And what an experience that was. By now he had mastered his Telepathy so well that not only could he read other peoples minds, but project his own thoughts into theirs, thereby controlling them. Once in their minds he found he was also able to affect their neurological stimuli as well, causing them to feel pain or pleasure, make them fall asleep or bring them to hyper-alertness, to laugh uncontrollably or scream hysterically. He was even able to kill a person if he pushed hard enough, but it was both painful and extremely taxing, leaving him incapacitated with a pounding migraine and fatigued for days. He could look at a person and read their bio-field or Aura, sensing their approximate age and general health including minor sickness, infection and terminal illness. He could also sense sickness and disease in himself and purge his body at the cellular level, making him effectively immune to sickness, disease, poisons and toxins. He could sense the presence of others around him, their bioelectric fields registering in his mind like a blip on a radar screen. He could also control his own neurological stimuli, ignoring hunger, thirst, fatigue and pain.

Walther traveled constantly, seeking new adventures and experiences, living either on his private jet or one of the many luxury yachts he kept moored in various ports around the world. He quickly learned that ESP and psychic abilities were not rare in human beings, the ability registering brightly in their aura. But at the same time he found it amusing that the vast majority of ESPer's were young children and the mentally ill. He visited several psychiatric wards and hospitals and found them overflowing with ESPer's, driven insane by their powers and their inability to control them.

His every waking moment was steeped in the study and practice of the occult, in whose circles he was now known as Mordecai Necrotura. He was serviced by a small army of evil cultists, recruited from the network of sects, cults and covens linked to his archaeological digs and expeditions. All were fanatic, black-hearted fiends, equally comfortable with high society socializing or human sacrifice. And the things he had seen! Walking Mummies in Baghdad! Werewolves in Siberia! Vampires in New York City! Ghosts in Tokyo! Demons in Africa! But still he knew that the secret of the Voices would be even greater than all of those things combined.

And that secret had been bestowed upon him in the summer of 1964.

It had been off the coast of California aboard one of his yachts. He had a crew of twenty with him and they had purchased a trio of young Chinese girls from a Triad slaver for Communion. It had been during the height of Communion, just as he was reaching orgasm, his arm deep in the girl's eviscerated torso, clutching her faintly beating heart when the Voices had overwhelmed him, filling his head with their song, overflowing his senses with euphoric pleasure.

"Come with us!" They sang, tugging his spirit from his body into the astral plane. He felt himself rise from his body, linked to his spirit by a thin thread of silver light, rising high into the sky, miles above the yacht until the California coastline was a jagged line beneath him and the vast Pacific ocean curved over the edge of the world...rising higher until the clouds were far, far beneath him and the ground was a series of lights, which he recognized as cities, and still the sliver thread of light spiraled down away from him, linking him to his body. Soon, the soft, blue curve of the earth was beneath him as he rose out of the atmosphere into space. The stars sparkled like a billion candles against the canvas of black. The moon, fat and full, looked close enough to touch.

"Look!" The Voices sang, and out beyond the moon one of the stars began to glimmer even brighter than the others, setting itself apart from the rest. He was traveling again, the moon left behind him in a blur of motion, cool euphoric light washing through his every fiber as he raced for the twinkling star...Which, as he came to a sudden stop before the object he could see was no star, but a spaceship of some kind! It was approximately fifty feet long, black as space and looked like a tear shaped gem with sharp angles and cuts. There was a view port, and Walther found himself gently floating up before it...the interior was dimly lit, but even in the low light he could see four occupants. They were small and of general humanoid appearance, but that was where the similarities ended. Their lower body was insect like and tapered to a stubby, slug-like abdomen with oddly set hips and long legs folded beneath them like a grasshopper. The skin was scaly and hard, almost like an exoskeleton, mottled black and green and covered in slime. There were six arms, three on each side of the body, and these were thin and many jointed, ending in a small, five- digit hand with an opposable thumb, but the nails were long, black and wicked. The head looked almost like a snake, with the narrow slit eyes and a long thin snout, with a large mouth filled with two rows of sharp yellow teeth. All four of them were looking at him through his astral form through the view port.

"Yesss." Whispered the Voices, reading his thoughts before he could speak them. "We are not of your world, but we would make it our own. And you shall help us."

"When will you arrive?" There was no question in Walther's mind about helping them. This was what the experiences of his life had prepared him for.

