The God Zombie, page 14
“Hey, Jasper! You okay?” asked Eric.
Eric ran to the grave, grabbed Jasper around the waist, and tried lifting his friend out. As soon as he pulled on the body, Jasper began shaking violently and slipped out of Eric’s hands. Terrified that his friend was suffocating, Eric grabbed Jasper again and pulled with all his might.
“Come on!” Eric screamed, struggling to get Jasper free.
Something jerked on Jasper’s body, and he disappeared entirely underground. The mud began bubbling furiously, and Eric fell on his back.
“Oh my God!” whispered Eric, climbing to his feet.
Eric pulled out his cell phone and dialed 911.
“Yeah, I’m at the Starlight Cemetery on Benning Road. There’s been an accident, and my friend is hurt. Send someone fast!”
Eric hung up, grabbed the shovel, and dug into the earth. As soon as the shovel touched the grave, something pulled it into the ground.
“Jasper, is that you?”
Fearing Jasper was running out of air, Eric ran to the backhoe and climbed onboard.
“I’m coming, Jasper. Hang on!”
Hot-wiring the engine, Eric dug a hole near the grave’s edge and waited for the soil to pour out.
“Hey, Jasper! Push the dirt! Push your way out!”
But there was no movement.
A flash of lightning lit up the night, and the clouds exploded in a torrential downpour, drenching Eric as he waited for his friend to appear. But nothing came. Eric was panicking, so he climbed off the backhoe and prepared to run for help. He was about to run when he froze; in the distance, there were dozens of shadows in the cold, rainy darkness.
Eric moved toward them, waving his hands. “Hey! He’s over here!” he yelled, beckoning for the shadows to come.
But the figures stood motionless, swaying back and forth in the storm. Suddenly another bolt of lightning struck, and Eric froze—the shadows weren’t the police or emergency workers. They were corpses! The heavy rain clung to their muddy skin in an oily sheen, making the flesh on their faces hang from their skulls like ragged clothing. Some corpses were so old they were only skeletons with thin silver hair hanging from their heads. But all were dead, a strange green glow emitting from their eye sockets.
Lightning struck again, and Eric saw two familiar faces standing in the group.
Bobby Reynolds and Richard Stevens, Eric mouthed without realizing it.
He knew they were dead because he’d embalmed the two boys earlier that week. Eric remembered their family in the office making funeral arrangements, full of hysterics and crying while cursing the coward who caused their premature deaths. Eric remembered how he had carefully drained their blood and pumped them full of formaldehyde until their skin grayed.
“Oh my God!” Eric whispered.
As if reacting to the sound of the voice, the creatures broke into a frantic sprint, shrieking wildly, their milky white eyes focused on the man standing in the center of the cemetery. Eric turned to run but stumbled—the ground was opening around him with dozens of rotting hands pushing up through the mud. Eric jumped over the corpses’ hands and landed near a partially buried skeleton halfway out of the ground. The monster saw Eric and screamed, slamming its face into Eric’s shoe. But the creature’s old teeth didn’t penetrate, and Eric met its head with a vicious kick that shattered its skull, sending pieces of bone flying into the wet grass.
Eric tore through the cemetery, leaping over exploding headstones, and dodging zombies as they lunged at him. He reached the maintenance shed and darted inside—the truck he used to move items to different parts of the cemetery was his only way to escape. Eric opened the door and jumped inside.
“Come on . . . Come on . . .” Eric whispered as he searched for the keys.
When Eric lowered the visor, the keys landed in his lap. He frantically put the key in the ignition and turned it. Just as he did, he felt a searing pain in his midsection.
“AHHHHHH!”
Eric looked down and saw a dead baby chewing through his stomach. In an instant, he remembered where the Demon baby came from; on their boss’s orders, Eric and Jasper had dug up the baby and left it on the lawn so they could add it into the same plot as another child.
Eric tried to push the demonic baby away, but its teeth were like razors, chewing voraciously into his stomach, tearing off his flesh, and sucking blood. Suddenly the windshield exploded, and shards of glass shot into Eric’s face. One of the pieces stuck in Eric’s eyeball, and he screamed in agony.
