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

by Peter Meredith

  Although the heavy door had remained intact during the assault, both Jack and Richards were exhausted and happy to leave the door. They grabbed their guns and leapt into the bloody circle. Right away Jack felt that something was wrong.

  “This isn’t right,” he said, bringing his shotgun up just as the door banged open and the first of the living corpses charged into the room.

  “Don’t shoot,” Cyn ordered. “Give the spell a chance.”

  The bone-creature did indeed pause just on the other side of the ring of glyphs. Though it no longer possessed eyes, it dropped its chin and stared down for a moment and then, slowly it raised a hand that was stained black from the dirt it had dug through to get out of its grave.

  It should not have been able to cross the barrier. Its hand should have been turned aside, but it didn’t. The bone hand reached right over the ring and straight for Jack’s throat.

  Chapter 18

  Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York

  Jack didn’t wait for the creature’s touch; he knew their power, their negative life-sucking energy. He pulled the trigger on the twelve gauge and had the pleasure of seeing the bone-thing blast back to the door where it slammed into more of its infernal kind.

  The living corpses had a strength to them that was entirely magical in nature. In other words they lacked a real heft to them; few had even stringy muscles left hanging on their rotting corpse, while most had all the mass of a similar sized pile of sticks.

  Two shots apiece from Richards’ and Jack’s shotguns sent bones flying and cleared the door enough for Cyn to slam it shut again. The three of them braced it with their backs as the creatures attacked once more.

  “What the hell?” Richards demanded, his voice pitched high and his eyes wide with fright. “What the hell just happened? Did she say the spell wrong?”

  Jack shook his head, saying: “She said everything correct. I mouthed the incantation along with her, listening to make sure she hit all the right inflections. There must be something else.”

  For a few moments the crypt was quiet save for their heavy breathing and the pounding of bony fists on the door, and then the priest, who was the calmest of the four postulated: “Perhaps your lack of faith in the Lord had something to do with it.”

  Cyn rolled her eyes, while Richards ignored Father Paul’s statement entirely. “Maybe she doesn’t have the right mojo,” he suggested. “It was you, Jack, who did the spell the first time. You should try it again, but hurry, something is different.”

  Jack felt it as well; there was a gathering power and he knew the cause: Hor was coming. He was the strongest of the undead. So far as Jack could tell, the creatures that had been called “generically” such as the Incan mummy, the Priest of Thorthirdes, and the two mummies from the Museum of Modern Art that had been encased in the glass boxes, and all of the undead that had sprung up from the pit were, relatively speaking, weak. They gave off the heart-shrinking fear and they could manifest darkness, only they couldn’t do it to the extent that Hor and Amanra were capable of.

  Hor was definitely the strongest of all of them. Jack could feel him even among the cloud of evil generated by the horde—and he was coming closer. “Father, take my spot,” Jack ordered and, once the switch was complete, Jack took a large step into the middle of the circle of glyphs and stated in the clearest voice he could manage: “Hrr vahl Evi ah hurrumm fd. Hrr ah huroon ksa hrer, mkr, hrr fd fdhra. Hrr vahl Evi ah hurrumm fd. Hrr ah huroon ksa hrer, mkr, hrr fd fdhra. Hrr vahl Evi ah hurrumm fd. Hrr ah huroon ksa hrer, mkr, hrr fd fdhra.”

  He then waited with his breath caught up in his throat for something to happen. Yet nothing did. Absolutely nothing. No shimmer, no crackling of power, no nothing.

  “It didn’t work,” he said.

  “Then it must be the glyphs,” Cyn said. She slid her phone over and said: “Check my work.”

  On hands and knees, he went around the circle checking each glyph as around them the darkness grew and the fear made breathing difficult. Hor was on the other side of the door now and the other monsters drew back.

  “It’s clean,” Jack told them, swallowing loudly. There was fear on the air and on their skin which tented up with gooseflesh and it ran along their nerves, making their stomachs turn and their lips jabber, and the fear was in their lungs, making it hard to breathe.

