The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World
Date: 2007-01-02 05:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Horror; Zombies; Apocalyptic; Short Stories; Fiction; Collections; Anthologies; Science Fiction
Description: Best-selling author Brian Keene returns with an all-new short story collection set in the world of the award-winning novel The Rising. The Rising and its sequel, City of the Dead, revitalized the horror genre and gave zombie fans a new reason to celebrate. Since publication, many readers have hoped for a wider examination of The Rising universe. Now they have it. The Rising: Selected Scenes From The End Of The World contains thirty-two short stories based in the world of The Rising and City of the Dead. Now, fans can witness how the undead epidemic plays out across the globe-Australia, the Uni

THE RISING:

SELECTED SCENES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD

BRIAN KEENE

First Digital Edition

Published by:

Delirium Books

P.O. Box 338

North Webster, IN 46555
sales@deliriumbooks.com
www.deliriumbooks.com

The Rising: Selected Scenes From The End Of The World

© 2008, 2009 by Brian Keene

Cover Artwork © 2008, 2009 by Alan M. Clark All Rights Reserved.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

For Shane Ryan Staley, who knows a good thing when he sees it. Lets ride the wave of mutilation.

Special Thanks to:

Trygve V. Botnen, Mark Beauchamp,

Shannon and Allison Wuller, Roman P. Wuller, Tony and Kim at Camelot Books, Terry Tidwell, Chris Hansen, Brian Lee, Michael Nolan, Jade Rumsey, Robert T. Shea, Jamie La Chance, William A. King, Eddie Coulter, Penny Khaw, Leigh Haig, Larry Roberts, Paul Goblirsch, Michael and Karen Templin, Mike Goffee, Terry Schue, Stephen Griglak, Edward Etkin, H Michael Casper, Donald Koish, Michael Bland, Paul Legerski, Robert Lewis, Christopher Lee Shackelford, Jason Houghton, Bob Ford, and Paul Puglisi.

ALSO BY BRIAN KEENE

NOVELS:

The Rising

City of the Dead

Terminal

Ghoul

Dead Sea

Kill Whitey

The Conqueror Worms (also published as Earthworm Gods)

Dark Hollow (also published as The Rutting Season)

Clickers II: The Next Wave (with J.F. Gonzalez)

COLLECTIONS:

Fear of Gravity

No Rest for the Wicked

No Rest at All

Sympathy for the Devil: The Best of Hail Saten Vol. 1

Running with the Devil: The Best of Hail Saten Vol. 2

The New Fear: The Best of Hail Saten Vol. 3

NOVELLAS & CHAPBOOKS:

Take the Long Way Home

The Resurrection and the Life

Shades ( with Geoff Cooper)

The Rise & Fall of Babylon (with John Urbancik)

The Rising: Necrophobia (with Brett McBean, Michael Oliveri, and John Urbancik)

MISCELLANY:

Talking Smack

The Rising: Death in Four Colors (with Zac Atkinson)

AS EDITOR:

In Delirium

The Best of Horrorfind

The Best of Horrorfind II

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

Don’s Last Mosh

Family Reunion

As Above (Sisters, Part One)

So Below (Sisters, Part Two)

Last Chance For La Chance

Watching The World End

The Fall Of Rome

Walkabout (Part One)

Hellhounds On My Trail

Spoilers

The Man Comes Around

The Summoning

Pocket Apocalypse

The Viking Plays Patty Cake

If You Can See The Mountain…

You Only Live Twice

And Hell Followed With Him

The High Point

Where The Down Boys Go

Walkabout (Part Two)

1 Corinthians 15:51

All Fall Down

Through The Glass Darkly

A Man’s Home Is His Casket

Zombie Worm

The Night The Dead Died

The Morning After

March Of The Elilum

Best Seat In The House

American Pie

Two Suns In The Sunset

Other Worlds Than These

Afterword

INTRODUCTION

This is a book about the end of the Earth, specifically, the end of the Earth at the hands of the Siqqusim, Elilum, and Teraphim, led by Ob, Ab, and Api.It does not have a happy ending.

(Can’t say I didn’t warn you this time, fuckers.) I can’t imagine this holds true for any of you, but I guess I’d better say it anyway. If you haven’t read The Rising or City of the Dead, you might want to do so before going any further. Like The Rising: Necrophobia (which it also wouldn’t hurt to re-read), The Rising: Selected Scenes From The End Of The World chronicles what was happening across the rest of the world during my entire zombie mythos; from the appearance of the very first zombie (“Don’s Last Mosh”) to civilization’s breakdown (“Last Chance For La Chance”) to the finale; the planet’s fiery, post City of the Dead destruction (“Two Suns In The Sunset”). There’s even a glimpse of what lays beyond that—a peek into the Labyrinth. I don’t recap the previous books, and I’m assuming that readers will understand what the hell is going on. So if you aren’t familiar with the series, and refuse to do your homework, hang on tight and try to figure it the fuck out as we go along. The rest of you know very well what’s in store (insert evil laughter here). These stories coincide with events from the previous three books. Although you won’t see any of the main characters, you’ll catch glimpses of how Jim, Martin, and Frankie’s actions affect these tales. You’ll find references to events from the books, including The Rising: Necrophobia. You’ll even run into a few minor characters from The Rising. And, if you look carefully, you’ll find these stories overlapping with each other, as well. When Shane Staley of Delirium Books originally pitched this idea, I was less than enthusiastic. He offered money. I waved it away. Prestige. I just laughed. He sent over a Swedish Women’s Volleyball team, but even then, I had my doubts. To be honest, I didn’t want to write this book. I’d said all I had to say about zombies, and figured I was burned out. But Shane, being the two-fisted editor (read: slave-driver) that he is, twisted my arm until I relented. (As I write this, he’s trying to convince me to do the same thing with the Earthworm Gods mythos, and the fact that he’s still alive to publish this book is a testimony to our relationship because I would have shot anybody else by now.) In all seriousness, I’m glad Shane convinced me to do this, because halfway through the first story, I remembered why I love zombies, and why I enjoy writing about them so much. It was very easy to become “The Zombie Guy” again, and I was glad for the opportunity. You’ll find some more new twists, things that I wish I could go back and add to the other books (and make sure you read the Afterword for a nice bit involving undead opossums from New Zealand).

This was a lot of fun. I had a good time with it. I hope you do, too.

Our first stop is Escanaba, Michigan, and the show is about to start…

Brian Keene

Journey’s End, Pennsylvania

November 2005

* * *

* * *

DON’S LAST MOSH

The Rising

Day One

Escanaba, Michigan

Don Koish shuffled forward with the rest of the sheep. In front of him, a bleached-blonde girl with an ass that was barely concealed by her low cut jeans, giggled in excitement. Behind him, a surly Goth, decked out in black and smoking a clove cigarette, sneered at nobody in particular and bumped into Don again.

Don preferred the blonde. She looked nicer. Smelled nicer, too.

He studied the other fans in line. It was a mixed crowd. Thirty-something metal heads and twentysomething backwards baseball hat-wearing homeboys and skate punks in tattered Ramones T-shirts (paying homage to a band that some of their parents listened to). With its hip-hop rhythms and vocals and its mind-searing, Slayer-like guitar riffs, Necessary Evil’s music appealed to a wide cross spectrum, and they were out in force tonight. The Delft Theatre used to be a movie house, before the multi-screen complex opened up across town. It was nothing special, but bands, on their way up or their way down, played there from time to time. It could hold a thousand people, and Necessary Evil looked like it would fill that bill.

The blonde giggled again and backed up, pressing her ass right against his groin. She gasped, and turned around.

“Sorry,” Don said, grinning. His ears turned red. The blonde snapped her gum at him and resumed her conversation with her friend. He didn’t blame her. Don knew all-too well what an imposing figure he cut. He was built like a refrigerator and his shaved head made him look like a club bouncer or mob muscle. He dug the look. It worked for him. Especially in the pit…

Necessary Evil’s mosh pits were legendary, and Don had been waiting six months to try it out for himself, ever since the concert was first announced. He watched some of the younger concert-goers, cocky, arrogant little fuckers that would get in the pit and try to break noses, arms, head—stomp, punch, hit—and call it moshing. He couldn’t stand that shit, and if any of them pulled it on him, they’d be sorry. Stupid fucks. It was that kind of a mentality that led to what happened at that Suicide Run concert in Pennsylvania a few years back. Or even Dimebag Darrel’s death—no respect for the artists. Don wasn’t sure when, but sometime between Anthrax’s Among the Living and Hatebreed’s latest release, it had all become about the violence. The music was forgotten. Same thing happened with hip-hop. From Run DMC’s “Adidas” to Dr. Dre capping motherfuckers’ left and right. The whole world seemed to have gone insane lately. Everybody was angry. Everybody wanted to break things.

Eventually, the doors opened, and the line rushed forward. Don was swept up with them, and managed to cop one more glance at the blonde’s ass before she vanished into the crowd.

He got his hand stamped so that he wouldn’t be sequestered with the under-21 crowd, and then made his way to the bar. He sipped a cold beer and watched the women. None of them had anything on his wife, Debbie. Don missed her. He wished she could have come along, but she wasn’t into Necessary Evil’s music, and had stayed home with the kids. He’d kissed her goodbye before he left. She’d been watching the evening news, something about an accident at a government research facility on the east coast.

A local disc jockey came out on stage and tried to warm up the crowd. He was met with boos and jeers. When he was done promoting the station’s lame, Howard Stern rip-off morning show, the opening band, Your Kid’s On Fire, took the stage. Don had never heard them, but it was clear that the younger kids in the club had. A mosh pit erupted in front of the stage as the band launched into their first song.

The music was typical Nordic black-metal; growly metal is what Don called it. He watched in amused disgust as one kid leaped into the air and landed on another’s back. The unlucky individual crashed to the floor and disappeared beneath a wave of swarming bodies.

Don spied the blonde from the line outside. She was standing at the edge of the circle, laughing with her friends and watching with excited interest. Suddenly, a guy with an eight ball tattooed on his forehead lunged forward, grabbed her arm, and pulled her into the pit. A fist crashed into her jaw, and the gum flew from her mouth.

“Hey,” Don shouted, rising from his seat at the bar. “That’s fucked up!”

He slammed his beer down on the bar and waded into the fray. Blood streamed from the girls head, and then she vanished from sight, bobbing helplessly in the frantic sea of moshers. When Don spied her again, her nose was a swollen, spurting, crimson bulb.

He shoved people out of the way and entered the eye of the storm.

The girl collapsed to the floor, and somebody landed a solid kick to her head with their steel-toed boot. Don slammed into the attacker and knocked him sprawling.

The band stopped playing in mid-song, and the lights came up. Groans of dismay and angry shouts gave way to silence, and a hush fell over the crowd Don knelt beside the girl, cradling her head in his lap. “Call an ambulance!” he yelled.

* * *

He checked for a pulse, and found none. Her skin was pale, and Don was shocked at the amount of blood. It was everywhere—on her clothes, her face, the floor. He put his ear to her mouth, but she wasn’t breathing.

“Yo,” a concert-goer behind him asked. “She okay, dog?”

“No,” Don said. “She—I think she’s dead.”

“That’s fucked up.”

Don checked her wrist again, but there was no pulse. The warmth was leaving the girl’s body. He laid her down on the mosh pit floor, just as two beefy security guards pushed their way through the crowd to him.

“Clear a hole,” one of them shouted, eyeing Don with suspicion. “What happened?”

“Somebody kicked her,” Don said. He looked around for the guy with the eight ball tattoo, but the attacker had melted into the crowd.

“Hey,” one of the bouncers suddenly shouted.

“She’s alive. She’s moving!”

The blonde sat up, her blood bright and garish against her alabaster skin. She grinned, and then sank her teeth into Don’s crotch.

Surprisingly, there was no pain, just a dull, cold sensation. He looked down and saw her burrowing into the streaming wound, like a dog burying a bone.

His last thought was one of quiet dismay. He’d never get to see Necessary Evil’s mosh pit for himself.

* * *

FAMILY REUNION

The Rising

Day Two

Ghost Island, Minnesota

Terry Schue yawned and said, “Where are they?”

“Maybe they got delayed,” Chip suggested.

“Traffic could have been bad.”

“No.” Terry shook his head. “They would have called.”

“This is your family we’re talking about,” Chip grunted. “Do you really expect your mom or stepfather to pick up the phone and let you know they’re running late? That would indicate common courtesy on their parts.”

“What are you saying?”

“I mean your mom was mentally abusive to you all these years, and your stepfather used to beat the shit out of you both. Why would they feel the need to call and let us know they’re late?”

“Okay,” Terry replied. “But they’re still my family, and I do love them, despite everything. My step-dad has been trying to make up for all of that ever since he got diagnosed with prostate cancer. And Mom has mellowed with age.”

“They’ll have to prove it to me. We’ve been together eighteen years, Terry, and I’ve seen just what your family is capable of. I hate the way they treat you sometimes. Just because Bob has suddenly been humbled by his own mortality, doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s a bully.”

Terry watched the pier through the rain, looking for his mother and stepfather’s car, or his sister’s van. “Besides,” Chip continued, “if your mom is as psychic as she claims, wouldn’t she have seen whatever delayed them in advance?”

“Chantal would call at least. She’s got Dad with her.”Terry’s real father, Mike, had his leg amputated the year before, and now spent his time in a wheelchair, popping pain pills and drinking himself into oblivion. He was coming to the reunion with Terry’s sister, Chantal.

The raindrops whispered against the boat’s deck, and plunked into the waters of Lake Vermilion. In the distance, they could see the town of Virginia. Terry’s family was supposed to arrive around dawn, after driving all night, for the annual family reunion. The gathering was held each year at Terry and Chip’s place on Ghost Island. The lakeside dwelling was accessible from the mainland only by boat. Chip reached out and squeezed his hand. “The weather probably slowed them down. That’s all. Everything will be fine.”

Terry smiled at him, and tried to relax. That was easy to do with Chip at his side. They’d met when Terry was nineteen and Chip was thirty-two, and Terry still thanked God every day for putting Chip in his life.

The boat rocked slightly as Chip walked over to the radio and turned it on. Terry watched him as he moved past—the Richard Gere type, with thick, gray hair and a solid, healthy build. The past eighteen years together had been wonderful, and Terry looked forward to many, many more. Chip had helped him get over so much from his past. Were it not for Chip, he’d never be able to host these annual reunions. Some things never stayed buried.

His past—his family—was one of those things. Chip turned the dial, searching the airwaves. Curiously, there was no music, no traffic reports, no zany morning show antics. Each station featured announcers talking in the same grim, somber tones. Federal authorities were not commenting on why a government research center in Hellertown, Pennsylvania had been shut down overnight. The Director of Homeland Security assured the reporters that the situation was under control, and that there was no danger to the public, but due to national security concerns, they couldn’t say more at this time. Terrorism was not suspected.

In Escanaba, Michigan, over twenty people had been killed, and dozens more injured, when an apparent riot erupted during a rock concert.

Stranger still, some form of mass hysteria seemed to be springing up at random across the country, and according to some reports, throughout the world. The reports didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and it was apparent that some of the newscasters were skeptical as they read them. Stories were told of the dead coming back to life—in morgues and at funerals and in the back of ambulances and on the battlefield.

“Sounds like those movies you always watch,”

Chip laughed. “Where the corpses run around and eat people?”

“Yeah,” Terry replied, shivering. “Weird, huh?”

Headlights pierced the early morning gloom, and a moment later, his sister’s van pulled up, followed by his mother’s car.

Terry took a deep breath. Goosebumps dotted his arms, and he wondered why. He chalked it up to the dampness in the air.

Chip led him across the deck. “Come on. Brave face. It’s only one weekend.”

They climbed onto the dock and slowly walked towards the parking lot. Nobody got out of the vehicles. As they got closer, Terry grew alarmed. There was a jagged, splintered hole in the car’s windshield, and the van’s front grille was crumpled. A splash of red covered the white hood. Terry broke into a run. “Oh God! There’s been an accident!”

He could see his sister’s silhouette behind the rain-streaked van windshield, but couldn’t tell if she was hurt or not. As he dashed around to the driver’s-side door, Chip opened the sliding door on the side.

Terry’s father rolled out on top of him, and sank his teeth into Chip’s ear.

Chantal burst from the vehicle, slamming the door into Terry’s legs. He collapsed to the ground, skinning his palms on the wet asphalt. Chantal giggled. Somewhere out of sight, his parents’ car doors creaked open.

“Sorry we’re late, Terry,” Chantal croaked. “There was a major fender bender in Duluth, and then we stopped for a bite.”

His sister was a grisly sight. Her nose was a swollen, broken bulb, and a portion of her scalp had peeled back, revealing the pink meat between it and her skull. She reached for him, and Terry gaped in horror. His sister’s hand was broken at the wrist, and twisted into a deformed claw.

“Chantal,” he gasped. “You’re hurt!”

Chip shrieked.

“Wow,” Chantel snickered, “I haven’t seen Dad this active in awhile.”

Terry stared in horror at Chip’s ear dangling from his father’s clenched teeth.

His mother, stepfather, and sister advanced on him. His mother’s right arm was missing from the elbow down, and his stepfather’s face was split in two.Terry cast one last, shocked glance at Chip. His father had his face buried in Chip’s neck, burrowing into the flesh.

Then Terry fled. Eighteen years of comfort and bliss were forgotten, overridden by blind panic. Chip’s agonizing final screams echoed in his ears. Terry jumped onboard the boat, started the engine, and sped away across the water.

Back at the house, the radio and television talked about the chaos spreading across the world—worsening by the hour. Later that day, Chip and the others arrived on the island, dripping wet from their walk along the bottom of the lake.

And then they had a family reunion.

* * *

AS ABOVE

(Sisters, Part One)

The Rising

Day Three

Belleville, Illinois

Shannon Wuller’s father loaded her younger brother, Dashiell into the car seat. The three-year-old kicked and fussed.

Shannon frowned, and her father noticed.

“You’re in charge until your grandparents get here.” He gave her a hug. “Take care of your sister.”

Well, of course she was in charge. She was the oldest. Shannon was ten and Allison was six. That wasn’t the point. Her father was fibbing, and Shannon knew it.

“It’s getting dark out,” she said. “How long will you be gone?”

“Not long.”

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Nothing, honey,” her father fibbed again, quickly glancing away. “Your Mom worked a double shift at the hospital, and she says she has to stay a little longer. But I think she should come home now, so I’m going to pick her up. Dashiell can help me convince her.”

He smiled, but Shannon heard the fear in his voice. Her father was scared.

And that terrified her.

“I called your grandparents. They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

Allison piped up. “Can we go play in the secret clubhouse after they get here?”

“No!”

Both girls jumped at the exclamation.

“Sorry,” their father apologized. “I didn’t mean to yell. Daddy’s just tired.”

“Why can’t we go to the woods?” Allison asked.

“We’ll be back before dinner.”

“I don’t want either of you to go outside, okay?”

He offered no further explanation. “And don’t open the door for anybody other than your grandparents. You promise?”

Shannon and Allison nodded in unison. “We promise.”

“Good.” Their father gave Allison a hug and a kiss, and then turned to Shannon.

She hugged him, and before he could pull away, she whispered in his ear, low, so that Allison wouldn’t hear. “Dad, something bad is happening, isn’t it.”

Her father was quiet, and Shannon didn’t think he’d answer. When he did, she had to strain to hear him.

“Yes, sweetie. Something’s happened. Stay inside and don’t answer the door. And don’t turn on the television. It’s better for your sister not to watch.”

Shannon hadn’t planned on TV anyway. There was nothing on but news. Even the Disney Channel and Cartoon Network were showing news reports—something about dead people.

Her father kissed her head, and walked to the car. “Now back inside. And lock the door.”

“I love you, Dad,” Shannon said.

“Me too,” Allison echoed.

“I love you, too.” Their father climbed into the car, backed down the driveway, and waved goodbye.

He didn’t return.

Their grandparents never showed up, either. She was worried about them all, her parents and little brother, her grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. None of them came to the house. But others did. Strangers.

Though they were sisters, Shannon and Allison were best friends. They played games and watched a DVD. Shannon told herself it was to keep Allison’s mind off of things, but deep down inside, she knew it was to keep her own self from thinking about the situation as well.

The Wuller family’s two-story, French country home sat in a subdivision on a big lot, and was spread far apart from the other homes. Shannon and Allison shared an upstairs bedroom. The house had a half basement and a crawl space. The backyard held a pool, Jacuzzi, and outdoor fireplace, and beyond it was a grape vineyard.

“I’m thirsty.” Allison got a bottle of water from the fridge.

“Get me one, too,” Shannon said.

Allison handed her a cold bottle.

Shannon wiped the condensation on her pants.

“I hope Grandma and Grandpa get here soon.”

Her sister didn’t respond. Instead, she stared out the window into the backyard. Shannon’s eyes followed her gaze.

A naked man stepped out of the vineyard and into the yard. As he got closer, Shannon saw that he was covered with dirt and blood. And there was something else wrong with him, too. She couldn’t pinpoint it, though.

Giggling nervously, Allison pointed. “That man doesn’t have any clothes on.”

Shannon’s heart began to pound. “Go to the basement.”

The man passed the pool, and now Shannon saw what was wrong with him. His insides were hanging out of his stomach.

“Get downstairs,” she repeated. “Now!”

Allison seemed frozen. She didn’t respond, just continued pointing, her mouth hanging open. Then the water in the swimming pool splashed, and a woman stood up in it, surprising both the girls and the naked man. The girls screamed.

“Who are they?” Allison’s grip on the water bottle tightened.

“Bad people. Come on. Go to the basement.”

“What about you?”

“I’m going to make sure the doors are locked.”

In the backyard, the woman climbed out of the pool. Her white skin looked like a prune, and her clothing was plastered to her emaciated body. She fell in step with the naked man.

Shannon picked up the phone and dialed 911. She got a recorded message that told her all circuits were busy, and slammed the phone down in frustration.“Stupid phone.”

Allison’s lower lip trembled. “What do they want?”

Shannon didn’t reply. Instead, she grabbed Allison’s arm and dragged her along. Already, a plan was forming in her mind.

The house to the right of theirs, an American Southern, had a never-developed cul-de-sac with woods at its end point. The girls liked to play on the cul-de-sac, and called it the “secret street.” Their topsecret clubhouse was located in the woods beyond the secret street.

Shannon opened the basement door. “Get down there.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to lock the doors. We’ll hide in the basement. If they get into the house, we’ll go through the crawl space and out to the back yard. Then we’ll run to the secret street and hide in our clubhouse before they figure out we’re gone.”

She shut the door behind Allison, and then ran for the front door. As her fingers touched the lock, she heard voices on the other side.

“Is there anyone inside?” A woman’s voice. The one from the pool?

“Only one way to find out. You’ll have to open the door. My arm is broken, and as you can see, the other one is missing.”

The doorknob rattled, and something pounded against the frame.

Turning, Shannon fled for the basement. The pounding continued behind her, and she heard wood splintering. Before she could reach the basement, the front door crashed open. A stench filled the house. Rotting meat. The way the garbage can smelled when her parents hadn’t emptied it for a few days.

Not wanting to lead the intruders to her sister, Shannon ran up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” the naked man croaked. “You’ve got visitors!”

Trying to be as quiet as possible, Shannon ducked into the closet, pulled the door shut behind her, and hid beneath a pile of clothes. There was a loud bang as the intruders knocked something over. Then she heard them start up the stairs. When the foul smell increased, and the soft footsteps padded into her room, Shannon Wuller tried not to scream.

* * *

SO BELOW

(Sisters, Part Two)

The Rising

Day Four

Belleville, Illinois

When she first woke up, Allison Wuller didn’t remember where she was. Her eyes were open, but everything was pitch black. Her aching legs and arms were all scrunched up. She sat up quickly and banged her head.

“Ouch!”

Lying back down, she rubbed her head and waited. She remembered now. She was inside a trunk. She’d hidden inside it when the naked man and the woman opened the basement door. She’d heard them break down the front door, heard them calling out. Their voices were weird—cold and growly, and they stank like poop. Even hiding down here in the basement, she could smell them.

* * *

Allison had waited for Shannon to come back, but she hadn’t. She wondered what had happened to her sister, and tried very hard not to cry. Everybody was gone now. All her family. They probably weren’t coming back. Something bad had happened. And now she was alone in the dark. The zombies (because she knew what they were—she may have been six, but she wasn’t stupid—she knew what zombies looked like) had crashed around upstairs for a long time, before coming down into the basement. Allison had scampered inside the empty trunk and shut the lid just in time. She remained there in the darkness, holding her breath and trying not to move or scream, while they searched the basement.

“I don’t see any life glows,” the naked man said.

“Maybe the house is deserted.”

“There’s a half-full bottle of water,” the woman growled.

“So?”

Allison shut her eyes tight. She’d left her water sitting on top of a box.

“Someone was drinking it,” the woman said.

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know, but they aren’t here. Let’s check the house across the street, the one with the gardens. Maybe we’ll have better luck there.”

And then they were gone. Allison lay there shivering, afraid to come out. She must have fallen asleep after that. She wondered how long it had been. Could they still be out there? Maybe the zombies were playing a trick on her. Maybe they’d known she was hiding in the trunk, and they were upstairs waiting. Allison squeezed her legs together. She had to go to the bathroom—really, really bad. And she couldn’t stay inside this trunk much longer, either. It smelled like mothballs. She listened carefully, but the only sound she heard was her own breathing. Her parents had always called Allison their “little spitfire,” and while she wasn’t sure what it meant, she understood what it implied. It meant not being afraid.

So she did her best to be brave.

Slowly, carefully, Allison opened the lid and peeked out through the crack. The basement was empty.

She climbed out of the trunk and collapsed to the floor. Her legs felt rubbery and weak. She lay there panting, until they felt better. Then she climbed the stairs, put her ear to the door, and listened. The house was quiet.

“Shannon…” Allison bit her lip and tried not to cry.There were no zombies in the living room or kitchen. Allison glanced out the window into the backyard, and shuddered, remembering what they’d seen last night. Then something occurred to her. It was daylight outside. When they’d first seen the zombies, it had been getting dark. Now it was morning again, which meant she’d slept all night inside the trunk.

Allison began to get a bad feeling inside—her parents were never coming home, and the zombies had eaten her sister. She pushed the tears away, trying to be a spitfire, trying to be brave, the way they’d want her to. She wondered what to do next. Should she call 911? Go next door to the neighbor’s house? Or just wait? What if the zombies came back?

While she was trying to decide, she heard a noise from upstairs—a soft, muffled thump.

Allison froze.

The sound was repeated, louder this time. Before she could move, she heard the hiss of a closet door sliding back on its track. Allison couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like it was coming from her and Shannon’s bedroom.

She tried to call out, but her mouth was dry, and she could only whisper.

“Shannon?”

Thump…Thump…Thump…

Footsteps.

Allison licked her lips and took a deep breath. She opened a kitchen drawer and took out one of her mother’s steak knives. Her heart pounded in her chest.

