The Pale Rider Read online

  “Well, don’t you just think you’ve got the biggest balls in the world?”

  “I do. I’ve also got a plan that will work. I’m not asking you to like me, cupcake. I’m asking you to do the smart thing and help us.”

  “How exactly am I supposed to help you with that?”

  “Just trust me. Now be quiet. Scooter’s gang patrols these woods. They are trigger happy and cannibals. I have no desire to be eaten alive by Rage Heads or a bunch of human jackasses. Just stay silent for the next two miles. You’ll get your answers when I get home.”

  I zipped my mouth, but I was dying to know what exactly happened that corpses and humans were eating people. And what the fuck happened to me that I slept through it and couldn’t remember my name? How long had I been in that hospital, anyway? Why did this blue baseball bat trigger memories for me?

  I kept my mouth shut until Aeron pulled the horse up to what looked like a remote cabin. Was this what the world had come to? The cottage had high barbed wire and a trench with wood spikes out front. There was a wriggling corpse impaled on a pike as Aeron led the horse through the front gate.

  It was a small cabin made out of logs. I was a little shocked when he helped me off the horse, we went inside, and he pulled cold water out of the refrigerator.

  “I’m not an expert on the end of the world, but I thought everyone lost power. The hospital must have had backup generators.”

  “That’s what this place has. I only run it for the fridge and the stove. I siphon gas out of cars to run it. I was lucky to find this place.”

  “You don’t live here?”

  Aeron just scoffed.

  “Hardly.”

  “Then, why were you here, and what were you looking for at that hospital?”

  “First of all, it wasn’t a hospital. It was a research facility. I thought part of my plan was there, but it was incomplete.”

  “Do you know why I was at that research facility? Am I from here?”

  “You are from California. Should I call you Ariel or Speedy?”

  “I don’t know. I didn’t know either name until you told me. How do you know all this stuff about me if you were looking for something else at that research facility?”

  “Here’s the thing, Speedy. I can’t give you all your memories back at once without hurting you. I can tell you all about the end of the world, but as for your past, we will have to do that in bits and pieces. I’m doing this because it can seriously hurt you if we do it the other way.”

  “Fair enough. How did all this happen?”

  “Pure evil.”

  If those were the kinds of answers he would give me, then what was I staying here for? He saw the look I was giving him. He knew I was about to grab that blue baseball bat and hightail it out of this cabin.

  “Wait. I wasn’t finished. This started on purpose. They created those Rage Heads. A company named Armilus started creating nutritional supplements. They got a patent for a supplement kind of like fluoride to add to water that was supposed to help strengthen bones. It was tasteless, and the clinical trials showed an eighty percent reversal of osteoporosis and helped with arthritis pain.”

  Armilus. That named sounded like I should know it, but I wasn’t getting any flashes. Did I know it before I lost my memories?

  “Why does the name Armilus seem so familiar?”

  Aeron narrowed his eyes at me like he desperately wanted me to remember something.

  “Armilus is a figure from Jewish lore. He’s the son of Satan.”

  “Am I Jewish? Why would I know that? And if there was a company peddling supplements named after the son of Satan, why didn’t anyone shut that shit down?”

  “There were many people that knew what the company was named after and didn’t trust the company. They were legitimate at first. The product was helping people, and they were getting contracts all over the world. It was getting added to bottled water all over the place and seemed harmless for years.”

  “So, how did it go from harmless to the apocalypse?”

  “They started seeking contracts with local municipalities to have it added to the water supply. By then, even the people who spoke against them couldn’t find a reason to distrust them. They started thinking they picked a name for the company, not researching and genuinely knowing what it meant. That happens sometimes, but not in this case.

  “The product started cropping up in minor cities first, then larger. Still, it was harmless, and there wasn’t much reason to distrust the water. It was a bait and switch. Sometime around 2034, Armilus started shipping the altered product out to be put into the water supply.”

  I looked down at the cold bottle of water I had been chugging since my throat was so parched. My hand started shaking. Did he just dose me with Satan tainted water?

  “What did you just give me to drink?”

  “Water,” Aeron said, grinning at me like he didn’t just tell me water turned people into cannibal corpses. “Not all bottled water companies used the supplement. The ones that didn’t advertised pretty heavily, and they had a following. Well water is still safe. The cities that use well water didn’t use the supplement. Since you don’t know, today is June 19, 2044. The places that have generators and running water have safe water.

  “Armilus was a billion-dollar corporation with a huge marketing department, but it was like they just disappeared off the planet when people started getting sick. To this day, most people don’t know it was them that started all of this.”

  “And how do you know? I agree, naming your company after the son of Satan puts a huge target on your back, but if no one else knows, how does a guy living in a cabin in the middle of nowhere know?”

  Aeron’s silver eyes caught the light, and I swear, it was like the horse. They looked like they were glowing white for a moment. Who the fuck was this guy, anyway?

