Chapter XXI
"So what's the plan?" Ned asked Hermione.
"I didn't think about it," she replied, "but we're probably going to have to dig him up. I don't suppose anybody brought a shovel?"
"I always keep a shovel in my trunk," Lily said, "in case I need to get rid of a dead body. You just never know."
"I'll get it," Chuck said as she trotted to the car.
Ron giggled.
"Great," said Hermione. "Let's do it."
There were actually two shovels, which made the work go by quicker. They took turns as each of them tired out. By the time they reached the coffin, it was beginning to get dark.
"Vivian," we need you over here," Hermione said. "Get ready with the gun. Is it loaded?"
Vivian choked. Suddenly she wasn't sure she wanted to shoot Dwight after all. "Um. . ." She hesitated it.
"Let me see it," Lily said. Vivian slid the cartridge out, opened the chamber, and handed the gun to Lily with the cartridge. Lily checked the chamber, saw that the cartridge was full, and slid it back in. She looked back at Vivian, feeling protective of her sister. "I'll take care of it. Why don't you stand back a little?" Vivian obliged.
"Let's open it," said Hermione.
"He might be a bit dewy," Ned warned everybody. He and Harry both struggled to get the coffin open. When they did, Harry nearly barfed from the stench. Ned jumped out of the hole, but Harry struggled.
"Harry," Hermione said in exasperation, "you really need to lose weight." Ginny didn't like that. She loved her fat Harry. She and Ned assisted Harry in getting out of the hole.
"This is so creepy!" Ron complained. "I mean you're about to raise this guy from the dead. Look at him, half rotted. Is he going to look like that when you wake him, or will he be like the fruit and return to being a normal healthy looking person?"
"Usually, they look the same when I wake them," Ned explained, "but. . ."
"But who knows," Hermione interrupted him, "since he'll be using the wand for the first time."
"Is everybody ready?" Ned asked. There was an uneasy murmur of approval. "Lily, are you ready with the gun?"
Lily cocked the gun. "I'm ready," she replied.
"Remember, you have to shoot him before a minute is up to make sure nobody else has to die. And he has to actually die within the minute. So shoot him in the head."
"Got it," said Lily.
"Okay, here we go," Ned said.
Hermione coached him once more. "Remember, Ned, to concentrate and to say the word, 'anastasis' very clearly."
Ned pointed his wand at Dwight and held it there for a few seconds while everybody watched with anticipation. Then he said, "Anastasis!" Several thin blue sparks flew from his wand, one hitting Dwight, but most hitting the earth around his coffin.
Dwight's eyes opened, or what was left of them. It didn't seem to Ned that Dwight would be able to see. Chuck stepped closer to take a peak and was positively freaked out by the dead look in his eyes.
"Did it work?" asked Ron nervously.
"His eyes are open," said Ned, "but he's not moving." Then he said, "Hey, buddy, can you hear me?"
"Hello!" Chuck followed up. "Wakey, wakey!" She smiled up at Ned, amused with her own silliness, and Ned smiled back at her, totally smitten.
Then Dwight began to stir. He sat up in his coffin and began to claw his way out. They all heard him moan something they couldn't understand.
"What did he say?" asked Ginny, but nobody answered. They just listened and watched.
As Dwight climbed out of the hole, they heard him mumble, "Brainnnnssss. . ." They backed up, Lily pointing the gun at him.
"Ned, touch him!" Chuck said.
Ned reached out his hand and touched Dwight's forehead, but Dwight didn't die. He turned toward Ned, reached out his hands and said a bit louder, "Brainnnnnssssss. . ." while stumbling toward Ned.
Ron was mortified. "Did he say, 'brains?'"
Dwight began to pick up the pace. Lily wasted no more time in shooting Dwight. The imperfectly aimed bullet hit his right ear, leaving remnants dangling from his head, but Dwight didn't react. He moved more quickly now toward Ned. He grabbed Ned by the collar and began to pull toward him, mouth agape. It looked to Lily like Dwight was about to bite him, so she quickly ran behind Ned, and with the gun right over Ned's shoulder, she fired another bullet, this time into one of Dwight's pale dead eyes. Dwight collapsed to the ground.
"Shoot him again," Ned urged her, and she obliged. This time his head was well open.
Ron picked up a shovel and smashed it violently into Dwight's head, then looked at the rest of them. "He was a zombie." Then he looked at Hermione, eyes wide, and with seriousness in his voice said, "I don't think anastasis means what you think it means."
Hermione felt a chill. This had been her fault. Was the theory wrong? Should she have used Latin instead of Greek? She didn't know. But now there were rustlings in the grass nearby. It was getting darker now, so it was harder for the rest of them to see. But they could just make out shadows, and hands reaching out of other graves.
"What's going on?" said Vivian.
"Brainnnnsssss," came a chorus. "Brainnnnssssss. . . brainnnnnnsssss."
