric,” I said. 
    A smile spread across her face. “It’s late. What do you need with my husband ?”
    “I just need to speak to him. It is of the utmost importance.”
    “And am I not important enough to relay this to him?”
    “This is urgent. Let me through.” I tried to pass her and she blocked me.
    “What is it, my friend,” asked Alaric, followed by a deep yawn.
    “You must burn the bodies.”
    “What bodies?”
    “The corpses at the gate. They keep coming back to life.”
    “What? That’s absurd. They don’t do that.”
    “I just killed one of them for the second time tonight. Tell me that did not happen, either.”
    “Are you sure you actually killed him?”
    I clenched my teeth. “He went down dead both times. You saw me put a bolt through his head when we last spoke.”
    “Yes, I saw him. That should have put him down for good. But maybe he was just knocked unconscious?”
    “No, he was dead. He got back up and I killed him again. Who knows if he will stay down this time. I tried to speak to the head Sentinel, but he said they were under strict orders from you to hold position. No one will do a thing and it is only a matter of time before they get back up and start rattling at the inner gate. How long do you want to sit here, until we run out of food and ammunition?”
    He gave me a slow nod. It seemed I might have gotten through to him.
    “Just give me a few minutes to get ready,” he said. Instead of remaining in the room with him,