Redemption of the Dead (8 page)

Screaming, she cried out. “Help! Help
me!”

No one came to her rescue. There was
no one here.

Shaking, she
hit the ground, the impact sending a shockwave of pain through her
body. Her muscles cramped, her bones felt like the marrow had been
replaced with fire. Shrieking, she sat up and the pain suddenly
left her.

Gasping,
Billie choked on the dry air around her, like the hot air of a
sauna. The stone ground she sat on was uncomfortably warm and the
longer she sat on it, the hotter it got until sweat broke out
across her body. She went to touch her skin, to see if there was
any damage, but there wasn’t any. Her skin was dry, too, no
moisture on it despite feeling otherwise. Breathing growing
irregular, she got to her feet and was dismayed her right leg and
arm were still unusable. They didn’t hurt like before, but she
couldn’t get them to move no matter how hard she tried.

“Hello?” she called into the darkness.
“What is this place? Where am I?”

A haunting presence grew behind her
and her body locked as fear took over.

“You’re in
Hell,” the presence said, its voice low, airy and scratchy. “You
are in Hell, Billie.”

Screaming,
she tried to run away, at best managing a swift limp, dragging her
bad leg as she scrambled to get away along the hot ground. With
darkness all around and not knowing which way was what nor what
might be around her, she instinctively moved with trepidation,
slowing herself even more despite not wanting to. Something was
behind her. She didn’t hear anything, but knew for certain the
thing that just spoke to her was right at her heels.

“Come back here!” it shouted, its
voice carrying on the darkness like an echo in a cave.

Was that it? Was she in a cave? Maybe she
was
alive and—she didn’t know—went through some underwater
tunnel only to surface in a cave?

But she knew it wasn’t true. It wasn’t a thought or an
emotion, but a deep, raw
knowledge
down in her
soul. She
was
dead and she was in Hell.

Why Hell?
She was a good person. Sure, she made mistakes like everyone else,
but she didn’t kill anyone, didn’t rob a bank. The only killing she
ever did was swat mosquitoes and shoot zombies with a nail
gun.

“You deserve to be here,” the presence
said.

Its words traveled deep within her, echoed throughout her
being. It was true. She
did
deserve to be
here.

Ahead, a faint orange glow rose in the
distance. The closer she got, the more its sound became clear.
Despite being at least a half kilometer away, most likely more, she
heard the harsh roar of the flames and even began to feel the heat
emanating off them, compounding the pronounced heat already on the
air around her.

“Run, Billie, run,” the voice
said.

Her one good
leg picked up speed. Strangely, she wasn’t out of breath like she
thought she’d be, but yet she was frustrated at not being able to
breathe against the searing hot air that had grown in temperature
since her arrival.

“Run.”

Shrieking, she kept going, not wanting
to turn around and not wanting to run into the fire up
ahead.

Scaly creatures began to materialize
against the orange glow, their bodies bony silhouettes against the
haunting light.

Billie
didn’t need to be up close to know what they were. She first saw
them the day they went to the past.

Demons.

They were the ones behind the rise of
the undead. They were the forces truly at work.

Panicking,
she turned left, trying to avoid both the creature behind and the
creatures in front.

“Help!” she
shrieked. “Help me!” The thing behind her kept chasing her; it also
seemed to be keeping its distance, maintaining its authority by
grunting and growling, causing her to be too afraid to turn around
and look. “Is anyone else here?”

“You a
re alone,
Billie. Alone with us. We will kill you slowly over and
over.”

Overwhelmed
by fear, her legs gave out beneath her and she fell to the hot
stone ground. She reached out along the stone and tried to pull
herself along its surface. It was impossible. Her skin couldn’t
rest against the stone for any length of time before
burning.

Quivering
and crying, Billie tried to stand, but her feet wouldn’t get under
her.

“I won’t look back, I won’t look
back,” she said.

“Look back, Billie. Look back. LOOK AT
ME!”

She had to listen. The thing would
destroy her if she didn’t.

“Help . . .” she groaned.

Her eyes settled on someone in the
distance. A man. He looked . . . familiar. The presence that had
followed her was still there, but didn’t come upon her. In the
distance, back near the flames, the demons were still headed in her
direction.

But that
man. He was so . . . he wore a trench coat. His head was
shaved.

“No,” she said. “No. He can’t . . . not . . . JOE!”
He’s dead, too? He’s here?
“Joe, it’s me, Billie. Can you hear
me? I can’t move, Joe. Help!”

“No one can hear you,
”
the evil voice said.

“Shut up!”
The words came out before she had time to think them
over.

“Don’t talk to me like that!” the
voice said.

A split
second later, she felt like she’d been whipped with a chain. Hot
lashes laced across her skin. Wounds burning, she put out a
trembling hand to see how bad it was. She was shocked there was no
blood, and her skin . . . her skin was dry, brittle.
Dead.

Joe was in
the darkness, some of the creatures coming toward him as a
hurricane of others flew all around and ascended at rapid
speed.

“Joe!”

“QUIET!” the voice boomed.

Another hot
lash of chain sliced across her skin. Billie shrieked, cried,
screamed for Joe. The hot chain struck her again. She bit her lip
against the agony. Why wasn’t he responding? Why couldn’t he see
her if she could see him?

Billie
called out to him, told him to look out. He didn’t acknowledge
her.

The
creatures pounced on Joe.

The chain sliced her legs and back. Hot pain rolled up and
down her body. The creatures near the fire
drew closer.

