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by Unknown

  That was when the snake bit him.

  He’d felt a sharp, jabbing pain in his ankle, and when he looked down, there was a snake clinging to his foot, its fangs piercing his sock and the flesh beneath it.

  Leigh screamed, and that attracted the attention of the zombie that he’d just eluded.

  The snake was already dead. Maggots squirmed 120

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  in the open, ulcerated sores all along its body. One eye was missing, and more maggots filled that cavity. Muscles, free of rigor mortis, flexed as it clamped down tighter against his skin. It glared at him with its one good eye, and Leigh saw a dreadful intelligence reflected there.

  He swung with his axe—two kitchen knives embedded in a wooden mallet. The blade sliced through the snake’s mid-section, cutting it in half, scattering maggots and innards. A dead mouse spilled out onto the road, the serpent’s last meal. Then the mouse began to move as well. Leigh stomped on the zombie rodent with his free foot. Tiny bones crushed beneath his heel.

  The snake’s upper half held on to his ankle. Its severed end whipped back and forth like an out-ofcontrol fire hose. Leigh swung again, carving another six inches from its body.

  The other zombie, the old woman with the missing wig, ran towards him.

  “Come here, lad. I’m hungry!”

  With the snake still clinging to his leg, Leigh planted his feet and watched the zombie’s charge. His heart pounded in his chest. As it reached for him, he swung the axe with all his might. The blade buried itself in the center of the old woman’s bald skull, cleaving flesh and bone. The zombie collapsed to the pavement, blood and brains leaking around the weapon.

  Leigh tried to retrieve the axe, but it was stuck. He heard more of the undead approaching, and cursed, tugging on the handle.

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  Suddenly, automatic gunfire rang out. Seconds later, an armored jeep pulled alongside him. The side-door opened, and a man with a red beard leaned out, offering Leigh his hand. “Come with us if you want to live, mate.”

  Leigh jumped onboard.

  There were four people in the jeep—two soldiers, a woman, and the red-bearded man. All of them were heavily armed.

  “You’ve brought a friend,” the woman said, nodding at Leigh’s leg. “Lucky it’s not poisonous.”

  The red-bearded man leaned over, pried the snake from Leigh’s ankle, and tossed it out the window. “We’ll have to get that doctored. Fucking things are crawling with bacteria.”

  “I need a doctor,” Leigh stammered. “Medicine. My wife, Penny, she’s sick.”

  “You’re in luck,” one of the soldiers said. “We’re from Box Hill. A bunch of us have holed up in the hospital.”

  Leigh soon learned that forty survivors, mostly medical staff and military forces, were living inside the hospital. After arriving, a doctor fixed Leigh’s ankle and gave him something for the infection. But before Leigh could convince anyone to accompany him home to get Penny, the hospital fell under siege from the zombies.

  He got a crash course in combat weapons training, was given the SKS and plenty of ammunition, and assigned a position on the barricades. The siege lasted eleven days before the undead finally broke through. By then, the survivors’

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  numbers had dwindled to ten, and their dead companions had wreaked as much havoc inside the facility as the zombies outside.

  As the creatures stormed the hospital, Leigh stuffed a sack with vials of antibiotics, a few bottles of water, and some candy from a vending machine. He grabbed his rifle and extra ammunition, and fled through an unguarded fire door. He made it two blocks before being forced to hide inside the dumpster.

  And now here he was.

  “I’ve got to get home,” he said aloud. “I promised Penny that I’d be back.”

  He lay there in the garbage, cold and wet and miserable, until it was dark. Then he crept out of the dumpster and, using the darkness and the rain for cover, walked out of the alley.

  The downpour immediately soaked through his clothing, and he was drenched before he’d gone a dozen steps. The rain blinded him, but Leigh hoped that it would lessen the zombie’s visibility as well. Leigh Haig wasn’t a religious man, not after everything he’d seen these last twenty days, but he prayed now.

  “Please Lord, if you really are still up there, just let me make it home. Let me get back to Penny without meeting any of those things.”

