
IT WAS A DARK AND STORMY NIGHt
...
A COLLECTION OF HORROR PARODIES
EDITED BY
SHANE MCKENZIE
Copyright © 2011 by Pill Hill Press
All stories contained in this volume have been published with permission from the authors.
All Rights Reserved
No portion of this publication may be reproduced, stored in any electronic system, or transmitted in form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the authors. This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
\*
Dear Shane,
Unfortunately, I will be unable to provide an introduction for the anthology It Was A Dark And Stormy Night. Sorry about that. I'll wire the money back to your account, I've already sent back the company limo, I only ate two apples out of the fruit basket, and...well, I'm not sure how to undo the night with the prostitutes. We'll work something out.
I wish I could say that I was just too busy, but I'm not. Hell, I've checked Facebook four times since I started writing this. Ultimately, my decision not to provide the introduction I promised comes from the fact that you are a reprehensible lying bastard.
Don't try to look all innocent. You know what I mean. You purposely misled me into believing that this was a collection of deeply serious, introspective stories with high literary merit. What else could it be, when the title was inspired by the writings of Snoopy, the greatest writer who ever lived? In addition to defending our country and looking way cooler than you ever will, Snoopy created works of lasting value and thematic depth, which you have shamed with this compilation of...of...of...horror spoofs.
To be fair, if I were the kind of person who enjoyed satire and/or parody, I'd admit that this book provides everything I could ever want. All of the horror bases are covered: zombies, vampires, werewolves, mummies, serial killers, infectious diseases, rednecks, gypsies, Satan, and Death. Also chickens, which may not sound scary but I bet you wouldn't put one in a crib with your newborn child. And sperm. Gotta love the story about sperm.
But then there's the final story, "Don't Go In The House!" about which the only acceptable reaction is "Dude, what the hell is the matter with you?!?" I know what you're going to say, Shane: "I didn't write it. Matt Kurtz did." But ultimately YOU are responsible for its inclusion, and YOU are the one who decided that other humans needed to read such a thing, and YOU will suffer the consequences.
So, to summarize, I'm not writing your damn introduction. Find somebody else to contribute to your non-Pulitzer-bound poppycock. The next time I see you in person, I'm going to break a lobster over your head.
Get bent.
Sincerely,
Jeff Strand
Welcome To Deadtown
by Joseph Zieja
A branch poked John in the eye. This struck him as strange, as he was fairly certain there were no trees in his kitchen. But here was one now, assaulting his face.
In fact, he couldn't recall there being any rocks, gravel roads, owls, or large, impossibly steep hills in his kitchen either. And certainly none with a giant, heavily buttressed stone castle looming ominously at the top. A lightning bolt scored the sky, leaving a purple streak in the air as it crossed the tallest spire of the castle.
"Where am I?" he said. He had been in his kitchen just a moment ago---he was sure of it. Braising chicken breasts on a skillet and baking rolls in the oven. Suzanne was coming for dinner tonight.
A long, winding path narrowed to a point on its way up to the base of a castle. Nebulous debris littered the road, some of it glistening softly in the light of the full moon. Turning around, he saw the dim lights of a city not more than a mile off. Some animal instinct told him that going to the city was a better choice than trudging up the hill to the shadowy, evil-looking mansion.
It wasn't long before he approached a large, wooden sign, on which was scrawled in hurried, dark lettering:
-WELCOME TO DEADTOWN-
(Sister City to Detroit)
Deadtown? Who on Earth would name a city something so ridiculous? John found himself unable to do anything but stare at the sign and wonder.
His reverie was shattered by the voice of a man with a thick southern accent speaking to his left.
"Ain't gonna find nothin' but death here, son," he said through crooked, broken teeth and ragged breaths. The nearly unintelligible man sat on a small rocking chair on the front porch of a rickety old house. Old, rotted wood, stripped bare of paint, looked on the verge of collapse, the rocking chair emitting small creaking noises in a steady rhythm. It seemed in contrast with the tall shadows of ordinary modern buildings in the distance. How had he not noticed it when he approached?
"What do you mean?" John said.
"Hafta see it fer yerself," the man said with a wheezy cackle. "And you got no choice now. Old Francis Stone's got the place under his claws. Nobody leaves 'less he says so. You neither."
John swallowed hard. "Who are you? Do you...live here?" He pointed at the creepy house.
"Hell no!" the man cried with a deep belly laugh. His accent had completely vanished. "I live in the city with everyone else. We have one of us at each entrance to town. Part of the atmosphere, you know? But in all seriousness---it's pretty messed up in there."
John nodded slowly, though he really had no idea what the man was talking about. He obviously wasn't going to find any answers here. Mumbling something between thanks and a hasty goodbye, John walked into town.
"Nothin' but death!" the southern voice wailed from behind him.
\*\*\*
Deadtown looked normal enough if you ignored the body parts lining the streets like the aftermath of a twisted ticker-tape parade. John felt his stomach turning as he looked over the horrified, frozen faces of the occasional severed head. Blood ran in the gutters like rich, viscous wine. The smell was educational.
Other than the mess, the streets were empty. Buildings with broken windows had doors swinging on their hinges in the light breeze. Every few moments, John thought he heard the scraping of dragged footsteps or the incoherent mumbling of someone too far away to really understand.
And he was pretty sure someone was playing an old pipe organ somewhere in the distance.
Suppressing the urge to vomit, John tried to find some place that looked at least somewhat safe. A neon sign sporting the words "Deadtown Inn" flickered just up the abandoned street. Lights glowed inside, and he could see shadows moving past them. Maybe he'd find some answers there.
As he entered, a pale-faced, lanky receptionist wearing a too-large suit greeted him with an indifferent look. He reached under the counter and casually produced two items: a hotel room key and a double barreled shotgun, both of which he pointed at John.
John hit the floor with a yelp, diving out of the line of fire. He landed face down with his arms futilely covering his head, his heart somewhere in between his nose and his throat. No shotgun blasts rang through the air.
"You can get up now," came the slow drawl of a lazy, tired voice.
John peeled his arms off his face and drew himself up. The young man behind the counter, a blank expression on his face, had put the shotgun away and was now only offering him the room key.
"What the hell was that for?"
"Sir, I've been working here a long time," the man said with the tone of one addressing the intellectually inferior, "and every person who comes in here is one of two things: a stranded tourist needing a room or a flesh-eating monster. Some walk the fine line in between, and it can get rather confusing. So I just started pulling out a key and a gun together. It saves me time. Now, if you please, room nineteen, straight down the hallway to the left."
"I don't need a room," John said, "I have a house, with a kitchen, where the rolls are probably black by now. I just need to get out of here."
The receptionist sighed. "Nobody leaves unless Mr. Stone lets them. And he's never let anyone leave." He proffered the key again. "Room nineteen, sir."
John took the room key, feeling somewhere between horribly afraid and horribly confused. If this Francis Stone was the only man who knew the way out of this insanity, he'd have no choice but to find him.
Room nineteen looked about as standard as any other hotel room that John had ever seen. He went into the bathroom and turned on the tap. Thankfully, the water didn't look or taste like blood as he splashed it over his face.
The bathroom light started to flicker.
John paused with a handful of water halfway to his face. It slipped through the cracks in his fingers and dribbled to the sink with hollow plunking noises. He saw in the mirror that the light in the bedroom was flickering as well, out of synch with the bathroom.
As suddenly as it began, the flickering stopped. The lights were on again, their yellow glow making the dingy room look both homely and unwelcoming simultaneously. John let out a breath he hadn't been aware he was holding.
He heard a thud outside the bathroom door. Someone else was in the room.
Light, slow breathing came from right outside the bathroom. It sounded almost like the gentle snoring of a sleeping child.
John frantically looked around the bathroom for a weapon, but found only a clean white towel. Not much of a defense, but he grabbed it anyway, thinking to perhaps use it to strangle any would-be assailant. Cautiously, slowly, with beads of sweat and tap water intermingling on his cheeks, he stepped out of the bathroom.
A man in a hockey mask was standing slumped over near the light switch, one hand resting on top of it. A large kitchen knife was embedded in the ground point-first. It looked like it had fallen out of the man's limp hand.
He was snoring. The man was fast asleep. Slow, even breaths whistled through the air holes of the hockey mask. John knelt down, picked up the kitchen knife, and positioned the point of it at the base of the mask, trying to slowly peel it upwards without actually touching the man.
"Waaah!" The man jumped backward and fell down. The mask flew off his face, revealing a frightened man in his mid-forties. He stared at John accusingly.
"The hell do you think you're doing?" the man said. "Trying to kill me?"
"What? What the hell were you doing outside my bathroom door with this?" John pointed the blade at the man. He paused for a moment and looked at the light switch that the man had been near. Something dawned on him. "Were you...turning my lights on and off?"
The man's face flushed. "I was just trying to build the suspense," he mumbled.
"Suspense for what?"
"I'm a serial killer," the man said, looking deeply offended. "At least I was until Stone came in. I was the only game in town for terror and prank phone calls until he showed up with his..." He suddenly trailed off, his eyes closing. His head began to nod back and forth, and his jaw went slack as he slowly sank backward to the floor. He'd fallen asleep again.
"Wake up!" John's patience was wearing thin.
The man snapped back into consciousness and sat up. He looked confused.
"You're a narcoleptic serial killer?" John said incredulously.
"So what?" the man said, getting to his feet and pointing a long finger at John's face. "I bet you have your flaws too, buddy. Besides, I never said I was a good serial killer. What's your story?"
"I'm just trying to get the hell out of here."
"Looks like we both have reasons to hate Stone," the man said. "Hey, why don't we team up?" He extended a hand. "Dominick Jefferson. Just call me Dom."
John looked at Dom's hand for a moment, wondering if this was really happening. Then he shrugged and took it.
"John," he said. "Nice to meet you. Try to refrain from killing me."
\*\*\*
"We don't really know where he came from," Dom said. They had exited the hotel and were walking down one of the empty streets while Dom pointed out some of the sights of Deadtown, if one could consider death and destruction as "sights." John had wisely kept the knife.
"He just showed up one day, moved into that castle, and started sending down hordes of monsters into the city at random, slashing up the townsfolk, eating their flesh, drinking blood. Pretty standard stuff. Now nobody can leave unless he gives them permission. So, if you want to get home, you'll have to go through him."
John rubbed his hand through his hair. This was a complete mess. He'd definitely missed dinner with Suzanne by now, and he could picture her furious face as she rang the doorbell with no answer. On top of that, it appeared he'd been trapped in a horror movie.
"Some say he's half vampire, half werewolf, half zombie."
A really, really bad horror movie.
"That's not even possible," John said. "Aside from the fact that none of those things exist, you can't be half of three things."
Dom glared at him. "Well aren't you Mr. Calculus? I'm just telling you what they say."
A gunshot rang out from behind them, and John once again found himself on the ground with his hands over his head, small chunks of mortar and plaster peppering his hair.
"You two are lucky I missed," came a voice from behind him.
John lifted his head to see a large, muscular man in a camouflage tank-top and jeans walking toward them holding an assault rifle of some kind, its barrel still smoking. Leather belts crisscrossed in the center of his bulging pectorals, sporting rows of ammunition and two grenades. A large pistol gleamed in the moonlight from its holster on the side of his leg, and John could see the butt of a shotgun protruding from the top of the man's shoulders behind his back.
"I want him on my side," Dom muttered, who didn't seem at all disturbed by being shot at.
"I thought you were some of the monsters," the man said, voice rough and low as he approached. His dark eyes looked past John, slightly over his shoulder. John glanced backward but saw nothing.
"Well, uh," John said, dusting off his pants, "thanks for being a poor shot."
The military man was still looking over John's shoulder at nothing. It made John feel uncomfortable.
"Yeah," the man said, his voice dropping to a whisper, his eyes taking on a hollow, haunted look. "That's what they said on the Farm, too." Without any further explanation, he turned around and whistled.
