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.”
“How do you know this?”
“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.”
“How?”
“Because they were there when I went back for my family’s bodies.”
“Twelve,” the zombie mused. “In a fortified position. And they are well-armed?”
Bob nodded.
“How is that different from the city?”
“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.
“Don’t you mean more of us?”
“Us?”
“The dead,” it replied. “You’re dead like us.”
Bob unsheathed the shotgun. “I’m nothing like you. You things have no soul.”
“And you?”
Bob racked a shotgun shell. “Me—I am a soul.”
The undead crowd laughed.
“Show us, little ghost,” the armless zombie said.
“Lead us to this nest of humans.”
“There’s just one thing,” Bob said. “When we get there, the one with the phoenix tattoo is all mine.”
The zombie nodded. “Lead the way.”
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
The Rising
Day Eighteen
Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area The bears were hungry. So were the deer, squirrels, raccoons, and snakes—even the rabbits. Those were the worst. Bunnies were supposed to be cute and fluffy—not rotting and ravenous.
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 tearing sounds—and the chewing.
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.
He looted the sporting goods store, dispatching two zombies with a golf club in the process, and appropriated all the guns and outdoor gear he could carry. Then he fled for the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area; seventy thousand acres of ridges, forests, and lakes on both sides of the Delaware River in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. For almost forty miles, the river passed between low-forested mountains with barely a house in sight, before heading out to sea. Stephen figured he could hide out in the forest along the river. If trapped, he could use the river as an escape route. He’d always liked camping and hiking, knew how to fly-fish and track animals. He could hunt for his food, and keep moving, hoping to find other living survivors. That had been the plan anyway.
He hadn’t realized the animals were coming back, too.
His time in the forest became a running battle. He’d found shelter in the park visitor’s center, but the zombies got inside, almost trapping him on the boardwalk when he fled. He spent the next fourteen hours and many boxes of ammunition on the run, the woods literally crawling with the undead. Luckily, most of them had been animal and reptile, and didn’t carry weapons.
Stephen managed to find a lookout tower, the kind used by rangers to spot forest fires, and took refuge at the top. It was accessible only by a ladder and single door, which he immediately barricaded. At the top, there was a small, one-room living space, along with a circular outdoor platform. There was no way he could go outside, because of the flocks of zombie birds swarming around the tower’s top. But he had water and food and ammunition, and a battery-operated cassette player on which he listened to Bruce Springsteen and Zydeco and Vivaldi. He stayed put. Eventually, the creatures’ numbers dwindled. One by one, they went off in search of easier prey—or simply fell apart, rotting on the spot.
He’d finally crept out this morning, desperate for food and water, and fresh air, all of which had run low. He longed to see the sun again. And he had seen it, for a brief second, until a v-shaped formation of undead geese swooped down out of the sky, honking an alarm to their brethren.
Then he was on the run again.
He’d made it here to the cliff. Now, clinging from the rock, feeling the sandstone crumble beneath his fingers and toes, Stephen wondered what the point of it all was. Why insist on surviving? Why fight so hard? There was nothing left. Eileen was gone. His family was gone. For a moment, he wished the two of them had had kids. Then he forced himself to continue climbing.