Z-Day

There were three kinds of people who came back on that day.

There were the very confused.

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Jessica Gresley's eyes snapped open as the last vestiges of green light faded, leaving behind only darkness. She gasped for air, then found that her body didn't seem to acknowledge she'd done it.

For a moment, panic set in. She flung out her arms and legs, which hit the lid of the coffin, and screamed as she realized what that meant. Out of reflex, she beat and kicked at it, knowing full well that it would have been useless. Even if the coffin lid wasn't made of the finest reinforced and polished teak wood, there was at least six feet of earth above her head, made heavy by the spring rains. There was no way she'd ever be able to get out.

Which was why she was so shocked when the wood splintered beneath her palms.

Dirt flooded down upon her in a damp tide. She gagged and spat as it got into her mouth, then let animal instinct take hold as she clawed upwards, shoving fragments of broken wood aside as she burrowed. She didn't know what was going on or why she had apparently failed to die after an energy drink and popper-induced heart attack. She just wanted to get out before things got worse.

In the ultimate cliché, her hand broke the surface first. It clutched at the air, then found a surfacce of wet grass and dead flowers, the other hand quickly joining it in clutching it like a lifeline. The caved-in mound that had covered her grave heaved like a boil about to burst, then slid back in an avalanche of mud as Jessica Gresley, three weeks dead, emerged into the world with a gasp for air she didn't need.

She blinked.

The world was suddenly very different. She once saw it in vibrant colours, heard the sounds as clear as crystal and felt the wind’s caress on her skin like pinpricks. Her senses were sharp and bright and alert. Now it felt as though a dial had been turned down on the back of her head. The world was muted and dull, washed out to nearly grey. Sounds came to ears that seemed to have been partially plugged. And she felt numb all over, as though her skin was made of rubber. She only knew by looking down that she'd split her nails down to the quick in her frantic digging, because she hadn't felt it. Ew. That was going to need fixing.

She knew she was dead because of how pale and thin she looked. There wasn't much that the embalmer could have done about that. Her skin had gone the colour of tallow and her muscles had withered. She'd always been a skinny girl, even on her best of days, but now she looked practically anemic. And it hadn't done any wonders for her once-generous assets, either - she'd gone down several cup sizes, she was sure.

She felt awfully cold on the inside, she realized.

There was a fluttering of wings. And a smell reached her - a sweaty, acid smell that she understood to be the smell of fear. How, she didn't know, but she looked up in time to see the crows fleeing the tree that stood overhead in a cloud, making a direct line away from her. They reeked of desperate and primal terror, as if they were frantically trying to escape from her specifically. She wasn't sure, for a moment, wherever she should feel relieved or worried about that.

Then, not sure what else to do, the recently-resurrected Jessica Gresley unearthed herself and headed out to find someone who could explain what had happened.

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There were the mildly annoyed.

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"I would like to complain!"

Jane had been used to hearing that phrase. It had come from one of the bank's regular customers, Darren Fossbender. A perrenial complainer and wet blanket extraordinaire who had died two months prior in a car crash. The bank had been in the middle of the process of closing his account and transferring his funds to his children, as had been stated in his will. But with the backlog of other issues to work out, most of which involving frivolous spending on the part of their CEO, they'd shoved this down the priorities list.

She was not used to hearing the phrase in this situation. Because she'd never thought she'd hear that voice again. But Fossbender had heard of the matter, and had come to complain.

Despite the fact that he was dead.

This seemed to not have occured to him at all, however, as he stood in the middle of the reception with a crowd gawking at him from a safe distance. He did not seem bothered that half of his face was covered in plastic to hide the broken glass lacerations. Nor did one of his arms being missing particularly fuss him. Which was awkward for Jane, because both things fussed her greatly. That and the strange yellow light from his one remaining eye. It was all very off-putting and left a lump in the poor teller's throat.

"With all due respect, sir," she croaked, "things have been very busy. We're trying to sort out a lot of legal documentation-"

"This does not preclude you from doing your other work!" retorted Darren. His multiple jowls wobbled as he spoke, and the crowd backed away some more. "Is there nobody left who can handle my accounts at this time? It seems hardly likely that the situation at your company-"

But Jane had turned out. She was still highly disturbed by the tallow-skinned thing standing in front of her, going into the same officious manner that the living Darren Fossbender used to do. She tried to think about other things - the weather, the green aura that had flashed in the sky the previous night, he holiday she was meant to be taking her kids on. It probably wasn't going to be happening now. Not when something like this was bound to be repeating itself across the country. Maybe the entire globe.