Five things emerged from behind a building nearby: three men and two breasts. Of the three men, one appeared to be wearing priests' robes, and another a lab coat. The third, a man of indistinguishable ethnicity, was wearing a transparent green visor and a t-shirt that proclaimed "I Love Deadtown." An expensive-looking camera dangled from a strap around his neck.
The woman that was attached to the two giant mounds on her chest was wearing a tight pink t-shirt and equally tight jeans, complete with a pair of stiletto boots that looked extremely difficult to walk in. She looked terrified, her full red lips turned down in a quivering frown. Running forward, she clung desperately to the heavily-armed man's thick waist.
"Who are you people?" John said.
"You can call me...El Nabo," the man with all of the weapons said.
John frowned. "You want me to call you 'The Turnip'?" He'd taken his fair share of Spanish lessons. The man with the weapons didn't seem to hear him, however. He just kept staring off into the distance, his eyes narrow and his jaw set. John decided not to press the issue further.
"I'm Father Reus," the priest said. "But I've lost my faith. And I have suspicions that you're cooperating with Stone---mostly because I fear the unfamiliar."
"I, uh, hope you find it, and thanks for the vote of confidence." John nodded slowly. How did one respond to something like that?
"Dr. Thompson," the man in the lab coat said, nodding at him. He had a nervous look in his eyes that made John want to avoid touching him. "Mad---yet questionably reformed---scientist."
"I'm Bebe," the woman said, finally losing her grip on El Nabo. "Let's split up."
"What?" John said.
"Don't mind her," Father Reus said. "She'll suggest that every once in a while, but if you ignore her for long enough she'll stop talking."
The man with the camera grinned. "Pyotr Abu Xiao-Ping Schmidt. I am tourist for Deadtown."
What in the world kind of accent---or name, for that matter---was that?
"Right," John said. "I'm John, and this here is Dominick. He's a serial killer."
"Oh, we know him," Dr. Thompson said. "How many times have you tried to kill me now, Dom? Three?"
"Four." A proud grin painted Dom's face. "Last time I made it all the way into the lab before I fell asleep in the ventilation shaft. Thanks for getting me out of there, by the way."
Dr. Thompson shrugged.
El Nabo's head suddenly jerked to the side, then slowly turned his gaze back to rest just slightly over John's left shoulder, eyes still narrow.
"What the hell are you looking at?" John finally blurted, looking over his own shoulder. There was nothing there.
"He is always doing this. We no figure out. It is great mystery of El Nabo," Pyotr said, barely comprehendible.
"I'm just trying to get the hell out of this town and back to my house," John sighed.
"Ah," the priest said, "but Francis Stone---"
"I know," John said. "The half-vampire, half-werewolf, half-zombie on the top of the dark, spooky castle that was probably built on top of ancient Indian burial grounds, right?"
All of his companions looked at him with wide eyes.
"I never told you about the burial grounds," Dom said breathlessly.
"It's seriously built on top of Indian burial grounds?"
Dom nodded.
"Why do people always build on them?" John said, but nobody responded.
"Seems like we're all after Stone, for one reason or another," El Nabo said. He turned his head to the side and spat. "Let's head to the castle and finish this."
"I still think we should split up and investigate that noise," Bebe said.
\*\*\*
John flicked on the flashlight that Bebe had given him. She'd brought enough for everyone. Nothing happened. He turned it off, then on again. Nothing.
"Hey, Bebe," John said. "The flashlight doesn't work."
She turned to him, a perplexed expression settling on her face. John unscrewed the base of the flashlight and peered inside. The empty hollow of the shaft explained the malfunction.
"You brought flashlights without batteries in them?" John said. "You didn't think to, you know, test them before you left the house to see if they were working?" He looked at the rest of the group. All of them looked a mixture of guilty and confused. "None of you thought to test them?"
Bebe pursed her lips, one hand on her hip, looking as thoughtful as she could manage. "I dunno," she said. "I thought I'd wait to test them until I really needed them, you know? Like right when one of those monsters is around."
The others nodded in agreement.
John sighed, forcing himself to turn away from the woman before he used the flashlight as a weapon. She'd brought flashlights with no batteries, cell phones with no antennae, and keys to a car with no fuel. And if she suggested that they split into small groups one more time, he was going to strangle her with the white towel from the hotel.
The group was nearing the edge of town. John could see the dark forest ahead of him, daunting and shadowy in the light of the moon. On the other side would be Francis Stone's castle.
El Nabo punched John in the face.
At least, that's what it seemed like. He'd quickly extended his arm---the signal for "hold"---right into John with incredible force. John cupped a bloody nose in his hands, swearing profusely. The other members of the group stopped in their tracks, obviously more prepared for El Nabo's military gestures.
When John looked up, wiping the tears from his eyes and plugging his nose with two fingers, he saw them. A field of monsters, a few blocks down to the left. From this distance, he could only see that they were humanoid in shape. Some knelt down over corpses, making slurping and crunching noises. He felt sick. It didn't appear that they'd noticed the group yet.
"Bunch of Stoners," El Nabo muttered, his arm still in the air.
"Stoners?" John said. "That's what you call them? Stoners?"
El Nabo didn't answer. "You all stay here," he said. "These bastards are mine."
Everyone had a solemn look on their faces. Bebe was weeping softly. But nobody was arguing.
"Uh, El Nabo." John placed a hand lightly on his shoulder. "They're pretty far off, you know. I don't even think they know we're here. We could just...keep going. To the castle."
"No," he said. "You all have a purpose, a fate. This is mine."
Father Reus was crossing himself in the air, muttering things in Latin. It sounded like he was giving El Nabo his last rites.
"Really, man," John said, stepping in front of him. "It's not necessary. They're really far out there. We should just keep walking. Come on." This was the only man in the group who had thought to bring weapons---John felt as though he should try to keep him around. "Look, let's go to the castle, get Big Frank Stone, and go home." Big Frank was the nickname John had come up with. It just sounded right.
Pyotr said something in a language that John thought might be German. That damned organ music was still playing faintly in the background. Dr. Thompson cackled softly, eyes darting back and forth as though he thought the world suspected him of something dastardly.
"It's just like the Farm," El Nabo said. His eyes were hard. John didn't even think he was listening to him anymore. "I won't let it happen again. Not like this. Not like the Farm!"
Before John could try to dissuade him any further, the large man took off with a roar, ammunition belts bouncing up and down on his shoulders as he ran. John watched their only means of defense run away from them with a sinking feeling.
The distance was so great that he heard El Nabo take a breath three separate times in order to continue his war cry before he met the confused group of Stoners. A cacophony of explosions, bestial screams, and gunshots followed. In a few seconds, however, all was silent. The creatures went back to their feeding as though nothing had happened.
There were a lot of questions running through his head, but for some reason John found himself asking the group what the Farm was.
"Fantasy Farm Day Care Center," Dom said. "I heard his parents put him there for a whole week when he was a four. A hard place. Lots of clowns." Dom offered no further explanation, and John decided it was better not to ask for one.
Bebe screamed. John could understand, having just seen someone torn to shreds by vicious monsters, but she seemed to be repeating something over and over again that John couldn't understand.
"What?" he said. "Slow down, I don't know what you're saying."
"I have to get upstairs!" she clarified.
John wasn't sure what to think of that until she sprinted off toward the nearest building. A small house was only a few feet away, and Bebe leapt up the stairs of the front porch, breaking both of her heels at the top. She tumbled backward, breasts bouncing in all manner of creative ways, and skidded to a halt. Apparently unperturbed by the delay, she leapt up, screamed "I have to get upstairs!" again, and ran at the front door of the house. She opened it and froze. Stoners, seven of them, waited inside, looking as stunned as John was.
John thought for sure she'd turn back then, realizing that sequestering herself upstairs was so far beyond stupid that it bordered on insanity. He was wrong. She actually shoved one of the Stoners aside as she ran up the long stairway to the left and disappeared from sight. The Stoners slowly turned and followed her up the stairs, moaning softly. One took the opportunity to come outside with what John thought was a canteen and began filling it from the bloody gutters. When it was done, it screwed on the cap and sauntered back inside, likely to join the feeding fest.
John turned around to look at the four remaining members of the group. None of them looked particularly surprised or disturbed. Dr. Thompson, the self-proclaimed mad scientist, looked guilty.
"It never should have happened this way," Thompson said in a whisper.
John turned to him and sighed. "Let me guess," he said, holding up a hand. "The government was doing illegal secret experiments on human beings, and you were the head researcher. You created the Stoners, and Big Frank was your masterwork."
The doctor's face hardened and took on the look of someone who had just had their thunder stolen. He turned away, stomping off toward the castle like a petulant child. Father Reus gave John a shaming look and a shake of the head, turning to walk away as he muttered something about John's connection to demons.
Pyotr aimed his camera at John and took a picture. "Maybe I find ghosts in film!" he said gleefully.
\*\*\*
"You think we kill Herr Stein?" Pyotr said, still smiling. They had nearly reached the base of the castle, and the organ music was getting louder. Deadtown was far behind them, and Dr. Thompson and Father Reus were engrossed in some conversation ahead of them that he couldn't hear. Dom had fallen asleep standing up several hundred yards behind them. It had happened more than once, but he always caught up when he woke.
"Herr Stein?" John said. "You mean Big Frank?" The tourist hadn't stopped talking the entire time.
"Ja," Pyotr said. "Stein, German word for Stone. Herr Stein. We kill?"
John stopped in his tracks, and turned to Pyotr. "Wait," he said. "Stein. Frank Stein?"
"Ja wohl!" Pyotr clapped his hands once. "Das is stimmt! Frank und Stein! You speak German?"
"Oh. My. God." That was it. He was in Hell.
A few moments later, when a Stoner leapt from the bushes, tore Father Reus in half, and dragged his body away, John didn't even flinch. He just kept walking toward the castle.
\*\*\*
Stone lions and gargoyles stared at him accusingly as he stood in front of Stone's castle, one hand on a large iron doorknocker. The castle was intimidating to say the least, its giant towers looming over John like long, slender demons wearing pointy hats. A Bach fugue erupting from an organ was leaking out of the front door with such volume that John could barely hear his knocks as he pounded on the door with the iron ring. After three raps, however, the organ music suddenly stopped.
The heavy wooden door swung slowly open, the un-greased hinges groaning in protest. The creaks echoed off the broad, tall stone walls of the foyer of the castle, lit only by dim torchlight. Cobwebs dangled from almost every corner, and the smell of blood and mold was so overpowering that John's eyes began to water. In the center of the room at the base of a spiral staircase stood, presumably, Francis Stone, dressed in a foppish tuxedo, complete with tailcoats. His gaunt, unnaturally hairy face broke out into a warm smile that brightened his dark, glowing-green eyes.
"Welcome, my guests," he said in an overly dramatic baritone. "I've been---"
"Expecting us," John said, "yeah, I know. Look---"
"Hello, Father," Stone said, ignoring John for the moment. His face, already pale, became ashen at the realization that Dr. Thompson was in the room. His creepy smile melted.
"Son," the doctor said. "What you've been doing in this town is deplorable. I thought I taught you better than this."
"You didn't teach me anything!" Stone's voice reached a high tenor and quivered with anger. "You were always too busy at work! 'Sorry Francis, someone in inventory lost a brain again.' Or, 'Sorry, Francis, one of my other creations has a baseball game.'"
John heard something coming from the road behind him, but he couldn't make it out. He glanced back toward the city, saw some lights flickering in the distance.
"You know my work is important to me," the doctor said, clearly hurt by Stone's accusation. "And if I only paid attention to you, how would all of my other creations feel?"
The noise behind John grew louder. It sounded like rushing water. Dom snored quietly, leaning against the doorframe.
"I don't care about your other creations," Stone said. He actually stomped his foot. "How many of your other creations are half zombie, half vampire, and half werewolf?"
