Fiction: Flight of the Undead by You Lin
The zombies of Kwan Yin Temple were getting more and more restless by the hour. There were eleven of them, mouths permanently twisted in a scream and purple veins crawling the length of their stick-like limbs: an atlas of rivers snaking across terrains roughened by age. Their hair were hay-like, dry and unwashed and oily, and yet they paced the length of the temple with their heads high, occasionally rattling the rusty red temple gates confining them, unsteady gaits never deterring the gleam in their eyes.
They had a caretaker: a man whose skin was just as rough as theirs. No one really knew who he was, let alone how he ended up sweeping dried leaves under ripening Bodhi trees and tossing slaughtered bulls into the zombies’ confinement every stroke of the hour. All they knew was that he was the only one who could control the zombies, and that he was older than the seas itself.
The caretaker never spoke, but he did frequent the bar adjacent to the temple, downing shot after shot in thick, dust-rimmed glasses. It was always Carlsberg; never Tiger, or any of the cheap brands of beer that fizzled out lamely under the attack of the chilly night air. He was a man who could hold his liquor, a man who had seen too many things to be remotely unnerved by the violent brawls that commenced at the center of the dinghy bar, musty shoes squelching against the wooden floorboards perennially soaked with vomit and spilled rum. Most nights, he sat exactly three seats from the bar counter, watching the gregarious crowd shove against one another, unshaved armpits jostling noisily with an air of indifference. He had no need to engage; amateur gangsters left him alone after being brutally kneed in the groin before they could even get a word of insult out and those who sat alongside him wordlessly for years now knew that he was better off being left alone.
This night, however, the caretaker shuffled one seat closer to the bar counter, amber liquid sloshing in his glass. He remained mute, but there was something in his eyes that raised the hairs at the back of the neck of anyone who dared look him in the eye. Something ancient. Something evil. Something that looked like a warning.
The doors burst open when he was reaching out for his third drink, spindly fingers closed around the neck of the beer bottle. The caretaker squeezed, beads of perspiration from the sweating glass numbing his fingers. This angle, he could almost envision the green-tinted glass as a grappling victim, their face blue with hypoxia, pulse racketing below his thumbs. He broke the bottle in one clean snap, eyes flitting emotionlessly to the splatter of frothing alcohol on the ground.
They said he walked out of the bar that night, lips curled upwards.
The people of Chinatown lived on gossip and news that travelled at light speed by the word of mouth; the next morning, they woke up to a disappearance and a doll, dressed in black laces.
Black—the color of funerals, the color of death.
Back at the temple, the caretaker tossed a fresh carcass into the zombies’ pen, the tolling bell signifying the end of yet another hour. Brown leaves fluttered below his feet, but for the first time, he did not sweep them away. Instead, he leaned against the metal railing, watching as the zombies tore the body to shreds, crimson oozing out of the plump tendons and flesh that glistened under the slightest illumination.
“Zai,” the zombies hissed collectively. “Zzzzzaaaiiii…” rose their mournful wails into the air permeated by burned incense. Zāi. Danger. Disaster.
The caretaker smiled. In the inky darkness of the pen was a shadowy figure, rising from the ashes. A scream pierced the air. And on the forty-ninth hour, there were twelve zombies in the temple, their mouths permanently twisted in a scream and purple veins crawling the length of their stick-like limbs.
The second night, they finally brought around the doll to the bar. It was a gangly creature with unusually porcelain skin, lips painted cherry red and eyes darkened with shadows. Patrons bent over it in healthy mixtures of fear and awe, commenting on the doll’s long lashes, the peculiar texture of its face. The caretaker sipped at his drink.
The girl who disappeared was the daughter of a wealthy merchant, all dainty sighs and smooth, unmarred skin. He had seen her once or twice before, dark hair pulled up in pigtails embellished with a single gold hairpin; she always chased after the pigeons whenever she came round the temple, her clear laugh undulating in the air like the tinkles of a wind chime.
“Qí guài,” someone muttered at the edge of the crowd. How strange indeed, the caretaker thought as he tapped two fingers against the rim of his glass.