"Bloody hell!" Ron said. "Zombies! We have to get out of here." Ron turned to run, but Hermione stopped him.
"No, Ron!" she screamed. "Listen everybody! If these really are zombies, we have to contain them. If they're anything like the movies, they'll spread. They'll start killing people and turning them into zombies. We have to stop this now while we can or we'll be responsible for the zombie apocalypse."
"How are we going to stop zombies?" Ron said.
Harry spoke up. "We didn't take Defense Against the Dark Arts for nothing," he said. "Everybody ready your wands. Except you, Ned. Put your wand away." Harry was afraid of some unexpected terror that Ned's wand might unleash in the hands of an untrained wizard with unnatural abilities.
The four trained wizards all got out their wands and began hurling every manner of magic at their disposal, but most of their spells and curses did not work except to throw the zombies backwards on their backs, but they would then get up and resume their pursuit of brains.
"Why isn't it working?" Ginny lamented.
"Maybe it's because they're already dead," Harry said.
At that, Lily began firing into the heads of the zombies, dropping all but one that she missed, until she empted the gun.
"There are more bullets in the car," Vivian said, but turning toward the car, she saw more zombies. "They're behind us!" she screamed. There was no way to fetch more bullets.
Zombies surrounded the living on all sides. Ned imagined they could perhaps break through the thinnest ranks of them and hopefully make it out alive. They backed toward each other as the zombies closed in on them.
Then Ron ran forward and kicked the closest zombie in the chest, knocking him backward. Ned picked up a large stick and began hitting zombies. Most would get back up, but some stayed down. Chuck grabbed a shovel and began swinging wildly at the zombies, sometimes striking, but mostly missing.
Harry rushed forward to kick a zombie the way Ron had, but he slipped and fell. Ginny screamed as she saw two zombies fall on top of Harry. Harry shrieked as they tore into his flesh. Ron and Hermione rushed forward and kicked the zombies off of Harry, but more of them were almost upon them, and they backed away. Harry struggled to rise to his feet, but the other two zombies tackled him again. This time, there were too many of them for Ron, Hermione, and Ginny to fight off, and they backed away. Harry grasped at the earth, lurching forward with zombies piled on top of him.
"Fight, Harry!" Ginny wailed, and she unleashed a spell that sent many of the zombies surrounding Harry flying through the air. But it was not enough.
The three watched in helpless horror as one zombie sunk his fingers into Harry's eye sockets, then ripped his head apart and began to devour his brains while Harry's once fighting arms began to twitch aimlessly.
Ginny's heart broke at that moment. "Harry!" she screamed, falling to her knees in despair. Then quickly rising with sudden resolve, she hurled curse after curse, lighting the cemetery up with her wand, but almost to no affect. The zombies were still coming.
"Why did he not disapparate?" Ron asked Hermione.
"Look," she said, and Ron turned to see Vivian pick up Harry's wand from the ground. It lay a few meters in the direction Harry had previously dragged himself toward. "He dropped it," Hermione said. "Accio!" The wand flew out of Vivian's hand and into Hermione's.
Then there was a whoosh. The whoosh happened again and got louder. Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, until the blue police box appeared, and as soon as it was fully present, two Jedi seemed to fly through the doors brandishing green and blue light sabers. Lily and Vivian were amazed to watch the two Jedi mow through a forest of zombies with the light sabers humming and buzzing. The Jedi worked their way toward the frightened wizards and muggles. The green and blue sabers seemed to slice effortlessly through zombies, sometimes lopping off heads, sometimes slicing bodies completely in half at an angle.
Hermione watched in amazement as the two Jedi cleared space between the humans and the zombies. The speed and skill of the Jedi was a sight to behold, and the flash and buzz of light sabers was dazzling. Zombie bodies piled onto each other. There were so many that Hermione wondered if every corpse in the cemetery had risen from their graves.
"Pick up whatever you can," the older Jedi said who had the blue light saber. "Fight!"
There was not enough space to move about without the immediate danger of being swarmed by zombies. They each, Lily and Vivian included, found sticks or branches with which to fight. Ron and Chuck continued to wield shovels.
Ginny picked up a foot stone, raised it above her head and rushed into the fray, bashing the scull of one zombie, while another zombie tugged at her shirt. She swung back around, knocking the jaw loose, but the zombie was unfazed in its pursuit. Just then another zombie, lying on the ground with the bottom half of its body missing, grabbed Ginny's ankle. She fell to the ground, still clutching the stone. The zombie that had grabbed her shirt fell down with her. Both zombies were about to swarm on top of Ginny until Chuck swung her shovel into the back of the neck of one, then into the head of the other. Ginny thought Chuck looked angelic, blood splattered on her face, holding that shovel, and extending her hand. She took Chuck's hand, and Chuck helped her to her feet.
