Welsh shore, a middle-aged balding man named Tim stood on the deserted beach. He’d come to the shore today to think, to ponder his latest career move. He had a cottage perched on a cliff high over the shore. However, he liked to sit on a rock twenty feet from the shore and let his mind wander. His career was in a standstill and he was unsure of what to do. He was so into his thoughts that he almost didn’t see the Clickers come storming out of the ocean. When they did, they swarmed over the man and reduced him to a pile of bubbling flesh from their highly toxic stings, making it easier for them to scoop their bloody congealed meal into their beaked mandibles.
Tim did not reanimate, for there was nothing left of his body to come back.
The sea churned as yet more of the creatures surfaced. The smallest was the size of a sheep. The biggest was nearly three-stories tall. Seawater streamed off its carapace. It clutched the carcass of a marlin in its pincers. The dead fish flapped and struggled, trying to get away.
San Francisco, California
The battle between the living and the dead inside the Black Lodge building raged for just under an hour. Ob and his fellow Siqqusim made quick, violent work of the security detail. Once the initial commandos inside the Remote Viewing room were dead, their bodies were possessed, just as Abigail and the others had been. The difference was that these Siqqusim now had weapons and armor. They poured out into the hallway and cut down a second emergency response team that had just converged on the scene. Adding to their numbers and weaponry, they then made their way through the building, floor by floor, exterminating every living being—from the Black Lodge operatives who fought or fled to the aquarium full of fish they discovered in one office. As each one died, they rose again, a host shell for another Siqqusim.
The slaughter continued. Throats were slashed, cut or torn out. Veins were opened. Limbs were severed, and then used as weapons to beat other humans to death. Using a letter opener, Ob sliced open the belly of a victim and strangled her with her own intestines. Moments later, when the corpse reanimated, it tore the innards free so they wouldn’t hamper its mobility. The zombies killed—and fed. It wasn’t that they needed to eat—at least, not while in their spiritual form. But still, they needed energy, and when they took over these empty corpses, that energy was drawn from food. Eating the living served three purposes. First, it was an affront upon the Creator, who had banished them to the Void eons before. Secondly, it allowed them to convert the flesh to energy while in human form, even if their host body no longer had a digestive system, since their kind processed energy by a different method. Finally, it served as yet another way of killing humans, dispatching their souls so that another Siqqusim could take over the bodies.
The Black Lodge operatives fought back with weapons and more esoteric defenses. But while circles of protection and binding spells slowed the zombies down, and while explosive rounds and grenades destroyed their physical forms, the dead ultimately won the battle due to their sheer numbers. Only the destruction of a corpses’ brain would successfully dispatch a Siqqusim, because that was where they resided. Blowing them up didn’t work. Even with no legs or arms, they still proved determined and deadly. They moved and operated with a singular purpose—the extermination of every living soul.
And once they had succeeded, they poured out into the streets of the city, and began the slaughter all over again. Their numbers grew.
The scene was repeated slowly around the world. All across the globe, the dead began to rise. Felled by heart attacks or cancer or automobile accidents or murder, death was not the end. One by one, they rose again, and joined in the killing.
FOUR
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
It was easier to call home by
Tim did not reanimate, for there was nothing left of his body to come back.
The sea churned as yet more of the creatures surfaced. The smallest was the size of a sheep. The biggest was nearly three-stories tall. Seawater streamed off its carapace. It clutched the carcass of a marlin in its pincers. The dead fish flapped and struggled, trying to get away.
San Francisco, California
The battle between the living and the dead inside the Black Lodge building raged for just under an hour. Ob and his fellow Siqqusim made quick, violent work of the security detail. Once the initial commandos inside the Remote Viewing room were dead, their bodies were possessed, just as Abigail and the others had been. The difference was that these Siqqusim now had weapons and armor. They poured out into the hallway and cut down a second emergency response team that had just converged on the scene. Adding to their numbers and weaponry, they then made their way through the building, floor by floor, exterminating every living being—from the Black Lodge operatives who fought or fled to the aquarium full of fish they discovered in one office. As each one died, they rose again, a host shell for another Siqqusim.
The slaughter continued. Throats were slashed, cut or torn out. Veins were opened. Limbs were severed, and then used as weapons to beat other humans to death. Using a letter opener, Ob sliced open the belly of a victim and strangled her with her own intestines. Moments later, when the corpse reanimated, it tore the innards free so they wouldn’t hamper its mobility. The zombies killed—and fed. It wasn’t that they needed to eat—at least, not while in their spiritual form. But still, they needed energy, and when they took over these empty corpses, that energy was drawn from food. Eating the living served three purposes. First, it was an affront upon the Creator, who had banished them to the Void eons before. Secondly, it allowed them to convert the flesh to energy while in human form, even if their host body no longer had a digestive system, since their kind processed energy by a different method. Finally, it served as yet another way of killing humans, dispatching their souls so that another Siqqusim could take over the bodies.
The Black Lodge operatives fought back with weapons and more esoteric defenses. But while circles of protection and binding spells slowed the zombies down, and while explosive rounds and grenades destroyed their physical forms, the dead ultimately won the battle due to their sheer numbers. Only the destruction of a corpses’ brain would successfully dispatch a Siqqusim, because that was where they resided. Blowing them up didn’t work. Even with no legs or arms, they still proved determined and deadly. They moved and operated with a singular purpose—the extermination of every living soul.
And once they had succeeded, they poured out into the streets of the city, and began the slaughter all over again. Their numbers grew.
The scene was repeated slowly around the world. All across the globe, the dead began to rise. Felled by heart attacks or cancer or automobile accidents or murder, death was not the end. One by one, they rose again, and joined in the killing.
FOUR
Lancaster, Pennsylvania
It was easier to call home by
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