The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World Read online

  Then he noticed why. Worm’s body lay five feet away. It was headless.

  But if his head is missing, then why am I… The breeze ruffled his hair. He felt it. Felt the wind on Worm’s scalp. But he couldn’t feel anything else. Oh no. Those stupid humans! Those ignorant apes—they only cut my head off. The brain is still intact… Tenk looked out from Worm’s decapitated head and watched the moon rise.

  He couldn’t even scream.

  * * *

  THE NIGHT THE DEAD DIED

  The Rising

  Day Twenty-Six

  Bronx, New York

  All night long, Cookie and the blind man sat in the dark restaurant’s kitchen. They tied damp handkerchiefs over their faces to block the stench of decay permeating the city. They ate sardines, washed them down with the olive oil inside the empty tins, and listened to the dead die.

  It began with a message broadcast over a public address system. They heard it several times.

  “This is the Federal Emergency Management Agency, broadcasting to all who can hear this message. The United States Department of Homeland Security has determined that Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the other New York boroughs are now safe zones. The quarantine has been lifted. You are free to leave your homes. All civilian and military personnel are encouraged to make their way to the area immediately. Aid stations have been set up for your convenience, to provide food, water and medical assistance. Again, the threat alert for New York City has been lifted and the area is now designated as a safe zone. Make your way into the streets. Military and civilian authorities will be there to assist you. Message repeats…”

  The blind man didn’t believe it. Cookie did at first, but he had urged her to wait. He said it was a trick. The message was being broadcast by the zombies in an effort to flush the survivors from their hiding places. Cookie wondered how he could be so sure. The blind man said he heard something coming—something more than just the zombies outside. Minutes later, Cookie heard it to. An army. Tanks and halftracks and heavy artillery. They rolled into the city from all directions. Soon, the sounds of battle erupted throughout the city—screams, explosions, gunfire, and shouting. Cookie sat her empty sardine can down. “I guess you were right. It was a trick.”

  “Think about it,” the blind man whispered. “This morning, the zombies were going door to door, trying to find us all. The only reason we escaped was because we hid inside the basement freezer and they didn’t bother to check it. It’s nighttime now. Less than twenty-four hours have passed. If the army had rolled in here and wiped them all out, wouldn’t we have heard the battle? The fighting is just starting now. Wouldn’t they have told us to come outside after the city was secured, rather than before? And even if the army had killed all the zombies, they wouldn’t tell us to come outside. They’d tell us to stay in our homes.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s a biohazard. We’re surrounded by millions of dead bodies. It doesn’t matter if they’re walking around killing folks or if they’re really dead. Either way, corpses carry disease: bubonic plague or hepatitis or dozens more. Those things outside are nothing more than a walking biological attack. If F.E.M.A. or the army were really here, they wouldn’t tell us to come out until they’d managed to burn the bodies and contain the threat.”

  “That ain’t what happened in New Orleans,”

  Cookie said. “The authorities said it was safe, so people came out and had to wade through floodwaters and bodies floating in the streets.”

  The blind man shrugged. “Perhaps, but this is different.”

  Cookie nodded in agreement. The blind man had been holed up in the restaurant since the end of the first week. He’d managed to stay alive all this time. When Cookie had crept into the restaurant a few days ago, half-starved and desperate for food, he’d automatically been able to discern her from one of the undead. He said he did it by smell. Cookie didn’t care what his methods were as long as they worked—and they obviously did. He was alive while the rest of the city was dead or dying. And so far, he’d kept her alive, too. Sure, maybe he was a little weird. He refused to tell her his name and he slept sitting up—on the rare occasions that he slept at all. But he hadn’t tried to rape or attack her the way the last group she’d sheltered with had. Finished with their dinner, Cookie threw away the sardine tins. She wanted a cigarette, but the blind man said the zombies could smell the smoke. Besides, she only had three left and she was unsure when she’d be able to find more. Venturing outside at this point was simple suicide.

