Chapter 8:
The Thing

Creak-Creak. It rode slowly toward him from the tunnel exit. Just as it had before. It pulled up next to him
and stopped. Jack looked in dead fright at it.

It was on a bicycle. An old 1954 black bike. On it was a cloaked and hooded figure. The cloak covered every
part of the creature except his hands, which revealed long, knarled, decayed flesh-covered fingers.
The hood kept a dark hole over it's face. Jack shivered to think was behind that black hole...

{thoughtt youu could get away....that easssily, did you?}
  Jack didn't move or speak
{no matter. I think you maddde a veryy bad choicccce, by avoiding deattthhh, no?}
  "W-ww-w-h-h-y?"
{well, deattthhh would have sssset youu ffffree of the horror that now awaitssss you.}
  "W-hat-?"
{Do you not sssee? Powers are at hand farrr greater thannn you could everrrr imgaine...}
  Jack's eyes widened as the truth of it sank in.
  "What pow-ers?-?"
{MINE!}

As these last words were spoken, it pulled back its hood. The mangled, knarled flesh upon it's head let off a
horrid, putrid stench. The flesh was raw and bloody. A maggot crawled out of it's ear, up the side of the head,
and dissipeared into the thing's cranium. Blood squished out around the eye-balls everytime it blinked. It's rot-
ten teath had baby cockroaches on them.

{Welcome to heaven, Jack!}
{You see, when that foolish Dr. Franklin began fiddling with the powers of life and death, he didn't realize what
it was he was messing with

Dr. Franklin? Who is.....oh, maybe he means the doctor who runs the nut house up on the hill above the Rock-
well Pumping Station. Powers of life and death, wha....

{Jack! are we paying attention? Good. Anywhow, he began conducting experiments on the

he is no longer stuttering

graves in the cemetary behind his secret lab. When he succeded in raising a dead body, he began to delve deeper.
He began ressurecting new corpses and old corpses. Then he began cutting off patients body parts and bringing
them to life. Now he seeks to create his own race, and bring them to life. But, during one of his experiments, he
unknowingly amplified the ray a hundered and one times over, sending it accross the countryside in a series of
lightning bursts. It began turning close range people--the ones in the town mainly--into zombies, and the dead
rising all over. Thus he has created a race of living dead!!}

"What are you?"

{Me?? Why, silly boy, I am the Judgement. I am the master of these creatures you call heathen. They do my
bidding

how could be above them

and kill whomever I wish killed.}

"How are you above them? What made you?"

{That my boy, is not for you to know. But enough of this chit-chat. Time

there must be some reason he kept his intellegence

for a little fun and games. What do you want to play? How about

and what was that other--super zombie--thing in the catacombs

Pleasent Nightmares! Yes that is a very fun one. Now if

a FlesHorder it was called. How did I know that

you will just stand still like a good boy, we will play. Very

a Judgement? How is it that he came into command

good Jack! Here we go!}

A tingling came over Jack. Suddenly, his vision went black. A voice came on in his head. {Ok Jack. Here
comes fun, pleasent nightmare #1!}


~The beach was a long white edging, like a flirt of a silk slip at the hem of the bright blue sea, and it was
totally empty except for a round object about seventy yards away. This round object was about the size
of a basketball, and it filled Jack with a fear that was both deep and---for the moment---groundless.
    Don't go near it, he told himself. There's something bad about it. Something really bad. It's a black dog
barking at a blue moon, blood in the sink, a raven perched on a bust of Pallas just inside my chamber door.
You don't want to go near it, Jack, and you don't need to go near it. You can just turn and cruise away, if
you want.
    Except his feet began to carry him forward. The closer he got to the object, the less it looked like a
basketball. He could feel the fine, loose sand under his bare feet, warm but not hot; he could hear the
grinding, rock-throated roar of the incoming waves as they lost their balance and sprawled their way
up the lower beach, where the sand glistened like wet, tanned skin; could smell the salt and dry-seaweed.
This is too real.
    He had closed half the distance to the object on the beach and there was no longer any question about
what it was-----not a basketball, but a head. Someone had buried a human up to the chin in the sand.....and,
Jack suddenly realized, the tide was coming in.
    He began to run. As he did, the frothy edge of a wave touched the head. It opened its mouth and began
to scream. Even raised in a shriek, Jack knew that voice at once. It was Einar's voice.
    The froth of another wave ran up the beach and back-washed the hair which had been clinging to the head's
brow. Jack began to run faster, knowing he was almost certainly going to be too late. The tide was coming
in fast. It would drown him long before Jack could free the buried body from the sand.
    You don't have to save him, Jack. Einar is already dead, and it didn't happen on some deserted beach. It
happened on the floor of your cabin when a hunger-crazy monster tore him apart. Remember?
    He did remember, but he ran faster nevertheless, sending puffs of sugery sand out behind him.
    He was getting closer to the dark shape in the sand. When his shadow fell on him, Einar's eyes rolled up
like the eye's of a horse that has shattered it's leg going over a high fence. He was breathing in rapid, frightened
gasps, and each expulsion of air sent jets of gray-black snot from his nostrils.
    I'll save you, Einar!! he shouted. He fell on his knees and began digging at the sand around him like a zombie
tearing up a body.....and as the thought occured to him, he realized that a zombie was bent over behind his
buried friend. It was almost as if it had been summoned by the thought. In its claws it held Jack's shotgun.
    So that's were that shotgun went, Jack thought, then turned back to Einar and began to dig even faster. So
far he hadn't even managed to uncover a single shoulder
    Never mind me! Einar screamed at him. I'm already dead remember? But maybe I wouldn't be if you hadn't
spent so long hunting, you---
    A wave, glassy green on the bottom and the curdled white of soapsuds on top, broke less than ten feet from
the beach. It ran up the sand toward them, freezing Jack's balls with cold water, and burying Einar's head moment-
tarily in a grit-filled surge of foam. When the wave retreated, Jack raised his own horror-filled shriek to the
indifferent blue sky. When Einar's head had resurfaced, it had began showing spots of flesh and bone. He was
zombifying.
    Einar! he howled, digging even faster. The sand was now dank and unpleasently heavy.
    Never mind, Einar said. It's just the hunger is so great. I hunger Jack. I can't help it. I want your brains Jack. I
hunger for your brains.
    Einar, you don't know what you're talking about!
    Another wave came, wetting Jack to the waist and inundating Einar again. When it withdrew, the flesh on his
head was beginning to split open.
    Yes I do Jack. You'll find out soon enough, Einar replied, and then the flesh on his head popped with a sound
like a hammer striking a slab of meat, and his head sprang open. A haze of blood flew into the clear, salt-smelling
air, and a horde of black bugs the size of cock-roaches came pouring out of him. Jack had never seen anything like
them before--not even in a nightmare--and they filled him with an almost hysterical loathing. He would have fled,
Einar or not, but he was frozen in place, too stunned to move a single finger, let alone get up and run.
    Some of the black bugs ran back into Einar by way of his screaming mouth, but most of them hurried down his
cheek and shoulder to the wet sand. Their accusing, alien eyes never left Jack as they went. All this is your fault,
the eyes seemed to say. You could have saved him, Jack, and a better man would have saved him.
    Einar! he screamed. He put his hands out to him, then pulled them back, terrified of the black bugs, which were
still spewing out of his head. Behind Einar, the zombie looked at Jack, waving his shotgun back and forth like a
pendulum.
    One of Einar's eyes popped out and lay on the wet sand like a blob of blueberry jelly. Bugs vomited from the
now empty socket.

Einar! he screamed. Einar! Einar! Ein---

to be continued...

Chapter 9: The Awakening