The Edge of Hell: Gods of the Undead A Post-Apocalyptic Epic

by Peter Meredith

  Jonathan was confused until the second man put a knife to Mustafa’s throat.

  “He says that you are to hand over your weapon or he will kill me.”

  “Sorry, Mustafa, old boy, I can’t do that. Tell him to drop the knife or I will shoot him in the face, and no one wants that.”

  Mustafa translated and in answer, the man with the knife dragged the foreman back into the shadows. The other workers in the room followed despite Jonathan waving the gun and demanding that they stop.

  He followed after, cursing under his breath, afraid that they would make him shoot one of them before they would listen.

  The passage was clean and neat like the first one; however, that feeling of dread he had experienced earlier came on stronger with every step he took. It ran up his nerves and he was shocked to see that his gun hand was trembling. A year and a half fighting the krauts and he had never shaken like this. It made no sense.

  Ahead, the workers were jabbering so quickly that he couldn’t make out a single word; however, he could tell that they were scared as well. They weren’t afraid of Jonathan. There was something in the tomb with them, something alive that couldn’t possibly be alive. They were just beginning to understand.

  Jonathan wanted to run away, only he couldn’t get his feet to respond; he was being drawn forward against his will. Very quickly, he was at the doorway of a second room, this one a long rectangle. At the back was a sarcophagus; a big one, as if a giant was being held inside. He knew there wasn’t a giant in it; like Russian nesting dolls, there would be a smaller sarcophagus in it and a smaller one in that, and so on.

  He had always found the idea tedious; however, just then, he was glad for all the layers. The more barriers between him and whatever was in the sarcophagus the better. They would delay it from getting out—there was a palpable feeling now, as though the thing in the sarcophagus could see them through the dividing layers.

  “Holy God,” Jonathan said in a whisper. He wanted to take a step back and yet found himself a step closer. He wasn’t the only one; the workers were all edging in toward it, one with a hand outstretched. His brown fingers were shaking uncontrollably as though he was fighting his own body—and then he touched the outer shell of the sarcophagus.

  The man screamed high in his throat, and there was a tremendous Boom! The sound rolled down the corridor toward them, coming from the first chamber and could only be the sound of the black lid from the block of stone hitting the floor.

  One of the men dropped his lantern and ran right past Jonathan as if he and his gun weren’t there. Then they were all running, their minds overcome by a fear that was impossible to describe and more impossible to contain. They were mindless in their fear. They ran towards death and it ran towards them.

  It was a ghastly thing made of bone and rotted flesh. It had come from the block of stone in the antechamber and it brought with it the stench of decay that was worse than any charnel house. Once during the Great War, Jonathan had come across a mass grave where hundreds of bloated bodies had been left to blister in the sun. The odor of that had left him weak and gagging for an hour.

  This was worse. His legs gave out and he fell to his knees. The workers were struck down by it as well; two passed out, falling right over and the rest were on the ground puking up their dinner on the white tile.

  The man closest to the horrid creature held up a hand over his head as if to ward off a blow. The thing, the monstrous dead thing stood over the man for a moment and slowly lifted a hand; the ends of its fingers were without even the moldy, ancient remnants of the flesh that stretched over the rest of its body and the bones were strangely sharp as if it had been clawing at the stone lid of its tomb during its long internment.

  Those sharpened fingers were like claws and, so fast that the eye could barely follow, it reached out and grabbed the man by the throat and lifted him off the ground. There was a creaking noise as the thing squeezed its hand, driving those claws deep into the man’s flesh, crushing his larynx and piercing the fat arteries on either side of his throat.

  In the dim light it looked as though the man’s blood was black as the devil, as it poured over the creature’s fist and down its arm. In seconds, he was dead and cast aside by the creature, which then turned its terrifyingly empty gaze on the next man.

