The Resurrection

It was a moonless night at Greenwillow Cemetery, the kind of night where even the shadows seemed unsure of where to cling. The crisp autumn air carried an undercurrent of decay, mingling with the anxious excitement of the small group gathered there. James Hefferfield, clipboard in hand, stood before them, his worn leather jacket and loosened tie giving him the appearance of a man both in control and exhausted by the weight of his clandestine craft.

“Alright,” James began, his voice calm but firm, cutting through the whispers and murmurs of the five individuals standing before him. “This is not a game. This is delicate, dangerous work. One wrong move, one miscalculation…” He let his words linger, heavy as the damp air. The group fell silent.

Laid out before them was their subject of the night: Samuel Grayson, a man who had been found lifeless and forgotten more than a decade ago. His death had been ruled “suspicious but inconclusive,” and the investigation had faded into cold-case obscurity. But James had sources, ones who whispered of loose ends connecting Samuel’s demise to a much larger corruption. Tonight, Samuel would speak again—if all went according to plan.

The group shifted uneasily as James continued, pacing slowly between them. “The serum works, but only as intended. Too little, and we get nothing but a comatose husk. Too much…” He paused again, glancing at the body. Its discolored skin stretched too tightly over brittle bones, a macabre reminder of the fine line they walked. “Too much, and the brain, especially one ravaged by time, cannot handle the reawakening. The impulses go... haywire. Agitation, aggression. The primal overrides the human.”

Beside him, a wiry boy named Marlon leaned in, his hands fidgeting with the strap of his black canvas bag. Marlon was the youngest in the group, barely 20, with the kind of wide-eyed curiosity that bordered on recklessness. "But we are using this for justice, right?” Marlon cut in, his voice betraying a shaky confidence.

“Like, Samuel’s going to come back and... point us to who really did him in?”

James stopped pacing and locked eyes with Marlon. “That’s the idea. But not just that.” His tone softened, almost contemplative. “Resurrection is about closure. It's about giving the dead their voice back. But it’s our responsibility to make sure they don’t come back... wrong.”

Marlon nodded fervently, but James’s gaze lingered on him for a beat longer. There was always one. On every team, in every training group, there was always someone too eager, too impulsive, too...”curious.” James knew the look. Saw it in himself, years back. It didn’t make him feel better about it.

The group surrounded the body, their equipment laid out like surgical tools. A small silver case housed the serum, glowing faintly green under the dim lantern light. James meticulously began preparing the injection, measuring the dose with a steady hand. “This part,” he murmured, “is where most handlers screw up. You don’t get a do-over with this process.”

He was so focused on his work that he didn’t notice Marlon’s eyes flickering between the case and James’s back. A silent calculation was being made, one rooted in overconfidence and a compulsion to stand out. Marlon’s hands twitched.

James handed the syringe to a woman named Clara, who had been one of his longest-standing students. “You’ll administer the dose,” he said, guiding her to the correct angle. “Slow and steady. The serum needs to integrate seamlessly—”

“Wait!” Marlon’s voice broke through, too loud and jarring in the still night. Everyone turned to see him holding a second syringe he’d somehow swiped from the case. “What if... what if we gave him just a little more? Like—enough to guarantee he wakes up fully aware of what happened to him?”

James’s face darkened instantly. “Marlon. Hand it over. Now.” But Marlon had already taken a step back, his hand trembling. “No, listen, just hear me out! What if we’ve been holding back this whole time? What if everyone we’ve resurrected—what if they’ve come back incomplete, like—like ghosts of who they were?”

“Marlon!” James barked, his voice sharp enough to snap a twig. “This isn’t about experimentation. This is science—measured, precise. You don’t tamper with the dose.”

But before the words could sink in, Marlon lurched forward, syringe in hand—and plunged it straight into Samuel’s chest. The group froze, horrified. James’s shout echoed across the cemetery. “What have you done?”
Samuel’s body twitched violently, his arms snapping upward as though pulled by invisible strings. The air grew thick with the stench of something unnatural, something wrong. His eyes shot open, clouded and milky but alive—
too alive. His lips curled back in a feral snarl.

James grabbed the group, pulling them back as Samuel sat upright, moving with an unnerving speed for someone who had been a corpse moments prior. His head jerked toward them, his movements spasmodic and jerky. Then came the sound no one wanted to hear: a low, guttural growl, followed by a snapping of teeth.

“Run,” James whispered, but it was already too late. Samuel lunged, tackling Clara to the ground with an inhuman strength. Teeth sank into her shoulder, and her scream split the night.

Panic erupted. James grabbed Clara, pulling her free, but the damage was done—blood seeped from her wound as Samuel turned his attention to the others. Marlon stumbled back, horrified but frozen.

The serum— too much serum—had overpowered what little brain mass remained in Samuel. What came back wasn’t a man with answers. It was a predator.

And worse? The serum was virulent. It spread. The infection could transfer through blood.

As James and the remaining members of the group fled deeper into the cemetery, he stole one last glance at Clara, who trembled on her knees. Her eyes glazed over, her body convulsing... and finally stilling. For only a moment.

Her head snapped up, unnatural hunger flashed behind her gaze. James’s heart sank.

“Keep moving!” James barked, dragging Marlon by the collar as they sprinted through the shadowed maze of gravestones. Behind them, guttural snarls filled the air, punctuated by the sound of frantic, scraping footsteps as Clara rose from the ground, her body jerking with the same unnatural intensity as Samuel’s.

