Part One

It was close to midnight.

Maia shuddered and wrapped her arms tighter around herself as her eyes darted a look around. She never should have let Mike convince her to go to the ten o’clock showing of that slasher movie the night before Halloween. Slasher movies scared her anyway, and after she watched them she couldn’t go to bed for hours. And even though she wasn’t one to believe in things that go bump in the night, she also didn’t like to chance her odds and tempt fate by yelling that she didn’t believe in them and spitting in their face—all she needed was an indignant ghost coming after her to prove just how wrong she was.

And Halloween… Wasn’t that night supposed to be closest to the spirits or something?

Just thinking about it was creeping Maia out. She tightened her sweater so tight around herself that she could feel the knit come dangerously close to ripping.

A clattering sound in the darkness of the alley shattered the silence around her. She tried to scream, whirling to the side to try and focus on the source of the sound, but in the darkness she could see nothing.

Nothing.

No sounds.

No person.

No creature.

She quickened her pace again, speeding up to almost a run as she tried to get through the alley between the two run-down old buildings. Her heart hit against her ribs as though it were trying to make a break for it and not suffer the same fate Maia was going to suffer. Her pulse drummed in her ears with the sound of her feet hitting the pavement. Her sweater was damp from her clammy hands.

She never should have let Mike talk her into the late showing. She never should have let him go on his own way without walking her home. So what if he lived in the opposite direction from the theater? He was her boyfriend—it was his job to make sure she got home safely!

If she ever made it out of this alive, she was dumping his inconsiderate ass.

Relief bathed her in warmth and immediately slowed her heart as she caught sight of her ten-story brick apartment building, a sigh escaping her lips and sending out a visible stream of air. The damn thing was falling apart from the outside in, complete with cracks in the walls and lights that randomly fell out of the ceiling, but she had never been happier to see the dump.

Chiding herself for her foolishness, she made her way to the building, slowing her steps so as to not alarm her neighbors by the sound of her running steps. She pulled her keys out of her pocket as she approached the steps leading up to the front stoop.

It was bright outside tonight—her shadow was long in front of her. She turned to look up at the sky over her shoulder. In the sky, the moon hung impossibly large, centered high, almost a pristine white. If she had a camera on her, she would have taken a picture of the gorgeous full moon and its halo of silver. She’d never seen a full moon so pretty.

She smiled slightly. How could she ever be afraid on a night so beautiful?

As she brought her gaze down, everything seemed to slow.

There, standing in the middle of the street, staring straight at her, was the most grotesque, hideous, twisted creature she had ever seen.

It was once a man—that much was certain. But its skin had taken on a grayish green mottled appearance, and in places looked as though it had melted. It was taller than her by almost a foot, and large—at least twice as large. The left hand, or what had once been the left hand, was deformed into almost a knot, the fingers hooked and the thumb stuck under them. The nails were yellow, grown out inches and pointed at the ends. The right foot was twisted out from the hip, as though it had been dislocated, and hung slightly behind the thing. There were giant gashes in the flesh, and even from the distance, she could see maggots and other bugs gnawing and chewing their way through. The stench was overpowering—even as she opened her mouth to scream in horror, she gagged and choked on her own vomit.

It started to shuffle toward her; its mouth opened to speak. Bugs crawled out. She whirled around and ran up the steps to the building, desperately fingering her keys, searching for the right one on the ring, struggling to jam it into the lock.

She missed. Missed again. Scraped the key along the edge of the lock. They fell from her hand, tumbling with a deafening clatter to the front stoop. She gasped in horror and dove for them, looking over her shoulder at the creature.

It was there. A hand reached for her.

And then she screamed.


Part Two

She slammed the front door behind her, staring at the creature staring back at her through the glass inset of the door. Up close, its eyes were milky white, like sour milk. Her body throbbed from shoving herself against the creature—somewhere in the back of her mind she registered how her shoulder had sunken into the gooey, softened flesh, and the bugs that had fallen onto her—but from the safety of the apartment building, it was worth it.