The bedroom door creaked open, and the footsteps crept down the hall. Her eyes glued to the stairs, Allison slowly backed towards the front door.

“Hello?” a voice called out, small and afraid. Allison whimpered. “S-Shannon?”

“Allison? Is that you?”

Allison’s spirits soared. Her sister was alive! She ran to the bottom of the stairs. Shannon stepped out into the light, saw her, and began to cry. The two girls rushed to each other and embraced, crying and shaking.

“I thought the zombies got you,” Allison sobbed.

“I thought you were dead.”

“I thought they got you, too. I hid upstairs, in the closet. I must have fallen asleep. What about you?”

“I hid in Daddy’s old trunk, down in the basement. I fell asleep, too.”

They straightened up and wiped their eyes. Allison grinned. “I’ve really got to pee.”

“Me, too,” Shannon laughed. “Oldest goes first.”

Allison scampered up the stairs behind her. “Not fair!”

When they were finished, Allison asked, “What do we do now?”

Shannon thought about it for a moment. “Let’s get all the food and water we can carry, and some books and games, and we’ll go hide in our clubhouse.”

“But won’t the zombies find us there?”

Shannon shook her head. “How could they? It’s a secret. We’re the only ones that know about it.”

They made their preparations, and then, when they were done, the two sisters walked hand-inhand down the secret street. The sun climbed high into the sky and shined down upon them. Then they disappeared into the shadows of the woods, to a good, secret place, where neither light nor darkness could find them.

* * *

LAST CHANCE FOR LA CHANCE

The Rising

Day Five

Baltimore-Washington International Airport,

Baltimore, Maryland

Jamie La Chance groaned amidst the chaos.

“What do you mean the flight was cancelled?”

He slammed his palm down on the counter in frustration. “This is the third time you people have done this! It’s ridiculous!”

The girl behind the counter bit her lip and stared at the computer monitor, refusing to meet his eye.

“All flights have been grounded, sir. Nationwide—by order of the President. Nobody can fly right now.”

“But I’ve been here all night! I have to get home—back to California…”

“There’s nothing I can do, sir. I’m sorry.”

The guy behind Jamie shouldered his way forward. He stank of sour sweat and cigarette smoke.

“Where can we catch a train?” he demanded.

“This is bullshit.”

The woman didn’t look at him either. “All trains have been stopped as well. Nothing is running. The President just declared martial law a few minutes ago, and the country is now under a national state of emergency. There’s—”

A commotion broke out three counters down from them, as a wild-eyed young man vaulted over the counter and shoved a ticket agent out of the way. He grabbed the computer monitor and shook it.

“I’ve got to get home,” he snarled. “You don’t understand! My wife is pregnant!”

Jamie watched as the fallen woman rose to her knees. The young man reached down and grasped her hair, clenching it in his fist.

“I need to get home,” he screamed. “Tell me how, god damn it!”

Around them, a few bystanders watched the scene unfold, but no one stepped forward to intervene. More people ran by, screaming at each other, shouting into cell phones, or just looking generally dazed.

Earlier, after the first cancelled flight, when Jamie was stretched out in a hard, plastic chair and trying unsuccessfully to sleep, somebody had mentioned that the world was ending. He’d scoffed. But now he thought they might be right. The crazed man picked up the computer keyboard and slammed it over the ticket agent’s head. Blood flowed. Several people screamed. A few ran away. But most just watched, as if it were a movie or a play.

Jamie wanted to help her; he felt compelled to. But his feet remained rooted to the floor. He could only stare as a National Guardsman finally materialized from the crowd and, without one word of warning, raised his rifle, sighted, and then squeezed the trigger. The attacker’s head splattered against the wall. A moment later, his lifeless body tottered over.A woman standing next to Jamie fainted. Her newspaper fluttered across his feet and he glanced down at the headline. MASS HYSTERIA GRIPS NATION. THE DEAD WALK. BIO-TERROR NOT RULED OUT. Martial law. State of emergency. He needed to call home, needed to check on Joann and his kids, Travis and Leslie, as well as their families. His cell phone battery had died during his extended stay here at the airport. He glanced around in desperation and spied a bank of pay phones. Jamie pushed his way through the crowd, and waited ten minutes for a phone to become free. He had to elbow a fellow traveler out of the way when the man tried to step in front of him. He brought the phone to his ear and heard a dial tone. He pulled out his credit card and dialed his home in Rowland Heights, California. There was a pause, and a series of electronic crackles, but that was it. There was no ring, no answer. Just silence.

“Damn.”

He tried again, and got the same thing. Then he dialed Travis in Buena Park, California, and was greeted with more dead air. Calling Leslie and her husband, Martin, at their new home in Nampa, Idaho. This time, he got a recorded voice that told him all circuits were busy.

Frustrated, he slammed the phone back onto its cradle. His ears began to ring, and his skin felt flushed. Heart attack? Panic attack? He didn’t know but he realized that he needed to calm down. He’d never get home if he were hospitalized here in Baltimore.

The fear in the air increased, becoming almost tangible. Somewhere, a woman began to shriek. Jamie forced his way through the masses again, and exited the airport. He stood on the sidewalk, breathing in car exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and tried to think.

A taxi sat next to the curb, the driver slumped backward in the seat, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly parted. Maybe he could get a ride to a friend’s home—he had several that lived in the Baltimore area.

Jamie banged on the taxi’s window, and slowly, the driver opened his eyes.

“You in service?” Jamie asked.

The driver grinned, flashing yellowed teeth. He turned slightly, and unlocked the back door. Jamie hopped in, and closed the door behind him.“How much to take me to Cockeysville?”

The driver paused, considering the request.

“That’s a forty-five minute drive. And everything else is shut down. I can get you there for fifty bucks.”

Jamie grimaced. The cabbie’s voice sounded odd, gravelly. And now that he was inside, he noticed the man’s skin pallor, a sickly, pale color.

“Sounds like you’re my last chance to get out of here. Fifty is fine.”

The cabbie grunted, and pulled away from the curb.

“Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” Jamie offered, feeling guilty for waking him.

“Not at all,” the driver hissed. “My host had just suffered a heart attack, and I was still taking stock of his memories. You’re my first customer of the day.”

“What?”

The driver pulled into the parking garage, and turned off the engine.

“Hey,” Jamie protested, his skin beginning to crawl. “What are you doing?”

“Freeing up your body, so that one of my brothers can inhabit it.”

“What—”

Without another word, the cabbie crawled into the backseat and fell upon him.

* * *

WATCHING THE WORLD END

The Rising

Day Six

Snyder, Oklahoma

Wolf Blitzer told William King that the following footage was going to be graphic, but Will had seen it all before, so he changed channels. He clicked to MSNBC, but they were still off the air, and Fox News was re-running the same footage as CNN. In it, the Secretary of State was giving a press briefing, sweating profusely and looking nervous, assuring the assembled reporters that the President, Vice President, and cabinet members were all fine, and that the crisis was passing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would soon have it under control, and everything would return to normal. Until then, martial law would remain in effect as a cautionary measure.

The Secretary of State mopped his brow, called upon another reporter, and then, suddenly, all hell broke loose. The President darted onto the stage from somewhere off-camera, and sank his teeth into the Secretary of State’s arm. He chewed through the immaculate, tailored suit and came away with a mouthful of flesh. The Secretary of State screamed, the reporters shrieked, and then the President looked at the camera and unleashed a string of obscenities—all of which the media were beeping out. A Secret Service agent pulled his weapon and pointed it at the President, and then a second agent shot the first. Gunfire and chaos erupted in the room, and the screen faded to static, as Fox News joined the leagues of those no longer broadcasting. So Will clicked back to CNN and Wolf Blitzer. What else was there to do? He’d decided yesterday, after he’d killed his mother, Carol, and his sister, Pari. They hadn’t shown any signs of infection yet, but how could he be sure? He’d made the choice. He was going to sit here and watch the world end, via satellite, on his 20-inch television. Snyder was Will’s home away from home. Here, they called him Will, rather than William, which was what they called him back in Portland. The threebedroom rancher sat on the outskirts of town. It was easy to defend, surrounded by plowed fields and rural countryside. The two-car garage had been converted to a den, and after dispatching his mother and sister, Will had barricaded himself inside the den, constructing a plywood and cinder block wall between it and the rest of the house. He’d brought along a rifle, food and water, a first aid kit, and his cats—Hunter, Boo, and Ally.

He reached down and scratched Hunter behind the ears. The gray tabby arched its back in appreciation. Perched on the shelf, Ally looked at him reproachfully.

“What kind of a name is Wolf Blitzer, anyway?”

Will asked the cats.

Hunter purred in agreement, Boo continued napping, and Ally kept staring at him.

“I’m not crazy,” he told her. “So quit looking at me. They could have been infected. The news said that it might have been caused by biological or chemical warfare. Or some kind of virus.”

Ally didn’t blink, and Will tried to read the small calico’s mind.

Yes, it could have been those things. But the news said it could also be government testing, alien invasion, the Second Coming of Christ, and radiation from a meteor.

“That’s ridiculous,” Will insisted, and sipped warm beer from a can. “There’s no such thing as aliens. This was obviously some kind of contaminant.”

He grabbed the remote and flicked through the dwindling number of channels that remained on the air—surfing chaos. In Pennsylvania, a National Guard Colonel named Schow had reportedly ordered the death of civilians by firing squad. They were accused of looting. In Baltimore, zombies overran the entire airport. The Reverend Pat Robertson had committed suicide, believing that the Rapture had occurred and he’d missed it. In China, the dead had seized control of a nuclear reactor and intentionally caused it to meltdown. Chicago was on fire. The military had retreated from New York City after losing control.

“And this just in,” Wolf Blitzer told him as he returned to CNN. “You’re looking at footage from the London Zoo, where The Rising, as it’s come to be called, is also affecting the animals. This thirty-year old elephant died just an hour ago, and now it seems to be infected by the same symptoms as—”

Will froze.

“My apologies,” Wolf Blitzer told the camera. He looked scared. “There seems to be a disturbance outside the studio. As you know, we’re broadcasting from Atlanta, rather than New York, and—”

There was an explosion and the anchorman’s throat exploded in a wet, red spray. A black-gloved hand appeared, blocking the camera. A voice shouted, “Turn it off! Turn it off now! We’re shutting you down!”

There was another gunshot, and then the picture dissolved into snow.

He changed channels, and found the local news broadcast. A county official was wringing his hands, pleading for the populace to remain calm. The reporter laughed at him, but the official continued. But Will wasn’t paying attention. He was still thinking about the zoo—and the zombie elephant.

“The animals, too.”

He stopped scratching Hunter, and picked up the rifle. Ally didn’t move. She cocked her head and continued staring.

Will didn’t meet her eyes when he pulled the trigger.

The blast frightened Hunter and woke up Boo. Both cats scrambled for cover, howling and spitting. Will reloaded and then finished the job, shooting each of them in the head, just as he’d done his mother and sister.

Then he stood panting in the middle of the floor, tears streaming down his face.

“I’m not crazy. I’M NOT FUCKING CRAZY!”

Clutching the rifle by its still smoking barrel, he collapsed into the recliner.

“They could have been infected,” he muttered.

“What else was I supposed to do? I’m not crazy.”

The man on the television agreed with him.

“I’m not crazy,” the official snarled at the jeering reporter. “None of us are safe. There’s no rhyme or reason. Any one of us can become one of these things. And sooner or later, we all will. Sooner or later, we all have to die.”

Will blinked. The guy was right. Despite what he’d done, he still wasn’t safe, not even here, barricaded inside the den. He could become one. Eventually, he would.

So he put the rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger, while the world ended on the television screen.

With the gunshot still echoing inside the garage, the power went out and the screen faded to black.

THE FALL OF ROME

The Rising

Day Seven

Rome, Georgia

Eddie Coulter watched the fall of Rome from inside a little room at the top of the 104-foot Tower Clock. The stone structure sat atop a hill just east of the city’s downtown district, giving Eddie a clear view of the atrocities below.

The street was littered with body parts, and the gutters ran with blood.

He wondered if he should consider himself lucky to be alive, or cursed because he wasn’t dead yet. Of course, if he were dead, then he’d be a zombie. Eddie wondered if they knew—remembered—who they’d been.

The soft strains of Pink Floyd’s “Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Part One)” drifted from the headphones hanging around Eddie’s neck. The headphones were connected to an iPod that had belonged to a Hispanic guy. Eddie didn’t know his name. Didn’t know anything about him at all, other than he’d apparently liked Pink Floyd, since it was the only thing on the iPod. The Hispanic guy hadn’t been able to speak, because a zombie had bitten his tongue in half. He’d reached the Tower Clock, and Eddie sheltered him, tried to make him comfortable. When he finally bled to death, Eddie dropped the body from the top of the tower before he could wake up again. But the Hispanic guy didn’t land on his head. Sure enough, he rose again, and crawled away on shattered legs in search of prey.

Eddie didn’t put the headphones in his ears. He wanted to be able to hear if the creatures found their way inside the Tower Clock. He wished he could, though. He needed something to drown out the screams from below.

“Remember when you were young?” Roger Waters asked him. “You shone like the sun.”

Eddie did indeed remember when he was young. Hell, he was still young. Too young to die. But maybe too scared to go on living? He wasn’t sure yet.He picked up the sniper rifle, poked the barrel through the window, and sighted with the scope. A zombie staggered by an antique store. Its arms were missing. Eddie squeezed the trigger. The rifle jerked against his shoulder. The explosion drowned out Pink Floyd, and smoke filled the room. The store’s display window shattered, and the zombie crouched down. Eddie fired again. The bullet made a small hole in the back of the zombie’s head, and its face exploded. The creature crumpled to the sidewalk.

Eddie grinned. He didn’t know what type of gun this was, but he liked it. He’d gotten the rifle three days ago, during the siege at the hardware store. A burly man in a straw hat showed him how to use it. Three seconds later, a corpse clambered over the sandbag barricade and stabbed the man in the eye with a knitting needle. Eddie shot the zombie, and then shot the man who’d given him the rifle. Rome was located 65 miles northeast of Atlanta, and had a population of roughly 80,000 people. Three rivers, the Etowah, Oostanaula, and Coosa, surrounded the city’s historic downtown district. The townspeople had tried to make their stand there, cutting off all bridges and roads crossing the rivers, and blockading the streets and buildings. It hadn’t helped. The creatures raided the area’s two National Guard Armories, and then attacked the fortifications with heavy weapons and artillery. Now, as Eddie watched through the scope, a group of zombies drove by in a commandeered halftrack. A pimply-faced teenager in a Slipknot shirt darted from an alleyway next to the post office and tossed a Molotov cocktail at them. It exploded in front of the vehicle, but the creatures paid it no mind. They opened fire with a mounted fifty-caliber. The kid’s body jittered and danced as the rounds punched through him. Then he collapsed. The halftrack rolled on. A few minutes later, the teenager got up again, trailing blood and pieces of his insides. Eddie put him back down with another shot. Located in the middle of the Bible belt, Rome had an overabundance of churches, but God had deserted his people. God was gone. He’d left no forwarding address, and His answering machine was on the fritz.

But that was okay. From his vantage point, Eddie felt like God, looking down upon Creation. Or Hell.

Yeah, definitely Hell.

He could see it all.

Myrtle Hill Cemetery sat on a large hill to the north, just across the Etowah River. It dated back to the Civil War, but the recently deceased would no longer find peace there. Instead, they hammered through their coffins and crawled from the dirt to join their brethren.

The fighting spread to every street, every alleyway, every building. Fighting? More like a massacre. At Berry College, the zombies lined up captured humans like livestock, and cut their throats one by one. Several blocks away, a group of survivors fought a running gun battle with their dead loved ones. Police headquarters was on fire, and the flames were spreading. A pack of undead dogs ripped an infant from a fleeing mother’s arms, and tore it apart. A zombie shot the mother in the back, and then fell upon her.

Rome had survived General Sherman’s march, and the great flood of 1886, but it hadn’t survived The Rising.

Some determined good old boys sped down the main thoroughfare in a camper-covered pick-up. They made it two blocks before the zombies rammed them with a dump truck. Eddie watched as the rednecks were pulled from the vehicle and devoured. He picked one off just as a zombie’s yellow teeth bit into his throat.

So far, the zombies hadn’t discovered him. He’d remained hidden, masked beneath the fighting in the streets, the chaos and screaming and gunshots and dying. Eddie wondered what he’d do when they did find his location, and then decided it didn’t matter. Instead, he pulled the trigger and watched rotting brains splatter across the brick wall of a clothing store.

A large group of corpses gathered around the convenience store. Eddie wondered if there was somebody trapped inside. He lined the crosshairs up with the large propane tank in the store’s parking lot, and squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell but there was no kick, no explosion.

“Shit. Empty.”

The fires spread, engulfing the downtown district, and creeping closer to the Tower Clock. The smoke curled through the window, and Eddie coughed. When he looked up, an undead sparrow sat on the window ledge, staring at him with one remaining eye. A maggot fell from the empty socket. Spinning the rifle in his hands, Eddie swung the weapon like a club. The bird darted out of the way, and the wooden stock splintered on the hard stone windowsill. The impact sent shockwaves up his arms. The zombie bird zipped forward and pecked at his hand, drawing blood.

“Fucker!”

Eddie swatted at the zombie, but it flew away, vanishing into the smoke.

He went to the window.

The flames licked at the edges of the hill. The fire would reach the Tower Clock soon. But he was okay. Stone couldn’t burn, could it?

He looked out over his town. The zombies stared back at him, pointing and shouting. The bird. It must have told the rest of them. Now they knew where he was.Heedless of the flames, the undead began converging on his location, encircling the Tower Clock. Eddie glanced down at the broken, empty rifle, then back to the zombies.

Sighing, he leaned out, looking straight down. He put the headphones in his ears and let Pink Floyd take him away.

Then he leaned out further, and kept leaning until his feet left the floor.

Eddie’s fall was quicker than Rome’s.

WALKABOUT

(Part One)

The Rising

Day Eight

Melbourne, Australia

Leigh Haig opened the blinds a fraction of an inch and peeked out the window. The bright sun dominated the blue, mid-morning sky. A flock of birds wheeled overhead, surfing the breeze. Leigh wondered if they were still alive. On the couch, Penny asked, “What are you doing? They’ll see you.”

“Beautiful day outside,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the smell.”

The stench had gotten bad overnight, as more and more of Melbourne’s population joined the dead. Stinking, rotting corpses ran amok in the streets, leaking fluids and shedding unwanted body parts. The gutters were thick with offal. Between the smell and the screams, it was a wonder they’d slept at all.

He stepped away from the window.

Penny coughed, then moaned. “It’s the end of the world.”

“Good day for it,” Leigh said with a smile, trying to make her laugh.

She did, but the grin that crossed her face was a ghost of its former self. Her skin was gaunt and pale, her forehead coated with glistening sweat. Her weak laughter transformed into another bout of coughing. It was funny, Leigh thought. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were dying outside, slaughtered by the zombies, shot, slashed, stabbed—eaten. But here, inside the brick, two-story home they shared, Penny was dying of the flu. She’d come down with it a day before the first news reports started. With no access to medical help her fever spiked and her condition deteriorated in sync with the fall of civilization.

At first, it had seemed like an American problem, (as many things on the news were these days), reports of sudden outbreaks of violence and mass murder. Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New York. Then came the footage. The dead walked, talked, and killed. And not just in the States, either. It was a global event; and within two hours, the epidemic was in Australia as well. The first reported case was in Coober Pedy, and the second in Sydney. Then a dozen more. After that, he lost count.

The cities became war zones, then cemeteries. The madness spread across the world. Military forces turned renegade. Nuclear reactors melted down. Anarchy was the norm. Bullets were currency. Chaos ruled. And in the space of seven days, Western civilization collapsed. The British Parliament fell first, followed by the Russian and American governments. Leigh wasn’t sure about Australia’s leaders. The power in Melbourne went out on the third day, and neither of them had ventured outside since.

Penny stopped wheezing, and Leigh assumed she’d fallen asleep. Suddenly, she began to thrash on the couch, clawing her throat. Penny’s eyes bulged. Leigh ran to her side.

“Breathe, Penny. Breathe!” He sat her up and pounded on her back. A wad of yellow phlegm the size of a golf ball splattered onto the floor. Gasping, Penny sank back down onto the cushions.

“You okay?” Leigh asked.

She nodded, scratching her throat. When she spoke, her voice trembled. “Cold…it’s so cold in here.”

Leigh felt her forehead. His hand came away slick with perspiration. She was burning up, the fever spiking again.

“You need help,” he muttered. “Medicine.”

“No.” She clasped his hand and squeezed. “We can’t go outside. You know that. We’ve seen—”

Penny broke off into another fit of coughing. Frowning, Leigh fetched a washcloth and ran it under cold water. Then he came back, knelt beside Penny, and mopped her face.

“They’ll fix it soon,” he promised. “The army or the police. You’ll see. They’ll ride in, just like the cavalry.”

She touched his face with her fingertips. “I love you.”

“I love you, too. Now rest.”

She nodded, then closed her eyes and drifted off to sleep. Leigh envied her. Though physically and mentally exhausted, he couldn’t sleep. Every time he tried, he heard the screams outside. And the gunshots.

And smelled the dead.

On the fourth day, a zombie came to their door. It knocked, politely at first, but then insistent. When Leigh and Penny didn’t answer, it broke into the house. They’d killed it with a kitchen knife, jamming the blade through the creature’s ear and into its brain. While disposing of the corpse, Leigh noticed that the zombies were marking houses. A bright red X spray-painted on the front doors meant that no living creatures were left inside. He’d painted their own door immediately, and since then, they’d been left alone.

Alive.

As long as they didn’t go outside.

But if they stayed inside much longer, Penny would die anyway.

Leigh Haig didn’t feel very brave. He felt scared, and sick with worry for his wife. He wasn’t an action hero. He and Penny worked in the IT department for Hewlett-Packard. If this were a book or a film, he’d brandish a shotgun and go searching for help. But this wasn’t a book, and they weren’t fictional characters. He and Penny were real. The creatures outside were real.

The danger was real.

He glanced back down at Penny. Her breathing was shallow, her expression frozen in a grimace. He had to try.

The closest drug store, located at the Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre, was two kilometers away. Surely he could make it that far. They’d have medicine there, if the looters hadn’t cleaned it out. And if he needed to, perhaps he could even make it as far as the Box Hill Hospital. Find a doctor or a nurse. Antibiotics. It was only ten kilometers. When he looked at his sleeping wife, and felt his love for her stirring in his breast, that didn’t seem far at all. He could do it. He had to do it. Leigh searched the house for weapons, and found a wooden mallet and two long, sharp kitchen knives. They’d have to do. He embedded the blades into each side of the mallet, fashioning a crude but effective double-edged axe, and swung it to test the weight.

“Fucking Conan.” He grinned. “Have at thee, dogs!”

He whirled the weapon over his head, and accidentally hit the lamp.

“Shit.”

On the couch, Penny stirred, mumbled, and then went back to sleep.

He went to the window and peeked outside. An undead cat lay twitching in the road, unable to move. Its spine had been crushed and a fresh tire tread stood out in its burst stomach. There were no other zombies in sight. The flock of birds, living or dead, had vanished.

Leigh considered his options. He could sneak into the garage and drive his Honda Integra to the drug store. After a moment, he decided against it. Not only would the engine’s noise wake Penny, but also, it would draw more attention from the things outside. Better to go on foot, stealthily, moving from one hiding place to another. It would be easier to avoid detection that way.

Leigh wrote a note to Penny, and laid it on the table next to the sofa. He kissed her forehead, and whispered softly in her ear.

“I love you. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”

Then, taking one last look out the window to make sure the coast was clear, he unlocked the door and crept outside.

The street was quiet.

“I promise. An hour. Maybe less. Just like nipping off for some smokes or the newspaper.”

Gripping his weapon with both hands, Leigh Haig took a walk through Hell.

* * *

HELLHOUNDS ON MY TRAIL

The Rising

Day Nine

King’s Lynn, England

It wasn’t a good plan. He knew that. But it wasn’t an awful plan either. In fact, it wasn’t so much a plan as it was a final option. Reach the Boal Quay docks without getting killed or eaten, steal a fishing boat, and be well away from land before dark. The docks were three miles from the Queen Elizabeth hospital, where they both worked. Going on foot would take just over an hour. It would be tough with those things outside, but what choice was there? They had to try.

Before they left, Jason Houghton wished (and not for the first time) for a gun. Nothing fancy, just something to even the odds a bit. It wasn’t that guns were non-existent in England. They weren’t. But you had to know somebody who could get you one, and he hadn’t. He was a hospital computer system administrator, not a criminal or a soldier. Even if they reached Boal Quay, neither of them had any idea how to pilot a boat, but they’d learn fast. Hopefully. Still, the open sea was better than staying here. King’s Lynn (or just “Lynn” as the locals called it), located on England’s east coast, was a historic port town with a population of just over 36,000 souls. Now, most of those souls had departed, and something else had taken up residence inside their bodies.

They’d left the hospital fifteen minutes ago. Catherine, his girlfriend of nearly ten years, was armed with a meat cleaver from the hospital’s cafeteria, and Jason carried a makeshift propane bottle blowtorch.

The hellhounds had followed them every step of the way.

Jason had encountered plenty of zombies in the last nine days. The first, on day two of what society called “The Rising,” had emerged from a restroom stall when Jason was at the cinema. He hadn’t even realized it was dead at the time. The fat bastard suffered a heart attack while sitting on the bog. Then he’d tried to eat Jason and another patron. Since then, he’d seen hundreds more. But nothing like what cornered them now.

Jason froze, but his pulse raced. Catherine squeezed his hand. Her nails dug into his flesh, but Jason barely felt it.

The largest of the pack, a mix of Labrador, Beagle, and Rottweiler, stepped forward and growled. A tag around its collar indicated that the dog’s name was Sam. Despite his terror, Jason almost laughed. Sam wasn’t what you named an attack dog. They had proper names like Killer or Lucifer. Sam was what you named a good dog. Perhaps a timid dog, the type to inch towards a stranger with its tail tucked firmly between its quivering legs and ears hanging down, to offer their outstretched hand a timid lick. Now, in death, it was the fiercest of the lot, and would quickly tear off any hand offered its way.

“Good dog,” he stammered. “Hello, Sam. There’s a nice dog.”

The feral zombie growled again, and Jason swore that it was trying to speak. As if there were words in some strange language hidden between the growls. The pack inched closer. Jason considered his blowtorch, but they’d be on him in the time it took to light it.

The wind shifted, and the stench from the rotting dogs filled their noses.

“Oh God.” Catherine squeezed his hand tighter, drawing blood.

Sam tensed, its haunches flexing beneath gorestained fur. The other twelve dogs in the pack growled in unison.

Jason tensed. “Catherine—”

The zombie leaped, trailing a length of purple intestine behind it.

“Run!”

Jason shoved Catherine forward, not daring to look over his shoulder. The dog panted behind him, the harsh, ragged breathing sounding like a steam engine. The rest of the pack followed its lead. Their untrimmed nails clicked on the pavement, nipping at his heels.

