by Brian Keene
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.
He glanced back down at Penny. Her breathing was shallow, her expression frozen in a grimace. He had to try.
The closest drug store, located at the Forest Hill Chase Shopping Centre, was two kilometers away. Surely he could make it that far. They’d have medicine there, if the looters hadn’t cleaned it out. And if he needed to, perhaps he could even make it as far as the Box Hill Hospital. Find a doctor or a nurse. Antibiotics. It was only ten kilometers. When he looked at his sleeping wife, and felt his love for her stirring in his breast, that didn’t seem far at all. He could do it. He had to do it. Leigh searched the house for weapons, and found a wooden mallet and two long, sharp kitchen knives. They’d have to do. He embedded the blades into each side of the mallet, fashioning a crude but effective double-edged axe, and swung it to test the weight.
“Fucking Conan.” He grinned. “Have at thee, dogs!”
He whirled the weapon over his head, and accidentally hit the lamp.
“Shit.”
On the couch, Penny stirred, mumbled, and then went back to sleep.
He went to the window and peeked outside. An undead cat lay twitching in the road, unable to move. Its spine had been crushed and a fresh tire tread stood out in its burst stomach. There were no other zombies in sight. The flock of birds, living or dead, had vanished.
Leigh considered his options. He could sneak into the garage and drive his Honda Integra to the drug store. After a moment, he decided against it. Not only would the engine’s noise wake Penny, but also, it would draw more attention from the things outside. Better to go on foot, stealthily, moving from one hiding place to another. It would be easier to avoid detection that way.
Leigh wrote a note to Penny, and laid it on the table next to the sofa. He kissed her forehead, and whispered softly in her ear.
“I love you. I’ll be back soon. I promise.”
Then, taking one last look out the window to make sure the coast was clear, he unlocked the door and crept outside.
The street was quiet.
“I promise. An hour. Maybe less. Just like nipping off for some smokes or the newspaper.”
Gripping his weapon with both hands, Leigh Haig took a walk through Hell.
* * *
HELLHOUNDS ON MY TRAIL
The Rising
Day Nine
King’s Lynn, England
It wasn’t a good plan. He knew that. But it wasn’t an awful plan either. In fact, it wasn’t so much a plan as it was a final option. Reach the Boal Quay docks without getting killed or eaten, steal a fishing boat, and be well away from land before dark. The docks were three miles from the Queen Elizabeth hospital, where they both worked. Going on foot would take just over an hour. It would be tough with those things outside, but what choice was there? They had to try.
Before they left, Jason Houghton wished (and not for the first time) for a gun. Nothing fancy, just something to even the odds a bit. It wasn’t that guns were non-existent in England. They weren’t. But you had to know somebody who could get you one, and he hadn’t. He was a hospital computer system administrator, not a criminal or a soldier. Even if they reached Boal Quay, neither of them had any idea how to pilot a boat, but they’d learn fast. Hopefully. Still, the open sea was better than staying here. King’s Lynn (or just “Lynn” as the locals called it), located on England’s east coast, was a historic port town with a population of just over 36,000 souls. Now, most of those souls had departed, and something else had taken up residence inside their bodies.
They’d left the hospital fifteen minutes ago. Catherine, his girlfriend of nearly ten years, was armed with a meat cleaver from the hospital’s cafeteria, and Jason carried a makeshift propane bottle blowtorch.
The hellhounds had followed them every step of the way.
&nb
sp; Jason had encountered plenty of zombies in the last nine days. The first, on day two of what society called “The Rising,” had emerged from a restroom stall when Jason was at the cinema. He hadn’t even realized it was dead at the time. The fat bastard suffered a heart attack while sitting on the bog. Then he’d tried to eat Jason and another patron. Since then, he’d seen hundreds more. But nothing like what cornered them now.
Jason froze, but his pulse raced. Catherine squeezed his hand. Her nails dug into his flesh, but Jason barely felt it.
