Undead Rising

This is a re-post of an old post I did back in 2016, and serves as the sequel to Trail of the Undead.

As tired as he was, he could not shake the terror that overwhelmed him.  Sitting there staring at his book shelf he could not help but wonder nightmare he walked into.  His hands were shaking, his legs kept pumping up and down as if he were running, and sweat poured from his forehead.  What was this madness he fathomed?  Book after book based on all his previous adventures he read, The Time Machine, Frankenstein, Dracula… the list continued.  His hand gripped the edge of his chair as he heard the scratching once again.  It came from the other room, the sound of nails upon wood.  He closed his eyes once again shutting out the dim light of the lamp.  His head slumped back and his eyes rolled open to look at the rainy afternoon.  What was this horror he unleashed?  

He stood up, walked over to the wall, and pressed his ear against the plaster.  The moaning carried on, the scratching continued.  He could his sister in pure agony.  He shut his eyes only to see those red oculars staring back at him from the night before.  The hunched back, the dark silhouette, the menacing breathing.  It had gone after the one he cared about most.  Now it seemed this figure had placed something upon his sister.  Some type of curse, a disease.  She had been drained this morning as she refused to come out of her room.  Every once and a while he heard her call out into the darkness some gibberish.  

He gained enough courage to enter her room.  The door swung open slowly.  The house had been eerily cold, her room especially.  The putrid smell of decay overwhelmed him as he noticed his sister lying on her daybed, huffing and puffing.  He wanted to speak her name, but he feared that the moaning would return.  Instead he stepped toward her silently, her heavy breathing cutting through the rancid odor.  It had been coming from her.  He looked down at his sibling, her pale face scrunched up buried deep into the pillow.  The cold sweat beaded down her cheeks as he stared endlessly.  Her eyes were closed, dark plush bags started to form under them.  Her chest rose and fell with each passing breath.  It was as if she was dying.  The figure did this, he thought.  The looming masquerade from the previous night.  Her usual self was so vibrant and unique.  Her jovial etiquette was no more, replaced by some depressing force.  

He gathered his strength to turn her head to the side to notice a gash on the side of her neck.  Two distinct marks close to her jugular.  He gasped lightly catching his breath.  He had to make sure he did not wake her.  Pretty soon the moaning will start again, and her fingers would scratch the wooden pillars of her daybed.  He had never seen anything like this.  What could take life?  Something, or someone had been in her room last night and made her this way.  She lay there completely helpless, with all life wasted away into frivolous thought.  His eyes closed and he spoke the Lord’s prayer to himself hoping whatever solace there was would find her.  

He left the room only to walk downstairs into the kitchen.  Opening the fridge he poured himself a glass of orange juice.  He needed something with sugar to pick up his spirits.  The house remained gloomy with barely any lights on.  No one was home except for him and his sickly sister.  He went to the bay window and peeked outside.  The wind howled and the rain tumbled down.  The grayish scene danced before him as the storm refused to settle down.  There in the backyard was the tree they had played on, with a single swing hanging from a strong branch.  Countless days were spent where he had swung his sister when she was just a child.  She forced him to push faster and higher.  She would laugh and squeal with delight, her smile broadening.  All of it seemed like yesterday when they would run through the sprinklers with their swimming suits on.  Or they would get out the Slip n’ Slide and see how far they could go before the latex mat ended.  Now the haunting day took over as he stared at the branch with the swing.  The wooden branch was so strong.  It had so many memories, so many good ones.  They would climb up the tree, sit on the branch, and they would laugh.  The solid branch held both of them.  The branch held the weight.  It had so much weight.  It was strong, like the bond between them.  So much weight, so much power, he thought.  

Quickly he dashed to the garage.  Stumbling through oddities and belongings he found the hack saw.  He knew he had to do something.  Something was stirring inside his mind, something had to be done.  The branch held so much weight, so much power.  Opening the back door he stormed out into the heavy blistering rain.  Pellets immediately soaked his shirt.  His eyes were wide and full with thought.  He walked over the tree as if a lumber jack was on a mission.  His hair damp as he climbed up the side, one by one his hands gripped the wet prodded surface.  He made it to the branch, the thickest part of it.  With the hack saw he began to cut, slow at first but increasing with every sound of thunder.  The sky bellowed over and over again as he moved his arm back and forth, the saw making a well balanced incision.  It must have taken him an hour for the branch to fall, but it felt like a lifetime.  The swing crashed against the grass but could barely be heard from all the thundering.  Jumping down to the ground, he scooped up the branch and violently walked to the side of the house.  Reaching inside the door, he pressed the button to open the garage, and he lugged the branch inside away from the rain.  

