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?”