H lived in a rambler with a tuck-under garage and huge, vaulted ceilings. His library overflowed with books and comics. He had more comics downstairs in the basement—along with Leen and the cats.He didn’t know what had killed her. She just fell asleep one night and didn’t wake up. Oh, her eyes opened again. She moved around, attacking him in bed. But it wasn’t Leen. She’d gone to sleep and something else had woken inside her. He’d wrestled away. She chased him into the library and he clubbed her with a lettered Brian Lumley edition. That bought him enough time to get the gun. H was a peaceful man. Killing his wife, even if she was no longer his wife, was one of the hardest things he’d ever done. Killing Kitchi and Kito, their two black cats, had been a close second. Disposing of them all was third.
He didn’t go down to the basement anymore. It stank.
Besides, he had all of his comforts right here. The only thing he missed was going fishing at Thunderbird Lake, but it was probably full of zombie walleye now, anyway.
The clock showed midnight. He was sitting in front of the fireplace, reading a short story collection, when he grew uneasy. It felt like somebody was watching him.
“Leen?” His own voice sounded funny to him after so long without speaking.
H crept to the front door and peeked outside. He had a large front yard, filled with apple, maple and birch trees, and his one hundred foot long driveway was lined with trees as well. Their leafy canopy cast all in shadows. The shadows were empty. He locked the door, and crossed to the east side of the house, looking out across the backyard. Nothing moved in the darkness. He saw the old woodshed and Leen’s gardens, and beyond them, the tree line of Tettagouche State Park. That was all.
“Quit being paranoid.”
Nobody else knew he was here. Nobody was coming, living or otherwise.
All he had to do was wait it out.
There was a knock at the door.
H nearly screamed.
Who is that? The army? National Guard? A neighbor? Or one of them …those things?
The knock came again.
Quietly, H picked up the .22 and crept into the foyer. He’d blocked off the skylight to keep the birds from breaking through, and the small space was pitch black.
A third knock—louder, longer, more insistent.
“Who is it?” He pointed the rifle at the door.
“Kresby? That you?”
Nobody he knew called him Kresby. That was his internet identity. Only his online friends referred to him that way.
The knocking changed to hammering. The door rocked on its frame.
“Kresby, open up! There’s zombies out here. Zombie moose…”
H racked his brain. “Michael? Michael Bland?”
“Try again.”
“PG?”
The door splintered inward, and a leering skull, stripped of most of its flesh, peered through.
“You guessed it, buddy!”
With a cry, H squeezed the trigger. The .22
punched a small hole in the creature’s jawbone. The zombie vanished. H’s ears rang. The foyer smelled like smoke.
“He lives in Arizona,” H whispered, peeking through the hole in the door. “What’s he doing here?”
The door exploded inward, knocking H
backward. He gritted his teeth against the pain shooting through his bad lower back.
Paul Goblirsch’s corpse lurched into the foyer. Even as he scuttled away, H’s analytical, biologytrained mind observed the zombie’s condition. It looked like he’d been skinned alive and dropped from a great height. His ribs and pelvis were shattered, skull cracked, legs broken yet still mobile. His internal organs and one eye were missing. His nerves and veins hung like spaghetti. The zombie grabbed the heavy wooden cane H
kept by the door. “Sorry I’m late. I entered this body about 14,000 feet above Minnesota. My host knew you lived here. Was jealous of your books. Thought I’d stop by so that you can join him.”
Grimacing, H fired again. The bullet punched through the creature’s empty eye-socket. Cursing, he aimed higher.
The zombie lashed out with the cane, knocking the barrel aside as H fired a third time. Then it smacked him on the head. Blood ran into H’s eyes.
“Son of a bitch…”
“No,” the thing rasped. “Son of Ob, son of Nodens.”
The cane descended again, cracking him on the knuckles. The gun slipped from H’s grasp. Clambering to his feet, H dodged another blow and ran. His lower back was a sheet of agony, and he kept wiping blood from his eyes to see. The zombie pursued him into the library. Though H wasn’t a trained fighter, he was determined to use whatever means necessary to live.
The zombie swung the cane. H ducked, and the driftwood bludgeon snapped on a bookshelf. H plowed into the creature, turning his face away from the stink. He clenched his fists, digging into the tissue. It felt like cottage cheese. Maggots wiggled between his fingers. Living man and dead man slammed into the wall.
Roaring, the zombie wedged a rancid thumb into H’s eye. Screaming, H did the same. The zombie reared back, blinded.
Eye for an eye, H thought, as his body went numb. Shock. Going into shock. Got to finish this. The zombie fumbled with outstretched hands, searching for him. H pulled away.
“I can smell you, Kresby. Smell your blood.”
“Come get some,” H chuckled.
PG giggled as well, the thing inside his body immediately recognizing the movie reference in its host’s memories.
H wobbled forward and thrust himself against a bookcase with all of his remaining strength. His back shrieked. His eye throbbed. The bookcase groaned, then toppled over onto the zombie, smashing it to the floor. Its arms stuck out beneath the pile. Gasping for breath, H stood over the destruction.
“You wanted my books, PG? There you go!”
He smelled smoke. Alarmed, he turned to the fireplace. One of the books had slid into it, and more lay nearby.
Before H could act, the zombie’s hand curled around his ankle and yanked. Arms pin-wheeling in surprise, H crashed to the floor. Something inside his back snapped, and when he tried to move, he couldn’t.
The flames grew louder.
Man and zombie burned together, along with the book collection.
Neither one rose again.
ZOMBIE WORM
The Rising
Day Twenty-Five
Hellertown, Pennsylvania
It was hard to eat people when you didn’t have a lower jaw.
Or tongue.
Or even teeth.
Not that this host body’s mouth had functioned even before being shot in the face. No. This human shell was absolutely the most useless form the Siqqusim had ever inhabited. Even the human’s name was worthless—Worm. What kind of a name was that? Worms were low creatures that crawled through the dirt and shit (except for Behemoth and the Great Worms—and this human was an insult to them). The Siqqusim seethed. This body had been nothing but a nuisance, and he couldn’t wait to leave it.