by A. P. Fuchs
Coscom Entertainment
winnipeg
The fiction in this book is just that: fiction. Names, characters, places and events either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead or known horrific events is purely coincidental.
ISBN 978-1-926712-54-3
Possession of the Dead is Copyright © 2010 by Adam P. Fuchs. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce in whole or in part in any form or medium.
Published by Coscom Entertainment
www.coscomentertainment.com
Text set in Garamond
eBook Edition
Cover Art by Gary McCluskey
Interior “Zombie Head” Art by A.P. Fuchs
For all Coscom Entertainment authors, past and present.
Thank you for being part of the family.
Entrails
1: Big Zombies
2: Birds of Prey
3: Left Behind
4: Dirt and Shadows
5: Strange New World
6: Submission
7: Hidden Rooms
8: Good Night
9: Morning
10: Outside
11: Surrounded
12: Stuck
13: Search Party
14: Big, Big Trouble
15: No Way Out?
16: Out
17: The Rubble Heap
18: Josh
19: The Car-Truck
20: The Parkade
21: Death
22: El Camino Roadtrip
23: Emergence
24: Dillon
25: More Pain
26: Humans Weren’t the Only Ones
27: Michael
28: The Hitchhiker
29: On the Side of the Road
30: Soda Cans
31: Huge, Dead Fat Guy
32: The Reason for Time Travel
33: Dead Grass, Dead Forest
34: It’s Getting Darker
35: Night in the Hub
36: The Shed
37: The Undead in the Woods
38: The Breach
39: Walking
40: Hank
41: Internal and External
42: Hordes of the Dead
43: The Dust Cloud
44: The Gathering
1
Big Zombies
The crack of the X-09 sent a shockwave through Joe’s system as if he’d just heard the gun go off for the first time.
Des jerked to the side, his skull still intact.
I missed hi—But before Joe could finish the thought, Des grabbed him by the wrist, and forced the gun skyward.
Des opened his mouth, revealing cracked, yellow teeth, which moved in fast toward Joe’s neck. Joe shot out his palm, shoving it into Des’s chest, trying to keep him from taking a chunk out of his throat. It was no use. Des pushed forward, folding Joe’s arm in at the elbow. Leverage gone, Joe allowed Des to take him to the ground.
Billie shrieked from somewhere to the side. August shouted something too, but it was hard to make out above Des’s growling.
Des’s decayed thumb and forefinger dug into Joe’s wrist, contracting the tendons, forcing the X-09 to go off again. Billie yelped, and Joe hoped he hadn’t shot her. Des’s dead weight on top of him kept him from moving. The guy seemed to weigh more than his skinny frame let on.
Those teeth came in again, Des’s cracked lips brushing up against the side of Joe’s throat. Giving it everything he had, he dragged his left arm up between their two bodies and was able to get his palm underneath Des’s chin, just enough to push his dead friend’s face away. With a flick of his right wrist, he threw the X-09 across the rooftop.
“Grab the gun!” Joe shouted, hoping Billie heard him.
Footfalls. Good.
He craned his neck back, his cheek scraping across the roof’s rough finish. Billie bent over and picked up the gun. August stood off to the side, his lips silently moving. Praying, perhaps.
Joe bucked his hips a few times and got his lower body out from underneath Des. He drove his left knee repeatedly into the dead man’s side, hoping the blows would be enough to force the creature to move off him. Nothing. Each slam into Des’s kidneys was just as effective as kneeing a pillow.
Des’s white eyes lit up with rage as he shoved his face toward Joe’s neck again, his teeth ready to take a bite out of him.
“Shoot him!” Joe screamed. “Billie, shoot him!”
She just stood there, both hands around the gun, eye line down the barrel . . . but not squeezing the trigger.
“Billie!”
“Pull the trigger!” August yelled, slowly making his way toward her.
Breathing in deep, Joe pressed his right hand against Des’s, pushing against his hold. His movement was slow, as if trying to do a one-armed push-up against it.
Des’s teeth settled on Joe’s neck; he felt them begin to press into his skin.
Adrenaline pumping through his system, Joe used his left hand and pushed Des’s face away. He jerked his right hand free and came in with a hook to the side of his head. Des’s face snapped to the side with the blow. Joe hit him again. And again. And hit him a third time. Finally, Des rolled off him.
Joe scrambled on top of him.
To the side, August ripped the X-09 from Billie’s hands. The old man eyed the piece, as if quickly trying to figure out how the thing worked; Joe brought his fist repeatedly into Des’s decaying face, putting it from his mind that the young man used to be human, alive and one of them, a survivor trying to stay alive in a world of the undead.
