Tim Curran - Resurrection

Nicky smiled and most of his teeth were missing. “Hello, Deke, hello, big brother, I come back for you,” he said, speaking with a childlike voice, but one that had been freed of that little boy lisp that made it hard for him to pronounce the “R” sound. Yes, it sounded somewhat like the voice of a little boy, though damaged and moist, but there was a maturity to it now that was not just old, it was ancient. “You know what I did, Deke? Do you know what I did?”

“Nicky, oh God, no…”

“I came home and waited outside for mom and dad,” the thing said. “Yes, Deke, I waited outside. When dad came out to lock the garage, I was waiting for him. I put my teeth in his throat and I drank his blood and when mom came looking for him, I told her what it was like in hell. I told her what they did to her sweet little boy in hell. And then I killed her, Deke. I killed her and ate her guts and when I was done, I fucked her corpse?”

No this was not Nicky.

Deke was still frightened, but the anger he felt at the obscenities spewing from that thing’s mouth turned something black and bitter inside him. Without thinking, he swung the poker at the Nicky-thing. Swung it hard and overhand like he was trying to pound in a railroad spike. The poker came down before Nicky could react. It came down right on the crown of his head and split it wide open, driving that pestilence right to his knees. He sat there on the floor, holding his head which was wide open from nasal cavity to crown, black silt and slime and tangles of worms spilling out.

And the insane thing was, Nicky laughed.

And laughed.

And laughed.

There was no humor in it, of course. It was a scratching, metallic sound, vile and mocking. The laughter of the damned. The laughter that might drift up through a hole in the roof of hell. And Deke, half out of his mind with the sound of it, kept swinging and swinging and the Nicky-thing did not fight back. It just laughed as that poker came down, smashing its skull and snapping its bones, ripping and pulverizing it until it was just a mass of writhing carrion…flesh and muscle and skeleton that moved on the floor, dismembered and fragmented. But all through it, that skull laughed and laughed.

Deke just threw the poker and tumbled headlong down the stairs, senseless and mindless, overwhelmed by adult anxieties and childhood terrors. He lay on the floor until reality came swimming back and with it, a stark ugliness that he had never known before or even guessed existed. Everything he’d known, everything he’d held dear had been ripped away now and there was nothing, nothing, nothing.

Upstairs, what was left of Nicky still moved, still laughed, still emoted.

“You can’t run, big brother, and you can’t hide! We’re in the water and in the houses and far down below! Not just here, but everywhere, everywhere! We’re all coming through now and we’re all hungry! Deathless and nighted and born of darkness?”

But that’s all Deke could listen to.

He went over to the cupboard by the fireplace and got the can of fluid dad had started fires with. He sprayed it everywhere and then lit the house up with a candle. Drapes burned. The wood by the fireplace. The carpet. The sofa. It all blazed up and, upstairs, that thing was screaming because it knew what was happening, it knew it would be roasted to ash. It knew the flames would send it back to whatever gutter had birthed it.

The house filling with smoke, Deke grabbed up Mr. Cheese and stumbled out into the rain.

By the time they reached the Broad Street Overpass that skirted the very outer edge of Bethany Square, Mitch had woven himself into a cocoon. That’s how it seemed to Tommy and that’s pretty much how it felt to Mitch himself. Suddenly, everything was unreal and out of proportion and he felt numb, frigid and thick and senseless. Like he was wrapped in dirty, spitty silk or maybe drugged. Maybe it was the day. Maybe it was seeing dead people walk and watching some crazy old lady divine things from egg yolks. Yeah, all of that, topped off with Lily being gone and knowing, oh yes, knowing that she was gone for good.

“Mitch…listen to me,” Tommy said. “We don’t know anything. We really don’t. Maybe…maybe she…well, I don’t know, but maybe she?”

“Got lost? Went to get a loaf of bread? Forgot to let the neighbor’s fucking cat out?”

Tommy just said, “I don’t know.”

“Maybe you don’t know, Tommy, but I know. I know.”

“Because that old witch lady had a vision from stirring runny egg yolks?” Tommy pulled off his cigarette, moving Lily’s big conversion van carefully down the flooding streets, avoiding stalled cars…and anything else that might be out there. “C’mon, old buddy, I bought the show while we were there, but let’s not go ga ga over this shit. There’s no way she could know and…and she never actually said something had happened to Lily.”

“She didn’t have to.”

“But, Mitch?”

“Don’t…okay, Tommy? Don’t do this to me. Don’t make me argue with you, because I don’t have the fucking strength right now. I can barely breathe.” Mitch took a few deep breaths, amazed as how heavy his limbs felt, at the slow roll of his heart. “Mrs. Sepperley didn’t have to tell me shit, okay? I saw it on her face and I felt it right into my guts. That’s enough for me. Lily’s dead. I know she’s dead. I know that my wife is dead.”

Mitch barely got that part out before breaking down into tears. Those waterworks started rolling, but he fought them back with sheer willpower. Now was not the time. There would be a time for grieving, a time for mourning when the true horror or realization set in, but it wasn’t now. He couldn’t weaken now. If he let go, he’d fall right apart. His seams would burst and there would be nothing but a mess left. And until he got those kids safe and found Chrissy, he refused to crumble.

Tommy’s wrong, he thought. He’s wrong and he knows he’s wrong. His heart is in the right place, but I’m just not up to denial right now. I don’t have the strength to deceive myself.

When they’d got back to Mitch’s house?Mitch out front, running and stumbling and just white with terror and, yes, rage?Rhonda Zirblanksi met them at the door, Rita at her side. They both looked pale and confused and shaky. Rhonda told Mitch what had happened. That Lily said to shut her eyes, went outside and stood in the flooded street. And when she looked again, Lily was gone.

Right away, Mitch ran outside, running around and calling Lily’s name and with the state of mind he was in, Tommy figured it was a good thing none of those zombies showed…because they wouldn’t have stood a chance. Tommy went out there after him, of course, but Mitch was wild, completely wild, and after the second time he knocked Tommy on his ass, Tommy dragged himself back into the house. And it was there that Rhonda said what she had been too frightened to say in front of Mitch. That Lily kept saying how she thought someone was calling her name. How the house would sink down to dark, flooded places where there would be people waiting for them. How she’d gone down into the cellar and screamed…and then gone outside.

“She was standing right out in that big puddle,” Rhonda said, tears in her eyes. “There was something wrong with her, but I didn’t know what to do! I turned away for a minute…then she just wasn’t there anymore.”

Mitch had come back about ten minutes later, drenched and beside himself. Tommy poured some Jack Daniels into him and was there for him, for what good that did. But eventually, he had to tell Mitch what Rhonda said. Mitch seemed to understand things that Tommy didn’t then. They went down into the cellar and there was nothing to see but filth backed-up into the stationary drain, some black mud clotting the floor drain.