And when we all fall down...Will the sun still rise? Novel Preview

It took about an hour to reach the neighborhood, which was as dead and empty as last time, a single pine tree gave some life to the expanse of dead yards, disintegrating houses, and indifference.

“Welcome to lovely Perdition Missouri!”, a man happily boomed, it sounded like one of those tour guide voices over a loudspeaker, “Founded in 1894 by Jeremiah Dowson and settled by German immigrants, Perdition boasts an authentic and enriching cultural history!”. Stopping as one, we stood rooted to the spot, looking around wildly for the source of the voice when the front door of a house to our immediate right burst open with the sound of a gunshot. Dropping to the pavement fast enough to hit my jaw, I looked to the sound of the noise and saw a body impaled to the front door, swinging back and forth with a knocking noise as the legs hit the door. Someone had carved a swastika into the man’s chest deep enough that his intestines hung out in a knotted mess; he had a mustache shaved to resemble Hitler’s. A metal rod impaled his wrist, coming out his shoulder and the door locked his arm in the Nazi salute.

Standing up and aiming in different directions, we found no visible threat or figure rushing at us. Breathing quickly and weapon still raised I made my way to the tacked up body with the others in tow after a few minutes, our “tour guide” hadn’t spoken since the door flew open.

“I thought last time was bad enough.”, Don breathed, wiping sweat from his brow even though it had to be in the mid 30s with the wind chill.

“Guess someone thought we were still curious since we came back.”, I said, looking past the door and leaned into a trashed living room. Every piece of furniture was smashed and thrown around, chunks of drywall and molding lay scattered across the moldy carpet, it looked like someone had picked the house up and given it a good shake. “And now we get a tour with visuals.”

“We’re not going in there.” Don shot the words out almost too fast to comprehend when we all heard a cat mew from somewhere inside.

“We’re not.”, I assured him, pulling out and backing up, “Guess we should continue our tour, seeing that we’re just tourists and all.”

“Hey!,”, Aden yelled out to the street, “Anywhere we can get a room in this town!?”

“Perdition boast two hotels and three authentic Bed and Breakfasts!”, the loudspeaker voice boomed, “Each one locally owned, operated and ready bring a little bit of the German Rhineland to the American Heartland!”. That shut us up, and Aden stifled a laugh.

“How morbidly obese.”, Joe said, flapping his hands over his cheeks while I looked over my shoulder twice back into the house, Aden stood in the middle of the yard flicking his straight razor at an incredible speed. We walked back to the street, noticing the wind had abated to a mild breeze, with only the clicking sound of Aden’s straight razor making any noise.

Stopping at a four way intersection, I looked both ways and spotted a human figure far down the right hand street. “The fuck is that?”, I pointed with my M4.

“Looks like what I saw in the storm.”, Aden said as we watched the figure slip out of sight behind a house. It walked almost like a chicken, as if the knees were backward, and had two growths on its back. It had been too far away to see details though I had the distinct feeling it wasn’t another person.

“Is it someone else?”, Joe asked.

“I don’t want to know.”, Don stayed consistent.

“I’m with Don.”, I started walking past the turn without giving it a second look and felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Dude, wait up.”, Aden said.

“What?”, I turned with my heart in my mouth.

“There’s more company.”, he pointed in the direction we were heading and I saw two people far down the road walking awkwardly our way.

“Left?” I asked, giving Aden my M4 when he motioned.

“Looks clear.” he aimed with the iron sights and miraculously hit the right hand figure, knocking it to the ground with a half-spin and the silenced ‘klam!’ of the rifle. He handed the weapon back to me with a satisfied grin playing across his lips and we took off at a jog down the left road.

“With the rise of technology, Perdition largely remained underdeveloped for the first half of the 20th century before officially becoming an Amish community in 1956.”, the friendly guide explained, we didn’t care but a loud disembodied voice is hard to ignore. “It wasn’t until 1987 that Perdition was brought into the modern world. The United States Government bought the town and surrounding area to support the families and servicemen of a proposed Army base under construction just outside the town’s border.”.

Taking the first right I wish we’d driven in and cursed myself during our five minute jog down the street. Lungs burning from the freezing air we quattuor wheezed to a walk, covering our mouths in an attempt to warm up the lungs.

The road we were following ended at a T-intersection, looking to the right my mouth fell open. The way was blocked by a wall of crucified bodies packed so close there was no room for an adult to squeeze through, each cross had to be about fifteen feet high.

