Conquer Club

"So, what does He tell you?"

The voice was an older, rougher voice than she was used to. She shuddered a little, before turning, her hair glittering in the sun. Despite her dirty, raggedy clothing, McAlison still held an air of attractiveness to her.

"That is for me and Him to know, not you. If you are a true follower, He will come to you in time," she responded sharply, her large mallet like hammer strapped to her back. Reaching back, she grasped the handle, and swung it out, smashing it into the ground.

The man only grunted in response as he turned, stomping down the street back to the others. There were 5 others scavenging through the rubble, looking for anything that could be salvaged, each having their weapons close at hand. She turned away from them, pacing farther down the street, away from the ruined convenient store, stepping over all sorts of trash and destruction, her mind wandering from her surroundings to her thoughts.

Why have you brought me here, Sigmar. What is this place? What happened here? And... and where are all the bodies? She thought, as she stepped over an overturned shopping cart. And more importantly... What do you want me to do here, my Lord?

She stopped in the center of the street, staring up at the cloudy sky, her mind lost in her thoughts...

A blood curling scream broke her concentration, causing her to jump a few feet into the air. With a quick glance around, she noticed no movement, but still she crouched down and reached for her hammer, the years of material arts training flashing through her mind in a flash. She stayed motionless for seconds, minutes, what seemed like hours, her eyes darting across the ruined city.

It was 15 minutes before her companions came to her. They formed around her without a word, and together, they began moving quickly down the street, towards the sound...

Matthew sat in the back of their van as it drove down the abandoned streets of the city. He fiddled with the golden cross hanging from his neck as he said a silent prayer for protection and good fortune, the same one he said before he led any raid.

Marcus pulled the white van over to the curb and The New Disciples filed out of the doors. When their group of seven was all outside, Matthew called them to attention.

"We are going to set up positions on those two fire escapes there," he said, pointing to the sides of the buildings, "as well as on the roof of that store there. Phillip has informed us of a large herd of them that sleep in the warehouse on the far side of the street there. You are not to fire until I give the signal. And remember, we will not have much time to take these guys down before the rest of the city is filled with the demons, so we need to make our kills, get them in the van, and get back to the church as fast as possible."

Matthew waited for any questions. The disciples had none. These men had all been on raids with him before and all knew what to do. Although he was the youngest of all of the men there, they accepted his authority without question. "If everyone feels good with the plan," Matthew continued, "I would like to open us in prayer before you guys get into position." The six other men all nodded and formed a circle, all bowing their heads in reverence.

"Dear heavenly Father," Matthew began, "we have gathered again this evening to what is both unspeakable yet necessary. Father, give us the strength to carry out this task which You have set before us and grant Your blessing on the poor souls trapped within those desecrated bodies. God, may Your will be ours and Your kingdom be shown on this land. In Your son's name we give this prayer, Amen." And with a chorus of amen's from the other six men, they all hurried into their designated positions before the sun set.

The warehouse that their targets were in was on the end of a dead-end street. Two men were stationed on either side of the street, up on the fire escapes that would keep them out of reach of the zombies below, and Matthew along with two of his brothers, Mark and John, were atop a small building situated where the deadend street connected to a larger one.

They sat and waited for what seemed like an hour before the sun dipped down below the horizon of empty skyscrapers. Less than five minutes afterward, the group of 20 or so zombies cautiously started walking out into the now darkened street. They walked slowly, sniffing the air for any sign of danger. Matthew waited until the herd had walked directly between the two groups of men on either side of the street before he put on his shades and threw the flash grenade into the zombies' midst. Within seconds, the zombies were wailing and running blind as the sound of gunshots pierced the air.

