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

by Peter Meredith

  The gates started to swing inward. They were eerily silent. He got the shivers; they ran right up his back as though he was attached to a wire. Cyn patted him on the thigh, strangely high up, distracting him, momentarily. Richards climbed into the Taurus and Jack noted that his sleepy hound dog look wasn’t nearly as sleepy as it normally was. He was keyed up.

  “When we go in, stay behind us and don’t say a word. While we search, keep your hands to yourself, no matter what. Everything you touch will be compromised.”

  He drove as he spoke. The driveway was a good fifty yards long, winding gently between very high trees. It was probably a gorgeous property…in the daytime. The shadows around them were very deep; Jack grew more and more freaked.

  “Detective,” he said in a strangled, high voice—he hated that voice and he hated the ice flowing in his veins and the butterflies spinning in tornadoes in his stomach. “Uh, Detective, I think we should get out of here. Robert knows. He knows I’m here.”

  “He knows we’re all here,” Richards replied. “I rang the flippin’ doorbell. Relax, it’ll be ok.”

  But it wouldn’t be okay. Jack knew it in a way that wasn’t normal. He knew it like he could never have known it only the week before. Somewhere he had changed and he didn’t know how. It defied all logic and every second of his schooling, but for some reason, he could sense what no one else could, whether by his nose or by the strange, uncomfortable knot behind his breastbone. He knew things.

  He knew that they were driving straight into a trap.

  “Please, turn around.” He heard the beggy sound to his voice and he hated it. He wanted to rage against it, however they were just pulling up in front of the Doric columns and the marble steps and the eleven-foot tall etched wooden doors.

  Richards ignored him. “Being a nerd sure does pay well,” he said opening the door. “Come on.” Neither Cyn nor Jack had budged. She was taking her cues from Jack and he was feeling the unnatural, magical fear that Hor gave off. It was muted with distance, but was getting closer.

  The two Lindenhurst policemen were already at the doors, each with their right hands on the butts of their guns. Jack wanted to laugh at them and their useless weapons.

  “Come on,” Richards growled again, opening Cyn’s door. She climbed out, not knowing what a bad idea that was and Jack found himself sliding out as well.

  Hor was closer. He was in the woods and there were others of his kind with him and Jack could envision them: the Priest of Thorthirdes, the Incan mummy, the twins from the glass cases and finally Amanra. None gave off nearly as strong a vibe as Hor. Whether he led them or whether Jack was simply more in tune with him, he didn’t know.

  But Hor was a force.

  He was coming in from the woods as were the others. Coming from every angle. Coming to trap them. Jack was starting to feel sick.

  “Open up!” Richards ordered, hammering on the doors with a beefy fist. The sound echoed as if there was nothing and no one in the house.

  “Detective!” Jack said, grabbing his shoulder. “We have to go. We have to get out of here right now.” He was almost hysterical and he absolutely hated the sound of his own voice; however, it was now or never, they either ran or they died.

  Richards jerked the hand off his shoulder and then beat on the door again.

  “We gotta get out of here,” Jack said to Cyn. Unbelievably, she edged away from him and the crazed look in his eyes, trusting the men with the guns more than her own blood. Jack was suddenly furious. His first impulse was to leave her, to run to the Taurus and jump in and drive out of there as fast as he could and had it been anyone else, he would have.

  “Cyn!” he hissed, grabbing her arm as once more, Richards hammered the door.

  “Open up, Loret!” Richards barked. “Don’t make me take down your front door. I have a ram in the c...” Richards stopped suddenly, his breath frozen in his lungs as the insane horror that Jack had been feeling finally reached him and the others.

  Cyn sniffed the air and then spun, slowly to stare out at the forest where everything was black and shadowed and the world wasn’t formed yet, needing only light or imagination to bring it to life or to a semblance of life. What was in the forest wasn’t truly alive and nor was it exactly dead.

  “Oh, my God,” Cyn said in a hollow whisper, her blue eyes huge in her head.

