St. Jude's Parish Cemetery Tuesday, 4:47 PM
Rex stood in the freezing drizzle, staring at a polished mahogany box that he knew was empty.
His black suit felt suffocating. Around him, a handful of relatives murmured quiet prayers, clutching black umbrellas. But Rex's eyes kept drifting to the two men standing at the back of the burial site. They weren't family. They wore sharp, expensive charcoal suits and held themselves with a stiff, corporate posture.
Representatives from Aeterna Biosciences.
They had paid for the plot. They had paid for the casket. They had paid for the silence. Three days ago, Rex's father, a lead geneticist at Aeterna's new facility on the edge of town, hadn't come home. The company claimed it was a catastrophic localized lab fire. No remains were recovered. Just a corporate ID badge and an apologetic phone call.
Rex clenched his jaw. It's a lie. All of it. His dad had been acting paranoid for weeks, locking his office, muttering about "the Reliquary project" and things buried in the dirt. You don't just vaporize in a lab fire.
Father Thomas, the elderly parish priest, sprinkled holy water over the empty casket. "Dust to dust," he intoned softly. "May Arthur Mercer find peace in the eternal grace of—"
A deep, resonant hum vibrated through the wet grass beneath Rex's dress shoes.
It wasn't a sound, exactly. It was a physical pressure that rattled his teeth in his skull. Rex winced, pressing a hand to his temple. The two Aeterna men at the back of the crowd suddenly stood completely rigid, their hands flying to their earpieces.
Father Thomas stopped speaking. The holy water sprinkler slipped from his wrinkled fingers, clattering against the bronze handles of the casket.
"Father?" Rex's aunt whispered, stepping forward. "Are you all right?"
The priest did not answer. He dropped to his knees in the mud. He grabbed the sides of his head, his knuckles turning white. His skin, usually flush with age, was rapidly draining of color, turning a waxy, marble-gray. Thick, black veins violently spider-webbed up the sides of his neck, pulsing with dark sludge.
"Someone call an ambulance!" Rex's aunt yelled in a panic.
Rex took a step forward, reaching out. "Father Thomas, hey, look at me—"
The priest's head snapped up. His eyes had rolled back, replaced by a milky, dead white. Then, his jaw dropped. It didn't just open; it unhinged completely with a sickening, wet pop that echoed over the open grave.
He let out a guttural, clicking hiss—a sound no human throat could naturally make.
Before anyone could react, the priest lunged. He slammed into Rex's aunt, tackling her into the mud with terrifying, animalistic speed.
Screams erupted. The small crowd of mourners scattered in absolute terror. Rex stumbled backward, his dress shoes slipping on the wet grass, his heart hammering against his ribs in pure panic. What the hell is happening?!
He looked up toward the wrought-iron gates of the cemetery. Out in the streets of the town, the nightmare was multiplying. Cars were careening off the road, crashing into storefronts. Plumes of black smoke were already rising over the suburban rooftops. And over the wailing of distant sirens, Rex could hear the screams. Dozens of them. Then hundreds.
"Containment breach!" one of the Aeterna suits yelled into his radio, pulling a sleek black handgun from his tailored jacket. "The trigger was early! The whole town is turning!"
The Aeterna rep didn't even try to help the screaming mourners. He aimed his weapon directly at the mutating priest and fired three deafening shots. The priest twitched, falling still over the muddy grave.
The suit turned his gun towards Rex, his eyes cold and terrified. "No witnesses. Company orders."
Rex didn't think. Pure adrenaline flooded his veins. He dove behind his father's massive granite headstone just as a bullet chipped the stone where his head had been a fraction of a second before.
He was unarmed. He was terrified. He was trapped in a graveyard with corporate assassins and a mutating nightmare.
And the dead were just starting to wake up.