He dragged the heavy piece of wood over to the work bench.  Lazily lifting it up, he started to cut once again, this time into many foot-long pieces.  All dreary afternoon he worked on making countless foot after foot wooden beams.  After every one, he shaved off the bark with a kitchen knife.  He made sure every one was as smooth as a baby’s bottom.  Towards the end the knife had been made blunt by the countless strokes of shaving.  Eagerly he went to go get another one, and this time he started to sharpen the foot-long slabs on one end.  Each wooden beam became a sharpened stake, he must have made at least a dozen of them from the branch.  Every time one was made a sigh was released, a relief.  He thought long and hard of where he might put these stakes.  Rummaging through the garage some more, he found his father’s old workout bag.  One by one they were thrown in the bag, one by one he felt satisfaction, one by one he was closer to finally completing what must be done.  

Over three hours lapsed and the rain still droned on.  He kept the garage door open for ventilation, and due to the rain, nobody ever wondered what he was doing alone his in his garage.  Each and every person kept to themselves on this murky day, locked safely inside their houses, unaware of the horror that was happening right in their neighborhood.  Completely ignorant of the darkness occurring in one single household.  Completely belligerent  of one man’s journey into hell.  After the long grueling task, he had to relax so he pulled out a lonely cigarette from the pack in his jean pocket.  Lighting it up, he inhaled the profuse nicotine, coughing a bit.  His arms ached, felt like slabs of frying bacon, all pliable.  His strength dwindled as he took another drag, feeling the smoke enter his lungs.  But this time he didn’t cough, he exhaled almost perfectly.  Soon, the time had to be soon.

His close were perfectly dry when he entered the house.  The sweat had drained, his muscles were slowly coming back to life.  After a moment or two in the family room, he heard the moans again.  And the scratching came back louder than before.  This time it echoed throughout the house.  His eyes turned up the stairway only to stare down the empty hallway.  He flicked on the light switch to illuminate his ascension into madness.  The duffel bag was flung over his one shoulder, he could feel the weight of all those stakes he had sharpened.  Was he really going to do this?  Could he really do this?  His head shook with thoughts of his little sister in mind.  Her innocence.  Her lively spirit.  

He moved up the stairs one at a time, each step his breathing became thicker and longer.  The rumbling of the AC turning on startled him as he approached his room.  There on his bed he threw the duffel bag.  Opening it up, he drew out one single stake.  He brushed the tip of it with his finger, making sure it was indeed sharp.  A hush fell upon him as he went to his desk.  Opening up the drawer, he shuffled to find the rosary he had since grammar school.  He placed the rosary around his neck, thinking that it would give him any personal will power he had.  Huffing and puffing again came from his sister’s room, this time the moaning turned into low whispered growls.  Somehow she knew.  She knew what her brother was doing, and he was not sure if these growls were some sort of defense.  He hoped the deep groans would stop as he approached  the outside of her door, but they did not yield.  

The door creaked open, a deadly scent emanating caught him shockingly.  His eyes blurred, and his head rocked back and forth.  As he pushed the door open all the way, he could have swore he saw his sister standing beside her bed.  But his mind was in a complete haze, he wasn’t sure if it was her, or the lurking figure from the night before.  The scent drove his nostrils wild, and the putrid allure gave him a headache.  He could see her eyes, those deep inset darkened eyes.  At first they seemed like her normal brown gaze, but they held a reddish glare.  They stared at him, and momentarily he felt dizzy and confused.  The stake in his hand dropped, and his hand quickly grabbed the crucifix dangling from his neck.  Silently he repeated the Lord’s prayer again as he fainted.  