Lily felt a hand grasp her wrist. She swung wildly, but the Doctor dodged her strike, and she noticed he was among the living. "Come with me," he said. "You, too," he said to Vivian. "It'll be safe for you in the Tardis."
"Take my sister," Lily said.
"No!" Vivian protested. "I'm part of this, too. Stop protecting me!"
"Very well then," said the Doctor, but he would not leave their side. He picked up a stone in each hand and joined the fight.
Then there was a shrill scream.
"Where is that coming from?" Ginny asked.
They heard the scream again. "Help! No!" It sounded like a young girl. The Jedi fought a path to the sound of the voice, and the others followed. When they got there, they saw the young girl beating the backs of four zombies who were hovered over another dead body. Before the Jedi could get there, she, too, was taken down, and zombies were tearing into her, covering their arms in blood up to the elbows and all over their faces as they gnawed on human flesh.
"Too late!" cried the older Jedi. Then he turned to the wizards. "How many of them are there?"
"We don't know," answered Ron. "We think every grave in the cemetery must have empted at once. There's so many of them!"
"Who are you?" Hermione asked the Jedi.
"I'm Jedi Master Harsa Antyl, and this is my Padawan, Higra Viaus. We've come a long way through space and time. . ."
"Thank you," Hermione interrupted, not knowing or caring what a Jedi was or what their back story was. "You're obviously not from here. These are zombies. Until now, zombies only existed in fiction, but if that fiction has a grain of truth to it, we have to kill every last zombie. Not one can escape because if he does, he'll start the zombie apocalypse. It'll spread all over the world and kill everyone."
"Right," said Harsa. "Higra," he said turning to his Padawan, "We have to make sure they don't leave the grave yard." Then he said to everyone else, "Use your weapons to herd them in. Don't let them wander off." Everyone nodded, wishing they had light sabers.
"Brainnnnsssss. . .brainnnnnssssss. . ." came the continuous dissonant chorus of hungry zombies, some who were nothing more than rickety bones, others fully fleshed out corpses. The stench saturated the air, but the adrenaline was so high, the living humans barely noticed.
Ned had picked up a bigger branch and swiped at zombie legs, then smashed their heads as they fell.
Chuck was somewhere between Ned and the aunts, not wanting to lose sight of anybody.
Ginny and Ron wept, but they continued to beat back zombies, occasionally striking them with branches, and occasionally knocking them off their feet with a swish of their wands.
Hermione's eyes were dry, and she was determined. She ran through the woods and the parking lot with her wand lit up like a beacon, but she saw no stray zombies. It appeared that all the zombies were gravitating toward the living. She grabbed a crowbar from Lily's car and made her way back to Lily and Vivian. She found Lily on her knees breathing heavily. The Doctor and Vivian were near by fighting off zombies. Hermione kneeled beside Lily and took her hand, but Lily pulled it away.
"I'm alright," Lily said. Then Chuck kneeled down in front of Lily, and Lily said once again, "I'm alright."
Hermione got back up and joined the Doctor, wielding the crow bar against zombies with great effect.
The Jedi raced around the outer edges of the cemetery with hast, lopping off the heads of every zombie they saw, but they, too, noticed that the zombies were not straying. They were all headed toward the humans.
Hermione noticed that every now and then the older Jedi would raise a hand toward a crowd of zombies, sending them hurdling backward through the air. They must be wizards, she thought, but they don't use wands.
As the fighting went on, the sound of "brainnnssss" got quieter, but it could still be heard. It was almost completely dark now, and Ron was in constant fear of a zombie attacking him from behind. He never wandered very far from Ginny whose energy didn't seem to wane in the slightest.
In the distance, Ron could see the blue and green flashing light sabers of the Jedi, and he marveled. The Jedi were headed back, striking down zombies along the way.
Now, it became a matter of spotting a moving zombie here and there. All but the Jedi had gathered back together. As the living concentrated their numbers, the zombies also concentrated theirs because they were all headed to that one location. This made it easier for the Jedi to kill the last of them.
Amongst sobs and heavy breathing, the Doctor said, "I think we got them all."
"There may yet be some who didn't make it out of their graves," Harsa said.
"There are more that we're not seeing," said Higra.
"How can you tell?" Ned asked.
Higra said, "This doom caused a disturbance in the Force so strong that we felt it in a distant galaxy, millions of light years away, and thousands of years in the past. Believe me when I say they're still here."
"You felt it?" Ron queried. "From the past? I don't understand."
"We'll explain later," Harsa assured him. "Right now, we have to check every grave for the living dead."
Except for Chuck, Lily, and Vivian, they checked every grave. The Jedi thrust their light sabers into the ground, killing any zombie that moved and could be found. When they could find no more, Harsa and Higra sat, eyes closed, and breathed slowly. Then, opening her eyes, Higra said, "They're all gone."
"Bloody hell," Ron exclaimed. "I thought we had started the zombie apocalypse."