  “What the hell is that?” one of the officers cried as six living nightmares came out from beneath the shadows of the trees, bringing with them an aura of fear that few could stand up against. “What the hell is that?” the same officer screamed.

  Cyn looked like she was about to run, but before she could, she was trampled and crushed into one of the doors as the two policemen almost fell back into her; they were both clawing for their guns. Richards was a quicker draw. His Beretta was already out and aimed, but even he had finally awakened to the fact that he was dealing with creatures that didn’t recognize the authority of either his badge or his gun.

  “Stop!” he bellowed, showing that he had a reserve of courage greater than most.

  The creatures didn’t stop. They came on, their bones clinking, the power of their fear growing. One of the police officers sobbed, his gun out but turned sideways as though he wanted to give it up without a fight. The other local deputy-dog, in his panic, couldn’t free his weapon and had given up on it. He had turned and was clawing at the door, standing over Cyn, whose knees had buckled and who was screeching with her hands covering her face, trying to block the sight of the living dead.

  When the creatures marched over the edge of the yard, Richards, his eyes squinted into slits, finally fired his gun. His hands were shaking and he hit Hor, high up on his shoulder but he might as well have shot him in the toe for all the good it did. He fired a second and a third time, missing with the last.

  And then Richards was as useless as the others. The fear had him in its grip and, worse, the creatures were close enough now so that their other-worldly stench came off of them in waves. Cyn passed out, falling against the doors. One of the police officers was gagging unable to breathe, while the other puked a load of brewed up coke and cheese burger. Richards swayed in place, his gun wobbling in his hand as though he was a three-in-the-morning drunk trying to figure out how to work his car keys.

  Then Hor mounted the marble steps and in the blank sockets of his eyes there gleamed an evil that no human could resist.

  Chapter 11

  Lindenhurst, Long Island, New York

  Jack hadn’t wasted a second and had turned away from the advancing creatures. He felt the fear like icy fingers crawling up his back, making his shoulders twitch and his bladder feel loose, but for him, it was somewhat of a familiar feeling and as horrible as it was, it now came with an edge of anger to it.

  He was tired of being afraid.

  Furiously, he hammered his shoulder into the door. The first strike barely rattled it in its frame. The second, stronger hit, sent a crack running up one of the solid panels. “Son of a bitch!” he thundered as he threw his entire weight into the junction of the two doors. Now there was a gap. Hor was on the stairs and the other five creatures were arrayed behind him, pressing forward, greedily, hungrily.

  Jack’s fear ramped up as did his anger—as did his adrenaline. It pumped into his system, giving him strength. The fourth hit was powerful enough to split the wood around the striker plate. The two doors blasted inwards; Cyn fell forward into the house with one of the police officers toppling over her. Jack, too, had fallen in; now he spun around to see Hor standing over Detective Richards.

  Hor was a monster, and draped in its rotting skin, it was foul beyond understanding. The stench alone had Richards wilting and close to passing out. He would be an easy kill and Hor would gain strength from his hot blood. Hor took the final step with an arm cocked back, its bony claws ready to tear out the man’s throat.

  Jack, trying to fill his voice with all the authority he could muster, yelled: “Stop!” The monster that was Hor stop
ped and, as Jack stared fiercely into the endless eye sockets in its grinning skull, something passed between the two of them. It was an understanding of sorts. It was unspoken, but not unfelt.

  It was a challenge and the stakes weren’t just Jack’s life; his soul was on the line. Hor laughed into Jack’s mind and it felt as though something inside of him, his soul, perhaps, was coming unglued and he had the ugly impression that Hor would suck it out of him and claim it for his own. “No,” Jack growled.

  Yes! Hor answered and, just as the last time they had faced each other, the sound did not come from his empty suit of bones. It just bloomed in Jack’s head loud and strong. I prevailed once before, Hor spoke. In his mind’s eye, Jack could see himself running from his apartment in childish fright, his eyes unblinking and huge and filled with tears, his heart pounding, his bladder just on the verge of letting go.

