The Rising: Selected Scenes from the End of the World

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.