The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

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.”