The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World (3 page)

Shannon opened the basement door. “Get down there.”

“What are we going to do?”

“I’m going to lock the doors. We’ll hide in the basement. If they get into the house, we’ll go through the crawl space and out to the back yard. Then we’ll run to the secret street and hide in our clubhouse before they figure out we’re gone.”

She shut the door behind Allison, and then ran for the front door. As her fingers touched the lock, she heard voices on the other side.

“Is there anyone inside?”
A woman’s voice. The one from the pool?

“Only one way to find out. You’ll have to open the
door. My arm is broken, and as you can see, the other one
is missing.”

The doorknob rattled, and something pounded against the frame.

Turning, Shannon fled for the basement. The pounding continued behind her, and she heard wood splintering. Before she could reach the basement, the front door crashed open. A stench filled the house. Rotting meat. The way the garbage can smelled when her parents hadn’t emptied it for a few days.

Not wanting to lead the intruders to her sister, Shannon ran up the stairs to her bedroom.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,”
the naked man croaked.
“You’ve got visitors!”

Trying to be as quiet as possible, Shannon ducked into the closet, pulled the door shut behind her, and hid beneath a pile of clothes. There was a loud bang as the intruders knocked something over. Then she heard them start up the stairs. When the foul smell increased, and the soft footsteps padded into her room, Shannon Wuller tried not to scream.

* * *

(Sisters, Part Two)

The Rising

Day Four

Belleville, Illinois

When she first woke up, Allison Wuller didn’t remember where she was. Her eyes were open, but everything was pitch black. Her aching legs and arms were all scrunched up. She sat up quickly and banged her head.

“Ouch!”

Lying back down, she rubbed her head and waited. She remembered now. She was inside a trunk. She’d hidden inside it when the naked man and the woman opened the basement door. She’d heard them break down the front door, heard them calling out. Their voices were weird—cold and growly, and they stank like poop. Even hiding down here in the basement, she could smell them.

* * *

Allison had waited for Shannon to come back, but she hadn’t. She wondered what had happened to her sister, and tried very hard not to cry. Everybody was gone now. All her family. They probably weren’t coming back. Something bad had happened. And now she was alone in the dark. The zombies (because she knew what they were—she may have been six, but she wasn’t stupid—she knew what zombies looked like) had crashed around upstairs for a long time, before coming down into the basement. Allison had scampered inside the empty trunk and shut the lid just in time. She remained there in the darkness, holding her breath and trying not to move or scream, while they searched the basement.

“I don’t see any life glows
,” the naked man said.

“Maybe the house is deserted.”

“There’s a half-f bottle of water,”
the woman growled.

“So?”

Allison shut her eyes tight. She’d left her water sitting on top of a box.

“Someone was drinking it,”
the woman said.

“Where are they now?”

“I don’t know, but they aren’t here. Let’s check the
house across the street, the one with the gardens. Maybe
we’ll have better luck there.”

And then they were gone. Allison lay there shivering, afraid to come out. She must have fallen asleep after that. She wondered how long it had been. Could they still be out there? Maybe the zombies were playing a trick on her. Maybe they’d known she was hiding in the trunk, and they were upstairs waiting. Allison squeezed her legs together. She had to go to the bathroom—really, really bad. And she couldn’t stay inside this trunk much longer, either. It smelled like mothballs. She listened carefully, but the only sound she heard was her own breathing. Her parents had always called Allison their “little spitfire,” and while she wasn’t sure what it meant, she understood what it implied. It meant not being afraid.

So she did her best to be brave.

Slowly, carefully, Allison opened the lid and peeked out through the crack. The basement was empty.

She climbed out of the trunk and collapsed to the floor. Her legs felt rubbery and weak. She lay there panting, until they felt better. Then she climbed the stairs, put her ear to the door, and listened. The house was quiet.

“Shannon…” Allison bit her lip and tried not to cry.There were no zombies in the living room or kitchen. Allison glanced out the window into the backyard, and shuddered, remembering what they’d seen last night. Then something occurred to her. It was daylight outside. When they’d first seen the zombies, it had been getting dark. Now it was morning again, which meant she’d slept all night inside the trunk.