"That's not even possible!" John blurted. Stone and Dr. Thompson looked at him sharply, unpleased at having their exchange interrupted. "You can't be half of one thing, half of..." He trailed off as the noises behind him became too loud to think straight. Slowly, he turned around.
Several hundred men and women were running up the path to the castle. Many of them were holding torches, and the vast majority of them were holding aging farm equipment. It was an angry mob, come to storm the castle. Dramatic, but hardly surprising.
What was surprising was the figure at the head of the group. Father Reus. Holding a large, spiked hammer in his hands.
"You're dead!" John said, pointing at the priest as the crowd stopped at the front door of the castle.
Father Reus looked outraged, yet confused. "Just because I was taken by one of your Stoner friends doesn't mean I'm dead, foul spirit! You're in leagues with Stone, and we're here to take back Deadtown!"
"No." John waved a hand. "No. I won't have it. You can't be magically resurrected just because this mob needed a leader. I saw you ripped in half. That's not even a questionable, mysterious disappearance from which you could return at your moment of triumph. That's a definite, visceral, irrefutable death." John felt his face flush with anger.
"It doesn't matter, demon!" The priest pointed at John. "I've found my Faith again." He patted the large weapon in his arms. "Faith---my warhammer!" John could see it actually written on the haft in large lettering. FAITH.
"What the hell is wrong with this place?" John yelled, his hands dramatically raised above his head. Apparently, the theatrics were contagious.
The crowd's cheers drowned out his voice. Father Reus turned and yelled something to the crowd about ending this monster once and for all, and the crowd only cheered louder, waving their torches---didn't these people have any flashlights?---and pitchforks in the air. They were all looking at him with bloodlust in their eyes.
At last, Father Reus turned toward the entrance of the castle and pointed a long, crooked finger at John. The mob ran forward, parting around the priest like river water around a rock. As John felt the first pointy end of a pitchfork enter his chest, he thought that maybe he should have ran up the stairs to escape.
\*\*\*
John came bolt upright in his bed, sheets and pillows flying everywhere. His alarm clock was blinking, the 6:30 a.m. alarm wailing in the dim light of dawn. His body was covered in cold sweat, his clothes sticking to him like melted plastic wrap over a hot dish of food. Pulling up his shirt, he looked at his chest. No holes. No blood. It was a dream. No, it was more than a dream. It was...
He sighed. He knew what was coming. John closed his eyes and fell back on his pillow.
Wait for it...
"About time you came to." A breathy, hollow voice was speaking from somewhere in his room. John didn't open his eyes.
"Skip it. I'm dead, aren't I?"
"How did you know?"
"Just a hunch."
"A good one," Death said. "Unfortunately, you can only learn the lesson about passing out in your kitchen while cooking once."
"I figured," John said. "Look, if we can just get this over with, I'd like to be on my way to Heaven or Hell, Nirvana or New Jersey. Wherever it is that I belong."
Death actually laughed, a wheezing sound like dry leaves scraping across the street in a strong wind. "Everyone always thinks that's where they go. I find it amusing, really, the kind of slop you humans will believe."
"Oh?" John still refused to open his eyes. "Where am I going then?"
"We actually call it Deadtown. Silly name, I know. But it's unambiguous, wouldn't you say?"
John didn't hear Death say the last part. He was too busy screaming.
Squawk at the Moon
by Graeme Reynolds
"After two hundred yards, turn left," the vehicle's navigation system said.
"Ye can shut up, ya snooty bitch," he snarled at the machine. "Four hours. Four hours of driving around Romania listening to ya with no bloody idea where I am. Why in God's name did they have tae put the launch site all the way oot here?"
"Turn left, turn left" the machine replied.
Shane McTavish locked the steering wheel and gunned the engine of the sports car, sending a cloud of dust into the air. The car slid onto a dirt track, barely visible between the trees. "Morrison will lay an egg if I'm late," he muttered, and planted his foot onto the accelerator.
\*\*\*
Mihaela Svagalli smiled as she scattered corn for her babies. The chickens gathered around her feet, making gentle clucking sounds as they pecked at the grains in the dust.
Her favorite, a russet bird called Honey, hopped onto the fence beside her and let the old woman scratch the back of her neck. The chicken clucked with contentment and jumped down to join the others.
Mihaela walked back to her caravan to get more corn. The chickens were all she needed. They gave her companionship and eggs that she could sell in the village. If she spoiled them occasionally, so be it.
A low bass growl echoed through the trees. Mihaela paused, confused by the strange noise invading her tranquil home. Her eyes widened as she recognized the sound---a car.
Fear fluttered in her chest and her limbs refused to move. She grabbed the corn container and shook it. "Come on, girls. Come to Mummy."
Her flock looked up and ran across the clearing toward her.
The growl of the approaching car became a roar and it burst into view, sliding sideways around the corner.
In unison, the chickens looked at the source of the noise, just as the car plowed into them. Feathers and gristle flew into the air as the birds were ground under the wheels.
Honey flapped her wings, her neck down as she tried to reach Mihaela. She turned midflight and avoided a wheel as it rushed past. She clucked in triumph and turned back to Mihaela. Then the trailing wheel hit. Honey burst like a balloon, feathers and entrails raining down on the dirt road.
Mihaela fell to her knees and screamed. The crushing loss tightened around her heart like a vice. They're gone. All gone.
The car reversed back over the corpses so that it was alongside her, and the window slid down. A red haired man peered out. "Excuse me, love, but I dinae suppose you know where the ESA spaceport is?"
"Murder. Bastard son of a whore."
"I'll take that as a no," he said and spun the wheel away from the weeping woman, showering her in a spray of mud and internal organs.
"I curse you. Gallus Gallus Lycanthropus," she screamed at the car.
The man put his arm out of the driver's window and gave her the finger.
Alone in the silence, Mihaela sobbed.
\*\*\*
The crushing weight of acceleration vanished as the booster engines disengaged. Nauseous groans emanated over the communicator.
"Engaging autopilot. Engaging artificial gravity," Morrison said. "Congratulations, ladies and gentlemen, the first part of the mission has been a success. This is your Captain, John Morrison, and we are orbiting the Earth at an altitude of approximately one hundred and fifty miles, at a relative speed of eighteen thousand miles per hour. If you look out of the port windows you will see the moon rising over the Earth as we approach the first waypoint. After that, the ion drives kick in, and it's nonstop to Titan. On behalf of Project Perseus, I would like to thank you and wish you a pleasant journey. Before we can all settle down and enjoy our trip, let's have a status update. Medical?"
"Check."
"Navigation?"
"Check."
"Engineering?"
"Cluck."
"Say again, McTavish?"
"Cluck. Cluck. BUCKAWK."
"Is that supposed to be a joke, McTavish?"
"Buckawk."
"Listen to me, what happened on Mars was not my fault," Morrison yelled. "I was ordered to take off, so if that's gonna be a problem, tell me now."
"Boooork?"
"Okay, McTavish, you asked for it."
Morrison strode toward the engineering section, clenching his fists. The door to the geology lab slid open and a blond woman hurried after him, past a dark haired man that stepped out of the Captain's path and pretended to be invisible. She grabbed Morrison's arm.
"John, for God's sake, we are on this ship together for the next year. You can't beat McTavish to a pulp ten minutes into the mission."
"If you think I am standing for that, Carol, then you are out of your mind."
"Why don't you let Karl and I go down there and talk to him?" she said, motioning to the dark haired man.
Morrison's shoulders sagged. "You're right, Carol. Thank you. But you tell him I won't stand for that kind of talk. This is his only warning."
"Don't worry, John, we'll sort it out."
\*\*\*
Karl and Carol stepped through the blast doors into the engineering section. The corridor stretched out ahead of them into the darkness. Steam hissed from the cooling pipes that lined the walls and ceiling.
"Shane?" Karl called. "We gotta talk to you, man. Where are you?"
Silence.
"Come on, McTavish, stop screwing around," Carol said.
The only reply was the rumbling of the maneuvering thrusters and the sporadic hiss of high pressure steam being released by valves on the coolant pipes.
"What an asshole," she said. "McTavish. Come on, stop being a jerk."
A loud metallic clang rang out from behind, making them both jump.
Karl took Carol by the arm. "Come on, let's head back. Morrison can deal with him."
"Yeah, good idea," she said and followed Karl back through the maze of pipe work.
Karl pushed aside a length of chain that obstructed the corridor when a shadow loomed over him. "What the fu---"
A razor sharp beak flashed from the darkness toward his face. Fragments of bone burst from the back of Karl's skull, showering Carol with flecks of brain and blood.
Carol's legs turned to jelly and she fell to her knees. "Oh my God, you have to help me," she screamed into her communicator. "It killed Karl. It---"
"Carol? CAROL," Morrison's voice boomed over the communicator. "Guthrie, Anderson, meet me outside of Engineering. Doc, prepare to receive casualties."
\*\*\*
Mark Guthrie, the mission biochemist, and James Anderson, its communications expert, were already outside the heavy blast door when Morrison arrived.
"What the hell's going on, Morrison?" Guthrie said.
"It's McTavish. He's lost it and attacked Carol and Karl," he said. "So here's the plan. We go in, beat the shit out of him, and retrieve the casualties. Any questions?"
"Yeah, why did you pick me? Dimitri's military and outweighs me by three stone," Guthrie said.
"Because Dimitri's our navigator, and we need one of those more than we need a chemist. You're expendable. Anything else? Good."
The door to engineering slid open and the men stepped through. The corridor was illuminated with emergency lighting, stretching off into the darkness. Morrison made a series of complex movements with his hands. The other two men looked bemused and shrugged. Morrison rolled his eyes.
"Guthrie, you go left. Anderson, go right. I'll take point."
"Screw that," Anderson said. "If McTavish has gone mental, then splitting up is stupid. He'll just pick us off one at a time."
"Yeah, I'm not in the mood to be expendable so you can play the hero. We're sticking together," Guthrie said. "You can go first."
Morrison sneered. "Stay behind me and try not to get in the way."
The men took the central corridor and headed into the engineering section. A rhythmic tapping could be heard over the hum of the engines.
"What the hell is that?" Guthrie whispered.
"Not a clue. Morse code?" Anderson said.
Morrison cocked his head and listened to the sound for a moment, then shook his head. "No. Stay alert."
The men headed toward the source of the noise. As they reached an intersection, Morrison put up his hand and made more complex signals. When the other two men looked confused, he made a show of pointing around the corner. Guthrie and Anderson nodded their understanding. Morrison stood with his back flat against the wall and peeked around the corner.
Carol lay unconscious against a bulkhead. She was bleeding from a puncture wound on her arm, but otherwise seemed unharmed. Karl, however, was a different story. He lay prone in the middle of the corridor. Most of his head was gone and standing over him was a gigantic orange chicken, pecking at the ruined remains of his skull and gulping down the fragments of bone and gristle.
Morrison popped his head back around the corner and collapsed against the wall, his face white.
Guthrie put his hands up and mouthed the word, "What?"
Morrison shook his head. Guthrie made a face and pushed his Captain out of the way to take a look for himself. He peered around the corner and immediately pulled his head back, falling back against the wall next to Morrison. Anderson looked at them.
"It's a chicken. A giant fucking chicken is eating Karl's head." Guthrie clamped his hands over his mouth as he realized what he'd done.
The tapping stopped.
The men looked at each other and held their breath.
"Bork?"
"Oh shit," Morrison said. "Get Carol out of here. I'll keep it occupied." He pushed himself away from the wall and stood in the center of the corridor.
The chicken puffed up its feathers, making it appear even larger than before, and regarded the man with its malicious yellow eyes.
"Come on then, you ugly bastard," Morrison yelled as Anderson inched around the corner toward the unconscious woman.