“She’s—she’s one of them now, isn’t she?” Marlon gasped, his wide eyes welling with tears as he struggled to keep pace. “James! What have we done?”

“What you’ve done,” James shot back through gritted teeth, hauling him around a sharp corner between two crumbling mausoleums. “Where do you think this ends, Marlon? You’ve unleashed hell itself!”

“I didn’t know it would—I thought—”

“Shut up!" James hissed. He fought to keep his voice low but firm, an edge of panic betraying his otherwise cold demeanor.

"What’s done is done. You better pray we find some way to contain this before it spreads beyond those cemetery gates."

The remaining group wasn’t large—James, Marlon, and two others, Sarah and Drew. They clung close together, panting in the dark as they darted through the overgrown graveyard paths. Drew carried the remnants of the serum apparatus in a trembling grip, his face pale and drenched in cold sweat. Sarah had tears streaked down her face, a flashlight gripped tightly in her shaking hand, its beam barely enough to pierce the oppressive darkness.

But James knew the sound of pursuit when he heard it. Clara was behind them now, snarling like a feral animal, her once soft and warm personality consumed. And if Clara wasn’t bad enough, the echoes of more erratic growls grew louder. Samuel was no longer alone. Whether he’d gotten to the others or drawn more risen toward the commotion, they didn’t know. All James could focus on now was putting distance between them.

“Where are we going?” Sarah sobbed, glancing in every direction, as if a horde could descend on them from anywhere at any second.

“There’s a chapel!” Drew gasped, his voice raw from the sprint. “Far end of the cemetery; it’s locked, but—”

“I’ll break the damn lock if I have to,” James snapped. “Keep running and—”

A blood-chilling scream cut him off. A scream close by. Both Drew and Sarah froze, whipping around, their flashlight sweeping over cracked gravestones and dead, entangling trees. The beam caught movement—a blur of Clara’s silhouette sprinting towards them, her limbs erratically jostled like a puppet half-possessed. There were unnatural gaps in her run—short bursts of unnatural speed followed by unnatural jolts. Behind her were the others, pale, twisted, ravenous. The dead were up. Clara had done her part.

She wasn’t just following James. She was chasing the others who had taken refuge too far to notice. “No—no! We have to help them!” Sarah shrieked, her voice bordering on hysteria.

“You want to die helping strangers we can’t even see?”

James grabbed her wrist, yanking her forward. “Keep moving, keep—”

But Clara had always been fast. When she was alive, she was the top of the class in physical drills—now reanimated, she was pure speed, an unfiltered predator stripped of any trace of humanity. In seconds, she was closing the gap. Her body jerked forward unnaturally, her mouth twisted into a bloody grin still stretched grotesquely wide from snapping at her fallen classmates. Her growls turned into something closer to shrill, guttural shrieks… and the sound made James’s skin crawl.

"She's CLOSE!" Drew cried out, and his panic made him clumsy. Tripping on a crooked-root, he spilled forward, sending gear skittering across the ground.

“Drew!” Sarah turned, breaking from James’s grip to grab him. But Clara was faster—before James could even yell for her to stop, Clara was on them.

It was chaos—a flash of screams, tearing sounds that sent chills down James’s spine. Drew’s cries of terror were short-lived, morphing into wet gurgles as Clara tore into him, her jaws unnaturally wide. Blood sprayed across crumbling stones, but it wasn’t just Clara anymore. Samuel and the rest of the infected were approaching fast, all fixated on the fresh meal.

“Sarah—RUN!” James roared, his voice cracking. But she was frozen, staring down at Drew’s twitching, maimed body as everything went into slow motion. Her legs wouldn’t obey. She couldn’t look away from Clara’s snarling face, now dripping with crimson.

James didn’t waste time. He sprinted back, grabbing Sarah by the waist and physically hauling her away, ignoring her panicked screams and cries to go back for Drew. Behind them, the snarls grew louder. James clenched his jaw. He hated himself for it, but he knew Drew’s fate was sealed.
He wouldn’t just die. And that was the problem.

“Move, move, MOVE!” James barked, practically dragging Sarah through the now open yard of the graveyard. Marlon was ahead but not by much—he was faltering, his breaths ragged and shallow.
Somehow, they reached the chapel. The small, decaying building stood under the watchful gaze of a full moon, its iron door rusted shut but still intact. Marlon scrambled toward it first, fumbling for any kind of handle. “Locked—it’s locked!” he screamed, yanking helplessly.

James shoved Sarah forward and shouldered his way in, slamming his full weight against the door with a desperate grunt. On the third impact, the rusted hinges gave way, and the group stumbled inside. Wasting no time, James pushed the heavy, splintered remnants of an old wooden bench against the door as Clara’s enraged screams drew near.

The infected slammed against the iron with a force that made it shudder, their inhuman snarls slipping through the cracks like poison. Inside, the three remaining survivors stood panting, wide-eyed, and horrified.

“What now?” Marlon choked out, sinking to the floor. He didn’t dare look at James.
James stared at the battered door, blood soaking his shirt where he’d pressed his back to the splinters during their desperate effort to block it. His hands shook—not just from exhaustion, but from the weight of what they’d created. What
he had allowed... by trusting these kids, by trusting someone like Marlon.

“There is no cure,” James said grimly, his voice hollow. “We contain it. Or we join them.”

Marlon whimpered in the corner, Clara’s guttural screeches growing ever louder, more desperate, as she clawed at the barriers outside.

James knew barricades would only last so long.