Allison began to get a bad feeling inside—her parents were never coming home, and the zombies had eaten her sister. She pushed the tears away, trying to be a spitfire, trying to be brave, the way they’d want her to. She wondered what to do next. Should she call 911? Go next door to the neighbor’s house? Or just wait? What if the zombies came back?

While she was trying to decide, she heard a noise from upstairs—a soft, muffled thump.

Allison froze.

The sound was repeated, louder this time. Before she could move, she heard the hiss of a closet door sliding back on its track. Allison couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like it was coming from her and Shannon’s bedroom.

She tried to call out, but her mouth was dry, and she could only whisper.

“Shannon?”

Thump…Thump…Thump…

Footsteps.

Allison licked her lips and took a deep breath. She opened a kitchen drawer and took out one of her mother’s steak knives. Her heart pounded in her chest.

The bedroom door creaked open, and the footsteps crept down the hall. Her eyes glued to the stairs, Allison slowly backed towards the front door.

“Hello?” a voice called out, small and afraid. Allison whimpered. “S-Shannon?”

“Allison? Is that you?”

Allison’s spirits soared. Her sister was alive! She ran to the bottom of the stairs. Shannon stepped out into the light, saw her, and began to cry. The two girls rushed to each other and embraced, crying and shaking.

“I thought the zombies got you,” Allison sobbed.

“I thought you were dead.”

“I thought they got you, too. I hid upstairs, in the closet. I must have fallen asleep. What about you?”

“I hid in Daddy’s old trunk, down in the basement. I fell asleep, too.”

They straightened up and wiped their eyes. Allison grinned. “I’ve really got to pee.”

“Me, too,” Shannon laughed. “Oldest goes first.”

Allison scampered up the stairs behind her. “Not fair!”

When they were finished, Allison asked, “What do we do now?”

Shannon thought about it for a moment. “Let’s get all the food and water we can carry, and some books and games, and we’ll go hide in our clubhouse.”

“But won’t the zombies find us there?”

Shannon shook her head. “How could they? It’s a secret. We’re the only ones that know about it.”

They made their preparations, and then, when they were done, the two sisters walked hand-inhand down the secret street. The sun climbed high into the sky and shined down upon them. Then they disappeared into the shadows of the woods, to a good, secret place, where neither light nor darkness could find them.

* * *

The Rising

Day Five

Baltimore-Washington International Airport,
 

Baltimore, Maryland

Jamie La Chance groaned amidst the chaos.

“What do you mean the flight was cancelled?”

He slammed his palm down on the counter in frustration. “This is the third time you people have done this! It’s ridiculous!”

The girl behind the counter bit her lip and stared at the computer monitor, refusing to meet his eye.

“All flights have been grounded, sir. Nationwide—by order of the President. Nobody can fly right now.”

“But I’ve been here all night! I have to get home—back to California…”

“There’s nothing I can do, sir. I’m sorry.”

The guy behind Jamie shouldered his way forward. He stank of sour sweat and cigarette smoke.

“Where can we catch a train?” he demanded.

“This is bullshit.”

The woman didn’t look at him either. “All trains have been stopped as well. Nothing is running. The President just declared martial law a few minutes ago, and the country is now under a national state of emergency. There’s—”

A commotion broke out three counters down from them, as a wild-eyed young man vaulted over the counter and shoved a ticket agent out of the way. He grabbed the computer monitor and shook it.

“I’ve got to get home,” he snarled. “You don’t understand! My wife is pregnant!”

Jamie watched as the fallen woman rose to her knees. The young man reached down and grasped her hair, clenching it in his fist.

“I need to get home,” he screamed. “Tell me how, god damn it!”

Around them, a few bystanders watched the scene unfold, but no one stepped forward to intervene. More people ran by, screaming at each other, shouting into cell phones, or just looking generally dazed.