"Hurry up with that generator! I cant stand the silence and darkness anymore!" Two guys dressed in Nirvana shirts pulled a machine towards a wall in the biggest room of the building, obviously where the music had been played. The wooden floor was worn from the stomping around of two generations of leather clad youths and the walls were discolored and peeling from years of smoke damage. "Hey ask the Nirvana brothers if they happen to have any of their albums on them!" Spades shouted across the room, trying to be heard over the bustling of 12 other people scrambling to make a deserted building their "home". Someone brought a sterio in and hooked it up to the main "surround sound" style speakers hooked up around the room. One of the Nirvana Twins smiled at Spades and miraciously pulled a CD from his pants pocket, slipped it into the sterio and turned the volume a few notches from top volume.

Spades read the words "Muddy Banks" across the twin's lips as the music started. At first its loudnes startled him and his ears popped, but within 2 seconds, he became adjusted to it and slowely nodded his head as if saying "yes,Yes, absolutely right" to the lyrics of Drain You. "Hey, back the **** off!" someone shouted from the front of the bulding. He had to of been yelling loud to be heard over the music; "Most likely yelling to his companions then to the intruder." Spades thought to himslef as he ran through the double doors and onto the front step.

Outside, it had just started to get dark and the sky was a creamy orange and red, as if some had peeled a pomegranite and it had started bleeding. Two people, a bald man with a soul patch that was poorly died green and a women wearing a leather jacket were standing directly in front of the doors. A shadowy figure stood 20 feet from the three, his features could not be perceived but a low gaspy noise was emanting from his chest and throat. He was approaching fast and the man Dean, yelld three times at the figure to "Stop, dont you come any closer, you son-of-a-whore." Spades reached around, and averted his gaze to his pants leg, no, neither a gun nor a knife. As he readjusted his gaze to see the mysterious shadow, he hollared a "Yelp". The figure was already upon him, reaching for the side of his head, both with his hand and his face. A bum most likely, with rotten teeth, sparce hair and a smell of feces and rotten meat came off of him. He whispered four words into Spades' ear "Get outta here now!" His hand patted and fel away from spades' head as the women grabbed him and threw him into the street. The rancid bum picked himself up and ran into the distance as the three comrades watched him with dismay and pity.

Yuriy and his gang were in the furthest corner from the kitchen in the burger joint — close to the door yet maintaining a distance and a good line of sight with all outlets to the Hell-ridden outside. They spoke softly in Russian. Two of the youngest mumbled to each other, and one evidently said a joke as his partner let out a nervous laugh. Yuriy, in his no-nonsense state of mind since the plague, wished to reprimand them for it, but could not find it within him to do it. The two could not be over 18 — one looked like he hadn't even shaved yet.

This brought Yuriy to thoughts of better times, back halfway across the world in with his family. He quickly brushed those both sad and dangerous thoughts aside, as there were things to do. Plus, he could not appear a 'softy' in front of the younger men who he had recently realized looked up to him.

"Come on," Yuriy said in his gruff, deep voice. His disciple-like gang mates followed in suit as they walked out the door of the burger joint and headed west, towards Bleecker St. There they had set up a camp inside an apartment building tucked snugly between two formerly clothes stores. It had only two entrances and exits — one, facing onto Bleecker St.; and the other out the back way, which led back around to W. 4th. The latter gave a line of sight perpendicular to 7th Avenue, a haven for the 'others'. It was wide open, with shops of various nature on each side — on the East side, a Citarella and deli while to the West 'Fantasy World' took up half a block.

The Russkis had set up a machine gun on the landing of the stairs that faced the door of the front entrance. It was the perfect set-up: a 3-ft. wide doorway with a narrow hallway leading to a stairway offered a '300'-esque strait, while the back exit was so discreet only an insider would know where to find it. On the roof the gang had packed surplus under a tent. There seemed to be nothing to worry for as long as they were healthy and well-equipped. Nevertheless, both outlets were guarded as soon as the sun began its descent.

As that very moment occurred, the zombies appeared, seemingly from nowhere. One of the members muttered a prayer as he aimed the mounted machine gun through the slit of the door they had set up what seemed like forever ago. Yuriy shouldered his CAR-15, and as he watched the grotesque face (if one could call it that) approach the door, he squeezed the trigger and a line of light shot out and towards the street. The mounted machine gun, commandeered by two, ripped through zombie after zombie, and then came to a silence as they waited for the next wave.