  Far away in the distance, artillery explosions rolled across the city. Cookie jumped. The blind man smiled.

  “I understand that you want to leave,” he said.

  “You’re almost out of cigarettes. I want to leave, too. No offense, but with your added presence, we’re running low on supplies. We need food, medicine, water, and ammunition—not that I can shoot very well anyway. But you have to be patient. If and when the time comes, we will leave.”

  She started to speak, but another explosion cut her off. It was followed by the sound of machinegun fire. When the sounds of battle faded, Cookie tried again.

  “Where would we go?”

  “Ramsey Towers,” the blind man said. “That’s our best option. A man came through here a few days before you showed up. He said they’ve got electricity in Ramsey Towers. I say we try for that.”

  “How do you know he was telling the truth?”

  “His voice—I can tell when someone is lying.”

  “But Ramsey Towers is in Manhattan. Might as well be on the moon. We wouldn’t make it one block. Those things are everywhere. Humans, rats, pigeons, cats, dogs—and all of them are zombies.”

  “Exactly. That’s why we stay put for now. I can tell by your voice that you’re getting tired. Why don’t you get some sleep? I’ll stand watch.”

  Cookie wasn’t sure how long she slept. She was jolted awake by a rapid-fire series of explosions. They sounded distant, but the blind man said they were coming closer. His voice trembled. It was the first time she’d heard him sound afraid.

  “What’s happening?” she gasped.

  “I’m not sure. They just started.”

  Another explosion, this one closer, rattled the light fixtures.

  “Maybe the army is fighting them,” Cookie said. She grabbed a claw hammer and crept to one of the windows. Using the hammer, she pried a nail loose and pulled the heavy plywood away. The blind man stumbled forward. “What are you doing?”

  “It’s okay,” Cookie said. “I don’t think they’re out there.”

  She peeked out into the darkness. Dead bodies lay everywhere. None of them moved. All along the street, brilliant flashes of orange flame erupted from the sewers, and then vanished. The restaurant shook.

  “Cookie? Where are you?”

  “Right here, by the window. Keep coming forward.”

  He touched her shoulder. “What is it? More zombies? I don’t hear them…”

  “No. It’s not the zombies. They’re dead—again.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “They’re lying in the street. None of them are moving. But something’s happening in the sewers.”

  Another explosion rocked the building. Dust rained down on them both. Across the street, a liquor store burst into flame.

  “Open the door.” The blind man tottered backward. “We need to get out of here before the gas lines explode.”

  Working quickly, Cookie removed the barricade and flung the door open. She helped her companion out into the street. Both of them tensed, awaiting an attack, but none was forthcoming. Slowly, they waded through a sea of decomposing corpses. Cookie gagged. “Be glad you can’t see this.”

  “Why? What’s that noise? It sounds…disgusting. Like Rice Krispies.”

  “It’s the zombies. They’re falling apart.”

  “Literally?”

  Cookie nodded, but then realized he couldn’t see her. “Yeah.”

  One of the creatures twitched. She
prodded it with her foot but it did not fight back.

  “We’ve won,” the zombie rasped. “Now we move on to the next world, to make way for Ab and his kind to invade this level.”

  The blind man grunted. Beside him, he heard Cookie gasp.

  “What is it? More zombies?”

  “No. The horizon is glowing. Something big is burning in Manhattan.”

  The blind man shuffled over to the zombie. His foot came down on its face, sinking into the rancid flesh like it was pudding. He seemed not to notice.

  “What is Ab?”

  The creature grinned. “Now come…the Elilum.”

  It melted across the pavement. The blind man wrinkled his nose, and scuffed his shoe on the curb. Then he reached for Cookie. She took his hand, and then turned back to the fire.

  “How bad is it, Cookie?”

  “It’s huge…”

  She paused. Something buzzed in her ear. A second later, a mosquito landed on her arm and bit her. She let go of the blind man’s hand and slapped the insect. It fell to the sidewalk. It was crushed. Broken.

  Dead.

