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.
“Useless?” Bob grinned. “You’re falling apart. You’ll need a new body soon, I guess. Having any luck finding one?”
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.”
“I know a lot of stuff, now that I’m dead.”
Bob shrugged. “I know enough.”
“Like where the rest of York’s human population is hiding.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Because they were there when I went back for my family’s bodies.”
Bob nodded.
“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 horrible smile.
“Us?”
Bob unsheathed the shotgun. “I’m nothing like you. You things have no soul.”
Bob racked a shotgun shell. “Me—I am a soul.”
The undead crowd laughed.
“There’s just one thing,” Bob said. “When we get there, the one with the phoenix tattoo is all mine.”
The zombie nodded. “
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.
THE HIGH POINT
Stephen Griglak clung to the steep rock face, staring at the zombie animals clustered far below. Several tried to scale the sheer sandstone cliff, but slid back down. Satisfied that they couldn’t reach him, Stephen started climbing again. His pack had never felt heavier than it did now, and his muscles burned—far beyond the aching stage.
He’d originally lived in Montclair, New Jersey, where he worked as a senior technician at Rutgers University’s soil lab. It was a nice town; he and his wife Eileen liked living there. A bit pricey, but that was the way of the world. And after the life he’d led, it was nice to settle into comfortable anonymity. His past was a fog of booze and drugs, until he met Eileen and got sober at the age of thirty-two. Married her at thirty-five. Life became good. Until The Rising.
Eileen…he didn’t like to think about what had happened to Eileen. There are some things human beings aren’t meant to see happen, especially when it happens to a loved one. So he’d blocked that from his mind. Almost. At night, he could still hear her screams, and the awful
Stephen was approaching fifty. His parents had passed away six years before. He had six brothers and sisters, but didn’t know if they were alive or dead. He’d tried calling his younger brother while the phones were still functional. The thing that answered the phone said it was his brother—but Stephen didn’t believe it. His co-workers were dead. Same with his friends. And after Eileen—well, there was only one thing to do.