If we trip, Jason thought, we’re done for.

“The torch,” Catherine gasped. “Use it!”

“No time. Keep running!”

They dashed from the alley and into the street, weaving their way around wrecked and abandoned vehicles. The dogs pursued them.

“High ground,” Jason shouted. “We need to find higher ground. Some place where they can’t climb.”

Catherine darted towards a parked doubledecker tour bus, and scrambled up over the hood. Jason followed her. The steel buckled under their feet. They huddled together on the roof as the barking pack surrounded the vehicle. One of the dogs tried to leap onto the hood, but it slipped back off. Its claws screeched across the metal like nails on a chalkboard.

Jason’s throat burned. He tried to work up some saliva so that he could talk.

“What—what now?” Catherine gasped.

“I don’t know.”

“Can they get up here?”

“I don’t think so. We’re safe.” Even as he said it, he had to suppress a laugh.

The dogs attempted a few more leaps, and then gave up in frustration. The leader of the pack raised its snout and howled. Then the other dogs joined it. Catherine sat the meat cleaver aside and put her hands over her ears. “Make them stop!”

But they didn’t stop. The hellish cacophony grew louder and more frantic. Soon, the dog’s cries were answered. A dozen human zombies appeared from different buildings along the street. Some carried weapons. Others barely carried themselves. One particularly ripe cadaver had been split open from groin to neck, and its insides were a yawning, empty cavity. Jason wondered how it continued to function. The creatures crept closer, their stench reaching the trapped couple before the zombies did. They surrounded the lorry.

One of the zombies smiled, revealing blackened nubs of broken teeth. “Why not make this easy on yourselves? Come down.”

Catherine screamed, and Jason bit his tongue to keep from doing the same.

“Yes,” agreed another, ignoring Catherine. “We’ll make it quick if you surrender. You won’t feel a thing.”

“Wh-what?” Jason stammered.

“It’s very simple,” the first zombie sighed. “Climb down, and we’ll kill you quickly.”

“Or,” said another, “we can climb up after you, and slowly tear you to shreds. Which do you prefer?”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw more of the creatures approaching. The street was alive with the dead. The dogs were growing restless.

“Hellhounds on our trail. Just like Robert Johnson.” Jason was a big fan of pre-war American Blues.

He reached out, took Catherine’s hand, and gave her a gentle squeeze. Then he grinned.

“What then?” he asked the creatures.

The lead zombie frowned. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, if we accept—if we let you kill us quickly—what will you do with us after?”

“Your bodies will house our brothers. There are many of us waiting on the other side. Our number is more than infinity.”

Catherine stared at Jason, her mouth hanging open. Jason winked at her.

“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed.

“We’d prefer not to be eaten,” Jason told the corpses. “Is that possible?”

Catherine gasped. “Now look—”

The zombie interrupted her. “Those terms are acceptable. We just devoured a jeweler’s family earlier. But our brothers need your bodies. Come down.”

“No,” Jason said. “I’ll do it from up here. You get the bodies when I’m finished.”

“Bollocks,” the zombie snapped. “We’ll do it.”

“I’ll do it, or we’ll sit up here all day.”

“Then we’ll bloody well come up after you.”

Another zombie pulled the first aside. “Ob’s orders were to—”

“Ob’s not here, is he? He’s on the other side of this miserable planet.”

As they argued, Jason leaned over to Catherine and whispered in her ear. Her eyes grew wide as she listened. She shook her head.

“Catherine, it’s the only way.”

“No, I won’t!”

“I love you,” he said, and he meant it. He’d never meant it more than he did now.

He turned on the propane bottle and picked up the cleaver. The gas hissed.

One of the zombies spotted him and cried an alarm. The rest turned their attention back to their prey.Before they could reach him, Jason swung the cleaver, splitting Catherine’s head in half. Then he struck the match. The propane bottle exploded. Both of them were incinerated within seconds. Their souls were free, as were their bodies. The wind scattered their ashes, and as it whistled over the rooftops, it sounded very much like two voices, whispering of undying love…

* * *

SPOILERS

The Rising

Day Ten

Columbus, Ohio

After five days, the creature’s skin looked like a greasy, bloated sausage casing. The zombie was tied to the chair, and its flesh was swollen around the ropes, rupturing and leaking a stew of toxic juices. Mike replaced the rope with heavy stainless steel chains and padlocks instead.

Mike Goffee lived on the south side of downtown Columbus in a two-story house with ugly yellow siding. The home was in need of repairs, but he wasn’t much of a maintenance person. The front porch and back deck both leaned, and the garage needed painting. He’d been in no hurry to do it. Single, he lived alone, except for his cat. Five days ago, the cat got loose, jumping over the fence in the backyard. Mike hadn’t looked for it, because even then, it was dangerous to go outside. But that night, the cat came back—dead. And it brought company, a human zombie. Both had immediately attacked him. Mike crushed the cat’s head by dropping the microwave on it, and then pushed the refrigerator over on the other zombie, pinning it to the floor. Then, before it could free itself, he’d hacked its legs off at the knees and its arms at the elbows, and tied it to the chair in the living room—a captive audience.

If someone had been around to ask him why he’d done it, Mike wouldn’t have had an answer. Certainly, he’d never done something like this before The Rising started. He wasn’t sure why he did it now.

He guessed that he was just lonely.

Mike recognized the zombie as one of his former neighbors. He’d never known the man’s name, never talked to him while he was living. Just the occasional head nod from over the fence. But he talked to him now. Talked to him every day. Mike scratched himself through his dirty jeans. The power was off and he couldn’t do laundry, and even before The Rising had started, he was down to his last clean pair.

Something ruptured inside the zombie and foul black sludge dripped from its nose.

“Whew!” Mike fanned his nose and reached for the can of air freshener.

“This body is rapidly decomposing.” The zombie struggled against the chains. “Free me, so that I may find another.”

Mike shook his head and sprayed a cloud of air freshener. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”

“We’ve been over this,” the zombie reasoned. “It does you no good to keep me captive like this. What’s the point? You don’t ask me for information on the Siqqusim, to determine how to destroy us. You don’t do anything—except talk about movies and books.”

Mike sat the can down and gestured around the living room. The shelves overflowed with books, records, DVDs, CDs, and videos. “Well, as you can see, I like to read and watch films. Don’t you?”

The zombie sighed. “How many times must I tell you? I am merely borrowing this shell. My host liked to hunt and fish. He never read a book after high school, and he only watched action movies.”

“I enjoy old foreign and independent films, mostly,” Mike said, ignoring the comment. “I used to go down to the Drexel and the Wexner Center to see them. Books, too. Usually, whatever wasn’t popular. Mystery, horror, non-fiction. Whatever.”

“Fascinating.” The corpse rolled its one remaining eye. Mike sprayed some more air freshener. “No need to be sarcastic.”

“Eons spent in the Void, and I am freed only to discuss obscure pop culture with the likes of you.”

Mike shrugged. “It’s not so bad, is it?”

The zombie spat out a broken, yellowed tooth.

“Please, human. I’m begging you, something that the rest of my brothers would ostracize me for doing, if they saw it. Kill me. Dispatch me back to the Void, so that I may get a new body. Shoot me!”

“I hate guns.”

“Then crack my skull open and scoop out the brains! Burn me to ashes. Drill through my head. I don’t care how you do it. Just kill me!”

“And miss all this great conversation?” Mike chuckled. “No. Afraid not. Your predicament reminds me of a good book, though. Cold As Ice by Adam Senft. Did you ever read it?”

“I told you—”

“He was a mystery writer. Went insane a few years ago. Didn’t get popular until after he’d killed his wife.”

“Death? Now you have my interest, human.”

“Anyway, the book was about these two guys—lovers. They’d been partners for over thirty years. Then, one of them got cancer. It was terminal, but slow. I remember the character described it as creeping death.”

“There is a demon known to me that has the same name,” the zombie said.

“So the guy is dying of cancer. It’s bad. Ravaging his body, just eating through him until there’s nothing left. He’s in a great deal of pain.”

The zombie grinned. “Sounds beautiful.”

“It’s horrible,” Mike argued. “It was really brutal and sad, the way the author wrote it.”

“Did this character linger with this pain?”

“Yes, he did. And that’s why this situation reminds me of the book. He keeps begging his partner to kill him. To put him out of his misery.”

“And does he?”

Before Mike could answer, there was a loud crack. Splinters of wood exploded from the front door as an axe head battered through it. He dropped the can of air freshener and screamed. A chainsaw stuttered, then roared to life. Within seconds, the front door was gone and four zombies rushed into the room. They shot Mike in the back as he ran for the back door. He tried to crawl away, but his legs didn’t work anymore. Then the creatures fell upon him and slit his throat.

“You’re free,” shouted one as it cut through the chains binding its brother to the chair.

“It’s about time.” The zombie tried to stand, but fell to the floor. More fluid drained from its body.

“He’s had me trapped here for the last five days.”

“That’s not long, considering how long we’ve been imprisoned inside the Void.”

“No, it’s not. But the indignity of it all is what really angered me.”

“Come, brother. Let’s go hunt some more.” The zombie with the chainsaw started towards the damaged front door. “Or would you prefer we destroy your current form so that you can find a more mobile body?”

The freed zombie scuttled forward on its bloody stumps, then pointed at Mike’s corpse. “Wait until one of our brothers has inhabited his shell.”

“Why? There is much to be done.”

“He was telling me about a book, before he died. Once his body has been possessed by one of our kind, I want to know how the book ends.”

* * *

THE MAN COMES AROUND

The Rising

Day Eleven

Fort Bragg, California

Terry Tidwell sat in the darkness, drinking a warm can of Foster’s Lager and listening to the dead outside. Woody, his Jack Russell Terrier, growled at his feet, ears cocked. Woody didn’t like zombies. Especially the seal.

Five days ago, a bloated bull seal lumbered into the driveway, chasing after a still-living cat. The sounds it made were horrific, and the sounds the cat made as the creature slaughtered it were even worse. Woody started barking. Terry had tried to quiet him, but he kept growling and scratching at the door. The seal turned its dead, black eyes toward the house, attracted by the noise. Then it alerted the other zombies in the area, and soon the house was surrounded.

* * *

Woody didn’t bark anymore. He’d figured out that it had no effect on the zombies, and was content now to merely growl. But it didn’t matter. The creatures already knew they were alive and inside the house, and the zombies had the patience of death. Terry and Woody were under siege.

It was pitch black. Terry knew better than to light even a single candle. The power had been out for days, and the food in the fridge was starting to spoil, enough that the kitchen smelled like the zombies. But he still had plenty of beer, canned goods, and dog food. Water was going to be a problem if they stayed trapped in here much longer, but they’d make due. Terry had taken to pissing in empty beer cans, so that the toilet water would remain untainted. He’d drink from the commode if he had to. Why not? Woody did it all the time.

“But we’ll go stir crazy,” he said out loud. “We need to get outside, sooner or later.”

Woody gave Terry a look, as if to say, “Surely you jest, master. I’ve grown quite accustomed to you letting me shit in the spare bedroom this last week and a half. I don’t need to go outside to pee anymore.”

“Don’t give me that look,” Terry scolded.

“Eventually, we’ll run out of food. And beer.”

Woody’s ears perked up and he tilted his head. His master had now mentioned two of his favorite things—outside and food. He flipped his tail cautiously. Terry rubbed the stubble on his face. “Wonder if we can make a break for it?”

Holding the beer in one hand and picking up his old .30-30 rifle with the other, Terry crept to the window. He edged open the blinds with his beer hand, and peeked through a crack in the plywood that he’d nailed over the windows. The moon was full, and he could see clearly. His lawn looked like a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds. Hundreds of zombies, mostly seagulls and crows, perched on the treetops and phone wires and scurried across the grass, waiting patiently for Woody and Terry. The stench from their rotting carcasses wasn’t bad—the ocean breeze blowing in from the Pacific swept it inland toward the majestic redwoods. The smell from Terry’s own kitchen was worse.

At least there were no human zombies. Not yet. Undead humans would have been a problem. They had opposable thumbs that could open doors or wield tools to smash them down (if their thumbs hadn’t rotted away). All the windows had been boarded over, but human zombies could make quick work of that.

Terry eyed his truck, an F-250 Ford diesel. It was covered with undead animals. If he and Woody ran outside, could they make it to the truck? He wondered how many birds he could bring down with the rifle. He hadn’t fired it in thirty years—and wasn’t even sure if it still worked.

Woody trotted over to him, nails clicking on the floor.

Terry sat the rifle aside, then bent down and petted him. He could carry Woody, he supposed. But he couldn’t work the lever on the rifle and fire it at the same time if he were carrying the dog.

Terry drained the beer, crumpled the can, and belched. “I think we’re screwed.”

Woody flipped his tail in agreement.

Terry started to turn away from the peephole, and that was when night turned to day. Hot, white light burned his eyes. The brightness was dazzling. A second later, there was an explosion. The house shook. His bookshelves crashed to the floor and pictures fell from the wall.

“What the fuck?”

Yelping, Woody dashed for the bathtub.

“Woody! Come back here right—”

Another explosion cut him off. Clods of dirt and grass flew into the air. Terry heard the sod splattering onto the roof. His front yard was now pockmarked with craters. Squawking, the undead birds took flight.

“Holy shit.”

Woody reappeared, creeping up behind his master and looking sheepish.

Terry heard a new sound, the deep rumbling of a motor. Moments later, an armored halftrack clanked down the street, followed by another and another. Then came Jeeps and Humvees and a tank. Soldiers dressed in what looked like radiation suits sprayed arcs of fire from the flamethrowers on their backs. The bull seal charged them and a second later; a burst from an M-16 dropped the creature in its tracks.

“It’s the army, Woody! We’re saved!”

Without thinking, Terry ran to the front door and unlocked it. Still clutching the rifle, he flung the door open. Barking, Woody dashed between his legs and ran outside.

“Woody, wait!”

The soldiers swiveled towards them.

Terry dropped the rifle and held up his hands.

“Don’t shoot. We’re not dead! Don’t—”

The rest of his pleas were drowned out by thunder. Woody yelped once, and then collapsed. He did not move. The ground around him was red.

“Woody!” Terry ran to him.

“Stop where you are,” a voice boomed through a bullhorn. “Keep your hands up.”

Terry collapsed to his knees in front of his dog, hands in the air, tears streaming down his face. Woody was no longer recognizable—especially his head.

Two soldiers cautiously approached him, their rifles un-slung and pointed at Terry.

“Say something,” one of them ordered. “We need to see if you’re one of them.”

Still staring at Woody, Terry cried, “Why?”

“He’s alive,” a soldier shouted. “Get a medic over here to look him over.”

The other soldier knelt beside Terry. He reached out and grasped the grieving man’s shoulder.

“Hey buddy, you okay?”

Terry stared up at him with red-rimmed eyes.

“My dog…you shot my dog, you fuckers!”

The firing stopped and somebody shouted out that the area was clear.

“Sorry about that.” The first soldier shook a cigarette out of its pack and fumbled for his lighter. “He charged us, man. Thought he was a zombie. But cheer up. You’re rescued.”

Terry coughed. “Rescued?”

“Yep,” the soldier said. “General Dunbar himself should be along in a minute, if you want to thank him.”

“Thank him?” Terry stumbled to his feet.

“Sure, man. He’s leading the fight, you know? Making things safe again.”

The second soldier nodded. “He’s in charge now. Everybody else is gone, or in hiding—or dead. General Dunbar is the man. He’s going around, kicking ass and taking names.”

The other took a drag off his cigarette and pointed at Terry’s rifle, lying in the dirt. “You know how to use that thing? If so, we could use you.”

Terry stooped and picked it up. He worked the lever.

“Use it? Yeah, I know how to use it.”

He pulled the trigger. The first soldier’s crotch turned red. Screaming, the man slumped to the ground, cigarette still dangling from his mouth.

“Thank you, you son of a bitch! Thanks for rescuing us…”

Terry thanked several more of them before they finally gunned him down. His body fell next to Woody’s. The troops made sure neither of them would get back up again.

The armored column rolled on. When it had departed from sight, the zombie birds returned to feast on what remained of their bodies.

THE SUMMONING

The Rising

Day Twelve

Land O’ Lakes, Florida

By noon, the rain had ended and the mercury skyrocketed again. The streets and sidewalks steamed in the heat. Outside the store, right along the main highway, a family of four cooked inside of their stalled vehicle. That slow, agonizing death was preferable to getting out of the car. The street was eerily quiet. Even the zombies seemed to have moved on, other than the dead birds which perched on the car, daring the family to open their doors or roll down a window.

The family died in the shadow of Camelot Books. The building had once been an old GTE switching station, but Tony and Kim turned it into a bookstore. The walls were sixteen inches thick, and built to withstand hurricane force winds. A glass atrium, now blocked off with plywood and empty bookshelves, stood at the front of the store. Next door was an old United Methodist church.

The family’s reanimated corpses got out of the car and surveyed the street. Eventually, they moved on in search of prey.

Camelot Books’ thick walls prevented the zombies from hearing the screams coming from inside the store.

Before they opened the store, Tony had once owned a gun shop. He knew how to defend himself. But defense was an impossible thing when you were handcuffed to a desk leg. Kim was cuffed to the other side. The minister from next door was duct taped to a chair. Other people, mostly store customers and parishioners from next door, were bound upright to bookshelves.

They watched in horror and revulsion as the skinny man sliced the girl’s throat.

The skinny man was sweating profusely, from both the stifling heat and his own excitement. His long, stringy hair clung to his shirtless back. He pushed his thick, wire-rimmed glasses up on his bony nose and licked his lips in anticipation. After a minute, the girl died, her life-blood covering her clothing and the floor beneath her in a wet spray. A few minutes after that, she began to move again.

And then the skinny man selected a pair of wire cutters from his vast array of tools, and proceeded to snip her fingers off, one by one.

The zombie cursed him in an ancient language. Tony cursed him in a more modern tongue.

“Why are you doing this?” he shouted. “You’re as bad as they are!”

The skinny man giggled. “I have been given the power of life over death.”

“What?”

“I can bring people back from the dead.”

Kim coughed. “You’re insane.”

“Am I?” The skinny man selected a filet knife, gave Tony and Kim a wink, and then moved on to his next victim, a middle-aged Hispanic man.

“No,” the man pleaded. A wet spot appeared on the crotch of his pants. “Please. Please don’t do this. I’ve got a wife—kids. They’re still out there somewhere.”

The skinny man leaned close to him and whispered in his ear. “They are dead, just like everybody else outside. But you don’t have to worry. I can give you something they will never have. I can bring you back.”

The man closed his eyes. “Please, don’t. Please… please… please…”

Sighing, the skinny man plunged the knife into his quivering victim. He twisted it savagely, and then sliced upward. The Hispanic man’s bowels spilled out onto the carpet.

Kim screamed.

“You should be grateful,” the skinny man told her. “You don’t know how lucky you are. All of you are. You get to be witnesses to the summoning.”

Gritting his teeth, Tony strained against his bonds. The handcuffs cut into his skin, drawing blood. “You sick son of a—”

“Ssshh.” The skinny man brought the bloody knife to his lips and kissed it. “Be quiet. Be still. Don’t blaspheme. Just watch.”

The preacher, who’d fallen unconscious before the girl was slain, finally stirred. He looked around in bewilderment, apparently forgetting their circumstances. “What’s happening?”

“I am giving you what your Savior couldn’t,” the skinny man said. “I am offering life after death. I am summoning these souls back from the other side.”

Kim rattled her handcuffs. “But—”

“Watch.”

The Hispanic man stirred. Something looked out through his dead eyes.

“Release me,” the zombie demanded. The skinny man shook his head. “No.”

Then he poked the zombie’s eyes out with a pair of needle-nose pliers.

The corpse screamed in indignation. “You will pay for this, human! I will feast on your own eyes when I am freed.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” The skinny man grasped its tongue with the pliers, and with his other hand, he sliced the organ off and held it up for the others to see. “If thine eye offends thee, pluck it out. If thy tongue offends thee, cut it out.”

The preacher muttered the Lord’s Prayer under his breath.

“I killed him,” the skinny man explained in a patient voice, as if he were speaking to a kindergarten classroom. “I took his life. And yet, he came back. I summoned him.”

“He’s a fucking zombie,” Tony shouted. “You didn’t have anything to do with it! Everybody is coming back from the dead now. That’s why they call them zombies.”

The skinny man laid down his bloody tools and frowned sadly. “I have shown you proof. I have shown you miracles. And still you don’t believe. Very well. You can be next.”

Tony’s eyes bugged out of his head.

“Listen,” Kim gasped. “Just wait a minute and listen. You don’t have to do this. We believe you now. Tony, tell him you believe!”

Tony’s mouth had suddenly gone dry. He tried to work up enough saliva to speak.

“Tony,” Kim shrieked, “for God’s sake, tell him!”

“I—I believe.”

“Good.” The skinny man smiled. “Let he that believeth in me have eternal life.”

He picked up a propane torch, lit it, and adjusted the hissing flame.

“Oh no.” Kim began to sob. “Please, oh God, please stop! Please!”

Tony shrank away from the blue flame. He yanked on the handcuffs, tried to pull the desk leg free.The skinny man walked towards him. Outside Camelot Books, the heat continued to rise.Inside Camelot Books, the dead continued to rise as well.

* * *

POCKET APOCALYPSE

The Rising

Day Thirteen

Towson, Maryland

People said it was the end of the world, but what did they know? In Troll’s experience, most people were inherently stupid. Before the dead started returning, people went through their lives motivated only by their selves. They fed their addictions and rooted for their favorite sports team and political party with equal blind fervor. They paid no attention to world affairs unless it was fashionable to do so, content instead to focus on celebrity gossip and entertainment news. They took no interest in the world around them until that same world encroached upon their own well-being—like it was now.

Yes, it was true that in the last thirteen days over ten thousand years of human civilization had been rendered a moot point, but that didn’t mean it was the end of the world. Not at all. It was just a denouement.

For Troll, the world had ended many years before. It died with his daughter.

Unlike the new dead, his daughter hadn’t come back.

Pausing in his thoughts, he picked crumbs from his thick, scraggly beard and tried not to cry. He sat in an abandoned bomb shelter left dormant after the end of the Cold War. It had been his home for a long time.

Troll remembered his other home. His other name. Remembered his previous life. He’d worked for fifteen years as a drug counselor at a clinic in Baltimore. He was highly respected in his field and had the accolades and certificates to prove it. But all of that changed when his daughter died. He remembered that night very clearly—it was burned into his consciousness. One night she’d gone to a party. While she was there, she somehow ended up snorting heroin mixed with a household chemical of some kind. She passed in the back of the ambulance, en route to the hospital.

She was fourteen.

He’d never known she had a drug problem. He never asked. Never saw the signs, even though he was trained to do so. Maybe it was the first time she’d ever tried drugs. Even so, he still didn’t know why she’d done it. Maybe it was peer pressure, or maybe the divorce or trouble with a boyfriend. Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter. She died and she didn’t come back—and he died with her. No one called him by his real name anymore. Most people didn’t even notice him. But when they did, they called him what he was—a Troll. Just another homeless person populating Baltimore’s background setting. After his daughter’s death, he’d gone underground, literally. His ex-wife blamed him. He agreed with her. He’d helped so many people, but failed to help his own daughter. So he left after the funeral. Sold his home and all of his belongings and went away. He lived beneath the city streets, inhabiting a network of sewers, maintenance and train tunnels, electrical cable pipes, and other subterranean passageways. He wasn’t alone. When he’d first come here, Troll had been surprised by the number of people living beneath the streets. Like him, not all of them were the dregs of society. There were stockbrokers, lawyers, and even a doctor. Each had their own story, but for whatever reason, they’d flunked out—failed at life and decided to reinvent themselves below or to hide from their mistakes, who they’d been before.

Troll made a new home for himself, a new life. And when the world fell apart above, he figured the apocalypse was just catching up to everyone else. Pausing again in his ruminations, Troll sniffed the air, making sure there were no zombies around. Their stench usually gave them away, even through the thick walls of the shelter. The coast smelled clear. The only corpse was Sylva’s, still lying in the corner because Troll was too exhausted to haul him out. The attacks were increasing in frequency, even down here beneath the city. So far, the undead contingent had been mostly four-legged. A few dead humans had shown up in the tunnels—homeless people who were killed topside and then returned for their friends below. They were easy enough to fight. The zombie rats presented a bigger problem. They were smaller, sneakier, and their numbers multiplied faster. He’d seen them swarm over people, stripping them to the bone within seconds. Whenever he left the shelter, he carried a metal spray can full of gasoline and a lit torch. This makeshift flamethrower had kept the rats at bay so far.It might have worked on Sylva too, if he’d had the nerve to try.

Mark Sylva was one of Troll’s closest friends—or perhaps, the closest thing he had to a friend. Originally from Boston, the younger man had drifted south, going from city to city, staying in various soup kitchens and shelters. He was schizophrenic; never had enough money for medicine or a family to take care of him. Eventually, he’d ended up in Baltimore’s underground. Troll had sort of adopted him.

This morning, feverish, dehydrated, and suffering from dysentery and a nasty bite on his thigh—a wound inflicted by a zombie rat—Sylva had begged Troll to kill him.

Troll shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Please,” Sylva moaned. Bloody sputum had dried on his chin. “I’m dying anyway, man. I don’t want to go out like this.”

“You’re not dying,” Troll lied. “We just need to get some more liquids in you, and I need to find some antiseptic for that—”

“Fuck the antiseptic!” Sylva coughed. His entire body shook. Yellow-white pus oozed from his swollen thigh. “Grab a pipe and bash my head in, Troll.”

“No. I can’t.”

“You have to. It hurts.”

“I can’t do it. Please don’t ask me to.”

“You used to help people,” Sylva said. “You told me that. You used to help people who were in pain. That was what you lived for.”

“But this is different.”

“No, it’s not. You can help everyone else, but you can’t help me?”

“That’s not fair!”

“Why?”

“Because I did help everyone else and none of it mattered. Look what happened in the end. I wasn’t much help to my daughter now was I?”

“So start again,” Sylva wheezed. “You want to forgive yourself for that? You want to live again? Well then help me out, man. Kill me.”

Rather than responding, Troll got to his feet and grabbed a candle. He tipped the wick into the flame burning atop a second candle next to Sylva’s makeshift cot. The younger man’s flesh looked waxy in the flickering light.

“I’m going to look for something to clean that wound up with. Some medicine, too—something for your diarrhea. You rest. Try to drink some water while I’m gone. You need to stay hydrated.”

“Troll…”

“Rest. I’ll be back soon.”

* * *

Troll had spent the rest of the morning searching for supplies and battling the dead. When he returned, Sylva was gone. He’d left behind a note, scrawled on the back of a soup can label. It said that if Troll couldn’t kill him, then he’d do it himself. He didn’t want to suffer any longer, and he didn’t want to come back as one of them.

But he did, anyway.

