The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World

by Brian Keene

  Mean’s .22 semi auto, and some .303s, and .308s. No automatic rifles or handguns; both were illegal in New Zealand.

  It was starting to stink inside the tower. They’d been using the corner as a toilet.

  This morning, the water tower had trembled. Slight at first, then more noticeable. Mean was on watch, and he woke the others. It wasn’t repeated, and they chalked it up to a minor earthquake or a truck rumbling by.

  Then, the shaking started again, fiercer this time, a series of jolts that made the entire structure shudder around them.

  “What do we do?” Sally’s voice was panicked.

  “We get the hell out,” Mean said.

  Charlie flicked his lighter. “The dead—they’ll be out there waiting.”

  “So?” Mean made sure his weapon was loaded.

  “We either face them, or die when this thing crashes down.”

  “What about the old man?” Sid asked. “We can’t leave him.”

  “Fine.” Mean hated the indifference in his own voice. “You’re responsible for him.”

  The flame vanished. In the darkness, Charlie cursed, sucking his burned thumb.

  “The Maori?” Ross wheezed. “What do we do with that poor bastard?”

  Mean gritted his teeth. “Infection’s already set in. His mouth is dripping pus. He’s burning up, on his way to becoming one of them. I say we leave him.”

  Greenberg flicked his lighter on in place of Charlie’s. His face was pale, his eyes two dark circles. “Where will we go?”

  Mean realized they were all looking at him. Somehow, he’d become the leader.

  How did that happen? I grew up on a farm, breeding racehorses. I’m not a leader! I don’t even know these people.

  “I don’t—”

  “The sea,” Rachel interrupted. “We’ll go by boat.”

  “Don’t be daft,” Greenberg grumbled. “Ohawe is nearly nine kilometers away.”

  She shook her head. “Waihi.”

  Mean knew the spot. Waihi was a small beach less than a kilometer away—a gap, eroded by a stream between the cliffs.

  “Charlie and I have a rowboat,” she continued, “hidden off the trail. At night, we used to…”

  She turned red, embarrassed. Beside her, Charlie shifted uncomfortably.

  “Let’s go, then.” Mean crouched over the trapdoor. “Stay in a group, move fast. Look for a car with the keys inside.”

  Sid grabbed his shoulder. “I’m not leaving the old man.”

  “Suit yourself. But we’re taking the guns.”

  They started down the ladder. Sid gave one last glance back at their two incapacitated companions, and then followed.

  “Changed my mind.” He shrugged.

  “Hang on,” Ross grunted, and ducked back inside the tower.

  The rest reached the bottom of the ladder. Hawera was deserted. Nothing moved, living or dead. It was eerily quiet. Mount Egmont (or Taranaki, as the Maori called it) loomed over the town. The dormant volcano’s shadow filled the streets with gloom. Mean thought of the local saying: if you can see the mountain it’s going to rain, if you can’t see it, it’s already raining.

  “See anything?” Greenberg asked.

  Mean shook his head. “Just the mountain.”

  “Maybe they’ve all gone,” Sally whispered. Inside the leaning water tower, two gunshots rang out.

  Charlie whispered, “Bloody hell.”

  A cry went up, followed by another. The town came alive with the dead, alerted to their presence by the shots.

  Ross climbed down the ladder, his rifle still smoking. “Put those two out of their misery. No sense leaving them up there to die and come back.”

  “You idiot!” Mean resisted the urge to hit him. And then, with a roaring, unanimous shout, the zombies poured forth.

  “Run!” Mean pushed Sally ahead of him and squeezed off a shot, dropping a corpse—the effect of taking an ounce of water from the ocean. Ross froze, staring at the onrushing masses.

  “There’s so many.”

  The others ran. When Mean looked back, the undead tide had engulfed the fat butcher. Three down. How far can we get?

  He decided to save one bullet for himself. Sally was the first to fall beneath the hordes. She tripped and a zombie dog ripped off her face. She was still screaming when Mean ran by. Greenberg went next, felled by a bullet to the spine. Sid turned down an alley.