“Jesus Christ!” he roared.
With one hand, Eric tried fighting off the skeleton; with the other, he tried to pull the glass out of his eye. Soon the car began shaking back and forth; the other zombies had arrived and started jumping on the hood and crowding into the cabin.
“Please, Lord,” Eric cried, “take my soul.”
Eric began screaming again. One of the zombies opened a wound in the base of his neck, stuck its fingers in, and yanked upward, ripping off the top of Eric’s head. His brain was exposed for only a millisecond before the zombies yanked out chunks of it and ate them. Eric never felt the corpses rip open his chest. By the time they ate his heart, he was long gone.
When the creatures finished eating, they returned to their moaning. They exited the maintenance shed and drifted mindlessly across the cold, wet cemetery.
Suddenly all the zombies paused and looked up into the rainy sky. After staring for several minutes, the corpses began moving away from the cemetery—toward the forest.
Come the Zombies Pt. 2
Greenlight Gas Station
9:30 p.m.
“Hey, Dion!”
“What?”
“Get me some candy and a soda!”
Dion paused and frowned. “You got some motherfucking money?”
Reggie pointed toward the gas pump. “I’m paying for the petro, ain’t I? The least you can do is hook me up with a snack.”
“Fuck you.”
Reggie continued pumping gas and listening to the blaring car radio. After filling the tank, he put back the pump hose and walked around to the driver’s side of the car. He was about to climb into the vehicle when he spotted something running down the street in his direction. Reggie closed the car door and stepped out to the edge of the gas station to get a better look. Suddenly three large deer ran past him and disappeared into the darkness.
“Fucking deer,” mumbled Reggie, shaking his head. “They’ll probably end up on someone’s bumper tonight.”
Reggie was about to climb into the car when he heard the click-clack sound of more hooves on the pavement. Suddenly a whole herd of deer came running past.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Reggie.
When the group of deer was gone, Reggie stepped into the street to get a better look.
“Hey, dumb fuck! Get out of the street before you get hit by a car,” yelled Dion as he exited the store.
“Yo! You’ll never believe this. Come here!”
Dion walked over to his friend, stuffing his mouth from an open bag of chips. “What is it?”
“I don’t know. Something’s off.”
“You mean like your brain?”
Reggie frowned. “I’m serious, dude. Something’s going on.”
Dion looked down the street and then turned back to the car. “I don’t see shit, dude. Come on, let’s get out of here. You know how Christina gets.”
Reluctantly, Reggie walked over to the car and climbed inside. “Dude, Christina has got you whipped.”
“Whipped?”
“Yep. Remember that . . .”
Reggie and Dion looked at one another—they could feel the ground rumbling beneath them. As they were about to climb out of the car, hundreds of animals ran past them.
“Holy fuck!” yelled Dion.
The two climbed out and stared in awe at the herd of animals that ran past them.
“What’s going on?” asked Reggie.
Dion was worried. He dropped his bag of chips and climbed back into the car. “Come on. Let’s get out of here.”
Reggie agreed. He climbed in the car, revved the engine, and peeled out of the gas station parking lot onto the main road.
“What the hell are you doing?” asked Dion. “Didn’t you see the animals going in the opposite direction?”
“Hold your horses!” yelled Reggie as he attempted to make a U-turn. But as he put the car in reverse to turn it around, he saw something at the end of the street. “Holy shit!”
There were hundreds of zombies sprinting toward them.
“Get us the fuck out of here!” screamed Dion.
Reggie whipped the car around and pressed the pedal to the floor. The vehicle fishtailed and crashed into a row of cars parked on the side of the street.
“What the hell are you doing?” yelled Dion angrily. “Get us out of here!”
Reggie tried to start the car, but it wouldn’t turn on. The zombies jumped on the car, slamming their decaying heads into the windshield, trying to push through. One of the creatures locked eyes with Reggie. With thick green fluid pouring from its mouth and eyes, it cried out to the teenagers.