  Thunder rumbled across the sky.

  Leigh walked all night, and whether it was the weather, or the darkness, or someone really answering his prayer, he didn’t encounter a single zombie. Shortly before dawn, he reached the estate their 123

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  home was located in. His legs ached and his feet were blistered from his wet shoes rubbing against them on the long walk home. His nose was running and he’d developed a chronic cough.

  Despite his misery, Leigh smiled when he passed by the little park where he and Penny often walked. His smile broke into relieved laughter when he caught sight of their home. The two-story brick house was just as he’d left it, complete with the red X on the door.

  “Penny…”

  Leigh broke into a run. He fumbled for his keys, slid them into the lock with trembling fingers, and burst inside.

  “Penny? I’m home!”

  There was no answer. The couch was empty, the blankets tossed onto the floor.

  “Penny?” he called out again, his voice cracking.

  “Where are you?”

  Leigh sat the rifle and sack down on the floor and began to search the house

  Please, please, please let her be okay. Just let her be okay.

  “Leigh?”

  His spirits soared. She was alive! He ran to the stairs and started up them.

  “I came back,” he shouted. “And I brought medicine. Just like I promised.”

  “I know,” Penny said. “I knew you’d be back. I knew you’d return.”

  Leigh halted halfway up the stairs. Something stank, and he heard flies buzzing.

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  “Well,” the voice continued, “I didn’t know. But your wife did. I saw it in her mind when I took over this husk. She believed in you. She knew you’d keep your promise.”

  Leigh glanced back downstairs at his SKS. It seemed to him that the weapon was ten kilometers away, like everything else from his journey.

  “Penny…”

  The thing that had been his wife stepped into the light.

  “She knew you’d come back,” the zombie slurred.

  “So I waited.”

  Leigh Haig’s tired legs gave out beneath him, and he could walk no more.

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  1 CORINTHIANS 15:51

  The Rising

  Day Twenty-One

  Lynchburg, Virginia

  “Chapter fifteen, verse twelve, tells us; ‘Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?’”

  Chris Shackelford rolled his eyes. “God, I’m getting sick of this shit.”

  “I thought you two were Christians?” Klinger looked up at the church basement’s ceiling.

  “We are Christians,” Dawn Shackelford said, loading more hollow points into her .357 Ruger.

  “But what’s going on upstairs isn’t worship. It’s blasphemy.”

  Klinger nodded. “Word. Few days ago, I met two guys traveling north, to Jersey. Jim Thurmond and a preacher named Martin. I was never much for church either, but that Martin was cool. Not like Reichart. That guy’s fucking crazy, man.”

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  “So we agree?” Chris asked. “We’re really going to do this?”

  “I’m in,” Klinger said. “But this is your town. Where we gonna go?”

  Chris handed Klinger the side-by-side Browning 12 gauge, and double-checked his
Sig Sauer P228

  9mm. “Basement of an empty house? Grocery store?

  Another church?”

  Klinger snickered. “I’ve had enough church.”

  Lynchburg was home to Reverend Jerry Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church. The famous minister had his hand in everything, dictating all that happened. As a result, the town had more churches than anywhere in America.

  “But if there is no resurrection of the dead,”

  Reichart’s voice thundered from upstairs, “then is Christ not risen; and if Christ is not risen, then is our preaching in vain, and your faith in vain?”

  “They’ll come looking for us soon,” Dawn warned. “We’ve been gone too long.”

  Klinger’s face turned pale. “Probably nail us up on one of those crosses, just like the others who dissented.”

  “Let’s do this, then.” Chris took his wife’s hand and squeezed. “You okay?”

  Dawn shook her head. “No, I’m not. Look at us, Chris. We’ve changed. You were an accountant for Genworth Financial. I taught fifth grade math and history. I played the violin for twenty-six years. Gardening, target shooting—and now…”

  “You can really shoot?” Klinger asked.