And then the glass in the door shattered. A twisted, claw-like hand stretched toward her.

She screamed as loudly as she could, trying to wake the neighbors, running up the stairs behind her. Her high-heels, which had seemed like such a good idea to wear on a date, were almost impossible to run in. Her right heel caught on one of the cheaply carpeted stairs and desperately she reached for the banister, but it crumbled to rot in her hand and down she went, cracking her chin on the hard wooden step before she went tumbling back down the stairs, her head, wrists, fingers, legs, hips, all finding the edges of the stairs, the hard plaster walls, the cheap banister bars that creaked and groaned and threatened to drop her to the floor below before she finally came to rest at the mid-landing on her stomach, her body burning with agony. Blackness covered her vision, dotted with dulled flashes of colors.

Through her panting and the blinding pain, she could hear the creature shuffling up the steps behind her, dragging its leg up each step.

Th-thump.

Th-thump.

Th-thump.

Was this it? Was this how her short life was going to end? On some cheap, stained, maroon carpet in a run-down apartment building in a big city? A missing girl in a city of missing girls?

A hand, cold and damp, like slimy mildew, slid around her ankle. She closed her eyes and slumped her shoulders, resigning herself to the fate that awaited her.


Part Three


Maia shivered on the icy cement floor of the crypt. She didn’t know how long she had been there—her aching body had given out on her several times on the way, blessedly allowing her temporary relief from the knowledge that she was over the things shoulder, pressing the soft flesh almost into the middle of its chest.

She didn’t try to find a way out of the crypt, just hugged her knees to her chest and shivered. She knew it was out there, standing in the shadows, staring at her where she couldn’t see it. And worse, she knew there were more of it… Hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands. She had seen them, during the brief moments she had been awake on the way over. People being dragged from their homes by the creatures, screaming, pleading for help, for someone to save them.

The things being done to them in the darkness…

Maia felt a lump form in her throat just thinking about it. She ducked her head, looking down at the floor, covered in years of mildew, dust, bug corpses, and grime, and grimaced. She was sitting on that. The crypt itself wasn’t very large, but she had space around her. Not that she was surprised—the corpses were probably out in the city eating people’s brains.

“The great zombie uprising,” she muttered. She looked up into the darkest corner of the crypt, where she could feel the creature staring at her. “Are you going to eat me yet, or not?”

It stepped out of the shadow and into the sliver of the moonlight that filtered in through the tiny window near the top of the wall behind her, slowly, almost as if it was trying not to alarm her. It opened its mouth, but instead of words, dirt and bugs sprayed everywhere, and she grimaced, flinching away in disgust.

“I get it,” she snapped. “You can’t eat me. Your mouth is full. So what is your plan, exactly? Why did you—“

It suddenly stepped out of the shadows, holding up its right hand, the only good hand it had, its eyes wide with alarm. She didn’t know why she could tell it was alarm, but there was something about the widening of the already milky-white eyes.

As she watched, it brought the finger to its closed mouth, then gestured her against the wall, into the shadows.

She felt her heartbeat quicken, loud in her ears. She strained to hear any sound in the distance, scarcely daring to breathe, even as the creature desperately, silently waved her over.

And then she could hear it. Rumbling footsteps in the distance. Gutteral groans. The distinctive sound of… Oh god, were those limbs cracking?!

She didn’t waste another second. She dashed to his side, the darkest in the room, flattening herself against the wall as tightly as she could. It stood in front of her, making her all-but invisible. Up-close, now that she was fully conscious, its smell was absolutely unbearable, and she gagged again at the putrid, rotting stench, but somehow held it in as she listened outside.

For a long time, neither of them moved. And then, finally, it stepped away, releasing her from the captivity of its body.

She relaxed. Even though it had terrorized her and brought her there, it had also just protected her from something really horrible outside. But… Why?

“What’s going on?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady. “Why did you bring me here? Why did you just protect me?”

He shot her a look she could only interpret as helpless, but didn’t attempt to open his mouth.

