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.”
“Fascinating.” The corpse rolled its one remaining eye. Mike sprayed some more air freshener. “No need to be sarcastic.”
“Eons spent in the Void, and I am freed only to discuss obscure pop culture with the likes of you.”
Mike shrugged. “It’s not so bad, is it?”
The zombie spat out a broken, yellowed tooth.
“Please, human. I’m begging you, something that the rest of my brothers would ostracize me for doing, if they saw it. Kill me. Dispatch me back to the Void, so that I may get a new body. Shoot me!”
“I hate guns.”
“Then crack my skull open and scoop out the brains!
Burn me to ashes. Drill through my head. I don’t care how you do it. Just kill me!”
“And miss all this great conversation?” Mike chuckled. “No. Afraid not. Your predicament reminds me of a good book, though. Cold As Ice by Adam Senft. Did you ever read it?”
“I told you—”
“He was a mystery writer. Went insane a few years ago. Didn’t get popular until after he’d killed his wife.”
“Death? Now you have my interest, human.”
“Anyway, the book was about these two guys—
lovers. They’d been partners for over thirty years. Then, one of them got cancer. It was terminal, but slow. I remember the character described it as creeping death.”
“There is a demon known to me that has the same name,” the zombie said.
“So the guy is dying of cancer. It’s bad. Ravaging his body, just eating through him until there’s nothing left. He’s in a great deal of pain.”
The zombie grinned. “Sounds beautiful.”
“It’s horrible,” Mike argued. “It was really brutal and sad, the way the author wrote it.”
“Did this character linger with this pain?”
“Yes, he did. And that’s why this situation reminds me of the book. He keeps begging his partner to kill him. To put him out of his misery.”
“And does he?”
Before Mike could answer, there was a loud crack. Splinters of wood exploded from the front door as an axe head battered through it. He dropped the can of air freshener and screamed. A chainsaw stuttered, then roared to life. Within seconds, the front door was gone and four zombies rushed into the room. They shot Mike in the back as he ran for the back door. He tried to crawl away, but his legs didn’t work anymore. Then the creatures fell upon him and slit his throat.
“You’re free,” shouted one as it cut through the chains binding its brother to the chair.
“It’s about time.” The zombie tried to stand, but fell to the floor. More fluid drained from its body.
“He’s had me trapped here for the last five days.”
“That’s not long, considering how long we’ve been imprisoned inside the Void.”
“No, it’s not. But the indignity of it all is what really angered me.”
“Come, brother. Let’s go hunt some more.” The zombie with the chainsaw started towards the damaged front door. “Or would you prefer we destroy your current form so that you can find a more mobile body?”
The freed zombie scuttled forward on its bloody stumps, then pointed at Mike’s corpse. “Wait until one of our brothers has inhabited his shell.”
“Why? There is much to be done.”
“He was telling me about a book, before he died. Once his body has been possessed by one of our kind, I want to know how the book ends.”
THE MAN COMES
AROUND
The Rising
Day Eleven
Fort Bragg, California
Terry Tidwell sat in the darkness, drinking a warm can of Foster’s Lager and listening to the dead outside. Woody, his Jack Russell Terrier, growled at his feet, ears cocked. Woody didn’t like zombies. Especially the seal.
Five days ago, a bloated bull seal lumbered into the driveway, chasing after a still-living cat. The sounds it made were horrific, and the sounds the cat made as the creature slaughtered it were even worse. Woody started barking. Terry had tried to quiet him, but he kept growling and scratching at the door. The seal turned its dead, black eyes toward the house, attracted by the noise. Then it alerted the other zombies in the area, and soon the house was surrounded.
Woody didn’t bark anymore. He’d figured out that it had no effect on the zombies, and was content now to merely growl. But it didn’t matter. The creatures already knew they were alive and inside the house, and the zombies had the patience of death. Terry and Woody were under siege.
It was pitch black. Terry knew better than to light even a single candle. The power had been out for days, and the food in the fridge was starting to spoil, enough that the kitchen smelled like the zombies. But he still had plenty of beer, canned goods, and dog food. Water was going to be a problem if they stayed trapped in here much longer, but they’d make due. Terry had taken to pissing in empty beer cans, so that the toilet water would remain untainted. He’d drink from the commode if he had to. Why not? Woody did it all the time.