McAlison and her followers ran in a wedge formation, the 6 robed men forming a wedge type formation around her, their hands all wielding their various medieval weaponry. They hurtled over the debris covering the streets, making their way quickly and silently in the dim light.

"Alison, the visibility is getting extremely low," said the point man, his voice low and riddled with fear, "Who knows exactly what plagues these ruins. We should head back to a safe area.."

"We investigate that noise. It could be a scream from a survivor of the plague. Maybe that is why Sigmar led me here, to save the remnants of New York," She growled, her anger masking the fear that held her in thrall. Her mind was racing, the idea of survivors an impossibility in her mind. Yet still, the noise riddled her thoughts..

It was nearly 9 blocks later when they began to slow. Before them lie a large clearing, what may have once been a park. Although the area had once held numerous trees, and children play sets, it now only held wreckage of what could only be described as pure chaos, when the initial outbreaks of the plague were reported. Grass no longer grew in this area of land, and the small pond had long since dried up. In its place was now only rubble and destruction, ruins of a proud town, and hard, dry, dead soil.

The 6 of them followers began to fan out and look among the ruins, searching for the source of the sound. Alison scanned the surrounding buildings, looking for any sign of movement...

"I recognize this place," the sound of the man came again, the one who wanted to turn back. His name, Alison recalled, was Sam, a young man that had come to her shattered, and now, was a confident, proud man. "I saw this on the Television, back when the outbreak was being contained by the military, and before they pulled out of here. But.. there were thousands of bodies here. Where..."

Before he could finish his thought, a bone chilling scream thundered through the air. The 7 of them all turned, just in time to see the door on a building located on the opposite side of the park collapse. Behind the door were moving shadows, that soon emerged from the doorway. First a few, than what seemed like an endless wave of what could only be described as misshapen, horribly disfigured humans swarmed forward, all their eyes locked on the 7. While most of them moved slowly, some rushed forward.

The 7 stood their ground, shocked at what they were seeing. It wasn't until another earth splitting scream cracked through the air before they began to realize their situation. Turning from the horror, they turned and began to flee, before the dim light revealed another horde of horrors moving at them from the other side. Seeing their retreat was cut off, they began to circle around Alison, but she pushed her way through them.

"If we're going to die, I'm going to die fighting," she declared, one hand gripping a pistol under her trench coat, the other on the Maul that was strapped to her back. "Sigmar is with us, now let us die in His name. To Arms!" She shouted as she ran towards the mass blocking off their retreat. The 6 others followed her, each ready to die to protect her, in the name of their God...

The white van thundered down the darkened road. Marcus kept the vehicle going a steady 50 mph, fast enough to hurry back to the church, but slow enough that he wouldn't lose control on the broken and bumpy asphalt.

Matthew stared at his watch in the passenger seat of the van. It was 6:05 PM. Matthew had made it a gang-wide rule that all of the disciples had to be back to the church before six or they would be locked out. It was too dangerous to keep the doors open any later.

"We aren't going back," Matthew told Marcus.

"What!" he replied, "Are you nuts! The zombies will completely fill the streets in just a few minutes! What could be so important that we can't return to base?"

"We missed curfew. Even if we returned home, we wouldn't be able to get inside."

"But they have to let us inside!" Marcus protested. "They wouldn't just leave us out here if we were banging at the front door!"

"They would. I left James in charge and he knows not to let us in, no matter what we say or do. The risk would be too great. We have to find a new shelter for the night." Matthew knew that they could have probably convinced the other disciples back at the church to let them in, but he couldn't allow it. He had made it the rule that anyone out past that time was to be locked out. He couldn't start making exceptions, no matter how bleak the circumstances may be.

As they drove down the road, they were starting to see more and more zombies among the buildings. If they couldn't find shelter soon, they would find themselves trapped amongst a horde of them.

"Make a right up here," Matthew told Marcus. "If I remember correctly, there should be another church a few blocks away." The disciples had taken the liberty of clearing out and locking down all of the churches in the city. They didn't want such holy places to be defiled after all. Matthew hoped they could find a way past the defenses that they set around this particular catholic church and take refuge inside.

The other five disciples who were part of the raid that night sat piled in the back, checking their weapons and looking out the windows for more zombies. In the last two rows of seats of the van were piled sardine-style, and wrapped in trash bags, the eighteen dead zombies, that they had killed on their raid. They would have their burial tomorrow.

Suddenly, a piercing scream rent the stillness around them. It came from a couple blocks ahead. In less than a minute, all the disciples in the van saw from where it came: a large horde of zombies were all circled around a small group of fighters. Matthew knew they had to save them.

"Disciples!" he yelled back to the men in the back seats, "we need to help those people over there. You are to carve a path to those men and get them out of there alive. Marcus, bring us to the edge of the circle."

"Sir, I'm not so sure about this," he protested. "There are a lot of those beasts out there. I don't think we can take 'em."

"Trust in the Lord and just drop the men off. You and I need to stay in the van though. Once they make an opening in the wall of those fiends, you need to bring the van in and get everyone out of there, including those warriors trapped in the center."

Marcus still looked nervous, but Matthew was relieved when he complied and dropped the men off. Matthew shut the van doors and Marcus to put some distance between them and the horde. As Marcus drove, Matthew made his way carefully to the rear of the van and, reaching over the mounds of body bags, opened the back doors. Immediately, half of the bags toppled out the back and ripped open in the street, revealing the bloody grotesque bodies inside.

"What are you doing?!?" Marcus yelled from the front.

Matthew continued throwing the rest of the bags out the back. "We are going to need room for the other fighters. I would rather save lives than save the bodies of a few zombies." As soon as he had finished unloading, Matthew looked back towards the battle that they were speeding away from. He couldn't tell what state the trapped fighters were in, but he could see that his men had almost reached them. Where there had once been a mob of zombies, there were only bloody bodies littering the ground.

"Turn us around and head back to evacuate the men," Matthew told Marcus after closing the back doors. "They are almost to the center fighters and we don't want to waste any time getting them out of there once they arrive."

Marcus obeyed and swung the van around. He drove up through the breach in the mass of zombies. By now the other members of The New Disciples had made their way to the trapped men and had joined their circle in repelling the zombies. The white van drove straight into the center of this circle, trampling many dead bodies on the way there and Matthew quickly threw open the doors. Matthew pulled out his pistol, jumped out of the van, and ran to the closest of the mystery fighters, a strange hammer wielding girl with green hair. He shot the heads of the two zombies closest to her and ran up beside her.

"Get in the van and we can get you guys out of here," he yelled over gunshots while still shooting the zombies closest to them. "My men will hold these demons off until you can get all of your men in."

Looie looked around at the latest of a seemingly unending series of killings. A-Coy had gotten off easy this time, not a scratch on any of them. Well, at least Doc would be happy.

Crouse wrote:Renelli is never happy, you know that.

That had been happening more and more often these days, the Voice had been popping up in his head, and telling him what he should be doing, what he should be thinking. Why couldn't he just leave him alone, and let him do his work, here in this hell-hole.

Crouse wrote:Because it's my body, dammit, and I want it back!

Looie did his best to ignore the Voice and continue with the cleanup. A-Coy, under his and Sarge's leadership, had become very efficient at eradicating these creatures, whatever they were. No one that he had encountered in the city had any clue as to what these things really were. Were they the dead come back to "life"? Were they infected with some sort of disease? Was it something else altogether? Who knew? All that was evident at this time is that fire keeps them down for the longest.

Sarge came over to report progress, "Boss, we're all done cleaning up. Some of the boys heard some fighting on the other side of the Park. Are we goin'?"

Crouse wrote:Show some respect Sgt. White, you're talking to an officer!