  “That was before,” Jack said, feeling the remains of his courage start to unravel at the edges. “This is now and you will not come in, Hor. You cannot come in.” As he spoke, Jack reached out and tugged the second police officer into the house.

  You are not the master, Hor declared and advanced. Before him, Richards was down on his knees, trembling.

  “I am the master!” Jack practically screamed. It wasn’t a manly scream and what he had screamed certainly wasn’t true. He was hardly even his own master. And yet, the very idea of a “master” struck a chord. Hor had a master even beyond Robert Montgomery. “By Osiris, you cannot come in.”

  Again Hor hesitated and his tremendous presence in Jack’s mind grew less and yet, it was not gone. Slowly, Jack reached out and grabbed the back of Richards’ coat. Jack could feel Hor; the creature was wary, careful. Invoking the name of the god of the underworld was not something done lightly unless one was a fool...or desperate.

  In this case, Jack was both. “Stay,” he ordered, as if talking to a mean dog, and then, when Hor didn’t reach out and kill him, he yanked Richards inside.

  Somehow Cyn had managed to gather her wits about her and slammed the door shut in Hor’s bone-face. The wood immediately thundered under a blow. “Help me!” she screamed.

  Jack threw his shoulder into the door and a few seconds later, Richards did as well. The detective’s once brown face was grey and his mouth hung slack but at least he was somewhat aware; Jack could see the wheels of his mind starting to turn slow circles once again. The other two policemen had still not recovered. One was on his knees crying and holding himself and the other was unconscious.

  “Get up!” Cyn yelled. She lashed out and kicked the man who was lying face-first on a carpet runner. They were in an open foyer, which like the rest of the tremendous house was as dark as the night.

  The officer began to stir and moan and smack his vomit-covered lips. His fellow officer, the one who was still covered in tears, tried to shake him into full consciousness but Jack barked: “Forget him.” He then pointed at the nearest piece of furniture; a few feet to Cyn’s right sat a marble-topped credenza of Italian origin. “Push that over here, quick!”

  Before the officer could get the heavy piece moving, the door shook again. Even with three people bracing it with their bodies, it came open a few inches and the stench of Hor streamed through the crack. Cyn began to gag and Richards moaned, weakly.

  “Ignore the stink,” Jack told the others despite the fact that his own throat was now so tight that his words came out in squeak. “Ignore it! It only exists in your mind.” He didn’t know if that was true, exactly, however he knew the smell and the fear could be overcome. “I’ve fought him before and lived. Ok? Remember that and fight it.”

  “I can’t,” whispered the police officer who was supposed to be pushing the credenza. “I-I can’t do this. It’s...it’s too heavy.” He looked to be on the verge of passing out.

  Jack slapped his hand against the door. “No, damn it! That’s a cheap knock-off. Push it, man, it’s light.” The officer tried again, but he was out of his mind with fear and his strength was being sapped. They were all failing. The power of Hor and the other undead was growing; it was becoming tangible, not just the smell, which was clogging in their nostrils and lying like poison on their tongues, it was also the night that was becoming deeper, seeping through the windows and the cracks of the door like smoke, blocking out even the feeble light from the stars.

  The foyer was so dark that Cyn’s pale face seemed ghost-like and Richards’ normally dark eyes were so hung with shadows that they were starting to resemble Hor’s.

  “The light!” Cyn cried. Her hand was up and pointing and Jack thought that she was pointing at him. “J-Jack, the light! Turn on the light, please.” She sounded like a child who was afraid of what was under the bed and was begging her parents to turn on the hall light.

  He followed her pointing finger and saw a light switch next to the door. With a quick move, he slapped it up and was immediately blinded as the foyer chandelier, a great glass and crystal monstrosity, blazed into light. It was shocking to the eyes, but welcoming to the soul.

  Somehow, the light had power over the undead. The weight on the other side of the door disappeared in a blink and it slammed shut. Even the magical fear retreated, leaving behind only the natural terror of the living dead.

  “What the hell was that?” whispered one of the officers. It was the officer who’d been crying and there were still tears on his lashes.

