The Dead Rise (Book 1): Zombies and Chainsaws

by Evans, Mike

  Izik leaned on his shovel just staring at the grounds in front of him. He said, “You think we ought to call the sheriff back and let him know what he is coming toward out here?”

  Christian said, "Don't know what good it's going to do, given he's already on his way out here. Not like he's going to be able to do shit until he gets out here right?"

  Izik just shook his head staring at the cemetery and said, “Well someone out there is going to have their ass thrown in the slammer and have the key thrown away for all this mess. You can’t go fucking with the dead around here and get away with it. What do you think was running through their mind when they did this?”

  Christian said, "No Izik I'd have to say there is a damn good chance that whoever it was that did this wasn't doing all that much thinking. What do you think was going on out here?"

  Izik said, “Hell if I know, but I don’t think we got enough of that special coffee from Denny to deal with it.”

  Christian said, “Hell, we never have enough. You want to start digging or should we just wait?”

  Izik said, “Guess we best get digging, who knows if we are going to get paid if we don’t do the work. That cheap ass probably care at all if these things got all dug up.”

  Christian and Izik started to head to plot number five sixty-two when they saw a figure in the distance. Christian pointed to him and said, "Hey you see that Izik?"

  He turned his head following Christian's finger outstretched in that direction and squinted trying to make sense of the figure he was looking at in the dark.

  "Well, do you think that is the son of a bitch who went and caused all this trouble?"

  Christian said, “Well hell if I know, but I'll be damned if we don’t need to go and have a talk with him. He doesn’t have a shovel with him, it is damn hard to dig up a hole without one.”

  Izik said, "Yeah because they couldn't put it down right? Come on why don't we get over there."

  The two men walked cautiously towards the figure both of them were holding tight to their shovels, it didn’t matter if they were used to being out here, there was little that was more creepy than being where the dead were supposed to be resting especially, at night. When they got within twenty feet the figure was standing next to a tombstone swaying they yelled, “Hey you, get over here!”

  The figure turned around slowly twisting its neck to the point where it was almost an entire ninety-degree turn, something they both knew would have broken anyone else's neck, short of a circus performer freak. Izik shone the light on his face and his mouth dropped at the man's looks. He had a black suit that hung on his frame, he looked like it would have fit if the man was thirty pounds heavier and his eyes were black, his cheeks sunken in, and his mouth hung open. Black ooze came out of the side of it. Izik looked over to Christian who was having a similar reaction to what he was looking at.

  Christian asked, "Well what the fuck is wrong with that guy?"

  Izik walked slowly towards him. He said, “Well I’d have to say there is a good chance I don’t know, but I think he’s already dead.”

  Christian took the flashlight pointing it at the man more. He said, “But if he is dead then how the hell is he standing?”

  Izik looked at the man yelling, “What the hell is wrong with you? What are you doing out here?”

  The stranger opened its mouth and moaned and started to stumble forward swaying walking slowly and sloppily. The two backed up turning around and shone the light on the property. What they saw wasn't something that made them feel any better, black dead eyes glistened back at them shining all in different states of decay.

  Christian said, "Every one of these people are in their Sunday best but stained from years and maybe even decades of decay, each of them having different looks from the time period when they were buried.”

  Izik said, "I don't know about ya'll but I'm getting the fuck out of here, and I'm doing it right goddamn now. This shit is crazy."

  Christian was already walking backward not needing to be told that they needed to get out of there. He said, “Let’s get the fuck out of dodge and do it now.”

  The two heavy men turned around running straight for the truck. They went running down the grassy hill carrying their shovels with them. They fell face first running down the hill hands in the grass gripping onto their legs. They kicked and squirmed hitting the arms with the shovels, but the hands of the dead weren't letting anything go.

  Izik screamed, "What the hell is it?"

  Christian kept kicking and put the flashlight on what was gripping his legs. There were five different sets of hands holding his legs tight, clinging to his worn blue jeans.

  He said, "They got hands coming up out of the ground man, there are fucking hands!"

