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

by Peter Meredith

  They pretended not to notice the smell, and they had no fear of the police. In spite of Jack’s earlier paranoia, New Holland, just as every town in eastern Pennsylvania had, hours before, sent their law enforcement officers eastward. Jack and Cyn had heard the sirens and had seen the lights while waiting for the sun to drop.

  Now, the townships were on their own and unprotected.

  No one would care about the fire or about the single upturned grave. They would worry, briefly, about the body of Carl, but with whatever Robert was doing, they wouldn’t worry for long.

  Jack carried Carl to the forest bordering the cemetery and arranged his body as nicely as he could: he folded Carl’s hands in his lap, closed his half-cracked eyes, and put a stick under his head so that the huge slit in his throat stayed closed and didn’t yawn open in a manner that was partly grotesque and partly an indictment—Jack hurt in his chest seeing the wound.

  When he got back, he barely gave a glance to the bonfire. It was a monstrous thing now and his father had completely disappeared within its orange breast. “So,” he said.

  “So,” she replied.

  Neither wanted to put forth an idea about what to do next. Other than racing Carl’s old Honda straight west until they hit California, nothing sounded good. What especially sounded like a crap plan was discussing Robert and what they should do about him.

  They were silent for a good ten minutes, letting the fire’s crack and snap fill in the blanks of their conversation. But even that had to end.

  “So,” Cyn said again.

  Jack’s shoulders slumped. He didn’t have the luxury to stand there doing nothing. After blowing air from his puffed cheeks, he said: “I don’t think we can run away. I-I guess we should find somebody in authority and tell them what we know.”

  “Which is what?”

  That wasn’t a good question. They knew only enough to sound crazy. “We’ll tell them everything we know and everything we guess and, yes, they won’t believe it at first, but maybe after they get a bellyful of the undead, they’ll come around.”

  “And what will they do?” Cyn asked. “What can they do?”

  Jack shrugged; it was as good an answer as any he could think of.

  Chapter 29

  Trenton, New Jersey

  The roads east into New Jersey were blocked, not by traffic, but by the military, in what was a clear display of wasted manpower. There was only one car heading east and that was the stolen Honda. There were military vehicles on the road. They passed an entire convoy of forty trucks, but they were pulled over, waiting on orders, Jack guessed.

  The lanes west and south and north brimmed with vehicles. They overflowed with vehicles; all of them piled high with goods in a most un-American manner. People had beds and dressers strapped to minivans. Televisions and computers and sofas tottered on Tercels. The beds of trucks had the contents of entire apartments roped onto them, making them tip alarmingly whenever they had to slip down an embankment to go around a stalled out car, of which there were many thousands.

  Weaving through the traffic were people on foot. All of them were bundled against the cold and all of them carried a backpack or dragged a piece of luggage behind them. Some carried children along with their possessions. It was midnight and they were walking in twenty degree temperatures.

  “They are refugees,” Cyn said in shock. It was a chilling sight, one that no American had seen since the Trail of Tears and that was a line of ants in the sand compared to this. Every path, road, and highway was jammed by tens of millions of people all fleeing the greater New York area.

  Cyn reached out a tentative hand and flicked on the radio. Earlier there had been what seemed like the same blathering DJ on every channel trying to sound both important and informed as they kept repeating Details are sketchy at the moment and No terrorist group has claimed responsibility for the attacks as of yet and We urge everyone to stay inside and remain calm.

  The DJs had been replaced by a stern male voice. The reception was full of static and cut in and out “The following counties...be evacuated immediately. This is a mandatory evacuation order under sect...If you are in the follo...Atlantic County, Bergen County, Passaic County, Essex County, Hudson County...”

  He went on and on, prompting Jack to remark: “Why doesn’t he just say all of New Jersey?” It wasn’t just New Jersey that was under the evacuation order, most of Connecticut and southern New York State was as well.