The chicken's head darted to the side as Anderson reached Carol and it shrieked in outrage, lowered its head and charged toward the terrified man. As the enormous fowl reached him, Anderson put his arms up to protect his face, realizing too late that his face was not the creature's target. As the monster reached him, it reared up and slashed at his midsection with razor sharp spurs, slicing through cloth and flesh with ease. James stood, open mouthed, as his entrails spilled from the gaping wound in his stomach, unraveling onto the floor in a wet, red heap.
"I...I...I---" he gasped as the chicken's beak darted forward and skewered him through the throat.
Morrison launched himself toward the huge bird as Anderson's body fell to the floor, but was swatted aside by one of its wings and slammed hard against a bulkhead. The chicken stalked toward him with murder in its beady eyes.
"Oi. Big Bird," Guthrie yelled.
The creature turned to face the new threat, lowering its head to attack. Guthrie slammed his fist into the emergency pressure release valve on the engine cooling pipe.
"You need to let off some steam," he said as a jet of superheated vapor engulfed the monster.
The creature screamed in agony and, squawking in pain and fury, flapped away into the depths of the ship.
Morrison picked himself up from the floor and looked at the bodies of the two men. He shook his head and turned to Guthrie.
"Let's get Carol and get the hell out of here before it comes back."
\*\*\*
The crew gathered in the mess hall and argued. Captain Morrison and Mark Guthrie sat white-faced and silent until everyone had arrived.
"So what the hell is going on, Morrison?" Sian O'Donnell said, the mission's systems specialist.
"We have a situation in engineering. Karl Wilson and James Anderson are dead, Carol Evans is injured, and Shane McTavish is missing."
"How? What happened?"
"We have a hostile life-form on board the ship. We've sealed it in engineering until we decide what to do."
"A hostile life-form? Like an alien?" Sian said.
Morrison looked at Guthrie, who shook his head, and looked back down at the table.
"It's a chicken. A seven foot tall chicken."
"You what? Are you having a laugh?"
"I wish I was, but as absurd as it sounds, that is the situation."
"How the hell would someone get a giant chicken onboard? For that matter, WHY would someone put a giant chicken onboard? Are you sure this isn't some kind of sick joke?"
"I am deathly serious. As to how and why it's here, we can figure that out later. What's important now is what we do about it."
"Well, with three vital crew members dead, I say the mission's a bust. Let's abort and get the hell off this ship before we hit the waypoint and the ship goes automatic," Bill Jones said, a cheerful Welshman that worked both as the mission's physicist and cook.
"That is not an option. This mission has cost billions of Euros, and if we miss this chance, it could be decades before anyone tries again," Morrison said. Guthrie rolled his eyes and put his head on the table.
"I think I know what it is," Dimitri Kosovan said. "We have a legend in my country. Even a man who is pure of heart and says his prayers by night may become a hen when the henbane blooms and the moon is full and bright."
"Isn't that supposed to be a wolf?"
Dimitri shrugged. "Blame Hollywood. Some studio exec must have decided that wolves were scarier than chickens. In Romania, we take the curse of the werechicken very seriously indeed."
"I can't believe the conversation that we are having. Have you lot lost your bloody minds? Werechickens? You must be mad."
Dimitri's face fell. "Captain, according to legend, he who survives a lycanthrope attack is doomed to become one. We need to get to Carol and the Doctor."
\*\*\*
Morrison emerged from the medical bay and shook his head.
"So? Where's the Doc and Carol?" Sian said.
"No sign of them. The med bay is trashed. All I could find was this," he said, holding up a single golden feather.
"Oh this is ridiculous, Morrison. Half the crew is either dead or running around the ship clucking." Sian said. "We have to abort."
"Yeah, let's get the hell out of here before someone else gets it," Guthrie said. There was a murmur of approval from the others.
"We can't. We hit the waypoint three minutes ago. The ship is on autopilot now. We're going nowhere, and neither are our feathered friends."
"So basically, we are completely clucked," Guthrie said bitterly.
"Bullshit," Morrison said. "I say we find these feathered bastards and open up a can of good ol' American whoop ass on them. Who's with me?"
"Well, you're the only American on board," Bill said. "We're scientists, not soldiers. How do you expect us to fight a seven foot chicken with no weapons and no training?"
Morrison snarled. "Bunch of chicken shit civvies. Okay, you go hide in the command module. I'll deal with this."
"What are you going to do?" Guthrie said.
Morrison hefted a plasma bone saw and grinned. "I'm gonna have me a barbeque."
\*\*\*
Morrison moved along the corridor in silence.
"Morrison? You there?" Guthrie's voice. "McChicken has escaped. Watch your back."
"Roger that. I'm just coming up on the airlock now."
Morrison punched a code into a keypad and the airlock door hissed open. The airlock was a large room with another open internal door on the far side, and a large segmented door that opened into space.
"Here, chickies," he yelled. "Come see what Uncle John has for ya."
He checked both corridors and turned the power setting on the saw to maximum.
"Come on, you ugly sons of bitches."
A high pitched shriek came from deep within the ship and Morrison could hear the scampering of scaly feet. He tightened his grip on the saw.
A golden head craned around a side corridor and glared at him.
"Boooooork?"
"Guthrie, this is Morrison. I've got Carol here."
"How can you tell?"
"It's blond and it's got chicken breasts."
"Oh."
The golden hen cocked its head, regarding the man, and took two tentative steps forward.
He caught a flurry of movement in his peripheral vision and spun around, swinging the plasma saw. The blade scythed through feathers and flesh. A gray chicken head, with a pair of glasses perched on its beak, bounced off the wall. The bird's body took a couple of steps backward.
"What's happening?" Guthrie said.
"It's Doc...he's turned as well. But it's okay, I took him out."
The headless chicken ran around in a circle and then launched itself toward Morrison, spurs flashing, carving a deep gouge across his midsection. Morrison collapsed, blood seeping between his fingers as he tried to hold his insides in place. The headless chicken reared up to strike again.
"Cock a doodle doo, mother clucker," Morrison spat through bubbles of blood, and hit the airlock release.
\*\*\*
Mark Guthrie watched as Morrison, and what had once been the ship's doctor, were sucked into space, exploding in a cloud of blood, skin, and feathers as they hit hard vacuum. He turned from the screen to the rest of the crew.
"Anyone else got any bright ideas?"
"We need to start thinking like scientists. The macho approach will just have us decorating the side of the ship like Captain Morrison," Bill said. "Are we happy to go with the assumption that these are actually werechickens?"
The crew nodded.
"We know they are strong, cunning, and their change is influenced by the moon. We also know that anyone pecked by these creatures will transform into one."
"Well, I know that I can't find them on any of the cameras," Guthrie said.
Bill frowned. "It looks like we are running out of time. Our options are to contain them, kill them, or neutralize them by removing the moon's influence."
"What do you mean?" Sian said.
"If we can get far enough away from the moon, those afflicted should simply change back."
"That sounds great but we can't change course, and it will take days for the ion drive to get us clear of the moon," Sian said.
"We could give it a push," Dimitri said. "Fire the chemical rockets. We'd burn a lot of fuel, but we'd put some distance between us and the moon."
"There is one problem with that plan," Bill said. "We'd have to go down to engineering to fire the rockets."
Guthrie groaned. "Today just gets better and better."
\*\*\*
The crew crept through the corridors, toward the engineering deck. Dimitri led the way, holding a large torque wrench like a baseball bat. Sian and Bill followed, carrying meat cleavers that they had grabbed from the mess hall. Guthrie brought up the rear, wielding a cutting torch from the lab.
"It's too quiet," Guthrie whispered. "Where the hell are they?"
"I wouldn't complain if I were you. I'm happy as long as they are not where I am," Dimitri said.
They reached the blast doors leading to engineering and Dimitri punched in the code while the others watched the corridor. The door shuddered and opened about half way, then jammed. The crew squeezed through the gap into the dark corridor beyond.
"Keep it quiet. No talking unless it's vital," Dimitri whispered.
They walked on in silence, pausing at each intersection to check for movement. When they reached the section where Karl and Carol had been attacked, Sian buried her head against Guthrie's shoulder as they stepped over the ruined corpses.
A call echoed through the maze of pipes.
"Cock a Doodle Doo."
After a moment, the reply came.
"BUCK BUCK BUCK BUCKAWK."
The crew exchanged nervous glances and continued onward, their grips tightening on their makeshift weapons.
"This is it," Dimitri said. "We can fire the boosters from here. It will just take a moment. Be alert."
The controls were mounted against one of the engines. Dimitri tapped a series of commands into the console while the others watched.
The sounds of scurrying feet resonated through the corridors. Sian whimpered. The low hum of the engines went up several decibels and the floor vibrated as the booster engines fired.
"Got it," Dimitri said. "Let's get out of here."
"I think it's a bit late for that," Bill said.
The clacking of talons on metal sounded out above the noise of the boosters and an orange head craned around the corner. From the corridor behind them a yellow head appeared. The werechickens puffed up their feathers and flapped their wings, shrieking in fury.
"Oh shit," Guthrie said and raised the cutting torch in front of him like a shield.
The orange chicken stepped into full view, blocking the corridor. Its right eye was white and oozing yellow liquid from where the superheated steam had hit it. The feathers on its right side were stained black from where blisters had burst. It glared at Guthrie with its one good eye and lowered its head to attack.
Dimitri ran toward the yellow chicken. He launched himself into the air and kicked it in the chest, knocking it backward.
The monster clucked in pain and outrage.
Dimitri stepped forward and swung the torque wrench.
The creature ducked beneath his swing and darted forward, its beak grabbing the terrified man around the throat and lifting him off his feet.
Dimitri swung at the monster, his blows bouncing off its plumage.
The werechicken slammed its beak into the floor. There was a wet snap and it dropped Dimitri's corpse. It turned to Sian.
Bill stepped in front of her, cleaver raised. "Get away from her, you bitch."
Mark Guthrie faced McChicken.
It stalked toward him, its single eye blazing with recognition and hatred. Its beak flashed out at his face, and Mark ducked to the left. The beak punctured his shoulder, bursting out from his back. It raised its head, lifting Guthrie off his feet.
Guthrie screamed and brought his foot up between its legs. The creature shrieked and Guthrie fell to the floor.
"Right in the chicken nuggets," Guthrie said. He raised the cutting torch and plunged the white hot flame deep into feathers.
The monster screamed as its plumage ignited. The creature attempted to run, but only made it a few yards. It fell to the floor, its body an inferno.
"Why isn't it working?" Sian screamed as the Carol Chicken approached.
"It's going to take a while to get clear of the moon's influence," Bill said, waving his meat cleaver at the monster.
"How fucking long?"
The chicken paused and looked confused. Feathers retreated into flesh and, in moments, a naked woman stood before them. Carol fell to the floor and spat a feather out of her mouth.
"I'd say, about that long," Bill said. "Carol? Are you okay?"
"Why am I naked, and why does my arse hurt? I didn't get drunk again, did I?"
Sian and Bill helped Carol and Guthrie out of engineering to what remained of the med bay. Carol was wrapped in a tarpaulin, shivering in silence. Guthrie staggered along, a dressing pressed into his wounded shoulder.
"So," he said, "does anyone know how to fly the ship?"
\*\*\*
It was warm, dark, and quiet in the engineering deck. A noise rang out, almost imperceptible over the hum of the ion drive at first, but gaining power and volume with each second.
Tap Tap, Tap Tap.
Under a heat exchanger, in a nest made from insulation, lay a single egg.
Tap Tap, Tap Tap.
A crack appeared on its surface.
White Light and Blue Glow
by Lesley Conner
"I just fed you to Fran Friel."
Gwen sat with the phone balanced between her shoulder and ear. One arm was stretched out in front of her, moving her mouse to press the feed button on the Zombies application on Facebook.
"Oops! There you go, down the gullet." A giggle forced its way through her nose.