  Izik looked up at the dim stars just barely visible through the thickening clouds. He said, "I don't know what to do man, they won't let go. But hands never killed anybody."

  Christian pushed up stabbing at the hands with his shovel blade. Bones were brittle and crunched under the force of the thrusts. They tried backing up but when they looked down all they saw were more hands coming from the dirt.

  Izik yelled, “You know when they redid this place someone told me that they went and stacked people, well they weren’t fucking kidding now were they?”

  The hands gripped the men's shirts and pants and they weren't able to move. Just when they didn't think anything could get any worse, mouths came up from the dirt and gripped the men taking healthy bites of flesh, they swallowed it whole not waiting to chew the delight. They screamed to each other, but little could be done to save each of them. Within minutes, there was nothing left but a pile of bones. The dead finished climbing and clawing their way out of the dirt. Their clothes were covered with guts and remnants of the men.

  *****

  Sheriff Gareth took the only highway that would take him out to the town cemetery. He thought of it like he always did realizing exactly how it was the great combiner. It didn’t matter if it was a drunk that wrapped themselves around a phone pole, a cancer patient, or just someone older than dirt who finally passed away and got to go and finally meet his or her maker. He rode out there his window down enjoying the cool night breeze. The lightest bits of mist hitting his hand as he drove out there.

  The sheriff wasn’t in any big hurry because he knew regardless of what the corporation was out there doing, the town would be hell bent if they actually let anything bad happen given they were what supported the city. He knew he got paid by tax dollars but those tax dollars came right out of working folks pockets and those workers were daily visitors to Evans Corporation.

  He was only half paying attention since he was focused on trying to get the radio tuned to a Jennings song he heard but was currently hating the man that had been driving his car before him because he had tuned out his favorite program buttons and he hated trying to get them reset just perfect.

  He looked up half watching the road and just barely saw a glimpse of a blood-covered man running down the highway in the opposite direction. He wasn't sure who it was but craned his neck around trying to decide if it was worth his time, and knew if he found some teenager in the ditch cut open belly to neck that he'd have no good explanation for why he hadn't gone back and done something about it or at the very least asked the man what it was he was doing. He watched the man as he went over the hill, confirming yes, he'd be a perfect asshole if he didn't at least go and find out if the man needed help and get an explanation on what the hell happened to him. He hit his lights as he went up over the hill ready to circle around and head back but when he went over the hill what he saw just made him stare in awe. Unfortunately for him staring wasn't good enough and the idea came to him too little too late that he needed to slam on the car's brakes and he needed to do it now.

  Gareth hit his high-beams trying to figure out what the hell he was looking at. There were bodies and they were everywhere but they were standing and walking slowly bouncing off of each other. Gareth swerved
the car losing control instantly. He tried to swerve for the ditch but the force of the turn pushed the car past what it could handle and the vehicle flipped rolling left to right. Gareth could do nothing but scream, “Oh fuck me!” as the car rolled.

  The newly risen dead made no attempt to get out of the way of the rolling squad car. Gareth rolled over ten of them as he went down the hill. He smashed them leaving a stretch of the dead and painted the highway with them. The sheriff hadn't had the time he needed to realize that he should have pulled his left arm that had been hanging freely outside of the car back in. He quivered as his arm became mangled and useless forever. When the car slid to a stop it had been totaled. The sheriff lay in the car no seat-belt to keep him in place and his face bleeding freely from the wounds by the glass and his arm bleeding like he'd never seen something bleed before.

  The car was upside down and Gareth was lying flat across what was the roof of the car and all he could see were feet, hundreds and hundreds of feet shuffling slowly past him heading where he could only assume was town. He tried to pull himself out, but the aching pain in his arm was excruciating as it hung limply from his shoulder. He screamed in pain it was like nothing that he had ever felt before. With his free hand he stripped the items from his gun belt and put it around his arm tightening it with his teeth stopping the bleeding and instantly feeling like he was able to think a bit better.