Later that evening, while Troll read a Stephen Crane poetry book by candlelight, Sylva’s corpse came back. It opened the hatch door and lunged into the shelter, giggling like a child. The suicide method was immediately obvious. Sylva had cut his wrists and slashed at his throat, mistakenly believing that it would prevent him from returning. But it hadn’t.

“You should have killed me when you had the chance, Troll.”

“You’re right. I should have.”

After a brief struggle, Troll put him down again by driving a rusty railroad spike through the zombie’s head. Then he knelt over the body of his friend and wailed.

Not for the first time, Troll wanted to die. He wanted it with all of his being. But he couldn’t. Couldn’t summon the courage to end it all no matter how bad he felt. Couldn’t surrender to the rats or other zombies, no matter how badly he wanted to sometimes. His survival instinct always overrode those urges. All he could do was suffer while the world fell apart around him.

The end of the world? Hardly. Everyone had their own personal apocalypse. His world had ended the same day as his daughter’s life. He’d died with her. And all of the things that had happened since: the homelessness and hunger and sickness, and more recently, the zombies—everything that came after his pocket apocalypse?

This was just Hell.

Troll wanted to live again. Instead he was a ghost, haunting the underground. A living dead man battling the living dead. Maybe Sylva had been right. Maybe, if he embraced his purpose and found someone to help again, maybe then he could finally start living.

Several days later, he did. Her name was Frankie. And though he died while helping her, Troll died alive.

* * *

THE VIKING PLAYS PATTY CAKE

The Rising

Day Fourteen

Detroit, Michigan

The air burned their lungs, thick with smoke from the fires—and the cloying miasma of the dead. Chino pushed a branch out of the way and peered through the bushes. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Don’t know.” King shrugged. “He ain’t a zombie. Looks more like a Viking.”

They studied the giant on the park bench. He was impressive; early forties but in good shape, well over six feet tall, decked out in tattoos and earrings. His hands clutched an M-1 Garand, the barrel still smoking from the round he’d just drilled into a zombie. The creature sprawled on the ground ten feet away—minus its head. The grass and pavement were littered with more bodies. An assortment of weapons lay scattered on the bench: two more rifles, four grenades, a dozen handguns, and boxes of ammunition for each. Next to those was a large backpack, filled with bottled water and food. The Viking sat like a statue, his eyes roving and watchful. Another zombie closed in on him from the right. The rifle roared and the creature’s head exploded.

The Viking never left the bench. He brought down three more before the rest of the creatures fell back. From their vantage point, Chino and King heard one of the monsters ordering others to find guns. Several of them raced off.

The Viking began muttering to himself. “Patty cake, patty cake…”

Chino crouched back down. “The fuck is wrong with him? Why don’t he hide?”

“I don’t know,” King said. “Maybe he’s crazy.”

“Got an awful lot of firepower,” Chino observed.

“We could use that shit.”

“Word.”

The Viking fired another shot. From far away, deep inside the city, more gunfire echoed. Chino’s fingers tightened around his .357. “That the Army guys shooting?”

“Maybe,” King said. “They’ve been trying to take the city back. Held it up to the railroad tracks down on Eight Mile, but then they got overrun by them things.”

Chino shook his head. “Why bother? Ain’t nobody in charge anymore. Why don’t they just bail?”

King peeked again. The zombies still kept their distance from the man with the guns, but more were coming: dead humans, dogs, cats, squirrels. The Viking calmly reloaded, still mumbling under his breath.

“Patty cake, patty cake, baker’s man…”

“What’s he doing?” Chino whispered.

“Playing patty cake.”

Chino grunted. “Whole world’s gone crazy.”

“There’re still people in charge. You know Tito and his crew?”

“The ones holed up inside the public works building?”

King nodded. “I was talking to him three days ago. Went out there and traded six cases of beer for some gasoline. They got a ham radio.”

“How they working it? Power been out for a week.”

“Generator,” King said. “They heard some military general got parts of California under control. And there’s a National Guard unit in Pennsylvania that’s taken back Gettysburg. Could happen here, too.”

Chino frowned. “That would suck. I like the way things is. Do what we want, when we want. We got the guns.”

“Not as many as that guy.” King nodded at the Viking.

Both men peeked out of the bushes again. The zombies inched closer, circling the park bench. Some now carried rifles as well. The Viking put down the Garand, and picked up a grenade. His eyes were steel.

* * *

“Open fire,” one of the zombies commanded. “He is just one human.”

With one fluid movement, the Viking pulled the pin and tossed the grenade toward the undead. There was a deafening explosion. Dirt and body parts splattered onto the grass. The Viking threw a second grenade, but one of the creatures snatched it up and flung it back. The explosive soared towards the bushes—the bushes concealing Chino and King.

“Shit…” King shoved Chino forward. “Move your ass!”

The grenade failed to detonate, but neither man noticed. They were too busy dashing from the shrubbery—and directly, they realized too late, into the firefight. The M-1 Garand roared, and the zombies returned fire.

“Motherfucker,” Chino shouted. “We done it now!”

Bullets plowed through the dirt at their feet and whizzed by their heads. Chino and King opened fire, helping the Viking mow down the remaining zombies. Within seconds, all of the dead were dead again.

The Viking turned his weapon on the men.

“Whoa!” King held up his hands. “We’re alive, yo. Don’t shoot!”

The Viking didn’t respond.

“Chino,” King whispered. “Put your gun down.”

“Fuck that.” Chino spat in the grass. “Tell that puta to put his down first.”

King smiled at the Viking. “We don’t mean no harm. Hell, we just helped you.”

“Why?”

King blinked. “Because you were in trouble, man. Why you sitting out here in the open like that, Mister…?”

“Beauchamp.” The Viking’s shoulders sagged, and he put the rifle down. “Mark Beauchamp.”

Chino lowered his weapon, wondering what King was up to.

“Why you out here on this bench, Mr. Beauchamp?” King’s eyes flicked over the stranger’s arsenal. He licked his lips. “Wouldn’t it be safer trying to find some shelter? Come wit’ us, we can hide you.”

“No.” The Viking shook his head. “I don’t think so. I’m waiting.”

“Waiting? For what?”

The Viking’s eyes turned glassy, and King realized the man was fighting back tears.

“I had a job at the Ford stamping plant, just south of the city. Wasn’t what I wanted to do with my life, but it was okay. Fed my family. Had a wife, Paula, and four kids. My son’s twenty-one. My daughters are fifteen, fourteen, and five months.”

The Viking paused, and despite the tears welling up in his eyes, he smiled.

“I think raising my boy was easier than the girls.”

King nodded.

Chino shifted from foot to foot, his finger flexing around the trigger. Was King just going to talk the guy to death?

“I was at work when it happened. I heard it all started in Escanaba, but it spread to Detroit fast. By the time I got home, Paula and the kids were gone. No note. Nothing. The evacuation order didn’t go out until a day later, so I don’t know what happened.”

His face darkened, and then he continued.

“There was blood in our kitchen—a lot of blood. I don’t know whose it was. And one of the windows was broken. But that’s all.”

“Sorry to hear that,” King said.

“I spent the first twelve days looking for them. But then I got an idea. We used to come here. I’d sit on this bench with my daughter, Erin, and we’d play patty cake. So I’m waiting, see? They’ll come back. Paula wouldn’t just leave like that. She knows how worried I’d be. I’m waiting for my family. I miss my kids.”

“And just shooting zombies?”

“Yeah. I’ve become a pretty good shot. Used to have a kick-ass pellet gun.”

“What about the birds, man? How you gonna shoot them?”

“Haven’t bothered me yet. And my family will be here before the birds show up. You’ll see.”

King glanced at Chino, then back at the Viking. He tried swallowing the lump in his throat.

“Sure you won’t come with us?”

The Viking shook his head.

King slowly approached the bench. Chino tensed. Here it came. King had the guy off guard. Now he’d pop him, they’d grab the shit, and get the hell gone before more zombies came back. But King didn’t waste the guy. Instead, he shook his hand.

“Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

King turned back to Chino. “Come on. Let the man wait in peace.”

Chino’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “Say what?”

“You heard me,” King growled. “Let him be.”

King trudged across the grass, and Chino ran to catch up with him. He grabbed King’s arm and spun him around.

“The fuck was that all about? We could have smoked him.”

“No,” King said, his voice thick with emotion.

“We ain’t touching him.”

“Why not?”

“Because,” King sighed, “I miss my kids, too.”

An artillery shell whistled over the city. The explosion rumbled through the streets. Beneath it all, they heard the Viking playing patty cake.

* * *

IF YOU CAN SEE THE MOUNTAIN…

The Rising

Day Fifteen

Hawera, New Zealand

There were nine of them inside the water tower; Mean, Charlie, Ross, Greenberg, Sally, Rachel, Sid, the unconscious old man, and the Maori, unable to tell them his name because his tongue had been ripped out by a zombie. Mean didn’t know them, having only recently moved back from England. The old man was a dairy farmer, brought in by Sid. Rachel and Charlie were teenagers; Ross a butcher, paunchy and asthmatic; Greenberg an accountant; Sally an American on vacation (visiting the locations where The Lord of the Rings was filmed). The zombie plague was slow to strike Hawera. The first week, the townspeople watched it spread to other parts of the world, horrified—and perhaps a bit annoyed that the coverage preempted rugby.

Slowly, it infected their little corner of the world, first with dead animals, then with people. When the creature’s numbers increased enough to launch a full-scale assault, the town—population 10,000—collapsed within an hour. Home by home, street by street, they eradicated the living, further swelling their ranks. The nine survivors took refuge inside the old water tower in the center of town. The structure, which could be seen for miles, hadn’t been used for decades. When it was built, it leaned so badly that the construction workers dug underneath and jacked it up. Still, it leaned. But it was dry, empty, and secure. They sat inside, waiting in the darkness for an attack that never came. That was four days ago. Since then, they’d run out of food and had one bottle of water between them. They still had weapons and ammunition—

Mean’s .22 semi auto, and some .303s, and .308s. No automatic rifles or handguns; both were illegal in New Zealand.

It was starting to stink inside the tower. They’d been using the corner as a toilet.

This morning, the water tower had trembled. Slight at first, then more noticeable. Mean was on watch, and he woke the others. It wasn’t repeated, and they chalked it up to a minor earthquake or a truck rumbling by.

Then, the shaking started again, fiercer this time, a series of jolts that made the entire structure shudder around them.

“What do we do?” Sally’s voice was panicked.

“We get the hell out,” Mean said.

Charlie flicked his lighter. “The dead—they’ll be out there waiting.”

“So?” Mean made sure his weapon was loaded.

“We either face them, or die when this thing crashes down.”

“What about the old man?” Sid asked. “We can’t leave him.”

“Fine.” Mean hated the indifference in his own voice. “You’re responsible for him.”

The flame vanished. In the darkness, Charlie cursed, sucking his burned thumb.

“The Maori?” Ross wheezed. “What do we do with that poor bastard?”

Mean gritted his teeth. “Infection’s already set in. His mouth is dripping pus. He’s burning up, on his way to becoming one of them. I say we leave him.”

Greenberg flicked his lighter on in place of Charlie’s. His face was pale, his eyes two dark circles. “Where will we go?”

Mean realized they were all looking at him. Somehow, he’d become the leader.

How did that happen? I grew up on a farm, breeding racehorses. I’m not a leader! I don’t even know these people.

“I don’t—”

“The sea,” Rachel interrupted. “We’ll go by boat.”

“Don’t be daft,” Greenberg grumbled. “Ohawe is nearly nine kilometers away.”

She shook her head. “Waihi.”

Mean knew the spot. Waihi was a small beach less than a kilometer away—a gap, eroded by a stream between the cliffs.

“Charlie and I have a rowboat,” she continued, “hidden off the trail. At night, we used to…”

She turned red, embarrassed. Beside her, Charlie shifted uncomfortably.

“Let’s go, then.” Mean crouched over the trapdoor. “Stay in a group, move fast. Look for a car with the keys inside.”

Sid grabbed his shoulder. “I’m not leaving the old man.”

“Suit yourself. But we’re taking the guns.”

They started down the ladder. Sid gave one last glance back at their two incapacitated companions, and then followed.

“Changed my mind.” He shrugged.

“Hang on,” Ross grunted, and ducked back inside the tower.

The rest reached the bottom of the ladder. Hawera was deserted. Nothing moved, living or dead. It was eerily quiet. Mount Egmont (or Taranaki, as the Maori called it) loomed over the town. The dormant volcano’s shadow filled the streets with gloom. Mean thought of the local saying: if you can see the mountain it’s going to rain, if you can’t see it, it’s already raining.

“See anything?” Greenberg asked.

Mean shook his head. “Just the mountain.”

“Maybe they’ve all gone,” Sally whispered. Inside the leaning water tower, two gunshots rang out.

Charlie whispered, “Bloody hell.”

A cry went up, followed by another. The town came alive with the dead, alerted to their presence by the shots.

Ross climbed down the ladder, his rifle still smoking. “Put those two out of their misery. No sense leaving them up there to die and come back.”

“You idiot!” Mean resisted the urge to hit him. And then, with a roaring, unanimous shout, the zombies poured forth.

“Run!” Mean pushed Sally ahead of him and squeezed off a shot, dropping a corpse—the effect of taking an ounce of water from the ocean. Ross froze, staring at the onrushing masses.

“There’s so many.”

The others ran. When Mean looked back, the undead tide had engulfed the fat butcher. Three down. How far can we get?

He decided to save one bullet for himself. Sally was the first to fall beneath the hordes. She tripped and a zombie dog ripped off her face. She was still screaming when Mean ran by. Greenberg went next, felled by a bullet to the spine. Sid turned down an alley.

“This way,” Rachel called.

“No,” he insisted, “It’s this way.”

He darted down the alley. They heard him screaming a second later.

Mean, Charlie, and Rachel reached the steep goat track that wound down to the narrow beach. The zombies charged down the hill after them. Charlie pushed aside the brush and dragged the boat out.

“Hurry,” he cried. “It’s heavy.”

Grunting, Rachel helped him. Mean turned and opened fire, dropping a zombie with every other shot.They leaped into the boat and cast off. The zombies stood on the beach, waving their fists. Some walked into the water, sinking beneath the surface, pursuing them along the bottom, but eventually, the boat was carried too far from shore.

“They can’t reach us now,” Charlie shouted.

“We’re safe. Nothing can get us out here!”

The two teenagers hugged.

Mean looked back at Mount Egmont. The old saying ran through his head again.

If you can see the mountain it’s going to rain, if you can’t see it, it’s already raining.

“We’re safe,” Charlie repeated.

Mean couldn’t see the mountain. Not from rain, but from the flock of birds swooping towards them across the sky.

It began to rain.

* * *

YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

The Rising

Day Sixteen

Livonia, Michigan

Things were better now. She had more free time on her hands, to do the things she’d always wanted. This was living.

As long as you ignored the stench outside…

The world was dead, but Jade Rumsey was finally alive; a second chance at living, another shot at life.

A vehicle—military, judging by the sound—rumbled by outside. The vibrations were strong enough to send books tumbling from the shelves. Surprised, her sewing needle slipped, pricking her finger. Jade sucked the small bead of blood. It was the first thing she’d had to eat in four days. Her stomach grumbled. Jade made a face, disgusted. She was hungry—but not that hungry. Not yet.

* * *

The street outside fell quiet again, and she returned to sewing, trying to ignore the fresh hunger pangs, trying to look on the bright side. Yes, maybe she was out of food, and maybe she only had enough water for another three days—five if she was extremely conservative with what was left in the toilet and bathtub, but at least she’d finally lost weight. That had always been on her list of “Things To Do.” Lose fifteen or twenty pounds. Nobody could say she wasn’t on her way now.

Jade smiled at her own gallows humor. She always wanted to make a quilt, and over the years, had collected an amazing amount of fabric towards such an endeavor. But she’d never seemed to have the time, until now. So there was that. She’d lost weight and was making a quilt.

Jade got up from the chair. As she put the books back on the shelf, arranging them alphabetically, she considered her situation. What else had been on that list of “Things To Do?” Read more. She loved horror novels, especially works by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, M.M. Smith, Richard Laymon, Tad Williams, and Charles De Lint. She’d certainly found time to do that. In the last sixteen days, she’d re-read plenty of her old favorites.

She’d always wanted to learn to shoot, but had never had the opportunity. Since the dead started coming back, she’d not only learned to shoot, but could bring them down with one bullet. The first had been her boss at the Ford Motor Company. The last had been her cat. She wasn’t sure if it had been the cat’s diabetes or lack of food, but it died in its sleep a week ago. Then it came back, intent on doing her harm. So she’d killed it, too, using her last bullet and the last of her tears.

That had kept her fed for another three days. Her grief had diminished as the void in her stomach was filled.

Finished with the books, she turned on the battery operated stereo and popped in a Sam Kinison cassette. His voice roared from the speakers, doing a bit about Jesus and Lazarus coming back as zombies. Frowning, Jade replaced it with Lewis Black, and then sat back down again. That was something else she loved—stand up comedy, and now she had all the time in the world to listen to her favorites, as long as the batteries lasted, at least. Wistfully, she wished her satellite radio were still working. She wondered if the satellite still functioned, hovering in space, beaming comedy and music to a dead planet.

What else? She’d always wanted to have a Dead Like Me marathon weekend, where she sat down with popcorn and drinks and watched the entire series. Couldn’t do that now, without power. Couldn’t look at porn online anymore either. Not that she’d ever been able to anyway. Every time she’d tried, her computer went haywire. Now it sat, silent and dark, collecting dust.

No movies, no porn. No family either. That was something else on her list. A family. Except she needed a man for that, and her last boyfriend, Anthony, wasn’t here now. Had never really been there before, either. Anthony didn’t want a serious relationship. Oh sure, he was more than willing to go on vacation with her to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, and he was happy to drive around with Jade in her 1995 Cougar (the same car that was sitting in the driveway—and might as well be on the moon for all the good it did her), but when it came time to talk about things like marriage and commitment and family, Anthony disappeared. She wondered where he was now? Was he one of those things wandering around outside? Or was he hiding somewhere, hunkered down and barricaded like she was?

Gunshots echoed, muffled by the heavy wood nailed over her windows. Jade idly wondered what was going on, and then turned her attention back to the quilt. It wasn’t like those things could get inside. Jade lived in what she often called “the world’s smallest house,” 675 square feet, no basement or attic, just a small loft over the bedrooms. All of the walls were a light mint green, adorned with Gris Grimley artwork. The windows and doors had been barricaded, and she doubted the zombies even knew she was inside.

“Attention!”

The voice was stern and male and commanding, pumped from a loudspeaker or a bullhorn. Along with it came the sounds of machinery and engines, clanking treads and more sporadic gunfire.

“Attention,” it repeated. “Citizens of Livonia! This is Captain Conway of the Michigan National Guard. This area is clear. Repeat; we have secured this area! If you can hear my voice, please exit your homes in a quick and orderly fashion. We have transports waiting to take you to shelter stations in Detroit.”

Detroit was twenty minutes away. Could the military have really recaptured that much territory—the city and the surrounding suburbs? Was the crisis really over?

The Captain continued his announcement, urging her neighbors, if any of them were left alive, to come out. Jade started to get up.

Then she glanced around her house. It was small, but it was hers. Full of her favorite stuff. This was her world, now. Her second chance at life—her opportunity to do all those things she’d never had time for.

“This is your last chance,” the Captain warned. His voice, though still loud, was fading. Jade sat back down.

She needed to finish her quilt. When she was done, she thought that perhaps she’d read a book.

AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH HIM

The Rising

Day Seventeen

York, Pennsylvania

With only the pale full moon to keep him company, Bob Ford walked out of his home and into the cemetery. It teemed with dead people, most of who were still walking around, and yet he was alone in the crowd. Bob’s grip on the pistol tightened. His ponytail fluttered in the wind, tangling around the shotgun strapped to his back. He pushed his glasses up on his face with the barrel of the .45, and then realized he didn’t need the glasses anymore. Bob found the graves and stared down at them. Freshly turned soil. Crude headstones, fashioned from wood paneling, the names scrawled in his handwriting with a black marker.

He’d buried them himself—after he died. Bob closed his eyes and heard the gun blasts. Felt the bullet slam into the back of his head and bore through his skull. Smelled the cordite, and the blood. Burning hair. His hair. Heard their cries. His family. Heard them pleading as they were raped and butchered.

It wasn’t the zombies that had done this. It was his fellow humans.

Monsters.

The last thing he saw before he died was the man on top of his wife, the man with a phoenix tattoo. Jen was screaming. Then Bob’s own blood had blocked his vision, and he’d slipped away.

When Bob opened his eyes again, he’d been back in the house. One time, long ago, a writer friend of his had proposed (over many beers) that ghosts returned to the places they held dear in life. Bob supposed that was true. But that didn’t mean he had to stick around. There were debts owed. And hell to pay…

A zombie approached him, and Bob realized he could no longer smell them. It was in bad shape, both arms missing, an ear hanging by a thread, and one empty eye socket festering with maggots. He could see something inside the body, a shadowy form, like coiled smoke, nestled in the corpse’s brain.

“You have no life glow,” the zombie slurred. “You are useless to us. Depart, little ghost. Man’s time is over.”

“Useless?” Bob grinned. “You’re falling apart. You’ll need a new body soon, I guess. Having any luck finding one?”

“When this host fails me, I will return to the Void. From there, I can have any body, anywhere in the world, just like that.”

The zombie snapped its fingers, and the tip of its thumb peeled back like a rotten grape. Bob holstered the pistol at his side. “Yeah, but you’ll have to wait in line, right? If you hunt down a victim, another of your kind gets the body, rather than you. Doesn’t seem fair.”

“How do you know this?”

“I know a lot of stuff, now that I’m dead.”

“It matters not,” the creature hissed. “I follow orders. We are to clear paths for our brethren, until all of us are free. You don’t know as much as you boast.”

Bob shrugged. “I know enough.”

“Like what?”

“Like where the rest of York’s human population is hiding.”

“Ridiculous,” the zombie scoffed. “The city is full of humans, different factions fighting each other for control, and fighting us as well.”

“Yeah.” Bob nodded. “But why go all the way into York City and fight a bunch of well-armed skinheads, gang-bangers, bikers, and military guys if you can get an easier—and closer—target, right here in the suburbs?”

More of the creatures had gathered around them, and seeing that he had their attention, Bob continued.“I know where there’s a house full of scumbags, less than two miles from here.”

“How do you know this?”

“My—my family and I were trying to escape. We’d been holed up inside the house. Ran out of food and water yesterday, and decided to make a break for it. We got to York, and it was a war zone. So we turned around and headed for home, thinking we could scavenge food and water on the way back. Some bikers ambushed us, about two miles from here. Twelve of them. They’d taken over an old farmhouse, totally fortified it. And I know they’re still there.”

“How?”

“Because they were there when I went back for my family’s bodies.”

“Twelve,” the zombie mused. “In a fortified position. And they are well-armed?”

Bob nodded.

“How is that different from the city?”

“Because in the city, the odds are even. Out here, there are more of you than there are of them.”

The zombie’s lips peeled back in a horrible smile.

“Don’t you mean more of us?”

“Us?”

“The dead,” it replied. “You’re dead like us.”

Bob unsheathed the shotgun. “I’m nothing like you. You things have no soul.”

“And you?”

Bob racked a shotgun shell. “Me—I am a soul.”

The undead crowd laughed.

“Show us, little ghost,” the armless zombie said.

“Lead us to this nest of humans.”

“There’s just one thing,” Bob said. “When we get there, the one with the phoenix tattoo is all mine.”

The zombie nodded. “Lead the way.”

He did. Shotgun in one hand and the pistol in the other, the ghost led the dead forward. More bodies joined them as they marched by—male and female, human and animal, young and old, decomposed and freshly dead, all united in death. And all of them thirsting for revenge. For the Siqqusim, it was revenge upon the Creator, He who had banished them to the Void. For Bob, it was something much more personal. But if the Creator had allowed that to happen, then so be it. As they plodded down the road, Bob thought, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”

* * *

Inside the house, the bikers heard them coming long before they arrived. The one with the phoenix tattoo—Rhino to his friends—went to the door.

“The fuck is that?” he whispered. “Sounds like an army…”

The other man on watch, Jakes, blinked twice in the midst of his crystal meth high. “It’s a fuckin’ earthquake, man.”

Rhino shook his head. “Tweaking mother fucker.”

He stared out the peephole just as the dead army crested the hill. Rhino recognized the one in the lead. Cursing, he grabbed the AK-47 from its perch against the chair, and burst through the door.

“Can’t be,” he shouted. “I fucking shot you, man! Shot you in the head. You can’t be one of them.”

Smiling, Bob whispered down the barrel of his shotgun. “I’m not one of them. I am something else.”

He squeezed the trigger, and all around him, the forces of hell were unleashed.

* * *

THE HIGH POINT

The Rising

Day Eighteen

Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

The bears were hungry. So were the deer, squirrels, raccoons, and snakes—even the rabbits. Those were the worst. Bunnies were supposed to be cute and fluffy—not rotting and ravenous.

Stephen Griglak clung to the steep rock face, staring at the zombie animals clustered far below. Several tried to scale the sheer sandstone cliff, but slid back down. Satisfied that they couldn’t reach him, Stephen started climbing again. His pack had never felt heavier than it did now, and his muscles burned—far beyond the aching stage.

He’d originally lived in Montclair, New Jersey, where he worked as a senior technician at Rutgers University’s soil lab. It was a nice town; he and his wife Eileen liked living there. A bit pricey, but that was the way of the world. And after the life he’d led, it was nice to settle into comfortable anonymity. His past was a fog of booze and drugs, until he met Eileen and got sober at the age of thirty-two. Married her at thirty-five. Life became good. Until The Rising.

Eileen…he didn’t like to think about what had happened to Eileen. There are some things human beings aren’t meant to see happen, especially when it happens to a loved one. So he’d blocked that from his mind. Almost. At night, he could still hear her screams, and the awful tearing sounds—and the chewing.

Stephen was approaching fifty. His parents had passed away six years before. He had six brothers and sisters, but didn’t know if they were alive or dead. He’d tried calling his younger brother while the phones were still functional. The thing that answered the phone said it was his brother—but Stephen didn’t believe it. His co-workers were dead. Same with his friends. And after Eileen—well, there was only one thing to do.

He looted the sporting goods store, dispatching two zombies with a golf club in the process, and appropriated all the guns and outdoor gear he could carry. Then he fled for the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; seventy thousand acres of ridges, forests, and lakes on both sides of the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For almost forty miles, the river passed between low-forested mountains with barely a house in sight, before heading out to sea. Stephen figured he could hide out in the forest along the river. If trapped, he could use the river as an escape route. He’d always liked camping and hiking, knew how to fly-fish and track animals. He could hunt for his food, and keep moving, hoping to find other living survivors. That had been the plan anyway.

He hadn’t realized the animals were coming back, too.

His time in the forest became a running battle. He’d found shelter in the park visitor’s center, but the zombies got inside, almost trapping him on the boardwalk when he fled. He spent the next fourteen hours and many boxes of ammunition on the run, the woods literally crawling with the undead. Luckily, most of them had been animal and reptile, and didn’t carry weapons.

