Dekker's Dozen: The Last Watchmen

Unicorn Zombie Spores

Dekker's Dozen #005

The Verdant Seven stood stalwart under the gentle breeze of their foreign planet; six of the arbolean's leaves rustled gently and in unison. The holdout, quiet now for several millennia, had been stripped bare. The council's minions had ripped away both bark and leaf.

Gnarled branches reached toward the ruddy, glowing sky. Withered, skeletal fingers once proudly bore the bladed green fauna of the arbolean council. No more; it was the traitor—the dissident. Condemned. Silenced. Dead.

It is set in motion. Our will is set; the child awakens soon, and so our champion rises. The Left Hand seeks the apothecium; he will germinate an army while the Right Hand sets our stage. We've been patient, sisters. The Centauri system is fertile; it is time to spread our seed.

Under the rust-hued sky, leaves of the six trees rustled with excitement.

Unicorn Zombie Spores

He hung back in the shadows, watching flames lick the sky: tongues like thirsty dogs. Though he'd been garbed in a similar, yellow cloak, he was vastly different from the rest; every other member of the Dodona cult was female.

His eyes darted around the room which he exited to reach the yard. The room resembled an ancient crypt, or perhaps one the pharaoh's treasure rooms. The archaeologist's nature yearned to study everything within; each artifact looked entirely foreign to him—perhaps not even native to earth. That longing, however, had waned since his encounter with the ancient pithos he'd uncovered in his dig. He'd been warned of a curse—but the archaeologist did not believe in such things.

Still, ever since cracking the seal of that heavy, leaden container he'd felt another presence—another personality—wrestling control from him. He'd read the warning inscriptions written in six ancient languages, but his damnable curiosity demanded he open it. That was the Christmas Eve of 1902, nearly eighteen months ago. From that night on, he'd felt himself slowly disappear under this new personality.

Nearby, another elderly woman beckoned. The woman in the center of the cultic circle was long dead; her desiccated body had long ago petrified in a mummy-like state. Surrounding her, the frenzied women appeared quite alive by comparison, jumping and chanting. Suddenly, they stopped, fell quiet, and walked to the beech trees at the edge of the flame-light's reach.

Standing below the leafy fauna, the head priestess listened intently to the way the trees rustled in the still, windless night. "It is confirmed." Her tone carried authority. "The Verdant Seven will be whole again. The sister that we murdered will be allowed to reseed. May her trunk remain burnt and impotent; her embryo will implant within this... male... who stumbled into our world." She spat the word as if levying an insult.

Drawing a serrated knife, she ripped the cadaver's chest open and withdrew a gnarled, curved stake. "The seed is intact and ready for its new shell," the head priestess stated. Two acolytes pushed the cadaverous husk into the blaze. "Step forward, man. Become the Left Hand of the Verdant Seven."

No! This is so much more than I'd bargained for! Prognon Austicon stepped forward—no, not him—it was the demon within that controlled him—the archaeologist was powerless to stop it! That's not even my name, it's just an alias! Every shred of what he once was had begun to slip away—he'd known his face since the day he unsealed that otherworldly vessel.

Austicon ripped open his shirt and bared his chest. He watched as the priestess plunged the stake, an arbolean seed, below his sternum. Trapped inside his mind, the archeologist screamed; outwardly Austicon only grinned fiendishly. Centuries later, the trapped scientist would still scream, a constant background noise that ever brought a smile to the assassin's lips.