  “Trust me, I know, Speedy. I know who started this, and I know how to end it. I know you don’t remember shit, but know this. Me and the people we will meet along the way are the only people you can trust in all of this.”

  Easy for him to say. I still didn’t know his last name, and he could be some post-apocalyptic conspiracy theory nut that sat around with a tinfoil hat on his head when he wasn’t handing out blue baseball bats to people without their memories.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “What were you really doing at that hospital?”

  “You’re not ready for any of that, Speedy. In time. I still haven’t filled you in on everything that has happened.”

  There was more? I mean, there were walking corpses with red eyes that moved like lightning and ate people. I got the memo. Things went to shit.

  “So, tell me.”

  “Some people were immune to the mutation that the supplement caused. We’ve narrowed it down to blood type. The only people who drank the water and didn’t turn are AB negative. You would be AB negative if you wanted to know. The supplement caused a mutation in the brain and blood. It always started with broken blood vessels in the eyes and ended with extreme rage.

  “At first, they tried to sedate them. Jails and institutions started filling up with violent people. No one knew what was wrong. The government was telling everyone it was this new street drug called Halo, but people knew that was wrong. It was affecting people with no history of drug use. People in nursing homes were becoming violent, and so were small children.”

  “How did it go from violent to what I saw at that clinic?”

  “I’m getting there. The mutation had a progression. It started with the whites of the eyes. The second stage was irrational violence that no sedation could touch. No one knew it would eventually become fatal or what would happen after.

  “It happened almost simultaneously. The first time anyone realized what a mess this would be was when the cops responded to a case in New Orleans, and a man in a mental institution died. A man had gone totally crazy on Bourbon street and was beating up tourists. Understand, back then, some people believed the gov
ernment that these people were just high on drugs.

  “This man was in such a rage, and he couldn’t be captured and brought in. The tasers did nothing to him. He beat two cops almost to death before they shot him in the chest. Almost at the exact same time, all the way across the world, a young man at a mental institution started pouring blood from his eyes, nose, and mouth. No one realized this, but they died almost at the same time, and they rose almost at the same time.”

  “Excuse me, rose? You are talking about a mutation caused by a company named after the son of Satan and people rising from the dead? I might not know what day of the week it is, but that sounds ridiculous.”

  Aeron sighed and rubbed his temples.

  “I need you to believe this now because it only gets worse from here. I need you on our side, Speedy. I really wish you had woken up with your memories.”

  I had so many questions, and I didn’t know where to start. I couldn’t exactly get all offended he was trying to tell me people rose from the dead when I just crushed the head of walking corpses with a baseball bat, but if I was just some random girl he found when he was looking for something at the facility, how did he know so much about me and why did he want me to remember so badly? The only way I would find out was to let him keep talking.

  I held up my hand.

  “Truce. Finish your story, and I’ll try not to interrupt unless I have to.”

  “No. Stop me if you have questions. Maybe it will jog a memory loose. Ask me as many questions as you want because you need to understand this.”

  “Fair enough. So, two people rose from the dead. What happened?”

  “One man took five bullets to the chest, and the other was legally pronounced dead by the facility trying to save his life. Before they could even move the body, it jumped up and took a bite out of the nearest living person. No one knew this at the time, but the only way to kill them is to kill the brain, and the AB negative immunity to the water doesn’t hold if you get bitten by one of them.”

  “How does that work? If certain blood types are immune, why does that change if you get bitten?”

  “My team has studied this extensively. I told you, we know what’s going on. Once you are exposed, it’s a constant mutation. We caught a Rage Head alive and studied it. We tested its blood daily, and it was never the same. We think it constantly mutates to keep the corpse alive. When the body dies, another mutation happens that AB negative blood types don’t have an immunity to.”

  “So, don’t let one of those things bite me. Got it.”

  Aeron opened his mouth to say something, then stopped himself. There was something he would tell me and stopped himself.

  “Not to mention getting a hunk of your flesh torn off with human teeth hurts like a mother fuck. Like I said, keep that bat on you at all times and don’t let them get close to you.”

  “You would say something else, Aeron. Tell me.”

  “Not quite yet. I need to fill you in on everything you missed. The government tried to keep this under wraps and not let people know it was happening, but a man literally rose from the dead in the middle of a street of tourists in Bourbon street. As you can imagine, not everyone was running for their lives as a dead man started eating tourists and cops. There’s always that one asshole sitting there filming everything on their cell phone.”

  “And the asshole sitting there pointing their cell phone at the scene instead of running didn’t get eaten?”

  “They never do, Speedy. They never do. The tourists that lived went home and were spreading stories while the government tried to do damage control. The president went on live television to debunk the story. Other countries were having the exact same issue, and they were following suit. They were all trying to deny the dead were rising to keep people from panicking.

  “It would have worked, but more than one person was recording in New Orleans that day. The more the various governments tried to deny what was going on, the more upset they got. They started uploading their footage to social media. By the time anyone important realized it was up, it had already gone viral.”

