The Zombie Chronicles

Volume One

Dedicated To George A Romero

Solaris Marketing ©

October 2010

Published By

Solaris Marketing

Calgary Alberta Canada

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is
stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and
neither the authors nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped”
book.

Copyright 2010 By Solaris Marketing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any
form or by electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by
any informational storage and retrieval system, without the prior written
permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

ISBN 978-0-9738136-1-6

The name The Zombie Chronicles™ is trademarked by Solaris Marketing.

Printed in Canada

Printed in The United States of America

A C K N O W L E D G E M E N T S

Special thanks to all the contributing authors who, without them The Zombie
Chronicles would never have broken through the ground.

A special thanks to Maria Grazia of Horror Bound Magazine who provided support and
direction from the very start of this infectious endeavor.

And also a special thank you to all the reviewers and readers of horror fiction.

The Zombie Chronicles

Volume One

Love in the Time of Zombies

By John F.D. Taff

It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of
unrequited love. It was their smell…her smell…a cloud of aroma that hung in the air
because of them, followed them, and emanated from them so powerfully that it was
almost visible, like wavy cartoon lines of aroma.

Durand told himself that he’d still love her even if she smelled of…well, what she
looked like she’d smell of…rotting meat, clotted blood, the fish-stink of pus, the
sweltering, bus stop smell of urine or even the hazy, brown smell of feces.

But now, just almonds…burned, bitter almonds. And the Linda Ronstadt disc on the CD
player in the store, playing Long, Long Time over and over again. That’s all he had
left of her…of it all…

Millstadt was a small, isolated Midwestern town in the middle of hundreds of miles
of flat farmland, stretching from horizon to horizon, like a horizon unto itself.
When it came, whatever it was, the world, if it had any thought of Millstadt
whatsoever, quickly forgot it.

Durand had awoken that morning, like any other, to go to work at the cement plant.
He’d showered, dressed, ate a bowl of Count Chocula over the cluttered sink in his
trailer. He didn’t listen to the TV or radio or read a newspaper, not that they’d
have been much help that morning. The papers were too late to cover it. By the time
it happened, there was no one left to write the news, edit the news…read the news.
And the radio and TV were filled with…well, static mostly…and screaming.

He drove streets that didn’t seem unusually quiet or empty to him. On Main Street,
though, he began to sense that something was amiss. A few cars were parked
diagonally in front of Millstadt Hardware, in front of the Busy Bee Café, in front
of Dover Pharmacy as on most mornings. But more than few cars were simply stopped
mid street, doors open, some running.

More disturbing were the bodies, sprawled still and dark. Durand recognized Ina
Thorpe from the DMV office (she was the only nice one there), Mr. Tucker from the
Feed Store, and…was that little Bobby Chavez? The body sprawled on the curb, one
sneaker tumbled across the sidewalk with a pool of dark liquid growing beneath him.

In a daze, Durand had stopped his car, scrabbled beneath his seat to get his gun.
It was a .45, registered, loaded and ready for business. He carried the gun cocked
and pointed at the ground as he crept up on the body of Mr. Tucker. Bending, he saw
a dark smear on the asphalt beneath Mr. Tucker, and he snatched his hand back.

Terrorists!

Still crouched, he scanned the stores that lined Main Street, their roofs, their
windows, the likely hiding places for any Jihadists or Iranians looking to off a
few Americans in Millstadt. His attention occupied, he didn’t see stout Ina Thorpe
roll over; didn’t see blood running from a ragged wound that had opened the side of
her face enough to reveal her small, peg teeth grinding a wad of something that
looked awfully like part of her own cheek.

Didn’t see Bobby Chavez’s shoeless leg twitch violently, as if electricity had
passed through it, then suddenly stop. Didn’t see him crawl to his feet, fix Durand
with one good eye; the other cloudy pink and turned impossibly in its socket toward
the sky.

But he did hear the low, gassy moan that escaped Marty Fretwell, a guy he went to
high school with, as he shambled slowly toward him. It was the deep, satisfied
belch of a person who had just pushed himself from the dinner table. The only
things that Marty Fretwell wore were a stained pair of white Fruit-of-the Loom
briefs and an open-mouthed expression of absolute blankness.

His near nakedness aside, though, the worst of it took Durand a moment to take in.

Marty Fretwell was missing his right arm.

It hadn’t gone quietly, either. It had been ripped off or…gnawed off. What was left
was a mangled red mess that dangled from his shoulder like wet fringe. Blood still
pumped sluggishly from the wound, spattering the street, the side of Marty’s naked
body with each lurching step.

“You’ve got a gun, for chrissakes!” Durand could tell that it came from behind the
cafe’s glass door, held open just a crack. “Shoot them!”

Shoot them? Shoot a couple of neighbors who’d been hurt in a goddamn terrorist
attack?
Then, Marty Fretwell was trying to wrap his one good arm around him. Durand,
disgusted but confused, wriggled in the man’s slick grip, pulled away and stepped
directly into Ina. With her two good arms, she clamped onto him with a strength
that belied her age; as if she’d won him as a prize at the county fair and was
unwilling to give him up.

“Jesus, Ina...! What the f…”

Her teeth clacked together an inch from his denim work shirt, with a sound like a
pair of garden shears snapping shut.

“Shoot her, you idiot! Do you wanna end up like one of them?”

Durand saw that they were closing in on him. All of them bloodied, all of them
moving slowly and haltingly.

“Like them?” he yelled, stepping away from the weird, advancing group.

“Zombies!”

Zombies? He might as well have said werewolves or vampires or honest politicians,

as far as Durand was concerned.

Then, Bobby Chavez darted forward with astonishing speed, coming in below his gun,
clamping onto Durand’s jean-clad left calf with his dirty, blood-grimed mouth.

A moment of astonishment was followed by one of pain. The kid had bitten, not hard
enough to get through the denim, but enough to hurt.

“Fuck this shit!” Durand yelled, and kicked like he’d done when he punted the
football for the winning field goal at the high school football championship years
ago. Bobby Chavez flopped through the air about three feet, landed hard on the
pavement.

“Fucking shoot them you fucking fucktard…shoot them!”

He’d never shot at another living human before…and even when the clip was empty,
that record would stand.

The first shot went wild, striking Tucker’s car in the radiator, which hissed in
exasperation.

Durand took a deep breath, aimed more carefully, shot again.

This time, it struck Ina in the chest, raising a little red bloom that soaked
through her sweater, her tasteful, lace-topped white blouse, knocking her ass over
tea kettle backward.

There was a long, raspy sigh of frustration from the cafe, as annoyed as Tucker’s
radiator.

“In the head…in the fucking head!”

Durand swallowed, raised the gun again.

A flash and a kick, and the top of Marty’s head, surmounted by a halo of wild bed
hair, disappeared in a red haze. The rest of his body stood there for a moment,
spun in on itself and fell to the road.
There was an excited, high-pitched whoop of encouragement from the cafe.

Quickly, before he could lose his nerve, Durand dropped Tucker as definitively as
he had Marty.

Already, both Ina and Bobby were moving again, climbing to their feet.

Ina’s head exploded. The little pair of silver glasses she wore on a chain around
her neck went spinning off into the air, nothing left to keep them draped over her
bosom.

The boy came on, limping a bit, his one eye still dead, still pointed upward.

“What are you waiting for? Do it!”

Durand grimaced in anger at the goading voice, closed his eyes and pulled the
trigger.

When he opened them again, Bobby Chavez was minus both his sneakers and both his
eyes.

He stood there for a moment, turning his head, surveying what he’d done.

Four people he knew…four neighbors…and one of them a kid for chrissake…dead…

sprawled on the street leaking blood…headless…

And he’d done it…he…Durand Evars.

“Unless you’re planning on giving them mouth to mouth, get in here, dammit!”

Durand stumbled into the empty café, collapsed into a chair at an empty table. His
heart was racing and his entire body was shaking. He ran both hands over his head,
through his hair and took a long, trembling breath. Through his interlaced fingers,
he heard the click of the cafe door being locked.

A glass thumped onto the table brought him back. Orange juice sloshed, pooled near
his hand.

“Sorry. You need something to drink, and that’s the strongest stuff this place’s
got.”

Durand nodded his thanks, took the glass, drained it.

“Coffee?”

“Uhh…sure…hold on a sec…” He heard Scott dash behind the counter, fumble with a cup
and saucer. “Milk or sugar or anything?”

Durand shook his head vaguely. A moment later, a china coffee cup appeared, filled
with black liquid. The coffee was hot, strong, bitter; he took several long sips,
let the steaming liquid trickle down his tight throat.

“Scott Gibbons,” the man said.

Reaching out absently, Durand shook it. “Durand Evars.”

Gibbons took a seat at the table. He was around 22 years old, scruffy in the way
that generation thinks is attractive, with uncombed hair and an unshaven face. He
wore a torn hooded sweatshirt that zipped up the front, splitting the one word,
“Auburn,” that arced across it.

“For a minute there, I thought you were gonna end up as one of them,” he said.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Gibbons looked at his half empty cup of coffee.

“Well, that’s probably gonna require a whole pot. I’ll make a fresh one.”

The news started on CNN at about 1 o’clock in the morning. Strange, multiple
reports of people being killed in what looked like random attacks all over the
globe. The automatic assumption was a large scale, coordinated terrorist attack.
But when the same reports started coming in from Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia,
this theory went by the wayside.

Right before the news went off the air, there were the first hesitant, disbelieving
reports of the dead rising and attacking the living.

“I stay up late playing online games,” Scott said, drinking what must have been his
tenth glass of Mountain Dew. He talked in fast bursts, and his leg jigged
nervously. “I had the TV on and was kinda half watching. When they got to the stuff
about the dead coming back and shit, I just thought it must be like War of the
Worlds or something. You know, like back when they ran that show on the radio in
the ‘50s and people freaked and shit because they thought it was real?”

Durand considered that for a second, let it go.

“Have you seen other people…live people?” he was finally able to croak.

Scott looked over the rim of his chipped plastic soda cup, turned his eyes away.

“Sure…ummm…well, this place was full when I got here,” he said, acting nervous for
the first time since he’d met Durand. “It opens at about 5 a.m., you know, for the
farmers and shit. I walked here to get something to eat…”

“From where?”

“My house…over on West Madison,” he said, then blushed. “Well, my ma’s house. I
live…”

“In the basement?” Durand finished, with a wry smile.

Scott nodded, embarrassed.

“Hey, no big deal. I live in a trailer, so we’re even.”

Scott’s blush faded, and a big, loopy grin appeared on his face. “Cool. Anyway, it
was packed. Someone came in…I think it was that older guy you plugged out there…and
said to turn on the radio. When people heard what was going on, a lot of ‘em
freaked and left. A few stayed…well, until the dead ones started showing up. Then
the place pretty much cleared out.”

Durand sipped at his cooling coffee. “How come you stayed?”

That brought the blush back on the young man’s face. “Well, when that all went
down, I knew it wasn’t a hoax anymore. So, I…uhhh…called home. No one answered. My
ma…well, she doesn’t work…and…she woulda answered the phone if she’d been…if she
wasn’t….shit…”

“Hey, man,” Durand said, seeing his eyes welling with tears. “I get it. Anyone
else?”

Scott sniffled, shook his head, self consciously wiped his tears. “I locked the
door after that, hid behind the counter. Until I heard your truck, then I came out
to see. I figured, a truck, you know…they’re probably not driving.”

Durand drained his coffee, turned his attention to the window. “Well, they don’t
seem particularly interested in us. I’d feel a whole lot better, though, if we
found a safer place. They could break right through this window, and we’d be
fucked.”

“Not my place,” Scott said, shaking his head at returning home and facing an undead
mother.

“Sure, not my place either. We need to find a place that’s pretty secure, that has
water and food and toilets. Who knows how long we’re going to be on our own.”

He turned back to Scott. “You sure you haven’t seen anyone else alive? The Sheriff?
Army?”

Scott shook his head.

Durand thought he saw a blush return to his face.

By the end of the first week, they’d made their home in the cavernous Bargain Barn
Super Center. It was on the outskirts of Millstadt’s small downtown, completely
encircled by a 10-foot chain link fence that could be closed and locked. It was
stocked literally to the metal rafters with food, drinks, toiletries, even guns and
ammo. It had bathrooms, running water and plenty of televisions and radios, should
these ever prove useful again.

Moreover since it hadn’t been open when all this started, it was empty of people,
living or dead. It was closed and locked, but they found a key still stuck in the
employee entrance door at the back, an enormous ring of keys dangling from it.
Whoever had left it there had long since gone.

Best of all, its front entrances were two normal size glass doors that were easily
barricaded, and not an entire wall of glass like the places on Main Street.

By this time, they’d learned a lot about their new neighbors. First, the shambling,
shuffling way they moved was not an act. They were slow and awkward and seemingly
without any motivation. Nothing seemed to get their attention, unless a living
person got too close and that we determined was about two or three feet as it
seemed the limit of their perception.

Within that zone, something seemed to click in their undead brains; they suddenly
developed a strength, an almost reptile agility.

But there was no intelligence behind their eyes. No hive mind or animal
consciousness, as the movies sometimes showed. They were not smart or capable of
figuring out even simple problems. There’s was a primitive, almost atavistic
hunger. They meandered their way through town stupidly, placidly until something
was unlucky enough to get in their way.

For the most part, you could walk right past one on the street, keeping your
distance, with nothing to worry about. And even if one did notice you, came after
you, turning a corner or closing a door or even hiding behind a tree was usually
enough to throw them off.

After that first week, as far as both men could tell, they were the only ones left
alive in town.

Everyone else was either, as Scott put it, fled, dead or undead.

Durand told Scott he was leaving that morning to do laundry. The Bargain Barn had
an extensive selection of washers and dryers, but nowhere to hook them up. So,
Durand had loaded a shopping cart with dirty laundry, pushed it to the Suds-N-Duds.

Scott nodded noncommittally, continued playing his PS-3 on the high-def, 50-inch
plasma that he’d taken up residence near. Durand waited to see if Scott was going
to come along, but he had cut off the rest of the world.

The constant video game playing had begun to aggravate Durand, but what aggravated
him more than anything else was Scott’s seeming acceptance of what was going on.
No, not just acceptance; it was Scott’s embrace of what was going on that bothered
him.

It was the end of the world as he knew, and he felt fine.

Did he want to go by his ma’s house, grab a few things? Maybe give her a Christian
burial?

Nah.

Did he want to help scout for more supplies?

‘Are you kidding?’ he’d snort, looking around the expanse of the Bargain Barn from
the recliner he’d dragged to Electronics from Home Furnishings. Exactly what are we
missing?

Did he want to come and help Durand with the laundry?

‘I’ll just grab some new stuff from the clothing aisle.’

Durand laughed bitterly as he pushed the cart around the decaying bodies of zombies
he’d killed days earlier. It was like having a big, stupid teenager of his own,
something that Durand had avoided in his 32 years on this planet.

It wasn’t that Durand was bad looking. To the contrary, he had a lean, spare
ranginess to him that most women found deeply attractive. His blonde hair was still
pretty much intact, his teeth were straight and white, his eyes were a deep, deep
blue. It wasn’t that he hadn’t had girlfriends, because he’d had quite a few.

What Durand never really had, though, was love. He’d never really had a girl he
felt more strongly about—or even as strongly about—as himself. It was just that
he’d never met a girl he thought about all day while she was gone, wondered about
all the while she was near, fantasized about all night. He hadn’t met a girl who’d
made him jealous or sad or depressed or mad.

He’d never met a girl who made him feel as if he carried anything inside his chest
other than a mess of squishy internal organs whose functions were less mysterious
to him than that one singular emotion.

Love.

All that changed, though, when he met Beth McClary…but by then, she was already
very, very dead.

The air was cool and fresh, the sun bright and benign. As Durand neared the front
of the Suds-N-Duds, though, the wheel of his makeshift laundry cart dipped in some
small pothole. The cart listed, fell over on its side like a stricken beast,
sending laundry everywhere.

“Shit,” he cursed, immediately looking in every direction to see how many of them
were nearby…and if any of them showed any signs of coming closer.

There were only about ten that he could see from where he stood. A few clustered
around the front of the post office as if waiting to mail postcards to their
relatives in St. Louis or Omaha.

Having Fun! Wish You Were Dead Here!

About a half block away, a single man zigzagged down the center of the street in
his bathrobe, muttering in the strange, guttural grunts they all seemed to make.
Two women slowly circled a fire hydrant in front of the Farm Bureau office, neither
taking any notice of the other or the hydrant.

A man, a woman and a young girl—who wrenched at Durand’s heart in her purple one-
piece bathing suit, deflated floaties still circling her pale, blue arms—moved in a
loose group on the edges of Millstone Park, across the street. Their unlikely
gathering made Durand think of a family leaving after an afternoon spent on the
swing sets, the slides, the monkey bars…

But they were not a family…they had not been playing in the park.

Bending to collect the spilled laundry, he caught the unmistakable odor of burnt,
bitter almonds from close by, looked up and saw her.

For a moment, a fleeting, sun-drenched moment, he thought…hoped…that she was alive.

She was wearing a simple white sundress, large, almost abstract daisies patterned
across it. One thin strap of the dress was missing; one flat white shoe was
missing. Her hair was a pale yellow, and it came to her shoulders straight and
shimmering in the gentle sun. Her eyes were bright blue, like his own, and even
though they seemed listless and unfocused, there was something about them that
tugged at him.

Her skin looked alabaster in the late morning light, pale as ivory, soft as angora.
He didn’t know why her skin wasn’t the blue- or green-tinged mess like the others.
He knew only that it gave her face some life…or at least a semblance of life that
her blue eyes, vacant and listless, belied.

A purse hung over her shoulder and around her neck, in the way that women wear
purses when they’re afraid someone might come snatch them.

Blood marred her otherwise beautiful features; not much, just a thin trickle from
one nostril that painted the corner of her mouth like a smudge of lipstick and a
slightly thicker line that snaked from one ear and followed the contours of her
jaw.
It took him a moment to see the other blood, a large patch of it, faded a rusty
brown now, hiding within the splotchy daisies of her dress near her stomach.

Something had shot her, killed her…

Durand forgot about the laundry for a second, forgot about the 2,000 living dead
lurching around a town that itself was more dead than alive, forgot about Scott,
forgot about nearly everything that had been floating through his brain over the
last two weeks.

The sunlight, thick and syrupy, fell upon her from behind, lit her hair, cast a
penumbra around her form, made her seem to glow from within.

After a second, Durand found that his breathing had stopped.

After another, he found that his heart had started.

There was something about her that transcended her beauty; an essential sadness, as
if somehow, on some level, she was aware of what had happened to her. That, her
tattered dress, her missing shoe, made his heart ache for her, made him want to
help her in some way.

Help her…? And the voice in his head was suddenly Scott’s. She’s dead.

He took a deep, almost strangled breath, tore his eyes away, and hurriedly began
gathering the laundry, piling it into the cart. Suddenly, much to his chagrin, he
was a nervous teenager, embarrassed in front of a girl. He felt heat slam into his
face, felt the tips of his ears glow with humiliation.

The cart’s wheel was still caught in the rut, resisting his attempts to push it.
Angrily, he shoved it forward over the curb at the front of the Suds-N-Duds.

But the girl still stood there, still stared past him…

Because, he sighed, she’s dead.

He didn’t need to be embarrassed at how ridiculous he’d looked. He didn’t need to

worry about impressing her or if she’d noticed him or what she thought of him.

She’s dead.

Pushing the cart past her, he muscled his way through the unlocked door of the
Laundromat.

But he smiled as he past her, smiled with both his eyes and his mouth before he let
the door close behind him, the little bell above the door ringing as if he’d won a
prize.

For he was already in love with her, though he didn’t even know it yet, didn’t know
her.

Couldn’t know her…

“You saw a girl down by the Laundromat?” Scott asked as Durand folded clothes,
stacked them atop a ping-pong table. Durand had the CD player on the big stereo
turned up, playing Linda Ronstadt’s Greatest Hits, which he knew irritated Scott,
but he didn’t care. He was into irritating Scott these days, because Scott was
irritating. And besides, he liked Linda Ronstadt.
Scott neither looked up nor stopped playing his game. At his feet, lay empty bags
of Doritos, empty cans of Red Bull taken from an enormous, shrink wrapped cube of
the stuff he had used a forklift to wheel over near his recliner.

“Yep.”

It took him a moment to realize that Scott’s fingers were no longer clicking the
buttons of the controller he held.

“Wait,” he said, turning in his chair. “You saw a girl…a girl?”

“Yep.”

“Not a zombie…but an actual, real girl…well…I mean…what the fuck, hombre? Why
didn’t you bring her…”

“She is a zombie. A zombie girl.”

“A zombie girl? Well, fuck that…”

Scott let out a petulant little puff of air. The beat of tapping fingers sounded
again.

“Exactly what are you doing, bro?”

Scott stood quietly behind Durand the following morning, a can of Red Bull in one
hand and a package of Twinkies in the other. Durand was digging through a pile of
women’s shoes arranged on a table. There were mules, slingbacks, moccasins, flats,
all in different colors and styles.

“I’m looking for a pair of shoes,” Durand muttered.

Scott took this in, saw the backpack at Durand’s feet, a green dress stuffed into
it. He squinted to be sure of what he saw.

Durand heard him slurp down the rest of his Red Bull clear his throat.

“You’re not…you know…a fuckin’ cross dresser, are you? A trannie or something?”

“No, they’re for…someone.”

“Someone? Exactly who might that be?”

Durand got a mental picture of Scott standing behind him, his t-shirt stained with
orange hand swipes from the Doritos and Cheetos that comprised his diet these days.
He saw the week-old growth of beard, the greasy, matted hair, the bleary eyes.
Mostly, though, he saw his arm cocked back, preparing to toss the empty Red Bull
can into the depths of the store.

“I’m not picking that up,” Durand muttered, checking the clip in his gun, freshly
loaded from the seemingly inexhaustible supply of ammo found in Sporting Goods.
Satisfied, he thumbed the safety, tucked it into the waistband of his pants.

It took Scott a minute. “Oh, hell no…her? You’re picking out shoes for a zombie?”

“She’s missing a shoe…and I just…well, I want to make sure she doesn’t mess up her
feet too much,” he said, realizing how stupid that sounded.

“And the dress?”

Durand made no attempt to answer for that.

“Dude, she’s a fucking zombie, she’s not concerned with her clothes or her fucking
footwear anymore…or her feet, for that matter.”

“Well, I’m doing this. Stay or come, it’s up to you,” Durand said, shouldering the
pack.

“Oh, no, I’m coming. I’ve got to fucking see this shit go down.”

The first time they saw them eating, he and Scott had been staying in a house off
Main Street, before taking residence in the Bargain Barn. Scott had somehow managed
to cut himself opening a can of tuna, and they’d been unable to find even a Band-
Aid in the house’s medicine cabinets, just an old Fleet enema bottle and a
prescription for Darvocet from 1983.

So, they’d hiked to Dover Pharmacy, dodging zombies along the way, shooting any who
got too close. Corpses littered the streets now, just a few days after it had all
gone down, and it made for grisly scenery. Bodies lay everywhere, heads blown off,
brains and blood and gore spattered everywhere. The flies and crows feasted.

The two turned the corner from Sixth onto Main, and saw vague shadows between two
buildings in the wan light of the alley. Then, they heard the sounds…teeth tearing
raw meat, scraping bone, cracking and grinding and over it all, the wet, smacking
lips, the grunts of pleasure.

As their eyes adjusted, they saw four of them squatting around an indistinct mess
of liquid darkness that slumped in the alley, sent rivulets of inky liquid across
the uneven, trash-strewn concrete.

But the figures didn’t turn, didn’t rise to their feet; it was difficult to see
what they were doing.

Even though both men knew, both men knew exactly what they were doing.

Durand raised the gun, stepped into the alley.

Scott grabbed his arm, looked at him without saying anything. But his face said it
all.

‘Are you crazy, bro?’

Durand shrugged him off.

Wished he hadn’t.

The four zombies—for, oh yes, they were zombies now, there could be no doubt
anymore—sat on their haunches, reaching their filthy, gore-encrusted hands into an
undefined mess, drawing forth whatever they found, stuffing it greedily into their
blood-stained mouths…and chewing…swallowing…gulping…the maggots and all.

Durand stood gape-jawed for a long while, the gun hanging in the air before him,
until he saw a hand, an intact hand—pallid, pale, palm up—jutting from the pile.
Then, it came into focus, its details leapt up at him, and he could see an arm, a
burst chest, the remains of a thigh…a ruined, gnawed face, with one eye, one
remaining bright, blue eye gazing balefully from its wreckage.

As if yanked by unseen strings, the four zombies sprang to their feet, spun to face
Durand.

Their faces were empty, vacuous. There was no fierceness in them, no hatred…

Only hunger…deep, abiding hunger.

Their mouths were open, wide open, filled with blood and a pulp of chewed meat,
gristle, the pink, spongy marrow of bones. Gore and spilth dribbled down their
faces, caked their cheeks, matted their hair.

They bared their teeth in hunger, that was all, just hunger.

But it was enough…

Durand’s gun roared four times, deafening in the confines of the alley.

It was enough…

They found her in the best possible of places, near the side of Millstadt Hardware,
where its lumberyard lay behind a section of chain link fence. She was caught where
the fence came together in a corner, thumping against it repeatedly like a child’s
windup toy that’s hit a wall. She would try to move forward, go left or right, but
she was blocked. Whatever it was that had changed her, whatever it was that
animated her now didn’t consider simply stepping backwards.