  It was Mustafa. He was frozen, staring into the barren eye sockets of the creature. A scream ran out of his throat and yet, despite his fear, he didn’t move or make any attempt to defend himself. With one quick swipe of its bloody claws, the creature tore Mustafa’s throat out. Again the blood was nightmare dark as it gushed. It drenched the front of his long robe and splashed onto the pristine white tile.

  Seeing the blood on the floor was a catalyst. Jonathan had been as paralyzed as the others but now he was suddenly able to think and move. He brought his Colt up and fired until the magazine was empty—he couldn’t miss a stationary target from twenty feet away. The bullets, 45 ACPs, were honking big slugs that could put a man on his back in a flash and yet the creature took eight hits without slowing.

  In the time it took for Jonathan to change out for a fresh magazine, the last he carried, the creature killed two more of the Egyptian workers. They died in a blink: more blood and shredded flesh.

  Strangely, Jonathan was no longer afraid. The power of the gun, the ear-ringing blasts and the heavy recoil had settled his nerves. He was back in combat, something he knew and understood. This time he was more circumspect with his aim. All eight from the first magazine had gone straight into the thing’s chest.

  Now, he aimed for the head. No blood or brain matter exploded out, instead chips of bone and an ageless dust filled the air. Five bullets fired and most of thing’s skull from the eye sockets on up was gone. The last two shots blasted out teeth and unhinged its jaw so that it hung from what was left of its face by the dried husk of its skin.

  And still it kept coming.

  The remaining Egyptians screamed all the harder and ran back to the burial chamber with the still closed sarcophagus and the eyes within that could somehow see outward. Jonathan ran as well, but he did so with slow steps—he had the feeling that what was trapped in the sarcophagus was a far worse evil than the creature of bone. But with his death imminent, he chose the burial chamber to seek refuge in and for just a moment it seemed like it would indeed be a refuge.

  The creature paused in the doorway, with what was left of its head turned toward the sarcophagus. The moment was a short one, just long enough for Jonathan to pick up one of the crowbars the Egyptians had been using. “Arm your selves!” he yelled to the others.

  Two of them did. The first man was struck down by the creature, who charged into the room at Jonathan’s call to arms. Before the man could even lift the heavy metal bar, the creature drove razor sharp fingers into his eyes deep enough to stew his brains.

  Jonathan knew this creature would be his death and yet, fearlessly he charged and struck with his bar while the creature still had its hand in the worker’s face. He swung the bar as if he was Babe Ruth and knocked the remains of the monster’s skull clear off. He felt a second of elation and then the creature lunged forward and grabbed Jonathan. It was headless and somehow was even more dangerous.

  It raised a hand that was dripping with blood and brains; however, it did not strike. Just then one of the Egyptians made a break for freedom. He ran through the doorway and up the passageway toward the exit and right after him was the creature, its death shrouds billowing out from behind.

  The man screamed as he ran, but it was cut short and then the creature was racing back. Jack could feel it coming, a sensation that he couldn’t understand.

  He was afraid, but not overwhelmed by the fear; there were enough of them still alive to overwhelm the creature if they all armed themselves and attacked at once. None did. The second the creature had left the room, the thing in the sarcophagus came awake once more and Jonathan felt an unstoppable urge to open the sarcophagus and release it.

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nbsp; All the men did. One actually had his hand on the lid when the creature of bone and sinew came roaring back into the room. Jonathan had been nearest to the door and should have been killed first; however, the creature went right for the man touching the sarcophagus and tore his head from his body. Blood splashed and again Jonathan came around.

  The Egyptians did as well. They scattered from the creature like cockroaches and alone, Jonathan charged, catching the creature with his back to him. It had another of the workers by the throat and Jonathan aimed his heavy bar at the thing’s extended arm.

  With a grisly snap, it broke off at the elbow. This time there was no elation on Jonathan’s part. If the thing could fight without a head, it could fight with only one arm.

  Sure enough, the creature spun and tried to grab Jonathan’s throat. He got the bar up just in time. Undeterred, the monster flung the bar across the room with Jonathan still hanging on—he wasn’t going to give up the bar for anything.