  “This way,” Rachel called.

  “No,” he insisted, “It’s this way.”

  He darted down the alley. They heard him screaming a second later.

  Mean, Charlie, and Rachel reached the steep goat track that wound down to the narrow beach. The zombies charged down the hill after them. Charlie pushed aside the brush and dragged the boat out.

  “Hurry,” he cried. “It’s heavy.”

  Grunting, Rachel helped him. Mean turned and opened fire, dropping a zombie with every other shot.They leaped into the boat and cast off. The zombies stood on the beach, waving their fists. Some walked into the water, sinking beneath the surface, pursuing them along the bottom, but eventually, the boat was carried too far from shore.

  “They can’t reach us now,” Charlie shouted.

  “We’re safe. Nothing can get us out here!”

  The two teenagers hugged.

  Mean looked back at Mount Egmont. The old saying ran through his head again.

  If you can see the mountain it’s going to rain, if you can’t see it, it’s already raining.

  “We’re safe,” Charlie repeated.

  Mean couldn’t see the mountain. Not from rain, but from the flock of birds swooping towards them across the sky.

  It began to rain.

  * * *

  YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE

  The Rising

  Day Sixteen

  Livonia, Michigan

  Things were better now. She had more free time on her hands, to do the things she’d always wanted. This was living.

  As long as you ignored the stench outside…

  The world was dead, but Jade Rumsey was finally alive; a second chance at living, another shot at life.

  A vehicle—military, judging by the sound—rumbled by outside. The vibrations were strong enough to send books tumbling from the shelves. Surprised, her sewing needle slipped, pricking her finger. Jade sucked the small bead of blood. It was the first thing she’d had to eat in four days. Her stomach grumbled. Jade made a face, disgusted. She was hungry—but not that hungry. Not yet.

  * * *

  The street outside fell quiet again, and she returned to sewing, trying to ignore the fresh hunger pangs, trying to look on the bright side. Yes, maybe she was out of food, and maybe she only had enough water for another three days—five if she was extremely conservative with what was left in the toilet and bathtub, but at least she’d finally lost weight. That had always been on her list of “Things To Do.” Lose fifteen or twenty pounds. Nobody could say she wasn’t on her way now.

  Jade smiled at her own gallows humor. She always wanted to make a quilt, and over the years, had collected an amazing amount of fabric towards such an endeavor. But she’d never seemed to have the time, until now. So there was that. She’d lost weight and was making a quilt.

  Jade got up from the chair. As she put the books back on the shelf, arranging them alphabetically, she considered her situation. What else had been on that list of “Things To Do?” Read more. She loved horror novels, especially works by Stephen King, Dean Koontz, M.M. Smith, Richard Laymon, Tad Williams, and Charles De Lint. She’d certainly found time to do that. In the last sixteen days, she’d re-read plenty of her old favorites.

  She’d always wanted to learn to shoot, but had never had the opportunity. Since the dead started coming back, she’d not only learned to shoot, but could bring them down with one bullet. The first had been her boss at the Ford Motor Company. The last had been her cat. She wasn’t sure if it had been the cat’s diabetes or lack of food, but it died in its sleep a week ago.
Then it came back, intent on doing her harm. So she’d killed it, too, using her last bullet and the last of her tears.

  That had kept her fed for another three days. Her grief had diminished as the void in her stomach was filled.

  Finished with the books, she turned on the battery operated stereo and popped in a Sam Kinison cassette. His voice roared from the speakers, doing a bit about Jesus and Lazarus coming back as zombies. Frowning, Jade replaced it with Lewis Black, and then sat back down again. That was something else she loved—stand up comedy, and now she had all the time in the world to listen to her favorites, as long as the batteries lasted, at least. Wistfully, she wished her satellite radio were still working. She wondered if the satellite still functioned, hovering in space, beaming comedy and music to a dead planet.