  He watched the feet in awe and was shaking from the pain but trying not to scream. He realized they could hear because the feet in front of him stopped moving and knees became visible followed by thighs and finally heads peering into the cab of the car. The sight of their faces made him cringe. Their hair was long and stringy, their faces sunken in and maggots fell from the holes in their faces and eye sockets. He tried to back up getting away from their reach, but it did little good as hands gripped him from the opposite side of the car pulling him out onto the street. Mouths bit into his thighs and crotch. He screamed now experiencing a pain like very few had probably ever experienced. Gareth reached for his firearm, content in taking some of these monsters out with his final moments on earth but when he reached for his gun he felt nothing but an empty holster. He looked through tear filled eyes at a shiny three fifty-seven revolver glistening in the lights of the car its cylinder and the trigger now useless and sitting never to be fired by his hand again.

  He stopped fighting and the dead pulled his already severed ruined arm off two of them feasting on it while the others practically fell on top of him, mouths open each fighting to be the next in line until there was nothing left on the bones to fight over.

  *****

  Matt heard the car crash and stopped his run, he thought about it knowing what was after him, and the fact the sheriff was driving straight toward it was more than he could handle. He walked back up the hill stopping halfway to bend over and contemplated puking. He hadn't run this far since high school. Not sports, of course, but when he'd been caught with his pants down when a farmer's daughter had insisted that her dad would be out in the fields all day. She had been wrong of course and Matt had barely escaped with his life running into a cornfield sprinting for his life. When he got to the top of the hill he realized the number of people that he had guessed would be in the cemetery had been drastically underestimated. He watched what looked like a sea of the undead. Each step was one closer to the end of someone else he knew. He saw a pile of the dead gathered around the sheriff's car and knew there was nothing that could be done.

  He turned keeping as much distance between himself and the dead as he could. He knew that the shuffler would never catch up with him, but he wondered at the same time if the shufflers would ever tire of their pursuit. Matt didn't know and didn't want to be chased forever to find out. The first thing which ran through his mind was the idea that he would get back to the factory where his truck was parked and take the money from Phelps and drive through the night until he was somewhere far, far away from the town. He couldn't imagine running into one of these things in the middle of the night. He only hoped that people would be safe. He'd thought about that meeting over and over again and wished he had just pushed that envelope back across the table telling Phelps to stick that bonus up his bony ass.

  Chapter Eight

  New Arrivals

  Half Hour later outside of Denny’s Tap

  Pete and Roger sat outside of the bar watching all of the regulars walking to their cars. The women they prayed might look over their shoulders at them disappeared down streets or into cars driving away. The men watched the lights of the cars disappear into the distance. Pete looked at the van as did Roger.

  Roger said, "You know if we drive that after telling Jude we were shit faced he is going to royally kick our asses, I think we got only one choice here, buddy."

  Pete said, “Yeah what is that Roger?”

  “We need to walk brother, I hate to say it, hell it’s almost like exercise, God knows I don’t need any of that,” he patted his gut which jiggled a bit at the slap, “We only got a mile or two and hell I want to say that over half of it is downhill.”

  Pete pushed up patting his chest for a pack of smokes and was let down when there was nothing to be felt; he'd smoked the entire pack while sitting at the bar.

  He said, "You realize this town is flat don't you Roger?"

  Roger nodded and Pete continued, “Then there aren’t any hills in the town to walk down you dip shit. Tell you what, you give me one or five smokes to get me back to the damn motel and we will call it good.”

  Roger handed him the first and the two staggered to their feet starting a very slow but determined walk back to the motel. Neither man was one hundred percent sure when they were going to get back to the motel but figured with a town this size it wouldn’t take all that long and eventually they’d find their way back home. They headed there staggering up and down streets. The luck of the Irish must have been on their side because with each passing street the fact that they hadn't run into the dead which were slowly filling the town was a miracle.

