When he was convinced that there was no immediate danger lurking about, he went back to the cave to summon Gel. Finding breakfast might prove to be more difficult than usual, however, as he suspected the animals had also been terrified of last night’s bizarre storm and had most likely gone into hiding. As it was, Napro heard no rustling within the forest, heard no birdsong, not even the buzzing of insects.
Spooked, he thought. Even more spooked than we humans had been.
But, as far as he could tell, there was no immediate danger and therefore felt it was time to summon the clan and get everyone busy, either hunting or gathering. He dismissed last night’s storm as just a freak of nature, after all. Not the act of an angry god. If it had been so, he suspected none of them would have been alive come morning.
He made his way back to the cave and told the others that it was safe and they could now go about their daily routines. Fee stayed behind with Zic, as his legs ached with the fierceness of fire and he was no good at hunting since he’d been attacked by the wolf.
Teva and Rani disappeared into the woods to search for firewood, berries, roots and later, if Napro and Gel managed to kill anything, the woman and her teenage daughter would skin the animal and cook the meat, salvaging the bones to make tools, weapons and sometimes jewelry.
The man and the boy ventured forth, towards the area they were in when the rain of stones had first begun. As they approached the burial ground, Gel kept his eyes downcast, staring at the fallen rocks with trepidation. Like his father before him, he saw what appeared to be a thick clear slime oozing out from the inside of the larger stones, and, also like his father, he paused, bending down to examine one. “What is this?” he asked.
Napro turned back. “I don’t know, but don’t touch it. It could be poisonous.”
“Maybe Fee could use it in his secret teas,” Gel laughed. “Maybe he already does, considering how awful they taste. Like animal urine.”
Facing forward again, Napro said, “Come, Gel. We must find our spears.” He began walking, but instantly sensed that his son had not obeyed him. Once more, he turned to look at Gel who remained stooped, staring at the rock, all amusement vanished from his face and replaced by something resembling fear.
“What is it, boy?” Napro asked.
“It’s moving,” Gel replied, his voice low. “Whatever is inside these rocks, it moves on its own.”
Napro groaned, walking back to where his son was. “Perhaps your empty belly is causing you to see things.” He stopped, looked down at where his son was staring, frowned and bent over for a better view.
Indeed, the slime was moving of its own volition, slithering over the edge of the rock, down its side to pool on the ground beside it. Napro and Gel exchanged shocked expressions. When Gel looked down once more, he shouted “Look!”
The slime was not just pooling on the ground; it was burrowing into it. Not simply being absorbed, but forcing its way in the same manner an earth worm would.
In fact, though it was clearly liquid, the slime moved very much like a worm; slowly, deliberately, inching its way down into the earth. It moved with purpose.
“It’s alive,” Napro whispered. “Some kind of creature.”
Gel could only nod, staring down at the wriggling slime with something bordering between disgust and fascination.
Napro straightened up once more. “Come! We must find our spears and warn the others.”
Again, Gel nodded, but made no indication that he intended to move from that spot, his eyes glued to what remained of the vanishing slime. Napro grabbed him by the shoulder, shook him hard. “Now!”
Shaken from his trance, Gel stood and then chased his running father back to the place they were the previous day when the stones had begun to fall, loping through the woods with an animal-like grace.
When they arrived at the edge of the burial ground, Napro stopped abruptly, causing Gel to bump into his back. “What it is?” Gel asked, vaguely annoyed.
But before Napro could reply, Gel saw for himself why his father had halted: there were people in the burial ground, though to call them people was not exactly accurate. They had once been people. It was completely obvious what they were now: corpses.
Gel’s eyes quickly took in the surroundings, the holes in the ground, all of them near the biggest of the shattered stones. About fourteen of them, all told. Holes which had just yesterday been covered graves.
Napro made a squeaking sound in his throat, backed up a step so that he was standing side by side with his son.
The zombies shuffled around in circles, seemingly unsure of what to do with themselves. Some of them were more decomposed than others. Most of them, however, the father and son could easily recognize. Family members, one of which—a little girl—had only been buried for a season. She had been Zic’s twin and had died after diving from a tree branch and into a river’s shallows. Her neck had snapped like a dry twig and now her head rested at an odd angle, her right cheek touching her right shoulder. She was naked, as were all the others. The clan did not dress their dead, it would never have occurred to them to waste animal skins on people who would no longer be needing them.
The squeaking noise came again and Gel glanced quickly at Napro. Tears streamed down the man’s cheeks, his eyes wide as he slowly shook his head as though he couldn’t possibly be seeing what his vision was showing him.
The corpses took notice of the man and the boy and instantly reversed direction and started towards the two, Zic’s twin leading the pack, dead eyes staring directly into her father’s without showing the slightest recognition. She made a low guttural sound in her throat—a long miserable wail—and then the others followed suit, all of them groaning and screeching as they staggered forward, arms outstretched.
One of the dead dragged a badly broken leg behind himself and Napro could see the dull white of ribs poking out from the thing’s side. Half the creature’s face had rotted away, exposing teeth that were black with decay.