“Neeeeeed . . . brains.”
Reggie stood transfixed. He couldn’t take his eyes off the dead man trying to push his head through the windshield. The corpse looked like something out of a nightmare: a ghoul from Hell with searing green eyes, crawling through the torrential rain to eat him.
“Reggie!” yelled Dion, pushing against the wall of dead faces attempting to enter the car.
But Reggie didn’t move—he couldn’t; Reggie was like a deer trapped in headlights, afraid yet not quite believing what he was witnessing. Everything was moving around him in a blur; dozens of cold, wet hands slapped his face, scratched his skin, and filled the car with the stench of Hell.
Dion broke free of the zombies, opened the car door, and fell on the street. He quickly jumped up and took off, running back to the gas station.
“Dion!” screamed Reggie. “Don’t leave me, bro! Help!”
Reggie watched as his best friend entered the gas station and locked the door. He tried fighting, but there were too many of them. A decrepit zombie bit off three of his fingers while another bit into Reggie’s neck, spraying blood all over the car. But still, Reggie continued fighting. The zombies poured into the car on the passenger side, lunging for his head. With his injured hand, he made a fist, hit several of the creatures, and sent them sprawling onto the street. But there were just too many of them. Like an enormous blanket, they all jumped into the car and attacked. Reggie could do nothing but close his eyes.
Dion stared at the car rocking back and forth in the middle of the street, and turned around to face the small group of people huddled in the gas station. His best friend, Reggie, was gone, and he had abandoned him. Dion told himself he didn’t have a choice, but he knew the truth—Dion had heard Reggie’s cries for help as he sprinted away but chose not to look back.
Through the years, Reggie had been there for Dion on numerous occasions: when those guys jumped him outside the movie theater, Reggie was there; when Deon’s girlfriend’s ex had paid a group of guys to hurt him, it was Reggie who stood toe-to-toe against the gang, knuckled up and heart full of courage. Indeed, Reggie was ride or die. But when the time came for Dion to repay the courage his best friend showed for him, all Dion could do was run like a bitch. He could’ve grabbed a pipe, a mop, a tire iron from someone’s car, anything to assist his friend. But Dion had chosen the easy road—the way of a coward.
Dion’s eyes met with one of the customers, an elderly lady standing closest to him. He felt like she could see his cowardice; his blatant betrayal was so apparent, it looked like neon paint on his face. The old woman forced a small smile and continued staring at the zombie attack on the car. Dion felt anger at the lady. To him, the smile was a smirk, an intentionally intimate mockery that said: “I saw how you abandoned your friend, you coward son of a bitch.”
Suddenly the lights went out, and one of the customers inside the gas station screamed.
“Shhhhh,” whispered the cashier. “If those things see us, we’re dead!”
The young boy moved close to Dion and touched his arm. “Sir, you wanna move to the back of the store with the rest of us? They might see you.”
Dion sucked his teeth in frustration and ignored the boy. “My friend’s out there. I’m not moving.”
The clerk looked at the anger in Dion’s eyes and left him to join the group.
“Hey!” exclaimed one of the men by the soda machines. “What are they doing?”
Dion ran to the window and saw the crowd of zombies stumbling around, staring at the sky.
“Why are they looking up?” asked the old lady.
Dion unlocked the door.
“Hey! What are you doing?” asked a teenage girl farthest from the door.
Dion ignored her and walked outside.
“Forget him!” yelled the clerk. “I’m locking it.”
Dion heard the door lock behind him, but he didn’t care. The zombies were walking into the forest on the other side of the street. Dion took a deep breath and walked over to Reggie’s car. When he opened the door, he expected to see his best friend’s mangled corpse drenched in blood. But instead, what he saw was an empty car. Dion walked to the other side of the vehicle and inspected further. Slowly he turned around and looked into the dark, rainy forest.
“Reggie is a zombie.”