  “Let me guess. They kept flagging the videos and taking them down, but they kept re-uploading them, and everyone got pissed off at the government.”

  “Exactly. It just got worse when people started running out of food. You were either in the process of mutating, or you were immune and trying to stay safe. No one could go to the grocery store anymore because they weren’t being staffed. There was mass looting and stealing from neighbors. Cities became ghost towns, and food became scarce. People who were mad at the government for lying about the dead were now angry at them for not fixing this and getting them food.

  “That was when war broke out. Some thought their governments would come through and fix all of this and those that wanted an entire regime change. Instead of focusing on finding some sort of cure and helping each other stay safe from the Rage Heads, they were killing each other.”

  “This sounds familiar, but I don’t remember any of it.”

  “Let me finish, and all of it will sound familiar. After the fighting stopped, people tried to seize power. The countries you remember are gone. Mexico and Canada are now part of the United States and run by a dictator. Most of Europe is all one country and run by one man. It’s the same with the Eastern countries. All of these men have found a way to communicate in these end times, and they run things together. My intel says Isaiah Nahum, the man who is now the president of the United States is calling all the shots around the world. Is that triggering any memories?”

  “Should it?”

  Really, should it? Was I somehow a part of all of this? Why couldn’t he just tell me the truth?

  “In time. Does any of this sound familiar to you?”

  “Well, you have all the ingredients for the end of the world. Pestilence, famine, war, and conquest. How exactly do you plan to end all that by going to Washington, D.C.?”

  Aeron just gave me this wicked grin.

  “Because I have all the ingredients to stop all that.”

  “How, when you didn’t find what you were looking for at that clinic?”

  “Think, Speedy. Where is it written that the world will end with pestilence, famine, war, and conquest?”

  “Every movie about the end of the world?”

  “Think older.”

  My body broke into goosebumps, and I got another flash. I saw my tattooed arms on a table reading a book. No, I was reading specific passages in the bible, and I was studying it hard.

  “A company named after the son of Satan and the Book of Revelations? How are you going to stop something biblical?”

  “We will kill the President of the United States.”

  Chapter 4

  W

  as my life before this as fucked up as before I woke up in that clinic? I mean, I had pink hair, Alice in Wonderland tattoos all over my arms, and I named a blue baseball bat Smurfette. I still had no idea why everyone called me Speedy, but it had to be a lot more reasonable than killing the president for biblical reasons for some end of the world conspiracy theory.

  “Are you some whack job, Aeron? How is killing the President of the United States going to stop any of this?”

  “Remember Armilus, Speedy? Care to guess who was secretly the majority shareholder in that company? Isaiah Nahum. They planned all this.”

  “You’ve told me stories. Do you actually have any proof?”

  Aeron bolted to his feet.

  “Stay here.”

  When he came back out, he had a rucksack with him. I watched him pull a laptop out. I would have thought laptops would be obsolete, considering almost nothing had power unless there were backup generators. He powered it on and opened a file. A photo of a man pulled up. He was totally bald with bright blue eyes. There was something off about him.

  “This is Isaiah. He didn’t use to be bald. He started shaving his head after he inserted himself as president.”

  “He looks like an asshole. He lo
oks like the kind of guy who would try to run a country during the end of the world, but how is killing him going to stop anything?”

  Aeron looked totally irritated with me. Was this supposed to trigger some sort of memory? I was pretty sure I’d never met that guy before, but if he said I had, was I an awful person, and that was why I was in that clinic?

  “Was I a wicked person, Aeron? Did you show me this photo because I knew this man and helped him? Do you want to get us together so you can kill us both?”

  Aeron finally gave me this soft look like he might be a friendly person underneath all the gruff.

  “You know him in a way, but you aren’t like him. You are nothing like him. We don’t plan on killing you. I really do wish you remembered something.”

  “Why can’t you just tell me about myself? What’s the big deal about telling me?”

  “Because of the way your memories were taken, Speedy. If I trigger them in the wrong way, you will go insane.”

  Way to totally shit in my memory loss cornflakes. I guess I would have to deal with not knowing a damned thing about myself until it slowly came back to me. I guess I was just going to have to deal with it because I certainly didn’t want to lose my mind when the apocalypse was going on.

  “Can you at least tell me why they call me Speedy, and I have a blue bat named Smurfette?”

  I couldn’t believe it, but he actually smiled at me. I didn’t think this grumpy fuck was actually capable of it.

  “Yes, I can. When you were in college, you played in a roller derby league. In 2028, it came in fashion for girls who were retiring from roller derby to start a fastpitch softball team. It really caught on. All the fans who enjoyed rooting for them came out to watch the games. You played shortstop, and they called you Speedy when you were playing roller derby too because you’ve always been fast. I’ve never seen you play, but I heard you were a hell of a softball player.”