“”Jesus Christ!”, I yelled loudly.

“Do you think He would really be here in Perdition?”, the voice boomed mockingly, “Fun fact!”, it returned to its original happy tour guide tone, “Perdition once had the area’s largest church until a fire leveled the building in 1993. Though occupied by friendly, helpful residents, Perdition hasn’t supported a mentionable Christian population since 1997!”

Only half hearing the voice I stared at the blood soaked crosses jammed into the road and yards, I swear some of the bodies stirred restlessly…

“Well, we’ve got over a few dozen people hanging from crosses.”, Aden replied, unfazed by scene.

“I guess it’s some sort of symbolism.”, I said, raising the M4 up and leaning the barrel against my shoulder, my surprise abated when Mr. Loudspeaker had started up. I was dealing with conflicting emotions of fear and amusement. We turned and walked the opposite direction, peering around the curving road I indeed saw a sign for a Jesus Name Pentecostal church in front of an old burned out shell that had collapsed into its basement.

“Yep.”, I proclaimed, looking back over to the others, “Burned down church just around the corner.”

“No shit.”, Aden muttered, taking a look for himself, “I was hoping for the First Baptist Church of Perdition personally.”, he lamented as music wafted through the wind.

“Hey look,”, Joe pointed the way we’d come. Down the street was a group of five figures that were staggering toward us.

“Ooooh!”, Don waved his hands in mock surprise, “The zombies are here to get us!”. We were quickly losing it as more and more packed onto our fragile minds. Thankfully, I thought, these were something tangible to center our madness on. Bringing the M4 to bear and making sure the selector was on ’semi-auto’ I aimed down the side scope and saw that the group was made up of flat chested women with their legs twisted around…well some parts of their bodies were backward…I just couldn’t tell which, their arms flapped and bumped against their bodies slowly. They were walking like chickens in a crude triangle formation, “Twenty bucks I can knock at least three over with one shot.”

“Bullshit.”, Don said, laughing, “Hit one in the knee and make it face plant!”

“What are they then?”, Aden said from my right.

“Well, it’s kind of like the crab people,”, I turned a movable ring around the scope and zoomed in closer, “Human parts, not quite human design. They’re backward in places, like a wrung out towel.”.

“Shoot then. I’ll take your bet.”, Joe challenged looking around in all directions, seems we were clear on the flanks. Setting my sights on the right side of the front one’s chest I noticed its fingers were moving as if playing a piano…slowly, delicately…I fired one round. Looking up, I was just in time to see it pivot on one foot, crumple backwards from the force, taking the two on its right side down as well before they fell in a heap, arms spayed out and waving comically. This was received with a loud round of laughter from all of us while the ones left standing ignored their fallen comrades.

“It’s getting back up?”, Aden looked in disappointment as the three struggled to their feet, even the one missing half its ribcage started forward again seemingly unfazed by the trail of blood and innards it left with each shaky step.

“Well,”, I conjectured, “I only shot once.”, and brought my rifle back up, using the iron sights and keeping the weapon on semi-auto, “Get that M-41 up huh Aden?”, I said before firing another shot with a silenced ’klam’ that connected with the knee of one of the ones I'd previously hit, which did indeed cause it to face pant, it’s arms crooked up in the air and came together like flapping wings, which brought forth more laughing. Going to one knee I heard Aden’s gun go boom and the closest one, about 60 feet away, jerked back Matrix style as half it’s right arm flopped to the ground behind it in a spray of blood.

“You think they could be zombies?”, Don asked, going prone with his MP5 in front of him, “They’re acting a lot like movie zombies.”. They were close enough to discern some features now; female faces that looked like bulimics on overdrive, taunt skin, rolled up eyes, skinny as hell. It was their heads that were on backwards, they were also walking backwards but what really got our blood pumping was the armless one opening its mouth and emitting a delicate, sweet, music box tune as a second mouth projected. It was like the movie ‘Alien’ and was the next thing to take a bullet from Aden's .45 Long .

The .45 slug slammed into the mouth, digging a nice hole through the back of the head on its way out, but the backwards woman kept coming. It was more sluggish now and appeared to be dragging it’s uninjured left leg, which I promptly shot and in return it face planted, or would have if the face was still there. “Aim for the head!”, I yelled, though sure they’d put two and two together.