“That’s her,” shouted Durand, racing forward, then catching himself and skidding to
a stop in a cloud of dust and gravel.

Scott came slowly, his face screwing into a mask of doubt and shock.

“That’s her?” he squeaked in a weak echo. “Really?”

Her hair looked just as shiny as before, her skin as pale and translucent. And
Durand smelled the burning almond of her, took it in and decided that it wasn’t so
bad after all.

Shrugging out of the backpack, he ripped the zipper open, pulled out the long, pale
green sun dress he’d found in the store, held it up to see if it might fit her. The
shoes were a little dicier. It was hard to tell how small her foot was. She was
probably no more than 5’4”, he thought; probably 24 or 25 years old.

Scott hung back as he did this, gnawing at the ragged stumps of his nails.

“You gonna help?” Durand asked, turning to him.

Nodding absently, Scott took a single step.

“What the hell’s wrong with you?”

Scott snapped his eyes to Durand’s, shook his head innocently.

Durand touched his shoulder, not noticing that Scott flinched, that his eyes bulged
in his head.

“There,” he said, pointing to a side door that led into the store. On the other
side of the fence was a similar door about ten feet away along the same wall. “Go
into the store, then come around so you’re inside the lumberyard.”

“And then…?”
Duran turned to him, smiled. “Step over to the fence and occupy her attention.”

Scott paled visibly.

“You’ll have the fence between you.” Durand winked, slapping him on the back.
“She’s not gonna chew through it.”

Scott smirked, opened his mouth to say something sarcastic. Instead he walked to
the entrance, his shoulders slumping, opened the door and disappeared inside.

When he was gone, Durand took a step closer to her, then another… With only about a
yard and a half to go, he noticed that her movements stopped, her head cocked as if
she’d smelled something. Durand heard the guttural sounds she made deep in her
throat.

The lumberyard door opened and Scott exited, hesitated and then walked to the
fence. When he was less than three feet away, the girl uttered a groan of hunger,
pushed into the fence, straining against it, her fingers curled into the links.

Scott jumped back. “Jesus tap-dancing Christ! I’m so fucking outta here!”

“No! She’s not gonna get you. Just distract her while I do this.”

“This is fucked up, bro. Truly fucked up.” Scott held his ground but couldn’t look
at the girl, couldn’t look into her eyes.

Tentatively, Durand stepped nearer. He’d never been this close to one of them, and
the smell of almonds was almost overpowering. But all her attention was focused on
Scott. He could hear the disturbing sound of her teeth clacking together, snapping.

Durand patted the grip of the gun tucked in his waistband…just in case…then lifted
his arm slowly, reached out…

“Jesus, bro…don’t fucking touch her…”

But Durand ignored him, extended his hand, let it graze the top of her bare
shoulder.

She didn’t turn on him, didn’t stop trying to get at Scott.

Durand’s hand lingered there, feeling the softness of her skin. So strange to feel
skin this cool. It drifted over her shoulder, across the nape of her neck. The ends
of her hair, so fine and soft, tickled at the back of his hand.

“Ummm…bro…this is weird. Can we please…please wrap this up?”

Durand removed his hand slowly, as much because he didn’t want to draw her
attention as because he didn’t want to stop touching her.

He saw the strap of her purse across her shoulder, around her neck.

“Just a sec,” he told Scott, then backed away, opened the pack and rooted inside.
He returned with scissors, cut the purse’s strap. It fell to the ground with a
weary plop. On a whim, he snipped the one thin strap that held the top of the
sundress in place. To his surprise, it fluttered to the ground, pooling at her
feet.

“This is some seriously fucked up shit you’re doin’, man. Seriously.”

She was built thinly, but nicely, with a pleasing symmetry to the width of her
shoulders, the length of her back, the curve of her buttocks. She wore a plain
white bra and a plain white pair of panties. Her skin, as it slid across her
shoulders, swept up the arch of her hips, down her legs, was soft and white as a
cloud.

Broken only by the hole that someone had blasted in her…

The wound, about the size of an egg, was low on her left side, near her kidneys. It
was bright and wet with blood, but it had stopped leaking long ago. Durand couldn’t
guess as to who had shot her or why or whether it was before or after she was dead.

A sudden tidal wave of sadness and pity rolled over him, and tears filled his eyes.
To hide them, he turned, grabbed the shoes from the pack. Kneeling carefully behind
her, he ran a hand along the calf of her left leg, the one missing a shoe. Feeling
like the prince in the Cinderella story, he slipped the white canvas flat he’d
chosen onto her foot.

Impossibly, crazily, it fit.

He lowered that foot to the ground again, took the other, removed that shoe and
slid the remaining new one on.

For a moment, just a moment, he thought he would lean forward, lean forward just a
bit and let his lips touch the back of her cool calf, kiss the soft, firm skin
there.

But he didn’t.

“You about finished with your fucking Hallmark moment?”

“No.”

“No? Fuck…no?”

“Well, we can’t leave her in her underwear.”

Slipping the new sundress over her head involved both of them on the other side of
the fence, climbing it, getting her to reach up to them, extending both arms fully,
like a child waiting for her mother to slip the shirt over her body. It went on
easier than it had any right to, slithered into place over her as if she had simply
shrugged into it.

They descended the fence, and when they had gone past that strange, magical point,
whatever that distance was, she lost interest in them. Her mouth went slack, her
arms slid down the fence, her eyes stared straight, not seeing them. She bumped
into the fence, turned a little right, bumped again, turned a little left, bumped
again.

As they left, Durand hefted the backpack. Almost an afterthought, he grabbed the
purse, too.

Scott gave him a strange, measuring look, but said nothing.

They left her there, in her new dress, her new shoes- the best dressed zombie in
Millstadt.

As they walked back to the Bargain Barn, Scott turned to him. “If you’re thinking
of coming back tomorrow and applying her makeup, dude, count me out.”

“Her name’s Beth McClary,” Durand said later that night, over a pan of Stouffer’s
frozen lasagna, a loaf of garlic cheese bread and a bottle of red wine. They ate
dinner under a gazebo on a patio furniture display. Music from the stereo in
Electronics played in the background.

Durand ate with gusto, but Scott picked at his, pushed it around on the plate,
sniffed at the wine.

“How’d you find that out?” Scott asked, not really all that interested.

“Her purse. She had a driver’s license and all sorts of stuff,” Durand replied,
shoveling in another forkful of crusty, overcooked lasagna. “I was right. She’s 24
years old. If she’s a townie, she probably went to school with you. How old did you
say you were?”

“I’m 28,” Scott said, looking up guiltily. “I don’t remember a Beth…what’s her
name…?”

“McClary.”

“Nope. After my time.”

Durand chewed thoughtfully, knew with quiet clarity that Scott was lying. There was
no way he was 28…no way. He couldn’t have been more than 22 or 23 at most. And if
he was lying about that, there was something larger going on that Durand couldn’t
put his finger on.

“She lived on Washington Street, in those new apartments,” he continued, letting it

go for now.

Scott harrumphed, dropped his fork onto his plate. “Overpriced apartments filled
with snotty, tight-assed people too good for the rest of us. Lot of fucking good it
did ‘em.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“You, that’s what’s fucking wrong with me,” Scott said, his face turning red. “You
love her. Don’t you? You fucking love a fucking zombie. Do you know how seriously
fucked up that is…how seriously fucked up what we did today is?”

“I don’t…,” Durand began, but he trailed off. What was the point in denying?

“You do! Don’t fucking deny it. Otherwise, what was that all that shit today?”

Durand said nothing, toyed with the food on his plate.

Scott’s face twisted in anger. “And will you please turn off that fucking music?
Fucking Linda whatever-the-hell-her-name-is is really getting on my fucking last
nerve!”

He pushed himself from the table, stalked off.

After a minute, Durand heard the chaotic sounds of his video games echoing through
the store, turned up extra loud to drown out the stereo.

He awoke later that night, his head throbbing, his gut churning, his mind spinning.
Too much wine, too much lasagna.
Too many thoughts of her, of Beth McClary.

He lay there, listened to every click, bump and tick the Bargain Barn had to offer,
echoing in its cavernous guts. Scott must be asleep; there were no gun blasts, no
explosions. Durand looked at the clock radio on his nightstand. It was just a
little after 2 a.m.

Sighing at what he was thinking, he threw the covers back, grabbed his clothes,
padded quietly to the washroom. He visited the toilet first, and when he was done,
he splashed cold water on his face, looked at himself in the mirror. He needed a
shave. There were bags under his eyes and he’d have to find some way of cutting his
own hair soon, but he figured he still looked pretty damn good for a man at the end
of the world.

The moon wasn’t yet full, but it was close, and its brilliant silver light shone
down unfiltered by clouds. He almost didn’t need the flashlight he brought with
him. The night was cool. Summer was fading fast, and the hot, humid edge of the air
was dulling. He wondered how they would handle the cold weather. Would it have any
affect on them at all? Probably not. Nothing else did.

He wondered how he and Scott would handle the cold weather. The Bargain Barn had
heaters, sure, but what would happen when the power went off? And he knew it would…
sooner or later. No lights, no power, no water.

What then?

Best not to go too far down that path.

When he got to Jefferson Street, he stopped. Where would she be now? What direction
would she have gone in…and how far?

A few of them straggled by, but only one came close, and Durand shot him before he
even had a chance to utter a groan. He thought it might have been his gym teacher
from high school.

She wasn’t at the hardware store, and Durand shined the light to see if there were
any clues as to where she might have gone.

Yeah, like she would have left a note or something.

That struck him as silly, and he laughed…but stopped suddenly. The sound of his
laughter on the night air, loud and alone, spooked him deeply.

He turned on Fourth, then on Monroe. He shot two more almost absently, but he
didn’t see her.

He circled back, passed the Suds-N-Duds. Just as he was about to give up, return to
bed, he saw her. It was the dress, the new green dress that caught his eye, a pale
silvery turquoise in the moonlight. She stood next to a tree at the entrance to
Millstone Park, leaned against it, almost as if…

…almost as if she slept.

But that was impossible…they’d never slept…at least he’d never seen them sleep or
rest before.

He shined the light on her from across the street, but she didn’t move, didn’t
react. So he crossed the street. When he stepped onto the path that led into the
park, he stopped. He was perhaps a dozen feet from her. She leaned against the oak
tree, her arms limp at her sides, her head resting against its bark.

And her eyes were shut…

For a moment, he didn’t know what to do. Was she really dead now?

And if she was sleeping…what exactly did that mean?

He didn’t notice that he’d not even thought about taking the gun from his
waistband.

When he was two feet from her, well within the zone, he paused. He put the light
directly in her face, watched her eyes. A small dark smear across her lips and chin
marred her looks; otherwise it was the beautiful, serene face of a young woman
sleeping peacefully.

He heard small, grunting breaths coming out of her. His heart racing, he paused,
but her eyes remained closed.

Her smell enveloped him, entered him, his nostrils, his mouth. He reached out
again, knowing that he shouldn’t, knowing that it was stupid, futile, even weird as
Scott had suggested. But he reached out anyway, let his fingers stroke her cheek.

No reaction.

He was almost disappointed…almost.

Another small step, and he was going to do it…he had to do it…it mattered somehow
to him…mattered in a way that he didn’t understand.

His drunken, lurching brain seemed unable to argue. It simply shrugged, stepped
aside.

And his heart…his mad, foolish, needful heart won.

He closed his eyes, kissed her cheek, softly.

When she still didn’t react, he slid his lips across her face, found hers and
kissed them. They were cold and sticky, but he kissed them anyway, gently, offering
only the lightest touch.

But it was a kiss…his first kiss with Beth McClary…his first kiss with a dead girl.

Backing away, he licked his lips, expecting to taste almonds, and instead tasted
blood, flat and metallic. Absently, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

Beth still slept. And Durand thought her the most beautiful thing in the world, so
lovely, so fragile, so innocent looking.

He stayed there, in the early morning light, under the waning moon, and watched
her.

On the way back to the Bargain Barn, he shot six more zombies, smiling as he did
so.

When he crawled back into his bed, he saw that it was almost 4 a.m.

But he lay there for at least an hour, thinking of her, wondering what she was
doing, picturing her sad, beautiful face. He imagined laying next to her, looking
into that sweet face, sleeping in her arms.

As the sun came up, he finally fell asleep, the smell of burned, bitter almonds in
his nose.

“Are you going out to moon over her again?” Scott asked from his recliner. “That’s
all you fucking do lately. You’re like a fucking undead stalker.”

“Are you going to sit in here and play video games all day? That’s all you fucking
do lately,” Durand shot back. “Don’t begrudge me the opportunity to go out and see
the one thing these days that makes me happy. Besides, what difference does it make
it you?”

Scott stood, came around the chair, which surprised Durand.

“Because she’s a corpse, man. A fucking corpse! And you know what that makes you,
bro? That makes you a fucking narcoleptic. A fucking corpse lover!”

Astonished, Durand looked at him for a moment, trying to decide whether to get mad
or laugh.

Instead, simply, he said, “Necrophiliac.”

“What?”

“The word is necrophiliac. Pull your head out of your ass and read a book for a
change.”

With that, he turned and left.

About five steps away, he turned to Scott, who still stood there, fuming silently.

“Oh, and I’m not a necrophiliac, for your information. She’s just better company
than you.”

Durand tried not to let the argument with Scott ruin his day. He’d thought all
night he about spending the day just watching her, seeing how she spent her time.
He knew it was silly…and he knew what Scott would say.

There was no way he could articulate what he was feeling to Scott; he found it
difficult enough to articulate it to himself.

So, there was no way that he would admit that he was in love with her, in love with
a zombie.

In love with someone…something…that could never accept that love or return it.

He had no experience with love…real love… and so he also had no experience with
love that wasn’t—that couldn’t ever be—returned.

But he knew that he had to do something with it, make something of it…or let it go
entirely.

Either way, either choice, he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

He knew one other thing, too.

He was not prepared to let it go just yet.

Durand wanted to know all there was about her, more than he knew from the contents
of her purse. She was born August 16, 1985. Elizabeth Anne McClary. She drove a
Honda of some kind. She had pictures of various people in her wallet—parents,
grandparents, nieces and nephews. He didn’t find a picture of anyone who looked as
if he might be a boyfriend. She had a checking account at First Community Bank in
town. She worked at PPI, a plant that made commercial laundry equipment.

Durand drove past it every day on his way to the concrete plant…at least, he did.
He wondered how many times he’d seen her car in the parking lot, maybe followed her
to work or back into town. He wondered how many times he’d seen her in restaurants,
in the grocery store, at the gas station and never noticed her.

As he walked through town thinking of her, he passed Lyndon B. Johnson High School,
his alma mater, class of 1996.

If she was a townie, she’d have gone to high school here. She’d be in a yearbook…

The school had a musty, abandoned smell when he pushed the door open. There were
other smells, too; the faint smell of mildew, chalk dust and something else…
something he couldn’t place. Maybe spoiled food in the cafeteria.

There were no bodies in the halls, in the classrooms, but plenty of scattered
papers, discarded books, articles of stray clothing and abandoned backpacks, their
contents disgorged everywhere. If kids were here that morning, they dropped
everything and fled with the adults or…well, the limited answers here hadn’t
changed in the last few weeks.

He knew exactly where he was going. Even though it had been nearly a decade and a
half since he’d walked these halls as a student, little had changed. The library
occupied the central portion of the building, and the doors leading to it were
thrown wide open. This space still managed to maintain a sense of dignity and
decorum amidst the squalor, though the mess in here was substantially less.

Durand found what he was looking for easily. A short shelf stood near the front
counter, festooned with the school colors of purple and gold. Above it was tacked a
homemade banner; “LBJ School Spirit Through the Years!”

Below this was as an entire shelf of yearbooks, arranged by year, from 1946 to
2009.

Smiling, Durand ran his fingers down the row of spines, stopped at 2003.

He unwedged the book from between its neighbors, took it to a nearby table and sat.

It didn’t take him long to find her.

She was unmistakable, stunning in her senior photo; bright blonde hair, big blue
eyes, and her skin....her skin seemed just as it was now, luminous, soft, immensely
touchable. He lingered over the photo for a long time, studying it intently,
looking for the smallest detail to remember, to imprint in his mind.

What struck Durand most was the sense of her that came through the picture. She
didn’t seem to be posing for the camera, playing to it. She seemed to be caught in
the moment, rather than looking staged or faking a smile. And in that regard she
seemed more like a real, down to earth person than a stuck up, snooty drama queen.

…snooty.
That jogged Durand’s mind, and he looked away from the book, tried to dredge it up.

Knowing what he would find, he looked for Scott’s name in the index, saw that he
was a sophomore in the same book, class of ’05. Durand felt his stomach flip.

He knew he lied…but why lie about that?

He found his picture, and it showed that Scott Gibbons, like a lot of kids his age,
didn’t take a good photo. He wore a shirt with collars that were too big, that
didn’t button down. His hair was in complete disarray, and his face bore all the
telltale signs of adolescence—the bad skin, crooked teeth and unmistakable aura of
tortured self doubt.

Looking at that photo, Durand was sure why Scott had lied.

He was sure why Scott had acted so weird when they’d first met; why he’d acted so
weird when he’d first seen Beth at the lumberyard.

Why Scott never wanted to venture out of the Bargain Barn, was so angry that Durand
did.

Taking the yearbook, he left the library, left LBJ High School, and hoped that he
was wrong. Hoped that Scott had not done what he knew Scott had done.

Durand found him sitting on a bench in Millstone Park. He didn’t see Durand
approach.

Scott was completely caught up in watching Beth McClary lurching through a wide
field. The sun caught her hair, the wind caught her dress, and for a moment, Durand
was caught up, too.

Then, he came behind Scott, dropped the yearbook in his lap.

“Jesus!” Scott sputtered in surprise, leaping from the bench and shooing the
yearbook off his lap as if it were a rabid animal.

Durand watched him, but said nothing, didn’t apologize for scaring him.

“What the fuck are you doing, bro? Scaring me like that? Christ, if I’d had a gun…”

Durand moved his gaze conspicuously to the ground behind Scott, to where the
yearbook lay.

Scott looked confused, but turned to where Durand was looking.

His back slumped when he saw the yearbook.

“Why?” was all Durand could think to ask.

Scott’s face went slack and white. He looked like one of them now, a zombie
himself. And when he started to talk, to explain what he’d done, the words fell
from his mouth, as if he had no force to expel them.

“She came running up the street when they started appearing. I’d already locked
myself in the cafe. She…banged on the door…wanted to be let in…and I…I…”

“You hid under the counter and ignored her.”

Scott looked at him with annoyance.

“No, I heard her voice…I knew who it was…I mean, are you shitting me? I climbed
out…for her…I went to the door. She was afraid…shit, I was afraid….I…She pleaded
with me to let her in, but I wouldn’t…I couldn’t. I…saw the others walking all
over, killing people, eating them…fuck…it was awful…awful…”

Durand said nothing. There was nothing to say.

“I…uhh…was afraid to open the door, afraid to let her in. Christ, she got mad.
Really fucking mad, banging on the door, shaking the glass. I thought…I was afraid
that she was going to break it… she’d break the glass and they’d get in and that’d
be it, dude. That’d be fucking it.”

“You didn’t let her in,” Durand said, his voice filled with contempt. “You left her
out there to die with them, to be killed by them.”

Again, that look of annoyed disbelief. “You don’t get it, do you? I loved her,
fucking loved her since the 8th grade. But she never paid any attention to me, was
never going to. I knew that. But she banged on the door so hard that the glass
shook and I could see the others, the zombies coming up behind her…I freaked.”

Scott paused. “I shot her.”

The words didn’t register at first, because they were not at all what Durand
expected.

“You what?”

“I shot her. I’d started to open the door to let her in…Christ, I loved her, I
couldn’t leave her out there. But I saw a bunch of them coming, coming toward the
door. Fuck! I thought if I let her in, they’re going to get in, too. And then…
then…”

Durand stared at him in wonder. “You shot her…you?”

“The owner of the cafe gave me his gun when he left, told me to…to…take care of
myself. She wouldn’t let go of the door…wouldn’t let me close it…and they were
right there, dude…right there. So, I shot her…to keep her from getting in, to keep
the others from getting in. I fucking shot her…I shot her…”

He burst into loud, braying tears that seemed to tear loose from something deep
inside him. He collapsed onto the bench, huddled forward with his head on his knees
and sobbed.

Durand didn’t know what to do, how to react.

“The gun?”

“I tossed it into the grease pit at the cafe,” he sobbed. “I couldn’t look at it
anymore. And then you come along and you have a gun…and I think it’s going to be
OK. But she was gone, she wasn’t near the door, where she’d fallen. She was one of
them, a zombie, I knew that…I fucking knew that. It wasn’t enough that I killed
her, I made her a zombie, too. Fuck…fuck…FUCK!

“Then you find a girl in town,” Scott said, his voice now a low, papery whisper
that made the hairs on the back of Durand’s neck rise. “And what the fuck do you
know, it’s her.”

Scott rose, turned to Durand with hatred in his eyes, his fists balled and shaking
at his sides. “And if that’s not enough, you fall for her. You. Fall. For a dead
girl. For her! I can’t have her for myself…even when she’s a fucking zombie!”

Durand prepared for Scott to hurtle himself at him.

But that’s exactly what Scott didn’t do… Instead, he smiled…smiled when he knew
what he was going to do, despite what he was going to do.

“She’s mine, bro. Mine. And I’m going to be with her…finally.”

Durand hesitated, unsure of exactly what Scott meant until it was too late.

Because Durand had ignored his surroundings, so amazed by Scott’s story, what he’d
done. He hadn’t paid attention to where the others were around them.

Where she was…

In the time it had taken Scott to tell him what had happened, she had moved closer
to them.

But Scott had paid attention.

He smiled at Durand, turned and walked right into her arms.

She caught him with tremendous strength, a strength she didn’t need. Scott didn’t
fight; instead, he embraced her, lowered his head to her shoulder like a lover.

And she slammed her mouth into his exposed neck, closed her jaws, shook her head
like a puppy worrying a toy. Blood, extravagant in quantity and exuberant in color,
flashed in the late sunlight, founted from his neck, gushed over his hoodie, over
her new green dress and spattered onto her new white shoes.

With a rough tearing sound, oddly intimate, she jerked her head away, her mouth
filled with red meat. A spray of arterial blood covered her face, and she uttered a
gurgling groan, smashed her face back into the pulsing wound.

Durand pulled the gun from his waistband…

Scott turned in her arms, his head lolling on his torn neck, and looked at Durand,
at the gun.

…shook his head weakly.

It took Durand a full minute to lower the gun…maybe more.

By then, Scott was the kind of dead there was no coming back from.

And still she fed, crouched over him as he slumped to the ground. She ate most of
his face, leaving a wet, red ruin in the wake of her teeth, her fingers.

But he couldn’t kill her either…couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger.

For a moment, just a moment, he felt an emotion, one that he had as little
experience with as he did love.

Jealousy.

He was jealous of Scott.

But that was a crazy, ugly feeling, and he tried to push it aside, to deny it.

But then, he supposed, jealousy is supposed to be a crazy, ugly feeling.

Eventually he lowered the gun, fingered the safety, slid it into his waistband.

That was weeks ago…

Durand walked back slowly to the Bargain Barn after his daily circuit of the town…
after seeing her.

There weren’t many left anymore, and he thought of them almost as an endangered
species now. He left the gun in his waistband, left them alone as they left him
alone.

Inside the store, he went to the Electronics department. He’d left Scott’s set up
mostly as it was, though he’d cleaned and sprayed the recliner with Febreze.

Firing up the biggest stereo on display, he slipped a disc into the CD player,
cranked the volume up as loud as it would go, slumped into the recliner, waited for
the end of the world; however, whenever it might come.

He thought of the smell of bitter, burned almonds, Beth McClary’s face, and the
love he carried for her, the love he would always carry for her, regardless of her
inability to return it.

And Linda Ronstadt sang the words, as if reading directly from those etched into
his heart…

Wait for the day it’ll go away

Knowing that you warned me of the price I had to pay.

And life’s full of flaws, who knows the cause

Living in the memory of a love that never was.

‘Cause I’ve done everything I know to try and make you mine

And I think I’m gonna love you

For a long, long time…

Feeding The Beast

By Ken Goldman
On their first date he told her she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen.
Blushing, she managed to feign modesty. One evening over wine she told him she
loved him. Later in bed he told her he loved her.

For the wedding she insisted on writing their own vows. During the ceremony she
said she looked forward to growing old with him, adding a cute remark about keeping
adjoining ‘his’ and ‘hers’ jars in the bathroom for their teeth. That one got a few
laughs.

Then her pledge turned serious, and she promised to remain by his side no matter
what obstacles life threw into their path. Many present cried.

When his turn arrived, he told friends and family that his world had been empty
before she came into it. He vowed he would die for her, and at the time he meant
it.

On their wedding day he didn’t have to actually do it.

***

Wesley and his young bride would make Honolulu International in another two hours,
plenty of time for what he had in mind. He focused his attention from the Piper’s
control panel to where it really mattered.

“ ‘`A`ohe lokomaika`i i nele i ke pâna`i. ’ How’s that for a Harvard man?”

“Another of your legal terms, Counselor?”

