Martin smiled. 'Then you'll really think this is crazy. Look at them again.'
She did, and stumbled from the shock. The man was Jim, the child was Danny, and the woman-
--the woman was herself.
'Fuck it.' Frankie ducked beneath a branch, walking directly behind herself. I'll play along. This is a dream anyway. At least there ain't no zombie babies in it.'
'There are no zombies at all,' Martin confirmed. 'They're gone-moved on to the next world.'
'So you gonna explain that? What happened? Did they all rot away to nothing or turn to dust or something?'
'The dead are not our true enemy. We named them zombies because we did not understand what they were. The creatures that possess the dead are demons called Siqqusim, and they are our true antagonists. They are older than man-far older. They were worshipped alongside Baal on the mountain of Peor, in the land of Moab.'
'Moab? That anywhere near Baltimore?' Frankie quipped.
'Not quite. The Siqqusim held sway over the court of King Manasseh, and their cults sprang up in Assyrian, Sumero-Akkadian, Mesopotamian, and Ugaritic cultures. They were consulted by necromancers and soothsayers, before finally being banned. Secret worship of the Siqqusim continued into the Middle Ages, but by then, they'd been banished to the Void and were unable to hear their servant's entreaties.'
'I don't understand a damn thing you just said. Get to the point, preacher-man.'
'They wait until our souls have departed, and then they take up residence in the empty space left behind. Specifically-in our brains.'
'Animals have souls too?'
Martin nodded. 'Every living thing has a soul. And that energy leaves the body at death. All the Siqqusim have to do is wait in the Void for one of us to die, and then they move right in.'
'And that means we're fucked,' Frankie said. 'Because sooner or later everything dies.'
Martin smiled.
'Everything dies, Frankie. But not everything has an ending.'
'Who are you? Obi freaking Kenobi? What the hell is that supposed to mean?'
'You'll understand in time. Meanwhile, let's get back to the zombies-or perhaps, more accurately, the demons. You're right. The odds look grim.
The Siqqusim boast that their numbers are more than the stars, more than infinity. But the truth is something different. Although there are many more of them than there are us, they have a finite number, just like everything else. The only thing that's infinite is God. That's a fundamental rule of the universe, and even the stars bow to it. We only see the Siqqusim as infinite, because we cannot fathom their number.
It's like trying to count the number of stars in the universe. Although they are finite, it would be impossible for us to do so.'
'How do you know all this?'
Martin laughed. 'I know many new things. There is great knowledge where I live now.'
'Where you live now? In case nobody bothered to tell you, Martin, you're dead. You're fucking arm came off in that car crash. Jim split that gray old head of yours open like a watermelon when your corpse came back.
Where you live, my ass. You don't live at all.'
'But I do. I exist on a higher plane. That's what I'm trying to get through to you, Frankie. Our bodies are just shells, casings made of flesh and blood to temporarily house our souls. When our souls move on, these things take over the shell. But with the exception of Ob and some of the other major demons, they have to wait their turn.'
'Who the fuck is Ob? That's the one the scientist told you and Jim about?'
'He's the one, the leader of the Siqqusim. You, Jim, and I actually crossed paths with him, though we didn't know it at the time. When we were all at the government facility in Hellertown. Ob led that zombie army. And soon, you will all meet him again.'
'Well that's just wonderful. Looking forward to it. You got any other cheery news for me?'
She noticed that the forest had grown dark. Clouds blocked out the sunlight filtering through the treetops.
'There are ancient laws, set forth by God before this planet ever existed. These are not laws of physics or science, but of magic-which is a force more powerful than any other. And a force that sadly, mankind has forgotten.'
'You know something?' Frankie observed. 'You look, and sound like Martin, but you talk differently. Your words are different.'
The preacher ignored her. 'One of the laws is that once the Siqqusim have been freed from the Void, they reanimate the flesh and blood constructs of the planet they're on. But those host bodies have limits, and sooner or later, must give in to decay. Once the body is destroyed, the departed Siqqusim returns to the Void and awaits transference to a new host. The process begins anew. Finally, when they have destroyed the planet's lifeforms, they move on to somewhere else, just like locusts, and start all over again.'
'So you're telling me that if we stay alive long enough, there's a chance these things will move on to another planet and not come back?
That we can just wait for the zombies to rot apart and turn to dust and sooner or later, they'll leave us alone?'
'Yes and no.'
'I'm gonna smack you, talking in riddles like that. And I guess you expect me to believe in little green men too?'