"In thirty of your planet's rotations. We are but a scout, sent ahead to assess your planets defenses, soften the populace and make way for the Mothership. You shall give us shelter and provide us with nourishment. Your network of contacts and associates shall provide us with the information we seek."

"Of course! Of course! Just instruct me in what you need done."

"Be at this location in exactly thirty days." Longitude and latitude coordinates flashed into his mind, and he recognized them at once. It was an archaeological dig he was funding on a remote island in the south pacific. Uninhabited, it had once been the home to a savage headhunter tribe which engaged in cannibalism and demon worship. A rather obsessed and slightly insane archaeologist from England named Dr. Blair had sold him on funding the expedition with stories of an ancient city and a lost religion based upon black magic and human sacrifice. He had never visited the island, but he received weekly reports from Dr. Blair as well as the occasional artifact or scroll. There was one artifact in particular, a small statue of one of the demons the cannibals had worshipped, that very much resembled the Alien creatures looking at him through the view port. It had come with a small card, hand written by Dr. Blair, giving him the ancient cannibal's native name for the demon...Krylok.

"Yesss. We are the Krylok. And as you must have deduced we have been in contact with your species for several millennia, our scouts coming every few centuries, keeping the myths alive, preparing for our eventual arrival. The primitive people of the island worshipped us as gods, now you shall make us the focus of worship once again. You shall lead the faithful of humanity to salvation. Only the faithful shall receive salvation and become our supplicants, the rest shall become our food."

"When will the mothership arrive?" There was holy devotion in Walther's voice. The thought of the entire world population being led to the slaughter, like so many dumb cattle, filled him with such orgasmic pleasure...

"At the dawn of the new millennium." That was over thirty-five years away. "Now go Mordecai Necrotura, await our arrival in 30 days time." He felt the sensation of movement again, and he was falling back toward earth, down along the spiraling thread of silver light, down through the atmosphere, down through the clouds, down from the sky back into his body on the yacht where the last orgasmic spasm shivered through his body and the girls heart, still clutched in his hand, gave a final beat.

He stepped away from the girl, staggering a step before he regained his balance. His faithful cultists on their knees around him, chanting the arcane words of worship that he had taught them. He took several deep breaths, feeling the holy, divine power of the Krylok coursing through his veins as their Voices sang in his skull. His followers could sense it too, as if there were electricity in the air, unseen but coursing through them all, binding them to Mordecai. It was deeper and more powerful than his mind control and in that moment, looking into their eyes and seeing blind, fanatic zealotry staring back at him, Mordecai knew he owned all twenty of them body and soul...

'Mordecai!' The Krylok's telepathic call was muffled against his mind block, barely audible. Mordecai pulled himself from his daydream and focused instead on the small creature clad in a black hooded robe that stood at his feet.

'Mordecai Necrotura!' He could hear its faint telepathic call once again, and the Alien was lucky at that. Had he wanted to Mordecai could have amplified the electronic mind block and shut it out completely. He could sense the creature's anger at its inability to get past the chip and smiled with pleasure.

Recruiting Dr. Winters into the Order had been a stroke of genius, his microchip worth every penny of the 500 million it had cost to devise. Not only did it strengthen his mind block, it also allowed telepathic communication between those with the implant, even if they were devoid of psychic abilities. It was a truly remarkable device, fifty years ahead of anything of its kind. It had been unfortunate that Dr. Winters conditioning broke down and Mordecai had been forced to kill him. But even now he served a purpose as one of the walking dead outside.

"Your attempt to get past my mental defenses is as amusing as it is futile." Mordecai spoke aloud, his voice was soft yet deep, as mocking as it was commanding.

'I find you insolence irritating. There was a time when you worshipped our every word.' The Krylok was truly angry now, its mental voice openly hostile.

"You betray my devotion and then complain that I irritate you?" Mordecai broke into a laugh, turning away from the Krylok and motioning to the two young acolyte boys who stood at the back of the room. Their tongues had been cut out when they were children and they had been raised to worship and serve him as God himself. One pulled the bloody robe over Mordecai's shoulders so that he stood naked while the other began to wipe the girl's blood from his body with a damp towel.

The Krylok was bristling with anger at his insult. 'You would be nothing without us!'

"And that debt was repaid thirty six years ago. We owe each other nothing." Mordecai kept his back to the Krylok, remaining calm and letting the acolytes finish cleaning him. "But your hostility is in vain. Although I am no longer your servant, I am not your enemy. Indeed it seems we have a mutual problem." Mordecai turned away from the Krylok that had angrily confronted him, directing his question at the second creature that stood quietly near the balcony entrance. "Wouldn't you agree Overlord?"