“It’s Hawaiian for ‘No kind deed ever lacks its reward.’ Sort of like ‘quid pro
quo,’ but it sounds prettier.”

Charlotte smiled. “Is this your way of asking for a blow job?”

Wesley smiled too. “See how easy it is to master the ancient tongues?”

He snapped on the auto pilot and unzipped his jeans, a guy who had the world by the
balls. As one of Seattle’s select divorce lawyers Wesley had managed that trick one
gonad at a time.

Charlotte examined the goods, grinning even as she went down on him. The woman’s
tongue became hot-wired, and Wesley leaned back in his seat to savor the moment.
Once started, Charlotte could probably bob her head straight into Waikiki.

The manbeast within responded.

Eat it, babe. That’s it, bitch. That’s real good. Eat it all up . . .

Although Wesley had never met a blow job he did not like, there was a serious
downside to his bride’s initiation into his mile high club. Getting sucked off at
three thousand feet had taken his attention from the Piper’s fuel gauge whose
indicator had accelerated its movement towards ‘E’.

Spuk-Spukka-SpukSpuk . . .

“What the-?”

“Sorry, baby. Got a little bicuspid into my work.”

“Shh . . .!”

The Super Cub’s engine burped again, and Wesley stared at the blinking red fuel
light unable to do more than gape like an idiot while his bone-on quickly
shriveled. Somehow gasoline from the Cub’s tank was not making it through to the
single engine, and he was rapidly dropping fuel. Considering the plane’s altitude
the whys and what-fors didn’t matter much once the needle fell to ‘Empty’ and the
front propeller turned arthritic.

Pulling herself upright Charlotte saw the warning light too, and for one terrible
instant the couple exchanged glances with a dim comprehension that they had shared
the all-time mother of bad timing.

Spukka-Spukka . . .

“Wes, is everything all . . .?”

. . . SpukSpukSpuk . . .

“Put your belt on.”

“What?”

“Just do it. Okay?”

Her groom’s eyes said it all. One thousand miles from the mainland his rebuilt
Piper was coughing fumes like a consumptive hag. Wesley flicked his thumb at the
fuel gauge because he could think of nothing else to do. He tried telling himself
that maybe the indicator was damaged, maybe the vortex generator was on the fritz
and the sputtering didn’t really mean any--

The engine choked and the Cub took a mean dip as the bottom dropped out of the
world.

Wesley had enough time only to mutter “Oh, Jesus-” before the small plane dipped
again, pulling the steering column from his hands. The engine managed one powerful
fart before it went dead. The law of inertia kept the Piper airborne for an
uncertain moment, long enough for Wesley to swap a last uneasy stare with his wife.

“Shit . . .”

The plane plummeted like a sack towards the Pacific. Wesley’s stomach and heart
mashed into one organ as the horizon became vertical and spun wildly, the entire
vista of heaven and earth unraveling as if on a huge spool. The Piper corkscrewed
while some distant part of Wesley’s brain registered Charlotte’s screams.

“OmiGod, Wes! OhGodOhGod!!”

God wasn’t listening. The plane tumbled into a dizzying death spiral. A man
plunging several hundred feet per second has little time to weigh alternatives. He
has time only to scream his throat raw for his own sorry ass, time only to hope
that death, when it comes, will be quick.

The Piper struck the water balls-to-the-sky, catching a huge cresting wave at the
peak of its swell. Its bizarre angle of impact made for an intriguing lesson in
physics that defied the laws of probability. Both seats tore through the cabin
doors just before the floor and ceiling of the fuselage crunched into a chunk of
tangled metal. The twin cushions skittered along the water’s surface like skimming
stones, catapulting the couple yards from the Piper’s debris. Surrounded by open
sea the plane’s explosion seemed more of a loud thud. What remained of the cabin
burst into flames.

A large area of metal detritus heaved among the waves, the misshapen globs of
tortured steel gradually sinking piecemeal. A gnarled section of the plane’s
extended flap briefly stayed afloat, and a hundred feet from that a twenty-six inch
Tundra tire and some Gucci luggage bobbed alongside the swells. One bag had sprung
open and women’s clothing rode the waves like a floating yard sale.

The primitive manbeast caged inside Wesley’s brain kicked into action, although
later he would remember little of what he did. Charlotte remained buckled to her
seat, and both had somehow been thrown clear of the wreckage. Now his wife’s seat
rolled on the waves maybe a good hundred feet from her husband. Somewhere out there
was a float kit, but that might just as well have been back in Seattle now. The
Piper’s cushion was no flotation device, and the plush leather pad could not remain
adrift for very long. Strapped in, Charlotte would soon be going under with it.
If his legs were still working it wouldn’t be a difficult swim to recover her. On
his own automatic pilot, Wesley didn’t consider that when he reached his woman he
might be unbuckling a corpse. He knew only that he did not want to die alone.

He swam towards the red leather seat cushions, but Charlotte was not moving. Her
forehead’s nasty gash was bleeding badly, and he ripped his sleeve to apply a
makeshift tourniquet to the wound. Exhausted and shivering Wesley pulled himself
alongside her, draping his arms around his wife with no idea what to do next.
Already the leather pad had taken on too much water, and it would be going under
any minute. He had managed to escape the plunge from three thousand feet only to
come to this. The Pacific owned both of them now, and he could do nothing as he
waited for the ocean to claim what belonged to her.

A remnant of the Piper’s wreckage floated among the rainbow of Charlotte’s strewn
wardrobe. It thumped against the side of the padded seat, and at first Wesley saw
only a blur in the sunlight reflected off the waves. He reached for the large box
as if to assure himself it was real.

Three Person Sea Cloud Model #417-B

Max Weight 510 lb

Pull Cord to Inflate

USE CAUTION WHEN INFLATING

Part of the flotation kit had broken free. Maybe God had one good ear after all.
Wesley tore at the styrofoam and found the cord, tugging at it like a madman. The
heavy duty blue and yellow vinyl inside did its thing and with a hiss the box fell
apart.

The life raft fully inflated the same moment the saturated red leather cushion
slipped below the surface. Charlotte had gone as limp as a rag doll, but Wesley
managed to unbuckle her and pulled the two of them on board. He tried mouth-to-
mouth, managing to get her to spit up a bellyful of seawater. Exhausted, he had
enough strength to barf his own breakfast before passing out.

The sun already had headed West, and the air developed a cold bite. It was 5:37,
and regaining consciousness Wesley had the disjointed thought that Rolex made one
hell of a watch. The timepiece was still kicking, but he didn’t feel as certain
about himself. When reason returned another thought occurred, this one unsettling.
Soon darkness would come.

He held Charlotte close. Her pulse was weak but she was breathing. The long gash
had stopped bleeding, but a grotesque Rorschach of dried blood still caked most of
her face. Splashing some seawater on her, he could manage only a whisper.
“Charlotte? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

“You okay?”

Her eyes opened. “Are we dead?”

“Not yet.”

She took a moment to consider that.

“Then we’re all right?”

“Not yet.”

She considered that too.

“Jesus, Wes. What happened?”

“Must’ve ruptured the fuel line somehow, maybe during take-off. It’s a moot point
now.”

She moved closer. “I’m cold. And I could use a drink.”

“Room service is about five hundred miles that way.”

Charlotte watched the bleeding sunset and managed a weak moan.

“What happens now?”

“We survive,” he told her, trying to believe it. The Pacific was a monotonous
heaving mass, and if land were anywhere near, the ocean gave no hint where to find
it. Help would come, he told her, someone would realize the Piper never arrived at
its destination. But the plane had sunk too far at sea for wreckage to wash on
shore. Worse, from the air the bobbing Sea Cloud raft would appear a speck to
anyone searching for them, even with optimal weather conditions.

“Maybe we should’ve fished some of your things from those Guccis,” Wesley
suggested. “Might’ve kept you from the whole ‘Lord of The Flies’ fashion statement.
And it’s going to get damned cold.”

Charlotte managed a twitching smile. “A girl wants to look her best when she’s
eaten by barracuda.” She warmed herself against Wesley’s chest and watched the sun
drift below the horizon. “Ordinarily I’d think this is one beautiful sunset.”

“It still is. Someone will find us. I’m sure of it. It just won’t happen tonight.”
He offered a wet stick of gum and took the last one for himself. Wesley spent the
next minute wondering if their final meal would be a salt watered wad of Juicy
Fruit.

They waited in silence for over an hour until full darkness came. Near the raft
some invisible thing went splunk! Maybe another section of the plane’s wreckage had
popped back to the surface to say howdy. Wesley hoped that’s all it was. He was in
no mood for surprises.

Beneath a pale moon a dorsal fin sliced the water’s surface about thirty feet from
the raft. Wesley spotted it circling like a shadowy scout, and a moment later half
a dozen more closed in. He pointed for Charlotte to see. Each time the couple
turned there were others, some drifting along the waves in tandem until fins
appeared on all sides. They slid closer, tightening their orbit like an advancing
war party, dark floating lumps dissecting the water. Wesley slid a paddle from its
neoprene sheath, holding it before him like a battering ram.

“Wes, there’s too many of--”

One bumped against the life raft. Charlotte almost toppled over the side, but
Wesley managed to pull her back. He felt something churning the water just below
the surface.

“They’re under us. . .”

In dark committees the sharks were maneuvering for position. Murky clusters surged
toward the raft, hammering it from all sides as if one might fling itself on board
like a dead weight. Sprays of seawater rained on the couple while they performed a
lunatic balancing act to keep the raft from capsizing. Charlotte clung to her
husband as he poked the paddle at the invading snouts. Winking in and out of the
moonlight the fins kept coming. Charlotte’s fingers tore twisted tracks into
Wesley’s chest so she would not be pulled from him, but she lost her grip and
tumbled over the side into the dark waters. Mouths open, the sharks were waiting.

“Wes-!!!”

Her shrieks filled the night. From the agitated seawater Wesley heard what sounded
like a crunch of dried wood. He dropped the paddle, slamming fists to his ears, but
Charlotte’s screams wouldn’t stop.

[I would die for you, Charlotte . . .]

He crouched in a fetal position.

“Wesley! Oh God, Wesley! Help--!”

“Jesus, no! Charlotte, I can’t! I can’t!”

[ . . . Die for you . . .]

He mashed his ears, but the shrieks went on.

“ . . . can’t . . .”

“Wessss-leeeeee . . .!”

The manbeast heard. Wesley grabbed the oar again, battering the dark thrashing
forms, blindly smashing at whatever moved. One of the sharks sank its teeth into
the thick paddle, and Wesley played a useless tug-of-war with the fish. He stared
dumbly at the worthless stump of plastic he pulled from the water.

“Motherfuckers! Shit eating cock suckers!!”

And then it ended. Charlotte’s cries stopped as if an electric cord had been pulled
from its plug. Their hunger sated, the sharks disappeared, gone like a magician’s
trick beneath the surface with their catch of the day. The ocean lapped at the
raft’s side as if the incident never happened. Wesley crouched waiting for an
encore, but it didn’t come.

The whole thing had lasted maybe six minutes, but it proved time enough to total
his life with Charlotte. Wesley needed significantly more time for clear thinking
to return. Assessing his circumstances he came up empty. Even if the sharks didn’t
reappear, he knew he remained in ten thousand fathoms of deep shit. Maybe Charlotte
had been the lucky one.

Charlotte was somewhere down there now.

Or what was left of her.

Charlotte . . .

“Sorry . . . I’m so sorry . . .”

The gum had lost its flavor and he spit it out. It was an absurd thought to occur
at this moment, but easier than recalling his woman’s final cries for help before
the sharks took her down, cries he could not find inside himself to answer. And
easier than contemplating what might come next.

Plenty of water, but not a drop to drink.

Water water everyfuckingwhere . . .

Charlotte was dead. He could do nothing about that. But he had to consider his
survival now, and he knew that in forty-eight hours dehydration would turn his
insides to wood shavings. Wesley remembered some Discovery Channel program about
castaways who wound up drinking their own piss. In another day swilling pee would
be like polishing off a daiquiri. Right about now his bride and he should have been
dining on Kalua pork and sipping Mai Tais at The Royal Hawaiian. But it didn’t
appear he would be chowing down on solid food anytime soon.

The wind kicked up. Wesley was cold and wet. Worse, he was scared.

He slapped himself hard.

“Can’t lose it . . . can’t lose it . . .”

And then he almost did.

A weak pounding came from against the side of the raft. Some object had tangled
itself in the mooring line, but darkness made it difficult to see the shape
clearly. Wesley tugged the rope until a thin pale mass emerged, dripping of
seawater and cold to his touch as he pulled it on board. Holding it to the
moonlight he noticed the large pear-shaped diamond ring first. The realization took
a moment. He had hauled Charlotte’s arm from the ocean, gnawed clean above the
elbow.

He dropped the slab of shorn flesh and bone, backing off from it as from some
diseased thing. Sobbing like a child, shivering and moaning, he crouched in the
corner of the raft, swearing to himself that he would not move until rescuers or
death found him. He didn’t give a shit which might arrive first.

At night a shivering sleep came only with complete exhaustion. During the following
day his flesh seared in the heat like over-fried bacon.

Searching for a plane he saw nothing but a burning sun. Inside himself he felt a
burning too. This was hunger, but it was also fear.

He was alone, more alone than any man could be.

Throughout the second night he shivered but did not sleep much.

When day again arrived he knew it would be his last.

Hunger hammered Wesley’s gut in dull thunderbolts, and he did not feel like opening
his eyes. Instead he lay with the morning sun warming his face. In another hour the
sun would not be so hospitable.

The sharks had not returned, but there had been no rescue party either. He didn’t
have much fluid left inside to pull off that piss-drinking stratagem much longer.
The Discovery Channel hadn’t covered that part.

So many thoughts. Too many. Better to clear his head. Better not to think at all if
he wanted to stay sane.

“Wesley . . .?”

“Unghh. . .”

“Wake up, Wesley. Talk to me.”

In the brilliant sunlight he squinted. Someone - it was a woman - came into focus,
but he was seeing her through gauze. He recognized the voice before he saw her face
clearly. Clumps of sopping hair lay in mottled ringlets. The woman stank of sea
water.

“Charlotte?”

Wesley no longer trusted his own senses. His bride’s corpse rested on the ocean
floor with the local marine life, that much he knew. The sharks had done one
bitchin’ job on her, and she wasn’t coming back.

[Try to keep an open mind. . .

. . . Take a good look before you decide

what’is true. Just hold on . . . hold on . . .]

It certainly looked like Charlotte although much of her was gone. The stub of what
remained of her upper arm dangled like a fleshy wind sock, and tattered skin hung
from her face in thick lunch meat shavings. A portion of her skull had split, and
tufts of blood-spattered curls spilled over a spongy mass that must have been the
woman’s brain. Sunlight peeking through an empty eye socket made her resemble a
rotted jack-o’-lantern. Not much remained of her face, or her torso.

She held the severed arm Wesley had fished from the water.

“I didn’t want you to see me like this, but I had no choice when you broke your
vow. We have to set this right, Wesley. For both of us.”

[She was not there. She could not be there. It was too soon for this lunatic
horseshit to be happening.]

“You’re dead! ”

“I’m not certain, but I think so.”

She tugged the tatters of silk that had been her blouse, trying to conceal the
exposed flap of breast sagging from her chest like a torn sleeve. Thick strands of
cheese-like goo hung from it.

“I’m sorry, Wes. I know how bad I look.”

The saltwater crazies had finally arrived. It hadn’t taken long.

[If I close my eyes you will go away . . .]

She didn’t go away, only smiled and moved closer.

“Touch me, Wesley. Feel for yourself.”

He didn’t have to. Her ear dropped into his lap. She tried cramming it back into
its cavity, but it wouldn’t hold.

“Oh, Christ, Charlotte. Don’t do this to me.”

“You’re not crazy, Wes. But you’re hungry, aren’t you? You would do anything to
eat. Anything.”

She didn’t need to tell him. The gnawing punishment inside his belly reminded him
every second.

“I can help,” she told him. “I think maybe we can help each other.”

“You can get me out of this place?”

“No, I can’t do that. But I can do this . . .”

She held her own severed arm out to him.

“Eat me,” she said.

“What?”

“Start with my arm. It isn’t a part of me anymore, so it won’t be difficult. Eat

me, Wesley. I know there isn’t much left, but do it for us. I want you to.”

He felt his innards kickbox, but there was nothing left inside his stomach to woof
up.

“I can’t do that!”

“Start with my ear, then. Maybe that will be easier.”

“Oh Jesus! Go away! Just let me die!” Wesley’s breathing became labored. “I tried
to save you, Charlotte! You know I tried! There were too many--”

“--You broke your vow, Wesley. Help me keep mine.”

If solid nourishment didn’t get inside him soon Wesley would starve. This wasn’t
rocket science, and the babbling corpse was probably some guilt-soaked brainfart
anyway, a figment of an encumbered mind baked to a crisp. He was sane enough to
know he was probably losing it. But if he were hungry enough to believe himself
talking to his dead wife, then maybe he could convince himself he was just scarfing
down some fast food.

He took the ear and gnawed. It was more crunchy than he expected. The salt water
helped a little, even added flavor, and he ate the whole thing. It wasn’t all that
bad, and it piqued his appetite.

“Tastes like chicken,” he said, licking his fingers. He even smiled.

She handed him the severed arm, and he sank his teeth into the fleshiest part of
the upper segment like a man working over a rack of ribs. Charlotte’s daily weight
training at the spa had paid off because the meat was firm and there was very
little fat. Hell, this tasted too damned fine to be a concoction of his
imagination. Wesley made certain to remove the engagement ring before he started on
her fingers.

Waiting until he finished, the woman held out her remaining arm to him.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“The ring means something to me Wesley. I’d like to keep it. I’m still your wife.”

The thought had not really occurred to him, and he
sickened him. Maybe it was better not to go there,
show. Nothing out of line here, babe. Not a damned
diamond upon the third finger of the hand attached
She moved closer.
felt shamed that the idea
better not to let the revulsion
thing. Wesley slipped the
to Charlotte’s remaining arm.

Charlotte’s lips felt cold against his. Still, they were surprisingly sweet. She
parted them a little as she always had done, and her tongue found its way into
Wesley’s mouth. There was no other manner to describe the sensation. He was not
disgusted or repulsed. He was hungry.

. . . and here was the corned beef special.

[Too damned fine not to be real. Human flesh, the other white meat.]

The manbeast couldn’t help itself. It nibbled the fleshy gobbit and felt its
appetite grow.

She pulled herself from him. Wesley couldn’t be positive with so much of
Charlotte’s face gone, but it appeared she was smiling.

“Quid pro quo?” she uttered, her uncertain expression still there.

She slid towards the shredded fabric remaining of Wesley’s pants, unzipping his
jeans with her teeth. First offering soft butterfly kisses with her tongue, with an
audible gulp she took all of him into her throat. The feel of her mouth was waxy as
if one lip might loosen and tear clear off, but she managed to get seriously down
to business. His response amazed him as he felt himself grow erect.
Eat it, bitch. That’s it, eat it all up

The woman stopped cold, her one remaining eye seeming to look through him, seeming
to accuse him.

[Yes, she’has got you where she wants you now . . .]

Sensing danger, the beast stirred, but too late.

Charlotte sank her teeth into Wesley’s cock, attaching herself like some rabid pit
bull refusing to let go. She swung her head to strengthen her grip, and the pain
ricocheted straight into his brain. He twitched and kicked like a man caught in a
bear trap, the crotch of his jeans darkening in an expanding smear. When finally
she released him he felt the limp wad of his manhood slap low against his thigh as
if roadkill dangled between his legs. He stared at the butchered member that seemed
no longer to belong to him.

“Look at what you’ve done to me! Oh, Jesus, Charlotte.”

“I eat flesh too, Wesley! What did you expect? It’s what the dead do!” She lunged
between his legs again to finish her work.

Now the manbeast awakened completely, commandeering Wesley’s brain. The jagged
paddle stump lay within reach and he went for it, ramming it through the soft flesh
beneath the woman’s cheekbone. He twisted until he felt the delicate bone inside
splinter and crunch, grinding the plastic stub into her skull until he could force
it no further. She turned to face him, her remaining eye dribbling from its orbit
like a ruined puppet’s.

“I don’t think this marriage is working for me, Wesley!”

“You tried to bite off my dick!”

“The tribe has spoken! I’m voting you off this island!”

She was on him again, ripping flesh from his face with her nails and teeth, and she
kept coming back. He pushed her away in time to see a sun-baked flap of his skin
disappear into her mouth. But the struggles had weakened her. He grabbed the woman
and twisted her in a half nelson against his chest. The easiest thing to go for was
her nose, although he couldn’t get a firm grip. Wesley tried three times before he
managed to chew it off.

Charlotte writhed like a wounded animal and pulled herself free. She backed off
from him, covering the gaping cavern in her face with her remaining hand.

The beast found a voice, and now it roared. “The new nose was nice to look at,
babe, but for eating I would have preferred the old one!” Panting heavily, Wesley
spat the thin proboscis bone at her. The rest he chewed into peanut-like fragments.
He swallowed, sneering at his crippled adversary.

“Say ‘goodbye’ to your balls, Wesley!” Charlotte growled.

“Tit for tat, Charlotte! Now say ‘goodbye’ to your tit!” He swiped a haymaker at
her, grabbing her limp breast. With one yank he tore it free. His tongue flicked
the nipple he held, licking it on all sides. “Does this feel good, cunt? You used
to love when I did this.”

Shoving the fleshy sack into his mouth he chewed, smiling as meaty chunks of pulp
spurt from it. Charlotte fingered the lumpy guano inside the deep crater of her
chest. With her eyes gone her face revealed almost nothing, but her body shook in
violent spasms. Wesley could not tell whether she felt despair or pain. Maybe she
wasn’t capable of either, but he didn’t care. The battle had gone beyond self-
serving survival. Now it was about betrayal and humiliation, and this was much
worse.

“You’re a bastard, Wesley, a real bastard!”

The beast and its host came together as one.

“I’m helping you keep your vow, babe. You’re always going to be with me, Charlotte,
just like you promised! Right here inside my belly!”

Rallying with renewed strength she threw herself on him, biting and chewing. Wesley
slammed his Rolex against the plastic stub that protruded from Charlotte’s face,
removing a large jagged slab of crystal. He slashed the shard through the woman’s
neck, yanking a lengthy strip of meat from it and biting the rest free. In a frenzy
of fresh assaults each clawed skin divots from the other, stuffing into mouths
whatever shredded flesh they could snatch before going at it again. The stakes had
been raised, and if there had been nothing fair in love, then perhaps the scales
might balance in war.

Wesley had once vowed that he would die for Charlotte, but he had failed to live up
to his promise the first time.

He wasn’t going to let that happen again.

His beast would see to that.

***

Brothers Pete and Zack Mulraney were among the several rescue teams dispatched from
Maui. The two usually shuttled tourists who flew among the islands, and the pilots
knew a thing or two about the area and its surrounding waters. On their third day
out they located a small patch of yellow and blue that, on closer inspection,
proved a life raft. Seen through a binocular lens from the low flying Cessna there
wasn’t anything moving on board. Pete brought the small sea plane down to have a
look.

A week had passed since the Piper Cub carrying Wesley and Charlotte Donner had been
overdue at Honolulu International. News stations ran the heartbreaking wedding
video of the pair’s moving exchange of vows, and many viewers around the nation had
themselves a good cry. After the fifth day the media issued the statement that all
hope had been lost for the handsome attorney and his beautiful young bride. The
couple’s families needed closure, and in deference the search for the two
continued.

From the Cessna Pete watched as Zack boarded the raft. At first he didn’t quite
understand his brother’s bizarre signaling gesture that he viewed from the plane’s
cabin. The man was flailing his arms, beckoning the pilot to join him. Pete decided
to check out what was going on.

He disembarked the small plane, climbing on board the life raft to discover that
Zack was vomiting.

The Friendliest Zombie In The World

By Michael A. Kechula

“Step right up ladies and gentlemen,” yelled the carnival barker, “and see Herbie,
the friendliest zombie in the world. He sings, he dances, he tells jokes. See the
greatest show on Earth for just one dollar. Step right up and see Herbie, the only
zombie who ever performed for the Queen of England. Show starts in fifteen minutes.
Hurry, hurry.”

“Is this show OK for kids?” somebody asked.

“Sure thing, Mister. Herbie loves kids. He lets them climb on his back so he can
give them horsey rides.”

The barker didn’t have to convince Wilma. She couldn’t wait to see the zombie after
reading about him in the newspaper. The part that really caught her eye described
Herbie as tall, dark, and exceptionally handsome.

Hurrying inside the show tent, she noticed one end of the stage was blocked from
view by black curtains. She figured the handsome zombie was probably behind them
preparing for his performance. The idea of being just feet away from a famous
celebrity gave her butterflies.

On the other end of the stage, a man sat in front of a machine loaded with dials,
switches, and flickering lights. Wilma thought it looked like something from a mad
scientist’s laboratory.

When the audience was seated, the barker appeared onstage and blew a whistle to get
everyone’s attention.
“Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to our show. What you are about to see will thrill
you, amaze you. But before we begin, I have a few important announcements. First of
all, that bouncy accordion music you heard when you came into the tent comes from
Herbie’s latest CD album, Herbie Plays Polka Greats. It’ll be on sale at in the
back of the tent right after the show, along with a terrific selection of Herbie T-
shirts, and photos. Herbie will personally autograph every photo you buy. One more
thing—local fire regulations require me to mention emergency exits. If you turn and
look toward the back of the tent, you’ll see bright yellow signs right above every
exit.”