Hours later he awoke in his own bed, his sheets damp underneath his body.  His pillow was covered in a light sheen.  As he rose, he clutched his forehead, still feeling confused on what happened.  He eagerly sat up, his arms dangling loosely at his sides.  He had no strength to lift them, but his head rose upwards to stretch his muscles.  He let out a yawn, and his arms came to life.  There was no dreaming.  No conscious thought.  No side effects to what he could not remember happening.  The stake that he dropped in her room rested on his night stand as well as the rosary.  He touched the spot on his neck where he remembered he wore it.  He wondered if he had taken it off or not.  Or maybe someone did it for him. 

 

A thump came from the adjacent room, and his eyes darted toward the wall.  Once again he placed an ear against it and listened.  This time he could not hear his sister, instead he heard a shuffling of footsteps.  It sounded like mice scattering.  Heavy breathing suddenly erupted, but it had not been his sister’s, it was someone else.  Had the figure come back?  Was it this thing that brought him back to his room?  Whatever this thing was, it was after his sister again.  The horror plagued him again, he dare not to look in her room once more.  Tears started to form around his eyes as he heard his sister panting.  Her breaths seemed so distant and far away.  He could hear her bed buckle, the springs letting out the sound of someone laying down.  One gasp was heard, then another.  His fists clenched as he knew whatever this thing was was hurting his sister, making her sick.  He grabbed the rosary in his fingertips as he decided to lay back on his bed.  The panting of his sister continued as he started to pray, his eyes swelling.  The terror folded up inside his stomach.  The gut wrenching nightmare returned to his mind.  Something was terribly wrong here.  That was the first night when he cried himself to sleep.  

The following morning there was nothing but silence.  A vague tone of blackness unveiled itself.  His heart was at a nice pace, a steady rhythm.  He heard footsteps coming from the hallway outside his door.  Someone was crying, it had been his sister.  He arose from his slumber and walked into her bedroom.  His mother knelt over her, pressing a cold moist towel against her sister’s head.  This time she looked even more ghostly, her dim eyes staring up, tears falling.  His mother’s head turned and shook her head gesturing that the fever had taken its toll.  She placed a dish of dry bread and orange juice on the stand next to the day bed.  His sister refused to eat, her lips parched and chapped, barely breathing.  What a horrific scene.  What a terrible turn of events.  

The mother walked out of the room letting her son spend time with her.  He did not cry, did not shed a tear.  He lowered to his sister’s side and cupped her hand.  Her skin had been ice cold as if death crawled up beside her.  He smiled and his sister grinned back.  Her eyes fluttered a bit, sleep was taking effect.  In that moment he remembered when his parents introduced him to his new sister.  How she cried herself to sleep at night, and instead of one of his parents coming in to woo her to sleep, he would pat his baby sister’s back until she passed out.  Here she was, so helpless and afraid.  He turned her head once more, the marks on her neck seemed larger than before.  She pushed his hand away violently when he came in to touch them.  Her eyes a burning fire.  He remembered now, that she was standing on her own last night.  That damning glare, that haunting look, it returned.  She snarled a bit, her lips curling upright.  He could of swore those were her teeth, sharpened at the end, devilishly white.  

Then she cowered back once she saw the rosary around his neck.  Her head rocked from side to side, her breaths deep and overbearing.  The sound of whimpering began to echo from her mouth.  She cried once more as she gripped her brother’s hand.  She gasped out the words “Help me,” and he knew what he had to do tonight.  It was a needle digging into his brain, a fearsome force to be tampered with.  In his right mind could he do it, could he end her suffering? 

He waited all day, rocking back and forth on the lazy boy chair in their front room.  The television drowned out all the silence from before.  Nothing good on.  He flipped through channels left and right, down and up.  His mind probing his next move, signifying on what had to be done.  Nothing amused him at all.  He did not feel drained or weak, only a sense of alertness filled him.  All day he pondered, reading from the family bible that was tucked away in the den.  He flipped through insightful passages, taking note on spiritual warfare, demons, the devil.  Was this what it was like?  To do battle against the ungodly.  His mind jolted back to where he was, caught within his own delusional self-abasement.  Night was drawing near.  The clocks rang eight.  