The Warrior
Arlo sat in the dark room, listening to the activity outside the building. The evil that he and Isadora awakened with their visit to the Priming Fields was gone. Now there was a new sound echoing through the forest, moaning and groaning that Arlo was intimately familiar with—the sound of the undead. They had been gathering outside the building for a few hours—first only a few stragglers and then, gradually, many more. Their cries of interrupted sleep were a song Arlo used to sing; the pains of his rotting body tortured him incessantly as he struggled to find his way.
As he sat in the dark listening, Arlo could tell some zombies were new to the undead world and struggling to navigate their strange existence. He heard people crying, the stutters to form coherent words, the thick sound of death stuck in their vocal cords. In contrast, Arlo also heard experience moving amongst the zombies; some were so old they assimilated the violence and agony by attacking the animals in the forest without instruction. They seemed happy to be able to move without the weight of cemetery soil pressing down on them, holding them captive in their coffins. The life of the undead was like clothing to them; they wore it naturally without questioning or fear.
Arlo could also hear the anti-undead mingling outside his door; they knew what death was and what it was not: an experience gained by clinging to their previous lives, worlds in which they could no longer participate. Arlo could hear the Sun Oil burning them without mercy, reducing them to crying, then cursing, and finally, a reduction to silence as the Sun Oil consumed them like a forest fire. Arlo envied these individuals the most; they had the courage he did not. No one had to tell them this level of existence was an abomination cursed by Heaven and Hell; they knew and wanted no part of it.
Towering over all the screaming, growling, and crying was Forneus’s deep, gravelly voice. He’d sat inside with Arlo, listening to the gathering of the zombies until the ruckus became too loud. Fearing the Huturo would surely hear the noise and be drawn to it, Forneus had to go outside to insert calm into the mayhem. Arlo could hear Forneus moving amongst the group, coaching them, warning them. The tall skeleton had probably given the same pep talk to millions of souls before, just before he unknowingly delivered them into the arms of Hell. Still, the reluctant General Forneus sounded energetic and forceful, as if his own life depended on the success of the weakest individual. He empathized, pushed, and taught like a born teacher.
Suddenly the rock at the entrance slid aside.
“Arlo?” asked Isadora, peeking into the room. “Forneus wants you.”
Arlo stood and walked out of the entrance into the rain. Thousands of zombies stared at Arlo with their green eyes as he made his way to the group’s center. The scent of death was so thick, it rose like a great fog in the night. The zombies watched Arlo cautiously as if they recognized him as their leader but were doubtful of his intentions. Standing in the center of the group was Forneus, his skull of screaming worms casting an eerie glow on the faces of the dead.
“This is your army,” said Forneus.
Arlo looked around in disbelief. “My army?”
“They will help you save your mother.”
Arlo shook his head and cracked a smile. “You mean they will help us? You want to use them to help reunite you with your family, too, right?”
Arlo could tell Forneus didn’t like his words, but the truth was the truth, and Arlo didn’t like Forneus trying to make everything about his family. Something bothered him about Forneus’s desire to avoid accepting responsibility.
Arlo looked around the group of rotting corpses before turning to Forneus. “How can I control them?”
“I don’t know the mechanism used to move the undead. You will need to discover that for yourself.”
Arlo turned to face an overweight bald man, half his brain rotting. After imagining the man attacking a nearby tree, the zombie suddenly roared, ran to the tree, and started punching the tree trunk continuously, leaving bloody stains on the bark. Arlo turned to another zombie, a little boy with black liquid oozing from his mouth. An image flashed in Arlo’s mind, and the child became a growling, uncontrollable monster within a millisecond. He rushed to the fat zombie and slashed the man’s face with his fingernails. When the man stumbled back, the child grabbed his chubby leg and tossed him far into the weeds.
Arlo turned to Forneus. “This might work.”
Arlo walked through the other zombies, inspecting them, while Forneus walked closely behind. Finally, he arrived at a tiny skeleton barely able to stand. Arlo guessed it was a child, possibly a boy, dead for many years. Its long hair clung to its skull, while its bones were degraded, filled with holes like a sponge cake.