“Is that where we’re supposta run in case the zombie goes nuts and attacks us?”
yelled a drunk.

Nervous giggles rose from the audience, as two carnival bruisers pulled the drunk
from his seat and dragged him toward an exit.

The barker blew his whistle twice to draw attention back to the stage. “And now,
ladies and gentlemen, Zangara’s Traveling Shows is proud to present Herbie, the
friendliest zombie in the world!”

Everyone applauded, as the lights dimmed and a spotlight illuminated the curtains.
The barker opened them to reveal a zombie in a yellow jump suit sitting in a steel
chair. Steel cuffs bound his wrists and ankles to the chair. Wide chains pressed
against his chest. His bald head was bowed, as if he were in utter despair.

Sounds of dismay filled the tent. Some booed. Several people whisked children
toward exits.

“What did you do to Herbie?” somebody asked.

“There’s nothing to worry about. He’s very comfortable,” the barker replied.

“Aren’t those chains hurting him?” asked Wilma.

“No. Zombies don’t feel pain. Nobody feels pain when they’re dead. And Herbie’s
dead as a doornail. That’s why we tie him down—so his lifeless body won’t fall
outta the chair.”

“How did Herbie get to be a zombie?” asked a little girl.

“He useta live in Haiti. One day He got sick and died. After they buried him, a
witch doctor dug him up and made him a zombie. Somehow, Herbie wandered into the
jungle and got lost. Dr. Dumont of the Haitian Zombie Institute found him. Dumont
had invented a machine that could bring Herbie back to life, but for only six hours
a day. The doctor taught Herbie how to sing, dance, tell jokes, do magic tricks,
and play ten musical instruments. Herbie was so happy to be alive for six hours
every day, he became very friendly. Dumont was trying to find a way to bring Herbie
back to life forever, but he died before he could make that happen. I’ll take one
more question, and then we’ll get on with the show.”

“I don’t get it,” somebody said. “Did Dr. Dumont bring Herbie back to life in a way
that you and I have life? Or does he have a different kinda life?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter, if he’s friendly and can put on a terrific
show? OK, in a few moments, we’ll bring Herbie back to life for six hours just like
Dr. Dumont did by using a Renticular Renificator. It’s the special machine the
doctor invented to animate zombies. So let’s get started. First, I’ll put this
headset on Herbie. Then I’ll ask James, who’s sitting in front of the machine, to
send an electrical signal through the headset. When James does that, Herbie will
come to life and do the show.”

The barker put the headset on the zombie’s bowed head and said, “James, set
renticular renification to zero point three, and press start.”

James twisted some dials and pressed a button. Suddenly, the zombie’s head jerked
upward, his eyes popped open, and his face broke out into a brilliant smile. “Hi
everybody,” he said in a rich, bubbly voice. “I’m Herbie, the friendliest zombie in
the world. Welcome to my show.”

The cheers and applause were deafening.

“I’m a real zombie, and I can do lots of things. I can play the Beer Barrel Polka
on my accordion. I can do a dance, or sing Jingle Bells, or hundreds of other
songs. I can whistle Broadway show tunes. I can ride a motorcycle while standing on
the seat upside down. And lots of other things. What should I do first?”

The crowd shouted a hundred different requests.

“Since this is the first show today, let’s make it Herbie’s choice” the barker
said.

“That’ll be nice,” said the zombie.

“Well, Herbie, what do you feel like doing?”

“I’m in the mood for ballet. James, would you please play that CD I love so much—
the one with the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies?”

“Sure thing,” James said, inserting a CD and pressing a green button on the
Renticular Renificator to release the zombie’s restraints.

Herbie sprang from the chair and donned a pair of hot-pink ballet slippers. “How do
you like my slippers, boys and girls?” he asked, standing on his toes.

The kids screamed with delight.

The zombie ran behind the black curtains, removed his jump suit, and slid into a
hot-pink leotard.

While Herbie twirled and danced on his toes, Wilma felt a flutter unlike anything
she’d ever experienced. As he pranced across the stage, she noticed his pouty,
fleshy lips, his muscular arms and thighs, his tight glutes. She found herself
staring at the bulging mass below his stomach and how it strained against his
tights. Fanaticizing about holding him close, she could almost feel the bulge
pressing against her. In all her forty years, Wilma had never felt so wicked.

“That’s very nice, Herbie,” said the barker. “How about showing us how Elvis
Presley used to move his pelvis.”

James played raunchy music, and pressed more buttons on the renificator. Herbie
went into a frenzy of gyrations that brought squeals from his female admirers.
Mesmerized by his frantic acrobatics, Wilma found herself gasping for breath and
lightheaded. When sweat broke out on her forehead, she realized Herbie was the man
for her.

After the spectacular show, Wilma raced to the back of the tent so she could buy a
souvenir photo personally autographed by Herbie. Dozens of women had the same idea.
Giggles and flushed faces abounded when Herbie came to the table wearing the yellow
jump suit. Wilma thought he looked like a dashing, fairytale prince. She couldn’t
wait until it was her turn to buy his photograph.

“Ten dollars, please,” Herbie said with a charming Caribbean accent, when Wilma
pointed to one of his pictures.

“Would you autograph it please?”

“That’ll be five dollars extra,” he said, flashing a gorgeous smile. Wilma’s

insides turned to putty.

When she gave the zombie the money, his fingertips brushed her hand. Though they
were ice cold, Wilma was too overwhelmed to notice.

“What would you like me to write on the picture?” Herbie asked.

“Whatever you wish. But please sign it, ‘With Love, Herbie.’”

“Give me your first name, Dear.”

“Wilma.”

The zombie scribbled across the top, “To Wilma. You’re a real sweetie. With Love,
Herbie.” He gave her the picture and shook her hand.

She thought she’d faint when he squeezed her hand briefly and said, “Thanks for
coming to the show, Sweetie.”

She was about to tell him how handsome he was, but he’d already turned his
attention to the next woman in line. When he made flirtatious comments to the
woman, Wilma felt a jealous flash. She reminded herself that he was just conducting
business. All handsome celebrities flirted with fans. It was part of the fame game.
It meant nothing. How could it, after the way he squeezed her hand and called her
Sweetie with such intensity?

Wilma went to the rest of Herbie’s shows that night. Sitting in the front row, she
waved every time he turned her way. Herbie was so involved in his performance, he
waved back only once.

Herbie did something different in every show, which increased Wilma’s fascination.
But she was alarmed during the last show when he sang, I Gotta Be Me. His voice was
weakening. Checking her watch, she realized five hours and fifty minutes had
passed. It was almost time for Herbie to die again.

Right before Herbie’s time ran out, he sat in his steel chair and waved goodbye to
the audience. When his head abruptly dropped to his chest, the barker closed the
black curtains, James threw a switch to activate the chair’s restraints, then
turned off the renificator.

Wilma ran from the tent weeping.

On the way to her car, a deep inner voice reminded her that Herbie wasn’t gone
forever. They’d revive him again tomorrow, and she’d see him again.

She decided to attend every show while the carnival was in town. She’d buy mementos
after every show. That’d give her three opportunities every night to shake his
muscular hand, look into his passionate eyes, hear his glorious voice. Soon, he’d
remember her, perhaps even look forward to seeing her. And maybe he’d even want
her.

Eventually, the carnival would move on. But she decided to follow no matter where
they went. An affluent spinster, she could afford to travel anywhere.

The knowledge that nothing could stop her from seeing Herbie three times nightly
gave her a deep sense of peace. She fell asleep thinking how he’d succumb to her
charms when he recognized her inner beauty, her limitless capacity to love.

The next day, she went to the carnival hours before the first show, hoping to find
the barker. When she asked around, somebody pointed to the hot dog stand.

She bought a hot dog and sat at the table next to the barker’s. After a few
minutes, she said, “Hello. Your zombie show is quite impressive.”

“Glad you like it. I noticed you were at all the shows last night. Are you from the
Herbie Fan Club?”

“Oh no. I’m just hooked on the show. It’s so entertaining. Herbie really is the
friendliest zombie in the world. He’s also the most handsome and entertaining
performer I’ve ever seen. Have you ever thought of having him try out for a
Broadway musical?”

“I don’t think that’d work.”

“I can’t imagine why. He does everything remarkably well. He’s extremely talented,
and he’s the most dynamic performer I’ve ever seen.”

“Yes, he does come across that way. But there’s lotsa complicated stuff involved to
make that happen. More than you could ever imagine.”

“Well, how complicated can it be? James throws a switch on that machine of yours,
and off he goes. Look, I came here for a reason. I’d like to make you a
proposition. As a patron of the arts, and considering how talented your zombie is,
I think he needs someone who has the means to sponsor him and lead him to higher
things. Plays. Musicals. A concert at Carnegie Hall. Perhaps he can even play his
violin with the New York Philharmonic. Or sing with the Metropolitan Opera.
Frankly, I can offer Herbie a better life than a traveling carnival. I’d like to
buy Herbie. How much do you want for him?”

“He ain’t for sale.”

“Not even for a million dollars?”

The barker’s eyes widened. You wanna pay a million dollars for a dead zombie?”

“For goodness sakes! You make it sound like he’s lower than a maggot. I’ll pay you
a million for Herbie and that ugly machine that James operates. Of course I’ll want
an operator’s manual, the restraining chair, and whatever else is necessary to make
everything work smoothly.”
“Like I said, Herbie ain’t for sale.”

“How about renting him?”

“Rent Herbie? I never heard of renting out a zombie. Come to think of it, we shut
down the show from Thanksgiving until mid-January. Money gets pretty tight. If I
agreed, you’d hafta set up a place for his special equipment, and get a backup
generator in case of power failures. You’d also hafta sign papers promising that
you wouldn’t use him in any public performances. Let me think about it. How can I
reach you?”

“I’ll be at every show from now on.”

The next day, Wilma had lunch at the country club with her best friend, Elsie.
While eating, she asked Elsie to accompany her to the carnival. She didn’t let on
that she’d already been there.

“I haven’t been to a carnival in thirty years,” Elsie said. “Frankly, I don’t like
them. They attract scummy people. Why on earth do you want to go a carnival,
Wilma?”

“To see the zombie show. I heard it’s terrific. How about coming along?”

“No way! Zombies give me the creeps. I hear they eat human brains. For crying out
loud, Wilma, zombies are the walking dead. Why on earth do you want to be anywhere
near a walking corpse?”

“This zombie’s different,” Wilma said. “He’s domesticated. The paper said he’s
wonderful with children. And he’s supposed to be very handsome.”

“I don’t care what they said. A zombie is a zombie.”

Unable to overcome Elsie’s resistance, Wilma changed the subject.

Wilma was terribly disappointed by Elsie’s refusal to see Herbie’s show. She was
certain that Elsie would’ve been captivated by his looks, charm, talent. Then it
would’ve been so easy to explain the joy she felt by falling in love with a zombie.

That night after the last show, the barker approached Wilma. “Herbie ain’t for sale
or rent. I like things the way they are. Besides, if we lose control of him, there
might be trouble.”

Wilma cried all night.

The day the carnival left town and headed for Cleveland, Wilma checked into that
city’s best hotel. For the next two weeks, she waved to Herbie from the front row
and bought his autographed photos.

By the time the carnival played in the Chicago suburbs, Herbie was used to seeing
Wilma at every show. One night, he acknowledged her presence at the start of the
show. He asked her to stand, calling her “My good friend, Wilma.”

When the carnival played Indianapolis, Herbie called Wilma to the stage, put his
arm around her, and introduced her to the applauding audience. When he told them
she hadn’t missed a single show for two months, they clapped even louder.

Herbie autographed the photos she bought after every show with a different caption
every time. The messages had grown warmer. One evening, he wrote, “Wish we could
meet and talk.”

Wilma wept from joy.

The next day, she spotted the barker sitting alone at the carnival’s pizza stand.
He was so used to seeing her, he didn’t raise an eyebrow when she came to his
table.

“How’s it going, Tom?”

“Fine, Wilma. I gotta say, you sure are one helluva gutsy woman. I never figured
you’d go so far to be around Herbie. What gives? What’s so important about a zombie
that a woman your age has to follow him no matter where he goes.”

“I’m in love with Herbie.”

“Geez, Wilma. You should hear what you sound like. Are you gonna spend your life
pursuing a zombie? He’s dead. He was buried over fifty years ago. Dr. Dumont’s
journal says Herbie doesn’t even have a heart. All his internal organs are gone.
He’s filled with embalming fluid to keep his body from collapsing. When he waves
his arms, and you’re standing close enough, you can hear fluid sloshing inside.”

“But he has charm, and spirit, and gusto and—”

“That was all programmed into the electronic gadgets Dumont put into his skull
after all Herbie’s brains were sucked out. Do you know that the top of Herbie’s
head has hinges? That James has to open his skull once a week to blow compressed
air through all the electrical equipment in there? If James didn’t do that, we’d
never be able to rouse Herbie from his death trance. So stop and think about what
it is you love. Herbie’s a dead man who was turned into a zombie by a witch doctor.
He’s a cadaver that doesn’t rot, because of high-tech embalming fluid. He’s got no
heart. No lungs. His head is full of electronics. A head that has hinges. A head
that needs to be cleaned every week with compressed air. How can you sit there and
tell me you love such a thing?”

“You don’t know what love is, Tom!”

“Not the kind you’re talking about. Listen, Wilma. What if I told you I was in love
with a vampire? One that sucked blood from little kids. What would you say?”

“I’d say that vampires need love too. Just like zombies. And werewolves. And
ghouls.”

Figuring Wilma for a harmless loon, the barker never mentioned her actions again.

Wilma followed them to Atlanta. Then Miami. That’s where she discovered Herbie had
a dark side.

During the final show on closing night, Herbie was doing a handstand on a bicycle’s
handlebars. A teen threw an egg that smashed against Herbie’s head, throwing him
off balance. He fell off the bike and hit the floor hard.

Wilma screamed. The barker tried to help Herbie to his feet, but the zombie roughly
shoved him aside. The barker yelled to James, “Reduce renticular renification to
seven point nine.”
James turned switches and pressed buttons like a madman.

Suddenly, Herbie sprang to his feet and growled. The sound so unnerved the
audience, many rushed to the exits.

Wilma ran to the stage and threw her arms around Herbie. His behavior changed
instantly. He smiled and called to the audience, “Hey, c’mon back. It’s all part of
the act. Don’t be alarmed. Everything’s cool.” He kissed Wilma’s cheek. Eyes
twinkling, he said, “Thanks, Wilma. You’re a sweetie. We oughta hug more often.”

The barker couldn’t thank Wilma enough for what she’d done, though he wasn’t sure
which had calmed Herbie: Wilma’s embrace, or renificator signals. Even James was
uncertain if he’d completed the calming sequence before Wilma hugged the zombie.

As a reward for preventing a potential disaster, the barker decided to integrate

Wilma into Herbie’s act. At first, she did little things: passed him juggling
balls, setup tables for his magic acts, rolled out the bicycle on which he
performed acrobatics.

Wilma was never happier.

She wrote a letter to Elsie explaining in great detail everything that’d

transpired. Elsie never answered. She refused to accept the facts that Wilma was
involved with a traveling carnival, worked in a zombie show, and was in love with a
corpse.

* * *

After a year, Wilma felt as if something was still missing in her relationship with
Herbie—something she couldn’t articulate. On one hand she wanted to find ways to
get closer. On the other, she wasn’t sure how to bridge the chasm that still
separated them. When the answer came to her in a dream, she wondered why she hadn’t
thought of it earlier.

After careful consideration, she explained her plans to the barker.

“Are you sure, Wilma?” he asked.

“Positive. I can’t think of anything I want more than this.”

“I said it before, and I’ll say it again. Wilma, you’re one helluva a gutsy woman.
In fact, you have more guts than any ten men I know.”

“It’s not guts, Tom. It’s love.”

Wilma disappeared the next day.

After three years, few people remembered Wilma had ever existed. But Herbie didn’t
forget. Her name was the final word he uttered every night before he dropped his
head and died.
* * *

On a beautiful Spring evening in a Denver suburb, the carnival barker stood outside
the zombie show tent. In his proudest voice, he called out to the meandering
crowds, “Step right up ladies and gentlemen. Step right up and see Herbie and
Wilma, the friendliest zombies in the world.”

Satan Claus

By Tom Hamilton

"Mother, what are you doing out of bed?" asked Seymour.

The old woman didn't answer. She was carrying a lit wicket inside an archaic,
silver, antique candle holder and the hot wax was dripping down onto her wrists.
There was no need for this of course as the hallway was already ablaze with light
courtesy of the best bulbs which G.E. had to offer. Plus the cold afternoon sun,
which was brightened by the high piles of leftover snow outside, shone fearlessly
through every available pane.

She was wearing a long, red, flannel granny gown with green trim and printed
patterns of silver bells tied together with mistletoe. Her endless white hair,
which was generally piled up in a bun, hung ragged and scraggly all the way down
past the backs of her knees.

"C'mon. Let's get you back into bed."

After he'd pulled the blankets up to her chin, he noticed large beads of sweat
dotted up on her gray and wrinkled forehead.

"Jesus, Mother you're sweating... and it's freezing in here." He turned on the
electric space heater and scooted it a little closer to the bed.

"Seymour!" She barked suddenly, causing her grown son to jump. She rarely spoke at
all anymore, as her dementia was far advanced, so the sound of her voice startled
him.

"Jesus, Mother?!"

"Seymour! There was a man in the backyard."

"No now there wasn't, Mother. It's ten degrees outside."

"Yes there was!" She snapped. "A man came under the fence while I was tending to my
garden; a wild man."

"Mother, don't tell me you went out to that garden. Why there's a foot a snow
coverin' those plants over. No wonder you've gone and gotten yourself a fever. It
isn't fit for man nor beast out there."
The old woman didn't say anything else and for a moment he thought that the
garrulous spell had passed, so he said: "Why don't you get some sleep, Mother? I
don't think anyone's going to bother you."

But instead of regressing back into her usual catatonic state, the old woman
exploded: "Don't you patronize me boy! I was fightin' in these factories when you
were shittin' figgie pudding!"

"Mother?"

"Now I said that there was a man out there, in the backyard. A man who slithered
underneath the fence and all that red snow. A man with eyes like blue fire. And if
you don't believe me see for yourself: he bit me!"

She pushed the blankets off and clawed back the long sleeve of her granny gown
revealing a rancid and inflamed bite mark.

"Hell's bells Mother, how in the world did you get that?"

But the old woman was done talking. Her body straightened out on the bed as stiff
as an ironing board and her mind refracted into the voiceless nostalgia of lost and
darkened decades.

Seymour shook his head and went into the bathroom to open the medicine cabinet. By
the time he'd fetched the bandages and Mercurachrome he could already hear the old
woman snoring softly. He thought that it must have stung like hell once he applied
the disinfectant, but the old woman made no reaction.

"Jesus, Mother,” he said to himself more than her. "We may have to take you to see
Dr. Burke tomorrow." After he'd finished bandaging her up he turned off the light
and walked out of the bedroom scratching his head. How in the world had she
received such a nasty looking bite? He checked all the doors and windows but they
were either bolt locked or screwed down tight. There was no sign anywhere that
anyone had broken in, and even if someone had: why in the world would they want to
bite an eighty nine year old woman?

He plopped down on the couch and began watching a hockey game on the large color
television. He didn't know what the score was or who was even playing; content to
just watch the players skate around. Could she have really been out in the
backyard? Perhaps she'd been attacked by a dog?

Concerned, he got up and began walking towards his mother's room. If she'd been out
in the snow, maybe the bottom of her nightgown would still be damp?" He opened the
door just a tiny crack and listened carefully. But he could no longer hear the old
woman's rasping breathes. He switched the light back on.

"Mother?"

No reply.

The old woman was as pale as vanilla and lying like a corpse in a casket. He tried
to shake her awake but she didn't move a wrinkle.

"Mother! Mother!"

He fumbled through the top drawer of the vanity until he came up with the old
woman's ancient, gold plated, compact mirror. He held it under her nose for several
seconds but no foggy breath clouded its silvery surface.
"Oh no, OH NO!" He said as he grabbed the phone on the night stand and began
dialing.

"Alice it's Mother. I don't think she's breathing." An inaudible squawk lisped out
from the other end of the line.

"No Alice I don't think she is. You'd better get over here. Yes I'm calling the
ambulance now. Hold on let me check." But as he took up the old woman's wrist to
feel for a pulse, as Alice had no doubt instructed, Seymour's dead mother leapt to
life and sank what was left of her halitosis inflicted teeth into his forearm.

He screamed more with surprise than with terror and dropped the phone onto the rug.
With the damage done, the old woman's frail body dropped back onto the bed. Where
she writhed into a couple of convulsions and then seemed to lose consciousness.
Seymour jumped back and inspected the fresh bite. Blood was oozing up into the
teeth marks like swamp water filling up muddy footprints.

"Dear Lord, Dear Lord," he kept repeating.

"Seymour, Seymour," the receiver called out from the carpet. After a few seconds of
sucking on his wound like a mother cat he picked it back up.

"It's okay Alice, I thought that she wasn't breathing for a minute, but now she's
up. You'd better be gettin' over here pretty soon anyway, I've got to be down to
the mall."

After he'd hung up, Seymour covered the old woman over with a blanket. She had
quieted back down even though her eyes were open and blazing like the torches of a
lynch mob. Once he was out in the kitchen, he let the tap water run over the wound
and down into the sink. Once the blood had been rinsed from the teeth marks, the
indentations were a blue color and the viscous cuts still smarted even under the
flow of the faucet.

He thought that he heard a new noise coming from the bedroom. But when he crept
back over to open the door slightly, all was silent. He looked at the clock and
thought that Alice should be arriving pretty soon.

Once he was in front of the mirror he tugged on his white beard. It looked so
authentic that there was no longer any need for the frost white fake one he had
donned in previous years. There probably wasn't any need for the foam belly anymore
either but he pulled it from the closet and strapped it on anyway. A furry red
jacket with white trim hung from a solitary plastic hanger. It was the same one he
put his arms and shoulder blades into every year from Thanksgiving all the way up
until Christmas Eve; the familiar and famous garb of Saint Nicholas.

"You look a little under the weather Seymour," Stan said, "or at least equal with
it." He was referring to the blizzard which had quickly converged upon the mountain
town and was now raging on outside.
"Ah, it's just Mother again."

Stan took a sip of scalding black coffee and said, "Ya know Seymour, there ain't no
shame in putting a dying person in a-"

"-nursing home I know," Seymour finished the sentence for him. "I can't do it Stan.
Not after the way she cared for dad all those years."

"Well, it's none of my business but..." Before Stan could finish, the eye of the
walkie-talkie which was attached to his belt winked yellow and then red before
spitting out a line of garbled static. After a couple of seconds the white noise
translated to words: "Stan 109, Stan 109."

Stan held the speaker up to his mouth, "You got me."

"Stan, you better get down here. I think we got a shoplifter at Spencer's."

He sighed before pressing the talk button, "Be right there." He got up from the
lunch room table he'd been leaning his buttocks against. "Gotta go big boy."

Seymour felt so weak and feverish that all he could do was nod.

"Look, don't think about any of it tonight," Stan offered as parting advice, "Just
have a good time makin' the kids happy."

But as Seymour walked past the store fronts out in the mall, his limbs felt stiff
and their joints aflame. Breathing was difficult as if the oxygen were igniting a
liquid fire inside his chest. He doubled over in discomfort and pawed the bite
which was now hidden underneath his red and white sleeve.

It throbbed with each beat of his heart and when he pulled the cloth back to
inspect it he saw that it was practically glowing with a seeping green liquid.

"Look! It's Santa." Then the children were all around him. Usually, he enjoyed the
walk through the mall. It gave him the opportunity to pass out his surplus of
small, striped red and white hard candy canes to the excited kids.

"HO HO HO," he made himself say. But what he really wanted to do was floor the
first snot nosed brat who tried to touch him. He shook his beard like a wet dog and
sighed. What the hell was he thinking; he loved children, he'd always loved
children. Maybe it was just that awful episode with Mother which had put his nerves
on edge.

The sleigh was centered underneath a huge skylight in an expansive circular section
in the center of the huge cross shaped mall. Above the glass roof, the ubiquitous
cloudy beard of God shook out its mighty dandruff in the form of millions of
snowflakes. There were eight living deer hooked to the front of the sled. They had
been fastened up with reins and cordoned off in a small, chain link pen which
doubled for a petting zoo. There were some cumbersome, clumsy, artificial antlers
which had somehow been fashioned to their heads to make them look like the real
deal. Many children were already mulling around the small enclosure and were busy
feeding the creatures some smelly, small brown pellets which could be purchased
from a nearby gumball machine for twenty five cents.

There was a very sexy teenager, with legs much too long for both her years and for
the elf costume she was wearing, standing over next to a display of empty but very
colorful Christmas presents. Her long brown hair was so thick and shiny that it
still looked stunning even underneath the absurd, pointed hat. She had worked
carefully with the holiday shades of green and red to create an extremely alluring
look with brushed on streaks of eye shadow.