  Jack looked at the others and saw right away that Cyn was on the verge of going rabbit-in-the-road crazy. There was the beginnings of madness behind her eyes. He knew the feeling well. He had gone from logic-minded victor over Hor in their first encounter to a screaming baby in less than a minute. The mind could only take so much before it failed and hers was failing, quickly.

  Richards was the eldest and a tough as nails detective who had seen his share of horror; Father Paul had his faith in the Lord that had been proven time and again in the last few hours—the healing of both Jack and Cyn; the banishment of the magical dark; the exorcism of the creatures that had taken over Jack’s body.

  Jack didn’t know what was holding back the fear crawling all over his mind. It was, strangely enough, becoming familiar—and now familiarity was breeding contempt. It sort of felt like a parlor trick…a very good and very powerful parlor trick, but as long as he thought of it as a trick it seemed to weaken it. The fear was there, but so was the fear of being torn apart by the thousands of undead surrounding them. It was a piss-in-your-pants kind of fear, but at least it was a logical fear.

  He grabbed Cyn’s leg just above the knee and squeezed, causing her leg to shoot out and her mind to realign, to adjust to a new and unexpected sensation. “It’ll be all right,” he told her.

  “No, it won’t!” she hissed just above a whisper. “It won’t, not until you figure out what’s wrong.”

  She was right. Jack was the only one who had a chance in hell of figuring this out. He had seen the most, he had felt the most, he had been subject to the most misery of the four of them, and most importantly, he was the only one of them to have created actual magic—what Father Paul had done hadn’t been magic. That fell into an entirely separate category.

  And, most importantly, the answer was right in front of him. He had done this spell before, with Cyn’s help, of course. She had written the runes in her blood and he had spoken the “magic” words. So what was different?

  One thing jumped right out at him: with the first spell he had used a poisoned blade to cut her and in the second she had used Richards’ knife to lay open her own flesh. The difference wasn’t in the poison. Robert hadn’t had access to the poison when he had made his initial sacrifice that had brought Hor to life.

  The difference was in the sacrifice.

  Cyn had used her own blood in order to save her comrades, while Jack had sacrificed her blood for the same purpose, the major difference being he had done it without her permission—he had stolen her blood, just as Robert had.

  “I need the knife,” Jack said.

  After she had cut open her arm, she had snapped the knife shut and then had pocketed it. Now, she brought it out again and held it out. Despite the growing fear, Jack smiled a sick smile as he took it and opened up the blade. It was four inches of gleaming steel; however along its edge was a line of red.

  It didn’t need to be cleaned. It would work better dirty.

  With a quick move he stabbed Cyn in the calf. Even though she’d been cut now for the third time, she was the only logical choice. She screamed and the sound traveled right up the blade, up his arm and turned his heart a shade blacker than it had been. He was stealing her essence and not in some noble pursuit; he was stealing it to live.

  She screamed a long string of curses and Richards glared and balled his fists and Father Paul looked indignant as though he wished he could condemn Jack in the harshest of terms.

  “Shut up!” Jack demanded and though Cyn was the only one making a noise, he really was talking to all of them and their angry, wordless accusations. “Draw the damn glyphs again! Draw them on the outsi
de of the first circle and don’t ask questions.”

  Cyn glared, but left the door. Jack forced Detective Richards over and took a spot bracing up their meager defenses. It was about to be assaulted by Hor. He knew it. Just as he knew that Hor was going to bring on the fear and the darkness.

  “Father, you’re going to need to do something about the darkness or Cyn won’t be able to see.”

  “What is wrong with you?” Father Paul asked, doing his best to reign in his anger. “Are you under their control?”

  Jack’s heart was acid in his chest, eating away at what he was sure was an eroding gossamer soul. “Just beat back the darkness,” he said. “And prepare for more fear. It’s coming even greater. And Cyn? You’re going to have to get cracking. Hor is stronger than all of them. The others are shadows of their hell selves, but Hor is the real deal.”