  ****

  Chuck walked slowly not in any hurry to get back to the motel. He made a turn heading north figuring if Jude wasn’t done by the time he got there that maybe Pete and Roger might allow him to crash on their floor. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like if he had to sleep outside for the night, the thought of a million mosquito bites to wake up to wasn’t something that made him overly excited. He turned a street and stopped not walking a step further. He didn't know why there were hundreds of people moaning in the street and walking very slowly his way and he didn’t care. He turned around looking over his shoulder. The people were following him and he checked his pants wishing that he had taken his pistol out of the van. He knew it didn’t make much difference to him considering the fact that he knew if he got picked up out of state and shit faced that he’d be going to jail for sure. Right now he would happily like to talk to a police officer if they could possibly explain, what the group that looked like a cult, roaming the streets was doing out.

  He threw out his smoke and turned around running for the hotel. If Jude was still knocking boots he didn’t give two shits. He never stopped until he put enough distance between himself and the crazies in the street to where he felt confident they wouldn’t be on his tail.

  *****

  Kindra kissed Jude’s neck slowly rubbing his sides and grinding herself on him. Jude looked up at the ceiling fan spinning and thinking of his wife. He knew he couldn’t go through with it. He decided it was better if he let her know before she went much further.

  Jude said, “Honey I'm sorry, but I thought I could do this, but I'm sorry I just can’t.”

  She kissed his ear and bit on his lobe. She ran her hand down between his legs checking what she knew was ready for her. She said, “Well it kind of seems like maybe you are able to do it, so is it that you don’t want to do it anymore?”

  "Call me stupid, or maybe old fashioned but I can't do this. I don't do one night stands. My si
ster-in-law told me to go and to bounce in the sheets as she poetically put it. Well, I wanted to at least try but there wasn't anything which I could do about it."

  She pushed up off the bed looking around the room; this was not a situation which she had to deal with before. She winked at Jude and said, “Well let’s just call you old fashioned honey. There ain’t anything wrong with you having a moral compass that ya’ll follow. Just wish I’d have not gotten all hot and bothered before you made your mind up about what you thought you could handle.”

  Jude said, “Well honey if it was something I thought I could do, let me just say that I would want it to be you for sure. I just don’t think I am ready. It’s only been a couple years and well, I am still dealing with some shit. It is hard to explain.”

  "There isn't any reason to explain anything sugar, but I tell you what all that fooling around left me just a bit parched. You got anything up in here that I can wet my whistle with by chance?" Kindra asked.

  Jude said, "I got a beer, but it's piss warm, sorry."

  She pushed off the bed looking around the room for her clothes. She said, “Well tell you what I’m going to head over to the ice machine outside and we can put it on ice. We give it a while and it’ll be ice cold and tickle the entire way down. You think anyone will mind if I go out there in my unmentionables?”

  Jude said, “No, no I don’t think anyone would mind seeing you. God knows if any of my men see you they are gonna have one hell of a heart attack. The ice machines just around the corner, leave it unlocked I need to use the bathroom.”

  She looked at the case of beer sitting on the table and said, “You know if we get enough of those beers in me I just want to warn you that you might not have the option of staying a perfect gentleman.”

  Jude smiled thinking worse things in life could happen. He said, “Well you know if the night comes to that I guess I could live with myself.”

  She smiled a new goal presenting itself that she very much was looking forward to making happen. She put a little extra shake in her step as she walked outside after looking around to make sure the coast was clear. Jude watched rubbing his hair and shaking his head. He pushed off of the bed and headed to the bathroom hoping that if he spent enough time in there that he would be able to go take a leak, he knew under his current circumstances he was going to have to wait a few minutes or bend at an impossible angle to be able to go. He shut the door staring down at his predicament and just laughed. Jude had made no progress a few minutes later and jumped when there was a pounding then a thud on the motel room door. He rearranged himself thinking that she had locked herself out and was probably freaking out being stuck naked outside. Jude tucked himself back into his pants and yelled out the door, “Hold on just a second darling, I'm coming. I told you not to lock yourself out though.”