There was also a thick, tired looking, rotund, middle aged woman who was stationed
behind a big Polaroid camera which had been mounted near a check out desk. She wore
a miserable expression and was shuffling her feet aimlessly. Seymour remembered a
year when she was much more affable, but that was long before they had converted
the entire mall into a non-smoking establishment.

"Jesus Seymour," she said, "You're fifteen minutes late." She pointed to a long
line of parents with their children; kids eager to tell Santa all about their
Christmas wishes. "Look at these brats."

"Okay, okay, Charlene," he said, "Let's not make a federal case out of it, let's
just get some of the kids through the line.

Charlene sighed as if she knew he was right and unclipped the red velvet rope which
separated the first customers from Santa. As he situated himself up inside the
sleigh, a crud chewing (rein)deer watched him settle into his seat without much
reaction. It was an actual mountain sled which had been donated by the local hunter
and trappers museum. The door panels had been painted a dark maroon color and
tacky, plastic, mistletoe which was sprayed gold was draped over the top half of
the refurbished leather seat. The running boards were held in place by a network of
wires which were hooked onto some temporary ground rods like a carnival ride.

"Hey Sarah."

"Hey Seymour," The ultra-attractive elf acknowledged his greeting.

The first kid of the day climbed up onto Seymour's lap and proceeded to act like a
repulsive brat. "I want an XBOX 360 and a skateboard and a GI Joe and a..." Seymour
was shaking his head yes when the boy paused: "Hey? Why aren't you writing any of
this down?"

"I don't have to write any of it down; my elves are recording it all."

The boy looked around as if checking for recording equipment and locked eyes with
the vivacious Sarah instead.

"She's got pretty big tits for an elf."

Before Seymour had to say anything else, the Polaroid's flash popped and Charlene
shouted, "Next!"

Next turned out to be a sweet little girl who was dressed like a miniature Mrs.
Claus in strawberry red and snow white. All she asked for was some sort of
urinating doll and was quickly taken down. A few more like her and Seymour thought
that he might be able to get caught up a bit, but these hopes were dashed when he
took one glance at the ever lengthening queue.

But as child after child rotated past a makeshift North Pole, and request after
request fell onto Seymour's rapidly deafening ears, he felt worse and ever worse
until his chest felt like there were two rats inside his breast plate fighting to
devour his lungs. His arms and legs were heavy and cold like scrap metal from a
dissected refrigerator and every time Charlene snapped a new instant photo, he felt
as if his eyes were looking into a welder's torch with no visor or at the
detonation of an atomic bomb.

"Are you okay Seymour," Sarah, the breath taking elf inquired.
"Yes, I'm fine kiddo."

"Maybe we should close early? You don't look so good."

"Oh no no sweetheart, I'm fine. These children deserve a Santa. Now call the next
child up please."

She did as she was told and for awhile the pace of the visits quickened. Child on,
spiel spat, photo snapped, child down, cash garnered, next. This rush ensued until
a roll of film got eaten up by the Polaroid. While Charlene busied herself with
ripping it out and replacing it, a cigarette hanging from her withered lip despite
the NO SMOKING sign which was only a few feet from her head, and while Sarah had
her hands full trying to fend off the verbal advances of a fourteen year old boy
who had wormed his way inside the red and green velvet ropes, Seymour slumped down
in his seat. Charlene cursed as the new roll of film refused to cooperate. The
lovely Sarah told the boy, who was much too old for Santa but much too young for
her, to get lost. Perhaps, with all this aggravation on their plates they simply
didn't realize. Or maybe, when Seymour tilted his head back and closed his eyes,
they just thought that he was taking a power nap until the camera was flash ready
again. Whatever the case, they did not notice when Seymour passed away at 4:46
Mountain Time.

Even when the amorous boy gave up and strutted away; even when the camera was
repaired and ready to photograph, even when the children who had been so very, very
good, were cleared to tell their tale to Santa; they still did not notice Seymour's
heavy and stiffening head.

Not until a darling little girl; with a look that could challenge the style and
overwhelming cuteness of Shirley Temple herself, began slapping the face of the
deceased Saint Nick did they take notice. The little girl snickered and hopped
down. Only to be replaced by a huge boy who was obviously much too old and
oversized to subscribe to such childish fables.

While Charlene and Sarah glanced at each other in confusion the boy began running
through his list. After a few seconds he paused and said, "Santa? Are you asleep?"

"Sarah," Charlene shouted as she snapped what was sure to be a peculiar picture,
"Is he alright up there? He doesn't look so good."

"I already asked him that once," Sarah replied, "He says he wants to finish out the
shift."

"Well Jesus," Charlene said as she tilted her grey head in an effort to look past
the youngster on Seymour's lap, "It looks like he's passed out or something. Is he
drunk for God's sakes?"

Sarah walked up to the sled. "Seymour doesn't drink. Wait a minute; I think he's
coming around."

Indeed, Seymour had began to stir and when his eyes re-opened they were as red as
his jacket. Thinking that Santa had revived the boy continued with his delayed wish
list.

"Seymour? Are you all right?" Sarah tried to whisper. Seymour, his face strangely
glazed and distant, did not answer or even seem to hear her.

"... and a go-cart and a scooter and the Kim Kardashian DVD..." The big boy rambled
on as a low guttural growl escaped from Seymour's slightly parted lips and his face
took on the countenance of a desperately sick and hungry animal.

"Seymour?"

Of all the items the boy had listed as potential gifts there was one thing that he
certainly did not want for Christmas: and that was to have the first three fingers
bitten off of his left hand. But that is what he got in the next instant as a
Satanic new Santa, which was no longer any kin to the kind and respectful Seymour,
chomped the digits off as if they were ketchup laced French fries. As the oversized
child drew back his squirting and maimed hand, the first of what was sure to be
many screams rose from the crowd. Sarah stepped away totally stunned; her gaping
mouth as perfectly round as a moon while Satan Claus continued to chew the boy's
fingers; gore ruining his beard like the blood of a slaughtered animal running from
a steel trap in the snow.

For a few awe stricken seconds, the parents and kids who had been waiting in line
paused. As if there was a chance that this horrific spectacle could somehow still
be a sick joke or even part of the show. They faltered like this for a few
heartbeats like deflated flags in a weak breeze, before terror took hold and they
dispersed in a wild zig-zag of panic. People punched, kicked and pushed past each
other as vicious as carnivorous zombies. The riot was on.

Seymour stood up; the nonplussed boy still locked in his grip. For a second he
swayed drunkenly, his eyes maniacal. Then he bit a patch out of the child's scalp
as if it were a juicy cantaloupe. Sarah turned and bolted down a carpeted ramp;
somehow finding her way out from the fog of shock. Charlene left her post behind
the camera and bravely bustled up to the sanguinary soaked Santa.

"Good God, Seymour," she said without much steam, "Stop!"

She reached out and grabbed the gore splattered flap of the boy's jacket. But even
as she did this, the demonic Santa released the boy and switched his grip onto
Charlene's shoulders. When he bit into her cheek the blood squirted out as if from
a torn ketchup packet. The sound of her scream was drowned out only by the boom of
gunshots. Stan was pointing his pistol straight out from where he'd been seeking
cover between two twirling display holders in front of the Sunglass Hut. The bullet
struck Satan Claus in the chest; the impact knocking him back down into his seat;
but it had no other effect.

"Stop Seymour! Don't make me shoot you again!"

But the monster who used to be Seymour didn't stop. He rose and continued to bite
patches out of both the boy and Charlene. The pair now rendered unconscious inside
the sled. This prompted Stan to empty his gun into the red and white clad target.
The final projectile, however, grazed the gray antler of one of the (rein)deer and
the balsa horns exploded into dull confetti. This panicked the animals and they
were so spooked that no constraints could hold them.

They quickly trampled the chain link petting zoo. The reins connecting them to the
sleigh pulled it right out of its stanchions and away from the flimsy rods that no
one had thought would be needed to help contain the docile deer.

Sparks shot from the tile floor as the sled gathered speed and mowed over what was
left of the audience. A mother and several small children were tromped over and
clomped on by the deranged (rein)deer. As the sleigh reached maximum velocity, a
man was dragged for several yards along with Charlene's dead body. After the man
fell off and rolled violently into a Pepsi machine, Charlene's felled carcass could
still be seen hooked onto the door. One young mother, who had unfortunately fallen,
had her legs scissored off by the skating blades. The detached limbs lay like
reddened octopus meat, separated by several yards from her floundering body.

As the storefronts blazed past in a blur of neon commercialism, Seymour stood up

and peered out over the crowd like an evil pharaoh; his eyes swirling with tiny
cyclones of madness. At this juncture he let out a terrible and peevish laugh;
perhaps owed to the fact that he was still an immature child of a creature inside
his diseased mind. Or maybe the motion of the onrushing sleigh awakened some
thrilling memory of fun, which his rotting pulp of a brain still managed to
conjure. No one can say for sure. But whatever the case, the sound of that
revoltingly jolly wail was disgusting and blood curdling; hearty and horrible it
fell onto the sensitive ears of the shocked shop keepers.

The (rein)deer did not slow down as they reached the exit. They simply veered off
from the doors, which were separated by stout aluminum frames, and aimed for the
much wider berth of the department store's display windows instead. They
mercilessly trampled the seasonally garbed mannequins and crashed through the wide
showroom-type pane with a sonic shatter. A large sliver of glass now protruded from
Seymour's chest. But even as the wound pumped fresh blood and the shard jutted out
close to where his heart must be, he didn't seem to notice.

Outside the blizzard flew with such a robust bluster that the plows and road
graders could not keep up. A thickening layer of powder, which was near perfect for
sledding, covered the parking lot. It was already dark outside and headlights
reflected off of the menacing procession as the train continued on, careening off
of cars and threatening to mow down aloof pedestrians. Then a sleigh, with eight
tiny (rein)deer and one lifeless yet blood thirsty Santa at the helm, flew down the
wide thoroughfare of the mountain town's Main Street. The quickness of the sled had
pushed Seymour back down into his seat where he foamed at the mouth and snapped his
teeth at anyone who was even remotely close to the carriage. At the intersection,
they bustled right through the red light causing a fancy Christmas lady who had
been driving a Honda Civic to swerve in order to avoid them. She had to cross over
into another lane where a huge yellow semi obliterated her small compact. The truck
hit her so hard that the little import seemed to pop and burst like a balloon and
the lady was thrown out into high drifts as dead as Seymour, while the big truck
slanted and plowed into a ditch askew.

A few blocks from this accident a young family, perhaps thinking that this
obscenity was some type of holiday parade float, pulled up next to the sleigh. A
small girl peered out from the back seat and the evil Santa showed her his red and
white teeth. Charlene's corpse bobbed up and down alongside the carriage, reddening
the fresh flakes. The family, then realizing that they were dealing with something
deplorable, quickly sped away.

Near the edge of town, they passed a speed trap and soon red and blue lights and
sirens could be seen and heard trailing the sleigh. The following conversation was
heard by many a curious townsfolk on the police radio band:

"What have you got car four?"

"Uh, this is four, we're in pursuit over."

"Request license plate number of suspect over."

"Um, no plates, suspect is dressed in a Santa suit and appears to be dragging a

dead body through the streets over."

Pause.

"Clearance to shoot out the suspect's tires over."

"Um, vehicle doesn't have tires. Appears to be a sled pulled by some type of dogs.
Over and out."

And they pushed on, until the traffic thinned out and the tall towers gave way to
shorter three story buildings. Then they were outside the city limits, where they
rode past the unmarked county roads, all boundaries and lane lines obscured by the
relentless snows. The drifts were so high that they covered the snow fences and the
barbed wire barricades, leaving no boundaries to obstruct the octet of deer and
their cargo. Soon the hills slanted, chopped long ago by the ax of God they dipped
into steeper slopes where the angry police vehicles could not follow. They climbed
all the way to the top of Mount Paydirt. Its flattened peak gazing down at Gordon's
Gorge five hundred feet below; home of the Great Northern Paiute Grand Valley
Indian Reservation.

Without pausing for a beat, the entire caravan ran off of the cliff and began the
long plunge to the sharp, man-sized boulders below. For a few seconds, they looked
amazingly graceful as their forward progress held onto the neat design of the
jumping (rein)deer. Like a postcard with a silhouette of Santa Claus and the
outline of his eight dependable beasts. Then it all fell apart as the heavier
animals were grabbed by gravity and became entangled in the reins. The sled soon
turned upside down in midair and Seymour was thrown from his lofty perch. He fell
silent and solemn, too devoid of humanity even to react in defense of his own well
being.

Far down below: in a house which did not have a Christmas tree or a wreath on the
door, a young boy had seen the beauty and grace of the sleigh's brief flight,
before it turned into a tangle of falling creatures and twisted reins like the
strings of a fractured puppet show. A child with chestnut brown eyes and shoulder
length black hair was the only one who had glimpsed the entourage before they
vanished below the precipice of the rock face. When the cervids finally found the
thankless terrain at rock bottom, they exploded into chunky red ribbons of brown
furry gore like slabs of dead meat. At the same time Seymour's brain burst apart on
the Sanskrit; his body shattered by an impact that not even someone who was already
dead could survive.

"Mama, mama," the small Native American boy said while pointing out his bedroom
window. "I just saw Santa Claus." The silhouette of his washboard hipped mother
appeared in the doorway but she did not answer. After a few seconds of this
silence, the child turned to her and said in a confused voice, "Didn't you see
him?" But she still didn't answer, so he reached over and turned on his bed side
lamp, the ceramic fixture was a depiction of a Paiute brave riding atop a spotted
black and white mustang. "Mama?" He said again as she shuffled within range of the
bulb's weak light. But that was the last words that he spoke, for by now he could
see that there was something wrong with her eyes.

Food For the Dead

By Meghan Jurado

It’s over, man. People are eating each other.

But not in the way you would think.

It started, funny enough, with a stock report. The beef industry was in an uproar,
seems cows were coming onto the slaughterhouse lines so decayed and bloated that
they were almost exploding from the gases in their bellies when they were cut into.

Workers were being splattered with flying tripe. There was an outrage, the cattle
people blamed the slaughterhouses for trying to butcher cows that were already
dead, the slaughterhouses blamed the beef people, saying the cows were up, walking
and wriggling when they were attached to the chains and hoisted.

There was a lot of name-calling, a couple of corporate vandalism incidents, and on

one memorable occasion, a fistfight, caught on the local news for posterity. The
beef guy won, in case you were interested. Got his big cowboy hat knocked off
though.

So, after a bunch of finger pointing and budget wrangling, someone finally looked
into it. Turns out, the cows were dead- or more accurately, undead.

I’ll give you a moment to digest that. (So to speak.)

A good cross section of the cattle population were showing the same symptoms:
glassy, sticky eyes, lack of appetite (expect for when they took bites from each
other- but that wasn’t released until much later, when most of us were too panicked
or shell-shocked to care) bloating with gases usually reserved for corpses… the
list went on and on.

Soon it was ALL of the cattle.

The beef industry went belly up, there were bankruptcies and suicides from the
major stockholders, and suddenly there were all these cows, wandering through the
streets. The cattle industry couldn’t afford to house them; they didn’t have the
money to kill them either, even if they could figure how to do it.

They were rancid smelling and creepy, and it gave you quite a start to see your
first undead cow, but they didn’t try to attack anyone or anything dumb like that.
Kids even dared each other to ride them, and it was common to see a cow corpse
lurching down the street covered in teenage riders. We just couldn’t eat them
anymore.

But there are lots of animals to eat, right?

It hit the chickens and pigs next.

Poultry farms had been on the lookout for whatever infected the cows, and were
optimistic, at least publicly. But when it came, it came fast, and one day the news
was showing rows and rows of cages, filled with dead hens, and then they would
start to twitch and cluck again, and then it was business as usual for the hens,
but you couldn’t eat them either, the meat was as black and rotten as could be.

The brood hens wouldn’t lay either, eggs just built up inside, spoiling in a nest
of cooling guts. When the chickens were let loose to peck their decayed little
hearts out among we regular folk, children would often chuck rocks at the dead
broody hens to make the egg clutch inside explode. It was a lot like a stink bomb,
but with feathers.

The pigs went down more quietly than the cows and chickens, but they received a lot
more gory close-ups on the news, on account of the pink skin showing rot so well,
and the fact that grown pigs are just plain scary. Soon enough, the pork industry,
up to their ears in debt and floundering with this catastrophe, so sudden and
complete, just let them out to wander as well, and now every time I go outside I
have to shoo away one of the undead oinkers. The pigs turned a little mean as well-
they’re more likely to give you a nip if you bug them. Their rotten snouts look
like cottage cheese gone green.

After the pigs died, everyone was in a panic.

It was a health crisis that didn’t infect people, because as far as everyone knew,
it was just animals that died and came back.

We were told not to panic- ha- and that there was plenty of wild game still
available to anyone who wanted it. Deer and bison were being trucked to
functioning, sanitary (this was mentioned several times) slaughterhouses all across
the nation to be killed and distributed to the American people, and neighboring
Canada and Mexico.

Everyone perked up just a little. It’s hard to be completely cheerful when there’s
an undead cow watching you with maggots in its eyes.

Then the first shipment arrived.

Infected.

All of it.

They didn’t even bother to try and kill anything, after being boxed together in the
trucks for so long the deer and bison and pheasant had all begun to rot, and many
had eaten large portions of each other.

The news was airing this cannibalism now.

My favorite news report of the whole disaster showed a pretty young thing with a
microphone smiling and opening a truck of fresh deer. When the door opened, she
peeked inside and visibly paled. Two deer stood knee deep in a pile of carcasses
and gnawed bone, chewing contentedly on scraps of furred flesh. The pretty young
thing lost her lunch all over her snazzy little suit, and the deer just jumped out
of the truck and wandered away, leaving bloody hoof tracks. I laughed so hard I
almost cried.

About the time we were thinking of eating mice or something (which wouldn’t have
done any good - the mice were dead too. Undead mice are twice as loud thumping in
the eaves of a house.)

A cause was found, too little, too late.

It was the feed. Somehow, an unidentified mold had gotten into the animal feed and
infected the animals, if an animal ate feed, or ate an animal that ate feed, it
would be infected. It was a wonderful lesson in the food chain.

Dogs and cats, hamsters and gerbils- we were warmed to check manufacture dates on
pet food and put poor Scruffy out of his misery early if he got into some infected
chow.
New feed was being produced and the world would go back to normal. We scoffed, knee
deep in tuna cans.

Fish were infected, but there was a run on tuna from before a certain date. Potted
meats enjoyed a brief popularity too. It was a good time to be Spam.

Then, a Swedish botanist, a Dr. Hersten Ekerot, came out with his discovery,
Fusarirum ekerotilliodes. This mold, which the mass populace had noticed only when
it directly inconvenienced them (as is usually the case with the mass populace) had
been discreetly growing on and inside all kinds of plants over the past few years.

On the trees, the flowers, the bushes. Kelp had mold. Mold had mold. This creeping
invader found a host and then made itself at home, essentially hollowing out its
benefactor and filling the inside with moldy goodness. (This is me paraphrasing.
The botanist said it quite differently, but it all amounted to “we’re all
screwed.”) As soon as roots formed, the mold was there waiting.

There was nothing known that could kill this parasite, plans were formed based on
other strains of Fusarium mold that had successfully been eliminated. Plans were
executed, plans were discarded, failure was total.

People panicked. There was nothing to eat. While the mold did not have the
reanimating effect on human beings, it destroyed all plant and animal life it came
into contact with. Even our pets were dead, from horse to goldfish. There was food
everywhere, or what used to be food, staring at you with glazed eyes and dripping
pus, eating each other, right in front of us, as if rubbing it in. No shortage of
food for the dead.

So the only meat that wasn’t infected was people.

“The Program” started right away. They called it “The Program” as not to upset the
squeamish and faint of heart, but what it boiled down to was taking bodies that
died of non-infectious causes, car crashes, heart attacks and the like, and testing
them for contamination.

These bodies were then processed into a block of pale white meat that was doled out
by the government, one per house per week, extra if you have children or old
people.

There were “it’s people!” jokes made- funny at first, less funny on repetition, and
not funny at all when you were staring at a block of someone’s dead Grandpa with a
fork in your hand.

“Nutrio”, as they called it, looked like pressed chicken and tasted like sour pork,
and there were reports of people dropping dead from starvation instead of eating
the stuff.

The religious groups had mass sit-ins protesting Nutrio, some gave up when they
realized there was nothing for it, it was eat or die.

The rest did die, slowly, and they were bulldozed into a pile and shoveled into
trucks to be taken to the Nutrio plant, and be part of “The Program”. Not that they
were much but skin and bones, but the ligaments could be boiled to make the Nutrio
binding agent.

There were black market versions of Nutrio appearing left and right (my favorite
was “Pink Scrap”- available in your finest back alley butchers) and it wasn’t safe
to walk around after dark because people disappeared now. Send little Michael to
the store on his own and next time you see him is on your plate.
It’s all over.

The dead have risen and people are eating each other. We’re struggling, but the
dead are inheriting the earth.

Who do you eat when everyone has been eaten?

Who can you devour when everyone is already dead?

The Wall

By Christine Savoie

The wall.

I’ve heard about it and even dreamt about it. I knew what was on the other side;
the nightmare beyond the wall.

The disease; the rot; the festering flesh beating against the wall like a rhythmic
heart beat- thousands, no, hundreds of thousands would be there lined up clawing to
get in, pressed against each other, fusing limbs and flesh like a grotesque orgy.

We were getting nearer as the bone-shaking school bus rounded a corner and chugged
along a stretch of deserted strip malls. The wall was still not visible, and
everyone aboard craned their neck East to see if they could catch a glimpse. The
wall was built shortly after the first wave of infection and was the only savior to
our existence. There weren’t enough bullets or bombs to stop them and many who
actually knew how to use the military weapons were on the front lines, many of
whom, never made it back or quite depressingly joined the ranks of the enemy.

The wall was a solution brought forward by a structural engineer and with the help
of the Army Corp of Engineers it was set in place like an ancient monument across
our state. Some say it was 200 feet high and others said it would be visible from
space, if the space station was still manned by the living that is. It was rumored
to be 12 feet thick made up of poured concrete and reinforced steel.

The passengers on the front of the bus began to cover their faces and turn in
disgust. And then the smell of the dead entered the back of the bus where I was
sitting alone.

The driver slowed and put on a blue and white surgical mask. The smell was sweet
and wet and it immediately brought back memories. Memories none of use wanted to
remember, but each of us forgot out of necessity.

The bus turned another corner and the bus driver pointed and then we saw it.

The wall.

The one thing that protected us.

The one thing that made us – human.

It wasn’t what I expected. It wasn’t 200 feet high and it wasn’t an impressive
engineered cement wall. Well, parts of it were cinderblock, but some of it was
wooden, or chain-link or a combination of materials. It was only about 15 feet
high.

On one section of poorly laid cinderblock, graffiti marked the wall with the words,
“They Live!”

Through the chain-link several corpses were visible milling about. They must have
heard the diesel engine of the bus rumble through the empty neighborhood and they
reacted, stretched their arms and opening their mouths revealing blackened gums and
dark, blood-soaked teeth.

Their decaying muscles and tendons were not responding as quickly as I remembered.
They hungered for human flesh, but these poor shells of men and women who once
lived were nearing the end of their second existence.

Some looked away, but others returned the stare of the undead. I just stared at the
wall, and couldn’t help but feel let down. I’m sure everyone on the bus felt that
way.

The bus sped up and turned down a residential street ignoring stop signs and
speeding through school zones. As it turned another corner it slowed down and came
to a stop and the bus driver turned around and lowered his mask.

“This is it, folks,” he said with a smile. “This is sector eight. The first stop.
All those assigned to sector eight, please exit.”

I was looking for 237 of Maple Street. My husband, Richard and our daughter
Danielle, had arrived two days prior and were awaiting my homecoming. We were
separated before the event. I mean, legally separated. We had our issues and
Richard got custody of Danielle and I moved back home to my parents. We visited
casually, keeping the relationship alive for Danielle, and secretly wishing we were
back together.

When the United States had fallen, everything changed. Richard and Danielle were
separated in the chaos. My parents were ambushed on route to a safe zone by a gang
of survivors. Danielle and Richard finally reunited a few weeks later at a security
zone constructed by the Red Cross. I was unlucky. I was two States away and
telecommunications were nearly non-existent. Everything happened so fast. The
collapse of society took days, maybe even hours. All my friends and co-workers were
either displaced, dead or the living-dead. I lost it in those first days and I was
found walking along Interstate 6 by a convoy of Marines on their way to Fort
Denton. I was at a convention previous and all I could remember was being bored. My
short term memory was blank. I had no purpose.

When the first wave of the undead pandemic finally subsided, communities began
reestablishing government, law and order. Pockets of survivors banded together and
fought back the plague. I found myself drifting among the homeless, the refugees
from all four corners of the United States. I had no purpose, other than to live.
With all I saw, I believed Richard would be dead and most certainly had no hope for
my daughter Danielle to make it through this horror. I struggled and endured a
suicidal journey to Denver to see if anything remained of my family. I don’t
remember much of the journey as I dared not hold those memories.

Upon my arrival at the safe zone in Denver, I was processed by a refugee camp, my
skills analyzed and my usefulness to society weighed. I was told I was going to be
a cook at Mercy Hospital. I was also entered into a database and was told my
husband was alive and had posted a search bulletin to alert him, if I was ever
found. The woman who processed me said it was rare, but it did happen. She said
that my husband and my daughter are living within Denver’s newly developed safe
zone and she would apply for my transfer to them as soon as possible.