  “I wonder what the Elilum are?” the blind man asked.

  Cookie didn’t answer. She was staring at the dead mosquito.

  It was moving again…

  * * *

  THE MORNING AFTER

  The Rising

  Day Twenty-Seven

  Goffstown, New Hampshire

  In the 1700s, when Goffstown’s first settlers arrived, they found a magnificently forested area with hardwood-covered hills and magnificent stands of white pine, which extended along Mast Road (named for the many trees cut down and hauled to the Merrimack River so that the Royal British Navy could use them as ship’s masts). The morning after The Rising ended, Brian Lee, the last surviving human in Goffstown, emerged from his hiding place to find that the trees still stood. He climbed to the top of a cell phone tower and scanned the forested hills and the Uncanoonuc Mountains (Native American for “woman’s breasts”). It was a clear day, and Brian could see for miles.

  The hills were green with life, but Goffstown’s streets were choked with death. Corpses, both animal and human, lay everywhere—on sidewalks, in the streets and gutters, rooftops, in vehicles and doorways and storefronts. Nothing moved. The corpses did what they were supposed to; they remained still and rotted.

  Brian cheered. His cry echoed all the way to the winding river in the distance.

  He’d survived by hiding inside a restaurant’s walk-in freezer. Earlier that morning, he’d crept out, looking for water. He’d stumbled, literally, over the first zombie a few minutes later. It was lying in the shadows. Using the butt of his rifle, Brian bashed its head in like a rotten melon, but the creature never reacted. Within minutes, he discovered two-dozen more, including several zombie dogs and an undead cow. All were truly lifeless, but there was no sign of head trauma—the only way to bring a zombie down. Brian was reminded of War of the Worlds, and how the Martians had seemingly died off overnight, infected by the common cold.

  He’d explored for the last two hours and hadn’t encountered a single active zombie. The dead were dead again. The stench of rotting corpses hung thick, filling the streets like fog. He’d tied a bandana around his mouth and nose, but it did little to help. It was beautiful. The smell of victory.

  “It’s over,” Brian said out loud as he climbed down. “It’s really over. They’re gone!”

  His voice bounced back to him off the abandoned buildings. Gone…gone…gone…

  Where were the other survivors? He couldn’t be the only one, could he? His wife and daughters had…

  They had…

  He blinked away tears. He couldn’t be the only person left alive.

  Brian’s parents moved to Goffstown when he was five years old. He went away to college for a few years (where he studied engineering), but then moved back, along with his wife (whom he’d met while in school). They’d lived here since, along with their three daughters. Life was good, the way it was supposed to be. A month ago, they’d added money to his daughter’s college and wedding funds. Now…

  He ripped the bandanna from his face and screamed. “What’s the point? I can’t be the only one left!”His echoes answered him.

  Overcome with delayed anger and grief, Brian snapped. He ran through the streets, firing into the unmoving corpses until he was out of ammunition. Then he clubbed them, beating them into piles of red pulp, until the rifle’s stock shattered. He sank to his knees in a red, wet puddle, and sobbed. Eventually, he found a vehicle that still had the keys, and drove out to his parents’ home. They were gone, of course, killed the same night as the rest of his family, but he didn’t know what else to do. He couldn’t return to his own home. He just couldn’t. His parents’ home was on the west side of Addison Road, halfway between Shirley Hill and Winding Brook roads. Driving there, trying to ignore the constant crunch of bodies beneath the tires, Brian thought back to his youth…in the woods with his sister, Anne, and best friends, Ken and John, digging junk out of the old dump, walking along the old overgrown railroad bed, exploring streams and swamps, catching frogs, and barely making it home in time for supper.

  He stopped when he saw the Big Pipe. That’s what they’d called it—a huge granite culvert and cement pipe that ran under Addison, big enough to stand in when they were kids. They’d sit on the end in the spring and watch the water rush through, the level from the melting snow. Now, it trickled through, barely ankle deep.

