The Grave Keeper

Ghosts In A Storm

One more chapter after this, than an epilogue before we're done!

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Brock's heart pounded as the screams echoed around him. The inhuman sounds were growing closer!

"Oh God, oh Jesus. Anyone up there listening? Wanna send me a hand?"

He stumbled and nearly kissed the pavement.

His store was in sight. He was so close.

A dark form stumbled into his path. Brock froze.

The figure took a step closer, and a beam of moonlight lit their face.

It was something he'd seen in countless horror movies. A zombie. Grey skin, dull, sunken eyes, and half its face was missing, exposing bone and rotating muscle.

It groaned and limped toward him, crocked fingers reaching.

The smell hit him next, wet soil and rotting meat.

Brock gagged and started to back peddle, but a scraping noise from behind made him spin.

Another zombie! He turned and saw even more. They were slowly encircling him. And some of them weren't stumbling. They stalked forward with more grace than Brock had!

His breaths came fast and shallow, and his heart beat so loud that he was sure the zombies could hear it.

I'm going to die!

A man's voice, faintly touched with a New York accent, spoke into his ear.

"Helps coming. Hang tight."

Then one of the zombies tripped, then another, and another.

It slowed the group's advance, but just as Brock got ready to make a break for it, a new figure appeared.

The man was average height, with a lean frame covered in a nice suit that had obviously been fitted.

He had dark skin, and his handsome face was marked with half a dozen bright scars that seemed to glow in the night.

He glanced at Brock and smiled.

Brock froze. The man had teeth like a shark.

"Well, well, well. You weren't lying, ghost."

One of the faster zombies lunged for the man. He took a single step back and, as it stumbled past, punched.

The zombie's head crumpled.

The bottom dropped out of Brock's stomach.

The zombies mobbed the man, and he tore them apart.

They clawed and bit and groaned as they died, but they died.

Every punch dropped a monster, and he ignored every attack as if he couldn't feel them.

In seconds every zombie was motionless on the pavement.

He turned to Brock and grinned wider.

"Is that your place?" He motioned to Brock's apartment building.

Brock tried to speak, swallowed, tried again, then settled on nodding.

The man gave a sharp nod of his own and gestured at the building.

"Let's be quick. I'll help you with some hasty barricading, and then I have other people to rescue."

Brock was frozen for several seconds until the man's raised brow jolted him into motion.