Another volley of bullets left all but two bodies headless as they continued walking, or in the case of two, crawling backward at us.

“Let’s do a little ammo conservation.”, I said, attaching the M4 to my back harness and unsheathing the wakizashi. Don and Aden held back as fire support since they had no melee weapons while Joe charged with the sledgehammer raised like a Scottish claymore and I kept eyes for only the farthest left one, which had stumbled a few yards away from the rest, and clothes-lined it through the torso with my sword. I was happy to see the thirteen grand I’d sunk into it paid off as it sliced through like butter. Smiling with morbid enjoyment I looked over in time to see Joe hit one so hard with the hammer in an upward swing that it lifted up and hit the ground with a satisfying smack. Taking a quick 360 turn I saw the legs of the one I’d cut was walking normally towards me and I had a flash back to the Black Knight in Monty Python.

“What are you going to do!?”, I exclaimed in a bad British accent, “Bleed on me!?”. Not wanting to find out what it would do I kicked out hard at the crotch and knocked it over, where it lay still.

“Look at that one Joel!” Aden yelled, pointing behind me. Turning I saw one of the backward women bent all the way down in a crabwalk, it’s hands were on the ground while the fingers walked across the pavement like two spiders, her face staring up at me from between its legs.

“Aden! Behind you!” I screamed, seeing a woman no more than 5 feet behind him. I had just enough time to look down and see mine, it was moving fast.

About the pace of a jogger.

For a moment I thought it was going to ass bump me as I’d made the mistake of staying where I was, too busy warning Aden. Right before running into me it reared up to its full height and used this momentum to grab me in a bear hug, bringing me to the ground as I shot my free hand forward and grasped it’s throat while the wakizashi clattered uselessly to the ground.

The skin was cold, slick, and I could feel the spine and various arteries and blood vessels against my bare fingertips before terror numbed my senses. Our faces were half an arm length apart and despite its look the bitch was strong and I was straining to keep it from pulling closer, even when a bullet lodged in the things side it’s desperate push to draw closer didn’t waver for a second. Arm shaking in effort and vision filled with the face of a cheerleader from hell, I didn’t think it could get much worse until the mouth stopped moving, opened wide, and the proboscis I’d seen from a distance was a lot closer and dripping rancid drool on my forehead.

With terror overtaking even the simplest thought, I screamed, not yelled, but screamed like a chain smoking hooker and threw the thing off one handed with the assistance of pure desperation. Looking left to right quickly I saw a pair of bluish-white feet stop next to me on the left. Following with my eyes, I found myself looking up at another emaciated bitch as she began her fall on top of me. Rolling to my right fast enough that only the head knocked into my arm, I removed my .45 and fired four rounds in quick succession into the top of its skull. The force of the shots alone pushed her a few feet from me as it struggled to stand up. Her arms thrashing ludicrously, while the blood and grey matter that hadn’t splattered on my body or the ground gushed out like a broken bottle of congealed wine. I realized my screams had turned into hoarse shouting of insults and obscenities through this whole ordeal. Saving what little had to remain of my vocal cords I shut up and put my palms on the ground, swung my feet under me and stood up in only a few seconds.

Seeing there was nothing directly in front of me I sprinted a good distance and turned to see Joe smashing in the face of the last one to still have its head, Don was wrestling with the one I’d warned Aden of while Aden himself tried to keep from being eaten. Rushing over I joined Don by grabbing the whore’s feet, between the both of us we pulled her from Aden and chucked it about two yards from us. It landed with a ‘thunk’ on the pavement and a hail of bullets from the three of us.

Breathing heavily, I viewed the now blood spattered, body strew street and drew the delicious smell of spoiled blood into my nostrils. I finally threw up what little had remained in my stomach and began to retch, sneeze, cough and keep my bladder from letting go.

Looking up, I saw Joe running over to me through the fresh carnage and twitching bodies.

“You bleeding?”, Aden asked, reloading the longslide.

“No.”, I gasped.

“We were fucked there for a bit.” Don said, looking back at the mess.

“Got over confident…shit.” I retched again and started laughing as I remembered those damn things face planting. I was laughing too hard to tell them why when the inevitable question came up but soon they were laughing just as hard and I felt like my throat was being raped with tack strips as my soul lightened. “Water.” I rasped when the laughing subsided, “Feel like I’m going to die.”