  Filled up to his eyes with guilt, Jack clicked off the radio as Cyn asked: “Why would Robert do this? It makes no sense.”

  “Maybe he’s not in control any more. Maybe one of those heavyweight demons is calling the shots now.”

  “Bloody hell,” Cyn breathed and then turned to stare out the window at the long lines of people and cars. There were occasional gunshots and frequently cars tore the paint off each other to jockey for a better position—all for nothing. The traffic was snarled in an unbreakable Gordian Knot. Too many engines were simply stalling out for want of fuel and there was nowhere for them to be pushed to. The families in these situations would simply gather what they felt was most important and then begin walking.

  Jack expected that to be his fate soon enough, except he wasn’t going to be walking west. He would be walking into the thick of the mess that he had helped to create.

  Just before the Delaware River, on the outskirts of Trenton, they came to the first military check point. Jack slung his shotgun and marched forward with Detective Richards’ badge held up. His plan: to act as though he was a police officer with vital information, actually worked. Perhaps it was the dark hiding his ill-fitting gear, or maybe it was the youth and inexperience of the soldiers, but one way or another he was let through without them even glancing in the Honda at Cyn, who was doing her best to sit up tall and appear official.

  The badge worked such wonders that they were even given an escort around the city to Route 1, which was a straight shot to New York. “Where can I find your commanding officer?” Jack asked when they reached Route 1 and were stopped at another check point. He made sure to pitch his voice as deep as it would go. “I have information concerning what’s happening.”

  “What sort of information?” a sergeant asked. He was surprisingly old for a man with only three stripes and he lacked the bearing that Jack expected in a soldier: he was round in the middle, was “slouchy” in the way he stood, and had quick, watery brown eyes that darted out at the night every few seconds.

  There were other soldiers nearby, but in the dark they were nothing but shadows or the whisper of conversations and the flare of countless lighters and the glowing embers of cigarettes that reminded Jack too much of demon eyes.

  “You know I can’t tell you that,” Jack told him, hoping the cryptic response would suffice.

  “Yeah, I suppose,” the sergeant said. “Except the only problem is that no one is saying anything. Units come flying through here but where they’re going, I don’t think even they know. It’s crazy.”

  Jack didn’t know what to say to that and so he only stared at the sergeant in a knowing way and mumbled: “Hmmm,” as though what had been said was intriguing.

  “I think the C.O. is in Princeton, prolly,” a soldier who was still in his teens said; he was so soft in the face that he made Jack feel old. “Last we heard, some general was going to set up shop in Princeton, but that was an hour ago, so who knows what’s happening now? Before that they were in this place called Heathcote. Ever hear of it? I hadn’t.”

  “I just know they keep getting closer and closer,” said the sergeant. “An’ I don’t like it. Listen, you can hear the guns going like they’re right over that hill.”

  The little group paused, most holding their breath to listen. There was a regular battle roaring northeast of them while all around them in a semi-circle were scattered pops and bangs of different caliber weapons. They would flare up in a mad rattle and then fade away to nothing.

  The young soldier scratched up under
his helmet and said: “That might be Princeton. I don’t know. Our unit is from Maryland. Where all the Jersey boys are at, nobody knows. Rumor is they cut and run this afternoon. Can you believe that?”

  Jack could very well believe it. “Did they have priests with them?” he asked, guessing that they hadn’t.

  “Priests?” the sergeant said, his watery eyes shifting from out in the dark to laser in on Jack. “So it’s true? These are zombies we’re fighting?”

  Would they run if he told them the truth? Or would they be forewarned and thus forearmed? Or would it matter? “They are like zombies,” Jack finally admitted. “In order to slow them down you need to basically dismember them; a head shot won’t do the trick all by itself.”

  “Son of a bitch,” the sergeant swore. “And the priests? Will they help?”

  “Yes, but I don’t know how. The creatures can poison you with just a scratch, but the priests can heal you. Also, they can do other things, so if you can find one, I’d do it. Now, that’s all I can tell you, really. I have to find the person in charge.”