  Father Paul gave him another sharp look and then opened his bible and not a moment too soon. The dark inside the crypt began to swell. The far wall disappeared first and then the flat, marble bench was eaten up inch by inch, and then Cyn’s feet which were tucked up under her, were lost to the shadows.

  The darkness suffocated the light. It gobbled it right up and left nothing behind.

  In seconds, Jack couldn’t see past his nose. “Father Paul, are you going to do something?”

  “I-I’m uh, just preparing myself.” Fear had a good hold of his throat, so that he squeaked when he spoke, and yet when he began his prayers and there came a contest between him and his faith in God, against Hor and the power of hell. The darkness fled into the corners of the room.

  “That did it,” Richards said, with a laugh of relief. “Good job, Father.”

  The contest between the two wasn’t over, however. Hor unleashed his fear and it was far more insidious as it mixed with their natural fear of the unholy creatures that swarmed around them. Father Paul could fight one, but not the other; he stood with his back to the door, frozen in place, gripping his bible with desperate strength. Richards was also feeling the effect. He had begun to sweat despite the cold and his face was warped so that his hound dog look, with its long soulful lines, was warped as though Jack was seeing a funhouse version of it.

  Possibly because she was busy with an intricate set of drawings as well as dabbing her fingers into an open wound, Cyn was handling the fear better than the other two. She sat within the circle, her legs crossed Indian style so that her wound was right there and the well of blood didn’t leak away. Her hands were straight red and her phone, which had been encased in glittery “bling” was smeared in blood.

  Since she had a perfect copy of the spell laid out on the floor in front of her, she didn’t need to be able to see the pictures stored on her phone and was using it simply to light what she was doing.

  “We’re almost safe,” Jack said to buoy their spirits. He had shrugged off the greater part of the fear, reminding himself that it was a parlor trick after all; it was nothing but a mind game. That’s how he had to look at it. It was a game he had to win. It was a fencing match and he had always been more determined and far quicker than his opponents.

  “What was that one prayer, Father?” he asked, giving the priest a shake. “The one with the valley? Why don’t you tell us that one?”

  Father Paul was no longer really pushing against the door; he leaned against it in a little ball, holding himself, but with Jack’s encouragement he started mumbling the prayer and when he was done, Richards asked: “Say it again.”

  He ran through it a second time and gained back even more strength, throwing off the last of the fear. By then, the fear was starting to become the least of their worries—the door was finally coming apart under the repeated blows of Hor and the others. Hor possessed obscene physical strength.

  The hinges went first, the rusty screws snapping so that the door yawed at an ugly angle. Richards, who was the tallest, planted himself at the corner and struggled with the door until he was panting. “How much longer?” he yelled to Cyn.

  “I’m just checking to make sure everything is perfect. We only have one shot at this, you know.”

  “Just hurry,” Richards said without the usual sharp bite to his words. Jack looked over at him in alarm, and saw that he was grey-faced again and the sweat glistened in his afro.

  Jack’s first thought was that the detective had somehow contracted some sort of “zombie disease” from the walking corpses. Only, that didn’t make a lick of sense. Jack had been scratched by Amanra and had felt the poison, but he had never turned grey and nor had he ever panted. Richards was panting and looked to be on the verge of collapsing.

  “Get to the circle!” Jack yelled, taking the weight of the door on his shoulder. “Both of you go.” There would be no holding the door single handedly. The moment Richards stepped away, the door practically fell right on top of Jack and Father Paul.

  They had no choice, but to let it fall and jump for the circle and the hope of safety.

  Just as the first undead bone-creature had, Hor paused upon seeing the writing, giving Jack enough time to chant: “Hrr vahl Evi ah hurrumm fd. Hrr ah huroon ksa hrer, mkr, hrr fd fdhra.”

  Hor hissed in anger as the air shimmered and there was the light sound of wind rushing away from them. It blew back the spiderweb like strings of hair left on Hor’s scalp.

  “Too bad, you old bitch,” Cyn challenged. “You’re not getting past this line so you might as well go put yourself back in your hole or go back to hell where you belong.”