  He landed in a heap and despite a flare of pain in his side, he struggled to his feet. In that short time, two more Egyptians were dead and a third raced for the exit. He made it just beyond the doorway before he was killed.

  His death was the only thing that allowed Jonathan to finally destroy the creature. Once again, he was able to attack from behind and he aimed for the thing’s remaining arm. It took two swings before it broke off and fell to the bloody tile with a rattle of bones.

  Then it was a just a matter of time before the remainder of the creature was utterly dismembered. Jonathan swung and swung the bar until no two bones were connected. He was covered in what looked like flour by the time Robert and Lord Blackburn came down the passage.

  “What is the meaning of this?” Robert demanded, his eyes wide and his face stricken by the horror of the burial chamber.

  Jonathan, panting and sweating from his labors could only shrug; no other answer would do. The truth would get him sent straight to the booby-hatch; in fact, just then he felt as though a spell in a loony bin might be something that would do him good.

  He dropped the metal bar with a clang which seemed to awaken the last of the Egyptians. He’d been standing like a man caught up in singularly bad epileptic fit. It was almost as if he was frozen, but now he was moving...moving toward the sarcophagus.

  “We have to stop that man,” Jonathan said, starting forward.

  “Your killing spree is over, Jonathan!” Robert said, grabbing his half-brother. “You will pay for this, I’ll see to it.”

  Jonathan spun and clubbed Robert in the face with one beefy fist, dropping him straight to the bloody tile. “When I start killing, I’ll begin with you.”

  He left his brother, sneering around a grimace of pain, and ran to the last Egyptian who had given in to the strange demand emanating from the nightmare monster within the sarcophagus. Just before Jonathan could get to him, the man heaved off the lid; what must have weighed hundreds of pounds. As expected, there was another sarcophagus within the first and on the breast of it was a scroll of papyrus. It radiated heat and when the man picked it up he moaned aloud.

  He went on moaning until Jonathan cocked him on the side of the head with his rock-hard fist. His eyes twisted in their sockets and he fell to the ground, unconscious.

  “What was that?” Robert asked. The sneer had been wiped from his face and he looked uncertain all of a sudden. Jonathan guessed that he had felt the call of the thing in the sarcophagus.

  “I think a better question,” Lord Blackburn said, “how is that happening?”

  He pointed down at the bones of the creature that Jonathan had destroyed. They were jittering, coming alive, sliding across the floor and reforming themselves. The sinew and ancient muscle grew back as well, but it grew in no particular order so that a bicep was partially showing beneath the creature’s jaw. As well there were pieces of its white burial shroud fused in with everything else.

  The creature of bone was alive again and even stronger than before.

  Chapter 1

  Jack Dreyden

  New York University, Manhattan

  The residence hall overlooking Union Square, one of twenty operated by New York University, was silent as a tomb. Two days before Christmas and only the orphans were left in the converted apartment building. It was the same every year.

  No home to go to, no family, no real reason to go out.

  The few true orphans, those who had never been adopted, kept to themselves because it was Christmas! It was all anyone talked about during the last week before the semester ended. Are you going home for Christmas? Jack heard that question a hundred times, though only once had it been directed at him. He had lied and said: “Yes, I can’t wait.”

  Lying was better than the pity. It was also better than ever voicing the ugly truth: his father had been murdered when he was the tender age of ten, and his mother slain seven years later when she came home to find two men ransacking her small Pennsylvania home. That sort of truth was best not dwelt upon.

  Yet it was never far from his mind, and so Jack Dreyden made sure to immerse himself in his work during the holidays and only rarely pulled his nose from his books. Truly this was how he lived his life on a daily basis, anyway. Jack wasn’t really one for socializing, which is why he had turned down the one invitation to a Christmas party he had received.