Stephen managed to find a lookout tower, the kind used by rangers to spot forest fires, and took refuge at the top. It was accessible only by a ladder and single door, which he immediately barricaded. At the top, there was a small, one-room living space, along with a circular outdoor platform. There was no way he could go outside, because of the flocks of zombie birds swarming around the tower’s top. But he had water and food and ammunition, and a battery-operated cassette player on which he listened to Bruce Springsteen and Zydeco and Vivaldi. He stayed put. Eventually, the creatures’ numbers dwindled. One by one, they went off in search of easier prey—or simply fell apart, rotting on the spot.

He’d finally crept out this morning, desperate for food and water, and fresh air, all of which had run low. He longed to see the sun again. And he had seen it, for a brief second, until a v-shaped formation of undead geese swooped down out of the sky, honking an alarm to their brethren.

Then he was on the run again.

He’d made it here to the cliff. Now, clinging from the rock, feeling the sandstone crumble beneath his fingers and toes, Stephen wondered what the point of it all was. Why insist on surviving? Why fight so hard? There was nothing left. Eileen was gone. His family was gone. For a moment, he wished the two of them had had kids. Then he forced himself to continue climbing.

Why not just let go and fall to the ground? From this height, he’d be dead before they tore into him. Where was the high point in his life? After all he’d seen and done, and all that had happened to him, both good and bad, all the drugs and drinking and everything associated with them, all those failures, and all the triumphs that had come his way since getting sober—what was the fucking point? Was it all just to end up inside some zombie black bear’s stomach, or worse yet, to walk around like one of them, putrefying on the go?

Sweat ran into his eyes. He blinked, and then pressed on. Moments later, Stephen reached the top of the mountain. Panting, he shrugged off the heavy pack and collapsed.

When he looked around again, he gasped. For a moment, he forgot all about the danger waiting below. From his vantage point, Stephen could see the river; Millbrook Village, New Jersey; Dingman’s Falls; the visitor center; the entire world. Truly, he felt like the old song, on top of the world looking down on creation. This was the highest point in all of the park, and from it, he could see it all. Not even the tower had provided a view like this. The sun was just beginning to sink beneath the horizon, painting the sky a rich tapestry of pink and orange and red hues. A slight breeze ruffled the treetops below, cooling his skin.

Stephen sighed in wonder. It was the most beautiful, perfect scene his eyes had ever beheld. This was the high point of his life.

He sat there and watched the sun set, and when the eagle swooped down from above, with claws extended and one eye dangling from its socket, he didn’t even care.

* * *

WHERE THE DOWN BOYS GO

The Rising

Day Nineteen

Corona, California

When they lowered him into the hockey rink, Paul Legerski did his best not to scream. A soldier who reeked of B.O. spat on him. A ragged, pink scar crossed the man’s face. Paul’s hands were free, but he didn’t bother wiping the saliva away. He was too proud.

Struggling to keep his footing on the slippery surface, Paul scanned the crowd, looking for Shannon. He had to get free. No telling what they’d done with her. He had to find her, rescue her before the bomb went off.

A sea of expressions stared back at him: excitement, anger, glee, arousal, boredom, even indifference. Somehow, that was the worst of all. He was suddenly filled with hatred. They deserved what was coming.

* * *

The rink itself was familiar. Paul had played here as a goaltender when he was younger, and he and Shannon had come there to watch the San Jose Sharks practice before a game against the Mighty Ducks.

The partition separating him from the crowd shook, as people beat against it with their fists. The rink’s inside walls were lined with long, razor-sharp pikes, so there was no chance of climbing over the partition. The ice was bloodstained; it was littered with body parts: severed head, organs, and scraps of human meat. Paul recognized most of the stillmoving heads. Once strangers, they’d been his and Shannon’s companions over the last few weeks. Mustaine, the traitor, the son of a bitch who’d sold them out, lay at his feet. His eyes and tongue still moved. Paul kicked him across the arena, scoring a goal.The crowd went wild.

Paul ignored the jeers, shrugged off the cans, bottles, and other debris thrown at him, and searched for Shannon’s face. If he could just see her one more time, he’d be okay. Whatever was about to happen wouldn’t matter.

He locked eyes with General Dunbar, sitting ringside like a Roman Emperor in the coliseum. The old man wore his best uniform, his medals proudly displayed. His face was expressionless. Stone. A strange calm settled over Paul. He took a deep breath, and raised his middle finger. Dunbar twitched. His demeanor didn’t shatter, but he twitched.

Paul grinned. “How do you like that salute, asshole?”

The crowds simmering anger became tangible. Paul’s role had been cast. He was the bad guy. He decided to play it up.

“You like this?” he shouted. “You like living this way, just because he keeps you safe from the dead This isn’t how humans act. We might as well be dead, too. We—”

An electronic squeal cut him off. Dunbar’s second-in-command stood, a battery powered bullhorn at his lips.

“We now present this evening’s grand finale. In the ring, the leader of the rebel group known as the Down Boys, responsible for the slaughter of over fifty members of our forces.”

Paul shut his eyes against the booing and hisses, preparing himself for what was about to come. They’d offered everyone in his group a choice as to their method of execution. Firing squad. Hanging. Drowning (what one leering soldier had referred to as a “Liquid Noose”).

All of them had chosen the arena. After all, they’d already planted the bomb.

Paul stood in their blood and tried not to slip. He wondered how much time he had left.

How had he ended up here? He’d once been a productive member of society. Believed in Conservative values. Voted Republican. Paid his taxes. He’d once stood in the ashes of September 11th. Now, he stood in a post-apocalyptic arena, ready to play gladiator against a zombie, branded as a terrorist, the leader of the resistance. Rumor had it that General Dunbar’s forces controlled wide swaths of northern California, after eliminating the dead there. They had careful measures to dispose of the dead and dying before they could turn into zombies. Now Dunbar’s despotism was spreading south, picking up new recruits and eliminating any and all resistance—living and otherwise.

Paul had supported them at the beginning, eager for things to return to normal, even if under a police state. Sure enough, soon Corona and Riverside were both safe. His support ended when a platoon tried to rape Shannon. They’d been on the run since, eventually joining up with others who opposed the outof-control military; Rhodes, Neil, Osbourne, Coverdale, Tate, Ian, Dubrow, Mustaine—many others. Paul had joked that so many of them had the same last names as famous metal musicians, and they’d begun calling themselves the Down Boys, after the song by Warrant.

Dunbar’s rule sickened him. Yes, there were no zombies, but this wasn’t how Americans behaved. This wasn’t how the military acted. This wasn’t human. Dunbar’s forces were worse than the zombies. The undead simply killed. The soldiers did much more.

He glanced around at his friend’s body parts. Where were they now, he wondered? Paul had never believed in an afterlife, but a month ago, he wouldn’t have believed the dead could walk again, either. Where did the Down Boys go, after they’d died?

The far door opened, and three zombies skated into the rink, their faces covered with hockey masks. All were armed with hockey sticks.

The crowd’s cheer thundered through the arena. Paul crouched, waiting. The first zombie sped towards him. The second tried to flank his left. The third hung back. Paul could smell the rot wafting off of them, even from the other side of the rink. Closing the distance between them, the first zombie raised its stick and swung at his head. Paul ducked, sidestepped, and wrenched the stick from its grasp. He turned the weapon back on the creature, breaking its legs first. As it collapsed, Paul clubbed the head. The face imploded behind the hockey mask. Blood and pulp squirted out the mouth and eyeholes like Play-Doh.

The second zombie tripped over a severed arm and fell to the ice. As it scrambled to rise, the third darted forward. Paul ran towards it as fast as he could without slipping.

Their sticks clashed like sabers. One blow smacked into his side, and Paul felt his ribs crack. He struck the creature in the side of the head, and its mask flew off.

Shannon stared back at him.

“Hello, Paul.”

Paul gaped. Behind him, he heard the fallen zombie getting to its feet.

“Surprised to see me?” It spoke with Shannon’s voice, but Paul knew it wasn’t Shannon.

“Wifey,” he gasped, his voice thick with emotion.

“What did they do to you?”

“They tortured her, Paul. Made her drink acid. Injected gasoline into her veins. She died croaking your name.”

Paul grimaced. The zombie laughed.

The crowd grew louder.

Paul lowered his stick. “Do it. I don’t want to live without her.”

The zombie’s laughter ceased. “You don’t wish to fight? It’s more fun when you fight.”

“Just do it.” His stick clattered across the ice.

“Make it quick.”

“If you insist. I’m so hungry.”

He embraced Shannon’s corpse. Her teeth closed around his throat.

At that moment, the bomb they’d planted exploded, filling the arena with heat and light and wind. A moment later, the sound followed. Paul and Shannon shared one last kiss as the ice melted beneath their feet.

Then they both found out where the Down Boys go.

* * *

WALKABOUT

(Part Two)

The Rising

Day Twenty

Melbourne, Australia

Leigh Haig opened the dumpster lid a fraction of an inch and stared outside. Dark, ominous clouds dominated the sky, and cold rain fell in sheets. A flock of birds wheeled overhead, buffeted by the gale force winds. The storm lashed them, sending molted feathers and shreds of rotting meat plummeting downward with the rain. He remembered peeking out the window of his home before he’d departed, and seeing the sun. Now, he couldn’t remember what the sun looked like.Twelve days ago, he’d left his house in search of medicine for his wife Penny, whose body was being ravaged by the common flu. The sun was still shining when he departed. Now, it was raining, and he was hiding inside a garbage dumpster behind a Chinese restaurant, less than ten kilometers from home.

Ten kilometers. Not far. Not far at all. And yet, it might as well be the other side of the world.

Shivering from the cold, Leigh closed the lid. The darkness surrounded him again. His fingers and toes were numb, and his muscles ached. He felt for the rifle, a Yugoslavian-made SKS with a bayonet mounted on the barrel. He drew the weapon to him. Twelve days ago, he hadn’t even known how to fire it, let alone the rifle’s specifics. Now, it was his best friend. His teddy bear, after sleeping in the dumpster overnight.

After leaving the house, Leigh had gone one and a half blocks before encountering his first zombie, an elderly woman whose wig had gone missing and whose varicose veins had burst right through her skin. He’d smelled the creature before he saw it, and had time to hide behind the burned-out shell of a car before the corpse rounded the corner and started down his street. Armed only with a makeshift axe, Leigh had let it wander by. When the coast was clear, he continued on his way.

That was when the snake bit him.

He’d felt a sharp, jabbing pain in his ankle, and when he looked down, there was a snake clinging to his foot, its fangs piercing his sock and the flesh beneath it.

Leigh screamed, and that attracted the attention of the zombie that he’d just eluded.

The snake was already dead. Maggots squirmed in the open, ulcerated sores all along its body. One eye was missing, and more maggots filled that cavity. Muscles, free of rigor mortis, flexed as it clamped down tighter against his skin. It glared at him with its one good eye, and Leigh saw a dreadful intelligence reflected there.

He swung with his axe—two kitchen knives embedded in a wooden mallet. The blade sliced through the snake’s mid-section, cutting it in half, scattering maggots and innards. A dead mouse spilled out onto the road, the serpent’s last meal. Then the mouse began to move as well. Leigh stomped on the zombie rodent with his free foot. Tiny bones crushed beneath his heel.

The snake’s upper half held on to his ankle. Its severed end whipped back and forth like an out-ofcontrol fire hose. Leigh swung again, carving another six inches from its body.

The other zombie, the old woman with the missing wig, ran towards him.

“Come here, lad. I’m hungry!”

With the snake still clinging to his leg, Leigh planted his feet and watched the zombie’s charge. His heart pounded in his chest. As it reached for him, he swung the axe with all his might. The blade buried itself in the center of the old woman’s bald skull, cleaving flesh and bone. The zombie collapsed to the pavement, blood and brains leaking around the weapon.

Leigh tried to retrieve the axe, but it was stuck. He heard more of the undead approaching, and cursed, tugging on the handle.

* * *

Suddenly, automatic gunfire rang out. Seconds later, an armored jeep pulled alongside him. The side-door opened, and a man with a red beard leaned out, offering Leigh his hand. “Come with us if you want to live, mate.”

Leigh jumped onboard.

There were four people in the jeep—two soldiers, a woman, and the red-bearded man. All of them were heavily armed.

“You’ve brought a friend,” the woman said, nodding at Leigh’s leg. “Lucky it’s not poisonous.”

The red-bearded man leaned over, pried the snake from Leigh’s ankle, and tossed it out the window. “We’ll have to get that doctored. Fucking things are crawling with bacteria.”

“I need a doctor,” Leigh stammered. “Medicine. My wife, Penny, she’s sick.”

“You’re in luck,” one of the soldiers said. “We’re from Box Hill. A bunch of us have holed up in the hospital.”

Leigh soon learned that forty survivors, mostly medical staff and military forces, were living inside the hospital. After arriving, a doctor fixed Leigh’s ankle and gave him something for the infection. But before Leigh could convince anyone to accompany him home to get Penny, the hospital fell under siege from the zombies.

He got a crash course in combat weapons training, was given the SKS and plenty of ammunition, and assigned a position on the barricades. The siege lasted eleven days before the undead finally broke through. By then, the survivors’ numbers had dwindled to ten, and their dead companions had wreaked as much havoc inside the facility as the zombies outside.

As the creatures stormed the hospital, Leigh stuffed a sack with vials of antibiotics, a few bottles of water, and some candy from a vending machine. He grabbed his rifle and extra ammunition, and fled through an unguarded fire door. He made it two blocks before being forced to hide inside the dumpster.

And now here he was.

“I’ve got to get home,” he said aloud. “I promised Penny that I’d be back.”

He lay there in the garbage, cold and wet and miserable, until it was dark. Then he crept out of the dumpster and, using the darkness and the rain for cover, walked out of the alley.

The downpour immediately soaked through his clothing, and he was drenched before he’d gone a dozen steps. The rain blinded him, but Leigh hoped that it would lessen the zombie’s visibility as well. Leigh Haig wasn’t a religious man, not after everything he’d seen these last twenty days, but he prayed now.

“Please Lord, if you really are still up there, just let me make it home. Let me get back to Penny without meeting any of those things.”

Thunder rumbled across the sky.

Leigh walked all night, and whether it was the weather, or the darkness, or someone really answering his prayer, he didn’t encounter a single zombie. Shortly before dawn, he reached the estate their home was located in. His legs ached and his feet were blistered from his wet shoes rubbing against them on the long walk home. His nose was running and he’d developed a chronic cough.

Despite his misery, Leigh smiled when he passed by the little park where he and Penny often walked. His smile broke into relieved laughter when he caught sight of their home. The two-story brick house was just as he’d left it, complete with the red X on the door.

“Penny…”

Leigh broke into a run. He fumbled for his keys, slid them into the lock with trembling fingers, and burst inside.

“Penny? I’m home!”

There was no answer. The couch was empty, the blankets tossed onto the floor.

“Penny?” he called out again, his voice cracking.

“Where are you?”

Leigh sat the rifle and sack down on the floor and began to search the house.

Please, please, please let her be okay. Just let her be okay.

“Leigh?”

His spirits soared. She was alive! He ran to the stairs and started up them.

“I came back,” he shouted. “And I brought medicine. Just like I promised.”

“I know,” Penny said. “I knew you’d be back. I knew you’d return.”

Leigh halted halfway up the stairs. Something stank, and he heard flies buzzing.

* * *

“Well,” the voice continued, “I didn’t know. But your wife did. I saw it in her mind when I took over this husk. She believed in you. She knew you’d keep your promise.”

Leigh glanced back downstairs at his SKS. It seemed to him that the weapon was ten kilometers away, like everything else from his journey.

“Penny…”

The thing that had been his wife stepped into the light.

“She knew you’d come back,” the zombie slurred.

“So I waited.”

Leigh Haig’s tired legs gave out beneath him, and he could walk no more.

* * *

1 CORINTHIANS 15:51

The Rising

Day Twenty-One

Lynchburg, Virginia

“Chapter fifteen, verse twelve, tells us; ‘Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?’”

Chris Shackelford rolled his eyes. “God, I’m getting sick of this shit.”

“I thought you two were Christians?” Klinger looked up at the church basement’s ceiling.

“We are Christians,” Dawn Shackelford said, loading more hollow points into her .357 Ruger.

“But what’s going on upstairs isn’t worship. It’s blasphemy.”

Klinger nodded. “Word. Few days ago, I met two guys traveling north, to Jersey. Jim Thurmond and a preacher named Martin. I was never much for church either, but that Martin was cool. Not like Reichart. That guy’s fucking crazy, man.”

“So we agree?” Chris asked. “We’re really going to do this?”

“I’m in,” Klinger said. “But this is your town. Where we gonna go?”

Chris handed Klinger the side-by-side Browning 12 gauge, and double-checked his Sig Sauer P228 9mm. “Basement of an empty house? Grocery store? Another church?”

Klinger snickered. “I’ve had enough church.”

Lynchburg was home to Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church. The famous minister had his hand in everything, dictating all that happened. As a result, the town had more churches than anywhere in America.

“But if there is no resurrection of the dead,”

Reichart’s voice thundered from upstairs, “then is Christ not risen; and if Christ is not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith in vain?”

“They’ll come looking for us soon,” Dawn warned. “We’ve been gone too long.”

Klinger’s face turned pale. “Probably nail us up on one of those crosses, just like the others who dissented.”

“Let’s do this, then.” Chris took his wife’s hand and squeezed. “You okay?”

Dawn shook her head. “No, I’m not. Look at us, Chris. We’ve changed. You were an accountant for Genworth Financial. I taught fifth grade math and history. I played the violin for twenty-six years. Gardening, target shooting—and now…”

“You can really shoot?” Klinger asked.

“She can put a grouping of six tight enough to cover with the bottom of a soda can.” Chris pulled Dawn close and kissed her forehead. “Things have changed, honey. You know that. It’s not the same world out there. We’ve got to worry about us.”

“What about the others. Are we just going to let Reichart and his followers do this?”

“He’s probably killed them already. Right now, they’re turning into zombies.”

“But what if they’re not,” Dawn whispered.

“What if they’re still alive on those crosses?”

“We don’t have a choice. It’s just us now. Mom, Dad, Bryan, your folks, April, even Scotch and Sandy—they’re all gone. We’ve got to live. Me and you.”

“And me,” Klinger added.

Chris grinned. “Yeah, and our new friend Klinger, the ex-pro surfer.”

Weapons drawn, they left the Sunday school rooms and crept up the stairs. Reichart’s mesmerizing voice swelled louder as they entered the narthex.

“See now, brothers and sisters. See how they rise! Behold the mystery. There were asleep, and now they are changed.”

“Release me.”

The raspy voice from behind the sanctuary doors wasn’t the preacher’s or anyone in the congregation. It belonged to something dead.

Finger to his lips, Chris led them to the front door. Heavy pews had been stacked atop one another to form a barricade. While Dawn covered them, Klinger and Chris sat their guns aside and lifted the top pew.

* * *

Inside the sanctuary, someone screamed. Startled, Chris lost his grip. The pew crashed to the floor, reverberating throughout the building. Reichart stopped in mid-sermon. A second later, the sanctuary doors banged open. Parishioners flooded into the narthex, wide-eyed.

Dawn raised her pistol. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to leave.”

Inside the sanctuary, Reichart shouted, “Who dares disturb the resurrection?”

“It’s the Shackelford’s,” a man yelled. “And that stranger we let in earlier in the week. Say they’re leaving.”

The preacher squawked. “Oh, no they aren’t. Bring them to me.”

Chris and Klinger sprang for their guns. Several more members of the congregation poured through the sanctuary doors.

“Get back,” Dawn warned, spacing her feet apart. “I will shoot you.”

“You won’t kill us, sister.” The speaker was a fat man, an atheist four weeks before, now one of Reichart’s most fervent followers. His eyes darted from the gun to Dawn’s breasts. He licked his lips. Dawn shot him between the eyes. Her wrists snapped backward from the recoil. She drew a bead on the next.

The fat man collapsed. Some of the believers rushed them while others ducked back inside the sanctuary. Dawn and Chris opened fire, dropping six attackers in as many shots. Klinger fumbled with his weapon, and the crowd fell on him, dragging him inside.

Chris and Dawn pursued them into the sanctuary. At the front, twelve makeshift crosses had been mounted around the communion rail. Former members of the congregation—those who’d spoke out against Reichart—hung crucified, their throats cut. Blood still jetted from the fresh wounds. The corpses twitched, reanimating.

“They were asleep,” Reichart shrieked, “and now they are changed. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed!”

Chris grabbed Dawn’s arm. “Let’s go! We’re too late.”

“Klinger.” She shook him off. “We can’t just—”

One of the zombies tore free of its cross, the nails ripping through its wrists and feet. It landed on an elderly woman, crushing her to the floor. Then it began to feed. Chris and Dawn couldn’t see it, but they could hear the tearing sounds.

The other creatures followed its lead, freeing themselves, ignoring the damage to their bodies.

“Go,” Klinger shouted, swept along by the panicked crowd. “Don’t worry about me!”

“They should worry.” Reichart slammed his fist down on the pulpit, ignoring the rampaging zombies. “Worry about their souls.”

Chris aimed his handgun at the crazed preacher.

“Shut the fuck up! I am sick of listening to your bullshit.”

Before he could squeeze the trigger, another zombie charged the pulpit, clawing at Reichart’s face. Chris fired anyway. Dawn’s weapon roared in tandem. Blocking the doorway, they shot indiscriminately, gunning down living and dead alike. Frantic parishioners charged the door, and Chris and Dawn shot each and every one of them. Their ears rang and their hands went numb, and still they fired controlled shots, feet spaced apart. Flying brass burned their arms. They reloaded, worked their way through the aisles, methodically firing rounds into each target’s head.

When it was over, all forty-six parishioners and a dozen zombies lay dead.

Klinger stared at the couple in astonishment. His forehead was bleeding.

“Jesus Christ. Would have never thought the two of you could do that.”

“A month ago,” Chris said, “we couldn’t have.”

Dawn nodded. “We’ve changed. We shall all be changed…”

Klinger picked his way through the corpses, and retrieved the rifle from the narthex.

“Guess we should get to work on moving these pews.”

Chris shrugged. “We’ve got this place to ourselves now. Maybe we should just stay put.”

The ex-pro surfer cocked a thumb at the bodies.

“Suit yourself. But I ain’t cleaning up that mess.”

“Leave them,” Chris said. “We’ll close it off.”

Arms entwined, Chris and Dawn started downstairs. Klinger followed. Behind them, the dead slept and did not change.

ALL FALL DOWN

The Rising

Day Twenty-Two

The Desert Near Avondale, Arizona

“It ain’t like it wasn’t hot around here to begin with.” Roche spat tobacco juice into one of the rattlesnake holes dotting the hard-baked earth. Paul Goblirsch didn’t respond, because the old man was right. It was too hot to even talk. Paul shielded his eyes, not from the sun, but from the flames on the horizon.

Phoenix was burning.

The fires started in the second week, after the military lost control of the city. Smoke filled the skies, actually blocking out much of the sun’s more harmful rays. Despite that, the temperature was sweltering, especially with the added heat from the fires. Metro-Phoenix went up first, followed by the rest of the city. Then the flames spread to the suburbs, including Paul’s home in Avondale. Escaping both the inferno and the zombies, Paul joined up with other survivors heading into the desert: Roche, who Paul thought might be crazy; Destiny, a dancer from one of the strip joints; Tina, a six-year old girl still clinging to her stuffed rabbit; and Juan, who’d worked as a telemarketer. Roche hummed the song, “Convoy.” Paul glanced back. The old man was pissing into a snake hole.“Better put it away before a zombie rattler comes out and bites your dick off.”

Grinning, Roche shook, stuffed, and zipped.

“Let’s head back,” Paul said. “It’s Juan and Destiny’s turn for watch.”

They’d taken shelter at a construction company’s airstrip in the middle of the desert; a single runway, two port-o-potties, and a corrugated steel shed. They stayed inside the shed as much as possible. Two walked the perimeter at all times, on the lookout for zombies, looters, and other monsters. Of everything Paul had seen over the last twenty-two days, human nature was the most vile and disgusting.The plane landed that afternoon: a small, twinengine Cessna. Weapons drawn, Paul and Juan met it while the others hid inside the shed. The pilot was a gregarious Mexican named Sanchez. He wore a dazzling white cowboy hat that matched his drooping mustache and beard. Sanchez told them (as translated by Juan) that there was a human settlement in Canada, just over the border with Minnesota, free of the undead and broadcasting via short wave to other survivors.

* * *

Paul’s suspicions towards the stranger vanished upon hearing the news. The five survivors squeezed into the plane, leaving behind everything except their weapons, water, and Tina’s bunny. It was a tight fit, especially with Paul’s 240 pound, 6 foot 1inch frame.

They took off, and Paul tried to relax. His scalp itched, both from sunburn and from the stubble growing back in. He speculated about this Canadian paradise, wondered what they’d find there. He hoped for things he hadn’t thought about since The Rising began: playing pool (he’d played enough cards with Destiny, Juan, and Roche to last a lifetime), books, food and drink. He had a sudden craving for a Crown and Coke, and wondered if they’d have any.

Destiny’s head lolled on his shoulder. She’d fallen asleep. Juan sat up front, chatting with Sanchez, and Roche was swapping jokes with Tina. The girls’ spirits had lifted since boarding the plane.

“What’s black and white and red all over?”

Tina giggled. “I don’t know. What?”

“A penguin with a sunburn.”

Paul closed his eyes and listened to the girl’s laughter. His mind turned to his own family, and he cut it off. Instead, he thought about his friend ‘Kresby’ (his real name was H, but Paul always used his online name—Kresby.) They’d never met, but knew each other from various internet book forums. Kresby lived in Minnesota. Paul wondered where his friend was now. Maybe he’d crossed the border into the Canadian settlement. Maybe they’d finally meet in this dead new world.

He slept.

Tina’s scream woke him. That, and the jolting lurch in his stomach and the cold air whistling around him. His ears popped as he opened his eyes. At first, he didn’t understand what he was seeing. Tina’s face was wrong. It was red, and the eyes, ears and nose were missing, and it had grown feathers. Paul bolted upright and slammed into the bulkhead.

The plane was plummeting downward. The cockpit was filled with undead birds. Their rotten bodies obscured Sanchez and Juan. More zombies fluttered around him, feasting on Destiny and Roche. Destiny reached for him, opened her mouth to scream, and then a bird ripped her tongue out. Another zombie nipped at his face, the razored beak slicing into his cheek. Paul smashed it aside and found his footing.

There was nothing he could do for the others. Even as he moved, Tina disappeared beneath the avian corpses. Soon, she and the others would start moving again. Probably before the plane hit the ground.

Die in a plane crash, or die as a bird buffet…

He chose a third option.

Paul had skydived only once in his life, from 14,000 feet, in tandem with an experienced instructor. The experience was one of the most thrilling days of his life, and he’d never forgotten it. He was grateful for the memory, and it all came back to him as he strapped the parachute onto his back.