“What material do you think they used to make this doll?”
Loud jeers saturated the already tipsy air, raucous debates shattering the ambience of mystery. Some said silk, others insisted that it was rag. “I’ll tell you, it’s latex. I saw one with my own eyes at the border of Chang Jiang when I travelled there once,” a red-faced man boomed. “Excellent quality, that one.”
Someone else interrupted. “But surely, it has to be some kind of skin. Snakeskin, perhaps?”
“No, pigskin!” someone called out.
Neither could hear the other over the sound of fifty patrons shouting the names of different animals all at once. The caretaker closed his eyes, the sound of arguing pounding on his eardrum without relent. Amidst the chaos, the doll disappeared, and yet the battle recommence. The caretaker left not long after, but not before bending down to examine the doll and chuckling under his breath.
“It’s rén pí,” someone heard him say. “Human skin.”
When he spoke, his voice was the rustle of wind through yellowed leaves, the crackle of joss paper being burned in honor of the spirits. Ghost money: that was what he burned when he returned to the temple, watching the swirls of smog spiral heavenwards. “Na Mo A Mi Tuo Fo,” he chanted monotonously. “Na Mo A Mi Tuo Fo. A Mi Tuo Fo. A Mi Tuo Fo…”
The answer of the wind came swiftly, “Huò bù dān xíng.” He agreed, looking at the shabby building where the zombies paced, agitated. Misfortunes rarely came singly. Something was coming. Something was coming for them all, but he knew that he would be the only one left—again—when the dust settled, everything else wiped off the grid for the second time.
The people spoke of disease. Of suffering and of calamity. They could feel it everywhere: in the rattle of the wind through narrow alleyways, in the echoes of rock music snaking down night markets, in the dead silence enveloping the city at night. The city was crumbling, its foundations whispering warnings as cracks filled the ground. Nothing was the same anymore; nothing was the way it used to be. Even coffee tasted different: more bitter, more foreign. As if someone had tuned the dial of the world down a notch, slowly churning this reality into oblivion.
He moved another seat closer to the counter. One seat—he was now one seat away from the center of the bar. Beside him, the bartender stood, wringing his hands in front of his apron as the caretaker fixed his stare on him. “Your usual, good sir?” the bartender squeaked, glasses clinking unsteadily on his tray.
The caretaker nodded, accepting a beer bottle fresh from the metal bucket filled with ice. Tendrils of fizz and condensation rose as he twisted the beer cap. There was something in the air today: a beast slowly awakening, its consciousness a low hum spreading through the streets. It yawned, great fangs dripping with saliva, blinking eyes shielded behind a thin film. It was a creature born from the vilest pits, a creature of malice and vindictiveness. It would strike tonight, that he knew of, that he was certain of.
He wiped his arms on the sleeve of his trousers. Even his beer tasted different now: sour. Even more so now that the lull of apocalypse crept closer. Outside, the clock tower struck twelve: the beating heart of the city, tolling its last laments. Dong, dong, dong, dong. He wondered if the people had noticed the difference as acutely as he did, if they felt as if the world was holding its breath in preparation for the final plunge. He was sure they did—to some extent. And if they listened carefully enough, they might even hear the howl of the beast, whistling through the cracks in the door. The people had a name for it—the death rattle—he supposed it was fitting for an empire tethering on the edge of destruction.
The caretaker stood, sliding a crumpled note across the counter. There was no use waiting around; he might as well return to the temple where he could sacrifice another round of golden papers to the ancestors that governed their fate. The crowd parted easily for him—they always did. He thought he spotted something as he passed, though he could never quite figure what. A different energy, he mused. An omen.
He woke up to a newspaper clipping hastily slid between the bars of the temple, proclaiming that the bartender of Dragon Lily Palace was dead.
They held a funeral for the bartender for he was well-known and well-liked; the people mourned his death openly, perhaps even more so than the daughter of the merchant, much to his chagrin. Yet, the merchant donned a simple black suit and drove his ridiculously expensive car down the square, white lilies flapping on his bumper in honor of the bartender whose name no one really knew.
