Callsign: King (Jack Sigler) (Chesspocalypse #1)

As he tried to get his feet back under him, King saw the look of despair in Moses’ eyes; the realization that his carefully laid plans had gone up in a blaze of lust and violence. He had delivered the prize to the freedom fighters, expecting to be embraced as their visionary leader, but now he was simply in their way.

King knew he had only a few seconds in which to act, to do something, anything, to prevent the men from gang raping Felice, and probably killing him as well. Moses, willing though he now appeared to be, probably wasn’t going to be much use in a fight. Nevertheless, the young man’s ill-conceived attempt at chivalry had diverted the attention of the rebels, if only for a moment, and King wasn’t going to let that moment go to waste.

He lowered his head and somersaulted toward the rebel guarding him. The AK cracked loudly as a bullet split the air where he had been an instant before, but before the man could adjust his aim, King, with his back flat against the ground, drove both feet up into the man’s gut.

As the man staggered backward, King was moving again, using his bound hands to push off the ground and spring to his feet. But even as he moved, he saw the other rebels’ guns tracking him, and knew that he’d lost whatever advantage he’d had.

Then Felice screamed, and he realized that getting shot by the rebels just might be the least of his worries.





18.


King could see, in his mind’s eye, the seven zombie-like members of the original research team, rushing from the depths of the cave, responding to the threat to Felice. They were like warrior bees, instantaneously mobilizing to defend the queen.

But before that could happen, the man assaulting Felice abruptly fell back, as if he had received an electrical shock. He then got to his feet, and turned woodenly toward his comrades. Although the latter were poised to shoot King, their eyes were drawn to the would-be rapist. There was no fear in their eyes; instead, they seemed amused, as if they thought their friend was playing a joke. King knew better; in the icy white glow of the electric lantern, he could see that Felice’s assailant now wore the same blank expression as the zombies in the cave.

Moses must have noticed it as well, for he scrambled back as if the approaching man was a venomous serpent. The man ignored him and advanced toward his comrades—former comrades, King thought—his face and body language betraying nothing of his intent. One of the rebel fighters said something in Amharic, perhaps asking for an explanation for the odd behavior, but none of the three Ethiopians seemed to sense that something had gone very wrong.

The only answer came in the form of an attack. The changed man approached the closest rebel and started raining blows with closed fists.

The rebels stumbled back, gripped by confusion, and for a moment did nothing to intervene. The punches were brutal, filled with primal energy, and the target of the attack was rendered senseless before he could so much as raise a hand in his own defense. The two remaining rebels, still unable to process what was happening, leapt forward to restrain the man, but he wrestled free of their hold and began directing his fury at them.

At last, the two rebels seemed to understand that their friend now meant to kill them, and as one of them also went down under a rain of fists, the remaining man brought his Kalashnikov rifle to bear. He took a couple steps back, and then took aim.

Before he could pull the trigger however, reinforcements arrived. The seven zombies emerged from the cave and descended on the gunman like warrior ants. The rifle discharged with a thunderous crack, but the bullet zipped away into the night sky as the man went down under the combined weight of his assailants. From the midst of the tangle of bodies came the sickening crunch of bones breaking.

All of this happened in a matter of seconds, time in which King sorted through his options like a bad hand in a poker game. Moses had fled the scene, running flat out toward the parked SUVs. He would be no help, but despite his betrayal, King wasn’t ready to count the young idealist as an enemy. Felice was probably safe; the zombies had come in response to a threat to her safety. Their sole purpose seemed to be protecting her from harm, but King got the impression that they no longer possessed any ability to discriminate friend from foe.

But in the cave, they had responded to her commands; would that work again? Or would approaching Felice make him the primary target of the zombies’ wrath?

As he pondered this, he contorted his body and threaded his legs through the circle formed by his bound wrists. There was no time to wrestle with the knots, but with his hands now in front of him, he would be able to use them in his own defense. It wouldn’t count for much if all seven—make that eight—of the zombies attacked en masse.

He jogged over to where Felice lay. She was sobbing, but did not appear to be in the grip of another episode of catatonia. He knelt beside her. “Felice. It’s okay now. You’re safe.”