  Jack put an arm out to hold her back before she put a toe over the glyphs. “Let’s just ignore him. He’ll go away pretty soon I suspect.”

  He didn’t, at least not right away. Hor lifted one of its bone-claws and tested the air in front of them making it bend and shimmer again. Cyn leaned back from the hand and into Jack; he could feel her heart running fast and hard. He pushed her behind him and then was forced to shuffle to his right as Hor began to test the strength of the circle.

  After it had gone round them it stood for a minutes, gathering the dark into its body. “Get something ready,” Jack said to Father Paul, meaning a prayer or some white magic to counter the dark that was coming.

  Strangely, it wasn’t needed.

  “Hold this,” Father Paul said to Jack, handing him the crucifix; it was warm and heavy. As the priest flipped through the bible with Cyn shining her light over his shoulder, Jack thrust the crucifix toward Hor and was surprised to see the creature recoil.

  “Look at that.” Jack pointed with his free hand. “He’s not coming close.” Not only did Hor shy back, but as they watched, he turned around and pushed through the swarm of weaker creatures.

  A sudden euphoria struck Jack and he felt like laughing. Hor was the baddest of them, the strongest. Jack was sure that they could overcome the others’ magic just as long the circle held. “We did it! We...” His excitement failed him as he heard the sound of a distant siren. It warbled up and down growing closer...and then came the wail of another, and still more. Then there was a gunshot and screams, lots and lots of screams.

  “What is happening?” Father Paul asked.

  There was no need to answer. The city was being attacked by an army of undead. As they stood in their circle, the sound of battle, a very one-sided battle grew. In minutes there were helicopters overhead and the single pop, pop, pop of the occasional gun was superseded by a full-on barrage of a dozen weapons firing at once and the sirens were going nonstop and the screams ramped up to a fevered pitch.

  “This is madness,” Father Paul stated. “We have to get out of here. We have to help them.”

  “Hopefully the answer is in your bible,” Jack said. “Or we won’t be helping anyone.” Although Hor had left, there was still a steady stream of living corpses coming into the mausoleum. Most came in, felt the warding power in the glyphs and then turned away.

  Every ten minutes or so, one would stalk in, bringing with it the evil stench of decomposing flesh and the utter darkness of hell. Many
of these had embers glowing in their cavernous eye sockets. These ones were different from the rest. They were stronger and the hate and wickedness that came off of them was as strong as the stink.

  Some tested either the strength of the spell or the mental strength of the four humans. Whenever one tried, Father Paul began a litany of prayers which always caused the beasts to blanch and turn away. Father Paul was tired but did not stop.

  Jack glanced to see how the others were holding up. Cyn was pale and small, and yet she still had her spunk and her grit. When the stronger creatures came in, her lips drew into a line on her face. Jack hardly knew her at all, but could see she was determined and there was still fight left in her...maybe too much fight.

  “I think we’ll be ok,” he told her and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Is that right?” she asked and then, without warning, she punched him square in the gut, knocking the air out of him.

  Chapter 19

  Calvary Cemetery, Queens, New York

  Jack’s eyes bugged and his lungs spazzed, hitching uselessly. The blow had been so unexpected and struck so fiercely that his legs buckled. Before he could topple over and perhaps ruin the protective circle around them, Cyn grabbed his green coat and pulled him close so that they were nose to nose.

  “Why the hell did you stab me?” She was so close that he thought she was going to bite his nose off and the look on her face suggested that she wanted to.

  He would have liked to been able to answer her, however his lungs were basically paralyzed. Like a landed fish, Jack could only work his jaws uselessly and it was a few minutes before he could breathe anywhere near close to normal. When he could, he explained: “In order to do the spell, I had to take your blood. Father Paul called it a blood sacrifice, and it is, but the blood can’t be given freely. It has to be taken by force.”

  “Oh,” she said, not making eye contact as though embarrassed by her violent outburst. “I didn’t know, sorry.”