He led her up the spiral staircase across from the one window. Much like the bottom floor, the bookshelves wrapped around the walls. Smiley pulled a book out of the middle case and slid a panel of wood to reveal a handle. He pulled the handle about a foot out of the wall, and the bookcase made a clicking noise. It swiveled out of the wall to reveal a shallow room as long as the wall.

Knobs and dials cover industrial computer boxes built into the wall. A long screen displaying radio waves takes up the space above a stout computer desk with a few salvaged items.

The keyboard was missing keys, the microphone had holes in the felt, and a DJ table had too much rust to perform all of its functions. A morse code legend was pinned to a corkboard among less comprehensible code sheets and pages of techno-jargon.

The room was cramped, to say the least. It was a small miracle that loose cords hadn't burned the whole building down.

With a few switches flipped, the boxes hummed to life. Gauges shot up and back down before settling in their rightful places. Smiley turned a few dials with a slow, focused intent and before long picks up a scratchy signal submerged in fuzz. What's more, the voice itself was gritty and strait from the grave...

... Scavenge corpses imminent, 1, 7, 345, Periodic Architectural Collapse, 17, 39, feed- latitude 7354 - longitude 0 - feed, 7, 12, Danger - South - Danger - South - Danger - South...

Interception...

...- .. .-.. .-.. .- --. . -.. .- -. --. . .-. ...- .. .-.. .-.. .- --. . ..-. .-.. . .

The feed continues repeating while Smiley decodes the transmission. Four words are written on a page; village, danger, village, flee.

Harriot asked him in awe, "they're scared of us? Of the village?"

"Exactly! Every time I've pinged one, it's panicked and reverted to some code before running away."

"How can they understand codes, but still seem so... dumb?"

"I don't know yet. They may be connected, but they don't seem able to focus on much other than feed and survive. They've managed to map us enough to steer clear of our walls, though. Even with our ban on using signals."

"You have to tell the King about this."

"No! No no no... NO! Radio's been outlawed for years. I would be hanged for this!!"

She let out an audible sigh, "You're right, but we should do something with it," her hand rested on his shoulder and lingered longer than either of them expected. There had been a tension between them for years now, but neither had known how to express themselves that way.

Just then, a new transmission came through the radio.

A dead voice somehow different from the gutteral way the parasite spoke. This voice didn't carry any full words. Only odd choking and cracking sounds coupled with a long, depressing sigh. A black film coated the mic in an expanding darkness. A column of smoke shot out of the device and strait down Smiley's throat.

His head tilted back in the chair, and his eyes glazed over the color of the moons. A smile not unlike his own spread out, but it wasn't 'his' smile. It was full of hateful glee.

An evil voice spoke in a vile and commanding hiss, "Oooh, ahhh. Yes, finally a handsome vessel."

"What are you? Get out of him!"

"Oh, but I just settled in my dear. What's the matter?" The voice turned chiding without a try, "do you like him sweet'ums? Tell you what, I'll let lover boy live, but I must relay a message. There are dead filling the woods to the west. Dead are walking and wounded are crawling away, so weak and pathetic. Something must give, these base creatures bore me..." a stressful sigh filled the air, "anyway, toodles dear Harriet." The black aura slithered out of Smiley and back into the microphone.

A dreadful popping noise caught her attention. She rushed out of the room despite Smiley calling her name. The window came in veiw just as a red flare fell into the sea below.

"It must have come from the west."

"Harriet, don't go..."

It was too late, though. She was already gone to her duty as a healer.

--------------------------------------------------------

It was a two mile walk across dry sand before meeting with the ragtag scavenging crew. Men and women of all sorts with all manner of skills had formed a line of gunners and melee fighters. A dozen decrepit zombies with grey and sunken skin lurched out of the woods. They crashed against the line of six humans with little struggle on the part of the living, ending the skirmish in less than a minute.

The concerning thing was the shape of a man on a stretcher behind the group. Harriet moved to his side immediately and nearly doubled over with dread at the sight. A younger man from the group spoke up, "we opened a door to search an old building and..."

"...a radiation cloud came out," it was clear as day from the wounds.

The bright yellow blisters and the red skin, swollen thyroids and eyes with a fleshy film over the corners as if grey clouds had settled on top. If there was any point in running tests, they would have certainly proven DNA damage to the lungs. The man let out a ragged breath, and Harriet looked to the others with a sad expression, "I'm sorry, all I can do is make him comfortable."

Harriet began to fill a needle with heavy pain medicine when a gunshot rang out. A man held a smoking revolver to the victim's head, "My way's easier."

The apperent leader gave a blank stare, and for a moment, it seemed the moons cross his eyes. Sniper fire from the throne at the very top of the village broke them out of their moment.

"At least we have a good King," one of the scavangers spoke up.

"Alright, the King is with us! Push them towards the woods!"

"What!? We need to stay in the open where he can shoot!" But they were already shouting battle crys and charging to their deaths. Harriot reluctantly followed to clean up the mess of battle.

Harriet left Chex just inside the treeline as the roots became too thick to take the cart further. Harriot nearly ran headlong into the back of a scavenger as the whole crew came to a halt in a clearing, not much farther into the trees.

A dozen radio-heads huddled together before a shadowy figure. The zombie type had black tendrils that seemed to float out of their heads and shoulders. They gave off a faint hum as the antenna sent out a distress signal. The figure in the shadows raised its arms to the sky, and the humming grew louder. Until it was a defending volume.

Undead soon filled the spaces between the trees with their numbers. A handful became a dozen, and a dozen became two dozen. More radio heads joined the huddle, and before long, the larger parasites could be heard stomping in the distance.

Harriet was the only one who didn't hesitate to rush the group in the middle. With a strong downward swing, her mace squished the first brain before its owner could even turn. The oil black parasite within let out a gruesome death cry that would surely summon more.

Two of the scavenging crew joined in an effort to smash the choir to bits. The mutants were hesitant at the eerie way the undead just stood there humming. Death was acceptable as long as the horde could close in at their backs. And it did.

The circling zombies disappeared in a dark fog that laced the edge of the clearing.

Harriet took one look at the men all around, ready to run for the hills, and in that moment, knew what to say, "Look alive! If these screamers survive, then our village will fall. Kill as many as you can! Do it for your families! Die well or die a coward!"

The fear left everyone, and the battle cry of the group shook even the radio-heads out of their task. Axes and clubs stuck them down with haste, Harriet's own mace worked twice as fast as any of the others. A burly man to her left cleaved down anything that came too close to their suicidal heroine. A crossbow bolt struck the last radio-head as the shadows closed in completely.

The battle cries turn to screams of pain out of view. The burly mutant turned frantically to spot anything but was dragged to the dirt by four heavily decayed undead. Harriet was filled with sadness and pride.

With one last charge at the shadowy figure with the hateful grin, she screamed out, "by all the spirits!!"

Like the stuff of legends, her mace lit up with a bright light as the smirk was smashed from Temnota's face. He didn't wear it well anyway.

The shade collapsed into a pool of darkness that took Harriet with it. The glow in her mace sparked out into fresh flame-flys, birthed by the hope and time that her sacrifice gifted the City on Stilts.