Lumen Graves's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

Lumen Graves had wired lights across half the town, but tonight only one still worked. It hung from a pole outside the chapel where they slept, a grim stone box with a rotted saint carved above the door. The bulb threw a small yellow circle on the cracked street. Beyond that circle, the dark pressed in like water. Somewhere out there, the dead were moving. Lumen swore this town would glow bright enough that no zombie could hide. Right now the light barely reached past their own boots. A snap of teeth broke the quiet. Lumen spun. At the edge of the glow, a gaunt shape lurched forward, jaws clacking at the air. Its clothes hung in strips. Its mouth dripped. It snapped again, chewing at nothing, then fixed on Lumen and shuffled closer. Behind it, more shapes shifted in the black. Lumen could not see them, only hear the dragging feet. One light would not hold. Lumen ran into the chapel and grabbed the spare battery and a coil of wire. Their hands shook. They had one more bulb, cracked but alive, saved for weeks. They climbed the pole, stripped the wire with their teeth, and twisted it to the live line. The snapping thing reached the pole and clawed at Lumen's dangling foot. Lumen kicked down hard. Their heel struck the rotted skull. The zombie stumbled back. Lumen jammed the second bulb into the socket and slapped the battery into place. Nothing. The dark surged closer. Lumen slapped the battery again, harder. Sparks bit their fingers. Then the bulb flared. A second circle of light bloomed across the street, wider now, joined to the first. The brightness caught the snapping zombie full in the face. It shrieked and threw an arm across its eyes. Behind it, the glow revealed the truth. Not two zombies. Not five. A dozen stood frozen in the new light, blinking, exposed. They had been steps away the whole time. Lumen's stomach dropped. The light had done its job. It had shown them everything. And everything was worse than the dark had let them believe. The zombies flinched from the glow, but they did not leave. They circled the edge of it, staying just inside the shadow the two bulbs could not reach. Lumen clung to the pole and counted. The crowd was growing. Each dead face that stepped near turned away from the light, then drifted to the dark seams between the beams. Lumen understood now. One more bulb was not enough. The zombies had learned the shape of the light. They would wait in the gaps until the batteries died. Lumen slid down the pole and backed to the chapel door. The two lights held their small ground. Beyond them, in the dark alleys, the dead pressed against the town's few bright edges and waited for them to fail.