  What else? She’d always wanted to have a Dead Like Me marathon weekend, where she sat down with popcorn and drinks and watched the entire series. Couldn’t do that now, without power. Couldn’t look at porn online anymore either. Not that she’d ever been able to anyway. Every time she’d tried, her computer went haywire. Now it sat, silent and dark, collecting dust.

  No movies, no porn. No family either. That was something else on her list. A family. Except she needed a man for that, and her last boyfriend, Anthony, wasn’t here now. Had never really been there before, either. Anthony didn’t want a serious relationship. Oh sure, he was more than willing to go on vacation with her to Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, and he was happy to drive around with Jade in her 1995 Cougar (the same car that was sitting in the driveway—and might as well be on the moon for all the good it did her), but when it came time to talk about things like marriage and commitment and family, Anthony disappeared. She wondered where he was now? Was he one of those things wandering around outside? Or was he hiding somewhere, hunkered down and barricaded like she was?

  Gunshots echoed, muffled by the heavy wood nailed over her windows. Jade idly wondered what was going on, and then turned her attention back to the quilt. It wasn’t like those things could get inside. Jade lived in what she often called “the world’s smallest house,” 675 square feet, no basement or attic, just a small loft over the bedrooms. All of the walls were a light mint green, adorned with Gris Grimley artwork. The windows and doors had been barricaded, and she doubted the zombies even knew she was inside.

  “Attention!”

  The voice was stern and male and commanding, pumped from a loudspeaker or a bullhorn. Along with it came the sounds of machinery and engines, clanking treads and more sporadic gunfire.

  “Attention,” it repeated. “Citizens of Livonia! This is Captain Conway of the Michigan National Guard. This area is clear. Repeat; we have secured this area! If you can hear my voice, please exit your homes in a quick and orderly fashion. We have transports waiting to take you to shelter stations in Detroit.”

  Detroit was twenty minutes away. Could the military have really recaptured that much territory—the city and the surrounding suburbs? Was the crisis really over?

  The Captain continued his announcement, urging her neighbors, if any of them were left alive, to come out. Jade started to get up.

  Then she glanced around her house. It was small, but it was hers. Full of her favorite stuff. This was her world, now. Her second chance at life—her opportunity to do all those things she’d never had time for.

  “This is your last chance,” the Captain warned. His voice, though still loud, was fading. Jade sat back down.

  She needed to finish her quilt. When she was done, she thought that perhaps she’d read a book.

  AND HELL FOLLOWED WITH HIM

  The Rising

  Day Seventeen

  York, Pennsylvania

  With only the pale full moon to keep him company, Bob Ford walked out of his home and into the cemetery. It teemed with dead people, most of who were still walking around, and yet he was alone in the crowd. Bob’s grip on the pistol tightened. His ponytail fluttered in the wind, tangling around the shotgun strapped to his back. He pushed his glasses up on his face with the barrel of the .45, and then realized he didn’t need the glasses anymore. Bob found the graves and stared down at them. Freshly turned soil. Crude headstones, fashioned from wood paneling, the names scrawled in his handwriting with a black marker.

  He’d buried them himself—after he died. Bob closed his eyes and heard the gun blasts. Felt the bullet slam into the back of his head and bore through his skull. Smelled the cordite, and the blood. Burning hair. His hair. Heard their cries. His family. Heard them pleading as they were raped and butchered.

  It wasn’t the zombies that had done this. It was his fellow humans.

  Monsters.

  The last thing he saw before he died was the man on top of his wife, the man with a phoenix tattoo. Jen was screaming. Then Bob’s own blood had blocked his vision, and he’d slipped away.

  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 horr
ible 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.”

  Rhino shook his head. “Tweaking mother fucker.”

  He stared out the peephole just as the dead army crested the hill. Rhino recognized the one in the lead. Cursing, he grabbed the AK-47 from its perch against the chair, and burst through the door.

  “Can’t be,” he shouted. “I fucking shot you, man! Shot you in the head. You can’t be one of them.”

  Smiling, Bob whispered down the barrel of his shotgun. “I’m not one of them. I am something else.”

  He squeezed the trigger, and all around him, the forces of hell were unleashed.