I spoke to Richard and Danielle on the telephone shortly after. I broke down and it
took me some time to speak clearly. Richard said he was just assigned to move into
a new house with Danielle and said I should “Come home.” He said it in a way that I
knew he forgave me and wanted me back.

“All those assigned to Sector Eight must exit now,” the driver said awakening me
from a memory.

I stood up erect and composed myself and proceeded to the door. It appeared I was
the only one in Sector Eight as the other passengers remained seated and were
talking amongst themselves about the wall or their new home and lifestyle.

I looked out the window and anticipated the row of houses that lined the streets.
They were 1970-style bungalows, not mansions. In a world of one-tenth the previous
living population you could live almost anywhere. Why did Richard choose this
neighborhood? We were nobodies, but again, in this world, anyone is a somebody. On
this side of the wall you could have it all, at least that’s what I thought and was
told. The government still had clever PR folks doing their marketing. Damn them.

I saw Richard. He was waiting near the door of a white house with baby-blue trim.
Danielle was holding his hand smiling nervously. She was young, now only four, but
she still remembered me. I stepped off the bus and started to run toward them. I
nearly fell and Richard caught me and held me close nearly smothering me, he pushed
his face deep into my neck and wept. He let go after several moments, both our
cheeks soaked with running tears. I bent down and grasped Danielle. She stepped
back before I could embrace her.

“Mommy, why are you crying?” she said innocently, “Aren’t you happy?”

Richard began before she even finished her question. “No, honey, Mommy is just
happy to see everyone. Why don’t we show Mommy the new house.”

She reached out towards my hand and paused, her hand open, ready to receive mine. I
paused and then reached towards Danielle’s hand and immediately she pulled me
forward chattering away about the house. Richard smiled as I looked back getting
swept through the front door immediately noticing the smell of fresh paint and
floor cleaner.

The house was furnished, sparingly. It appeared as if Richard and Danielle had not
done anything, or perhaps had no opportunity to make this home their own. The
furniture was dated and a little worn and seemed not to match.

This was someone else’s house at one time. I paused in the living room, listening
to Danielle comment about the lack of a television set and how she missed watching
cartoons. I looked at the green plaid sofa and noticed a stain above it. The stain
was light-brown and was seeping through the fresh paint. It fanned upward and faded
near the roof. I stared at the stain until Danielle pulled me down a dark hallway
and into her new room. I knew what the stain meant and it haunted me.

She had a few toys spread out on the wooden floor and her bed was not made. Taped
to the wall were several hand-drawn pictures of horses and castles.

“Do you like it Mommy? She asked but immediately continued before I could answer,
“Your room isn’t as nice, but Daddy said he’ll fix it up for you the way you like
it. He says he’s handy.”

She took me on a tour of the rest of our new house as Richard followed behind
smiling and commenting on how he would “get-around-to-it” whenever there seemed
need of repair. We ended in the kitchen where several large boxes were left on the
counter.

“We’re still unpacking,” Richard said moving one of the boxes to the floor. I could
tell he felt a little uncomfortable and who could blame him? We haven’t seen each
other in months and we’ve both been through so much. But we had each other and we
had our family back.

“Listen, I gotta go for a security check,” he interrupted my memories. “Basically,

I ride a bike around the neighborhoods and report to the checkpoint if I see
anything suspicious. They ration the fuel, so they make me ride a bike around. This
neighborhood has been clear, but I guess they want to make sure. They say I may
even get promoted to guard the gates at some point. It’s an assigned duty, everyone
has to do it. They’ll probably make you do it sooner or later. I’ll be back in an
hour or two.”

With that he gave me a small kiss on the forehead and brushed Danielle’s hair from
her face. “I’ll be back for supper. How about you and Mommy fix something up? They
stocked the basement full for us.”

He turned and walked out the front door, like he did before. Except this time I
knew he would be back.

Danielle’s voice startled me.

“Mommy, I don’t like the basement,” she said in a nervous tone.

“It’s only a basement. Nothing there,” I answered as I opened the basement door and
peered down the dark stairwell.

“No such thing as monsters, right Mommy?”

I couldn’t answer. What was I supposed to say? Everyone she knew turned into
monsters, her friends, her family, teachers, policemen, neighbors, complete
strangers and the people she trusted tried to devour her flesh.

“I’m going to play in the backyard on the swing,” she said skipping away. It’s
funny how children can adjust and accommodate to any situation. The world of rot
and disease is just a few blocks away behind a makeshift wall and she has no
worries about it. Her fear of the dark, however, yet to be conquered.

I heard the screen door slam and it startled me as my nerves never recovered from
my experiences beyond the wall. I took the next few steps slowly. In my world, I,
too, was scared of the dark. There was just enough light to see that the basement
had been fitted with a few industrial style steel shelving units with canned food
and bags of rice and flour neatly arranged.

The new government, or rather, the government of the military, was taking care of
Richard. They knew he was an asset to their team. Richard worked for an upstart
pharmaceutical company called Dayton Life as an assistant to an immunologist. With
the living dead outbreak now in its final phase, the authorities believed that they
could find a way to make one immune to the virus.

There were rumors that the Navajo population were biologically immune to the
affects of the virus, but those were only rumors as the West Coast of the United
States and much of Arizona, where the Navajo had once lived, were destroyed by our
own nuclear arms. Richard was a key asset to this new world and we were finally
together and this would be a fresh start.

I walked the row of canned foods and wasn’t pleased with the selection. Since this
all began, I have only eaten food that was in a tin can, wrapped in plastic or
freeze-dried. And the only time I really ate well, was when I was alongside the
military. Food was scarce on the other side of the wall, but here, it seemed we had
enough and were promised a steady supply. By the looks of it, we had about three
months supply of food, perhaps more.

My fingers went across the cans and I read them aloud – peas, corn, creamed corn,
lentil soup, vegetarian chili, peaches in syrup, white potatoes, beans in tomato
sauce, beans in hot sauce, beans in maple syrup, beans with bacon, beans beans
beans…spaghetti and meatballs. That was the one I chose because I knew Danielle
would love the sweet, sugar-filled sauce. I removed two cans and saw movement
behind the third can. Perhaps it was my shadow or even my own imagination.

I reached for the last can and my finger touched something wet and hairy. And then
I felt a stinging pain in my finger and then my wrist. I quickly withdrew my hand
dropping the cans I had gathered and dropping the third can which I had gripped in
my injured hand. Blood formed into a balloon on the tip of my finger and pumped out
quite rapidly out of the tear in my wrist. I covered the spurting wound with my
other hand as I looked to the source of my injury.

A small rat wedged its way between the cans of beans and creamed corn and looked up
at me. Its fur was matted with dry blood and its yellowed, scissor-like teeth,
speckled with fresh blood- my blood. And then I saw its eyes, or rather one eye.
One eye was swollen shut, dry puss crusted over a ragged fissure.

The one eye spotted my movement as I stepped back and the rat cocked its head to
one side. The eye opened wider, as if to take all of my being in one glance. The
eye was not black, or dark, as rats eyes are supposed to be. This eye was grey, a
misty film overtop the pupil. It was blind. But the rat sniffed the air and knew
where I was even as I was stumbling backward toward the rays of light filtering
down the wooden stairs.

It opened its mouth to reveal a grey, cantankerous tongue and it leapt off the
shelf in my direction.

I turned, still holding my wounded hand and ran up the stairs slamming the door
behind me.

I breathed heavily and leaned against the door sliding down along the wood until I
reached the floor.

I could hear the rat make its way up the stairs and to the crack at the bottom of
the door.

It started to chew madly at the door and its paws swept under the crack reaching
for me.

I could feel my hand going numb and my mind began to split with a sharp pain that
started near the base of my skull. I pressed against the wound and lifted myself up
to the kitchen sink and turned the cold faucet on and rinsed the wound. My vision
began to blur and I steadied myself with my good hand, gripping the countertop. I
lifted my head and saw Danielle on a rope swing attached to a tree.
I felt different. Perhaps my initial shock was over. It was different. I couldn’t
help but simply stare at Danielle as she swung back and forth. I couldn’t look
away. I couldn’t move. Her swinging was rhythmic and hypnotic. The cold water
numbed the bite on my wrist and masked the pain of the open cut. The pain in my
head remained and I could feel beads of sweat on my forehead and my heart began to
slow. I simply stared as the sink filled with watered down blood, circling the
drain. And then it was dark.

I awoke on the couch, just below the stain. My vision was blurred but I could make
out Richard sitting in a rocking chair across from my position. My hand was
bandaged and my wrists felt as if they were glued together. As I blinked and lifted
my hands I saw that they were bound by rope. Richard was drinking from a bottle of
Jack Daniel’s. I could see the familiar label reflecting a light source from a
candle that was placed on an end table next to Richard. The golden liquid sloshed
as he lowered the bottle and lifted a pistol from his lap and pointed it in my
direction.

“You’re infected,” he said unemotionally.

“A rat-“

“You’re fucking infected,” he said raising his voice slightly. “Do you know what
this means? Who bit you?”

“Nobody. Where’s Danielle?”

“Safe,” he answered trying to maintain steady and accurate with the pistol as it
wobbled in his hand.

“The basement. A rat,” I breathed in deep. “A rat bit me.”

“Impossible. The virus has not crossed species. I’ve been in the basement, there
are no rats,” he said almost disgusted and then suddenly looked away and paused.
“You’re bleeding.”

I felt the drop from my nose. It was one of the symptoms and it meant that the
hemorrhaging had begun. I had a few hours, maybe less, before I would die and then
be reanimated as a living corpse.

“You know what I have to do,” he said as I smeared the blood drops from my nose
with the back of my hand. I began to sob, almost uncontrollably.

“But I love you,” I simply said.

He turned the gun on himself pressing the barrel into the side of his temple. I
could see tears streaming down his face and the bottle of Jack Daniel’s fell to the
floor emptying its contents.

“Danielle needs you,” I said and he paused and then lowered the gun.

There was a thump on the door, a single thump and not a recognizable double-knock
of a visitor. It echoed and alerted us both. Richard stood and went to the front
door and peered through the peephole.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I can’t see,” he said as a thumping sound came from the kitchen window. Then there
were a few more thumping sounds from the other rooms and a few more again on the
door.
“What the fuck?” Richard said as he whirled around and went to the kitchen. I stood
up, nearly falling over and hobbled toward the kitchen to see Richard staring
blankly out the large window with the curtains pushed aside. It was dark out, too
dark to make out any zombies but as I got closer I saw what Richard was staring at.
It was a bird. A black crow with matted feathers and its beak covered in dry, dark
blood. Its eyes were dull-white.

“Fucking hell,” Richard said. “It’s in the animals.”

There were many more thumps on the windows and the crow pecked at the glass in a
fury. I was still bound, and very afraid. My lungs were on fire just from the short
walk to the kitchen and I bent over slightly to ease the pain. That’s when I saw
the basement door. The crack at the bottom of the door was chewed through and
jagged pieced of wood made a mess of the general area.

There were a few nocturnal eyes reflecting light and they instantly scampered into
the kitchen upon sensing our movement. Richard spread his legs and then jumped upon
the kitchen counter. He pulled me up just as one of the rats opened its mouth and
trained in on my ankle. I shrieked and nearly fell back down to the linoleum where
the zombie rats, three now, were stretching up. Richard fired the pistol and
missed, the round deafening us both and leaving a smoking dark hole in floor. He
opened the kitchen drawer and produced a kitchen knife and hacked away at my bounds
releasing me.

“We need to save Danielle,” is all he said. He pulled out the entire kitchen drawer
and held it above his shoulders. “When I throw this, run to the garage door.
Danielle’s a few blocks away. 27 Maybourne Street.”

Just then a siren sounded. It wailed as more thumps hit the window.

Richard tossed the entire drawer downward toward the three infected rats. Knives,
spoons, and other cutlery smashed into and around the rats. The drawer hit them
directly covering one and knocking two others away for a moment. Enough time to
make a getaway.

I leapt off the counter and toward the garage door. I was slow, and I felt a
heaviness in my legs. Blood pooled in my mouth and my vision began to grow murky.
Richard pushed me from behind as I opened the door to the garage. He slammed it
shut just as the rats reached the threshold.

The garage was dark but I could make out the shape of a Jeep.

“Get in damn it,” Richard said pushing me forward once again. I opened the
passenger door as Richard turned the key and revved the engine. The siren wailed
and I could make out gunshots and screams in the distance. Richard placed the
pistol on the dashboard and fastened my seatbelt for me as I nearly passed out, my
head leaning on the side window, staring blankly at my own reflection in the glass.

He placed the Jeep in reverse and hit the accelerator to the floor and the Jeep
revved and whined and then smashed through the garage door sending splinters of
wood flying. In reverse we reached the street and lurched to a stop, my head
swinging backward and then forward hitting the dashboard slightly.

“Sorry,” Richard said placing the gear in drive and speeding down the street. I saw
people in the streets, running out of their homes in panic. Birds hit our
windshield and shattered the right front light. Richard swerved and nearly hit a
large dog. I couldn’t tell if it was infected or not as we passed it. Richard
turned a corner and then another and my head, growing heavy, lulled from side to
side.

Suddenly, we came to a screeching stop and Richard placed the pistol in my hand.
“Wake up” he shook me, “If anything shoot em.”

With that he opened his door and ran into a house that looked similar to our old
house, a two-storey colonial. The pistol was heavy and I tried raising it but could
not find the strength. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a Humvee firing a large
machine gun race down the street. It turned a corner and was gone. Richard appeared
with Danielle in his arms. He placed her in the backseat and the sirens fell
silent.

Gunshots and several screams were in the distant. The Humvee’s large caliber weapon
thumped into the night like a distant kettle drum. An infected bird smashed into
window on Richard’s side and Danielle screamed. I couldn’t turn to hold her or to
tell her everything would be alright. I was nearly frozen, my muscles locking up.

Richard drove off making several sharp turns and calculated maneuvers that rocked
the Jeep left and right. My vision began to blur more and my hearing faded, but I
could hear a noise in the distance. I believed it was the end, the angels call? A
trumpet?

We turned a corner and drove down a large stretch of road. Danielle was silent, or
if she was saying anything, I simply could not hear. The distant noise grew louder
and it appeared to be coming from behind us.

The wall was in front of us.

“Hold on, tight!” Richard said bracing himself with two hands on the wheel. In
front of us was a patchwork of the wall. A chain-link fence, about 10 feet high and
chip board placed for reinforcement. With all the excitement, the dead on the other
side were gathered, their fingers and hands stretching, longing for the living.

The sound behind us grew louder and sounded now like thunder in a continuous roll.

The Jeep hit the fence and thrust into the mob of the undead. It punched a hole
through and bounced up and over several rows of the rotting corpses. The engine
whined loud as it lost traction on the wet corpses and revved into a higher RPM.

As the Jeep was airborne for a few seconds, it veered to the right skidding and
mashing into the corpses like fingers protruding ground beef. But just then the
Jeep hit solid ground and we lurched forward.

The sound of the thunder was extremely loud. It cracked the air and vibrated every
cell in my body. Richard was focused on finding a route through the stragglers and
the undead who were crippled and could not make it to the wall.

I turned to see if Danielle was unhurt. She was crouching in her seat, hands cupped
over her ears. Through the back window I saw flames engulf the entire neighborhood.
An incredible display of destruction followed. The wall collapsed and the dead blew
toward us as the shockwave hit.

In an instant the Jeep was hit by the invisible shock wave and it sped up twice its
speed, swerving left and right. Richard regained control and continued driving
away, dodging obstacles and finally turning onto pavement.

Above us echoed the thunder as a series of five bombers in formation passed

overhead.
“B-1B Bombers,” Richard yelled loudly so I could hear. “Strategic bombers. Nothings
left back there.”

But nothing was left for me anyway. I was bit, infected, and would be dead in
hours, perhaps minutes.

Richard drove on the empty highway at a moderate pace; both headlights were smashed
out and the Jeep was making a strange whining noise. The sun began to appear beside
us; the early rays provided me with a brilliance of warmth. It was then that I
discovered I was shivering.

Richard pulled the Jeep over and reached across my lap and opened the passenger
door.

“Get out,” he said. I heard those words before and I knew he meant it, again. I
turned to see that Danielle had fallen asleep.

“Take care of her,” I said wanting to cry, but no tears rolled down my cheeks.
Richard simply stared as he unbuckled my seatbelt and once again asked me to leave.
I wanted to beg him, to plead with him to keep me, to help me, to bring me
somewhere where I could seek medical help, but I knew he was not going to listen. I
stepped out, my legs stiff and aching, I nearly fell into the rocks on the shoulder
of the road.

“I love you,” I said and I thought I heard him say it back, but I wasn’t quite sure
as he quickly closed the door and drove off. I watched the Jeep for what seemed
like hours and I started to follow it, on foot. The sun was reaching its apex when
I began to feel something in my stomach lurch. I was hungry, so very hungry.

I lost sight of the Jeep but I thought I would eventually, somehow, reach Richard
and Danielle, if I just continued onward, one step at a time.

The Purple Word

Erik T. Johnson

Everyone I ever loved owned a cat.

I’d never thought about it until recently, now that I’m the only human left at the
“Crumble-Down Farm,” as the local children once called it.

My mother, difficult but always there for me, had an orange tabby named Charlie who
seemed to be living his first life in a feline incarnation. She had to lift him up
onto windowsills because he wasn’t sure how to jump, and I once saw him fall off a
table and land on his side. How he loved her, too. He was a marmalade shadow always
at her side, even, she told me, keeping her lap warm while she sat on the toilet.

And Benjamin was my father’s obese, white, deaf cat who shed rugs weekly and kept
his tongue sticking out stiff as a little pink depressor. Benny was an
affectionate, stupid animal who never used his claws on anything, not even
furniture. He liked to play with grapes.
There are so many more I could name, each different than the next, cats belonging
to my best childhood friend, my aunt Willa, both my grandmothers. And Joy’s cat
Winston.

She was a little Tonka truck of a cat with a thick African wildcat tail, and skin
missing on her flank where some cruel boy had thrown hot tar. Everything about
Winnie was round -- marble green eyes, neckless head, paws. When Joy and I would
leave her alone too long, she’d grow angry and swipe at our feet and shins upon our
return. But then she’d curl up with us later in Joy’s bed, making our warmth
sweeter with purring . . .

These trivial details are so important to me here in the attic. I roll them round
me like a kitten with balls of yarn, trying to lose myself in the unwound threads
of lost lives. If I stare at the snow that’s fallen through the roof, I see the
cats so clearly like pictures projected on a white screen.

Everyone I ever loved is gone.

They were in town at The Egg Festival when the blue sky was overwhelmed by an
infinity of stunning purple.

An impostor sky.

A stomach virus saved me from this plague. I was home sick at the farm and saw it
through my window. It moved like a time-elapsed movie of an approaching storm,
abnormally quick and arching itself over the horizon until there was just a glowing
purple above the world. It shone bright as sunlight, but the sun was nowhere in
sight. It only lasted a few days but was so immense it seemed years from end to
end. It brought cold with it too, and that first day was like January in Maine.
When it left I heard dogs howling all over the countryside, then the howls got
dimmer and dimmer. They left for some other dog place.

But the cats stuck around.

The farm is so quiet. I like that. The old gray wood doesn’t creak, it’s so pliant
and spongy beneath my heavy steps. It makes me feel I could lay my head anywhere
and sleep, as if the whole place is one great bed. I’m on the highest hill in the
county with a view of the land all around. There are plenty of trees around the
house, and overgrown grasses in the summer, to make me feel far from civilization.
The nearest town is five miles away. I don’t know if anyone lives there any longer.
There’s a highway close, but it never bothered me. It sounded like the ocean.

Last month was November. After the impostor sky left and the blue returned, the
leaves died. I let them fall and pile up all over the yard, flakes of red, orange,
green and yellow, like the down of an enormous tropical bird. One day at sunset, I
sat on the back porch in great-grandmother’s rocker, listening to the zombies
complain down in the valley. I watched the leaves shiver, the trees scrape back and
forth. And then I saw a small white and black cat I’d spotted around a lot, walking
funny along the tree line fifty feet away. As my eyes followed him I realized he
hobbled because he was missing one back leg.

It must’ve come off in a fox trap.

He disappeared behind a log pile without looking over his shoulder.

The next day I did something I’d never done before: I went into town to get cat
food. I knew it would be difficult because by then I was sure everyone I knew was
walking around dead. When the wind blew strong from the south I could smell them
rotting and hear their moans. They seemed to be trying to articulate a particular
word their ruined mouths couldn’t make clear. It sounded something like:

Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh . . .

Somewhere in that hellish sound was Joy’s voice. She was at The Egg Festival with
the others. Once she got her finger caught in our Chevy’s door. The howl she made.
I never wanted to hear it again. Now I strained my ears to find it among the
wailing as they shambled below Crumble-Down farm.

It was like trying to pick out one raindrop’s splash in a thunderstorm.

How did I deal with this? What was I thinking?

A white paw batting black grapes across a pink rug . . . a marmalade tail . . . two
lidless marble eyes rolling across my mind, the slices of darkness in the middles
spinning like the propellers of a plane that can’t take off . . .

The road to the store was deserted as the sun slid down. The Egg Festival signs
hung with bright pictures of Chickens from poles along the way. There was a poster
for an omelet-eating contest in Gentry’s Mercantile’s window. I parked and saw the
store’s front door swing back and forth.

No breeze.

Something had just walked through.

Out or in?

I entered slowly. Vegetables were stacked in display cases, some covered with
colorful mold resembling coral reef formations. Cans lined the shelves orderly as
barcodes. Rotten eggs were on prominent display in a small refrigerator. A thin
layer of sawdust like wooden snow had been recently disturbed by shoe tracks. Each
step I took announced itself with a thud. I walked back to the front and looked out
at an empty street.

I’d never looked for pet food at Gentry’s before, but I figured it must be in the
back.

I passed the frozen meats when I heard ice falling.

Mr. Gentry wriggled from a refrigerated display case the size of a child’s coffin.
His skin peeled off in lasagna strips, tiger-striping his face deep purplish red.
One eye was missing. The other gaped unblinking as a cave mouth. I ran to the back
and grabbed a case of cat food. When I turned round he was halfway out, massive
torso hanging down towards the floor and head just an inch above it. He’d forced
his three hundred pound, six-foot-five body into the five-foot long frozen meat
case. His legs were smashed and twisted completely around and he’d got his toes
caught under something.

“Needed cold,” Gentry coughed wetly. He lashed out at the ground and thick
bloodstreams dripped from his open mouth.

I stepped back in shock, more at hearing him speak in that state than seeing him
that way. The shelf came down. Steel bars cut hot into my back as I hunched over
and shielded my head with my hands.

Through the ringing in my ears I could hear footsteps.

I shifted into a push-up position beneath my burden. Sticky blood ran into my eyes
and I could feel the lumps growing on my head.

One Mississippi . . .

Something scratched at the floor before me.

Two Mississippi . . .

Moaning from above.

Three Mississippi . . .

I pushed myself up and scrambled out from under the shelf, tripping over scattered
cans and standing up right before stumbling over the mess of Gentry’s head.

A case or two had landed on it and one eye lolled like a panting tongue. Another
loose can had hurled smack into the middle of his over-ripe face and the bottom
stuck out of there, where mouth and nostrils had been. Even then a noise percolated
in his throat and his bloody scabby hands were like two red crabs having epileptic
fits, clawing at the floor with overlong nails.

Don’t panic.

Think: white whiskers tipped black at the ends . . . gray ears erect like teepees .
. . soft body warm as cup of tea curled on lap . . .

Twin headaches burst out from the epicenters of my temples. I picked up another
case and walked toward the streetlight shining through the front door.

One foot away from the exit I remembered the footsteps . . .

I spun around to an empty room.

Something tapped me on the scalp. A blood-drop. A widening dark stain spread across
the ceiling. I heard footsteps again. They came from above.

Floorboards hit me seconds before the bodies. Two women with dead meat faces
knocked me on my back. They didn’t seem to notice me as they faced each other over
my legs. They lay on their bellies, each on a pillow of red guts spilling from
their open stomachs. Without lifting their skeletal arms they bit at each other’s
mouths. No tongues. No lips. I’d never seen lesbians before. The stench of their
hisses and grunts was unbearable.

I shifted my hands behind me and pulled myself to the door. The movement caught
their attention and they tried to bite my legs, but when I saw I couldn’t sneak
away I jumped up, knocked them down, and ran to the truck. Night had fallen, blue
and cool as a freshly washed sheet.

About to turn the key in the ignition, I asked myself what I was doing in this
nightmare.
I wanted to feed those cats. Small mouths lined with sharp teeth. Rough tongues
coated in medicinal saliva.

Looking up I saw lights in the houses, and figures shuffled back and forth past the
windows. I heard things crashing to the ground in the apartments. Still bodies
must’ve started stirring at once. I took a crowbar from the truck, determined to
get that food.

It seemed hundreds of lost shadows crossed the street, thrown by zombies in the
windows. I walked through them to the store and kicked open the door, crowbar in
hand.

As other doors creaked open and doorknobs rattled in the street behind me I
breathed deep and plunged in.

The two fallen women feasted on Gentry’s entrails by the frozen meat display case.
They ignored me, and I managed to get a lot of cases to the truck before I could
see the rest, coming for me like sleepwalkers from all directions. They were a
block away.