  The sergeant didn’t answer except to swear a second time: “Son of a bitch.”

  It was up to the very young soldier to explain: “Like I said, we’re not sure who’s in charge or where they’re at. We haven’t been getting much from the radios ‘cept a lot of weirdness. I just know that I wouldn’t go up there if I was you. We’ve been here since five and we haven’t had anyone come back to tell us what’s going on, all ‘cept guys runnin’ away and our captain. He said that they’re going to use this river as a fall back point. If you wait long enough, whoever’s in charge will prolly come right here and you won’t have to go searching all over the place for him.”

  It was a suggestion that was hard to turn down, but Jack’s guilt made him shake his head. The young soldier only shrugged.

  The sergeant, who was now jumping every time there was a new burst of firing said: “Unstoppable. You’re basically saying that these things are unstoppable. Is that right? Because if so, that’s crazy. I mean we’re National Guard and I only have the bullets in this gun, you know what I mean?”

  “Yeah, I guess,” Jack answered, knowing that the sergeant would take one look at the creatures and run.

  Another of the soldiers spoke up: “I heard that the line keeps breaking into pieces and that those things just keep coming and we keep getting these mentals roaring up here telling us, like, you know: all is lost and Run away! Like that. I thought that they were faking it, but now I agree with Sarge, it’s crazy. Look at all them Hummers we’ve confiscated. We’re supposed to lock those guys up for desertion, but it’s sorta mean when you see how nuts they are. So we’ve been letting them go and they don’t even care if they go on foot. They just book it on down the road. It’s crazy.”

  Again, Jack agreed that it was crazy and nodded vaguely as the soldier went on about all the other things he was finding crazy, but Jack wasn’t listening. At the first break in the man’s list, Jack said: “I’m going to need one of those Humvees. I had to commandeer that Honda and it won’t last.”

  There were six soldiers all told at the check point, and, other than the slouchy, nervous sergeant, none looked old enough to buy a drink. They deferred to Jack and he took the vehicle with the most fuel.

  “Things are completely messed,” Jack said to Cyn as they drove off. “Those poor guys are clueless. Whatever is happening with our cellphones is messing with the radios as well. They don’t know what’s going on five miles up the road. They have no idea where their C.O. is or anything.”

  “So does that mean we’re just going to drive around in the dark?” Cyn asked. She had the shotgun cradled to her chest.

  “I don’t know if we have another choice,” he answered, not adding: no choice except to turn around and get out of here. It seemed like the ideal choice. The further they went along the highway, the greater their fear built up. There was fear in the air, clogging their lungs.

  They drove for twenty minutes and during that time the darkness of the night deepened so that Jack was forced to sit up straight with his chest against the steering wheel and squint to see the road. “The dark isn’t natural,” he said in a whisper.

  Almost as soon as he spoke, their headlights, which seemed as dim as candles, just barely managed to pick out three men in camouflage who were running down the road towards the Humvee. The men immediately broke off into the forest, disappearing so quickly that Jack wondered if they had been an illusion.

  He slowed and coasted along the “empty” road. It was only empty of people. The west bound lanes were crushed with cars, filling every single inch of the four lanes of asphalt. The east bound lanes were eerily quiet and wide open.

  “You saw them, right?” Jack asked. “Those were real people, right?”

  “They were soldiers and they were running away, Jack. How could they be running away? They’re supposed to be fighting.” She took a sharp breath as if just realizing something and then rolled down her window a few inches. “The battle...it’s over.” The fierce battle had died down and now there were just solitary bangs coming from here and there and... “They’re all around us,” she whispered.

  Jack could feel them as well. His fear had hampered his strange ability to perceive the creatures, but now they were so close that he couldn’t tune them out.