'That is correct. My hybrid supplicant has broken free of my control. It clings to the memory of its human life and the desire to protect its friends.'

"You underestimated the strength of the human spirit... Again. Our will to fight and be free." Mordecai laughed. To think he had once held these creatures in awe and worshipped at their feet just as his acolytes now groveled at his. He let out another long laugh while the acolytes took away the damp, blood stained towels and brought him a fresh white robe. Once donned, he dismissed the acolytes with a thought, and they exited the room. Now there was just Mordecai, two of his white robed, AK-47 wielding Templar's, the two Krylok and their Sentinels.

'The hybrid is an abomination and must be destroyed.' Despite the Overlords attempts to shield his mind, Mordecai could sense fear in the creature.

"Would that have been my fate had I accepted your worm?" Memories of the past flooded Mordecai's mind, visions of the horrors seen and the choices made on that small, uncharted pacific island in 1964.

'No. You are weaker. Your will would have crumbled and I would have dominated you.' He could sense the glee in the Overlords insult. Mordecai returned it with another long, mocking laugh.

"Look at us, fighting amongst ourselves. What more but us killing one another could our enemy ask for?"

'You cannot be trusted supplicant!' The subordinate Krylok put in, still bristling with anger.

"I grow tired of you insults! And Mordecai Necrotura is NO CREATURES SUPPLICANT!" Mordecai snapped, his large green eyes sparkling with psychotic rage. Before the Krylok could react Mordecai lashed out telepathically, sinking a tendril into the aliens mind, which after a lifetime of telepathic contact was as familiar as an old robe, and charged it with pain. The small alien fell to the floor writhing in agony, squealing a high-pitched wail that reminded him of the slaughterhouse of his youth. One of the superzombies raised its rifle to shoot him...

'STOP!' The Overlords telepathic scream was buffered by the microchip but Mordecai still felt the power of the creatures ESP. The superzombie lowered its weapon and Mordecai released his agonizing hold on the downed Krylok with a small chuckle.

"You really should control your underlings better, it is rather embarrassing." Mordecai sat down in the high-backed leather chair behind his desk.

'The hybrid must be destroyed! It is too dangerous for one such as he to be roaming free. With the knowledge and abilities he possesses he could become a terminal threat to our existence. He has complete instinctive knowledge of our technology and weapons, tactics and abilities.' The Overlord did not say any more but Mordecai knew exactly what he was getting at. With the hybrid free of their control and loyal to humanity and earth, it could become one of mankind's greatest weapons. While Mordecai gave a grudging nod of respect for humanity, he cursed the reality of the situation as it affected his own plans of world conquest, which were quite separate from those of the Krylok.

Just then a priority security report came across the telepathic frequency provided by the microchip implant. The three Templar's who had gone out in the boat to spy on the intruders had been killed. Two by the intruders but the third, the pilot of the boat, was killed by the hybrid as it came from beneath the water. This had been confirmed both visually, as well as by the Templar's dying telepathic transmission.

"Your hybrid just killed one of my Templar's." Mordecai said accusingly. "It is your creation and therefore your problem. No more of my flock will die hunting your hybrid while you have three Sentinels about."

'No more of your sheep need to die. The hybrid will not attack them so long as they stay within your compound.'

"This is MY domain Overlord. My Templar's come and go as I command; they do not hide like frightened children."

'So the hybrid is both our problems.' What passed for a smile flashed across the Overlords slimy, reptilian snout with a flash of sharp, yellow teeth.

"The people occupying Dr. Winter's estate are my problem. They have not been there forty-eight hours and already they've become a nuisance. It's time to eliminate them. The horde of drones and my Templar's can handle that easily enough; do you think your sentinels can hunt down the hybrid?"

'As I told you before, the hybrids bond to its human friends is very strong. Logic dictates that he will be there defending his friends from your Templar's. When he appears, the Sentinels will eliminate him.'

"What of Park City?" Mordecai had spies in the city, but so far all of their reports had been of the city defenders keeping the city secure.

'A dozen Sentinels are leading an army of drones, over ten thousand strong, up the canyon as we speak. They have a pair of battle tanks and plenty of heavy firepower under their control. We also have our shuttlecraft. It is equipped with particle beam cannons and missile launchers. The attacks over the past twenty-four hours have been nothing more than probes to analyze their defenses. Tonight, Park City will fall.'