  It was a black tie affair and there were going to be a lot of bigwigs in the dirt grubbing business in attendance. That’s how Jack’s mom had spoken of her husband’s work as an archeologist...when they were both alive, of course. She would jokingly tell friends: He’s always going about, grubbing in the dirt. And don’t get me started on his nails!

  Jack knew it probably would have been smart to attend the party. The archeology community was exceedingly small and it paid in the long run to rub elbows and schmooze whenever possible. “I still have time,” he reminded himself. He was on course to earn his doctorate in two years, which he felt was plenty of time, perhaps even too much time, to meet the right people to further his career.

  The very thought of schmoozing at all left him feeling ill at ease. He wasn’t exactly gregarious, especially at this time of year.

  He preferred books to people. Jack was just finishing John Strange’s, Caphtor Keftiu: A New Investigation. He had dog-eared a quarter of the pages and had highlighted so much of it that it made more sense just to re-read the entire book rather than to look for anything specific. He was easing it back into place on the bookshelf when he heard footsteps in the hall.

  Normally, the tap of the shoes would have been drowned out by the ambient ruckus kicked up by his fellow students who were all very much concerned with drinking and partying in general and thus were very loud. However, with Christmas approaching, the building was so empty that Jack picked out the sound when the man was still halfway down the hall.

  It was a man. The stride wasn’t that of a student bopping along in ratty high-top Converse sneakers, or a janitor in worn down work boots trudging as a guy did when he hated his job. It was a man who considered himself of some importance. The man strode down the hall with a purpose and for some reason Jack felt distinctly uneasy, as if the man heading toward him was the bearer of ill news.

  On the day his mother had been killed, Jack had been in the school library at Valens High and, as most libraries are, it was empty save for the books, the dust floating in the sunbeams, the sleepy librarian propped up on one elbow, and a few bespectacled nerds.

  It was so quiet that Jack heard the important tapping of the principal’s shoes as he came to ruin Jack’s world—and the sound matched this so closely that a wave of goosebumps went up Jack’s back.

  The steps ended at his door. It might have been his imagination; however, there seemed to be a distinct danger in the air. He’d been having that feeling frequently since his mother had died. He might have chalked it up to paranoia, except Jack Dreyden came from a family of extremely short-lived people.

  His great grandfather, the original Jon
athan Dreyden, had died at the age of twenty-eight, leaving but a single child behind. That child, the next Jonathan Dreyden and Jack’s grandfather, had disappeared from a dig in the Valley of the Kings when he was forty-two. His own father, Jonathan Dreyden the third had been murdered at the ripe old age of thirty-one.

  Jack figured that if he somehow managed to live long enough to have a son of his own, he would name him Chuck or Rory or even Arnold; anything but Jonathan. It was why he went by Jack; he felt that his given name was cursed.

  With all of this hanging over his head, Jack had grown up with a sense of urgency. He had graduated high school at seventeen, earned a bachelor’s degree in ancient history at twenty, a master’s in Egyptian Studies a year later and now he was blistering through his doctoral program.

  And when he was done with school? He had no idea, except he knew he didn’t want to die before he got his first grey hair.

  It was this reasoning that had him eyeing the fencing saber he kept next to the front door. After his father had been killed, Jack became difficult for his mother to handle. He’d been angry and resentful. There were times he lashed out, uncontrollably, and there were many days he wept when no one was watching.

  The truth that he had kept hidden from everyone was that he had been secretly afraid of the world. He’d been ten years old and his mom had called him Jon-Jon and she had done the best that she could. She had taken him to every new movie, bought him the best games, and made sure that he was always surrounded by friends whenever possible.

  But all he could really remember of the year after his father’s murder was that he had been afraid of every shadow and every little bump in the night that couldn’t be explained away. He’d wet the bed most nights.

  Yet, at the same time, he’d been so full of anger that he walked around with his fists clenched like rocks. He sought out fights, always ready to go against the biggest bullies. It seemed impossible that he could feel both anger and fear so intensely at the same time, but somehow he had.