"What are you talking about?" Ali asked, her voice tinny and tired.
"You know, on Facebook. I send you invites like every day to join my undead army."
"Yeah, I know," Ali said with a hint of irritation. "And I've told you I don't play those stupid games."
"Well, whatever. It's fun."
"Sounds like."
Silence stretched between the two, punctuated by the screams of kids playing in the background at Ali's house. They'd known each other since elementary school, stayed close through high school, and even roomed together for a year while at WVU, but when Ali had gotten married and started a family their friendship dwindled to the occasional phone call and Facebook clip.
"Who's Fran Friel, anyway?"
Gwen smiled, knowing Ali would ask, and happy the conversation was changing direction.
"She's a writer," she said. "A really great writer."
"Oh," Ali said, interest rising in her voice.
"She has a short story collection out. Really gruesome stuff."
"Oh." Disappointment lowered it.
"Don't 'Oh' me. You should give it a shot. She's really good."
"Yeah, maybe."
Gwen knew her friend would never take the time. She screwed her lips into a sour expression, frustrated with the knowledge that a lot of people wouldn't give some writers a try just because they wrote horror. With a kick, she spun her computer chair to face the main room of her efficiency apartment. Romero, her fat, gray cat, slid along the far wall and scrunched himself under the couch. Gwen leaned back and closed her eyes, settling in for what she knew would be a losing battle of the wills. Just as she opened her mouth to start her rant, a knock shook the room.
Gwen's shoulders slumped as her eyes opened.
"Shit."
"What?"
The knock came again, rattling the front door in its frame.
"Someone's knocking at my door. I've got to go."
"Okay. I'll talk to you later." Ali's voice sounded light with relief. "And send me the title of that Anne Rile book. Maybe I'll pick it up."
"Yeah. Sure. Bye." Gwen rose to her feet. As she crossed the room, she glanced down at her worn tank top and holey sweatpants. A peek into the mirror above her couch/bed revealed short, brown hair sticking out in all directions from her rushed ponytail and dark circles under her eyes. She stuck her tongue out at her reflection and shrugged. She turned the knob and swung the door open.
Three people stood in the hallway outside Gwen's door. Well, she guessed they were people, but rotting flesh and tattered clothes made it a little hard to determine. A smile slid up her face. One of the zombies shifted, uncomfortable under her gaze.
"Braan..." The voice was wet and strangled with phlegm. He coughed to clear his throat. "Brains?"
Gwen was certain it was supposed to be a demand, but the word came out as a question. She looked at the slight, almost painfully thin form, trying to figure out which one of her friends was under the makeup. He wore a red and black uniform that would have fit in on the set of Star Trek, if it had been clean and didn't have multiple rips and tears in it. His lips were tight, and crusted with blood and pus. He kept shifting his gaze, never allowing it to stay in one place for too long and coming nowhere near Gwen's face. After a moment, she decided he didn't look like anyone she knew. Her eyes flitted to the two figures standing behind the speaker.
One was a short girl with a taut stomach, complete with jagged gashes revealing pulsing intestines. Her hair was dirty blond, pulled into two, pert pigtails sticking out from the sides of her head. She wore a tattered cheerleader uniform with a smiling devil face straining across her large breasts and a raggedy pompom hanging from one hand. Her feet were bare and dirty.
The other figure was a large black man. He was dressed like a butcher, though Gwen wasn't sure how much longer his white apron would survive with his bloated gut pushing against it. One side of his face was mangled to the point of resembling rotten hamburger, and his left foot was twisted until it was nearly facing backwards.
"Wow!" Gwen said, unable to keep the amazement and glee out of her voice. "You guys look great. The makeup is fantastic. Who put you up to this?"
Looks of confusion crossed all of the zombies' faces. The cheerleader and the butcher stared at the Trekkie as if he'd gotten them lost in the desert. His fingers drummed on his pant leg in his nervousness. He cleared his throat again, preparing to speak.
"Um," he started, but Gwen cut him off. She leaned into the hallway, looking intently in both directions.
"Was it Ali?" she asked. "I was just on the phone with her and she didn't give anything away." As she straightened up, a huge smile on her face, Gwen caught a whiff of the rot and decay rolling off of the corpses. Gorge rose in her throat, filling her mouth with the bitter taste of bile and causing her smile to flinch before she could smooth it back into place. "You know, I think maybe you have the wrong apartment. I really wasn't expecting anyone." She started to shut the door, but the Trekkie slid his long, narrow foot into the space, bracing it open.
"No. No, we have the right place," he said, glancing back at his companions. He jerked when he saw the butcher's menacing glare and the cheerleader's indifferent pout. "We have the right place," he said a second time, as if trying to convince himself. Opening the door wider, he stepped into the apartment with the other two on his heels. Gwen stumbled back, unsure of whether this was a prank or if she'd totally lost her mind.
The Trekkie straightened himself to his full height. His spine popped and cracked with the motion, sounding to Gwen as if it was screaming with displeasure. He used his hands to smooth the front of his ruined uniform. His lips moved, eyes shut, as he practiced what he would say next.
"Um...I'm Fran Friel." His eyebrows knitted together momentarily. Shrugging, he shook his head with a nearly imperceptible nod as if that explained everything and he was coaxing Gwen to understand.
She didn't. Confusion muddled her thoughts making it hard for anything to make sense. She'd met Fran Friel at a sci-fi convention the previous year and the zombie standing before her looked nothing like the cheery woman she'd met then.
The Trekkie seemed frustrated. He stomped one of his feet and his hands wrung together before he flung them to his sides.
"You know. I'm not 'Fran Friel', but..." Gwen almost laughed as he made the quote signs in the air around the writer's name, but held it in. The zombie was beginning to look desperate. "You know...on Facebook."
Realization crept over Gwen.
"You mean, like, the Zombies game?"
The Trekkie sighed, his face sagging with relief.
"Yes, yes. Of course."
Gwen took another step back, her eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"And?" She couldn't think of anything else to say
The Trekkie's jaw flopped open. His tongue was lax and an ugly shade of gray. His teeth hung loosely from his gums. Gwen watched his throat spasm as he tried to form words, but never knew what he was going to say because the butcher pushed his way forward.
"And we're hungry." His voice came out as a deep baritone, slightly garbled by his ruined cheek.
Gwen noticed a meat cleaver clutched in one of his hands. The blade was tinted a brownish-red that she was beginning to doubt was paint or makeup. The butcher's chest heaved with anger, and he looked as if he would charge her at any moment and rip her arms from her body.
The Trekkie put a calming hand on the butcher's shoulder, more composed than he'd been a moment before. Just as he was beginning to speak, the cheerleader mumbled something behind him.
"Shut up, Fara. I'm handling this." He flung the words at her, something thick and gooey flying from between his lips. Gwen tried to tell herself it was spit, because she didn't think she could handle it if it were something else.
"Yeah. You're handling it alright." The cheerleader, Fara, nodded and rolled her eyes. Her chin jutted forward in fake sincerity. With her arms folded tightly over her chest, Gwen expected her to start tapping her foot at any moment to complete the caricature of a spoiled, prissy teenager. "I can see you're handling it. And you'd better do it soon, cuz I'm getting real hungry standing around here."
The Trekkie turned back to Gwen, his palms up. A smile pulled at his lips in a way Gwen felt sure he thought was open and friendly, but was only grisly and gruesome.
"Look, Gwen," he said. Gwen was startled by the use of her first name. "You feed me all the time. Like every day." It was true she played every day, and she fed her friends whenever she could. "Fara, Clarence, and I were talking, and their friends aren't nearly as good. They don't get fed more than once or twice a month. You know, whenever the losers decide to log on. We thought since you were so generous maybe..."
As his words faded, Gwen's eyebrows drew together. Her mind was working furiously to try and piece together what Facebook and her obsession with it had to do with the people in her living room. Nothing was coming together. It just didn't make sense.
"This is about Facebook?"
The butcher, who Gwen assumed was Clarence, growled. He smashed his forearm onto the counter that separated the living room from the kitchen, leaving behind a greasy, yellow smear. Gwen felt her stomach flip as she swallowed back the bile rising in her throat.
The Trekkie's chin smacked his chest with a crack. He sighed, methodically massaging his temples as he tried to think of another way to explain himself.
"Alright, let me try again."
Gwen backed away, shaking her head. There was no way any of this was happening.
"I'm dreaming. This isn't real." Reaching back, she felt the familiar texture of her worn couch. Her rumpled blankets lay in a heap at one end, her pillow at the other. Allowing her legs to buckle, she flopped down and pulled her knees to her chest.
Her eyes were wide as she watched the zombies, who in turn watched her. They seemed to be stunned by her disbelief.
Finally, Clarence broke out of the trance. He threw his head back and screamed his frustration.
"You said she would feed us," he said, his arms swinging in wide circles. "You said it. What are we going to do now?"
Gwen listened to the three zombies argue around her as she squeezed her eyes shut. She desperately tried to make them fade into the dreamscape she'd created them in, but couldn't seem to manage it. The only time she moved was when the familiar weight of her cat, Romero, joined her on the couch. She wrapped an arm around him, scooting him into her lap.
"I don't know. I don't know what to do. I'm only a level two," the Trekkie said.
Clarence's heavy boots sounded loud and uneven as he paced the room. Gwen opened her eyes, unable to stand being blind in her fear. Her mouth hung open, drawing in large gasps of air without having to smell the damp, rotting scent filling the small apartment.
While Clarence paced the floor, banging on the walls and cursing everyone and everything, the Trekkie sat in the computer chair. His head hung toward his knees with his pencil-like arms wrapped around his ears. Fara had hopped onto the kitchen island, her legs crossed at the knees, and seemed to be taking in the scene with bored indifference. She flipped one of her decaying wrists before her face, checking her nails and picking at her peeling cuticles.
"We could just eat her," she said, her eyes never leaving her ruined manicure.
Clarence's head popped up as he turned near the wall. A smile spread across his face. Gwen grimaced as she watched. His ruined cheek bunched under the pressure and it looked to her like a hamburger patty getting ready to sizzle and squirt on a screaming hot grill.
"Yes," he screamed, pounding his fist into the wall for emphasis. "Why didn't I think of that?"
A framed poster came crashing to the floor, shattering and sending splinters of glass skittering across the hardwood.
"Great, Clarence." Fara hopped off of the island and stood in the broken glass. "As if my feet aren't torn to hell already. You just had to break something, didn't you?"
Clarence took a step toward Gwen, not seeming the least bit upset about the ruined poster or Fara's bare feet. The cheerleader also started moving toward the woman, not seeming to mind the glass even though she'd been complaining only a moment before.
Gwen felt frozen, watching Clarence and Fara coming for her. Saliva dripped from the corner of Clarence's large mouth. His hands were slightly raised. Fara looked less menacing, a soft smile playing at the edges of her lips, but Gwen felt certain that her sharp fingernails could rip into tender flesh just as easily as Clarence's yellowing teeth. Romero stiffened in her arms, a growl low in his throat. With a moan, the Trekkie jumped up from the computer chair, lunging forward with his arms outstretched, rushing to tear and rip alongside the others, just as Fara grabbed Romero.
The cat dug into Gwen's arm, desperate to hang on and leaving deep furrows in her skin as he was torn from her grasp. She screamed in pain as her pet hissed in fury. He turned in the cheerleader's grasp, latching his sharp claws into her face. Gwen watched helplessly as Fara yanked Romero away and flung him behind her. He smashed into the lip of the kitchen island. A loud snap as something broke competed with his yowl of pain. Then, he lay on the floor, unmoving.
Fara's face was wrecked. One eyeball hung from its socket, leaking and looking deflated as it smeared its juices on the side of her face. A long fissure had been opened between her upper lip and her cheek, molars peeking through with each huff of anger. Her cheek and forehead were a maze of scratches. The skin puckered angrily, the edges curling and pink, but they didn't bleed. No matter what the damage to her face or feet, it didn't deter her as she reached toward Gwen once again, intent on a snack.