That had been the first thing that Looie had done after deciding to stay. He made everyone adopt a new "identity" as he had done.

Crouse wrote:Well, not quite how you did it, eh?

He had disbanded the unit that the Voice was in command of, and had burned his patches and medals as a symbol of his dissociation from the US Marine Corps. He had instructed the men to do the same, or leave, it was their choice.

Crouse wrote:You didn't tell them that those who left A-Coy would never leave the city, did you?

The Voice was right, Looie had sneaked off in the night, tracked down those that headed back, and killed them all. Out of 21 survivors of the Battle with Gunny, A-Coy now was 14 strong, plus himself.

Looie brought himself back from his thoughts "No, Sarge, we're going back to base. Assign a recon patrol, 3 men. I want to know who's winning, Who we can trust, and who needs our help. Orders are to report back when the fighting's over, and do not engage."

"Gotcha, Boss," Sarge left to do as he was bidden.

As Looie checked his gear, getting ready to move out, he heard some of the men talking about the incident with Gunny, after he had escaped from the claymores. It had been almost 2 months since the Voice's fight with Gunny, the fight that gave him this gawd-awful ugly scar on his face. Gunny had come back to "life" and set off all of the claymores in the trap, blowing him into about a thousand chunks of meat. The weird part was that each chunk was gone the next morning. All of them. Gone.

Doc had a theory about where they went. According to him, the other Zombies had come and grabbed the pieces of Gunny in the night, while they weren't looking. Why, of course, was still up in the air, and Looie had no time for theories with no why.

Crouse wrote:You know why.

Looie ignored the Voice.

"Come!" Looie shouted from the couch in his living space when a knock at the door sounded. There were somethings that were hard to shake. The training that went with being leader of a special forces team was not just mental, physical, too, and there were somethings that Looie just couldn't forget. And besides, it was late, and he was sleepy.

Itchy came in to the room to give his report on the recent battle across the park. Itchy was a tall wiry man, some might say lanky, but there was nothing uncoordinated about Itchy. He was very strong and deceptively fast, an ideal special forces operative. He was also very quick with his trigger finger, that's why he was called Itchy.

"I got that report on the fightin' across the park," he said, and handed Looie a small stack of paper napkins. Itchy may have been good at fighting, but paperwork was not his strong suit. "It was that chick with the hammer again. Her and her boys was about to be overrun when that Mr. Chruchy guy showed up with a van and took 'em back into the city."

"Mr. Churchy? You mean Matthew?" Itchy was not known for his memory, either.

"Yeah, Matthew. Him and his brothers came in a white van and rescued Hammer-Girl and her boys. Boss, you shoulda seen it, them boys fought like they was Navy Seals or somethin'. They fought like a machine, all together, you know? Like you and Gunny taught..." Itchy trailed off his thought and carefully backed away from Looie, edging for the door so he couls duck out quick to avoid the boss's wrath.

Looie fixed Itchy with a stern gaze as his hand inched slowly towards the pistol on his hip. Itchy, though not the sharpest pencil in the drawer, knew enough to get out of Looie's room quickly.

Crouse wrote:You're getting better at controlling that temper of yours. A month ago, and he would have been dead by now.

Looie hated it when the Voice second-guessed him.

"He's a good man, I need him, alright?" he said aloud. It was easier to talk to the Voice when he spoke, rather than try to direct his thoughts at the part of himself that the young lieutenant had manage to hold on to. Besides, there was no one around.

Crouse wrote:I'm not arguing with you, just pointing out that you might be going soft, is all.

"I'm not going soft, but I don't want to lose a good man. I'm just as smart as you, remember?" Looie said, "In fact, I think that it's time we started getting together with some of the other leaders to discuss how we're gonna rid the city of this infestation, once and for all."

Crouse wrote:Well, Good luck with that.

Looie laid down on the couch and curled up to go to sleep.