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  cover with the bottom of a soda can.” Chris pulled Dawn close and kissed her forehead. “Things have changed, honey. You know that. It’s not the same world out there. We’ve got to worry about us.”

  “What about the others. Are we just going to let Reichart and his followers do this?”

  “He’s probably killed them already. Right now, they’re turning into zombies.”

  “But what if they’re not,” Dawn whispered.

  “What if they’re still alive on those crosses?”

  “We don’t have a choice. It’s just us now. Mom, Dad, Bryan, your folks, April, even Scotch and Sandy—they’re all gone. We’ve got to live. Me and you.”

  “And me,” Klinger added.

  Chris grinned. “Yeah, and our new friend Klinger, the ex-pro surfer.”

  Weapons drawn, they left the Sunday school rooms and crept up the stairs. Reichart’s mesmerizing voice swelled louder as they entered the narthex.

  “See now, brothers and sisters. See how they rise!

  Behold the mystery. There were asleep, and now they are changed.”

  “Release me.”

  The raspy voice from behind the sanctuary doors wasn’t the preacher’s or anyone in the congregation. It belonged to something dead.

  Finger to his lips, Chris led them to the front door. Heavy pews had been stacked atop one another to form a barricade. While Dawn covered them, Klinger and Chris sat their guns aside and lifted the top pew.

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  Inside the sanctuary, someone screamed. Startled, Chris lost his grip. The pew crashed to the floor, reverberating throughout the building. Reichart stopped in mid-sermon. A second later, the sanctuary doors banged open. Parishioners flooded into the narthex, wide-eyed.

  Dawn raised her pistol. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to leave.”

  Inside the sanctuary, Reichart shouted, “Who dares disturb the resurrection?”

  “It’s the Shackelford’s,” a man yelled. “And that stranger we let in earlier in the week. Say they’re leaving.”

  The preacher squawked. “Oh, no they aren’t. Bring them to me.”

  Chris and Klinger sprang for their guns. Several more members of the congregation poured through the sanctuary doors.

  “Get back,” Dawn warned, spacing her feet apart. “I will shoot you.”

  “You won’t kill us, sister.” The speaker was a fat man, an atheist four weeks before, now one of Reichart’s most fervent followers. His eyes darted from the gun to Dawn’s breasts. He licked his lips. Dawn shot him between the eyes. Her wrists snapped backward from the recoil. She drew a bead on the next.

  The fat man collapsed. Some of the believers rushed them while others ducked back inside the sanctuary. Dawn and Chris opened fire, dropping six attackers in as many shots. Klinger fumbled with his weapon, and the crowd fell on him, dragging 129

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  him inside.

  Chris and Dawn pursued them into the sanctuary. At the front, twelve makeshift crosses had been mounted around the communion rail. Former members of the congregation—those who’d spoke out against Reichart—hung crucified, their throats cut. Blood still jetted from the fresh wounds. The corpses twitched, reanimating.

  “They were asleep,” Reichart shrieked, “and now they are changed. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed!”

  Chris grabbed Dawn’s arm. “Let’s go! We’re too late.”

  “Klinger.” She shook him off. “We can’t just—”

  One of the zombies tore free of its cross, the nails ripping through its wrists and feet. It landed on an elderly woman, crushing her to the floor. Then it began to feed. Chris and Dawn couldn’t see it, but they could hear the tearing sounds.

  The other creatures followed its lead, freeing themselves, ignoring the damage to their bodies.

  “Go,” Klinger shouted, swept along by the panicked crowd. “Don’t worry about me!”

  “They should worry.” Reichart slammed his fist down on the pulpit, ignoring the rampaging zombies. “Worry about their souls.”

  Chris aimed his handgun at the crazed preacher.

  “Shut the fuck up! I am sick of listening to your bullshit.”