The largest of the pack, a mix of Labrador, Beagle, and Rottweiler, stepped forward and growled. A tag around its collar indicated that the dog’s name was Sam. Despite his terror, Jason almost laughed. Sam wasn’t what you named an attack dog. They had proper names like Killer or Lucifer. Sam was what you named a good dog. Perhaps a timid dog, the type to inch towards a stranger with its tail tucked firmly between its quivering legs and ears hanging down, to offer their outstretched hand a timid lick. Now, in death, it was the fiercest of the lot, and would quickly tear off any hand offered its way.
“Good dog,” he stammered. “Hello, Sam. There’s a nice dog.”
The feral zombie growled again, and Jason swore that it was trying to speak. As if there were words in some strange language hidden between the growls. The pack inched closer. Jason considered his blowtorch, but they’d be on him in the time it took to light it.
The wind shifted, and the stench from the rotting dogs filled their noses.
“Oh God.” Catherine squeezed his hand tighter, drawing blood.
Sam tensed, its haunches flexing beneath gorestained fur. The other twelve dogs in the pack growled in unison.
Jason tensed. “Catherine—”
The zombie leaped, trailing a length of purple intestine behind it.
“Run!”
Jason shoved Catherine forward, not daring to look over his shoulder. The dog panted behind him, the harsh, ragged breathing sounding like a steam engine. The rest of the pack followed its lead. Their untrimmed nails clicked on the pavement, nipping at his heels.
If we trip, Jason thought, we’re done for.
“The torch,” Catherine gasped. “Use it!”
“No time. Keep running!”
They dashed from the alley and into the street, weaving their way around wrecked and abandoned vehicles. The dogs pursued them.
“High ground,” Jason shouted. “We need to find higher ground. Some place where they can’t climb.”
Catherine darted towards a parked doubledecker tour bus, and scrambled up over the hood. Jason followed her. The steel buckled under their feet. They huddled together on the roof as the barking pack surrounded the vehicle. One of the dogs tried to leap onto the hood, but it slipped back off. Its claws screeched across the metal like nails on a chalkboard.
Jason’s throat burned. He tried to work up some saliva so that he could talk.
“What—what now?” Catherine gasped.
“I don’t know.”
“Can they get up here?”
“I don’t think so. We’re safe.” Even as he said it, he had to suppress a laugh.
The dogs attempted a few more leaps, and then gave up in frustration. The leader of the pack raised its snout and howled. Then the other dogs joined it. Catherine sat the meat cleaver aside and put her hands over her ears. “Make them stop!”
But they didn’t stop. The hellish cacophony grew louder and more frantic. Soon, the dog’s cries were answered. A dozen human zombies appeared from different buildings along the street. Some carried weapons. Others barely carried themselves. One particularly ripe cadaver had been split open from groin to neck, and its insides were a yawning, empty cavity. Jason wondered how it continued to function. The creatures crept closer, their stench reaching the trapped couple before the zombies did. They surrounded the lorry.
One of the zombies smiled, revealing blackened nubs of broken teeth. “Why not make this easy on yourselves? Come down.”
Catherine screamed, and Jason bit his tongue to keep from doing the same.
“Yes,” agreed another, ignoring Catherine. “We’ll make it quick if you surrender. You won’t feel a thing.”
“Wh-what?” Jason stammered.
“It’s very simple,” the first zombie sighed. “Climb down, and we’ll kill you quickly.”
“Or,” said another, “we can climb up after you, and slowly tear you to shreds. Which do you prefer?”
Out of the corner of his eye, Jason saw more of the creatures approaching. The street was alive with the dead. The dogs were growing restless.
“Hellhounds on our trail. Just like Robert Johnson.” Jason was a big fan of pre-war American Blues.
He reached out, took Catherine’s hand, and gave her a gentle squeeze. Then he grinned.
“What then?” he asked the creatures.
The lead zombie frowned. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, if we accept—if we let you kill us quickly—what will you do with us after?”
“Your bodies will house our brothers. There are many of us waiting on the other side. Our number is more than infinity.”
Catherine stared at Jason, her mouth hanging open. Jason winked at her.
“Have you lost your mind?” she hissed.
“We’d prefer not to be eaten,” Jason told the corpses. “Is that possible?”