A shrouding aura surrounded her room, one that reeked of death.  A death grip held on tight to her soul.  Only now he had to release it.  He brought four things with him, a rosary, the bible, one sharpened steak, and a rubber mallet he borrowed from his dad’s tool box.  At once he entered her room once again, that same old stench wreaked from her.  He thought he could see her breath, her chest heaving up and then back down.  She lie there motionless unaware of him at the moment.  His eyes gazed upon her young body, a teenager wrapped up in tight darkened cocoon.  Her eyes closed shut, the bags underneath them now glistened.  Her lips were luscious now, tinged with a reddish blue.  She looked practically like a corpse.  

He placed the bible beside her bed, and he started to repeat Psalm 24 which he decided to memorize.  “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures…”  Her eyes started to flutter open, her head turning toward her brother.  “He leads me beside the still waters.  He restores my soul; he leads me in the paths of righteousness…” Her mouth opened, those teeth snarling at his spoken words.  “…for His name’s sake.”  A single hand came up to her blouse, unbuttoning the top few buttons.  His eyes stared directly at her own.  That blood shot hue bore right into him.  And just as the previous night, his head began to daze.  His sight seemed foggy, and he started to become lightheaded.  She undid the top of her blouse only to let her cleavage bounce out and tantalize him.  His eyes moved down toward her two mounds of flesh as he deliciously licked his lips.  

“You want me, you need me…” His sister whispered so sweetly.   A direct impact to seduce her older brother.  At first his head moved down, wanting to bury it into her flesh.  But somewhere in the recesses of his mind, rational thought stumbled to and fro.  He shook off the haze he had been locked into, and he pushed her back onto the bed violently with both arms extending towards her shoulders.  A screech let out from her vile mouth, this time her teeth were nothing but fierce fangs that were thirsty.  Grasping the stake with his right hand, he shoved it in her chest.  Another scream bellowed out from her.  He got on top of her twisting body and pressed all his weight down on the stake.  It drove in deeper into her chest, crimson pools oozing out at the sides.  She started to cough up blood, her chest convulsing to the pressure.  With his other hand he grabbed the mallet, and started to hammer the stake in further.  Each pound let out another terrifying moan, the sheets were now red with blood.  Her head violently pitched upwards, lunging at his neck, but he dodged with another whack of the mallet.  Slowly but surely her eyes rolled into the back of her skull, her head bobbing, and her breathing slowed.  He rolled off the bed as he watched her body twitch with signs of life fading.  Standing above her, he made the sign of the cross with his rosary.  He wanted her to have peace.  Her suffering would no longer last.  Not only was the curse lifted, but he no longer smelled the scent of death.  It smelled of atonement, of righteousness, of God’s good grace. 

Her body crashed after a moment or two of sporadic spurts of motion.  Her head dangled to one side, her eyes shut completely.  Slumber was now upon her again, this time the final slumber.  She had been at peace.  Her eyes no longer held that puffy look, the reddish lips were now pale, and the marks on her throat had disappeared.  He knelt beside her and began to cry.  Tears of sadness and pain, and some relief was felt throbbing through his back bone.  He huddled over her and gave her a slight hug.  “I love you.”  That was all he could say. 

 

An hour later he dragged out a large black plastic bag to his car.  Opening the trunk, he lifted the trash bag with as much strength as he had.  The car moved up and down to the way he stuffed the bag inside.  A handmade wooden cross that had been tied together was also thrown in the trunk, making sure that the dead remained dead and sealed.  He grabbed a couple of his belongings, his father’s duffel bag, now filled with a bible, a saw, and a mallet, and a much larger duffel bag holding his clothes.  Throwing them in the back seat he could not help but wonder where he would bury his sister’s remains.  He had a heavy burden now, the darkness took its toll on him.  Starting up the car, he placed the rosary on his rearview mirror, his eyes glancing over it.  He thought of his fear, and his anguish.  He thought of a time before when his sister had been the light of his world.  He thought of his parents who would be bewildered by the scene left in their daughter’s room.  He had to do this, it had been stoked upon him.  One day he would see her again.  Sometime and someplace where he could be reunited with her.  Hopefully that place would be heaven.  

Author's Note

I posted this about 8 years ago and somehow the link does not work so I re-posted it just in case anyone is interested.