The roaring wind filled his ears. The squawking birds made his testicles shrivel.

They shriveled more when he forced the door open and stared out at the spiraling sky. Jumping from a steady, level airplane with an instructor was one thing. This was something very different.

“Paul,” the thing that was now inside Tina croaked. “Join us.”

He crushed another bird in his fist. His face and hands were bleeding from dozens of cuts and scratches. Another zombie darted towards his eyes. Paul slapped it away and stomped on it. He grinned, feeling the delicate bones snap beneath his heel. Tina’s bloody hand closed around his ankle.

“Stay, Paul. It’s such a long way to fall.”

He shot her in the head.

She was right about one thing, Paul thought as he jumped. It was a long way down. If he survived, he’d have plenty of time to reflect.

His chute opened. Paul breathed deep. It took a long time to reach the ground, and Paul did indeed have plenty of time to reflect. And plenty of time to scream…

The birds stayed with him, hovering like a cloud, all the way to the bottom. When the pain became unbearable, shock took over, and Paul thought about Kresby again.

The plane fell. Paul fell. The birds fell with him. They all fell down together.

The plane crashed first.

* * *

THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY

The Rising

Day Twenty-Three

Modesto, California

Larry Roberts didn’t have to understand what was going on to understand what he was seeing. He looked into Hell, plain and simple. Hell, right on the other side of the glass.

Larry knew glass. When he wasn’t running his real estate business on the side, he was a plant manager for the Gallo Winery, producing bottles for the wine. And as another crack spiraled through the Humvee’s windshield, Larry paid attention. Obviously, he didn’t know as much about automotive glass as he did glass containers, but he knew enough. He knew it wouldn’t last much longer. All glass was basically made the same way, starting with the batch process, which mixed all the ingredients for the type of glass in production. In many ways, it was like mixing a cake, only on a much larger scale; ingredients being sand, soda ash, limestone, sulfur, and cullet. After cooking in a furnace at 3,000 degrees, it was then put it into a fore-hearth, which conditioned and evened out the glass for blowing. The glass was then put into molds and shaped. After it had been formed, it was annealed, to take the stress out of the glass. Larry wished the windshield had been annealed a little bit longer, because it was all that stood between him and the things outside.

The Humvee was upside down, its tires sticking up in the air like four dead legs. Larry didn’t know what had happened. They’d been cruising along, the soldier and he, looking for a way out of town. The zombies had barricaded the streets, turning Modesto into a giant trap. With General Dunbar dead, killed in that explosion in Corona, the troops had lost focus. The regular soldiers were drifting away, and the civilian recruits, people like Larry, drifted with them. It was either that, or wait for the zombies to kill them.

He and the soldier, whose name was Higgins, had been barreling down the main drag, weaving through the stalled, burning cars, and running down everything that got in their way—both living and dead. Higgins had been telling Larry about a man in Fort Bragg. He and his buddy had shot both the man and his dog. In the days since then, Higgins felt guilty about the act.

Larry was about to reply when something exploded beneath the driver’s side front tire. The Humvee shook, and then flipped. The last thing Larry remembered was screaming, and he wasn’t sure if it was Higgins or himself.

When he opened his eyes again, he was upside down—and the zombies were all around him. Dunbar’s scattered forces and those they’d been protecting fought a running battle with the dead. So far, they hadn’t noticed him. Maybe if he kept still…

A gunshot went off to the right. A zombie stumbled backward, its head raining down on the pavement and splattering across the passenger’s side door. Larry felt the bile rise in his throat. Higgins was dead. The barrel of his M-16 had speared the back of his neck on impact, and rammed up into his brain.

At least he won’t be coming back, Larry thought. He shuddered.

It began to rain.

In the street, a pack of dead dogs brought down a fleeing Private, ripping him limb from limb as he squirmed beneath them. A red-faced, panting Sergeant stumbled by, hands clasped around his bleeding stomach, dragging his entrails behind him. Giggling, an undead child darted out from behind a newspaper box, grabbed the length of intestine, and wrapped it around a telephone pole. The injured Sergeant walked on, oblivious. The cord grew taught, then snapped. The Sergeant lurched forward a few more steps, and then fell on his face. A woman screamed; her body covered with dead birds. Incredibly, a zombie elephant charged another Humvee. The soldier on the back brought it down with his mounted fifty-caliber, before being shot himself by another zombie.

Bullets chewed up the pavement. Chunks of cement bounced off the windshield, shattering it more. The stench wafted in through the hole: decay, cordite, burning fuel and flesh. The screams became louder.

Slowly, carefully, Larry felt around for his pistol. He couldn’t find it, and he was afraid to turn completely and chance attracting attention. His fingers closed over the neck of a wine bottle. It hadn’t broken during the wreck, and more amazingly, there was still liquid inside. He lifted the bottle to his lips and drained it in one gulp. A child was screaming. He drowned the noise out.

Larry turned the empty bottle over in his hands and smiled. He’d made this, in another time, another life. The first thing he noticed was the little “g” in a circle, which stood for Gallo. The knurling on the bottom was well formed, as was the pushed up bottom. He checked the baffle and verified that it wasn’t swung. There were no critical defects. His crew had done well. He wondered where they were now.In the street, a zombie horse galloped by, a screaming man hanging from the saddle. His hands beat at the creature’s flank. A homemade gasoline bomb slammed into a building, and the structure erupted into flame. Artillery whistled overhead, then crashed nearby. Larry felt the concussion before he heard the explosion. It rattled his teeth, his chest, and the windshield.

The glass finally gave way, showering his upside down face with jagged chunks. Larry slipped his seatbelt off and sat upright.

Ten feet away from him, an elderly corpse sliced an unconscious soldier’s penis off with a pair of tin snips. It bent its head to the spurting stump and drank, as if at a water fountain. Then, seeming to sense Larry’s presence, its head pivoted towards him.

“Hello, Meat.”

“Shit.” Frantic, Larry glanced around for the missing pistol.

“Look at you,” the zombie teased. “Sitting inside that tin can just like a Vienna sausage.”

Pulse racing, Larry scrambled backward. Shards of glass ripped into his palms. He ignored them. The zombie charged. Larry held the bottle he’d manufactured up to ward it off. He saw it coming through the glass.

Then it was upon him and the glass grew dark.

A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASKET

The Rising

Day Twenty-Four

Silver Bay, Minnesota

H Michael Casper didn’t go outside anymore. Not that he had much before. Silver Bay had no cultural activities. H and his wife, Leen, went to Duluth and Two Harbors for that. They did much of their shopping via the internet, and bought groceries off a whole foods coop truck that made the weekly trek from Madison, Wisconsin.

H firmly believed that a man’s home was his castle.

He didn’t go outside now because everything he needed was here. Amazingly, after twenty-four days, the power was still on. He had plenty of food and water (although he longed for some spicy Asian take-out), tequila, two cases of St. Paulie Girl Dark and a six pack of Spaten Optimator), weapons (a semi-automatic .22, which he’d used to kill some feral cats that strayed onto his property and attacked his own cats, and a homemade driftwood cane that he kept next to the front door), radio and television (the satellite wasn’t sending signals—although he occasionally heard snippets of phantom broadcasts on the radio), movies (luckily, because it might be a while before Netflix delivered again), his guitar (even at age fifty-two, H still maintained his tenor and awesome falsetto), music (Rundgren, Champlin, and that ol’ albino, Edgar Winter), and his books. Lots and lots of books…

H lived in a rambler with a tuck-under garage and huge, vaulted ceilings. His library overflowed with books and comics. He had more comics downstairs in the basement—along with Leen and the cats.He didn’t know what had killed her. She just fell asleep one night and didn’t wake up. Oh, her eyes opened again. She moved around, attacking him in bed. But it wasn’t Leen. She’d gone to sleep and something else had woken inside her. He’d wrestled away. She chased him into the library and he clubbed her with a lettered Brian Lumley edition. That bought him enough time to get the gun. H was a peaceful man. Killing his wife, even if she was no longer his wife, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Killing Kitchi and Kito, their two black cats, had been a close second. Disposing of them all was third.

He didn’t go down to the basement anymore. It stank.

Besides, he had all of his comforts right here.

The only thing he missed was going fishing at Thunderbird Lake, but it was probably full of zombie walleye now, anyway.

The clock showed midnight. He was sitting in front of the fireplace, reading a short story collection, when he grew uneasy. It felt like somebody was watching him.

“Leen?” His own voice sounded funny to him after so long without speaking.

H crept to the front door and peeked outside. He had a large front yard, filled with apple, maple and birch trees, and his one hundred foot long driveway was lined with trees as well. Their leafy canopy cast all in shadows. The shadows were empty. He locked the door, and crossed to the east side of the house, looking out across the backyard. Nothing moved in the darkness. He saw the old woodshed and Leen’s gardens, and beyond them, the tree line of Tettagouche State Park. That was all.

“Quit being paranoid.”

Nobody else knew he was here. Nobody was coming, living or otherwise.

All he had to do was wait it out.

There was a knock at the door.

H nearly screamed.

Who is that? The army? National Guard? A neighbor? Or one of them …those things?

The knock came again.

Quietly, H picked up the .22 and crept into the foyer. He’d blocked off the skylight to keep the birds from breaking through, and the small space was pitch black.

A third knock—louder, longer, more insistent.

“Who is it?” He pointed the rifle at the door.

“Kresby? That you?”

Nobody he knew called him Kresby. That was his internet identity. Only his online friends referred to him that way.

The knocking changed to hammering. The door rocked on its frame.

“Kresby, open up! There’s zombies out here. Zombie moose…”

H racked his brain. “Michael? Michael Bland?”

“Try again.”

“PG?”

The door splintered inward, and a leering skull, stripped of most of its flesh, peered through.

“You guessed it, buddy!”

With a cry, H squeezed the trigger. The .22 punched a small hole in the creature’s jawbone. The zombie vanished. H’s ears rang. The foyer smelled like smoke.

“He lives in Arizona,” H whispered, peeking through the hole in the door. “What’s he doing here?”

The door exploded inward, knocking H backward. He gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through his bad lower back.

Paul Goblirsch’s corpse lurched into the foyer. Even as he scuttled away, H’s analytical, biologytrained mind observed the zombie’s condition. It looked like he’d been skinned alive and dropped from a great height. His ribs and pelvis were shattered, skull cracked, legs broken yet still mobile. His internal organs and one eye were missing. His nerves and veins hung like spaghetti. The zombie grabbed the heavy wooden cane H kept by the door. “Sorry I’m late. I entered this body about 14,000 feet above Minnesota. My host knew you lived here. Was jealous of your books. Thought I’d stop by so that you can join him.”

Grimacing, H fired again. The bullet punched through the creature’s empty eye-socket. Cursing, he aimed higher.

The zombie lashed out with the cane, knocking the barrel aside as H fired a third time. Then it smacked him on the head. Blood ran into H’s eyes.

“Son of a bitch…”

“No,” the thing rasped. “Son of Ob, son of Nodens.”

The cane descended again, cracking him on the knuckles. The gun slipped from H’s grasp. Clambering to his feet, H dodged another blow and ran. His lower back was a sheet of agony, and he kept wiping blood from his eyes to see. The zombie pursued him into the library. Though H wasn’t a trained fighter, he was determined to use whatever means necessary to live.

The zombie swung the cane. H ducked, and the driftwood bludgeon snapped on a bookshelf. H plowed into the creature, turning his face away from the stink. He clenched his fists, digging into the tissue. It felt like cottage cheese. Maggots wiggled between his fingers. Living man and dead man slammed into the wall.

Roaring, the zombie wedged a rancid thumb into H’s eye. Screaming, H did the same. The zombie reared back, blinded.

Eye for an eye, H thought, as his body went numb. Shock. Going into shock. Got to finish this. The zombie fumbled with outstretched hands, searching for him. H pulled away.

“I can smell you, Kresby. Smell your blood.”

“Come get some,” H chuckled.

PG giggled as well, the thing inside his body immediately recognizing the movie reference in its host’s memories.

H wobbled forward and thrust himself against a bookcase with all of his remaining strength. His back shrieked. His eye throbbed. The bookcase groaned, then toppled over onto the zombie, smashing it to the floor. Its arms stuck out beneath the pile. Gasping for breath, H stood over the destruction.

“You wanted my books, PG? There you go!”

He smelled smoke. Alarmed, he turned to the fireplace. One of the books had slid into it, and more lay nearby.

Before H could act, the zombie’s hand curled around his ankle and yanked. Arms pin-wheeling in surprise, H crashed to the floor. Something inside his back snapped, and when he tried to move, he couldn’t.

The flames grew louder.

Man and zombie burned together, along with the book collection.

Neither one rose again.

* * *

ZOMBIE WORM

The Rising

Day Twenty-Five

Hellertown, Pennsylvania

It was hard to eat people when you didn’t have a lower jaw.

Or tongue.

Or even teeth.

Not that this host body’s mouth had functioned even before being shot in the face. No. This human shell was absolutely the most useless form the Siqqusim had ever inhabited. Even the human’s name was worthless—Worm. What kind of a name was that? Worms were low creatures that crawled through the dirt and shit (except for Behemoth and the Great Worms—and this human was an insult to them). The Siqqusim seethed. This body had been nothing but a nuisance, and he couldn’t wait to leave it.

Like most of its brothers, the Siqqusim inside Worm had no name. Once, long ago, a Sumerian sorcerer had summoned him into a dead woman and commanded him to tell fortunes. The sorcerer had given him a name—Tenk. But that name had lasted only as long as the body he inhabited. When that body deteriorated, Tenk was no longer under the Sorcerer’s command. And after all of the Siqqusim were cast into the Void by the Creator, there were no more chances to get another name. He still thought of himself as Tenk, but made sure that Lord Ob new nothing of such conceit. When humanity ripped open the walls of the Labyrinth and freed the Siqqusim from the Void, Tenk’s first host body had been an old woman named Melba who lived in Puerto Rico. Then he moved on to inhabit a tiger in India, a middle-aged goat-herder in Nepal, a snake in South Carolina, and an infant in Greenland. All of these bodies were preferable to Worm. Even the baby’s corpse had been better. Tenk had been able to use its helplessness to appeal to other humans’ maternal instincts. Then, when they’d pick it up, he attacked. But this new body? This… Worm?

Completely useless.

When Tenk had first taken possession of Worm, he’d searched through the body’s memories, cataloguing his experiences and finding any information that might be useful. There wasn’t much. Worm was a deaf-mute. Worse, he’d been sheltered and protected. His entire life consisted of playing checkers with his father, cooking with his mother, and taking long walks with his dog. No strife or hardships. He’d been home-schooled, so there were no taunts from other kids. He’d been happy, living a life of luxury until undead mice ate his parents. Then he’d struck out on the run. His dog died next, shot by a farmer who’d mistaken Worm and the mutt for zombies. Worm had taken shelter in an interstate rest stop. There, he met a man named Baker, and the two had traveled together until they were captured by a group of renegade National Guardsmen. Tenk probed deeper, seeing Worm pushed from the back of a speeding military vehicle and then killed by a group of zombies from an orphanage. And that was when Tenk had entered him, while his corpse lay bleeding in the middle of the road.

Since then, he’d been pushed down a hill (breaking one of his host’s legs), run over by a speeding Humvee (breaking the other leg, along with several ribs), shot in the arm (resulting in a shattered elbow), and then shot in the face (disintegrating the lower jaw). He was a joke. The rest of his brethren continued with the worldwide slaughter, but Tenk could only crawl along behind them, pulling himself with one good arm. He wanted this body to die—again. He wanted to be free. Wanted to find another host and join in the extinction of mankind.

Tenk thought about all of this as he lay face down in a roadside puddle of muddy water. He was playing dead, waiting for some unsuspecting human to come along and mistake him for a lifeless corpse. Then, as they neared him, he’d lurch to his feet and try to appear menacing. With any luck, they’d destroy Worm’s brain once and for all, and he would be free of this shell.

At sundown, he was still waiting.

He would have cursed, if he’d had the ability to speak.

Eventually, Worm’s one remaining ear twitched. The sound of a motor rumbled towards him. Slowly, ponderously, Tenk clawed at the asphalt with Worm’s good hand and dragged himself out into the road. Headlights appeared in the distance. He stumbled to his feet, wobbling on broken legs. The bones protruded from the flesh. Insects spilled from his wounds, landing in piles at his feet. The vehicle slowed as it drew closer. It was hard for Tenk to see with Worm’s eyes; they were infested with maggots. The vehicle drew closer—a truck. A human leaned out of the passenger-side window, and then ducked back inside. Tenk shuffled forward, thrusting his good arm out and trying to look menacing. The passenger slid something long and metallic through the open window. A rifle barrel, maybe? It was hard to tell. The truck picked up speed and swerved towards him.

Yes, Tenk thought. This is it. Destroy me. Destroy this brain so that I might be free. The truck barreled down on him. The headlights grew blinding. His vision blurred. Then the truck raced past him, continuing down the highway. Tenk caught a glimpse of the passenger pulling the object back inside. It was a sword.

Something was wrong. Everything was tilted, as if the world had been turned on its side. Tenk tried to move Worm’s arm and found that he couldn’t.

Then he noticed why. Worm’s body lay five feet away. It was headless.

But if his head is missing, then why am I… The breeze ruffled his hair. He felt it. Felt the wind on Worm’s scalp. But he couldn’t feel anything else. Oh no. Those stupid humans! Those ignorant apes—they only cut my head off. The brain is still intact… Tenk looked out from Worm’s decapitated head and watched the moon rise.

He couldn’t even scream.

* * *

THE NIGHT THE DEAD DIED

The Rising

Day Twenty-Six

Bronx, New York

All night long, Cookie and the blind man sat in the dark restaurant’s kitchen. They tied damp handkerchiefs over their faces to block the stench of decay permeating the city. They ate sardines, washed them down with the olive oil inside the empty tins, and listened to the dead die.

It began with a message broadcast over a public address system. They heard it several times.

“This is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, broadcasting to all who can hear this message. The United States Department of Homeland Security has determined that Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the other New York boroughs are now safe zones. The quarantine has been lifted. You are free to leave your homes. All civilian and military personnel are encouraged to make their way to the area immediately. Aid stations have been set up for your convenience, to provide food, water and medical assistance. Again, the threat alert for New York City has been lifted and the area is now designated as a safe zone. Make your way into the streets. Military and civilian authorities will be there to assist you. Message repeats…”

The blind man didn’t believe it. Cookie did at first, but he had urged her to wait. He said it was a trick. The message was being broadcast by the zombies in an effort to flush the survivors from their hiding places. Cookie wondered how he could be so sure. The blind man said he heard something coming—something more than just the zombies outside. Minutes later, Cookie heard it to. An army. Tanks and halftracks and heavy artillery. They rolled into the city from all directions. Soon, the sounds of battle erupted throughout the city—screams, explosions, gunfire, and shouting. Cookie sat her empty sardine can down. “I guess you were right. It was a trick.”

“Think about it,” the blind man whispered. “This morning, the zombies were going door to door, trying to find us all. The only reason we escaped was because we hid inside the basement freezer and they didn’t bother to check it. It’s nighttime now. Less than twenty-four hours have passed. If the army had rolled in here and wiped them all out, wouldn’t we have heard the battle? The fighting is just starting now. Wouldn’t they have told us to come outside after the city was secured, rather than before? And even if the army had killed all the zombies, they wouldn’t tell us to come outside. They’d tell us to stay in our homes.”

“Why?”

“It’s a biohazard. We’re surrounded by millions of dead bodies. It doesn’t matter if they’re walking around killing folks or if they’re really dead. Either way, corpses carry disease: bubonic plague or hepatitis or dozens more. Those things outside are nothing more than a walking biological attack. If F.E.M.A. or the army were really here, they wouldn’t tell us to come out until they’d managed to burn the bodies and contain the threat.”

“That ain’t what happened in New Orleans,”

Cookie said. “The authorities said it was safe, so people came out and had to wade through floodwaters and bodies floating in the streets.”

The blind man shrugged. “Perhaps, but this is different.”

Cookie nodded in agreement. The blind man had been holed up in the restaurant since the end of the first week. He’d managed to stay alive all this time. When Cookie had crept into the restaurant a few days ago, half-starved and desperate for food, he’d automatically been able to discern her from one of the undead. He said he did it by smell. Cookie didn’t care what his methods were as long as they worked—and they obviously did. He was alive while the rest of the city was dead or dying. And so far, he’d kept her alive, too. Sure, maybe he was a little weird. He refused to tell her his name and he slept sitting up—on the rare occasions that he slept at all. But he hadn’t tried to rape or attack her the way the last group she’d sheltered with had. Finished with their dinner, Cookie threw away the sardine tins. She wanted a cigarette, but the blind man said the zombies could smell the smoke. Besides, she only had three left and she was unsure when she’d be able to find more. Venturing outside at this point was simple suicide.

Far away in the distance, artillery explosions rolled across the city. Cookie jumped. The blind man smiled.

“I understand that you want to leave,” he said.

“You’re almost out of cigarettes. I want to leave, too. No offense, but with your added presence, we’re running low on supplies. We need food, medicine, water, and ammunition—not that I can shoot very well anyway. But you have to be patient. If and when the time comes, we will leave.”

She started to speak, but another explosion cut her off. It was followed by the sound of machinegun fire. When the sounds of battle faded, Cookie tried again.

“Where would we go?”

“Ramsey Towers,” the blind man said. “That’s our best option. A man came through here a few days before you showed up. He said they’ve got electricity in Ramsey Towers. I say we try for that.”

“How do you know he was telling the truth?”

“His voice—I can tell when someone is lying.”

“But Ramsey Towers is in Manhattan. Might as well be on the moon. We wouldn’t make it one block. Those things are everywhere. Humans, rats, pigeons, cats, dogs—and all of them are zombies.”

“Exactly. That’s why we stay put for now. I can tell by your voice that you’re getting tired. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll stand watch.”

Cookie wasn’t sure how long she slept. She was jolted awake by a rapid-fire series of explosions. They sounded distant, but the blind man said they were coming closer. His voice trembled. It was the first time she’d heard him sound afraid.

“What’s happening?” she gasped.

“I’m not sure. They just started.”

Another explosion, this one closer, rattled the light fixtures.

“Maybe the army is fighting them,” Cookie said. She grabbed a claw hammer and crept to one of the windows. Using the hammer, she pried a nail loose and pulled the heavy plywood away. The blind man stumbled forward. “What are you doing?”

“It’s okay,” Cookie said. “I don’t think they’re out there.”

She peeked out into the darkness. Dead bodies lay everywhere. None of them moved. All along the street, brilliant flashes of orange flame erupted from the sewers, and then vanished. The restaurant shook.

“Cookie? Where are you?”

“Right here, by the window. Keep coming forward.”

He touched her shoulder. “What is it? More zombies? I don’t hear them…”

“No. It’s not the zombies. They’re dead—again.”

“How do you mean?”

“They’re lying in the street. None of them are moving. But something’s happening in the sewers.”

Another explosion rocked the building. Dust rained down on them both. Across the street, a liquor store burst into flame.

“Open the door.” The blind man tottered backward. “We need to get out of here before the gas lines explode.”

Working quickly, Cookie removed the barricade and flung the door open. She helped her companion out into the street. Both of them tensed, awaiting an attack, but none was forthcoming. Slowly, they waded through a sea of decomposing corpses. Cookie gagged. “Be glad you can’t see this.”

“Why? What’s that noise? It sounds…disgusting. Like Rice Krispies.”

“It’s the zombies. They’re falling apart.”

“Literally?”

Cookie nodded, but then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”

One of the creatures twitched. She prodded it with her foot but it did not fight back.

“We’ve won,” the zombie rasped. “Now we move on to the next world, to make way for Ab and his kind to invade this level.”

The blind man grunted. Beside him, he heard Cookie gasp.

“What is it? More zombies?”

“No. The horizon is glowing. Something big is burning in Manhattan.”

The blind man shuffled over to the zombie. His foot came down on its face, sinking into the rancid flesh like it was pudding. He seemed not to notice.

“What is Ab?”

The creature grinned. “Now come…the Elilum.”

It melted across the pavement. The blind man wrinkled his nose, and scuffed his shoe on the curb. Then he reached for Cookie. She took his hand, and then turned back to the fire.

“How bad is it, Cookie?”

“It’s huge…”

She paused. Something buzzed in her ear. A second later, a mosquito landed on her arm and bit her. She let go of the blind man’s hand and slapped the insect. It fell to the sidewalk. It was crushed. Broken.

Dead.

“I wonder what the Elilum are?” the blind man asked.

Cookie didn’t answer. She was staring at the dead mosquito.

It was moving again…

* * *

THE MORNING AFTER

The Rising

Day Twenty-Seven

Goffstown, New Hampshire

In the 1700s, when Goffstown’s first settlers arrived, they found a magnificently forested area with hardwood-covered hills and magnificent stands of white pine, which extended along Mast Road (named for the many trees cut down and hauled to the Merrimack River so that the Royal British Navy could use them as ship’s masts). The morning after The Rising ended, Brian Lee, the last surviving human in Goffstown, emerged from his hiding place to find that the trees still stood. He climbed to the top of a cell phone tower and scanned the forested hills and the Uncanoonuc Mountains (Native American for “woman’s breasts”). It was a clear day, and Brian could see for miles.

The hills were green with life, but Goffstown’s streets were choked with death. Corpses, both animal and human, lay everywhere—on sidewalks, in the streets and gutters, rooftops, in vehicles and doorways and storefronts. Nothing moved. The corpses did what they were supposed to; they remained still and rotted.

Brian cheered. His cry echoed all the way to the winding river in the distance.

He’d survived by hiding inside a restaurant’s walk-in freezer. Earlier that morning, he’d crept out, looking for water. He’d stumbled, literally, over the first zombie a few minutes later. It was lying in the shadows. Using the butt of his rifle, Brian bashed its head in like a rotten melon, but the creature never reacted. Within minutes, he discovered two-dozen more, including several zombie dogs and an undead cow. All were truly lifeless, but there was no sign of head trauma—the only way to bring a zombie down. Brian was reminded of War of the Worlds, and how the Martians had seemingly died off overnight, infected by the common cold.

He’d explored for the last two hours and hadn’t encountered a single active zombie. The dead were dead again. The stench of rotting corpses hung thick, filling the streets like fog. He’d tied a bandana around his mouth and nose, but it did little to help. It was beautiful. The smell of victory.

“It’s over,” Brian said out loud as he climbed down. “It’s really over. They’re gone!”

His voice bounced back to him off the abandoned buildings. Gone…gone…gone…

Where were the other survivors? He couldn’t be the only one, could he? His wife and daughters had…

They had…

He blinked away tears. He couldn’t be the only person left alive.

Brian’s parents moved to Goffstown when he was five years old. He went away to college for a few years (where he studied engineering), but then moved back, along with his wife (whom he’d met while in school). They’d lived here since, along with their three daughters. Life was good, the way it was supposed to be. A month ago, they’d added money to his daughter’s college and wedding funds. Now…

He ripped the bandanna from his face and screamed. “What’s the point? I can’t be the only one left!”His echoes answered him.