  And Cyn was correct; they were all around them, even behind them. The creatures were streaming through the forest that ran on either side of the road, cutting them off. Jack slammed the brakes, shoved the Humvee into reverse and hammered down on the gas. They both stared back, using the side view mirrors and they both felt the demon before they saw it.

  “Jack!” Cyn screamed. “Stop!” He was already braking and when the Humvee shuddered to a halt, there in the road was a very small and very familiar shape; the rear backup lights shining off the bright copper pennies where its eyes should have been.

  Cyn began screaming for him to go, and he had the Humvee in gear and was straining the engine to get them out of there, but too late. There came an awful thump on the rear of the vehicle and then came the unnerving patter of tiny footsteps on the roof.

  “Hold on,” Jack ordered and then hit the brakes. Their momentum threw them forward and Jack hoped that the demon would go flying off the vehicle; however it managed to hold onto the hood of the Humvee.

  The demon, toothless and horrifying, somehow warped what remained of its face into an evil grin.

  Next to Jack, Cyn eased the shotgun up. She would blast the thing to pieces if it breathed its frozen breath as it had before. But it did not. It had learned its lesson. Instead, it raised one tiny fist and hammered down on the hood. That same hood that was designed to survive in combat was dented in five inches by the blow.

  “Get the gun ready,” Jack said, flooring the gas once again. “And make sure your seatbelt’s tight.”

  “Why? What are you going to do?”

  He didn’t quite know. Something crazy was all he had in mind. He turned the wheel hard east aiming at the forest. His first thought was to ram a tree and hope that Cyn would recover quicker than the demon and that she would be able to blast it a few times with the shotgun so that they could escape—but that was a pipe dream. She’d never recover as fast as the demon; probably no one could.

  Which left what? They were barreling through the forest just on the verge of careening into a ditch or into a boulder or a tree trunk that was too big to plow over. The Humvee was a beast of a machine and, within seconds of Jack entering the forest, it whammed directly into a young pine tree and bent it straight over.

  They rushed on, taking out younger trees left and right and Jack saw that their only hope was to somehow scrape the demon off the front the hood without hitting something so big that it would stop them completely.

  Unfortunately the forest wasn’t a true forest at all. It was only a hundred-yard wide belt of trees designed to hide the ugliness of the highway from the surrounding suburbia.

&n
bsp; Too quickly, Jack found himself in an alley of soft green grass with trees on one side and backyard fences on the other. The horror on the Humvee’s hood lifted its bony little fist and smashed down again leaving another dent even deeper than the first and now there was a crack in the metal and the spinning engine could be seen.

  It reached in up to its shoulder and Jack knew that if it grabbed the wrong part it could kill the Humvee in a second. In desperation, Jack turned toward the line of fences and took them on, not looking to punch a hole through one section, but looking to plow right along the fence line until either the Hummer died, the demon was knocked off or they ran out of fence.

  There was an explosion of wood and splinters and for half a minute the Humvee tore down the length of fences that ran for an entire block. Jack couldn’t see a thing. The windshield starred immediately and what he could see beyond the thousand cracks consisted of broken, splintered boards, crabapple tree branches, a whirlwind of leaves, and what he thought was a ghost, but what was really a sheet that had been left out to dry.

  And then they were in another grass alley. There was no sign of the demon. Both Jack and Cyn tried to look back using the side view mirrors; however hers was torn off completely while his was bent and pointing at the ground. He heaved it up and saw that they had left a hell of a mess behind them. It looked as though a tornado had touched down and had ripped up the entire block.

  He couldn’t see the demon in all the mess, but Jack could feel that it was back there. He could also feel its anger. It set his nerves on edge and when he looked over at Cyn, she was practically in tears.

  “It’s been following us, Jack. That’s the only way to explain the fact that every time we turn around that stinking demon is there. It’s going to kill us, Jack. It’s going to hunt us and kill us because nothing can stop it.” Her voice was high and loud and her hand on the shotgun was gripped so tight that she was close to setting it off right there in the Humvee.