  “They were monsters,” the other officer told them, saving Jack from basically saying the same thing but with an extra hundred words of useless explanation. They were monsters. By all classical definitions they were most definitely monsters.

  Richards inched up the door and tried to peer through the peephole. “Are they gone?” the teary-eyed officer asked.

  “I can’t tell,” he answered.

  Furtively, they went to the windows in the foyer to peek out but all they saw was a darkness of such depth that it couldn’t be natural. Richards rushed off to a sitting room that afforded a view to the east. He came back looking shaken. “That darkness, it’s everywhere. It’s all around the house. And it’s deep, like impenetrable deep. Like the world ends right there, right off the porch.”

  The look of abject fear on the detective’s face was enough to get Jack’s stomach swirling again. “Quick, the credenza,” Jack whispered. He and one of the officers shoved it across the marble tile to hold the door closed.

  “Will that stop them?” Cyn asked. She too was whispering and the others were hunched over, trying to appear smaller, perhaps hoping on some level that Hor and the other undead creatures would find them insignificant and go away.

  “We should brace it with something else,” Richards said, pointing down the hall at the great room where the ceiling was thirty feet high and where there seemed to be a good deal of furniture. The second officer, the one who had passed out, was on his feet now and, despite that he was still shaking from the inside out and his breath hitched in his chest like child, he helped to drag over a large, elaborate couch.

  Cyn seemed confused by its satiny purple and white cushions and the ornately carved woodwork. “That’s a French Provincial piece,” she noted as if fancy couches were only found on Mars and not in a rich man’s home. Jack didn’t really understand what she was confused about. Yes, the couch didn’t go well with the credenza, especially as it was rammed full into its side, but why the odd look?

  “We need weapons,” she said to Jack. That was true; the three officers had their guns drawn, but Jack and Cyn had nothing. “This way.” She pulled him by the hand; his was cold and damp with sweat while hers was soft as expected but also somehow warm. They clung to each other. She led them deeper into the dark house, speed-walking as if she knew where she was going.

  “Have you been here before?” he asked, remembering his paranoia and remembering that there had been someone in the house when all of this started and remembering that he didn’t know Cyn very well at all.

  She shushed him and hunched lower. “No,�
�� she answered in an even lighter whisper than before. “We need to find Loret’s study. That’s where his weapons will be; these guys are all alike.” The lower floor had fourteen rooms, but only one with a desk the size of a pilot whale.

  “You see?” She pointed in at the study. “All these dusty old farts have to prove that they’re still manly men.”

  The theme of the study was warrior-king meets metrosexual. Flanking the door on both sides were full suits of medieval plate armor, on the walls were shields, crossed swords, battle axes and colonial era muskets, while on the desk was a pitcher of herbal tea, a grooming mirror, and a bottle of lotion that cost nearly as much as Jack’s rent.

  Cyn went right for the largest of the battle axes. It was a heavy, two-headed beast of a weapon...that she couldn’t get off the wall. She strained at it until Jack pointed out that it was bound to the wall by nails and very thin wires. Before attempting to take it down, Jack fingered the edge and then shook his head. “You don’t want that one, it’s dull as hell and besides, it’s too heavy for you.”

  “I need something heavy,” she answered, desperately. He understood. These weren’t normal creatures and it didn’t seem like normal weapons would hurt them.

  “No, you need something quick. These creatures are faster than you’d think. Take one of these.” He rushed behind the desk to where a pair of crossed swords with intricate guards were hanging from the wall. Despite the danger, he couldn’t help to grin. “They’re rapiers, probably from Spain. They’re a little heavier than I like, but they’ll do.”

  He had just cut the air with one, enjoying the expertly crafted balance of the sword when there came a cry from the front of the house: “I see one! On the porch.”

  Jack grabbed Cyn’s hand and, together, they ran for the front door just as there came a crash of glass and a scream of terror.

  They were at the front of the house in seconds, just as guns started going off and windows began crashing inwards as the undead creatures burst into the house. Richards and the two officers were blasting away, filling the house with such noise that for a few seconds, the sound drowned out the mounting fear.