The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

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.