The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World by Brian Keene Page B

an old farmhouse, totally fortified it. And I know they’re still there.”
    “How?”
    “Because they were there when I went back for my family’s bodies.”
    “Twelve,” the zombie mused. “In a fortified position. And they are well-armed?”
    Bob nodded.
    “How is that different from the city?”
    “Because in the city, the odds are even. Out here, there are more of you than there are of them.”
    The zombie’s lips peeled back in a horrible smile.
    “Don’t you mean more of us?”
    “Us?”
    “The dead,” it replied. “You’re dead like us.”
    Bob unsheathed the shotgun. “I’m nothing like you. You things have no soul.”
    “And you?”
    Bob racked a shotgun shell. “Me—I am a soul.”
    The undead crowd laughed.
    “Show us, little ghost,” the armless zombie said.
    “Lead us to this nest of humans.”
    “There’s just one thing,” Bob said. “When we get there, the one with the phoenix tattoo is all mine.”
    The zombie nodded. “ Lead the way .”
    He did. Shotgun in one hand and the pistol in the other, the ghost led the dead forward. More bodies joined them as they marched by—male and female, human and animal, young and old, decomposed and freshly dead, all united in death. And all of them thirsting for revenge. For the Siqqusim, it was revenge upon the Creator, He who had banished them to the Void. For Bob, it was something much more personal. But if the Creator had allowed that to happen, then so be it. As they plodded down the road, Bob thought, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
    * * *
    Inside the house, the bikers heard them coming long before they arrived. The one with the phoenix tattoo—Rhino to his friends—went to the door.
    “The fuck is that?” he whispered. “Sounds like an army…”
    The other man on watch, Jakes, blinked twice in the midst of his crystal meth high. “It’s a fuckin’ earthquake, man.”
    Rhino shook his head. “Tweaking mother fucker.”
    He stared out the peephole just as the dead army crested the hill. Rhino recognized the one in the lead. Cursing, he grabbed the AK-47 from its perch against the chair, and burst through the door.
    “Can’t be,” he shouted. “I fucking shot you, man! Shot you in the head. You can’t be one of them.”
    Smiling, Bob whispered down the barrel of his shotgun. “I’m not one of them. I am something else.”
    He squeezed the trigger, and all around him, the forces of hell were unleashed.
    * * *

THE HIGH POINT
    The Rising
    Day Eighteen
    Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area

    The bears were hungry. So were the deer, squirrels, raccoons, and snakes—even the rabbits. Those were the worst. Bunnies were supposed to be cute and fluffy—not rotting and ravenous.
    Stephen Griglak clung to the steep rock face, staring at the zombie animals clustered far below. Several tried to scale the sheer sandstone cliff, but slid back down. Satisfied that they couldn’t reach him, Stephen started climbing again. His pack had never felt heavier than it did now, and his muscles burned—far beyond the aching stage.
    He’d originally lived in Montclair, New Jersey, where he worked as a senior technician at Rutgers University’s soil lab. It was a nice town; he and his wife Eileen liked living there. A bit pricey, but that was the way of the world. And after the life he’d led, it was nice to settle into comfortable anonymity. His past was a fog of booze and drugs, until he met Eileen and got sober at the age of thirty-two. Married her at thirty-five. Life became good. Until The Rising.
    Eileen…he didn’t like to think about what had happened to Eileen. There are some things human beings aren’t meant to see happen, especially when it happens to a loved one. So he’d blocked that from his mind. Almost. At night, he could still hear her screams, and the awful tearing sounds—and the chewing.
    Stephen was approaching fifty. His parents had passed away six years before. He had six brothers and sisters, but