Holding her bleeding arm close to her side, Gwen scurried over the arm of the couch and jumped to the floor. Shards of glass bit into her feet, making her jerk in pain, but she didn't slow as she attempted to get away. Clarence and Fara moved to block her in, leaving her nowhere to run.
"Sorry, sweetie," Clarence said, his voice sounding higher in his excitement, "but I was promised a meal and I'm not leaving without one."
He knocked her to the floor with one swipe of a massive forearm. Her head smacked into the wall, leaving her vision peppered with spots. Gwen could feel the zombie's cold, meaty fingers wrap around her throat. His face was only inches from hers, covering her in his fog of rot. She was almost glad she couldn't breathe because it saved her from the stench. Her hands convulsed and searched around her, looking for anything she could use to defend herself.
As her vision clouded even more, getting darker and darker, she could see Fara behind Clarence jumping in excitement, spirit fingers fluttering above her head. Gwen's fingers closed around something smooth and sharp. She lifted it, still keeping more of an eye on the celebrating cheerleader than on the monster killing her. Turning her attention back to Clarence, it barely registered to her when the Trekkie grabbed Fara by one shoulder and yanked her back. An arm came off in their struggle, thumping to the ground. Fara screamed in rage.
Gwen shifted, focusing solely on Clarence. His mouth was pulled into a gruesome smile with his cheeks bunched so tightly, liquid seeped from the mangled side. Bile pushed its way into Gwen's throat, but she couldn't gag around the zombie's tightening hand. Her arms and legs were beginning to feel heavy from the lack of oxygen. She knew if she was going to save herself it would have to be now or she wouldn't have the strength. Lifting her arm, she shoved a large shard of glass through Clarence's left eye. She felt the orb pop under the pressure, sliding the glass past where the eye had been and into the man's brain. Suddenly his hand was gone. She dragged a breath into her lungs, relishing the fire searing her throat.
Clarence stumbled back, falling on his ass and looking stunned. He sat there for a moment, shaking his head and seeming not to know how to react. Then his laugh filled the apartment. He wrenched the glass from his eye, letting it clatter to the ground as he got to his knees and stood. His whole body shook with laughter.
Gwen gathered her shaky legs under herself and stood up. She stayed by the wall, pressing her palms against it to keep herself stable.
What? He should be dead. I've seen all the movies. You have to destroy the brain to kill a zombie.
As if he could read her mind, Clarence said, "You stupid girl. I'm not like those zombies." He gestured to the posters hanging on the walls. "I was born in cyberspace. I'm indestructible."
Gwen didn't understand how something could come from the computer but be so tangible, so solid. Clarence was real: cold and fleshy, but he was saying he wasn't. Gwen didn't understand.
A shuffling in the center of the room drew Gwen's attention away from the butcher and her swirling thoughts. The Trekkie had Fara in a headlock and was trying to drag her across the room, toward the computer desk. The cheerleader was cursing and screaming as her feet dug into the floor and she gouged at him with her hands. With a grunt, the Trekkie got the advantage and threw her into the computer chair. Her head rocked back, missing the computer screen by centimeters. Fara smiled and then sprang from the chair. The Trekkie blocked her attack, sending her flying back into the computer desk. As her head smacked the monitor, cracking the glass, her face fell with disappointment, before it disappeared into the computer. Gwen's eyes opened wide in surprise as Fara was slurped into the monitor as if she were a slushy from the Kwik-E-Mart.
Ducking under Clarence's outstretched arms, Gwen bumped into the Trekkie in the center of the room. He looked at her, his face long and morose.
"What was that?" she said, her voice barely below a scream. He simply shrugged and turned toward Clarence, who was looking around the room, a stunned look on his face.
"Fara?"
"She had to leave. You know, important things to do on the internet."
A grumbling roar erupted from the butcher as he put his head down and launched himself forward. Gwen easily sidestepped him, watching as the large zombie smashed into the Trekkie. The slighter zombie tumbled to the floor. Not stopping to see what kind of destruction he'd inflicted, Clarence turned toward Gwen and came at her again, a bull on a rampage.
Seeing his head was still down, shoulders hunched, Gwen shook her head. Stepping easily out of his path once again, she stuck her foot out. Clarence barreled ahead, staying on his original course, and went flying when he tripped over her foot. His arms pinwheeled as he struggled to regain his balance. Unable to, he smashed into the computer desk and slipped into the monitor, just as Fara had.
Blinking at the empty space where Clarence had been a moment before, Gwen turned back to the Trekkie. He lay on his back, unaware or uncaring of the debris and glass poking him, and just stared at the ceiling. When Gwen took a step toward him, he turned his head to look at her and gave her a half smile.
"Well, that was exciting," he said.
"I guess you could say that."
"Or not."
"No, not really."
The two looked at each other a moment, the silence stretching between them. Gwen cleared her throat.
"You're not going to try and eat me, are you?"
"No." The Trekkie shook his head as he said it, the glass crunching beneath him.
Leaning down, Gwen grabbed one of his hands and lifted him to his feet. Once standing, he brushed off his uniform, pausing for a moment to inspect a fresh gouge in the material and the flesh beneath.
"Oh well. Guess it can't be helped now," he said to himself. He smoothed the material back into place and looked at Gwen. His lips pressed together tightly. His brow furrowed.
"Um, sorry about all this." He spread his hands out, indicating the ruined room.
Gwen looked around. There were dents and holes in the walls where Clarence had pounded his fist. Romero was lying very still, mewing quietly from time to time. Slimy tracks marked the place where Fara had sat on the counter. Books and DVDs were strewn across the floor, mixing with the glass.
"Yeah," she said.
The Trekkie shrugged, putting his head down and looking defeated. He headed toward the computer desk, one hand outstretched.
"Wait."
The Trekkie turned, his hand only inches from the screen.
"Why didn't you try to kill me?"
"We're friends, remember?" He lifted an eyebrow and a smile spread across his face. "And I'm full." His hand flattened itself on the computer monitor and he was gone in a blur of white light and blue glow.
Safety Boy
by Eva Glynn Stephens
I think I must have been about ten years old when I first realized I wasn't quite like everyone else in Pleasant Valley. Of course, according to the clowns at school who made a game of pushing me into the lockers and donkey punching me in the back of the head, I should have known that all along.
The first time it happened---and I'll explain what it is in just a moment, if you can bear with me that long---was the night of my birthday. As a matter of fact, I know it was my tenth birthday because that was the year my aunt sent me a plaid earflap cap and a magnifying glass through the mail. I could really dig on Sherlock Holmes at the time. My parents were great watchers of PBS back then and I became inexorably drawn to the brilliant detective and his faithful sidekick, Watson.
My own Watson just happened to be a red-haired, freckle-faced kid named Thomas Horr, whose last name, as you might imagine, caused him a great deal of problems. He had large buck teeth and lived down the road from me. To add to the suffering of a tremendous, rabbit-like overbite and being cursed with a wretched last name, Thomas also had terrible eyesight and fought chronic hay fever, even in the dead of winter. He always came armed with pockets full of soggy, wadded-up tissues.
So, anyhow, there I was at the tender age of ten, standing in front of McCoy Funeral Home, a rambling baby-blue Victorian house with gingerbread trim and white wraparound porch on Aster Lane, where my family occupied the third floor. I peered at some brown autumn leaves through my brand new magnifying glass---just a scrawny kid with scabbed-over knobs for knees, totally unaware that I would soon encounter my first vampire.
\*\*\*
My parents had recently given me a bright blue, ten-speed bicycle, but learning to use the hand brakes had proven more of a challenge than I'd bargained for. I'd been flipped over the handlebars so many times that my mother, terrified that I'd knock my brains loose, bought me a hard helmet with an elasticized chin strap and insisted that I wear it, even while looking at the bike. The helmet itself, bright yellow with black racing stripes, wouldn't have been so terrible, but my mother had plastered it with round, red reflectors. Keep in mind this was 1982, when nobody, except mentally challenged kids, wore protective head gear. Hell, back then, most average, all-American kids were encouraged to play outside until dark---sometimes in traffic. The helmet earned me the title of "Safety Boy."
When I told my mother about it, she shrugged, unconcerned, and took her pot roast out of the oven. It was burned and dry-looking---my mother was a crappy cook. "You will either wear the helmet, Brian, or you can park your bicycle in the garage and walk to school. The decision is yours. I won't have a head injury on my conscience. Besides, I don't think the helmet is really so awful, do you?"
That was easy for her to say. My mother, who shellacked her big, frosted hair with Aqua Net hairspray and wore nothing that didn't come armed with six-inch-wide shoulder pads, didn't need to wear a helmet. She could have taken a tumble down six flights of stairs, gotten up and brushed herself off, and gone about her business, shielded by her extra-hold hair products and ugly spangled sweaters.
When I grew tired of examining leaves, I wheeled my bike out of the garage and tossed my magnifying glass in the wire basket hanging between the curved handlebars. My mother was watching from the window, so I put on my helmet, not bothering to take off my plaid birthday cap first. The hat wasn't really like Sherlock's, but I had a pretty good imagination back then, so I pretended that it was. I jumped onto my bike, standing on the pedals to make it go, and wobbled my way to the Horr house.
Thomas sat on his front porch eating a banana as he thumbed through a comic book. He grinned and pushed up his heavy, black-framed eyeglasses as I parked my Schwinn at the curb. He ran down the sidewalk, raised his right hand in greeting, and split his fingers into a wide V-shape, Vulcan style. That cat idolized Mr. Spock. "Live long and prosper," he wheezed, the thick lenses of his glasses glinting in the late-afternoon sunlight.
"Hey, Thomas." I threw my helmet in my bike basket and he whistled appreciatively.
"Radical hat! Is it new?"
"Yep. Got it for my birthday."
"Tubular. Can I try it on?"
"Sure."
As Thomas pulled my earflap hat down over his flaming hair, I produced the magnifying glass and passed it to him with an air of superiority.
He gazed through it, and then held it up to his mouth and grinned. At such magnified proportions, his front teeth were terrifying.
"Wanna search for clues?" he asked, his hot, banana breath fogging the magnifying glass.
"Sure."
I was generous enough to allow him to be Sherlock, and I tagged along as the intelligent, but often overlooked, Watson. After about twenty minutes of looking for clues and talking with really bad British accents, Thomas and I grew bored, so I pocketed the magnifying glass and he handed over my earflap cap, which I pulled on, and said, "What should we do now?"
"Let's go over to your house and see if your dad brought any new corpses home."
"Nah. I'm not supposed to do that anymore. I got in big trouble the last time."
When you're raised in a funeral home, there are two ways of dealing with it: you either live in fear, knowing that you reside with the dead, or you have a natural (and somewhat morbid) curiosity about the dead. I fell into the second category.
My dad's prep room, where he dolled up the dead before they were put on display in the viewing room, was located in the basement where I was strictly forbidden to go. My dad didn't like me to nose around and gawk at the stiffs lying on the padded tables until they were made up, coiffed, positioned properly in their satin-lined caskets, and dressed. Only when they had been wheeled into the softly-lit, flower-scented viewing room was I allowed to stand at the sides of the caskets and peek at the shells of human life.
"This is death, son," he said, his hand resting on my shoulder, "and it's a natural part of the life cycle."
It looked far from natural to me. Flesh, once warm and pliant, had grown hard and waxy and inexplicably yellow; mannequin-like hands were folded primly at the waist and heads were tilted at odd angles. No, none of it seemed natural, but it all seemed quite interesting.
Thomas and I decided to go down to the basement one afternoon. My father kept it well-lit and well-ventilated, and as we reached the bottom step, a cool breeze blew against our flushed faces and ruffled Thomas's hair. Always a mouth-breather, he began to pant, both excited and frightened about what we were planning to do.