Napro found himself trying to remember who this person might have been, but nothing came to him. He wondered if his mind had frozen in fear, halted any rational thought. He looked from face to face, searching for any indication of familiarity.
Gel grabbed his arm, tugged it. “We have to go, Father,” he said, his voice much calmer than he had imagined it would be.
The distance between them and the zombies was closing, despite the living dead’s painfully slow movements.
“Father!”
Napro looked at his son, blinking in surprise as though just woken from a deep dream. Together, they turned and fled, Gel stopping only long enough to scoop up his spear as they passed it hidden in a patch of tall grass.
Racing back to the cave, it occurred to Napro that Fee must have been right when he proclaimed anger from the gods. Though this seemed more than just anger; this was flat-out vengeance. But for what?
They reached the cave even faster than they had the previous day when they’d been dodging those strange rocks falling from the sky. Bent over, hands on knees and panting, they did not immediately notice the alarmed looks on both Fee’s and Zic’s faces.
When Napro finally looked up at them, he suspected the worst. “Teva and Rani?” he said.
“Gathering,” Zic replied with a frown. Of course her father should know where her mother and sister were. After all, he had been the one to send them to their morning tasks.
Before Napro could reply, Gel was already running back out into the day, his spear at the ready. Napro screamed at him to stop, but the boy ignored the command and disappeared behind a stand of thick pines.
Fee came to stand beside Napro. “What is happening?”
“The gods,” Napro said. “They have cursed us and this place.”
Puzzled, Fee asked, “What do you mean?”
“The dead have been brought back to life. I saw… I saw my daughter.”
“You saw Arbu?” Zic asked, her voice more excited than frightened. “Where?”
Napro glanced down at his little one, his eyes full of pain. Then, to Fee: “Keep her here.”
“Of course, but—”
“I have to find my children,” Napro said. He began searching the cave frantically for another spear. He knew they had several, but most had broken during one hunt or another. But a broken spear would be better than no weapon at all.
He chose what appeared to be the sturdiest, handing another to Fee. “Protect my child,” he said and raced out of the cave in pursuit his family.
Legs pumping, his long tangles of hair blowing wildly, he flew over downed trees while simultaneously dodging others. He knew his forest, his land. He had lived here his entire life, as had his father before him had. He didn’t remember seeing his father among the dead, but the man had been gone from this world for so long that identifying him now would have been impossible.
A woman screamed and he altered his direction just slightly, aiming in the direction the scream had come from. He heard Gel yell and increased his pace. He was running at his top speed when he tripped over one of the angry gods stones and, for a moment, was airborne before he came crashing back down to earth, landing hard on his chest. He felt the air whoosh out of his lungs and thought he heard a crack as well.
No matter.
He scrambled to his feet and continued on, his pace only slightly slowed.
The screaming came again—almost there. Just through that next wall of underbrush…
He burst through it, not feeling the thorns and branches that raked his skin, drawing thin lines of blood over several parts of his legs, face, arms and chest.
Gel stood in front of the female members of his clan, jabbing his spear at what seemed to be the most aggressive of the walking dead: a man, judging by his build, but there was no genitalia to tell for certain. Instead there was only a gray-black pit between the things legs. It lunged towards Gel who quickly stabbed it in the shoulder, a warning shot, perfectly executed and Napro felt a sense of pride. His son was a fine hunter, brave and strong, quick of mind and body, though he knew Gel shouldn’t have been wasting his time with warning shots. These were not some vicious animals protecting their young, a den or a kill. Napro didn’t know what they were exactly, but he did know one thing: they meant to kill his clan. A quick stabbing was not going to deter them. They had risen from their graves in order to end Napro’s bloodline. There was no mistaking their purpose in this—the living—world. And judging by the creature’s reaction to being stabbed, they didn’t feel pain anyway. The spear had succeeded in knocking it off balance momentarily, but then it was facing Gel again and letting loose a garbled roar.
Napro sprang forward to stand side by side with his son, the females behind them, quivering with fright but not crying. Napro felt the pride return; despite being females, both Teva and Rani had more courage than some men he had known. That was good. He had a feeling they would need every reserve of bravery they possessed before this thing ended for good.
Thrusting his spear, Napro aimed at the belly of the creature Gel had just stabbed, thrusting the weapon deep, all the way to its hilt, before yanking it back out with a twisting motion. The creature stumbled, but did not fall. From the wound made by Napro’s spear came a trickling flow of black blood. The wound should have gushed, would have gushed if it had been on anything alive. Anything alive would have been downed easily; Napro knew a killing shot when he made one.
But the monster only looked down at its stomach, then back up at Napro, screeching at him, its mouth open wide enough to show that its tongue, along with its genitals, had long ago rotted away or been eaten by insects. Insects always consume the soft spots first.
Napro stabbed at it again, once more aiming for the stomach. Still, though he drove the spear with all his might, twisting and jerking it back and forth, the creature did not fall. Beside him, Gel had turned away to face another monster that was approaching from the right. It seemed that the surrounding creatures were growing braver once they saw that the humans could not hurt them.
Pulling his spear free of the monster’s belly, Napro groaned when the thing’s rotted intestines spilled from the ragged hole he’d created. Behind him, one of the females screamed. The dead man didn’t even glance down at his own entrails, but marched forward, fingers gray with decay wiggling as he reached for Napro.
