THE KNIGHTS FROM OLDEN MEDIEVAL DAYS

by James Zahardis

Shadows danced in the light of smoldering fires. A sooty girl stood up from behind a heap of cinderblocks and tiptoed to a patch of dandelions growing amid the rubble. She skimmed the palm of one hand across the flowers; in the other she held a photograph:

miss Mommy and miss Daddy and miss Billy and miss the beach with the sand hot like barbeque coals and even miss mean kids laughed HA HA at Billy's sandcastle teasing it looks like melted ice cream Mommy said oh ignore them but Billy always gets mad and wants to fight and Daddy said boys will be boys and 

There was the clatter of teeth. The girl crouched; her eyes scanned the horizon. The bricks behind her began to topple. She started forward, but a hand reached out and grabbed her ankle. An infected woman squirmed, freeing her crushed body from the rubble. Her mouth snapped inches from the girl's calf. The girl screamed and struggled, dropping the photograph.

There was a clip-clopping sound. A black horse leapt through the smoke. Its rider was a knight in dull and dented armor. He wielded a wooden lance affixed with a metallic blade, which he drove into the infected woman's cadaverous mouth. The woman became still, releasing her grip from the girl's ankle.

Another horse and knight vaulted forward. The knight pleaded, "Hurry. A horde's comin', Lancer — too many — "

" — I know, Jay — Christ, I know."

Lancer dismounted and knelt down to pick up the girl. He passed her to Jay, who placed her in front of him on his steed.

Lancer espied the photograph. He smiled, looking at its depiction of a family posing by a lopsided sandcastle, and then placed it in the pommel bag on his horse's saddle.

The knights rode forth, steering their horses through the wreckage. Infected men and women staggered toward the galloping horses, but were left in their wake.

The riders rounded a corner surrounded by firebombed shops. The girl recalled being at a similar corner days before: