The only way I can describe it is creepy. The face looked around. At least, I think it was looking around. It didn't exactly have eyes. It had what looked like they were eyes but had rotted away along with the skin and now I'm grossing myself out so I'm going to move on.

The face stared straight at us. It smiled. That was enough to make even Lydia turn pale. [Figure of speech. I know you can't really do that because you're dead. No need to explain again.]

A hand appeared on each side of the tear. It hardly took a genius to figure out they belonged to the face. They used their hands to open the tear wider. A single foot stepped out. Then the head and neck. Then an arm. As it came through the tear, its body - I think it was a body - became deader. And the strange thing was, it was somehow staying in one piece! It looked as though a gust of wind would send it to pieces.

While myself and Lydia found ourselves frozen, unable to stop staring, Arthur decided violence was the best way to solve the problem. You know, as guys usually do. [Yeah, I said it.] The strange thing was it kind of worked.

Arthur tore the largest branch he could carry from a nearby tree and tossed it straight at the zombie! [There's really no other way to describe the thing]. The branch slammed into its stomach. It fell to the ground, half-in and half-out of the tear. In the process of falling, one of its arms fell off. Yes, it was as gross as it sounded.

That was when something really weird happened.

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Something from inside the tear dragged the body back inside.

The tear closed seconds later.

"Right," Arthur said. "That was weird."

"Weird is putting it lightly," Lydia agreed.

"Uh, I have a question." They turned to me. "If only one of those . . . things came out this time, how many are going to come out tomorrow when the actual tear opens?"

They went silent.

I sighed. "Yeah, I have no idea either."

Lydia raised a finger to her lips in thought. "Maybe we can prevent it from being opened." She shook her head. "Never mind. None of us have the powers or resources for it."

"Greeeaaaat."

Arthur, being Arthur, went over to the severed arm and picked it up. He waved with it before tossing it to the side. "I could always beat them up with sticks again," he said cheerfully.

"You enjoyed that way too much," I said.

"Aw, come on." He waved the branch around like a wooden staff. "If it only takes one hit to take 'em down, we can handle it."

Lydia crossed her arms. "Unless you remember the whole there being billions of spirits in the Afterlife thing. You feel like fighting billions of zombies?"

"No," he admitted.

"Me neither," I agreed.

"Ideas?"

This was where I zoned out of the conversation. Arthur and Lydia begun discussing - well, arguing - over what should be done. I vaguely heard something about the conversation of closing the tear come up again. But there was something else on my mind, I discovered as I stepped to where the tear had been. Would be. Possibly still was.

Something or someone from the other side had helped us.

Now, I knew not all spirits were evil like some people claimed they were. I mean, come on, my best friend was and still is a spirit. However, the idea of someone on the other side wanting to keep things as they were was enough to make me curious.

The question was . . . Who had helped us?