The caretaker was there too. All over Chinatown, people brought liquor and splattered them on the ground where the bartender would be buried. The dry land cracked the more they poured poison into the earth, but no one seemed to notice. Navy blue banners flapped in the wind, golden calligraphy tracing bold words that marked the end of a beloved citizen’s death. Jié āi shùn biàn, they murmured to each other, neither quite knowing who exactly to deliver their condolences to. The bartender was such an individual: adored by many but known by none—his death was all it took to unearth that startling fact.
The clock struck one. The caretaker watched in silence as they took in the body, meticulously arranged in a wooden casket. They’d cleaned him up, but the caretaker could see the wounds they couldn’t, the breaks in the pimpled skin where viscous blood leaked out slowly as silver met pink, again and again until all the victim could utter was a single wheeze. Belatedly, he wondered if they’d used a scythe—if it had used a scythe. It did seem plausible enough.
Words were spoken: kind words, meaningless words. None of these people had really known the bartender, and yet they spoke of him like they did, illustrating colorful tales of bravery, humor, and passion. The caretaker scoffed, consulting his watch briefly. It was fourteen past one; fourteen—the unlucky number, the number of death.
He waited. The air rippled, deliciously sated with smoke from burned incense sticks and the weight of shared grief. Then, a scream rang out: bright and clear in the wide courtyard.
In the casket, the body had disappeared—the barest flicker of light preceding the occurrence. No one had noticed. No one had thought to notice. In its place, a doll sat, its curious face stretched into a grin so wide that it elicited a sharp wince from the crowd.
Some said it resembled the late bartender. Most fled before they could catch a better look at the masqueraded abomination looming above them all.
There were thirteen zombies clawing at the bars of the temple now. These days, most doors were barred shut, locked once, twice, thrice until there was no remote chance of any individual breaking in. Chaos broke out everywhere: an invisible virus that transmitted quicker than any other kind. Soon, even the slightest disarray spurred the people into action, banging doors and muttering prayers, trying in vain to ward of the imminent disaster.
“The end of the world is coming,” the caretaker caught someone whispering to their partner. “We must flee.”
On the other side of the street, someone else spoke of the zombies. “There are thirteen of them now,” they said urgently. “What happens when there’s fourteen?”
“Shí sì,” they passed on to one another. Si. Death. All the way down the interconnected network of the city, people spoke of the number fourteen, their voices jumbled in a disjointed chorus. “Fourteen,” they intoned, singing the melody of death. “Death. Fourteen. Death.”
Death, death, death, death, death.
It was all they spoke of now.
The gates of the temple were not locked though. The caretaker thought of it as pointless; what was a locked door against a cataclysm? It was the only constant that remained in the city now: the temple, the zombies, the caretaker. Everything else was changing—everything else was rapidly spiraling into the void that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, sucking the life out of the city, breathing back darkness in return.
Everything else but the temple.
The temple never changed; it was a point in history that remained stagnant, a beacon that anchored the rest of the world to reality. Day after day, the zombies rattled against the chains that held them in place, and the caretaker tossed meat into their cage and swept the dried leaves. Sometimes, he chanted prayers. Other times, he gazed at the horizon wordlessly, broomstick tightly clutched in one hand as he watched the sky darken and lighten in cycles.
If they hadn’t known better, they would have said that he was counting the days till his death, just like the rest of them were.
When disaster strikes, people turn to God for forgiveness. They pray. They weep. They beg for atonement to all the sins they have committed, even when the logical part of their minds knew that no god was listening. There had never been any higher power in the first place.
Still, the people prayed. Day and night, they prayed, burning candles, lighting incense sticks. Smoke clouded their visions, burning their lungs as they inhaled, and yet they prayed. Again, and again, and again so that the gods would spare them, would spare this piece of land that was their home.
Occasionally, they would have parades, throngs gathered en masse on the narrow, winded streets, sprinkling holy water and worshipping large, golden statues. He used to watch them walk by, heads bowed in supplication. Now, all he did was let the drone of their voices fill the backdrop as he fed his zombies and swept his leaves.