The Overlord sounded supremely confidant. Mordecai was certain of it as well, for his agents in the city would also act as suicide bombers during the height of the invasion, blowing up key communication and support locations, but he was hoping the city would put up a good fight and weakened the Overlords forces before being overrun.

It would make it that much easier for Mordecai to Kill the Overlord and steal his spaceship.

Any delusions he had about the Krylok benevolence towards himself as well as any loyalty he had held toward them had quickly disappeared after what had transpired on that small, uncharted island in the South Pacific in June of 1964. The Krylok revealed their true intentions and motivation, which was nothing short of hybrid supplication for Mordecai and the complete and total annihilation of the human race via feeding or conversion to Sentinels for use in conquest of other worlds.

The hybrid conversion required a rare genetic anomaly which made the host compatible with an embryo slug. Approximately one in every million humans was compatible. The Sentinel conversion was much simpler. Any human implanted with a Krylok slug not genetically compatible for hybrid conversion was transformed into a Sentinel. A freshly dead body could also converted into a Sentinel so long as the slug was implanted before drone reanimation.

The basic, stumbling zombie drone was a side effect of the virus that became active once the corpse cooled to a certain temperature, causing reanimation. This was also a great tool for softening indigenous planetary populations. Just seed the atmosphere and wait for the zombie plague to spread havoc across the globe. If the Krylok that commanded the scouting expedition in '64 was to be believed, the aliens had used this method to successfully invade and conquer more than one hundred habited worlds across the universe over the past seventy five thousand years.

"You talk as if it is already done."

'Park City is of little concern, a nuisance at best. Our real problem is the Air Force Base thirty miles northwest of here.' He was of course talking about Hill Air Force Base.

"What of it?" Mordecai feigned ignorance. He had spies in the Air Force base and knew the situation. The Overlord turned his narrow red eyes to his subordinate Krylok, deigning the telling of bad news to him.

"Their defense has been better that expected. The remnants of the local ground forces have retreated there and fortified the position against ground attack and their surface to air missile defense system combined with their aircraft capabilities has kept our air attack at bay."

Mordecai smiled to himself, enjoying how the alien downplayed the events at Hill AFB. The fact of the matter was the Patriot Missile System had destroyed two of the Krylok attack craft and the horde of zombies being thrown at the base were no match for the pulverizing firepower brought to bear by the combined forces of the United States Army and Air Force. And there were nearly ten thousand refugees, a good percentage armed and ready to fight zombies, clustered inside the walls of the base. Sanitation, food and housing would eventually become a problem, but Mordecai knew the base had vast storages of MRE's and old C-Rations, literally thousands of tons of them. The base was also strategically located, surrounded by small cities. There would be plenty there for the base defenders to plunder and salvage. The truth was the Krylok had lost the northern stretch of the Wasatch front.

"Why haven't you ordered the base bombarded from orbit?" Mordecai's contacts in NASA and the CIA had tipped him to this answer as well, but he wanted to see how much the Krylok would tell him.

'Orbital bombardment of all know military bases and centers was the initial plan, but there were...complications in the opening phase of deployment, which caused a complete change in strategy. But once the consequences of those complications are rectified the bombardment shall continue as planned.'

Mordecai could barely keep himself from laughing at the Overlords response. Those complications he had mentioned were in fact disastrous for the Krylok invasion plan. Upon dropping out of hyperspace the Krylok mothership had proceeded to crash onto the dark side of the moon instead of taking up orbit around it. Space station and satellite surveillance had shown the large, bulky craft broken into several pieces, apparently damaged beyond repair. It had also detected massive amounts of radiation, either from the ships nuclear arsenal or its main drive reactor core. They had destroyed the satellite and attacked the space station with some of their shuttlecraft not long after it spotted them and no further images had been available. He still had access to the Pentagons electronic database as well as several other classified information sources via satellite Internet uplink, but nothing new had been added in months.

Why the mothership had crashed Mordecai had no idea, although it was a burning question in the back of his mind. He contemplated scratching the itch and asking the Overlord the question. It would reveal just how much Mordecai knew, but the Overlords reaction would have been worth it, but prudence won out in the end. Despite the fact that he hated these vile, disgusting creatures, he needed them to fulfill his own plans and would not become overly insulting.