“You almost did”, Don handed me a bottle of water and I chugged it in one sitting

“So did you and Aden, where you trying to perform the Heimlich maneuver on that one?”

“The bitch scratched me up good.” Don had some good cuts on his neck and arms.

“Had to be one hell of a show though.” I threw the empty container down and collapsed on my ass while Don pulled out a first aid kit from his pack.

“Damn dude, it was insane.”, Aden replied, “...Fuck”

“Did we kill any?” I asked, pulling out a cigarette.

“Maybe two, the others are still kicking but can’t do shit now.”

“You’re fucking me!” I looked up at him in amazement and then to the street where a few of the bodies continued to flail their arms or work the legs back and forth.

“Maybe later.” Aden said in a gay voice, flipping a hand down.

“We should keep moving.”, Don said, his wounds now cleaned and covered, holding a hand down to me and pulling me to my feet when I took it.

“Legs feel like rubber.”, I said, they looked like it too, “Gotta take a piss, hold on.”. Retrieving my sword in preparation to unsheathe my other I walked over to a tree in an empty yard nearby and drained the vein, watching as something slouched around in the house and bumped into the curtained bay window with a hollow sound. “I’m good, lets go.”, I spoke quickly when I got back to the group.

“Is that another one in the house?”, Joe asked me, looking up at the window when another ‘bong’ sounded.

“Could be. Don’t care.” I started walking toward the burned out church, I’d had my fun for the time being and really wanted to get moving. As we passed in front of the church a silver cross shot through the air with enough force to stick in the asphalt on our right.

“Come on!”, Joe yelled in exasperation, “Give us a fucking break!”, as if something heard, nothing else happened when I pulled the cross out and pocketed it. We found the street ended at the intersection of Gimble, Harper, and Pine, Pine was the street we were currently on. Just a few yards down Gimble was a body laying spread eagle in a circle of gore with its ribcage popped open.

Walking closer I saw the glinting of metal in the misted sunlight, yes it was a clear, cold, bright day with only a few clouds in the sky. Surgical instruments lay scattered around the body with a large instrument that looked like a pair of pliers holding the ribcage open to expose an empty chest cavity.

“Damn, looks like they’ve already got universal healthcare in Perdition.” said Aden, kneeling over the dead guy, gender was made easy to identify by lack of pants or underwear. Looking over the ad hoc surgery, I say surgery because there wasn’t even a scrape on his body; the only visible damage was the split open chest. Even the skin had been carefully peeled back and folded over his sides and stomach.

“Looks like Ezekiel isn’t alone here.” Don concluded.

“Probably right.” Aden said offhandedly, inspecting the unknown killer’s work, “Whoever did this probably has medical training, everything is too precise and clean for even an autistic to pull off without at least some experience.”

“So old Doc Johnson went off the deep end after treating one too many booboos?”, I knelt down too and did my best to ignore the not too pleasant potpourri the body's gut was making as parting gift to the world, that was one thing about death I really didn’t look forward to. I’d be on my deathbed with a son or whoever holding my hand, everyone that loved and cared for me paying their last respects. I’d say my last words as everyone cried, upon passing an unsavory sound would commence and they’d all smell the air and know, ’yep, his last move in the game of life was to shit himself’. I’m not looking forward to that or it happening to my parents and loved ones when they go.

On the ground around us was a scalpel, forceps, a discarded pair of bloody latex gloves, and a few other surgical instruments I wasn’t familiar with, all caked with blood. It was almost like when the wanna be doctor was done using a tool he just tossed it to retrieve later and then never did.

“What happened to that reality where, you know,”, Don ran a hand over his head, “normal shit happened.”

“What?”, I looked up at him, “You mean that place where walking around armed to the teeth got you arrested and people actually died when you shot them?”

“I like this in some ways.”, Aden admitted, standing up and dusting off his non-dusty knees, “None of your usual retarded drama.”.

“What do you mean?”, I looked over at him, standing up myself.

“Spend a day with Ashley and the family.”

“Dude, after everything you’re happy to get away?”

“Somewhat, I’m not saying I wish they were gone, it’s just nice not getting yelled at because someone did something they don’t like and blah, blah, shut the fuck up.”, he rolled his eyes, speaking in a slightly exasperated tone, “But I’m thinking that it could happen again, losing them…probably going to move after all this.”

“Really?” I looked all around us to see the coast was clear, saddened by this thought.