Des thrashed and growled, each cry silenced by a punch to the face.
The next thing Joe knew, the tip of the X-09 barrel was pressed up against Des’s forehead, August leaning over opposite him.
“Kill him,” Joe said, glancing up at the old man.
There was hesitation in August’s eyes.
“What’s the matter with you? Kill him!”
“No!” Billie screamed off to the side.
Des reached his arms up and clasped his hands around the back of Joe’s neck and tugged his face toward him.
Joe arched himself back and broke free. “Fine. I’ll do it.” He grabbed the gun from August.
The old man took a few slow steps back, a look of worry on his face. What was he so concerned about?
Des swatted at the gun, knocking it from Joe’s fingers, sending it across the rooftop.
Shouting, Joe punched Des in the face once more then got off him and raced for the gun. No sooner did he take a few steps did a pair of strong hands wrap around his ankles, tripping him. He fell forward, landing face first on the roof. He crawled toward the gun.
“Joe!” Billie screamed.
“What?” He couldn’t believe he answered her at a time like this.
Suddenly, everything grew still and the low drumbeats of the enormous walking dead filled the air once more.
He had almost forgotten about the giant dead men roaming the city streets below, each around fifteen stories tall.
A loud boom echoed on the air.
The building shook.
Des jumped on Joe’s back, sending his face back into the roof. Jerking around like a wild man, Joe tried to get out from under him. He gained about half a foot before a tremendous weight nailed him between the shoulder blades, sending him back down.
Seeing nothing but darkness, Joe braced himself for an onslaught of pain.
The familiar thunder crack of the X-09 shook the air
and Des’s weight settled on top of him.
Joe glanced up. August stood beside him, the X-09 at his side, smoke trickling out of its barrel.
The old man’s eyes bore into him.
“Thanks,” Joe said.
August dropped the gun then moved to join Billie, who was standing near the side of the building, peering over the edge.
Joe wriggled himself out from under Des’s body. Getting to his feet, he took one final look at the face-down corpse. A hole the size of a quarter sat prominently in the back of Des’s head, black blood oozing from the wound.
Joe moved to join the others.
Another loud boom thundered on the air.
The building shook again and all three of them lost their footing and fell to their backsides.
A few moments later, Joe got up and made his way to the side of the building and looked over the edge.
A giant zombie stood at the building’s base, bringing its arms back, about to pummel the side of the building with car-sized fists.
Another wasn’t too far behind.
* * * *
Billie braced for impact.
The gigantic zombie wound up, its enormous, decaying hands pulled way back, fists clenched. She couldn’t see enough over the edge to assess the damage already done to the building, but she assumed the windows had already been shattered and some of its concrete siding was already cracked.
She wanted to look back over her shoulder at Des’s body, but her eyes stayed fixed on the giant undead creature below. The thing looked like any other zombie—balding head, skin broken and torn in places revealing patches of dried, decaying flesh, ragged clothes—but how the dead had gotten the size they were, she didn’t know. Everything had changed when they came back from—the past?—and there hadn’t been enough down time to seek answers.
The giant zombie, grimacing, arched itself back even further.
Billie glanced at Joe and August. The two men stood there, transfixed on the beast, Joe’s empty right hand seeming to be instinctively curled inward as if he was still holding his gun.
The zombie’s fists came in and pummeled into the side of the building, sending out a rain of rubble. The building shook, rocked, and all of their legs went out from beneath them. They hit the ground hard with a shout, Billie landing on her backside.
“Get up,” Joe said, partly on his side. Looking Billie square in the eye: “Move!”
The three of them got to their feet. Billie and Joe ran toward the center of the roof; August limped. She could only guess what kind of pain he must be in after the crash.
The rooftop rocked beneath them and the mental image of a spinning top flashed at the fore of her mind.
“We need to get down. Now!” August said.
Billie caught sight of the stairwell. “The stairs!”
“Go!” Joe shouted as another boom shook the air and sent all three to the ground.
She crawled a few feet on her hands and knees then got her feet under her and ran with the others to the stairwell door. Joe and August went in. She paused, looked back at Des’s body, then joined them.
“Guys?” she yelled as she bounded down the steps.
“Down here!” Joe shouted from somewhere below, probably a couple of flights.
Keeping one hand on the railing, Billie ran down the stairs as fast as she could, straining her eyes to see inside the dimly-lit stairwell.
Something didn’t feel right.
Wait. It was pitch black the last time we were in here, she thought. The further she descended, the lighter it got. She looked back over her shoulder; things got steadily darker further up the stairwell. Using the hand railing as a guide, she rounded the corner to the next flight and the bitter taste of chalk coated her tongue.