There were no more deaths after the bartender. No more zombies, no more dolls. But the people knew that it wasn’t over; the disaster was merely recuperating, pondering the best moment to strike. They could feel it in their bones, even in the air they breathed in. Beware, the wind seemed to say. It’s coming, it warned. It’s waking.
But what? The people wondered. What was coming? What was waking? It was a different kind of fear they felt—the kind you never knew you could feel until it invaded your soul, festering on every breath you took. The fear of not knowing what was going to happen. It ate you from the inside out.
It was always the worst kind of fear.
Two months after the bartender’s death, they started seeing things. A flash of a serpent’s tail. A shadow lingering even after dawn. A presence, salivating all over the city. This is it, the people whispered feverishly as they huddled closer to each other. This is it: the end of the world, the eruption that was going to doom them all.
No god was coming to save them; they were on their own now. They were all alone in a world destined to burn.
The beast had no name. It was a silver of consciousness, a formless vapor enveloping the city. People revered it; they used to compose songs and dances to honor it. They gave it a name, but that too was swallowed by the ages, just like how time had wiped out any lingering memory of it from the minds of the people.
It hated the dark; it had always been waiting in the shadows, never strong enough to manifest a form under the scalding rays of light. Now though, it was almost ready. It was almost ready to venture into the territory that was its to begin with, to seek the revenge it had been dreaming of since centuries ago.
It let out a sound of victory. In the distance, rocks crumbled, thunder breaking across the open sky.
And in the decaying buildings straining under the weight of its return, the people whimpered, counting down the seconds before it all came raining down above them.
It saw the caretaker in the temple first: an old man brandishing his broom like a sword. It slithered closer, listening, looking. It heard its brethren, captured and tormented. It saw their jailer, timeless and ancient.
A flare of anger surged. The old man looked up as it approached, inky fire licking its skin. The slightest sign of recognition clicked. “Nian,” the caretaker spoke slowly.
It bared its teeth. “Hou Yi.”
The caretaker started; it had been too long since someone—since anyone—addressed him by his name. He was surprised the beast remembered; in retrospect, of course it remembered. He was the reason of its downfall: the archer who shot down the suns, the savior of humankind. It advanced, fixing its unblinking eyes on him.
“What happened to your flames?” he asked, the way one would address a friend.
“I was reborn.” Its mouth was an abyss that siphoned every sensation off the face of the earth. “I used to be light personified; now, I am both. Darkness and light, love and hatred. I am everything and nothing.”
“What do you want?” the caretaker stumbled—it was the only sign of his hesitation.
It laughed, the sound tugging at his life force, drawing him closer towards complete destruction. “I want revenge,” it snarled, lunging. “I want to end you. And then, I want to end this whole civilization, once and for all. You will no longer be here to rebuild. No one—no being—will ever stop me from dominating the skies again.”
The archer was powerless without his arrows; he was almost mortal in the face of the beast, and the beast knew it. It smacked its lips noisily, savoring the last moments of a hero’s ruination. “I’m sorry,” the caretaker said to no one in particular.
“I’m not,” the beast replied, tilting its head skyward as the essence of the archer fueled its century-old veins.
Fourteen zombies. One last doll.
Deep from the belly of the city, the clock tower chimed. Dong, dong, dong. No one made another sound; no one made another move. The city was still, so still. Too still. Crouched in the darkness, the people waited with bated breaths for the beast to reappear, but it never did.
Slowly, the city lived once more, but there was a new undertone to its existence. Somewhere below the ground, a distant rumbling echoed faintly, and in the temple, fourteen zombies rattled the dusty red gate, incomprehensible hisses pervading the air. Soon, the sonorous bell reverberated through the compound: once, twice. The people watched, waiting for the caretaker to resume his duty, but from the darkness, all they could see was the beast lumbering towards the pen, tossing a fresh bull carcass to the swarm of hungry zombies, their teeth gleaming red.
You Lin is a writer whose work surrounds the darker fragments of her identity. Her work can be found in Archer Magazine, The B'K, and The Borgen Project among others, some of which were published under a pen name. When she's not writing, you can find her overworking as usual, losing faith in humanity, and drowning in the nightmare that is medical school.
