The Rising: Selected Scenes From the End of the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

across the brick wall of a clothing store.
    A large group of corpses gathered around the convenience store. Eddie wondered if there was somebody trapped inside. He lined the crosshairs up with the large propane tank in the store’s parking lot, and squeezed the trigger. The hammer fell but there was no kick, no explosion.
    “Shit. Empty.”
    The fires spread, engulfing the downtown district, and creeping closer to the Tower Clock. The smoke curled through the window, and Eddie coughed. When he looked up, an undead sparrow sat on the window ledge, staring at him with one remaining eye. A maggot fell from the empty socket. Spinning the rifle in his hands, Eddie swung the weapon like a club. The bird darted out of the way, and the wooden stock splintered on the hard stone windowsill. The impact sent shockwaves up his arms. The zombie bird zipped forward and pecked at his hand, drawing blood.
    “Fucker!”
    Eddie swatted at the zombie, but it flew away, vanishing into the smoke.
    He went to the window.
    The flames licked at the edges of the hill. The fire would reach the Tower Clock soon. But he was okay. Stone couldn’t burn, could it?
    He looked out over his town. The zombies stared back at him, pointing and shouting. The bird. It must have told the rest of them. Now they knew where he was.Heedless of the flames, the undead began converging on his location, encircling the Tower Clock. Eddie glanced down at the broken, empty rifle, then back to the zombies.
    Sighing, he leaned out, looking straight down. He put the headphones in his ears and let Pink Floyd take him away.
    Then he leaned out further, and kept leaning until his feet left the floor.
    Eddie’s fall was quicker than Rome’s.

WALKABOUT
    (Part One)
    The Rising
    Day Eight
    Melbourne, Australia
     
    Leigh Haig opened the blinds a fraction of an inch and peeked out the window. The bright sun dominated the blue, mid-morning sky. A flock of birds wheeled overhead, surfing the breeze. Leigh wondered if they were still alive. On the couch, Penny asked, “What are you doing? They’ll see you.”
    “Beautiful day outside,” he said. “If it wasn’t for the smell.”
    The stench had gotten bad overnight, as more and more of Melbourne’s population joined the dead. Stinking, rotting corpses ran amok in the streets, leaking fluids and shedding unwanted body parts. The gutters were thick with offal. Between the smell and the screams, it was a wonder they’d slept at all.
    He stepped away from the window.
    Penny coughed, then moaned. “It’s the end of the world.”
    “Good day for it,” Leigh said with a smile, trying to make her laugh.
    She did, but the grin that crossed her face was a ghost of its former self. Her skin was gaunt and pale, her forehead coated with glistening sweat. Her weak laughter transformed into another bout of coughing. It was funny, Leigh thought. Hundreds, if not thousands of people were dying outside, slaughtered by the zombies, shot, slashed, stabbed—eaten. But here, inside the brick, two-story home they shared, Penny was dying of the flu. She’d come down with it a day before the first news reports started. With no access to medical help her fever spiked and her condition deteriorated in sync with the fall of civilization.
    At first, it had seemed like an American problem, (as many things on the news were these days), reports of sudden outbreaks of violence and mass murder. Michigan, New Jersey, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and New York. Then came the footage. The dead walked, talked, and killed. And not just in the States, either. It was a global event; and within two hours, the epidemic was in Australia as well. The first reported case was in Coober Pedy, and the second in Sydney. Then a dozen more. After that, he lost count.
    The cities became war zones, then cemeteries. The madness spread across the world. Military forces turned renegade. Nuclear reactors melted down. Anarchy was the norm. Bullets were currency. Chaos ruled. And in