The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

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.”