“Some place out of the city, where shit like what happened back in KC doesn’t happen.”

“Well, I’m sure it’s a buyer’s market here in Perdition.”, Joe said.

“With the economic boost from Fort Shasta, Perdition has a bustling and always competitive housing market!”, our omnipresent tour guide boasted proudly, “With new projects every year it’s easier to find you and your family’s new home here in Perdition than picking out the furniture for it!”.

“Jesus.”, I muttered, putting my hand to my forehead.

“If you’re interested in becoming one of Perdition’s happy homeowners, please contact Meredith Jewels at Hot Sales Reality at the corner of Tulip and Pear street in the new downtown area!”

“Everyone is dead! How is there a ‘bustling and competitive housing market’!?”, I yelled at the voice, the sound of running footsteps started up from somewhere down Pine. “Oh you’re kidding…”, I said seriously, looking behind me.

“Why not ask some long term residents of our fair town!?”, the voice boomed happily as a large crowd comprised of the previously crucified bodies rounded the turn, coming into view. The wounds from where they’d had been nailed to the crosses sported small, shriveled arms ending in sharp, rusted nails from the wrists and ankles with an extra pair of feet protruding from the stomach. Running on these four legs, they looked like the severely disfigured prodigy of man and…well I don’t really fucking know, we didn’t feel the need and are just a little smarter than your average protagonists to stand there long enough and get a good look.

“Damn you disembodied voice!”, Joe yelled out as we took off down Gimble, running for our lives…again.

“Throw a grenade!” I screamed at Don, looking behind us to see the mob gaining.

“What?” Don yelled back to me, my extra weapons were indeed slowing me slightly.

“Throw a fucking grenade!”, I repeated, emptying the rest of my .45’s clip at the group, causing one to stumble and crash, now only about fifty or more left!

Bringing my view forward I thankfully saw Don pull the pin and chuck an H.E. behind us, I didn’t find much compulsion to see where it landed. Pushing myself harder I could imagine my legs turning bright orange from how much they were burning. A loud ‘thwump!’ sounded behind us and an arm sailed over my head, jumping it seconds later I came even with Don but still lagging behind Aden and Joe as we passed the road to the tenements with the crowd still coming up.

I wondered if we would be stabbed to death, eaten…hung up on our own cross? Maybe a mix of the three in some order or another. The idea of my bowels loosening while hanging on a cross just seemed a little sacrilegious so I hoped we’d be stabbed and eaten before crucified.

This short order of events happened within a few minutes, lungs burning, legs on fire, I’m sure a lovely rash was developing between my legs, and we had no idea on how to lose the group much less outrun them.

“As you can see, we’re always ecstatic to bring more people into our little community.” the stampede behind us ceased and we continued forward, not trusting any of it, “But we believe everyone should take in the ‘full experience’ of Perdition first.”. Looking back, the crowd was gone, only a few limbs and one twitching body remained.

“Hold up!” I expended the last bit of breath I had, coming to a halt and fighting for air. My chain smoking was starting to show, but then again, I never would have imagined doing this. Stumbling over to the sidewalk I sat down heavily as the others stopped running some distance from me.

“We good!?” Don yelled back to me.

“Are you kidding!?” I wheezed back, doubtful that they heard me. As they walked over I reloaded my colt, stashing the empty magazine in fresh one’s vacated spot. I was sitting a few feet from the turn onto Frost Street; we were more than halfway to Ezekiel’s now.

“Let’s go inside, recoup”, Aden advised through labored breathing. I looked at the building behind me; it was an old bail bond shop, Buddy’s Bail Bonds, Jesus…

I stood up slowly, completely exhausted now, while Aden opened the door. The place smelled like fungus and vomit with a single florescent flickering intermediately but still giving sufficient light to the place. It was as trashed as the Nazi house, shit flung everywhere, papers, two desks overturned, a few cheap plastic chairs broken in pieces, and there was a computer wedged into the back wall. I walked up to one of the desks, which lay on its side in the middle of the room, pushed it upright to use as a bench, pushed it against the front door, and collapsed on top of it.

“I’m ready to stay off the streets now.” Don said, breathing heavily as he leaned against the wall to my right.

“Sounds good.”, Aden replied, already drawing on a lit smoke and coughing every two or three puffs while looking out the front window. Joe had taken a seat on the end of the desk that my body didn’t occupy and stared at the floor silently.

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