“Run!” Napro yelled at the others, thrusting his spear at the zombie’s face. He didn’t understand how the thing could even see out of its milky white eyes, but some how it could. Unless it was relying on scent…
He dared a quick glance behind him and repeated his command, louder, with more authority. “I said, run!”
His wife and daughter did just that, giving a wide berth to the group of zombies Napro and Gel were trying to fight off. A few of the monsters lurched in the direction the females had run, two actually giving pursuit, but they were slow and clumsy and Teva and Rani easily outpaced them.
Napro raised his spear over his head, both hands gripping it tight enough to make his fingers ache. He darted to the left, as though to follow the women and as the zombie turned towards him, Napro sprang back to his original position, slamming the spear downward at the creatures face. His aim was true, the spear impaling itself in the zombie’s right eye socket.
The thing screamed, tried briefly to grapple with the weapon, yanking on it at the same time Napro twisted, its good eye rolling skyward, and then it crumpled to the ground. Napro kept hold of the spear and grimaced at the slippery wet sound it made as it withdrew from the thing’s skull.
He stared at his kill for a brief moment, amazed that the zombie lay unmoving and seemingly dead. He felt a pang of pride, having defeated what surely must be a servant of demons, if not a demon itself.
“FATHER!”
Napro’s spun towards his son’s voice and saw him struggling with four zombies, his spear lying uselessly at his feet. Two of the things had him by the arms, while the others clawed at his face and chest. Gel tried to twist out of the grasp of the monsters, but they held him fast and seemed to be—Napro could not believe his eyes—they seemed to be trying to bite him.
Crossing the distance between them, Napro charged forward, his spear pointed towards the one who held his son by his left arm. With all his strength, he plowed his weapon forward, straight into the monster’s ear, hard enough to cause the lance to snap in half.
The zombie howled, immediately releasing its grip on Gel, and fell first to its knees before flopping onto its side, dead.
One of the zombies clawing at Gel’s chest turned to face Napro, Gel forgotten. It clambered forward, thrashing its arms at Napro. Napro ducked, tossing away the useless stick he now held and bending for his son’s spear. Grabbing it, he shoved upward, catching the thing in the neck, just beneath its Adam’s apple. Dark blood oozed from the wound sluggishly, thick as animal lard, but the creature did not stop fighting.
Gel screamed and when Napro turned, he saw one of the dead things ripping into his son’s throat with its teeth, pulling out a chunk of flesh, blood spurting across its face as it reared back, chewing.
The man felt his soul collapse as he watched the life fade from Gel’s eyes and the boy drifted like a feather to the ground. No longer able to scream, Napro did the screaming for him, shoving past the zombies to kneel beside his son. His cupped Gel’s head in his hand, yelling, trying to get the boy to focus, and then he was being yanked away, pulled by countless hands, heads bending towards him with gnashing teeth.
“No!” Napro wanted to remain with his dying boy, did his best to jerk free from the gripping hands, but there were too many of them. He felt teeth sink into his shoulder, his forearm, his cheek. The pain was searing and Napro’s vision grayed around the edges. He wanted to give up, let the monsters take him. It would be easy. Just relax, lie beside his son and close his eyes. He knew it would be quick.
But still he fought. Not for Gel, who was already gone, two zombies shredding his body, tearing the skin from his bones wi
th a fierceness and glee that Napro had never seen before, not even in the most frightened and starving of animals.
He fought for his mate and the rest of their offspring. He knew if he died, they would have no chance.
Crawling now, he managed to shove one of the zombies back with a quick jab of his elbow into its face, but even as he did so, he felt more teeth clamp onto the back of his calf. Fumbling, he searched for the fallen lance, found it, kicking frantically to get the monster off his leg. He rolled to his back, spear pointing upward, stabbing at the decayed faces while tears trickled from his eyes and into the wound on his cheek. The stinging barely registered. He knew now to aim at the faces, the eyes. Get the spear to penetrate the skull and he might survive long enough to warn the rest of his clan.
Zombies blocked out the sky.
Napro stabbed when and where he could, but quickly realized he was vastly outnumbered. It seemed more of the monsters had gathered for the slaughter—the feast—and Napro was destined to die this way. Eaten alive, just as his son had been.
He wanted to take out as many as he could while he lived and continued to thrash, thrust and kick, his scream a constant now, like his agony, like his spilling blood…
Closing his eyes against those rotted faces, he prayed to all the gods in heaven, prayed for his family and for—
A deafening high pitched whine drowned out all other sounds and he opened his eyes, amazed to see the zombie straddling his legs on fire and screaming. Napro craned his neck, saw a flash of brown skin and dark tangled hair: Teva.
She had come back with the only weapon she could find—a torch—and now was systematically touching the flame to all of the zombies heads, what little hair they had left the only thing on their bodies that would easily catch fire.
The monsters rose up, making sounds neither Napro nor Teva had ever heard before. No living creature could have shrieked the way these things were shrieking now. It was a sound exclusive to the dead, dying once again.
Ante Mortem Page 4