A blinding
white light up ahead lit up the darkness as it streaked from
somewhere high above and cut through the black abyss like lightning
through a stormy sky. The light materialized beside Joe, all the
while fending off the creatures. The thing’s movements were so
quick and precise, the creatures didn’t stand a chance. A moment
later, the strange being grabbed Joe and the two streaked upward,
the remaining demons following suit.

The being’s light faded against the
dark, Joe gone with it.

“Joe . . .” she said, her voice a
whisper.

“Quiet.” Another strike and it felt
like the chain had ripped right through her body clean to the other
side.

Wailing in pain, Billie rolled on the
ground, begging to die. “Kill me. Kill me like you said. I can’t
take it anymore. I just . . . can’t.”

“As you wish.”

A blast of
violent electricity rocked her to the core, every muscle fibre
lighting up in sheer agony. Her head went woozy and burning pain
became her only consciousness. The hot stone ground beneath her
burned and seared her flesh, crisping her skin and starting her
aflame.

Shaking, shrieking, wailing, she waited to die, her stomach
forming spasming knots when she understood that she
wasn’t
going to die, but instead would stay in this state
forever.

In Hell.

* * * *

7

Sleep

I
t was hard
to admit, but Joe was thankful he’d
made amends with Tracy. The resolution even helped keep the
chickpeas down and mute the unpleasant aftertaste. He lay on the
couch in the living room, using a pillow from upstairs. He kept the
pillowcase off just in case it was contaminated with something.
Tracy was upstairs in the KISS bedroom, sleeping on the bed, no
sheets, just a pillow without the pillowcase, same as him. He had
suggested she sleep in the master bedroom, but she said she’d feel
weird sleeping in someone else’s bed like that. He understood and
would’ve done the same himself. Despite there being another bedroom
upstairs, he opted for the couch to give her some space and
privacy. They each also took a separate bathroom for the same
reason, the water being out and all.

As Joe lay
there in the dark, he was overcome with a sense of awe, thinking
how much his life had changed over the past year, how prior to the
Rain there was no concept of what was going on. Life was supposed
to just continue: him writing comics, keeping busy, watching TV,
regular stuff. Not anymore and never again.

He rolled onto his side and hoped
Tracy was sleeping well. He knew he needed some shut-eye, too, as
they’d be heading out tomorrow. If he woke up early enough, he’d go
to April’s apartment building and see if she was still
alive.

* * * *

Tracy eyed
the stucco on the ceiling, its bumps and shadows playing with her
imagination and making odd shapes, faces and animals. It’d been
thoughtful of Joe to let her have some privacy. She just hoped the
gesture wouldn’t go to waste and she’d actually get some
sleep.

They had
decided that, aside from the incident in the basement, the house
was secure. They were too tired to move on so would sleep until
completely rested, then scour the house for possible supplies
before heading out. Joe said he even saw a set of keys in the
landing closet, but didn’t see a vehicle in the garage. There was
still hope for transportation, though, as the keys could belong to
one of the cars on the street, the owners having parked there
instead.

First order
of business would be to get back to the Hub, and hopefully get
there without running into any trouble. It’d be nice to be there
again. It was there things made sense, the mission was clear, and
Tracy felt at home. Out here, she was adrift without an anchor,
able to go on her own for a while before needing to lock back in to
something permanent.

“Okay, enough. Go to sleep,” she told herself and closed
her eyes.
Good night,
Joe.

* * * *

8

Between Worlds

B
illie’s soul
cried
for reprieve, her body
thrashing in agony as flame engulfed her head-to-toe. She couldn’t
scream, her vocal chords having been burnt away, her mouth swollen
shut, her skin melted . . . and yet she would not die, only stayed
in a perpetual state of torment.

The demons
loomed over her, their pale gray eyes floating on the flames around
her body. They cackled and howled, a profound sense they were
celebrating victory not just over her here, but also over her life
on the Earth as if they’d had some say in it.

Please . . . please, make it stop,
she shrieked inside her mind, her own inner scream
mysteriously deafening to her own ears.

The fire
upon her grew hotter and she regretted even having been alive never
mind regretted being here and, she began to understand, being here
by her own choice, by her own crimes against a Perfect
Law.

Body
lurching and jolting, she didn’t know how much more she could take,
each agonizing second that passed a deadly reminder she’d have to
take it, because there was no escape.

Demons cackled.

Fire roared.

Her screams filled her
head.

“ENOUGH!”

Brilliant white light cut through the
flames surrounding her, confiscating her vision, the hot core of
lightning all that she could see.

Who’s that? Who’s there?
The pain left her, the sudden bliss of reprieve immediately
filling her with joy and gratitude, so much so she began to sob.
Blinded by the light, she couldn’t see what was going on, but could
hear the demons shrieking and the swishes of something sharp and
hard cutting through the air.

The sounds
of evil soon subsided, and an instant later, powerful hands took
her in close to a warm body, strong arms wrapping around her. A
rush of wind blew past her from her head down to her toes and she
knew she was flying.

“Billie,” a voice said, tender,
familiar, as she was set down on her feet.

She hadn’t been flying, but this
person had. “Nathaniel?”

The white light faded and the angel stood before
her.
His golden robe was
covered with elaborate folds, a gold belt around his waist. His
silver shield was on his back, his silver blade in its sheath on
his belt. They were surrounded by golden light, warm,
loving.