Everyone I’d ever known.

I sped off as their strangled calls rose in the cold night where chimney smoke once
coiled and broke apart.

Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh . . .

Were they crying “blue,” asking the sky why it had turned on them?

The next day I stored the food in the attic and put a can out near the porch. I
found myself in the rocker waiting for Peg Leg to come again. I laughed with a
strange sense of amusement, as I realized I’d given him a name. I’d never named
anything before, and I used to wonder how the pet owners I knew chose from so many
options. Now I saw: Names just appear from nowhere, like purple zombie-making
skies.

The pain in my head and my sides shut me up fast.

He did not come that day. November bugs laid their eggs in the food and I had to
throw it out.

The next morning I sat with my coffee on the porch. There was a trace of coming
rain in the air, so the screen doors gave off a pleasant metallic odor. I watched
an old clothesline suspended from the third story to a tall oak tree guarding the
border between the yard proper and the woods.

A faded red scarf hung by the side of the forest, clothes-pined to the line. It was
put there to dry by my mother. It might’ve been the last thing I’d seen her do.

A rustling drew me from the cloth. I raised the shotgun I now kept by me at all
times. A cat approached the fresh food I’d put out when I woke. The cat sniffed the
ground, head moving side to side and rubbing his chin on the earth as he crawled,
like a solider advancing under enemy fire.

His coat was confederate gray but it might’ve once been white. Under his nose was a
black mustache smudge. I wondered if he was blind, as he didn’t look up at me, but
seemed to have found the food by scent alone. He ate rapidly. Then thunder pealed,
and he raised his head with taut masticated ears. He had no eyes. A shiny BB gun
pellet was lodged in one socket.

The rain fell hard and he zigzagged in a crazy pattern toward the trees, more like
a fly without wings than a cat. The sky turned the color of his coat.

But my thoughts ran to friends and family. Perhaps the rain would melt them away
like a herd of wicked witches of the West. Or perhaps having forgotten what rain is
they would seek its source and come up the hill to look for it, finding me instead
of clouds.

Why not? Weirder things have happened.

The days grew colder. It became my daily ritual to sit on the back porch, waiting
for cats to get the food I’d put ten feet from my seat. I’d wait with anticipation
to see who would arrive, cleaning my shotgun to kill time. I found if I left five
or six cans I could get as many as ten cats to come up to the house. Sometimes it
was Bandito (as I started to call the mustached cat). Other times he’d not appear
for days. I also named Pickle, Jester, Streak, and Crush, orange tabbies like my
mother’s Charlie; three Calicos called Mike, Jesse, and Bombay; gray tigers (Lee
and Max were my favorites), and a striking dark chocolate brown cat I think
belonged to a friend of my cousin. I called him Friend Lee. They tended to remain
quiet. I didn’t see Peg Leg for weeks.

Then one frosty December morning I woke with him sitting on my chest.

His eyes were a pale violet I’d never seen on any feline. Of course, I never looked
face to face with a cat before. I pet them now and again. But the cats weren’t
mine, and you don’t look eye-to-eye with what isn’t yours. But still, they seemed
unusual.

He must’ve come in through the torn screen door on the back porch, although he
would’ve had to be smart enough to figure out how to lift the loose piece of screen
up before slipping in. I couldn’t help but think he wanted something from me, and
was waiting for me to understand.

“What do you want?” I asked, for the first time talking to an animal, as I’d seen
so many people do before.

We locked eyes.

Black slices of darkness in the middles of his eyes like propeller blades on a
plane resting between flights . . .

I wasn’t sure what to do. Though I’d been around cats plenty, I’d never picked one
up. They even made me a little uncomfortable. Winston slept near me, but only when
Joy was there to stroke her and make her happy. My presence in the bed was
incidental.

As if sensing my discomfort, Peg Leg jumped off. I heard claws jutting from three
feet patter on the wood floor, and the hinges on the back-porch screen door move as
he slid out.

I didn’t see him again for a long time.

The first week of December, the snow started, slow and light. The house gets frigid
at this time, as it’s in a real shambles. One afternoon a thud drew me to the
attic. Part of the roof had fallen in. Squirrels nested in a corner next to a
steamer trunk filled with old curtains and doilies. I thought the house might not
last the winter once it gets going.

Through a hole in the attic roof I noticed a knot of activity down in the town
center, where the Queen of the Egg Festival would’ve been crowned atop a massive
hen-shaped float, all yolk-blonde tresses and shell-white skin. On Festival day the
sky went purple at two o’clock-- an hour before the ceremony-- so this would be the
first year with no Queen. Now the bodies gathered there, moving more rapidly than
I’d seen before, walking in duck-duck-goose circles.

Remember what Gentry said?

Needed cold.

They wanted it to snow.

I moved the cans of cat food to the back-porch, where they would be shielded from
the wind and snow. I would then sit behind the screen door in the rocker with my
coffee and watch from that warmer vantage point. None of these cats figured out how
to get through the screen door like Peg Leg, so I didn’t worry about them getting
in. Peg Leg seemed smarter than the rest. But I didn’t know cats enough to be sure.

To my surprise the number of visitors to my porch increased as snow fell in

earnest. I worried there wouldn’t be enough cases to last the winter. The cat food
was looking pretty good to me now as my own supplies dwindled.

I always liked Crumble-Down Farm in December; the gray wood outhouse, the tool-
shed, the caved-in barn, the wet, black trees covered in the same blanket of snow,
the yard a picture of quiet stillness. But now intermittent cat-movements invaded
the calm. Paw prints Rorschached the snow, and I heard their steps up the porch
stairs, and aluminum cans clanging into each other as they ate in a hurry.

It was a strange sight from the third story window. I saw the dark shapes of the
cats set in the whiteness below, some still and washing up or scratching, others
jumping after squirrels or birds, and most going somewhere unknown to me.

Usually I didn’t look toward town, but I’d hear them, like demented back-up singers
in some dead pop star’s insipid love song.

Ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooh ooooh . . .

Near month’s end I saw fewer cats as heavy snowstorms swept over this part of
Connecticut. The town was nothing but a blank valley and the moans stopped—or else
I mistook them for the wind living in the skeleton trees. I imagined the yard was
drowned in all the envelopes lying around the post office, great piles of white
that hid messages forever undelivered. Congratulations, greetings, apologies,
love . . .The snow drifted five feet high in some places there, which I guessed
made cat-travel difficult, if not impossible. And the other night I spied a fox
eating cat frozen food that had sat untouched for days. I let him finish it; then I
threw out the cans and stopped the attempts at feeding.

Until this morning.

My isolation must’ve got to me because I spoke out loud to myself for the first
time ever (So many firsts lately: First cat fed! First thing named! First lesbian
sighting! First cat seen eye-to-eye! First zombie knocked over! First day of the
end of my life!). My exact words were:

“Thank God, they need me. God bless those cats. Thank God. Thank God . . . ”

See, now I had cats like everyone I ever loved . . . and I knew a little of how
they must have felt having their cats, and it meant that in some way I still shared
my life with those people, like they weren’t really gone.

There was a herd . . . I counted at least twenty. Some reddish, some black, some
brown, some white and barely distinguishable from the landscape. They crept up the
hill, no doubt risking sinking with each step. I thought I recognized some, but not
all. I figured they were starving smaller cats—They had to be light as balsa to
tread on such fragile ground. I got the food out in expectation of their arrival.

Not long after I saw Peg Leg.

I’d gone to the cellar for some dwindling firewood. I was about to hit the attic,
to use fallen roof for tinder, when the cat stepped out from behind a rusty old
wheelbarrow. He didn’t say anything, just looked at me with those violet eyes, now
dyed a deeper purple.

He had a muzzle of blood.

I put down the logs.

“I bet you’ve been living down here all this time, haven’t you?” I asked.

If he’d stuck around the house it would’ve been easy for him to get down to the
cellar. After all, he knew how to get through the hole in the screen door, and
there were mice to eat living in the walls.

Peg Leg hobbled closer and sat down, looking up at my face.

“What do you want?” I asked him, stooping down to his eye level.

He kept staring at me. Then he got up and went over to the trapdoor that led
outside.

I followed him and opened it outward. Snowy air blew in and stung my face. The cat
climbed up the ladder leading to the eastern side of the house with difficulty,
pulling himself up by front paws and swinging one back leg after him. I followed
when he’d reached the top.

We stood in a few inches of snow. That side of the house is protected by an awning
where there was a porch ages ago. All round the sheltered area were five and six
foot high walls of glimmering snow.

And the cats.

Fifteen lay at our feet glazed with frost. Friend Lee was missing, and the cat with
no eyes, too. They were huddled together, as if still trying to keep warm in death.
At the rate the snow came down, they’d be buried in a few hours.

“Is this what you wanted me to see?” I asked Peg Leg.

He looked at me with a quiet I could feel. It choked my heart.

He raised his little face to the endless dark air.

I saw the herd of unknown cats I’d expected. They crawled to the awning as though
drawn to Peg Leg. But something wasn’t right.

Cats have heads and eyes and tails and legs. These were just oval mounds of fur
moving over the snow.

The wall before me burst open in a cocaine sneeze explosion as a co-worker of mine
staggered out. I’d thought the auburn hair atop his head was a rusty tabby I used
to see sometimes. But it was Vitolo the guitar-playing mailman walking through the
snow.

Under it.

They got stronger with the cold, and now they had enough energy to make it up the
hill . . .

I lifted my shotgun and fired. The shot went through a gaping hole in his chest and
into the snowbank behind him.

He stopped as though startled. Purplish-black blood sprayed from the snow as

another zombie appeared behind the first. It was a little girl with half a head.
She kept treading forward, her pale flesh flapping like she was made of tattered
surrender flags.

I raised the gun and pumped it. The girl pushed Vitolo forward. He slid onto the
gun so the barrel stuck out his back, and threw blue arms around me. If shit could
take a shit, he smelled like that. I thought he winked at me but it was a black
beetle crawling around in his eye. He tried to speak but had no lower jaw and
wretched a spluttering sob, repeated over and over like one stuttered word. I
kicked his feet out from under him and he fell spread-eagled, taking the shotgun
down with him.

Its barrel pointed up at my mouth.

The girl tumbled onto Vitolo’s body and the one finger left on her tiny dead hand
curled around the trigger and tightened.

I stepped back and threw a hand out to knock the barrel away.

Wave good-bye, hand.

The shot clanged in my head. My face stung as though a thousand angry bees had been
loosed from the barrel. I started down the ladder and tried to use both hands. One
was a phantom and the floor came up hard against my cheek.

Above, the zombies broke through the pristine snow. Their putrid shadows fell in
first and then their bodies. I heard a broken melon noise as one crashed headfirst.

I ran for the door and up to the attic. Crumble-Down Farm’s spongy gray steps shook
and groaned. I’d never treated the stairs that way. I felt I was stomping on my
mother’s face. Noise in Crumble-Down farm! Another first. My how things had changed
. . .

I shut the attic door as well as I could. Through the holes in the roof the
freezing storm blew against me. Snow lay in heaps round the room. I grabbed an old
shovel, and piled it against the door. Packing it with one hand was slow painful
work.

I couldn’t tell how smart they were. Maybe if I’d made it up fast enough, they
wouldn’t find me.

What about the blood trail from the stump at my wrist?

I sat down, leaned against the snow, and stuck my arm deep into the pile. As a red
circle grew round it I felt weary. I put my good hand to my face. It was there, but
singed by the blast that maimed me.

The snowflakes in the air faded and bits of cold night blew into my eyes until I
couldn’t see. I grew numb.

Fell asleep.

I don’t know how much time passed. Something soft hit me on the nose and I jerked
awake, throwing my left hand out for the gun.

But I had no left hand.

It was Peg Leg. Relief woke me from my daze.

There must be a cat-sized hole somewhere in the shadows.

“What do you want?” I asked him.

He climbed on my chest and put his paws on either side of my face and his nose to
my nose. His eyes were so icy, so purple.

Impostor eyes.

I wept. The tears stung my blasted cheeks.

He opened his jaws to speak for the first time and a strange meow came out. It
sounded as though he was trying to articulate a human word but had the wrong mouth
for it:

Woo woo woo oooh . . .

He was such an unusual cat. The purple sky must’ve gotten him the way it got the
others. Perhaps it took longer for him to change . . . I stroked his head and he
lay down on my lap. I felt I was being lowered into icy water.

I tried to think, to focus: furry head lapping at toilet water . . . Mother . . .

purring under a plaid cotton sheet . . . Father . . . tiny cries at birds outside a
window . . . Joy . . . broken wings versus fangs . . . nobody had a dog . . . all
the dogs got away . . .
I heard sodden footsteps on the stairs, and bodies tumbling down steps . . .

Now the zombies have reached my door. Their nails and bones scrape the wood. Their
fists pound. They want in. They want me to share myself with them. So far the door
has opened a half-inch or so as they push it against my body’s weight and the
packed snow.

And I know what Peg Leg wanted all this time. To draw them to me. And I can hear
them answering his call. I was never close enough to hear what they were saying so
clearly.

The word is you.

That’s me.

And here I am.

What Comes After

By Matthew Burgess

It’s frightening what a person can adapt to if given enough time and little choice.
Like a soldier on the battlefield learning to tune out the sounds of gunfire,
mortar rounds and dying friends, I evolved into my situation. I learned to wipe my
mind’s ability to process smells. It was the only way I found I could cope with the
sulfuric fumes of a city ripe with decaying flesh. Food and drink became bland to
me, morning air became nothing more than a chill through my sinuses. I had to erase
the good to ignore the bad.

But after three months of blissful nothingness my
the moment I stepped off the fire escape and into
afternoon. I couldn’t shrug off the tangy assault
watered and my flavorless breakfast of beef jerky
geyser up through my throat. The smell was wet as
sloppy kiss hung in the air.
blocked sense of smell returned
the alleyway on that warm
on my nostrils this time. My eyes
and warm beer threatened to
if the residue from a dog’s

I looked at my companion as he dropped from the last rusty rung of the fire escape.
“You’re sure it’s Miss. Walters?”

Bill nodded. “I’m sure. No one has seen her in a few days.” He dusted off the red
and brown residue from his palms. He appeared a lot calmer than I felt. “But we
have to make sure. If she left town at her own free will that’s one thing…but if
she’s dead then…” Bill shrugged.

“Then you don’t need me to identify her,” I said and eyed the mass grave that had
become our city’s back streets.

“Oh, I get it.” I wiped my upper lip trying to chase the odor away. “If she’s half
alive down here you want the one person that ever took the time to talk to her to
be here with you. It’s a guilt thing.”
“Well there’s that.” Bill coughed and took a moment to examine the alleyway. He
adjusted the rifle strapped to his shoulder. “That and I didn’t want to come down
here alone.”

He kicked an idle dead and his foot sank into the dry flesh. The skin along the
corpse’s rip cage seemed to powder like a piece of sandstone. Bill withdrew his
foot and the toe of his boot glistened with a touch of yellowish coagulated blood.

“Jacob Nathans had me up there“—he motioned to the rim of a towering hotel

—“counting how many of these things had starved since last night,” Bill said. “And
I spotted her just lying there.”

Bill started forward and I followed. The ground was littered with the unmoving
forms of the previously-reanimated corpses that had plagued us for months. Calling
them ‘zombies’ did not sit well with any of the survivors of our rooftop town. But
skirting around a single word did not change the fact that lying around me were the
dead that had returned to life and consumed nearly the entire population of our
city; dining on the parts of us that made us human; our flesh, our blood, our bones
and inadvertently our souls.

But that horror was almost over now, I reminded myself as I sidestepped around a
contorted corpse lying beside an endless row of others. Our returned dead were
starving. They had eaten all the fresh meat this city had to offer and were
beginning to drop one by one into grotesque rotting heaps.

I allowed my eyes to linger on a corpse. Was this one of the dead that had
separated me from my family and robbed me of everything I had ever loved in this
world? I privately gloated over the body. Its skin had pulled tight along its face,
revealing black gums and jagged teeth and causing the nose to completely collapse
into its skull. The flabby breasts revealed through an unbutton blouse were the
only tell-tale sign that this monster had ever once been female. Its hair had
fallen out or been torn out and its scalp was yellowing and crawling with obese
maggots.

“How many?” I asked as we turned a corner following the wet smell.

“How many what?” Bill asked after a moment. He had pause to stomp on the neck of a
corpse that gnashed its weak jaw at us.

“You said you were up counting how many had starved since yesterday…so how many?”

“Oh.” Bill had to scrape the bottom of his shoe on the side of dumpster to rid it
of the shattered hunks of spine. “Alot. There were too many. I gave up after an
hour and just started counting the ones that were still moving around.”

“They’re dying out.” The heaps of mangled bodies were the most beautiful things I
had ever seen.

“Yes…assuming they don’t learn to survive off of canned peas or burnt car
interiors,” Bill said. “Here we are.”

We stood in an alley facing the remains of Fifth Avenue. The shops on the opposite
side of the street looked like bombed out shells of concrete and brick. The walls
of the alleyway were stained the colors of dried blood. I looked up to see the
underside of a walkway about seven stories above. The walkway separated my current
home (a set of boards tilted against a silent air-conditioning unit) and Miss.
Walter’s green tent.
Bill scurried his large form across the remaining few feet and leapt over the river
of blood. I was more hesitant. If I could smell the freshness of Miss. Walter than
so could any remaining (and starving) dead that may have been in the vicinity.

“We just need to make sure it’s her and then we’re out of here,” Bill said,
kneeling beside Miss. Walter. I tried to take comfort in the high-powered rifle
that was strapped to his back.

Using his large arms, Bill flipped over Miss. Walter’s body. The sight it unveiled
should have made my stomach sick, but just like with the smell that permeated
throughout the city, I was able to detach that part of my brain. Miss. Walter’s
face was smashed as if it had been hit by a dozen sledge hammers. Her upper lip had
torn down the middle and was hanging open allowing her shattered teeth to glisten
beneath the film of blood. All-in-all she looked strikingly similar to the corpse I
had sidestepped a few turns prior.

“Miss. Walter I presume?” Bill said letting go of the body so it flopped back and
rocked upon its left arm. He plucked a book from under her body. He held it up so I
could see it was a Bible. “Can you believe she still bought this crap?”

“That’s Miss Walter for you,” I said and starred up at the walkway, acting as if I
was studying the fall she must have experienced, but really just trying to take my
eyes off the dead woman. “I guess it finally got to her.”

“You think she jumped?” Bill followed my gaze upward as if he expected to see
evidence of the old woman’s leap floating around in the air.

“Of course. She didn’t slip and fall…not Miss. Walters. The woman barely ever left
her tent,” I said.

“I’d thought we’d seen the last suicide with little Charles Hershmen. Why would
anyone take their own life now with the zom…these things starting to starve? Life
is finally looking up around here.”

“But that’s it,” I said rotating slowly around and holding out my arms, my way of
presenting Bill with all the rotting corpses in the city. “These things turned our
world upside down. Killed our friends and family and ruined whatever plans we had
for our futures.” I could think of a hundred thousand plans at that moment that the
dead had ruined…most of which involved my three-year-old girl and six-month-old
boy.

“After awhile we got used to this new world,” I went on, knowing I was rambling,
but not caring. “Like humans were meant to do, we learned to survive against fierce
predators. Zombies are all we know…we’ve become comfortable.” As I said the word
‘zombie’ it caused my tongue burn. “Things are changing…again. In another few weeks
we’re going to be able to walk the streets without fear and we’re going to be able
to return to our homes. We’re going to have to confront our old lives minus the
people we loved. That must have gotten to her.”

There was a long silence in which Bill’s eyes never strayed from my own. I started
to feel uncomfortable and my thoughts again returned to the smell Miss. Walters was
giving off.

“You’re crazy…you know that?” Bill said. His eyebrows danced like an ocean wave as
he watched me carefully. “You think Miss. Walters tried to dig a hole in the
concrete with her face because she was afraid of the dead finally leaving us alone?
You’re out of your mind.”

“Look at it this way. We are no longer the dominate species on the planet. And now
the dead aren’t either. So what comes after?” I turned to head back the way we had
come. It was going to be hard to tell the rest of our little survivor town that we
had lost another friend, but it had to be done.

“What comes next is peace and quiet,” Bill said. “I just don’t look forward to
dumping all of these rank-ass bodies in the river—“

He was interrupted by the faint sound of moaning coming from the turn ahead. The
sound of shuffling feet followed. When the dead had first begun rising they had
retained their living-self’s former strength and speed. It hadn’t been until their
bodies had decayed to the point where mobilization became a struggle that they
started shuffling about, relying on sheer numbers instead of speed to catch their
prey. Bill had once dubbed this lumbering motion as “the ragtime shuffle”. The
joked had once seemed funny…back when it had been told from high on the rooftops
with a warm beer in hand.

“Think we should go around?” Bill whispered, swinging his gun off of his shoulder.
He checked the chamber with a quick flick of the wrist. The sound of the sliding
bolt seemed to hang in the foul air. The shuffling stopped. I could almost picture
the dead around the corner cocking is putrid head in reaction to the sudden noise.

“Good idea,” I said and together we retreated slowly. Our eyes watched the alley's
T-section. I prayed that whatever was approaching had grown so weak we’d have no
trouble avoiding it.

The shuffling grew closer and the groans became grunts as the creature thrashed
over its fallen cohorts.

Suddenly the idea of zombies starving to death seemed ridiculous. How could a
creature without a working digestive system starve?

A shadow spilled into our corner of the alley, engulfing an overturned trashcan.

We emerged from the alley.

The sight that swelled around us in the open air made the packed alleyway seemed
desolate by comparison. From one sidewalk to the other, bodies were stacked like
building blocks creating shoulder high walls, speed bumps, blockades and, against
one department store what appeared to be a newsstand of gore. The contorted shapes
of what had once (long ago, it seemed) been human lay in every nook and cranny as
if the skin of the earth was beginning to flake apart. Most of the cars had been
pushed out of the road in the early days of the looting and evacuation and were
almost unnoticeable against the building facades. The vehicles that did remain on
the street (police cars, ambulances, mostly emergence vehicles) where half-buried
under frozen arms and snarling faces.

This was my first time on street level since discovering refuge on the spanning
rooftops. I nearly fell to my knees before what I was seeing.

“Takes your breath away…doesn’t it?” Bill said, still peering down the sight of his
rifle. From the sidewalk the alley looked like a demonic shooting range where the
contestant couldn’t possibly miss and the ground was littered with the evidence of
such a guarantee.

I was amazed by the lack of color around me. Everything was a dark gray, dull
yellow or shadowy black. None of the bright spectrum of colors that should have
filled the city street remained. They had faded into a melting pot of drab and
death.
The lumbering figure that we had just retreated from jerked into the far end of
Bill’s shooting range. The dead had one arm and the entire left side of its abdomen
missing. It looked as if it had had its hand caught in a doorway and instead of
turning the knob to free itself, it had simply pulled and pulled until it ripped
its way free.

Bill took aim as the figure stumbled from one wall of the alley to the other. It
was having a tough time getting its thin feet under itself as its knees trembled
and its waist swayed forward and back, exposing the opening on its left like a
gapping fish mouth.

“Don’t,” I said, pushing Bill’s gun towards the ground. “Don’t waste the ammo. That
thing won’t last much longer.”

Bill brought the gun back up as if it were connected to his chest with a spring. “I
don’t know,” he muttered. “Doesn’t seem like killing one would be any sort of
waste.”

“Come on, Bill, look at it.” The figure stumbled over Miss. Walter’s body. Instead
of trying to get up and continue its pursuit of Bill and I, it began clawing the
ground with what was left of its good arm as if it were trying to pull the road to
it. “It can’t hurt us…and we need to save the ammo.”

“Need the ammo for what? They’re dying, let’s help them along a bit.” A slight grin
had crept over Bill’s mouth.

“Bill, we have to walk another three blocks, let’s play it safe."

“Oh, I get it,” Bill said, finally lowering the weapon. He looked as if he were
surrendering to my suggestion, although I doubted it. The struggling zombie was now
obscured by another fallen dead and there was no guarantee Bill could finish it off
with out wasting more than one shot.

“This is about your, ‘what predator is next on the food chain’ theory,” Bill went
on. “You want me to have plenty of ammunition for when the aliens show up…right?”
Bill laughed, but it wasn’t a malicious laugh. He clamped me on the shoulder and we
crossed the street to the other sidewalk and overhang opposite the alleyway to
avoid an especially thick collection of dead lying across half the road.

“Who the hell is that,” Bill said, freezing after taking a last glance over his
shoulder at the alleyway.

I followed Bill’s gaze and saw a dark figure walking casually towards the crawling
corpse. The figure instantly struck me as familiar and my first thought was that
someone from town had followed us down the fire escape. But I couldn’t place who.
The figure seemed recognizable, yet, I could not mark any distinguishing features
under his jacket’s hood. The hood hung low over his eyes; his entire face was
obscured except for the very tip of his pointed chin. And the only reason I could
see his chin from where we stood was because of how strikingly pale it shown. It
made me think of a torn sheet of paper held under a spotlight.

“Hey…hey man, what are you doing?” Bill yelled. He nudged me as if I were supposed
to identify the figure and offer Bill a name to address it. “Stay there. There’s a
live one right ahead of you. You’re going to walk right into it.” He waved his arm
high in the air, trying to attract the dark figure’s attention. But he continued on
without acknowledging the warnings.