She swallowed, and decided to stop beating about the bush.

"Are you aware, sir," she tried, "that you are dead?"

"Dead? Oh, no, out of the question! I can't possibly be dead, not when my children's future is in question! If I can't get reassurance that-"

Darren stopped when he saw the blood still covering the arm of his jacket. Then he looked down and saw the state of his shirt. His free arm came down and touched his chest. No heartbeat. Only the stiches and iron rods used to restore a chest that had been caved in by a steering column.

"Oh," he said.

"Yes," said Jane.

Darren gulped, a completely uneccesary action due to being unable to produce saliva anymore.

"I... I thought I felt a bit off colour," he said.

"Off colour?!" Jane couldn't hold back the shriek anymore. "You're corpse grey, man!"

Darren immediately composed himself. The change in his demeanour was familiar yet alien at the same time. He'd been good at dealing with the various roadblocks of life, mostly by fussing until other people sorted them out for him. Death had clearly failed to change that.

"There's no cause to be rude, madam," he said, brusquely. "I'm certain we can conduct business like civilized humans in here! I may be a little, ah... deceased, but I am standing here now, of sound mind if not of sound body, and I can tell you straight off that-"

Jane realized this was going to be a long day.

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Then there were the ones that had been waiting for it to happen.

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Charles Kronk was not a bad man. He had many faults, of course - he was surly, rude and much too fond of alcohol. He treated his gravedigger's job like an annoying spot and other people like the pus that came out of one. He sang much too loudly as he worked and was fond of imitating owls to scare people. There were even rumours that he was having a fling with the landlady of a local pub after a long and painful divorce.

But he wasn't a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. So when he heard the screams coming from the graveyard, he grabbed his gun as he rushed out to help.

He arrived too late.

The young couple had probably been goths, who'd taken the flashing green sky of last night as a sign to get freaky amongst the silent dead. At least, he assumed so - it was hard to discern their fashion through all the gore that covered everything from gravestones to grass. And the dead weren't exactly silent as they slurped and gnawed on their remains. The poor youngsters had definitely not died quickly - claw marks and bruises decorated their limbs like bad makeup, and the boy was still twitching and gurgling.

The stench was awful. Charles, who was used to all kinds of terrible smells, could barely keep himself from vomiting as he looked back and forth between the figures. 

He knew each and every one of them - they were men and women he'd buried himself. One figure in particular caught his attention - Maureen Fletcher, hunched over by a gravestone and chewing on a kidney. She'd been a lovely old lady and a good friend when she'd been alive. She used to make jam tarts and things for the kids, or buy issues of the Beano when they didn't have enough pocket money. And now she was pale as tallow and covered in somebody else's blood, making noises like a pig as she ate somebody else's organs.

Feeling that he ought to do something, Charles raised his gun.

"Hey!" he cried, trying to sound tough. "You-"

Each and every one of them turned to look at him. Eyes illuminated by a sickly yellow inner glow fixed on him. And he knew he'd made a mistake.

"Oh, look." The voice that wasn't Maureen's came bubbling from Maureen's grinning mouth as she stood up. "The main course."

In defence of Charles Kronk, he'd never seen a horror movie. The word 'zombie' never even came into his head once. So when the mob dropped their bloody prizes and rushed him in a body, all he could think to do was aim for center of mass, as he usually did. 

The gunshot roared across the cemetery like the slam of a cosmic car door. The rifle was a good one, an old hunting rifle used by his father in pheasant and grouse shootings when he could afford to do it. And more powerful than such a rifle ought to be. A single blast would have stopped a charging bull. But all it did was knock one of the monsters into a backwards stagger, snarling in frustration as the others overtook it. 

And it just let the others get there faster. Faster than the terrified Charles could backpedal. And certainly faster than him when he tripped on a loose flagstone and went sprawling.

Charles Kronk did not die quickly. He was still screaming when they started ripping the flesh from his limbs.

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They called that day by many names. The Night of the Green Flash. Emerald Sunday. The Rising. But eventually, one name worked it's way into the press and stuck like plaque on a bad tooth.

Z-Day.