Overcome with delayed anger and grief, Brian snapped. He ran through the streets, firing into the unmoving corpses until he was out of ammunition. Then he clubbed them, beating them into piles of red pulp, until the rifle’s stock shattered. He sank to his knees in a red, wet puddle, and sobbed. Eventually, he found a vehicle that still had the keys, and drove out to his parents’ home. They were gone, of course, killed the same night as the rest of his family, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t return to his own home. He just couldn’t. His parents’ home was on the west side of Addison Road, halfway between Shirley Hill and Winding Brook roads. Driving there, trying to ignore the constant crunch of bodies beneath the tires, Brian thought back to his youth…in the woods with his sister, Anne, and best friends, Ken and John, digging junk out of the old dump, walking along the old overgrown railroad bed, exploring streams and swamps, catching frogs, and barely making it home in time for supper.

He stopped when he saw the Big Pipe. That’s what they’d called it—a huge granite culvert and cement pipe that ran under Addison, big enough to stand in when they were kids. They’d sit on the end in the spring and watch the water rush through, the level from the melting snow. Now, it trickled through, barely ankle deep.

Lost in memory, Brian got out of the vehicle and scrambled over the rocks. In the forest, the leaves hissed. He walked through a patch of waist high weeds, twisting as they clung to his jeans. The weeds refused to let go. They squeezed tighter. The trees groaned.

Brian looked down and screamed, thoughts of his endless childhood summers gone.

Ticks swarmed up his legs, crawling over the denim. He’d never seen so many before, a moving carpet. Frantic, he tried brushing them off. Lyme disease, he thought. Oh fuck, I survived and now I’m gonna get Lyme disease.

The weeds cinched around his wrists, coiling like snakes. That was when Brian noticed they were dead: brown and withered—yet still moving. Slapping at the insects (he could feel them all over him now), Brian wrenched free of the vegetation and started back up the embankment. There was a deafening crash. He looked up at the road—which had suddenly sprouted a forest. Tall oaks and pines covered Addison, their roots serving as legs. Their limbs battered the vehicle, smashing the windshield and crushing the roof. Brian wheeled around and fled for the Big Pipe. A mosquito buzzed his face, biting him right below the eye. He glanced down at his feet and noticed that the insects were not only attacking him, but attacking each other as well. They’re zombies. It wasn’t over. It’s just spread to other life forms.

If that was true, then he stood no chance. No chance at all.

“No.”

He dove into the culvert and crouched low, ducking into the Big Pipe. He’d been able to stand up inside it as a kid. Now he barely fit. Splashing through the water, he burrowed into the darkness. He still felt insects crawling on him, but he couldn’t see them. There was little light inside the pipe, just two small circles of daylight at each end. He stripped down to his underwear and flung his clothing as far as he could. Then he slapped at his exposed skin and checked for ticks.

It grew darker.

Brian glanced back at the opening. The daylight was slowly disappearing, blocked out by the vegetation choking the exits. Soon, it was pitch black.

Brian Lee retreated back into his memories, ignoring the slithering sounds, creeping closer in the darkness.

* * *

MARCH OF THE ELILUM

The Rising

Day Twenty-Eight

Florida Caverns State Park

When it was all over, Michael Bland and his son, Kyle, were grateful to be alive. Before they’d gone underground, Mike, a 46-year-old divorcee, was a professional geologist with the Florida Department of Environmental Protection. His entire world had revolved around 14-year-old Kyle. When they saw each other (every other week as ordered by the court) they spent time playing World of Warcraft and going to the movies and just hanging out. When Kyle was at his mother’s, Mike, who had been married for nineteen years, enjoyed his independence. He didn’t date, and had no desire to start. One of his co-workers had once suggested that he “come out of his cave.”

Mike stood blinking in the sunlight. He remembered the comment, and laughed.

“What?” Kyle asked.

“Just thinking.”

Kyle glanced back at the cave entrance and then to his father. “Do you really think they’re gone?”

Mike nodded. “Sure looks that way. Maybe they’re all dead.”

“They were already dead, Dad. They can’t die twice.”

“Well, whatever it is that happens when you destroy their brain—maybe it’s finally happened to them all.”

Mike and Kyle had taken shelter in the caves (only an hour from Mike’s home in Tallahassee) on the second day of The Rising. They’d burrowed deep into the subterranean network, hiding among the dazzling formations of limestone stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, flowstones, and draperies. The cave was dry and air-filled, and a small spring fed by the Chipola River, provided them with water. They had sleeping bags and a kerosene lantern and other survival gear. By the second week, they’d run low on food, and Mike went out to find some. Despite the warm sunlight, he shuddered, remembering the horses.

Florida Caverns State Park was also popular for horseback riding, and offered stables for equestrian campers. Some of those animals must have been left behind, starved to death in their pens, and then reanimated. While Mike had been hunting for food, the zombie horses attacked.

He rubbed his forehead, which still bore the scabbed, crusty imprint of a hoof.

“Dad?”

“Hmmm?”

“What if we’re the only people left alive? What about Mom?”

Mike felt a pang of regret. What if, indeed?

Could they possibly be the last living humans? No, there had to be others, maybe hiding underground like they were, unaware that the zombie plague was over. He wondered if there were other fathers out there, battling to get to their sons or loved ones. If so, he wished them luck.

“I don’t know, Kyle. But we’ve got each other. If there is anybody else left, they probably can’t say the same.”

“I love you, Dad.”

The boy rarely said it anymore, and Mike’s eyes watered.

“I love you, too.”

“So what do we do now?”

Mike shrugged. “We go home. Carefully, until we’re sure the zombies are dea—gone. We’ll see if our car is still in the parking lot. If it is, we’ll take 90 to 71, and then hop on I-10.”

“Good. I’m sick of these caves.”

They stepped out of the shadow of the cavern mouth and started down the trail. The treetops and grass swayed back and forth, rustling softly.

“You know what I want?” Kyle asked. “Pizza.”

Mike chuckled. “Yeah, now that you mention it. Beat’s those cold beans we’ve been eating.”

They continued on. Twenty-seven days of living in the cave had hardened them both, but Mike was still tired. Sweat ran into his eyes and he wished for a cool breeze. Despite his exhaustion, he felt good.

“Everything’s going to be okay.” Mike mopped his brow. “We outlasted them.”

Kyle didn’t respond.

The plant life continued rustling.

How, Mike suddenly thought. There’s no wind…

“Dad?”

Mike stopped. Kyle was pointing at something ahead of them. Mike looked. At first, he didn’t understand what they were seeing. An armadillo, still alive and not a zombie; lay twitching on a rock. A black cloud swarmed around it. The cloud buzzed.

“Mosquitoes,” Mike said. “What the hell?”

Kyle screamed.

His legs had turned black, as thousands of ants crawled up them, covering his shoes and pants. Kyle slapped at the creatures and his hands came away covered.

“Dad, get them off me!”

Stunned, Mike beat at the insects, brushing them from his terrified son’s legs. Smashed ants littered the trail. Crushed, their bodies still impossibly twitched.

“Oh Jesus…” Mike moaned. “They’re zombies. Kyle, run! Back to the cave!”

Pushing Kyle ahead of him, Mike glanced back. The mosquitoes forgot about the armadillo and darted towards them. The trail was covered with ants. When he looked back toward the cave, the insects blocked their path, surrounding them.

“Dad—”

“Get off the trail.” Mike shoved him onto the grass. “Keep running!”

The zombies didn’t disappear, he thought. They just changed. It’s not the humans and animals anymore. It’s the fucking bugs!

They ran through the grass, biting ants still clinging to their extremities. Beneath their feet, the grass moved. Yellow lilies stretched towards them, whipping at their legs. Overhead, the tree limbs groaned. The leafy canopy hissed.

Mike tripped, crashing to the ground. Sprawled on the grass, he gasped for breath. Kyle stopped to help him and the mosquitoes surrounded the boy’s face.“Keep going,” Mike shouted. “I’m okay!”

Mike felt the individual blades of grass probe beneath his clothing, entwining around his fingers and ankles.

“Run, Kyle!”

With one last, lingering look, Kyle did, speeding towards the cave mouth, frantically slapping at the hungry insects.

Mike sat up. A vine wrapped around his arm and tugged. Mike tore away and sprang to his feet. More vines encircled him. There was a horrible, wrenching groan behind him. He whirled around and gasped.

Slowly, ponderously, the trees were stalking towards him, tip-toeing along on their tendril-like roots.

Screaming, Mike ripped free of the clinging vines and fled for the cave. He leapt through the mouth. Cool darkness surround him.

“Kyle?”

His voice echoed back to him.

“KYLE!”

“I’m here.” Despite the boy’s age, his son’s voice sounded small and afraid.

Mike’s did, too.

They found each other in the darkness, and returned to their camp inside the cave’s interior. Mike lit their kerosene lantern, and they checked each other for damage. Both were covered in hundreds of insect bites, and the vines had left ugly, red welts on Mike’s arms.

“Dad? There’s no plants in here, right?”

Mike shook his head.

“And bugs don’t live inside caves, right?”

“No,” Mike lied, closing his eyes. “No they don’t.”

At the edges of the lantern’s glow, the cavern floor began to move.

Darkness scuttled towards them.

Outside, the Elilum reigned over all.

BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE

The Rising

Day Twenty-Nine

Cashmere, Washington

“Something’s happening.”

Chris Hansen put down his Stephen Crane collection and looked up at Francesca. She stood at the window, the sunlight reflected on her skin. For a second, Chris found it hard to breathe. She looked beautiful, even after living barricaded inside this house, with no showers and very little to eat. She was slender with long dark brunette hair and big brown eyes. The only thing missing was her great smile.

Francesca hadn’t smiled in a long time. Chris nudged the sluggish wheelchair towards her. It was less responsive. The batteries were almost dead. And with the electricity out, there’d be no way to recharge them.

“What is it?” he asked.

Francesca didn’t reply.

They hadn’t seen a zombie for three days. The last one to approach the house had collapsed in the driveway, literally falling apart. The arms fell off and the abdomen popped like a balloon. When Francesca crept outside to investigate, she said the insects burrowing through the rancid flesh were fighting with each other. Chris had scoffed at this.

“So what is it? Not more zombies?”

She shook her head. “Something else…something…weird.”

Chris was thirty-eight years old and had been a quadriplegic for the last eighteen. He had good use of his left arm (except for the fingers), but very limited use of his right. He could not feel his skin or use any muscles below his collarbone. Dead from the neck down, he’d once said. Sometimes he was envious of the dead outside. Unlike him, they could still move.

He looked out the window, and gasped. The trees were dying. Their house sat in the middle of a flat square acre. As they watched, the grass died—and then came back. There was no clear way to describe it. Like a wave on an ocean, a patch of brown rippled across the lawn. In its wake, the grass then turned green again—but it moved. The grass moved, each blade waving like an individual tentacle. The same thing was happening to the trees—tamarack, pine, fir, and blue spruce—each died and was resurrected. They ripped themselves free of the soil and clambered away on their roots. Thankfully, none of them realized there were two humans less than twenty-five feet away.

“It’s spreading,” Chris whispered. “Maybe nobody’s going to come after all.”

“They’ll come.” Francesca wheeled him into the kitchen. “The Rising is over. We’ve stayed inside for twenty-nine days. All we have to do is stay inside for a few more.”

“Not like either one of us were social butterflies anyway.” Chris grinned, trying to take his mind off the strange occurrences outside.

Before Francesca came into his life, Chris had barely left the house in over ten years. They’d met online when he’d purchased some books from her on eBay. Like him, she was reclusive, wading through and waiting on life. After three months of phone calls and emails, Chris invited her to visit. A month later, Francesca left the east coast behind and moved in with him.

Every day since then was magic. Sunshine. Life.

Chris felt alive with her.

“I’ll make you lunch,” Francesca said. “It’s good that you don’t eat much. We’re almost out of food.”

Chris ate little at mealtimes to avoid getting fat, which was a quad’s worst enemy (other than pressure sores and bladder infections).

“What’s left?”

She held up two cans. “Corn or Spam.”

“Crap.”

“You are always grumpy at lunch and dinner. Why do—”

She screamed, dropping the cans.

“What?” Chris’s eyes darted back and forth.

“What’s wrong?”

“The cactus.” Francesca’s face was pale. She pointed to a small pot on the windowsill. “It’s moving.”

Chris tried to stay calm. “The trash. Throw it in the trash.”

She did, holding the cactus pot at arm’s length. Then she went through the rest of the house and did the same with the other plants. The philodendron’s long vines wrapped around her arm, the heartshaped leaves caressing her skin. When it was over, Francesca wept.

“Maybe you’re right,” she cried. “Maybe no one is coming to save us.”

“Come here.”

She did. She sat in his lap. Chris’s cushion made a farting noise. They both giggled.

He wheeled them back to the big window, and the chair finally died.

“Well,” he said. “I guess this is as good a spot as any.”

Twenty-five feet away, on top of a four-foot high hill in the front yard, was a huge waterfall with a pond. Water splashed over several big rocks that Chris’s father had put there years before. A huge, black cloud hovered over the rocks.

Mosquitoes. More mosquitoes than either had ever seen. Another cloud, larger and darker, swooped down from above. Bees. The two groups began battling.

“What’s happening?” Francesca draped her legs over the side of the chair. “I don’t understand.”

“It’s spread. Think about it. First, it was the humans and the animals. But that stopped. Remember the zombie that just fell apart on the sidewalk two days ago? That was the end of that… wave. But now it’s affecting the plants and the insects. Look. They’re going after each other, just like the other zombies did.”

Francesca stayed silent. She shifted against him, and though he couldn’t feel it, her soft buttocks cradled Chris’s groin.

“I love you,” he whispered.

“I love you, too.” Her breath tickled his ear. She stroked his thinning hair.

Outside, the yard grew thick with praying mantises, ants, hornets, ladybugs, and other insects, all fighting to the death. The grass struck out at them, but the sheer number of insects was overwhelming. Francesca stirred. “Can they get inside?”

“No,” he lied. “We’re safe.”

Chris knew he should be afraid, but he wasn’t. He felt safe. Secure. Warm. He sensed that Francesca was beginning to feel the same way. She relaxed, snuggling against him. He wrapped his left arm around her.

“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me,” he told her. “Do you know that?”

“As are you. I’d be lost without you, Chris.”

“I’d be lost without you, Francesca. You’ve given me so much. You taught me how to live.”

“You taught me how to love.”

“You’re my reason to live.”

They kissed for a long time. When Chris opened his eyes, the insects were crawling over the window. Sitting in the chair from which Chris had spent so much time, from which he’d viewed the world around him, viewed life itself, the two of them held one another and watched the world die. They were content and happy and unlike everything around them, their love was eternal. It did not die.

* * *

AMERICAN PIE

The Rising

Day Thirty

Drammen, Oslo, Norway

“I’m so glad you speak English,” the American said. “I haven’t talked to anybody alive in almost two weeks.”

Trygve Botnen nodded. “I haven’t seen anyone either. Just the dead, and I don’t like talking to them. But yes, having visited forty-six different states in the last six years, I’d like to think my English is pretty good.”

“You go there on business?”

“Vacations,” Trygve said. “I’m the…I was the Vice President of ABN AMRO Asset Management’s real estate division, but when I went to the states, it was mostly for pleasure.”

“Ever been to New York?”

“Sure.”

“I’m from New York. Came over here on vacation. I’m an angler. I’ve fished all around the world. Wanted to fish the Drammen River, all the way down to the Svelvikstrømmen. I rented a cottage, and was here two days when it happened. I waited a few more days before deciding to head back to the States, but I couldn’t go home, because by then, there was no home to go back to. They’d stopped all air travel.”

There was a rustling sound outside and both men immediately fell silent. Trygve crept to the window and peeked. A brown, desiccated vine dragged itself across the wall, slowly curling. As he watched, it stopped moving.

They were hiding in a gift shop outside the world-famous Spiral Tunnel. Trygve had arrived an hour ago, wearing a beekeepers outfit to protect him from the marauding undead insects, and a flamethrower to contend with the zombie plants. He was tired, hungry, and thirsty, and when he found the American, his spirits soared.

“I’m Don, by the way.” The American stuck out his hand. “Don McClain.”

Trygve shook his hand. “Wasn’t there an American singer with the same name?”

Don nodded. “Yep. ‘Bye bye Miss American Pie, drove my Chevy to the levee but the levee was dry.’ I think he spelled his last name different though.”

Trygve’s stomach rumbled. “I could go for some American Pie right now. Any kind of pie.”

Don laughed. “I don’t have any food, but there’s water, if you’re thirsty?”

“Please.”

Trygve brought the canteen to his lips. The water was warm and oily, but it was the sweetest he’d ever drunk.

“So,” Don asked. “Any ideas on what to do next?”

“They are dying off.” Trygve sealed the canteen and wiped his lips. “The zombies. The people and animals stopped moving a few days ago. They’re just regular corpses again. And the same thing seems to be happening with the plants and insects now. They’re moving slower, not attacking. The last few miles here, I wasn’t attacked by anything.”

“What if they come back? Maybe this is some form of hibernation, or transformation.”

Trygve shrugged. “My plan all along was to make a wilderness walk up Kjøsterudjuvet. Get high up into the mountains, where there is snow all year, and live there.”

“But the zombies would find you there, too. The mountains are just as dangerous as the cities—maybe more.”

Trygve shrugged out of his beekeeper’s outfit and coat, and leaned back against the wall. He performed a cursory check of his weapons: flamethrower, two pistols, and a long, sharp knife.

“I don’t think they would,” he said. “What are the zombies? Reanimated corpses. Cut off an arm or a leg, and they keep coming. They’re dead. But yet they move. Function. My theory is this—if I get to some place where the temperature is below freezing, the zombies can’t move. After all, since they’re dead, they have no body heat, nothing to keep their blood and tissues from freezing. If they tried to invade such a region, they’d stop in their tracks, frozen into place.”

His stomach rumbled again. It had been five days since Trygve had last eaten, and fourteen days since he’d had more than a mouthful at a time. He’d lost weight, and looked much older than his thirtythree years of age. The last month had been hard on him, to say the least.

Don looked thoughtful. “Well, I’m not a biologist or a scientist, but I guess that makes sense. If their blood and stuff freezes, then they can’t move. Could we make it into the mountains?”

Trygve nodded. “As long as they stay in hibernation, yes. We can find a vehicle and be there in a few hours. Then we’ll climb.”

“Climb?”

“I’ve hiked in the Himalayas. I can teach you how.”

“Well, shit!” Don grinned. “Let’s go now. I’m tired of hiding out in this gift shop.”

“Sleep now,” Trygve suggested. “We’ll leave tomorrow morning. Find some food first, and then set out on our journey.”

Don rubbed his stomach. “Food. That would work. I miss pancakes and bacon. God, I’m hungry.”

“Yes,” Trygve agreed. “Me, too.”

They made small talk for a while longer. Trygve sharpened his knife and Don prattled about all the foods he missed. After a while, the American’s eyes grew heavy, and he stifled a yawn. Trygve smiled.

“Sleep, my friend. I’ll stand watch.”

Don didn’t argue with him, and soon, he was fast asleep, snoring softly.

Trygve waited for ten more minutes, making sure the American would not wake. Then, when the hunger pangs in his stomach grew unbearable, he slid forward, put the knife’s blade to Don’s throat, and sliced. Blood spattered across Trygve’s face. Don’s eyes flew open. He grasped at the gaping wound, his fingers coming away slick with blood. Trygve held him down, and waited for him to die. It didn’t take long.

When it was over, Trygve stripped off the man’s clothing and went to work, skinning and cleaning the body, cutting him up like a cow in a butcher’s shop…steaks, chops, thighs—meat.

He drooled through the entire grisly task. Finished, he pulled some plastic freezer bags out of his backpack, and slipped the meat inside. He left a large section of breast out, started a fire, and cooked it over the open flame.

“I’m sorry, my friend, but it is a long journey into those mountains, and I don’t know how much food I’ll be able to find.”

Whistling the tune the American had been singing, Trygve Botnen sank his teeth into the flesh, closed his eyes, and sighed with delight. He slept soundly that night, his belly full. Outside, in the night sky, a new star appeared. It grew brighter and bigger by the hour. The temperature began to rise.

* * *

TWO SUNS IN THE SUNSET

The Rising

Day Thirty-One

Oconto, Nebraska

Big R wondered if he was the last person left alive on Earth.

He wondered a lot of things. First and foremost, was his name really Big R? Why was he here? Where the hell was everybody else?

His memories were decaying faster than the putrid corpses lying in the streets. He knew he lived in Alexandria, Virginia, yet here he was in Nebraska, with no recollection of how he’d arrived, or for how long, nor why he’d woken up in the basement of a flattened farmhouse. He didn’t know what had destroyed the house, didn’t know if he’d grown up here, didn’t know what had happened to the world. Occasionally, he got flashes of memory—fuzzy clips, coming attractions excerpted from some movie in his head. A dead man, arms pulled out of their sockets and ear dangling on a thin strand of gristle, lurching towards him, spitting curses and threats. A horse, broken ribs jutting from rancid, maggot-infested flesh, galloping along in pursuit of a terrified little girl. Trees, crushing buildings, and smashing a car open with their limbs and pulling out the occupants like candy. Poison oak vines, snaking their way into someone’s bulging throat. A swarm of red and black ants devouring each other—and everything else in their path.

The Pressey Wildlife Management Area. Big R shuddered. His memories of the wildlife area were crystal clear. He wished he could lose those, too. So many dead animals. The stench, the screams—the horror. The chewing sounds. He walked on. Sweat poured down his brow and into his eyes. He wiped his face. Though the sun was going down, it was sweltering outside—much too hot for this time of year.

He passed by the St. Mary’s Catholic Church, and had no memory of it. The building looked like something off the set of The Andy Griffith Show—a small, white, old-fashioned building with a crosstopped steeple and bell. The brown grass was dead, as were the trees. Red spray paint covered the front doors; THERE IS NO GOD BUT OB.

Big R wondered what it meant. Who was Ob?

Was this his fault?

On the sidewalk, a dead crow and the insects inside it had melted into a congealed puddle. Nose wrinkling, Big R stepped around the mess, and was reminded again of the wildlife management area.

He had a sudden revelation. The Pressey Wildlife Management Area was only four miles north of Oconto, located along the South Loup River. How did he know that? It must mean he’d spent some time there, at least.

He continued along, mopping the sweat from his brow. Big R took in his surroundings, looking for something familiar, something that would break his amnesia. A Farmers Bank. Eggleston Oil Company. A blood-stained banner advertising the Annual Fireman’s Barbeque Cook-Off fluttered in the hot breeze. His stomach rumbled. He was hungry, and had no idea when he’d last eaten. A road sign stated that Lexington was twenty-five miles away. And death. Lots and lots of death: dead humans, animals, insects, and plants were everywhere. Nothing breathing. Nothing green. The air reeked of decay. Big R checked his watch, and saw that there was only a half an hour or so till sundown. He should try to find a place to sleep for the night, somewhere other than the abandoned basement. At least find a place to escape from the increasing heat. He found the local library and trudged up the steps. His heels stuck to the pavement, and he glanced at his feet, astonished. The rubber on his soles was melting. All around him, the corpses were doing the same, bubbling and hissing as they turned into toxic stew.

The library door was locked, so Big R forced it open with his pry-bar. He had no idea where he’d found the weapon, only that he’d been clutching it upon waking up. The library’s interior smelled of dust and mildew. Thankfully, he smelled no rotting corpses. His nose welcomed the relief. He made his way to a little bulletin board, labeled, FACTS ABOUT OCONTO. The town, it seemed, was a Menominee Indian word for, “place of the pickerel.” So now he knew that. Meant absolutely shit to him, but at least he knew.

Big R felt like crying, but didn’t know why. That made him want to cry even more.

He turned back to the bookshelves and was surprised by how much light there was inside the building. The power was out, the electric lights didn’t work, and the sun was going down outside. Yet the library was brightly illuminated, with no shadows between the rows of shelves. As he watched, dazzling brilliance flooded through the windows, blinding him. Shielding his eyes, he turned away.

Big R smelled smoke.

“What now?”

He went to the door, intent on discovering the source of both the light and the smoke. The ornate wood felt warm beneath his palm, and Big R hesitated. Fire? Could there be a fire outside? But he’d just been out there two minutes ago.

Pulling his sleeve down over his hand, he pushed the door open and stepped outside—

—into Hell.

There were two suns in the sunset. One of them, a hazy, reddish-orange half disc, sat in the west, slowly sinking beneath the horizon. The other one, an intense, white-with-red-tinged ball of fire, hung high in the southern sky, growing bigger by the second. Big R stared at it, couldn’t help but stare at it, mesmerized by the sight. He wondered what it was. A nuclear explosion, perhaps? A comet?

The word Teraphim ran through his mind. He wondered what it meant and how he knew it. Then Oconto began to burn. The treetops burst into flames, followed by the church steeple, and then the buildings themselves.

The last thing Big R saw before he went blind were orange, smoke-like creatures, resembling wisps of flame. They emerged from the center of the second sun and swooped down upon the earth like the wind. There were millions of them, and everything they touched caught on fire. Their faces—their howling faces—looked almost human…eyes, noses and mouths of flame. Their laughter crackled along with the inferno.

Big R wondered what they were, and then, as his hair singed, decided he was grateful not to know.

OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE

The Rising

Day Thirty-Two

Aurora, Colorado

And then, the burning ember that was once Earth fizzled, as if snuffed out by solar winds…

THE END

The Labyrinth

Day One

The City Between Worlds

Robert Lewis, Bob to his friends, and Cyber-Bob to his online buddies, opened his eyes, amazed that he could still see. Indeed, amazed he still had eyes. He remembered them popping, running down his charred face as the second sun burned everything in Aurora—humans, zombies, plants, and insects alike. The last thing he’d seen were the walls of his parents’ home, turning to ash.

Bob looked around. He was in an empty room carved out of gray, stone blocks. A pale half-moon shining through the room’s lone window provided his only source of light. The air was damp and cold.

“This is Heaven?” His voice echoed off the walls. Bob considered himself a Christian—a Catholic. He was open-minded and respected other beliefs, as long as people did the same for him. He disagreed with some of the church’s dogma, but Bob knew his Bible, and he didn’t remember Heaven being described like this. His personal vision of the perfect afterlife had always involved a really big library with comfortable chairs and fireplaces and an endless supply of books, both for reading and writing (he enjoyed both).

He went to the window. A thick layer of gray clouds floated so far below that he almost mistook them for mountaintops. Bob glanced up at the moon, hanging alone in the darkness, with no stars to keep it company. Not even the flashing lights of a passing airplane.

Then the moon blinked.

Gasping, Bob leapt backward and collided with something else. Something in the room, that hadn’t been there before.

A… person?

It was shaped like a human. Tall. Bob couldn’t tell if it had legs, because it wore a long, flowing black shroud. Its face and hands were milk-white, and its eyes and mouth were black, empty holes.