Something hard struck her in the chest. It was Joe’s shoulder.
“Hey, watch it!” he said, stumbling forward a step. August grabbed Joe by the back of his brown suede trench coat.
“Oh no . . .” she said. Just over Joe’s shoulder, the stairwell was broken off, the side wall gone, revealing the murky gray downtown skyline beyond.
And the zombie.
* * * *
Body still aching from the helicopter crash, August kept one hand to the stairwell’s interior wall, limbs trembling, dust filling his mouth and nostrils with each breath.
The giant dead man looked at them, its huge white eyes glazed with hate and hunger.
Oh Lord, what has happened? he thought, but no sooner did he want to ask the Big Guy Upstairs for help did Joe turn to him.
“Look out!” Joe screamed, and shoved August back up the stairs just as a giant hand reached into the building to grab them.
The zombie’s huge, gray, chubby fingers missed and the three scrambled up the stairs as fast as they could.
Below, loud crashes of crumbling cement and tile echoed as the zombie no doubt smashed chunks of the stairwell away in search of its prey.
When the three got back onto the roof, the building swayed. It would only be a matter of time before the whole thing came crashing down.
Joe was already heading toward his gun.
“What’re you going to do? Shoot it?” August said.
“You think I’m crazy?” Joe shouted back over his shoulder.
August couldn’t believe Joe had taken him seriously. “Never mind.”
“No kidding.” Joe picked up his gun, ran back toward them a few steps then stopped.
“What?” Billie asked. But Joe didn’t need to answer.
Des’s body was gone.
“Where’d he go?” Billie screamed, suddenly bursting into hysterics.
August grabbed her by the arm and only two words came out: “Not. Now.”
She clamped her mouth shut, lower lip trembling.
The building rocked and a loud rumbling stirred below. The ground vibrated beneath their feet.
Joe glanced toward the helicopter, which was smashed and bent off to the side. “No way out.”
“No way down,” Billie said.
“I know that!”
She shot him a scowl.
August held his breath in an effort to keep himself level. He went over their options: stairs—missing; helicopter—destroyed; there was nothing up here they could use to rappel down the side of the building. No other building was close enough or high enough for them to safely jump to.
They were out of options.
The building shook.
“God, save us,” he said.
2
Birds of Prey
The roof rocked beneath Joe’s feet and he wouldn’t be surprised if at any moment he’d be riding the roof down to street level like some kind of surfboard gone wild.
Another thunderous boom shook the building and all three of them collapsed to the ground as their knees gave out from under them. The building swayed, its momentum making it difficult to effectively stand. August crawled on his hands and knees toward him, one hand helping bring him across the pavement, the other hand dragging Billie behind him, helping her along.
Joe met August, and together they waited out the building’s rocking before gripping each other’s forearms and helping each other to stand. Once on their feet, they brought Billie to hers.
Even just standing there as they were they could feel the instability of the building beneath their feet.
“It’s not going to take another blow,” Joe said.
“So this is it?” Billie asked.
August merely furrowed his brow as if trying to come up with a plan that would save them.
“Seems so,” Joe said.
The crumbling of concrete from somewhere below rolled onto the air. Joe envisioned the side of the building beginning to peel away completely.
“We can’t die,” August said, “not after that. Not after what we saw.”
“Who’s to say we can’t,” Joe said, surprised that he said it.
“God,” the old man said.
“God? I didn’t hear anyth
ing. Did you? Okay, I know what I saw. I know where I went. Right now, this seems worse.”
August’s face went stern. “Don’t even kid about that, Joe. I’m serious.”
“So am I.”
“Then you are hopelessly lost.”
“’Kay, enough, guys,” Billie said.
The giant zombie groaned below, its bellow enough to vibrate the core of Joe’s being. If death was to come right now, he most certainly wouldn’t miss those creatures’ howls and moans. So empty. So lifeless.
So hopeless.
“They’re not taking me,” Joe said. “I won’t let them decide when I go.”
“What do you—” Billie said, but cut herself short. “Oh.” She looked into his eyes. “Not like this, Joe.”
What felt like a giant sledgehammer slammed into the side of the building. It violently rocked backward, forcing the three of them to hit the rooftop and roll toward the side of the building.
Here it is, Joe thought. She’s gonna go.
Billie shrieked. August remained strangely calm.
The three of them slammed up against the interior of the building’s edge. Billie’s foot caught Joe in the chin. He didn’t think she noticed and he wasn’t going to say anything. No point right now.