I leapt off the landing and glanced back at him. "Well? You coming?"
"Sure, sure I am," he wheezed. "Hell yeah."
I noticed that Thomas didn't seem as enthused about the basement as he had when we were upstairs, and he didn't jump from the landing like I had. He sort of tiptoed.
But his fears soon subsided when he realized that, aside from the holding and prep rooms, the basement was pretty typical with its white-painted concrete walls and black and white tile floors. My father's office was down there along with a laundry room with its own half-bath.
The trouble began when we found Mrs. McCarthy in the holding room.
She had been the meanest senior citizen on our street. She didn't like kids and had been known to turn the hose on us if we got near the edge of her lawn. She had a drawn-up, wrinkled face, and her tiny prune mouth was always set in disapproval. She yelled a lot. None of us kids on Aster Lane were all that sorry to see her buy the farm.
Mrs. McCarthy lay on a table, covered to the neck with a white sheet, her iron-gray hair wild and uncombed. Thomas crept forward, pushing up his glasses, and whistled. "Check it out, Bri," he whispered. "She has her teeth out. Man, she looks like a witch layin' here, doesn't she?"
I had to agree.
Thomas sniffed, his face wrinkling in disgust. He waved the air in front of him and pinched his stuffed-up nostrils closed. "P.U. She stinks."
I didn't smell anything but Ben-Gay, so I just shrugged.
"I'm kinda glad she's dead." Thomas leaned down and yelled, "Did you hear me, Mrs. McCrabby? I said I'm kinda glad you're dead."
"Ssh. My mom might hear you."
Thomas didn't say anything else, but he nosed around Mrs. McCarthy, poking and prodding at her. He lifted the sheet for a quick peek at what lay beneath it and grimaced. "Yuck. You should see her boobs. They're really long." His homely, freckled face broke into a grin and he pulled one limp, wrinkled, liver-spotted, blue-veined arm from beneath the sheet. He gave it a wiggle, and the old girl's arthritic hand with the silver dollar knuckles flopped lifelessly as if she were giving a jaunty wave. "You there! Young man," Thomas screeched in a high-pitched falsetto. "Hi! Hi! Stay offa my grass!"
I tried to make him stop, but I was laughing too hard.
And that's when my dad walked in.
My mother freaked out when she found out what had happened in the basement. She acted as if Thomas and I had been caught in the act of necrophilia---or something even worse, if you can dig that. She sent Thomas home, and that was when my father came back into the room wearing his somber, dour funeral director face and gave me a dull, long-winded speech about respecting the dead. I was grounded and had my Atari taken away. I missed out on a lot of Frogger and Donkey Kong that week.
Mrs. Horr stepped onto the porch. She was short and sort of fat with hair the exact shade of Thomas's. "Brian," she shouted, "your mother just called. She said you need to go home for dinner now."
"Okay!" I reached for my helmet and put it on, mounting the Schwinn. "See you tomorrow, Thomas."
He gave me the sign of the Vulcan and sneezed.
"Don't forget to ask your mom if you can spend the night tomorrow."
"I won't." Thomas blew his nose into a light-blue Kleenex. "See you in the morning, pal."
"See ya."
I pedaled off, front tire weaving and wobbling, as the setting sun reflected off my helmet.
\*\*\*
The late September night was warm, so my mother had opened my bedroom window while I slept to let in some air. I'm not sure what pulled me from my deep, dreamless sleep, but I woke up just after midnight. I rolled over, frowning and squinting in the bright, silver moonlight that flooded my bedroom with its gleaming film of shadows and light. The night air had grown colder and my Star Wars curtains were flapping wildly in the breeze.
Somebody was standing by the window.
I sat straight up in bed, earflap cap askew, and opened my mouth to scream. My vocal cords seemed to be frozen and I could produce nothing more than a small, high-pitched, "Hee!"
The man standing by the open window smiled, showing off a pair of long canine teeth that flashed in the moonlight like two pieces of finely honed ivory. He was wearing a navy blue pinstriped suit, white dress shirt, and a carefully knotted red tie. His hair, an unbecoming artificial shade of black, was slicked back from a sharp widow's peak and lay tightly against his head. The man looked a lot like Bela Lugosi, and as my bulging, fearful eyes grew more accustomed to the shadows, I began to see that he also looked a lot like Mr. Carpenter, who had taught fourth grade math until he'd dropped over from a heart attack.
My dad had handled Mr. Carpenter's death just days before. The old codger had been planted in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery just as the substitute teacher was reviewing nines on the multiplication table with his giddy, beaming pupils. My mind told me that Mr. Carpenter could not possibly be standing in my bedroom wearing the burial clothes that my old man had dressed him in, but my eyes told me something else.
He floated through the room, his bare feet six inches off the ground, eyes burning with fire, and reached for me with pale, waxy hands. When he opened his mouth, the smell was awful. It was dirt, death, decay, and something familiar, something that made me think of my own great grandfather who farted every time he took a tottering step down the hall.
It was denture breath.
I sprang out of bed, scrabbling and clawing at the wall, trembling fingers groping for the light switch.
"Get away from me!" I jumped up and down as Mr. Carpenter sailed through the air, fingers curled into hooks, his noxious, undead scent filling the room.
Just as one bony, ice-cold finger brushed against the nape of my neck, I found the switch and shoved it toward the ceiling with all my might. Brilliant light flooded the bedroom, and I flattened myself against the wall, watching in horror as Mr. Carpenter recoiled, arms flung across his twisted face, mouth open to emit a deep, serpent-like hiss of revulsion.
And then he was gone.
I was pretty shaken up. My heart was pounding in my chest and I had the sudden urge to pee, so I left my bedroom and used the bathroom with the door standing wide open, not caring whether my parents walked in on me. As I was washing my hands, my eyes lit on my mother's extra-hold hairspray and I tucked the can beneath my arm and crept out of the bathroom, looking left and right to be sure that Mr. Carpenter wasn't lurking in the hallway. The coast was clear, so I fled to my bedroom and closed the door behind me.
I looked in my closet and knelt to peer under my bed, but there was no sign of Mr. Carpenter, so I cranked the window shut and locked it before pulling my curtains tightly over the glass. Not a beam of moonlight was able to seep into my room.
Once I grabbed the flashlight from my dresser drawer and adjusted my earflap cap more securely on my head, I began to feel better. I switched off the overhead light and jumped into bed. I straightened the blankets and plumped up my pillow. I had just settled back when Mr. Carpenter appeared at the foot of my bed.
He was really pissed off by that point, and he wasted no time playing ridiculous Dracula-Meets-the-Helpless-Victim games. He snarled, dead eyes glassy and marble-like, and flew through the air. Saliva dripped from his fangs in long, silvery threads as his steely, cold hands closed roughly over my shoulders.
I squealed, legs kicking furiously, arms flailing, and finally wrenched free of his clutches, my trembling hands going for the only thing I could think to use as a repellent. I lifted the shiny can of extra-hold hairspray, turned it so the nozzle pointed directly at Mr. Carpenter, and used one finger to depress the aerosol trigger.
Clouds of hairspray jetted from the nozzle, spraying Mr. Carpenter in the face. He gasped, clawing at his eyes, head thrown back, and moaned. I blasted him again, and he began to tremble, head convulsively rolling from side to side. Smoke rose from his undead body in thin, swirling ribbons, and with a snap and a pop, Mr. Carpenter was gone, leaving behind a small pile of gray ashes and one ivory fang.
And that, my friends, is how I discovered that extra-hold Aqua Net hairspray, friend to gum-chewing, teenage valley girls and thirty-something, Bingo-playing, chain-smoking, blue eye shadow-wearing, Dallas-watching mothers, is pure poison to vampires.
\*\*\*
Thomas came to my house right after school the next day. We found my mother in the kitchen with a big purple purse slung over her shoulder.
"Hi, Mrs. McCoy."
Mom smiled. "Hello, Thomas. Did you boys have a good day at school?"
I opened the fridge and took out a pitcher of red Kool-Aid. "It was okay," I said. "Are you going somewhere?"
"I have to run to the market to pick up a few things for dinner and a can of Aqua Net. Mine is missing," she said. "You boys be good. I won't be gone long, and if you need something, Dad will be back soon. He had to make a pick up."
Thomas's eyes glowed with interest. "Who croaked?"
"Thomas Horr, that is a terrible thing to say! We do not, under any circumstance, use the word croak when referring to death in this house."
"Sorry. Who died?"
"Julie Johnson." My mother's face grew troubled. "Such a shock and a terrible tragedy."
"What happened to her?" I asked.
My mother brushed my question aside with a wave of her hand. "Not now, Brian." She picked up her car keys, slid on her huge tortoiseshell sunglasses, and headed for the door. "Behave yourselves. See you later."
Julie Johnson had been Pleasant Valley High's head cheerleader, a lovely dyed-blond bombshell who wore hot pink earrings and huge neon hair bows wound around her high-swept, side ponytail. She always smelled like Love's Baby Soft perfume and peach-flavored lip gloss. She had worked at Pleasant Valley Putt Putt on the weekends and Thomas and I used to go there on Saturday afternoons when we had a buck to blow. Julie always wore little tight red shorts with white piping and yellow leg warmers while she handed out miniature putters and fluorescent golf balls, and Thomas used to lose his golf ball in the sand trap on purpose just so he could watch Julie bend over and pick it up for him.
No sooner had my mother's brown and white station wagon with its I Shot J.R. bumper sticker pulled out of the drive did Thomas turn his head and whistle. "Wow, can you believe that old Hot Pants Johnson is actually dead, Bri?"
It was pretty shocking news all right.
"And she's actually gonna be here. Right here in your house. Naked. I'll bet those butt wipes at school wouldn't get so cute if we told 'em about this."
"Sure they would," I said glumly. "They'd beat us up even if Heather Thomas was here."
With a nod of agreement, Thomas lifted the plastic pitcher, spilling red Kool-Aid on the counter. As he used the tail of his Michael Jackson Thriller t-shirt to wipe up the mess, I grabbed a handful of cookies from the bread box and said, "Hurry up. I need to show you something before my parents get home."
Thomas followed me to my room. While he sat on the edge of the bed, cramming his mouth full of cookies, I took a plastic sandwich bag from my dresser drawer and waved it under his nose.
"What the hell is that?"
"It's what's left of Mr. Carpenter."
\*\*\*
Thomas listened with growing excitement as I told him about my encounter with the undead the night before. He plucked the fang from the plastic bag, wiped the ashes from it, and held it up to the light. After carefully scrutinizing it beneath my magnifying glass, he turned to look at me. "It's fake."
"Because Mr. Carpenter wore dentures," I pointed out. "It makes sense that the fang wouldn't be real because his teeth weren't real."
"Hey, yeah!" Thomas's face instantly brightened. "Holy crow, Bri, what if Pleasant Valley is full of vampires? Like, what if Old Man Carpenter wasn't the only one?"
I hadn't thought of that, but the idea made perfect sense to me. Who had ever heard of a town inhabited by just one vampire?
"Look, Brian, we hafta make a plan. We can't just sit around and wait to get our necks bit. We hafta get some weapons, and---" He paused. "How did you get rid of Mr. Carpenter?"
I pulled the hairspray can from under my bed. "I used this. My mom's Aqua Net. I blasted him right in the face with it, and he sort of...I don't know...exploded, I guess."
"Awesome!" Thomas laughed as he pumped his fist in the air. Then he grew serious once more. "The Aqua Net's good, but I think we should have some backup weapons, ya know? Like maybe some garlic and holy water and stuff."
"Where are we going to get holy water?"
"My uncle's a priest," Thomas said. "He could get us some. Only he lives in California."
"That's three thousand miles away."
"All right, forget the holy water. We'll think of something."
And, of course, we did.