  Lost in memory, Brian got out of the vehicle and scrambled over the rocks. In the forest, the leaves hissed. He walked through a patch of waist high weeds, twisting as they clung to his jeans. The weeds refused to let go. They squeezed tighter. The trees groaned.

  Brian looked down and screamed, thoughts of his endless childhood summers gone.

  Ticks swarmed up his legs, crawling over the denim. He’d never seen so many before, a moving carpet. Frantic, he tried brushing them off. Lyme disease, he thought. Oh fuck, I survived and now I’m gonna get Lyme disease.

  The weeds cinched around his wrists, coiling like snakes. That was when Brian noticed they were dead: brown and withered—yet still moving. Slapping at the insects (he could feel them all over him now), Brian wrenched free of the vegetation and started back up the embankment. There was a deafening crash. He looked up at the road—which had suddenly sprouted a forest. Tall oaks and pines covered Addison, their roots serving as legs. Their limbs battered the vehicle, smashing the windshield and crushing the roof. Brian wheeled around and fled for the Big Pipe. A mosquito buzzed his face, biting him right below the eye. He glanced down at his feet and noticed that the insects were not only attacking him, but attacking each other as well. They’re zombies. It wasn’t over. It’s just spread to other life forms.

  If that was true, then he stood no chance. No chance at all.

  “No.”

  He dove into the culvert and crouched low, ducking into the Big Pipe. He’d been able to stand up inside it as a kid. Now he barely fit. Splashing through the water, he burrowed into the darkness. He still felt insects crawling on him, but he couldn’t see them. There was little light inside the pipe, just two small circles of daylight at each end. He stripped down to his underwear and flung his clothing as far as he could. Then he slapped at his exposed skin and checked for ticks.

  It grew darker.

  Brian glanced back at the opening. The daylight was slowly disappearing, blocked out by the vegetation choking the exits. Soon, it was pitch black.

  Brian Lee retreated back into his memories, ignoring the slithering sounds, creeping closer in the darkness.

  * * *

  MARCH OF THE ELILUM

  The Rising

  Day Twenty-Eight

  Florida Caverns State Park

  When it was all over, Michael Bland and his son, Kyle, were grateful to be alive. Before they’d gone underground, Mike, a 46-year-old divorcee, was a professional geologist with the Florida Department of Environ
mental Protection. His entire world had revolved around 14-year-old Kyle. When they saw each other (every other week as ordered by the court) they spent time playing World of Warcraft and going to the movies and just hanging out. When Kyle was at his mother’s, Mike, who had been married for nineteen years, enjoyed his independence. He didn’t date, and had no desire to start. One of his co-workers had once suggested that he “come out of his cave.”

  Mike stood blinking in the sunlight. He remembered the comment, and laughed.

  “What?” Kyle asked.

  “Just thinking.”

  Kyle glanced back at the cave entrance and then to his father. “Do you really think they’re gone?”

  Mike nodded. “Sure looks that way. Maybe they’re all dead.”

  “They were already dead, Dad. They can’t die twice.”

  “Well, whatever it is that happens when you destroy their brain—maybe it’s finally happened to them all.”

  Mike and Kyle had taken shelter in the caves (only an hour from Mike’s home in Tallahassee) on the second day of The Rising. They’d burrowed deep into the subterranean network, hiding among the dazzling formations of limestone stalactites, stalagmites, soda straws, flowstones, and draperies. The cave was dry and air-filled, and a small spring fed by the Chipola River, provided them with water. They had sleeping bags and a kerosene lantern and other survival gear. By the second week, they’d run low on food, and Mike went out to find some. Despite the warm sunlight, he shuddered, remembering the horses.

  Florida Caverns State Park was also popular for horseback riding, and offered stables for equestrian campers. Some of those animals must have been left behind, starved to death in their pens, and then reanimated. While Mike had been hunting for food, the zombie horses attacked.

  He rubbed his forehead, which still bore the scabbed, crusty imprint of a hoof.

  “Dad?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “What if we’re the only people left alive? What about Mom?”