  Before he could squeeze the trigger, another zombie charged the pulpit, clawing at Reichart’s face. Chris fired anyway. Dawn’s weapon roared in 130

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  tandem. Blocking the doorway, they shot indiscriminately, gunning down living and dead alike. Frantic parishioners charged the door, and Chris and Dawn shot each and every one of them. Their ears rang and their hands went numb, and still they fired controlled shots, feet spaced apart. Flying brass burned their arms. They reloaded, worked their way through the aisles, methodically firing rounds into each target’s head.

  When it was over, all forty-six parishioners and a dozen zombies lay dead.

  Klinger stared at the couple in astonishment. His forehead was bleeding.

  “Jesus Christ. Would have never thought the two of you could do that.”

  “A month ago,” Chris said, “we couldn’t have.”

  Dawn nodded. “We’ve changed. We shall all be changed…”

  Klinger picked his way through the corpses, and retrieved the rifle from the narthex.

  “Guess we should get to work on moving these pews.”

  Chris shrugged. “We’ve got this place to ourselves now. Maybe we should just stay put.”

  The ex-pro surfer cocked a thumb at the bodies.

  “Suit yourself. But I ain’t cleaning up that mess.”

  “Leave them,” Chris said. “We’ll close it off.”

  Arms entwined, Chris and Dawn started downstairs. Klinger followed. Behind them, the dead slept and did not change. 131

  ALL FALL DOWN

  The Rising

  Day Twenty-Two

  The Desert Near Avondale, Arizona

  “It ain’t like it wasn’t hot around here to begin with.” Roche spat tobacco juice into one of the rattlesnake holes dotting the hard-baked earth. Paul Goblirsch didn’t respond, because the old man was right. It was too hot to even talk. Paul shielded his eyes, not from the sun, but from the flames on the horizon.

  Phoenix was burning.

  The fires started in the second week, after the military lost control of the city. Smoke filled the skies, actually blocking out much of the sun’s more harmful rays. Despite that, the temperature was sweltering, especially with the added heat from the fires. Metro-Phoenix went up first, followed by the rest of the city. Then the flames spread to the suburbs, including Paul’s home in Avondale. Escaping both the inferno and the zombies,
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  joined up with other survivors heading into the desert: Roche, who Paul thought might be crazy; Destiny, a dancer from one of the strip joints; Tina, a six-year old girl still clinging to her stuffed rabbit; and Juan, who’d worked as a telemarketer. Roche hummed the song, “Convoy.” Paul glanced back. The old man was pissing into a snake hole.“Better put it away before a zombie rattler comes out and bites your dick off.”

  Grinning, Roche shook, stuffed, and zipped.

  “Let’s head back,” Paul said. “It’s Juan and Destiny’s turn for watch.”

  They’d taken shelter at a construction company’s airstrip in the middle of the desert; a single runway, two port-o-potties, and a corrugated steel shed. They stayed inside the shed as much as possible. Two walked the perimeter at all times, on the lookout for zombies, looters, and other monsters. Of everything Paul had seen over the last twenty-two days, human nature was the most vile and disgusting.The plane landed that afternoon: a small, twinengine Cessna. Weapons drawn, Paul and Juan met it while the others hid inside the shed. The pilot was a gregarious Mexican named Sanchez. He wore a dazzling white cowboy hat that matched his drooping mustache and beard. Sanchez told them (as translated by Juan) that there was a human settlement in Canada, just over the border with Minnesota, free of the undead and broadcasting via short wave to other survivors.

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  Paul’s suspicions towards the stranger vanished upon hearing the news. The five survivors squeezed into the plane, leaving behind everything except their weapons, water, and Tina’s bunny. It was a tight fit, especially with Paul’s 240 pound, 6 foot 1

  inch frame.

  They took off, and Paul tried to relax. His scalp itched, both from sunburn and from the stubble growing back in. He speculated about this Canadian paradise, wondered what they’d find there. He hoped for things he hadn’t thought about since The Rising began: playing pool (he’d played enough cards with Destiny, Juan, and Roche to last a lifetime), books, food and drink. He had a sudden craving for a Crown and Coke, and wondered if they’d have any.