The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

“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 geta 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.