This story is an unofficial story based, without permission, on the Warhammer/Warhammer 40,000 intellectual property owned by Games Workshop Ltd.
Rostislav was dead. They had got him twenty minutes ago. Bautista had seen him through the rear view mirror. When he had bent over to pick up a new box of ammo, they had hit a rut in the road, and he had stumbled. One of the creatures had grabbed him by the waist and dragged him, screaming, down into the road. It was the only sound Bautista ever did hear Rostislav make.
They were approaching the starport now. It loomed in the darkness, though not much could be seen but the silhouette. The creatures were everywhere, stumbling much slower than the truck, but they came out of the fields. It was like even the crops had risen up to devour their flesh.
"Almost there...almost there..." Bautista muttered to himself.
"Remain calm, Major. We will arrive safely, I am sure," the Inquisitor spoke. His rasp was entirely gone now, his voice was strong and confident.
The Inquisitor set about sliding more bullets into his heavy revolver and Bautista drove, smashing over bumps and ruts in the road.
One of the creatures leaped in front of the truck. The Major smashed right into it, sending it flying into the air. It was far from the first. Bautista had learned around the third or fourth one to just hit them. The front of the truck was covered in coagulated blood and bits of already rotting flesh. Throne, did they rot fast!
The starport loomed now. Bautista gasped. It was a complete wreck. Flames overtook much of the huge complex, windows were smashed in, cars overturned. Some corpses littered the ground, dressed in Adeptus Arbites uniforms. Others were beginning to crawl...
"I suggest we move, Major," said the Inquisitor, producing his revolver. "We can still get to my starship, we will just have to fight to get there."
Bautista nodded, swallowing;
"Right. Right then, let's go."
The truck doors flung open and the two men stepped out, firing. Bullets and las-bolts flung through the air, sending reanimated corpses, finally, to their graves.
"Go! Inside!" the major yelled, blasting one of the plague zombies in the throat and then the forehead.
The Inquisitor and the Major rushed to the doors, a round from Ricci's revolver taking out an Arbites official who had risen from his grave.
Slamming the double doors, Bautista broke them open, forcing his way into the small spaceport. What looked like an Administratum official was crawling towards him, moaning, and baring its rotting teeth. Bautista shot it in the mouth.
"This way, Major," the Inquisitor said from behind him, walking forward with the utmost confidence towards one of the gates.
"I have a ship waiting just on the edge of the system, once we are in orbit I will call it in and we will...revise our current plans. The large majority of your world is most likely perfectly in tact. I do not think the Creeping Death could have spread far beyond a single town in this short amount of time."
Bautista was relieved at that news. He had been thinking of these monsters getting to his family, devouring them in that savage way he had seen Rostislav and Rafferty be killed.
Crossing across the floor, Bautista could hear panes of glass crashing behind him. Turning, he saw that the creatures had caught up to them, and smashed their way into the port. Sending a quick burst across the lobby, the Major saw four of the abominations go down.
"We have little time to dally, Major Bautista!" Ricci said harshly.
Bautista nodded, sweating, and followed him through the port, down the long tunnel to where Inquisitor Ricci's shuttle waited.
The ship was long and sleek, jet black. It was small, clearly intended only to hold a handful of people. Dual plasma drives sat on the back, and there were two long, forward-curved wings emanating from the side. The view-glass was low hanging and curved, giving the whole shuttle the image of some kind of bird of prey.
Its ramp was extended down to the floor for passengers to climb into it.
Bautista stepped forward, about to climb onto the shuttle, when suddenly there was a hiss of steam and the ramp retracted up, closing off the shuttle.
"I think not, Major Bautista."
"Excuse me?" the Major asked, turning.
Inquisitor Ricci was standing, quite still, staring at him. Bautista could hear the zombies outside, groaning and stumbling.
Ricci brought his hands to his face and pulled his hood back. His entire body went through a sort of strange shimmer. Something sorcerous, and somehow wrong, opposed to nature. It caused Bautista's head to spin for a moment, and he stumbled backwards.
Returning to his senses, he leveled his eyes. Inquisitor Ricci did not look the same man at all. His robes, before a deep, rich, emerald, were a pale white-green, torn, and rotted. The Imperial eagle and inquisitorial rosette that hung around his neck were tarnished and scarred. Someone had carved runes into them that make the Major want to vomit. His flesh was pockmarked and rotting. Bautista thought he saw a maggot crawling near Ricci's lower lip for a moment. His eyes...his eyes were the worst. Pale, yellow, and staring directly into Bautista's soul.
"I will be using this shuttle, to spread the Creeping Death all across your world. This small hamlet of yours was just the first. A test, if you will, of my beloved plague zombies. They performed brilliantly."
The creatures were entering now, congregating around the Inquisitor. They made no sign of attacking him, they just waited, docile, staring from him back to Bautista.
"Inquisitor I...what?" Bautista asked, confused. The reek of the creatures threatened to activate his gag reflexes.
"I am afraid, Major, that I have not been much of an Inquisitor for quite some time. I was declared Extremis Diabolus sixty years ago, for my devotion to Grandfather Nurgle. A much more powerful and caring deity than your corpse god." He spat these last two words out, as if they disgusted him.
"T..traitor!" Bautista croaked, leaning against the hull of the black shuttle for support.
"Yes, I suppose so. That's what those weaklings that used to be my fellow Inquisitors believe, anyway. I'm sure Master Rostislav and Master Rafferty would have agreed, if they had known who I was when I requisitioned their services from the Inquisitorial Guard. But regardless, I am a busy man, and I must be going. My former brothers are after me, and they will be hot on the trail by now. If I am going to have spread Nurgle's gift across this miserable world by the time they get here, I will need to be quick about it. Goodbye, Major Bautista."
Ricci lifted one of his rotting, dead hands, and pointed at the Major. All around him, the plague zombies began to groan, stumbling towards Bautista.
The Major turned to back off, drawing his las-pistol, but he stumbled and fell. He looked up now, as the creatures surrounded him. Their eyes, oh Throne, their eyes!
All around him the horrified, accusing eyes of Maria Stephenson stared at him. Those eyes, those Throne-damned eyes, accusing and angry, betrayed, looming down on him. They were devouring him now. Ripping pieces of flesh from his arms and abdomen. One tore out a good chunk of his throat. He hardly noticed the pain. All he could see was those eyes surrounding him. The singular glare of Maria Stephenson, damning him to the abyss as he died.
All he could hear was the long, cold, laugh of Inquisitor Ferdinand Ricci.
Hive World Terra