Catherine gasped. “Now look—”
The zombie interrupted her. “Those terms are acceptable. We just devoured a jeweler’s family earlier. But our brothers need your bodies. Come down.”
“No,” Jason said. “I’ll do it from up here. You get the bodies when I’m finished.”
“Bollocks,” the zombie snapped. “We’ll do it.”
“I’ll do it, or we’ll sit up here all day.”
“Then we’ll bloody well come up after you.”
Another zombie pulled the first aside. “Ob’s orders were to—”
“Ob’s not here, is he? He’s on the other side of this miserable planet.”
As they argued, Jason leaned over to Catherine and whispered in her ear. Her eyes grew wide as she listened. She shook her head.
“Catherine, it’s the only way.”
“No, I won’t!”
“I love you,” he said, and he meant it. He’d never meant it more than he did now.
He turned on the propane bottle and picked up the cleaver. The gas hissed.
One of the zombies spotted him and cried an alarm. The rest turned their attention back to their prey.Before they could reach him, Jason swung the cleaver, splitting Catherine’s head in half. Then he struck the match. The propane bottle exploded. Both of them were incinerated within seconds. Their souls were free, as were their bodies. The wind scattered their ashes, and as it whistled over the rooftops, it sounded very much like two voices, whispering of undying love…
* * *
SPOILERS
The Rising
Day Ten
Columbus, Ohio
After five days, the creature’s skin looked like a greasy, bloated sausage casing. The zombie was tied to the chair, and its flesh was swollen around the ropes, rupturing and leaking a stew of toxic juices. Mike replaced the rope with heavy stainless steel chains and padlocks instead.
Mike Goffee lived on the south side of downtown Columbus in a two-story house with ugly yellow siding. The home was in need of repairs, but he wasn’t much of a maintenance person. The front porch and back deck both leaned, and the garage needed painting. He’d been in no hurry to do it. Single, he lived alone, except for his cat. Five days ago, the cat got loose, jumping over the fence in the backyard. Mike hadn’t looked for it, because even then, it was dangerous to go outside. But that night, the cat came back—dead. And it brought company, a human zombie. Both had immediately attacked him. Mike crushed the cat’s head by dropping the microwave on it, and then pushed the refrigerator over on the other zombie, pinning it to the floor. Then, before it could free itself, he’d hac
ked its legs off at the knees and its arms at the elbows, and tied it to the chair in the living room—a captive audience.
If someone had been around to ask him why he’d done it, Mike wouldn’t have had an answer. Certainly, he’d never done something like this before The Rising started. He wasn’t sure why he did it now.
He guessed that he was just lonely.
Mike recognized the zombie as one of his former neighbors. He’d never known the man’s name, never talked to him while he was living. Just the occasional head nod from over the fence. But he talked to him now. Talked to him every day. Mike scratched himself through his dirty jeans. The power was off and he couldn’t do laundry, and even before The Rising had started, he was down to his last clean pair.
Something ruptured inside the zombie and foul black sludge dripped from its nose.
“Whew!” Mike fanned his nose and reached for the can of air freshener.
“This body is rapidly decomposing.” The zombie struggled against the chains. “Free me, so that I may find another.”
Mike shook his head and sprayed a cloud of air freshener. “I don’t think so. Not yet.”
“We’ve been over this,” the zombie reasoned. “It does you no good to keep me captive like this. What’s the point? You don’t ask me for information on the Siqqusim, to determine how to destroy us. You don’t do anything—except talk about movies and books.”
Mike sat the can down and gestured around the living room. The shelves overflowed with books, records, DVDs, CDs, and videos. “Well, as you can see, I like to read and watch films. Don’t you?”
The zombie sighed. “How many times must I tell you? I am merely borrowing this shell. My host liked to hunt and fish. He never read a book after high school, and he only watched action movies.”
“I enjoy old foreign and independent films, mostly,” Mike said, ignoring the comment. “I used to go down to the Drexel and the Wexner Center to see them. Books, too. Usually, whatever wasn’t popular. Mystery, horror, non-fiction. Whatever.”