"And how long until things are...rectified."

'When they are rectified.' The Overlords telepathic response was cold and icy. 'When shall your Templar's lead the assault upon the intruders?'

"It shall coincide with the fall of Park City. Let the wretched souls who would dare invade my realm dwell on what they have seen today. Let the horror work its poison into their minds, seep into their belly like a rotting cancer, sapping them of their will. Then, when darkness comes, so shall their judgment." Mordecai let out a small, evil chuckle as his eyes gazed into nothingness, imagining their cries for mercy before their screams of pain, like so many cattle led to the slaughter...

Chapter 50.

Tuesday, June 26, 2001 Rainbow Lake, UT 4:25 PM.

"We have to get out of here!" Rick exclaimed for at least the fourth time.

"Where the hell would we go?" Mac asked him for at least just as many.

"We could go back down to Park City. We could just pile into the bus and head back down."

"What about all of our stuff?" Susan asked him.

"It's not worth dying over."

"Your brother died for it." Mac's words cut like a knife, and anger flared in Rick's eyes, quickly replaced by a profound sadness. He lowered his head and his wife Jennifer, who stood nearby wrapped a comforting arm across his shoulders.

"My father died for it." Susan said solemnly.

They were gathered in the living room, adults and children alike, all save for David who was monitoring the security station in the den, but he was listening on the intercom and could respond at anytime.

"You saw the same things I did." Rick said without raising his head. "Tell me how we are going to fight that?" That drew silence from all of them. When the four had returned from their excursion across the lake they had quickly gathered everyone together and told them exactly what had transpired and all of the horrors they had seen.

"We have grenades," Matt said after nearly a minute of silence. "Those we save for the superzombies. We can make Molotov cocktails for the deadfucks and we have plenty of ammunition." Susan had done a good job on the cut above his eye and there was only a small bandage to show for it, but it somehow added to the grim determination in his eyes. "I'm tired. Tired of deadfucks, tired of losing my friends, and tired of running. This is my home now. This is where I make my stand. My last stand if need be."

"What about those bastards in white robes? What about Zack?" Rick looked and sounded like he was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"We don't have to worry about Zack." Matt replied. "Regardless of what he's become, he is on our side."

"And we have guns to deal with those robed freaks." Susan said.

"What do the rest of you think?" Rick asked, clearly desperate for someone to see things his way.

"I say we fight." David's voice was sharp and crisp over the intercom.

"Fight." Samantha said from the end of the table, little baby Tyler in her arms.

"Sis, you can't be serious?" Jennifer blurted.

"Tyler and I are staying with David." Samantha said defiantly to her older sister.

"What about you Scotty?" Mac asked.

Scotty looked at each of them in turn, his thin, weathered face set firm, before adjusting his cap and said with wholehearted sincerity "Well, I've only been with you people for a couple of days, but you're all more of a family, and this place is more of a home, than I've had since I left Missoura." Old Scotty sure did have a way with words.

"Mom?" Susan asked.

"Your father died protecting us. It seems foolish to me to stay here and die for something so silly as this house, especially when Park City is safe and secure."

"This place is a death trap." Rick said. "There are hundreds of deadfucks over there. They will swarm the house and trap us all inside."

"We'll all go upstairs." Matt said. "We can pick them off from the balconies and if any manage to get inside we can hold them at the stairs. Once they start piling up it will block the stairwell and prevent anymore from coming up. All we really have to worry about is superzombies and those robed freaks."

"Oh, that's all?" Rick said with defeated sarcasm.

Mac's frustration with Rick was simmering into anger. "Nobody is stopping you from leaving Rick. There is an SUV in the garage. It's yours to take if you want to go."

"I'm not running out on you guys." Rick said.

"No one said you were." Matt interjected before things got too heated. "We don't even know if an attack will come."

"Who are you trying to fool? Yourself? " Rick asked. Matt felt hot anger flare in him at Rick's belligerence, but he kept it under control.

"I'm not going to argue with you Rick. My mind is made up. If you want to leave, take the SUV and go."

"I'm not running out on you guys." Rick repeated himself miserably. "I'm not."

"Then shut the fuck up about it! We have more important things to deal with!" Mac's voice had risen to a shout.

"David, any luck getting Jenkins on the radio?" Matt asked, trying to steer the conversation down a more productive course.

"Nope." David replied. "But I can contact the Park City militia directly if need be."