“Is he stupid? Where the hell does he think he’s going? He’s going to get his leg
bitt…” Bill said to me and then paused as I gasped. The dark figure had approached
the back end of the corpse unnoticed. The dead seemed to retain all its attention
on us and was completely unaware of the figure even as it squatted down beside it.

“Jesus, that…” Bill raised his rifle and stepped forward to take aim. His aim was
slightly hindered by a broken balcony railing that was swaying over our heads as if
the old restaurant behind us was waving a white flag of surrender.

Bill muttered something more about the figure being seconds away from getting
itself killed as he slid to the side to take aim. The figure laid his hands lightly
on the corpse’s back as if trying to shake a sleeping lover awake.

Bill continued to sidestep. If Bill missed the shot, if he hit the corpse anywhere
but directly in the brain the figure was done for.

The figure bowed its head and its pale chin vanished under shadow as its forehead
touched the dead’s torn t-shirt.

“He’s screwed,” Bill said. “I’m taking the shot.” And with one more half step to
the right…

Bill slipped. His right boot hit the rigid shin of a corpses and he went over like
a tumbling trashcan. His arms flung out to catch himself and the rifle flew through
the air like a tomahawk.

I nearly slipped myself as I spun around to try and grab at Bill’s outstretch hand.
But it was a good seven feet away and I clasped on open air. Bill landed in a mound
of dead and disappeared.

There was a moment when I was certain Bill had just been swallowed whole by a
massive undead shark that swam through the stacks of human bodies. That time of
panic passed when I saw his arms waving from under a blotted roll of yellowing
skin. His frantic waving moved the dead appendages on top of him like a line of
theater goers applauding his crazy antics.

I grabbed one swinging arm and pulled, finding that Bill hadn’t been swallowed by
the undead, he had just hit so hard against a mound that the top layer had spilled
on top of him. Bill came out with one good tug.

He leapt into the air and away from the mound cursing loudly, trying to wipe chunks
of skin, bone and brain off of his shirt.

“You alright,” I asked, wiping my own hands clean.

“No, I’m not,” Bill said, fear slinking into his voice. “There was one still alive
in there.”

“There couldn’t be.” The mound stood unmoving like a pile of broken and forgotten
dolls.

“There was, I was bit…I was bit.” Bill rotated his waist to display the torn back
pocket of his jeans. The tear was only the size of a playing card, but it was
already beginning to darken from fresh blood. “No…no…no, it got me. It got me.”

“No, no,” I copied, trying to sound comforting, but my voice matching his panic.
“There can’t be one active, you were probably just scratched. I don’t think it
applies if a dead one scratches you. I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

“I won’t.” Bill had clamped his hand over his butt, uselessly trying to stop the
bleeding. I think there were tears running down his cheeks, but I couldn’t be sure.
I had turned to the mound and begun pulling bodies out of the way, hoping to prove
to Bill that he was in no danger of transforming.

I was halfway through the chest high mound when the gunshot caused me to duck. I
thought we had been approached by a mass of undead and my instincts screamed at me
to run. But instead, I cowered behind the mound, unwilling to retreat.

“Bill, what’s happening?” I said, eyeballing our flank. Bill did not respond, so I
tried again. Still silence rang as loud as a church bell on the opposite side of
the mound. I carefully peered over.

Bill lay in a pool of his own blood. The side of his head hung open like the
drawbridge to a brain filled castle. His rifle lay at his feet.

“Oh, Bill,” I said and rose up, feeling more aggravated than anything else. I
walked over to the rifle and plucked it from the sidewalk, careful not to look into
Bill’s gapping eyes.

“Is there a problem?” a deep raspy voice asked.

I spun around to see the hooded man approaching from across the street. His causal
voice and the way he seemed to stroll over the dead as if he were out for an
afternoon walk long before the world switched itself over to a mass grave, took the
words from my throat and squashed them silently. His face hid in shadow. His hood
was attached to a black or dark blue sweatshirt that he wore under a perfectly
pressed black suite jacket. I thought nothing of the oddity of his outfit,
survivors wore whatever we could get our hands on.

I tried to work my jaw when the man arrived on the sidewalk beside me. “You…” was
all I could manage. Not only did the man seem familiar, but I felt as though I knew
him well. Yet, still, I could not place him and for some reason my mind screamed at
me that it would be rude to ask him to identify himself.

“Pardon?” the man said, inclining his head to the side as if to hear me better.

“You,” I tried again. I decided actions may have been achievable instead of words.
I lifted the rifle. With the weapon in hand and aimed at the hooded man, I found my
words, although they were frail.

“You were bitten,” I said. If Bill had been in my place he would have pulled the
trigger already, but I hesitated.

“No, I most certainly was not,” the man said. He dropped his head lower and,
although the gesture did not reveal anymore of his face aside from the tip of his
chin, I could feel his eyes barreling down on me. Because of my hesitation, because
I gave the man the half second he needed to peer with the black void of a face, I
became paralyzed.

“We…I saw you.” I motioned with the weapon towards the alley. The dead that had
been slowly making its way towards us while flat on its belly had either stopped
moving or pulled itself out of view because all I saw was a collection of bodies
that blended into one blurred field of fading color.

"I can’t let you change into one of them.” I starred through the sights of the
rifle and concentrating on the black patch that should have been his face. His pale
chin creased and I knew he was smiling under that hood.

“I assure you, I was not bitten,” he said, sounding almost pleased with our current
predicament. “I am not an appealing meal to them."
“We’re all appealing meals to them,” I said. “What were you doing over there?” I
gestured to the alley.

“Purging the world of another nuisance,” he said.

“No,” I shook my head. “I’m sorry.” If Bill had died unjustly, I had to summon
enough strength to right that death by killing someone who truly would become a
monster.

As I felt the pressure of the trigger against my callused finger I caught a sudden
movement from my peripheral vision. From out of the mound of dead a body burst,
throwing its arms and gnashing teeth. I jumped back barely avoiding two sets of
contorted and broken fingers. The dead was a teenager (or had been), its eyes were
bulging from graying, fraying rims. I caught clearly, in the moment the creature
hung in the air, a glimpse at the bloody, oozing teeth as they made for me.

Bill had been right. There had been an active zombie in the mound and it had sunk
its rank teeth into his backside. And now, with fresh blood and meat dripping down
its gapping throat, the teenager’s strength had returned full and it was after a
more fulfilling meal.

The bottom half of the teenager was trapped beneath the mound and no matter how
hard it threw its upper body at me, it couldn’t free itself. I forced myself to
calm. I couldn’t just leave the teen in hopes that it would eventually starve like
the rest of them. It had just received fresh sustenance, there was no telling how
long the meal would take to work its way out of its system.

The hooded figure stepped into my sights and
placed a hand on the top of the teen’s head.
direction, utterly oblivious to the touch on
waved about like a child begging a parent to
shifted the bodies around it and just when I
forward movements stopped.
before I could yell at him to move, he
The teen continued to thrash in my
its exposed skull. The teen’s arms
pick them up. Its hips pulled and
thought the teen would break free, its

The teen’s head drooped and fell with a loud plop. Its arms continued to wave,
until the hooded man reached out and tapped them with the tips of his fingers and
then they too, fell limp.

I felt the rifle dropped to my side as astonishment washed over me. “What did you
do to it?” I wheezed.

The hooded man shrugged. “I told you, I am here to purge the world.” Without
another word he turned and started up the street.

I stood transfixed for an entire minute, until the hooded figure had nearly
disappeared amongst the rubble.

The prospect of a man that could give peace with his touch made my stomach heave
and I scrambled to catch up to the hooded man.

He was walking nonchalantly down the middle of the road, stepping over and around
the idle dead as if they weren’t even there. He glanced at me as I approached and
fell into step at his side. I tried to voice the dozens of questions that were
racing through my head, but I was either too dumbfounded to find the words or
unable to pick a starting point.

“A waste,” he said as we traveled under an overpass. “You built up and out only to
be consumed from within.”
We walked for a few blocks in silence; me starring at the hooded man as if he were
a god and the hooded man ignoring me as if I were never there. The afternoon had
given way into evening and the sun’s remaining orange raze shown across the street
as if a great bonfire was burning miles in the distance.

The hooded man veered off the road and towards the blacken façade of a grocery
store. The windows looked like cavernous eyes watering dry soot.

The hooded man weaved through the isles of the grocery store. Just like outside,
the tiled floor was covered in dead bodies and garbage. Next to empty shelves, I
couldn’t help but feel we were walking through a meatless rib cage.

The hooded man slide around a shattered glass counter to the meat department, his
feet crunching on the shards littering the tile. I followed him all the way through
the back room to the closed door of a giant walk-in freezer. He reached out for the
stainless steal handle and something slammed against the other side with an echoing
thump.

I nearly tripped over a still-dead wearing a white apron. A meat locker, I thought,
of course. There had to have been hundreds of pounds of meat in there. Enough for
any walking dead to gorge itself.

The hooded man pulled the lever and the massive door swung open. A blotted zombie
stumbled out as if its feet were magnetically attached to the floor. It took two
steps, rocked against its weight and fell headlong to the floor. The body was so
fat it looked as if one poke would send it spiraling around the room like a helium
balloon. It lulled back and forth on its rounded stomach as it tossed its arms
about trying to get at me. Its clothes had been shredded, only a few strands
remained attached along its neckline. The skin around its armpits had torn and a
thick gray liquid was oozing out. The sides of its belly looked like opened fish
gills.

I continued to back away until I bumped against a stainless steel sink that was
crusty to the touch. The hooded man stepped over a pudgy leg that was easily the
size of an inner tube and squatted. He looked at me over the dead’s back. The
dead’s spine was protruding through its stretched skin like a layer of rock at the
ridge of a mountainside.

“These creatures disgust me,” he said as if it were a question not a statement.

I nodded.

“They were never intended for this world.” The hooded man ran his fingers across
the dead’s scaly skin. The dead let out an ear splitting sound that resembled a
belch. “They were born by accident; spawned inside the belly of a fluke. Your
science, your filthy science.” He removed his finger from the dead’s skin and held
it up to his blackened face. He seemed to be examining the gummy clear grime of
decay. “God was the only being with the right to raise the dead. And still, your
scientists found a way to steal that from him.”

“God does not exist,” I mumbled thinking of my dead children and wife. “Or if he
does, he doesn’t care about us.”

“You think so?” The hooded man said and poked the fat dead.

The dead belched again as his mouth stretched to the size of a football. Its body
began to tremble and its neck bulged. Like a snake rejecting a rat, the dead’s
stomach rippled and forced upward. The scale-like rips in its side started to leak
and expand. A gray mush spilled from the dead’s many openings.

The body jerked again, the stomach tightened and the dead vomited. The contents of
the dead’s stomach spilled onto the floor and slid a few feet towards me. I had to
pull myself up onto the sink to avoid it overtaking my shoes. At first I thought it
had thrown up an entire cow but upon closer inspection I saw it was a mixture of
packaged meat with the cellophane still attached and human appendages, rotted down
near to the bone. The consistency was that of curdled milk.

“What is your name,” the hooded man asked me and I told him. “What is your father’s
name?”

I told him that as well.

“And your grandfather’s?”

We made it to my grandfather’s grandfather before my knowledge of my family history

came to an abrupt halt. He seemed puzzled by this and looked at me almost as if he
were shocked that I couldn’t trace my family tree back to the beginnings of time.

We left the dead thin, stretched and wrinkled like an old discarded condom, and
headed back out to the street. Night had fallen and the moonlight seemed to wash
over the field of dead as if the river nearby had over flowed in the past half-
hour. For the first time I was not afraid. The dancing shadows did not constantly
fool me into believing a dead was advancing on my flank, the subtle sounds of a
city infested with rats did not cause me to spin around in fear. I felt safe next
to the hooded man.

We moved in a zigzag pattern across the city, stopping every so often for the man
to stretch his covered head towards the sky as if he were listening or smelling or
sensing in some way beyond my understanding. In the distance I heard gun fire, but
paid it little mind. I knew there were other survivors buried out in the wreckage
aside from those in my little town and it was a daily event to hear them fighting
off the dead. Unfortunately, they were always too far away to reach safely, but
now, with the hooded man, those prospects changed.

We entered two more stores and an apartment building. We found walking dead still
clinging onto life despite their shrunken and sickly forms. With a touch, the
hooded man ended their ragtime shuffle.

“You’re not human, are you?” I asked, not because I really wanted to know the
answer but to hear the man speak again and convince myself that he wasn’t some
optimistic fantasy.

The man did not answer me or even react to the sound of my voice. He continued to
calmly stroll along the avenue that had housed the rich elite of the city. Where
the fabric of his clothes stretched it seemed to be lightening in color. His dark
jacket appeared interwoven with microscope silver thread that caught the moonlight
and sent it sparkling back.

“Are you?” I said.

“Not in the way you mean.” The man’s voice seemed to have deepened and no longer
seemed to be coming from underneath his hood. It came from around me, above me,
inside of me. “I am proof that not only is there a god, but that he cares very much
for your kind.”

“You’re here to give us back our planet?” I said, thinking about the deathly touch
the hooded man possessed. “When you’re finished the world will be back to the way
it was?”

The man veered to the left and grabbed the door handle of an ambulance. The door
wasn’t latched. The wind blowing off the river was pushing it closed and all it
took was a quick tug for it to fly open. Inside of the ambulance a dead crouched
over a half eaten dog. The dead did not react when the hooded man hoisted himself
into the ambulance and ran his hand across its shoulder blades. The dead swallowed
one last bite of dog before collapsing.

“That’s why you’re here, isn’t it?” I asked as the man stepped down onto the
street. “To give us back our home?”

“I am here to purge the world,” he responded and set off again in search of more
moving dead. “Purge the world and turn it over to its rightful heirs.” He paused.
“There are many more like you?”

“A few, yeah.”

He seemed to think this over as if weighing something in his mind. As he stood

before me in utter silence I noticed his clothes were not moving with the wind.

“Take me to them,” the hooded man demanded. The silver in his jacket thickened and
his protruding chin glowed like the moon overhead.

We backtracked south with me in the lead. I cut a straight line through the alleys,
bypassing all the zigzagged paths the hooded man had previously carved. It would
take us the better part of an hour to make our way over the debris laden streets,
maybe a little more. I wanted to avoid the fire escape I had descended earlier in
the day. I did not want to have to face Bill’s and Miss. Walter’s bodies again.

“The town is on the rooftops right around where we first met,” I said, excited at
the prospects of the hooded man’s company. “I’m surprised you did not notice it.”

“I was preoccupied,” the hooded man said.

“I don’t blame you. It’s like hell down here at ground level, why would you bother
looking up, right?”

I did not see the man stop; he was walking a few yards behind me. Nor did I hear
him draw to a halt. Yet, I knew he had. I stopped as well, afraid to turn.

“This is nothing like hell,” the hooded man’s voice seemed to shake. “Only man
could come up with monsters as dreadful as these.”

The back entrance to the town (affectionately deemed; survivor’s row) was an
apartment staircase that you had to take up three floors and than crawl out the
window onto a fire escape for the remaining distance. By the time we set foot on
the gravely rooftops, it was an hour before the sun rose.

“This is it,” I said waving my hand across the three buildings linked by wooden
platforms, as if I thought the hooded man would be impressed. It was a shanty town,
homes made up of ragged shelters, but it was safe. The dead did not have a lot of
talent when it came to climbing staircases…especially staircases that, up until
reasonably, were guarded by armed men and women.

“All of these people survived?” the hooded man said, evenly.

“Yeah, and I have to believe there are other towns just like this one out there
too. Once all the dead are,” I smiled for the first time in a very long time,
“dead, we can find each other. It may take a few generations, but we can start to
rebuild the human race, you know? Start to set things back to the way they use to
be.”

The hooded man said nothing. The silver of his suit had woven into a pattern that
rolled down his form like beads of water.

“I’m sure it would be alright if we woke everyone up. I have to tell him about Bill
and Miss. Walters. We gave up on grieving along time ago, but no one will be happy
to hear the news.”

I rushed towards Jacob Nathans’ (the unofficial town mayor) house feeling for the
first time hope swirling around inside me. I hadn’t felt this way in a long time,
not even when the first of the zombies surrendered to starvation.

Jacob’s home was the only true structure of our entire town. His place was an old
storage hut used for keeping old wiring and air conditioning replacements. I did
not pause to knock on the wooden door. I swung it open to reveal emptiness beyond.
Knowing that Jacob had lately taken comfort in Ashley Brass’s arms, I headed over
to her tent of blue tarp thinking it find him there. It too was empty.

I crossed the two foot wide wooden bridge that separated buildings to Alex Durnt’s
house and found it abandoned. Mary King’s place was also empty. As was John and
Marget Miller’s elaborate set up of carefully arranged plastic shelving.

Confused instead of frightened, I moved from home to home finding no one. How could
I be afraid with something so powerful as the hooded man on my side? It was then I
saw the trail of blood leading from the center of town to the edge of the roof.
Bullet casings floated in the blood like little silver and gold rafts trying to
make their way to freedom. In this small central portion of town which we referred
to as the "Alamo"—the place we agreed to hold our last stand if the zombies ever
found their away to our home above their street—I saw the wreckage. A water tower,
empty and carved into a gun emplacement, had fallen onto its side splintering wood
like shattered glass. A plastic table where we had eaten most of our meals together
looked as if it had been melted down the middle and tossed aside. I could still
smell the smoke from the smoldering barrels in the air.

“We are no longer the dominate species on the planet. And now the dead aren’t
either. So what comes after?” I repeated the very same words I had said to Bill
only minutes before he had taken his own life. A chill replaced my hope and I
turned to see that the hooded man had not moved an inch from the place I had left
him.

“You did this?” I yelled from a building over. ‘This is your idea of purging the
world?”

I ran towards him, crossing the bridge in two long leaps. I arrived at the man,
who’s head was bowed and did not seem to notice my presence, and swung my fist
using my forward momentum to put as much power behind the punch as humanly
possible.

I connected with open air and lost my balance. I fell onto the rooftop and felt the
gravel cut into my face, neck, and hands.

“I had no part in this,” the hooded man said.

I pushed onto my hands wanting desperately to spring another attack, but unable to
find the strength. I began to sob believing the sudden gentleness in the hooded
man's words. I rolled over not making a move to wipe the ocean of blood that was
pouring down my face. There was no physical pain, all I felt was an absence and an
emptiness that I hadn’t felt since seeing my wife and kids for the last time.

“God wasn’t the only one to send someone to claim this world.”

“What does that mean?” I said. From my angle I could see the man’s eyes. They were
blue.

“It means that I am too late.”

“Too late?” I said. “How are you too late? You are our savor.”

“I was the savor’s hand and I was not…”

A blur of red light and heat swept the hooded man off his feet and sent him
tumbling. Again I found myself skidding on the gravel, but this time with such
speed I had to dig my mangled fingers into the rocks to stop myself. From the sound
more so than the feeling I knew I had broken at least two fingers and ripped the
nails from the rest. But somehow I managed to stop in time to see the hooded man
spiraling through the air entangled with a red, orange and black mass that glowed
like burning coal. The hooded man and the fiery form disappeared over the side of
the building.

Wobbly, my arms and legs worked on their own accord and brought me to the ledge.
Laying on the ground in the very same alley where Bill and I had discovered Miss.
Walter’s body was the hooded man. He was face down his jacket billowed out like a
parachute trying to catch the wind. Its corners charred and smoldering. A wolf
shaped creature stood over his body. Its black tar like skin was cracked and
hairless. Its body was the size of a large SUV, its head the size of a man’s torso.
It sniffed the hooded man’s body and its cracked skin rippled revealing blazing
fire permeating where muscle should have been.

“No,” I said, barely loud enough for my own ears to process, but the creature heard
me. Its head shot upwards and I saw into the depth of its swirling red pit of its
eyes. It seemed to grin, then roared with a furry that would have blown out windows
if there were any glass left in the area. I floundered backwards from the heat that
flooded up over the building. The air flickered and wavered like I remember from
the concrete streets of my childhood, only in this distortion I saw shapes. I saw
faces…mangled twisted faces, silently begging for release.

Screaming with a fury I did not know myself capable of I scrambled to the opposite
end of the town, knowing without turning, that the burning wolf would follow. At
the edge of town I threw myself into the open air, risking death over facing the
predator that had come to replace the walking dead.

I landed a story down on another rusted fire escape which collapsed under my
weight. My stomach lurched as I fell with the sounds of clinging metal and breaking
brick. Before falling unconscious I felt the pressure of being buried beneath the
debris.

***
That was six months ago. I have since stumbled across other scattered survivors
throughout the city, although no one wishes to move in groups any longer. What had
once been a strength against the walking-dead, now serves as a weakness against our
latest predator. The more we clump together the more we stand out in the lifeless
void our world has become. Stopping to build a defense would be suicidal, leaving
us too vulnerable…too exposed. The burning creature can sniff out large numbers,
can hear our whispered voices.

I want desperately to believe that as long as there are a few of us left, another
soldier will be sent to replace the hooded man. As long as we can hold out…as long
as we can endure our isolation, there is still a chance for mankind.

I, like so many, will continue my ragtime shuffle, living off whatever I can find;
eating canned foods, dying plants or insects, and sleeping under the rotting dead
for camouflage. Living in hell. I will run until the food chain once again changes
and something emerges to extinguish the fire of our greatest foe.

It’s frightening what a person can adapt to if given enough time and little choice.

Biographies of the Contributing Authors of

The Zombie Chronicles Volume One

John F.D. Taff is a published writer for more than 20 years now, mostly in the
horror and suspense fields, with more than 45 stories in publication, in such
markets as Cemetery Dance, Eldritch Tales, Aberrations, Deathrealm and 2 A.M.

He has also been published in anthologies such as Hot Blood: Fear the Fever, Hot
Blood: Seeds of Fear, and Shock Rock II. Four of his shorts have been selected as
honorable mentions in the Year's Best Fantasy & Horror over the years. He also has
seven novels in print.

Ken Goldman is an American writer, HWA member, and former English/Film Studies
teacher with homes in Penn Valley, Pennsylvania and the South Jersey shore who has
nothing better to do with his time than write horror tales.

His stories appear in over 500 publications. His book of six short stories You Had
Me At ARRGH!! Five Uneasy Pieces by Ken Goldman featuring six (count 'em) stories
published by Sam's Dot Publishing is an all time top ten best seller at The Genre
Mall, where (shameless plug alert!) it can also be purchased.

Ken has received seven honorable mentions in Datlow & Windling's Year's Best
Fantasy & Horror 7th, 9th, and 16th editions, and Datlow, Kelly Link & Gavin J.
Grant's 17th, 20th, and 21st editions.

Michael A. Kechula is a recovering zombie who now prefers fresh chocolate chip
cookies to fresh human brains. His work has appears in 114 magazines and 30
anthologies in Australia, Canada, England, India, Scotland, and the US. His flash
fiction and short stories have been published in two books: A Full Deck of Zombies
- 61 Speculative Fiction Tales and The Area 51 Option + 49 Speculative Fiction
Tales.

A film based on his story The Keeper has been contracted by Precision Pictures
(Australia). Ken would be famous except for the fact that nobody knows who he is.

Tom Hamilton is an Irish Traveler. His work has appeared in over one hundred
publications around the world, including the Rockford Review, Red Wheelbarrow
Literary Journal and Sinister City among many others.

He has two poetry chapbooks published. The Rain Draw Bridge from Alpha Beat Press
and The Last Days of My Teeth from Budget Press. His short story The Spider is
available as an E-book from Curious

Volumes Publishing.

Along with his wife Mary Theresa and their three small daughters, Tiffany, Hope and
Catalina, he lives in Loves Park, Illinois, USA.

Meghan Jurado has been published in several short story anthologies, such as The
Undead 1 and 2, Desolate Places, Echoes of Terror, and The Travel Guide to the
Haunted Mid-Atlantic Region.

She is a horror fanatic and collector of skulls and tattoos of skulls, and hopes to
one day shamble along as an extra in a zombie film.

Christine Savoie presents her first zombie short story that originated from a
nightmare. She lives in Calgary, Alberta Canada with her husband and two boys,
Matthew and Ryan.

Matthew Burgess is the founder of ZUR (Zombie Unequal Rights). He'd like to use
this publication as a platform for all the groaning voices in the world to finally
be heard and recognized as a force in today's society. There are more of us than
you think.

Matthew is currently published in Horror Bound Magazine (Issue Seven). He has also
been previously been published in OuterDarkness Magazine and I will have a story
featured in an upcoming issue of Ethereal Gazette.

Erik T. Johnson's writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Electric Velocipede,

Shimmer, Space & Time Magazine, Underworlds, Clarion, New York Stories, Trunk
Stories, Sein und Werden, Saucytooth's Webthology, and the Dead But Dreaming 2
anthology, among other publications. You can stay updated on his work at
www.eriktjohnson.net.

Enjoyed The Zombie Chronicles Volume One?

Look for future volumes at

www.thezombiechronicles.com

Edgar Allan Poe is the undisputed Master of the Macabre and one of the most gifted
literary minds of all time. Collected here are new tales and poems inspired by Poe
and written by today's best talent in the genre.

These chilling new tales and poetry capture the essence of the Master’s work. They
will keep you turning the pages and wondering about the darkness that lurks in the
hearts and souls of the human race.

Only $15.00 plus shipping

Purchase at www.horrorbound.com