Earlier, after the first cancelled flight, when Jamie was stretched out in a hard, plastic chair and trying unsuccessfully to sleep, somebody had mentioned that the world was ending. He’d scoffed. But now he thought they might be right. The crazed man picked up the computer keyboard and slammed it over the ticket agent’s head. Blood flowed. Several people screamed. A few ran away. But most just watched, as if it were a movie or a play.

Jamie wanted to help her; he felt compelled to. But his feet remained rooted to the floor. He could only stare as a National Guardsman finally materialized from the crowd and, without one word of warning, raised his rifle, sighted, and then squeezed the trigger. The attacker’s head splattered against the wall. A moment later, his lifeless body tottered over.A woman standing next to Jamie fainted. Her newspaper fluttered across his feet and he glanced down at the headline. MASS HYSTERIA GRIPS NATION. THE DEAD WALK. BIO-TERROR NOT RULED OUT. Martial law. State of emergency. He needed to call home, needed to check on Joann and his kids, Travis and Leslie, as well as their families. His cell phone battery had died during his extended stay here at the airport. He glanced around in desperation and spied a bank of pay phones. Jamie pushed his way through the crowd, and waited ten minutes for a phone to become free. He had to elbow a fellow traveler out of the way when the man tried to step in front of him. He brought the phone to his ear and heard a dial tone. He pulled out his credit card and dialed his home in Rowland Heights, California. There was a pause, and a series of electronic crackles, but that was it. There was no ring, no answer. Just silence.

“Damn.”

He tried again, and got the same thing. Then he dialed Travis in Buena Park, California, and was greeted with more dead air. Calling Leslie and her husband, Martin, at their new home in Nampa, Idaho. This time, he got a recorded voice that told him all circuits were busy.

Frustrated, he slammed the phone back onto its cradle. His ears began to ring, and his skin felt flushed. Heart attack? Panic attack? He didn’t know but he realized that he needed to calm down. He’d never get home if he were hospitalized here in Baltimore.

The fear in the air increased, becoming almost tangible. Somewhere, a woman began to shriek. Jamie forced his way through the masses again, and exited the airport. He stood on the sidewalk, breathing in car exhaust fumes and cigarette smoke, and tried to think.

A taxi sat next to the curb, the driver slumped backward in the seat, his eyes closed, his mouth slightly parted. Maybe he could get a ride to a friend’s home—he had several that lived in the Baltimore area.

Jamie banged on the taxi’s window, and slowly, the driver opened his eyes.

“You in service?” Jamie asked.

The driver grinned, flashing yellowed teeth. He turned slightly, and unlocked the back door. Jamie hopped in, and closed the door behind him.“How much to take me to Cockeysville?”

The driver paused, considering the request.

“That’s a forty-five minute drive. And everything else is
shut down. I can get you there for fifty bucks.”

Jamie grimaced. The cabbie’s voice sounded odd, gravelly. And now that he was inside, he noticed the man’s skin pallor, a sickly, pale color.

“Sounds like you’re my last chance to get out of here. Fifty is fine.”

The cabbie grunted, and pulled away from the curb.

“Hope I wasn’t interrupting anything,” Jamie offered, feeling guilty for waking him.

“Not at all,”
the driver hissed.
“My host had just
suffered a heart attack, and I was still taking stock of his
memories. You’re my first customer of the day.”

“What?”

The driver pulled into the parking garage, and turned off the engine.

“Hey,” Jamie protested, his skin beginning to crawl. “What are you doing?”

“Freeing up your body, so that one of my brothers can
inhabit it.”

“What—”

Without another word, the cabbie crawled into the backseat and fell upon him.

* * *

The Rising

Day Six

Snyder, Oklahoma

Wolf Blitzer told William King that the following footage was going to be graphic, but Will had seen it all before, so he changed channels. He clicked to MSNBC, but they were still off the air, and Fox News was re-running the same footage as CNN. In it, the Secretary of State was giving a press briefing, sweating profusely and looking nervous, assuring the assembled reporters that the President, Vice President, and cabinet members were all fine, and that the crisis was passing. The Federal Emergency Management Agency would soon have it under control, and everything would return to normal. Until then, martial law would remain in effect as a cautionary measure.