God. She was communicating with a zombie. She must have lost her mind. “Did… Did you protect me just then so you could kill me later?”

The creature emphatically shook its head, and if she wasn’t mistaken, there was a spark of hope in its milky white eyes.

She could have fainted. Instead, she found herself back on the floor of the crypt, in the stream of moonlight. The creature—zombie?—stood before her, and for the first time she could see the damage she had inflicted on it during their struggles. The flesh on it was squishy… She had been noting that all along. She had just never realized how much. Its left shoulder, the one it had carried her on, now rested inches below the other, and embedded in its chest. The hand that had broken through the glass door was almost a complete ball. Where it had grabbed her, the flesh had oozed out and stretched.

It had gone through all of that… To bring her here?

It suddenly doubled over, clutching its stomach, falling to its knees. Dirt and bugs spewed from its mouth as she watched. She dove for its side, hesitantly reaching for it, terror seizing her heart. Was she supposed to try and save a zombie? Was she supposed to try and get away? It had saved her… Shouldn’t she return the favor?

How the hell did someone go about saving a zombie? They were already dead!

Under her fingers, the flesh of the creature started changing… taking on a different hue… An almost golden color. The maggots were starting to push out of its flesh… The other bugs all fell to the floor and scattered away from them. She continued to hold on to it as it started to glow. Was this… An angel?

Outside, she could hear howls of anguish and pain. Fear gripped her heart as she looked up at the crypt door. They were in the distance, but what if they weren’t for long? If this thing was an angel, now would be a good time for it to get its angel powers and zap them all back into their graves…

The thing gave a shudder. The golden haze faded, leaving behind tanned golden skin, large, muscular arms, a firm, athletic chest, perfect skin—

“Mike?!”

It was. He was panting, struggling for air, but it was her boyfriend of six months. His head shot up at the sound of his name, and he looked down at the tattered shirt and pants he wore—which she could now vaguely recognize as the ones he’d been wearing on their date—and then back up at her.

“Maia,” he breathed. He flung his arms around her, clutching her onto him. “Thank god. Oh, thank god it’s over.”

She could barely form coherent words in her head, let alone form them into a sentence. “What…” was all she could manage to get out.

He was shaking. Slowly, he pulled away, capturing her hands, looking over his shoulder. His dark black hair hung in dampened curls around his face as he looked back at her, shaking his head. “I don’t know. I was following you home after the movie, and suddenly I was… that thing. I tried to talk to you, but I couldn’t.”

She shook her head. “You were what?”

He looked flustered. “I know you like your independence, but the city is a scary place.” He looked around them again, pausing to listen. She heard nothing, and clearly he didn’t, either, so he went on. “So I always follow you home, to make sure you get home safely.”

Again, she couldn’t find the words. “H-has anything like this… happened to you… before?”

He shook his head quickly, his eyes wide. “Never. But if I’m back to normal, the other people must be, too.”

“But… What happened?!”

He looked helpless. “Halloween is over?”

Immediately, she looked down at her watch. Sure enough, her watch showed 12:10. But twenty-four hours? They had been in the crypt for twenty-four hours? How had she lost so much time?

And how many people out there were dead?

And what the hell had happened?!

He stood and held out a hand to her. “Come on, Maia,” he said. “Let’s go home.”

Slowly, scarcely able to believe that it was over, she took his hand.


Epilogue


“Well that wasn’t part of the plan.”

“I didn’t want anyone hurting her.”

“You should have discussed it with us, Mike. Now she knows.”

“She doesn’t know. She thinks she fell down the stairs and had a nightmare.”

“She knows. She just doesn’t want to believe.”

“Then what do you care? It’s not like she’s hunting anyone.”

“You got careless.”

“I care about her. I didn’t want her getting hurt.”

“You should have discussed it with us, first.”

“Well maybe we can talk about it another time.”

“You mean in another hundred years when the time is right for us to come out again?”

“Well… Maybe by then, she’ll be with us, and it won’t matter.”


~~End... For now, anyway... LOL~~