“Robert Lewis of Earth, early Twenty-First Century?” Its voice was like an echo with no sound at first. The lips did not move.

Bob tried to speak, and found he couldn’t. All he managed was a strangled sigh.

“That is a yes?”

Bob nodded.

“And on your Earth, were the dead coming back to life, possessed by a race of beings known as the Siqqusim?”

“Um…” Bob shrugged.

The creature took a step backward, and though Bob heard its footsteps ring out on the stone floor, he realized that it was actually floating several inches above it.

He swallowed. So what’s making the footstep sound?

“Yes or no, Mr. Lewis?”

Bob nodded again.

“Does the term ‘Hamelin’s Revenge’ mean anything to you?”

Frowning, Bob shook his head. It didn’t ring any bells.

The thing smiled. “Good. Then I have obtained the right version of you. Welcome to the Labyrinth. You were expecting Heaven, and you may see it yet. But there is something you must do before you pass on. Follow me.”

The creature rotated in mid-air, floating towards the door.

Bob finally worked up enough saliva to shout, “Hey!”

His companion turned. “Yes?”

“What is this? Who are you?”

“This is nowhere and everywhere. This is the inbetween—the black space amidst the stars, the backdoor of reality. As for me, do I not look familiar?”

Bob considered this. The being did look familiar, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

“I get the feeling I’ve met you before.”

“You have. All of you have. In your dreams.”

A sense of relief washed over Bob, and his posture slackened. “That’s it! I’m dreaming. I’m still back in Aurora, and the Earth didn’t burn up!”

The other floated out the doorway. “No, I’m afraid your Earth was incinerated, as were countless other Earths, by the Teraphim.”

“W-who?”

“The three brothers: Ob of the Siqqusim, Ab of the Elilum, and Api of the Teraphim.”

“This is a dream,” Bob replied, “so it’s okay if I don’t understand a thing you just said, right?”

“It matters not.” The creature led him down a long staircase, which led to another door.

“We now enter the Labyrinth,” the mime-thing said.Bob followed his companion through a confusing, maze-like series of hallways with closed doors on all sides. They seemed to walk for a long time.

“Where are we going?”

“You are going to a different Earth. Your father played in a musical duo. Lewis and Walker, correct?”

“Yeah, but how—?”

“That is what this incarnation of Kevin Jensen is listening to right now. He has just buried his friend. Tomorrow, he will attempt to rescue other friends from a cult. It has gone disastrously wrong infinite times before. We are sending you in to tip the balance.”

“Can I wake up now?”

The thing ignored him. “You must obtain the cult’s copy of the Daemonolateria. Use it to stop Leviathan and Behemoth, and to halt the rains.”

Bob stopped in the middle of the hallway. “Look. I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what this is about. You’re not making any fucking sense!”

The creature whirled around, and its voice boomed inside his head.

“THE THIRTEEN HAVE BEEN LOOSED ACROSS TIME AND SPACE. ALL EARTHS, ALL PLANETS, INDEED—THE VERY FABRIC OF EXISTENCE IS THREATENED. REALITIES ARE COLLAPSING IN ON ONE ANOTHER. DEATH IS LIFE AND LIFE IS DEATH. ALL ARE IN DANGER OF BECOMING NOTHING. YOU WILL DO THIS, OR YOU WILL BE LEFT HERE TO WANDER FOR ALL ETERNITY!”

Bob fell to his knees and clutched the sides of his head. It hurt. The voice physically and mentally hurt.

“Please,” he sobbed, curling into a ball. “I don’t understand. I just want my old life back.”

The creature hovered over him. When it spoke again, its voice was softer.

“Your old life is gone, devoured by the Siqqusim, Elilum, and Teraphim.”

“The zombies?”

“Indeed. The first group is led by Ob. He, along with his brothers, is one of thirteen beings that existed long before the Morningstar’s fall. Your kind named them demons without truly understanding what they were. There are thirteen total. Meeble and Kat and Shtar, Behemoth and Leviathan and Kandara, Nodens and Purturabo…”

Bob interrupted the litany of names. “What does this have to do with me?”

“There are other worlds than the one you came from…other planets and other Earths. The Thirteen were scattered across the realities and planes of existence. The Siqqusim have been released from one such dimension, a place called the Void. Ob intends to gather the other Thirteen, building an army, and declare war on Heaven itself.”

“So there really is a God?”

“Yes, but humanity has always misunderstood His existence. Perhaps, if you succeed, you will stand in His presence and understand for yourself.”

Bob stood up. “What do I have to do?”

“Go through this door.” The creature opened one of the countless doors. Bob heard the soft hiss of rain. “Seek out a young man named Kevin Jensen. Accompany him when he goes to rescue his friends. There is a book called the Daemonolateria. Do not let it be destroyed this time. Use it to undo what has been done in that reality.”

“How do I get back here?”

“The Labyrinth has many doors. You will find one when you are ready.”

Swallowing hard, Bob stepped through the doorway. He found himself standing on the roof of a hotel, surrounded on all sides by water. When he turned around, the doorway closed behind him, vanishing into thin air.

* * *

AFTERWORD:

STORY NOTES FROM THE END OF THE WORLD

And so, once again, we close the curtain on the world of The Rising. This is the fourth excursion into that nightmare: The Rising, The Rising: Necrophobia, City of the Dead, and now the volume you’ve just read. Will there be another? I’m not telling—yet. Suffice it to say, the Labyrinth has many doors, and you never know what’s waiting behind the next one. Like Ob said in The Rising and Reverend Martin repeated in City of the Dead; there are other worlds than these.

I do know this; when I started this project, I was worried that I’d burn out. Like I said in the introduction, this wasn’t a book that I wanted to write. I wasn’t as enthusiastic about it as I’ve been past books. Figured I’d said all I had to say about the Siqqusim, and wondered where I’d find the inspiration to revisit them again. But I’m very happy to report that never happened—the inspiration was still there. As I prepared for each story, and spoke with the individual it was being written for, I found more and more things to write about. And even when I finished the last story, I still had more ideas. I got excited again.

So, no—I might not be done with this world yet. We’ll both just have to wait and see. Meanwhile, if you’re interested, here are some little tidbits about each tale and where it came from and where it was written. If you’re not curious about that sort of thing, you can close the book now and be assured that you didn’t miss anything. But if you’re the type who likes to know how the magician did his trick, here’s how I pulled these particular rabbits from their hats.

A note on the stories: many of the characters in these tales are real people. Their stories appeared in an earlier, pricey, collector’s edition. Each of them paid Delirium Books for the privilege, but in truth, the privilege was actually all mine. I think these are some of the best short stories of my career, and the reason for that is because of the people I wrote about. So thanks to all who participated. In addition to real people, you’ll also see some familiar fictional characters from The Rising mythos. More on that below…

* * *

“Don’s Last Mosh”

This was written at home, in my office, over the space of two hours. Finished the second and final draft the next day. Don’s a big guy, and he likes heavy metal. When I met him in person (at the 2004 Horrorfind Weekend convention in Baltimore), my first thought was, “Jesus, I’d hate to be in a mosh pit with this guy.” Obviously, the story came from that. Don is the brain behind Necessary Evil Press (a fine small press publisher), thus the name of the band he was going to see in the story. Long-time readers may also catch a brief reference in this story to “Caught In A Mosh,” an earlier short story of mine.

“Family Reunion”

This was also written at home, in my office, over two days, when I needed a break from working on The Conqueror Worms. When Terry gave me his background so that I could craft the story, he told me a lot about his family. Families were something I’d wanted to explore more in relation to the zombies (other than Jim and Danny from the novels, obviously), so this was the perfect opportunity. If you look closely, you’ll find references to events mentioned in The Rising, and “Don’s Last Mosh.”

“As Above (Sisters, Part One)”

“So Below (Sisters, Part Two)”

These are the first of a pair of two-part stories (the second pair being “Walkabout” Parts 1 and 2). These two stories were written at home, in my office, over a very long week. When Roman told me the stories were for his daughters, it immediately presented a challenge, and at first, I wasn’t sure what to do. See, I have no problem gleefully killing off your spouses and partners and extended family members in these stories. I’ll even slaughter your beloved pets. But your children? Nope. Can’t do it. I don’t mess with kids (if you think about it, I didn’t even truly mess with Danny in the novels). So what to write about? After several failed drafts, I had Roman ask his daughters what they’d do if the zombies invaded. These stories were their reply. Smart, tough kids—so all you zombies better beware.

“Last Chance For La Chance”

This was written at home, in my office; three drafts in three hours. A long time ago, the first draft of The Rising had a scene in which Frankie goes to the Baltimore-Washington International airport (after her escape from the zoo). The whole segment slowed the plot down, so I cut it. But the idea—I loved the idea. When Jamie told me I could place the story anywhere in the U.S., I was happy, because I finally got a chance to re-write that scene. Oh, and in this story, when Jamie decides to go to a friend’s house in Cockeysville? In real life, that’s my old apartment.

“Watching The World End”

I figured that by the sixth day of dead folks getting back up and eating the living, some people would start to lose their sanity. Unfortunately for William, he was my first victim. This was written in a posh hotel room at the Ritz-Carlton in Philadelphia, during a rainy afternoon. I like the story much better than I liked the hotel. If you were paying attention, you’ll notice several references to events from The Rising and one from “Last Chance For La Chance.”

“The Fall Of Rome”

The first draft of this story was written during the World Horror Convention 2005 in New York City. At the time, I was hiding out in my hotel room because every time I went downstairs for a beer, people mobbed me. The second and final drafts were written in my backyard, under the stars one night, while listening to Pink Floyd’s “Wish You Were Here” (thus the usage in the story). Several months after writing this story, I met Eddie at Hypericon, a convention in Nashville. He said that I got the sniper part right. I said that was good. And then we partied till dawn, and bore witness to an orgy whose participants were dressed like Klingons and Jedi Knights. So there’s that.

“Walkabout Parts 1 and 2”

These are the second pair of two-part stories (the others being “As Above” and “So Below”). The first part was written in my office at home, and the second was started there and completed just before I went to the World Horror Convention in New York City (I finished it while riding in a car with authors John Skipp, Steven Shrewsbury, and James Sneddon). I bring this up because it was at WHC that I met Leigh and Penny—and was very pleased to learn that I’d pretty much gotten them right. If you look closely, you’ll find a reference to events from The Rising: Necrophobia (specifically, Brett McBean’s wonderful story, “The Beautiful Place,” which also took place in Australia).

“Hellhounds On My Trail”

When The Rising came out, my friend and fellow author Tim Lebbon gave me hell for not showing what was happening in England. Luckily, since Jason wanted his story to take place there, I finally had an opportunity to fix that. Even better—Jason is a big fan of the Blues, as am I. I love the Robert Johnson mythos, and his line about the hellhounds on his trail never, ever fails to give me chills. I was glad to work it into the story. I wrote this late one night in a hotel room in New York City during the World Horror Convention, while fellow authors John Skipp, Bev Vincent, and Steven L. Shrewsbury snored in the background.

“Spoilers”

This was written over a weekend in my backyard. Plenty of sunshine, ice tea, and bug spray. I actually had the basic idea long before I started work on this collection. The Siqqusim’s knowledge of our race is obtained only through the memories and experiences of their hosts. But they are curious to know more, even as they exterminate us. When Mike told me he was a big movie fan and bibliophile, I knew what I wanted to do. Alert readers will notice a tie-in to my novel The Rutting Season (and my now infamous alter-ego, Adam Senft). There is a reason for all these non-Rising tie-ins, but I’m not going to tell you what it is—yet.

“The Man Comes Around”

I wrote an early draft of this in hotel rooms across Tennessee and Kentucky, while on a book signing tour for City of the Dead and Terminal. The original story was called “Beer Run” and it sucked really badly. I mean really, really bad. So I scrapped it and wrote this version during a break in the tour, on the Fourth of July, while my wife was watching a Twilight Zone marathon. The title is from one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs. This is the first of three stories in this volume that deal with General Dunbar, a minor character from The Rising that I always wanted to do more with (the other two stories are “Where The Down Boys Go” and “Through The Glass Darkly”).

“The Summoning”

This nasty little piece of work was written between midnight and five in the morning, at home, in my office. One of the things I tried to show in both The Rising and City of the Dead was that some of the still-living humans were just as bad as the zombies. I took the same approach with this tale. The zombies are secondary when compared to the heinous acts of the skinny man.

“Pocket Apocalypse”

This is the first of three stories written specifically for this edition. It replaces a tale called “Till Death Do Us Part” (which only appears in the previous volume). “Pocket Apocalypse” features a deeper look at Troll, who was one of the most popular secondary characters in The Rising. I still get emails from readers who want to know more about him. Hopefully, this will shed a little more light on his background, and what he was up to before he met Frankie.

“The Viking Plays Patty Cake”

I’ve always wanted to write a novel set in Detroit. Unfortunately, I only had 1,000 words to play with this time around. This story was written over the space of a month—not because I was having trouble with it, but because I was on the last leg of a book signing tour and was behind deadline on The Rutting Season. Mark and Paula told me a lot about themselves, but when they told me the story about Mark playing patty cake with his daughter on a park bench, the father in me (also known as the softie) immediately knew what he wanted to write about. I’d like to think that Mark’s family showed up eventually, and that they were reunited, no matter how briefly. Alert readers will notice references to General Dunbar, “Don’s Last Mosh,” and Colonel Schow’s renegade National Guard unit from The Rising.

“If You Can See The Mountain…”

This was written in two days, in my office, during Halloween week. Mean, a.k.a. Mike Nolan, gave me a lot of information on New Zealand (including Mount Egmont) when I wrote to him and asked for his background in reference to the story. I’m glad he did because until then, the only thing I knew about New Zealand was that they grew kiwis, and Lord of the Rings was filmed there. Mean was an excellent travel guide, and I fully intend to visit, based on his descriptions alone. There was one bit of trivia he gave me that, very regretfully, I didn’t have room to use. It’s very cool, but I just didn’t have room for it. So I’m including it here, because I’m positive the rest of you will think it’s cool, too. Mean wrote: We had an old single shot .22 rifle mainly for rabbits and opossums. Our opossums are not like your possums there in the States. Our opossums may make good zombie stoppers, as they don’t actually attack people—but when they get frightened, they consider people are like trees and climb them and wrap themselves around your head. They have very long sharp claws, prehensile tails, are incredibly strong, and don’t smell too good. Removal is a difficult process, to say the least. See what I mean? Is that not the coolest fucking thing you’ve ever heard? I’d love to do an entire novel about zombie opossums, but you guys will have to convince Delirium to publish it. Write to Shane now!

“You Only Live Twice”

This was written in my home office, in one day’s time—all three drafts. Truthfully, a lot of these are Jade’s own words. I just turned them into a story. I wanted to do something quiet and introspective, giving you readers (and myself) a momentary break from the violence and gore. I’m very happy with the results. Hopefully, it worked for you, too. I do feel badly for the Jade in this tale. I’d like to think that in an alternate universe, she and Anthony got married, she bought that Mustang she’d always wanted, and her cat didn’t turn into a zombie. And you know what? Maybe she did. Alert readers will notice a tiein with “The Viking Plays Patty Cake.”

So who was outside? Did the National Guard really reoccupy Detroit, or was it just the zombies playing a trick? I know—but I’m not telling. This is one of those endings that you all like so much. (Ducks before the readers can hit him…)

“And Hell Followed With Him”

The problem with this story is that I didn’t want it to end. I could have easily (and happily) turned this into a novel. Bob is a close, personal friend of mine, and York, PA is my hometown (which is why you’ve seen it pop up in some of my other works). As a result, there was so much more that I wanted to write about, places and situations that I wanted to throw in. Unfortunately, there’s only so much you can do with 1,000 words.

The story was written in my backyard, in the midst of the summer heat wave, on the exact same spot where Bob and I have drank many beers. Bob spends a lot of time hanging out with Geoff Cooper and me, and is often seen as the quiet, responsible member of our trio; the “safe” one, as my wife calls him. If the dead started returning to life and bikers killed his family, I think Bob would put both Coop and I to shame, and that’s why I transformed him into this Crow-like spirit of vengeance. Also of note, the things happening in York (in this story) are also referenced in The Rising.

“The High Point”

I took a break from this book for a while. Didn’t want to, and it set us back as far as the deadline, but circumstances were beyond my control. I had a previous deadline to beat ( The Rutting Season) and I had to get that finished or forfeit a sizable amount of money. So I did. The day after I finished the novel, this was the first thing I wrote. It felt good. Real fucking good. All three drafts were done in one evening, in my office, while it rained outside.

“Where The Down Boys Go”

This must be the year for Paul Legerski inspired fiction. I wrote this story after finishing The Rutting Season a week before. Paul previously entered a contest in which he won a role in that novel. And now he had a role here, as well. This is the second of the General Dunbar story-arc (the other two tales being “The Man Comes Around” and “Through The Glass Darkly”). Paul is the only person I know that likes 80’s hair metal more than me. We disagree on the musical merits of Warrant, but that’s about all. The story title comes from one of the few Warrant songs I like. He was armed with a chainsaw in the original draft, but I took it out because I thought that was too easy, and too much like Evil Dead.

“1 Corinthians 15:51”

Most of this was written in my backyard, during an unseasonably warm spell in mid-October. Lynchburg, VA, home of Jerry Falwell, has darn near more churches than anywhere else in America. Keeping that in mind, I wanted this story to revolve around Christianity, and one of its core principles—the resurrection of the dead. Unlike most of the tales in this book, this story took five drafts. The original version was too similar to “The Summoning,” and I wasn’t happy with it. (Sadly, the first draft also had a neat segment with Dawn teaching Sunday School that just didn’t fit in this final version). Observant readers will recognize the character of Klinger. Like General Dunbar (who also appears in this book), Klinger had a minor role in The Rising, and I’d always wanted to do more with him. Since he met Jim and Martin in Virginia, and since this story also took place in Virginia, I figured this was the opportunity to do just that.

As for the title, I got it while flipping through my dog-eared Scofield Reference Bible; something I recommend all horror writers keep on their desk. I use mine almost every day.

“All Fall Down” and “A Man’s Home Is His Casket”

These two stories are obviously interconnected, which is why I’m writing about them here at the same time. Of all the tales in this book, these two provided my most perplexing challenge. See, Paul (also known as PG) wanted to become a zombie and kill his good friend H (also known as Kresby). But Paul’s story took place in Arizona and H’s took place in Minnesota. That’s a long fucking way for a zombie to travel, and it would take more than 1,000 words to tell it. Luckily, H was agreeable to having Paul kill him in his story. His only stipulation was that Paul couldn’t get his book collection. Of course, he didn’t say anything about burning the collection—along with the two of them. What can I say? I’m an evil bastard…

“Through The Glass Darkly”

This was the last story to be completed; not because I had trouble with it, but because I wasn’t sure which day I wanted to place it. I wrote it in my living room in one evening. Larry, in case you don’t know, runs Bloodletting Books and Bloodletting Press. He also manufactures glass for Gallo Wines. This is the third tale in the General Dunbar storyarc (the other two being “The Man Comes Around” and “Where The Down Boys Go”). You’ll catch references to events from those stories, if you pay attention.

“Zombie Worm”

This is the second of three stories written specifically for this edition. It replaces a tale called “Ballroom Blitz,” which only appears in the collector’s edition. The title, “Zombie Worm,” is an ongoing joke. When The Conqueror Worms was released, some booksellers assumed it was another zombie novel that featured—wait for it—zombie worms. I’m not making that up. In fact, I’ve written about it at length in The New Fear: The Best of Hail Saten Vol. III. But I digress. Zombie worms became an ongoing joke among the regulars on my message board. Those same readers also wanted more of Worm, another popular secondary character from The Rising. Never mind that he’d become a zombie by the end of the book. They wanted more Worm. So when I set out to write the three replacement stories for this edition, “Zombie Worm” immediately came to mind.

“The Night The Dead Died”

This is the third of three stories written specifically for this edition. It replaces a tale called “No Sleep In Brooklyn”. That story was crucial in the original volume, and I’ve tried to capture some of its essence for this replacement tale. This story signals the shift from the Siqqusim to the Elilum. It also answers the question so many readers had after finishing City of the Dead—were Frankie, Danny, Jim, and the others the last humans to be killed before the Elilum invaded. The answer is yes. Obviously, this story ties in directly to City of the Dead, what with the artillery explosions (as Ob’s forces shelled Ramsey Towers) and the phony ‘all-clear’ broadcast and the sewer explosions (a chain reaction started by Jim’s sacrifice).

“The Morning After”

After twenty-something stories of zombies, zombies, zombies, I was ready for something different. There’s only so much you can do with zombie humans, dogs, cats, birds, and opossums. Lucky for me, in the original timeline I created for this mythos (before starting work on City of the Dead), the Elilum start their invasion on the twenty-seventh day. And what better place to begin that storyline than in heavily forested New Hampshire? According to my calculations, this takes place about six hours after the events at the end of City of the Dead. I wrote this in bed, and finished the final draft the next morning, while sitting in my office and watching Chester, my Venus flytrap, eat a shred of tuna that I’d just fed him.

“March of the Elilum”

This was fun (as were all of the stories regarding the Elilum). It was written over a two-day period, in my bedroom, while I had a mild case of the flu. This story takes place two days after the end of City of the Dead. Surviving Ob and his ilk is tough enough, and to make it twenty-eight days is even harder. That’s why I was glad to hear that Michael was a geologist, had knowledge of caves, and had a cave just an hour away from his house. Realistically, he and Kyle could have rode out the storm. This made the fastmoving horror of the Elilum even more terrifying, in my opinion. As you can see, the Elilum spread much faster than the Siqqusim do.

Unlike Jim and Danny from The Rising, Michael and Kyle got to spend the zombie plague together. So there’s that. In the world of The Rising, that’s about as happy an ending as anyone gets.

“Best Seat In The House”

Like “Till Death Do Us Part,” this story is one of my personal favorites. Chris wanted me to write a love letter for him; an ode to the love he felt for Francesca. I was touched (despite what you may have heard, I’m really just a big softie when it comes to romance.) What made this extra cool is that Chris and Francesca met each other because of Delirium Books (she was selling a Delirium title on eBay and he was the winning bidder). That, my friends, is better than any fiction I could ever make up. I wrote this on a Saturday night, from 9 pm until around 1 am. When I was done, I leaned back on the pillow and smiled a big smile and smoked a bigger cigar. You ask me, I done good. Hopefully, Chris and Francesca agree.

“American Pie”

I’ve been all around the world, but the closest I ever got to Norway was sailing through the fjords onboard the U.S.S. Austin. All I saw were lots of farms and lighthouses. Luckily for me, Trygve was a wonderful tour guide. After I’d received his notes on Drammen, and finished some online research of my own, I wrote this story in my living room in about two hours time (for all three drafts). In June of 2005, I spent the night in the home of fellow author Drew Williams. He proposed the idea that my zombies wouldn’t be able to function in subzero temperatures, and I’ve got to admit, the idea really, really intrigued me. Were I to ever do another novel set in the world of The Rising, it would probably feature a situation like that—maybe the crew of an icebreaker or scientists at a polar research center.

“Two Suns In The Sunset”

This story, of course, chronicles the arrival of the fiery Teraphim—those who make up the third and final wave (spoken of in City of the Dead). The title comes from one of my favorite Pink Floyd songs (off The Final Cut). I wrote this, all three drafts, in one night, from midnight until six in the morning. Big R is a hard person to get a hold of, and despite numerous emails and phone calls; I never did touch base with him and find out what makes him tick. Therefore, writing this story presented a challenge. How was I supposed to write about a character whom I knew nothing about? All I had was his name, and the town he wanted the story to take place in. So I decided to make it about the town. Luckily, Oconto has a website, and all of the locations featured in the story were swiped from that. From what I saw on the site, Oconto looks very much like Auto, West Virginia, a place near and dear to my heart, and the basis for Punkin Center (from The Conqueror Worms, “Full of It,” and others). Personally, I think Big R made out pretty well with amnesia. If you’d survived successive plagues of zombie humans, animals, bugs, and plants, only to get burned into a crisp along with the rest of the planet, would you want to remember it all?

“Other Worlds than These”

Confused? Don’t be. All will be explained in time. Consider this an introduction to my planned thirteen-volume Labyrinth series (as I write this, I’m halfway through the first draft of the first book). As you read the story, you probably caught references to not only The Rising, but to The Conqueror Worms and many of my short stories. Don’t panic. There is a reason for this. The Labyrinth connects everything I’ve ever written, but I’ve been purposely subtle about it in my other novels and short stories. Why?

Because, truthfully—it won’t be for everybody. Many of my readers will prefer to read the novels and stories as stand-alone works, the way I intended them to be. And I’m fine with that. You shouldn’t need to know what happened in The Rising to enjoy Terminal, or who the characters were in City of the Dead to understand the stories in Fear of Gravity. But the hardcore fans; the fans who want a peek behind the curtains; the fans who love a vast, rich mythos; the fans who enjoyed epics like Marvel Comics’

Secret Wars crossover series or Stephen King’s Dark Tower; will probably enjoy that walk through the maze. Bob Lewis is one of those people, and I thought it appropriate to make his story, the final story in this book, the bridge between the two.

* * *

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

BRIAN KEENE is the best-selling author of many books, including Ghoul, Terminal, The Conqueror Worms, Dead Sea, The Rising, City of the Dead, and many more. Several of his short stories have been adapted into graphic novels and several of his novels are slated for film and video game adaptations. The winner of two Bram Stoker awards, Keene’s work has been praised in such diverse places as The New York Times, the History Channel, CNN.com, Fangoria, and Rue Morgue. Keene lives in Pennsylvania with his wife, Cassi, and his dog, Sam. He communicates with his readers online at: www.briankeene.com.

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Table of Contents

- ALSO BY BRIAN KEENE
- TABLE OF CONTENTS
- INTRODUCTION
- DON’S LAST MOSH
- FAMILY REUNION
- AS ABOVE (Sisters, Part One)
- SO BELOW (Sisters, Part Two)
- LAST CHANCE FOR LA CHANCE
- WATCHING THE WORLD END
- THE FALL OF ROME
- WALKABOUT (Part One)
- HELLHOUNDS ON MY TRAIL
- SPOILERS
- THE MAN COMES AROUND
- THE SUMMONING
- POCKET APOCALYPSE
- THE VIKING PLAYS PATTY CAKE
- IF YOU CAN SEE THE MOUNTAIN…
- YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE
- AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH HIM
- THE HIGH POINT
- WHERE THE DOWN BOYS GO
- WALKABOUT (Part Two)
- 1 CORINTHIANS 15:51
- ALL FALL DOWN
- THROUGH THE GLASS DARKLY
- A MAN’S HOME IS HIS CASKET
- ZOMBIE WORM
- THE NIGHT THE DEAD DIED
- THE MORNING AFTER
- MARCH OF THE ELILUM
- BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE
- AMERICAN PIE
- TWO SUNS IN THE SUNSET
- OTHER WORLDS THAN THESE
- THE END
- AFTERWORD:
- ABOUT THE AUTHOR