Matthew watched as the six robed individuals, as well as the woman in the trench coat jumped into the van. Matthew called to his men to get them back into the van as well. They pulled back two at a time. Luke and David, wielding two pistols each were first to break the circle and jump in. Joshua and John carrying shotguns were next, leaving Micheal and Mark with their M16's to hold back the oncoming hordes. Matthew ran to the open van doors and finally called them back, holding off the zombies himself with the last clip of his 9mm Beretta.

Matthew fired off his last shot just in time to jump in the van and get Marcus to start driving. By now a handful of zombies had filled the gap that was originally carved by the disciples. Marcus aimed the van straight for them and crushed them beneath the vans wheels. Two zombies persisted though, and instead clung to the hood of the van. Matthew reached back from his position in the passenger's seat and grabbed Luke's Glock. Rolling down his window, Matthew proceeded to reach out and finish off the last two zombies as they fell beneath the wheels.

"Where to?" Marcus called back to the mysterious robed figures in the back as soon as they were safe from the zombies.

"Off of 64th street. The Gothic Church on the corner, it's where we stay, and you're welcome to as well," muttered the green-haired woman. Matthew remembered locking down that church when he had first arrived in the city. The old church had a demonic aura to it when they had first gone to clear it. Matthew was not eager to return, but there was no where else that they knew would be safe so he had little choice but tell Marcus to follow her instruction.

The drive took longer than they thought. Many times, Marcus would have to make detours when he found a street that was overrun. The disciples all talked amongst each other, thanking God for the good fortune of finding other survivors this night. The robed figures who sat all the way in the back, on the other hand, all sat with their heads bowed. Barely audible prayer-like whispers escaped their mouths. Matthew turned to David, who was sitting right behind him.

"Do you know anything about these guys?" he asked.

"Not much, but I have seen them before, on a different raid," he answered. "It was led by your brother James. We were taking down a small group of zombies on 50th St. when we saw them in a nearby alleyway. They didn't seem to mind us at all. They just kept running through the streets. I assume they are all part of some sort of cult they way they all are mumbling back there. I'm not sure it was such a great idea to save these guys. Maybe God wanted them killed for their sinful ways. I mean, he did do it to Sodom and Gomorrah after all."

This was just like David. Whenever anything bad happened he always said it was God's wrath. "I doubt that," Matthew answered. "If God really wanted them dead, I doubt we would have been able to change his plans. Although, I am surprised that they were lured in by a screecher. They must be fairly new in town if they ever went chasing after one, especially with the weapons they were using. No veteran would ever make that mistake. Normally the screechers are in charge of a whole den."

"Well, I don't like 'em, the survivors that is, although I don't necessarily like the screechers either," David continued. "I understand that we should save all the lives we can, but I don't think we should stick around with this group for too long. We can't trust them."

Matthew stared back at the young woman who was the obvious leader of the group. For just a second, her scarlet eyes connected with his emerald green ones. "You're right. Nothing good will come from working with them," Matthew said as they pulled up to the Gothic fortress.

The Gothic Church was much more than that; rumor had it that, back in the witch hunt days, this Cathedral was home to many massacres and brutal experiments. However, although thorough interrogations of priests and inspections of the building were done, no one ever found any trace of the hundreds that disappeared into those large, iron doors.

Back when New York city was still alive, many people frequented this Cathedral. It was warm, welcoming; the paint was still a multitude of bright, welcoming colors, and the doors were opened by cheerful priests and ministers, welcoming one and all into its warm-like interior.

Nowadays, it was a cold shell of its former self. Rubble was piled around the building, making it nearly inaccessible via vehicle, unless you knew exactly what you were doing. It took 40 minutes for the van to get through the rubble; thankfully, no sign of any pursuit from the undead could be seen. Rolling up to the front steps, Sigmars 6 departed the van, walking towards the sealed doors to the Church.

"Are you sure we should let them in? What if they try and take the artifacts? Or what if they discover the labyrinth..." One man started, his voice low and hostile.

"They saved us. They are welcome to stay," McAlison waved him off, her thoughts deep, as her men began to unlock the mighty doors...