\*\*\*
We worked until dinner time, building our small arsenal, and by the time we were called into the kitchen to eat my mother's rubbery spaghetti with watered-down tomato sauce, Julie Johnson was parked in the prep room. Thomas and I had constructed two lethal weapons: a cross we'd formed by gluing two yellow Number 2 Ticonderoga pencils together, and a sharpened wooden ruler that would serve as a stake.
"Think this stuff will work?" I said.
"Sure," Thomas said. Because he had a collection of dusty, antique Tales from the Crypt comic books as well as a subscription to Fangoria magazine, he felt that he was an expert on the subject of vampire slaying. "Trust me. I know about these things, Bri. Now, don't forget, later tonight we need to steal some garlic out of the kitchen and get your mom's Aqua Net from the bathroom."
"Roger." I saluted smartly from beneath the brim of my earflap cap.
"Boys!" my mother screamed. "Get in here! Your dinner's getting cold! It won't be fit to eat!"
Like it mattered. It would have tasted just as bad if it had been piping hot.
\*\*\*
My parents retired early, leaving me and Thomas to fend for ourselves. We popped a couple of tin pans of Jiffy Pop and watched the Friday night Creature Feature on UHF 49. I'd been pestering my mom about getting ON TV, but she refused because of all the "trash" it played. I silently disagreed with her opinion. The Horr house had ON TV, and I hadn't thought that either The Incredible Shrinking Woman or Swamp Thing had been trash. In my estimation, they'd been damn fine flicks.
We managed to get through The Creature from the Black Lagoon before Thomas started yawning. We decided to call it a night. I turned off the TV while Thomas hit the lights. Because my mom didn't have any whole garlic cloves in the house, I'd stuffed a plastic bottle of garlic powder down the front of my pajamas.
Thomas swiped the Aqua Net from the bathroom after he took a before-bed pee, and once we were closed away in my bedroom and Thomas had spread his sleeping bag on the floor, we arranged our arsenal.
Thomas took off his glasses and laid them carefully aside. He gave the bottle of garlic powder an affectionate pat, and said, "Now, if any blood suckers try to diddle with us tonight, we'll be ready!" He snapped his fingers. "Cut the lights, Bri."
I did. Thomas yawned and said, "Night, butt-face. See you in the morning."
I grinned. "Night, Thomas."
\*\*\*
"Safety Boy...Oh, Safety Boyyy..."
The soft, lilting, singsong taunt filled my dreams, and I brushed it away, irritated that I was being bullied even in my sleep. You'd think a cat could cut a break between the hours of ten and six, am I right?
I rolled over and opened my eyes.
Standing by the side of my bed was Julie Johnson.
She wore a pale-pink taffeta prom dress with big, puffed-up, ruffled sleeves and her permed hair stood out in a wild halo around her head. In her undead condition, she looked like hell. Her hardening snow-white skin was pulled taut over her stony bones, and although her mouth smiled mockingly, her blue eyes remained expressionless and flat.
"Hello, Safety Boy," she said softly, the tip of her purple tongue flicking against her gleaming canine incisors. "Remember me?"
I reached down and grabbed the collar of Thomas's pajama top and shook him. "Wake up, Thomas! Thomas? Wake up!"
"Huh? What?" He sat up, body as stiff as a board, his red hair standing on end, and looked blindly around the room. Without the magnification of his glasses, Thomas's hazel eyes were much smaller. "What is it, Brian? What's wrong?"
Because I couldn't speak, I pointed. Thomas squinted as he fumbled for his glasses, found them, put them on, then followed my trembling finger with his magnified gaze. His mouth fell open in an expression of exaggerated surprise. "Holy poop!" he screamed. "It's Hot Pants Johnson!"
She threw her head back and laughed wildly, the sound shrill and hideous in the dark of night. Thomas fumbled for the bottle of garlic power, fingers trembling---the dead cheerleader stopped laughing. She turned her head slowly, neck creaking with a rusty squeal, and gazed down at Thomas. Her lip curled in a feral snarl, teeth glistening, and she flew through the air, full skirt rustling in the breeze, and swooped down on him.
He screamed and began to kick his stick-thin legs as he worked to unscrew the lid of the garlic bottle. As she grabbed Thomas's bare foot, I saw the gold Pleasant Valley High class ring set with the small, oval, imitation amethyst stone she wore on her right hand. Her fingers became claws as they guided the foot toward her open, drooling mouth.
Thomas screamed again. Louder this time. Apparently, the thought of being manhandled by the PV Putt Putt Queen had lost its appeal for him. "Help me, Bri, help me! Get the Aqua Net! Hurry!"
My hands shook as I popped the white plastic cap from the metal hairspray can and aimed the nozzle directly at Hot Pants Johnson's creeped-out, undead face.
She guided Thomas's big toe into her gaping mouth, preparing to sink a fang or two into the tender white flesh when I let go with a jet of extra-hold poison.
With a growl, she released him, and he leapt to the center of my bed, cowering behind me and shouting imprecations at Julie Johnson over my shoulder. "Yeah! Take that! Give it to her again, Bri."
I raised the can, prepared to blast her once more. She stood at the edge of my bed, swiping blindly at her face, shaking her head back and forth, her hands still groping for us in her mildly injured state.
That was when my mother began to bang on my door and call my name.
The dead cheerleader's head spun and she opened her mouth with a hiss. She didn't seem to appreciate the unexpected interruption, and as the doorknob rattled beneath my mother's hand, Julie Johnson vanished into thin air.
We got a big lecture about clowning around after lights out, and when my mother finally left the room, Thomas gazed up at me from his sleeping bag and whispered, "Did you get her good, Brian?"
I whispered back, "No. I think I just hurt her a little. I definitely didn't kill her."
"Then we gotta finish the job. Right after the sun comes up. We can't let her keep flying around Pleasant Valley. We hafta slay her."
He was right, of course, and that's exactly what we did.
\*\*\*
Thomas didn't have any problem going back to sleep, but I was restless, tossing and turning as my friend snored asthmatically in the dark---my brain swirled with bad thoughts. My hope that Mr. Carpenter had been the only vampire in our quiet provincial town dissipated as soon as I'd seen Hot Pants standing in my bedroom. She had been transformed after I'd obliterated Carpenter with the Aqua Net, which also ruled out the idea that he had been the head vampire.
My alarm went off two hours later. I reached down and shook Thomas awake. He came to pretty quickly, yawning and scratching. He put his glasses on, went to the window, and peered through a gap in the curtains. Glancing over his shoulder, he gave me a quick nod, and whispered, "It's starting to get light. Hot Pants oughtta be asleep pretty soon."
I gathered up our crude weapons. Thomas grabbed the Ticonderoga cross and I tucked the bottle of garlic powder and the can of Aqua Net in the waistband of my pajama pants. I carried the sharpened ruler in my hand.
We left the quiet safety of my bedroom, scanning the shadowy hallway for signs of either Julie Johnson or my parents. My dad was snoring from the bedroom at the end of the hall. Thomas and I crept toward the living room, wincing when a floorboard squeaked, and then hurried onward, taking the curving staircase steps two at a time in pursuit of our unsuspecting prey.
The viewing room was cold and empty, filled with the gloom of gray, pre-dawn light. A cask mounted to rolling castors had been parked in front of the picture window, but no casket rested on its risers. I slid the pocket doors at the end of the room to one side and led Thomas through them.
A terrible racket was coming from the basement, and we froze. Thomas's eyes were the size of poached eggs behind the magnified lenses of his specs, and his hand, ice-cold and clammy, latched onto my wrist.
"It's her," he whispered. "Isn't it?"
I nodded.
"What do you think she's doing down there?"
"I dunno," I said in a low voice. "Sounds like she's wrecking the prep room." I took a step toward the top landing and said, "Come on, Thomas. We have to finish the job, remember?"
He nodded, enormous eyes lit with fear. "I...I...remember. You better get the Aqua Net ready, Bri. She sounds really mad."
We crept down the stairs on the balls of our bare feet, standing so close together we resembled a pair of fraternal, Siamese twins. I was afraid that Thomas's heavy, labored breathing would catch Julie Johnson's deadly attention, but by the time we'd reached the bottom riser, everything had grown disconcertingly quiet.
The basement was much eerier in the dim shadows of dawn than it was during daylight hours. The air was hazy and gray. Water dripped into a basin. There were no windows to allow any light in, so Thomas and I moved cautiously onward, the blind leading the blind, hands held out before our faces to guide our way through the maze of shadows.
We finally made it to the prep room. By this time, my eyes had adjusted to the dark, and I could see that it was a mess. Chrome basins had been thrown everywhere, drawers yanked open. Rubber gloves littered the floor. The little padded envelopes where my father stored the deceased's jewelry and the plastic turquoise cups where he put their dentures were strewn about the room. An entire roll of disposable, paper bed sheeting had been unrolled and snaked across the tile floor.
Julie Johnson was sitting on the edge of the padded prep table. As Thomas and I watched silently from the doorway, the undead cheerleader swung her legs onto the table and fell back, her head thumping softly against the thickly padded neck rest. Her bare toes pointed toward the ceiling as her body flexed and trembled. She folded her hands primly at the waist, elbows jutting from either side of the table. Her body stiffened and her eyes snapped shut.
She was dead once more. Sort of.
We didn't go for her right away. We wanted to be sure she was really dead before we got too close. She was perfectly still, her chest unmoving, and I motioned for Thomas to follow me into the prep room.
Lying like that, in her peaceful, viewing-room position, Julie Johnson didn't look as crappy as she had just a few short hours before when she'd tried to attack Thomas. As a matter of fact, she looked quite a bit like her living self.
"You ready, Brian?" Thomas brandished the pencil cross in his left hand. "Get ready to blitz her with the Aqua Net when she comes to."
As I slowly pulled the hairspray out of my pants and aimed the nozzle six inches above Julie Johnson's upturned face, I glanced over at Thomas, who was growing impatient. "I was thinking...maybe the Aqua Net isn't such a good idea."
"Why not?"
"It blew up Mr. Carpenter...well, kinda...you saw what was left of him. The ashes and that one fang. I don't think we should make Julie explode."
"Why not, for creep's sake? She's a damn vampire, Bri. You saw her yourself. She tried to kill me."
"Actually, she tried to bite your toe."
"Same diff." Hot spots of color had risen on his freckled cheeks. "You want her running around Pleasant Valley drinking people's blood? If not, you better use the Aqua Net."
"If she blows up like Mr. Carpenter did, I think my dad might get in a lot of trouble. Plus, I don't think her mom and dad would like it too much if there wasn't a body in her coffin."
Realization and understanding dawned on Thomas's face and he nodded vigorously and snapped his fingers. "Gotcha. Good thinking, Bri. Okay, forget the Aqua Net. Use the stake instead." Thomas tiptoed closer to the table. "Get ready...on the count of three..."
I raised the ruler above Julie Johnson's hard, round breast.
"One...two...THREE!"
Thomas pressed the Ticonderoga cross firmly against Julie Johnson's forehead. Her skin sizzled and popped, smoke rising from her face as her eyes, now gleaming and blood-red, flew open and rolled in their sockets. She hissed and writhed, her body convulsive and coiling like an enraged cobra, slithering and sliding along the slick vinyl table. Her hips bucked and her head thrashed from side to side.
Thomas was panting and wheezing as he bore down on the pencil cross, pressing it more firmly into Julie Johnson's forehead, which had begun to melt like candle wax. His glasses were slipping slowly down the bridge of his nose, and he shouted, "Now, Brian! Stake her in the heart! Hurry!"
With a long, low yell, I brought the ruler down in a forceful downward motion, planting the sharpened end directly above Julie Johnson's left boob.
I waited for the jets of blood and gore to follow the staking, but there was none, and I know now that the kill was clean only because she had not fed before the slaying.
I'd managed to plant the ruler, which was printed with the words Pleasant Valley Elementary School in big red block letters, about six inches deep, and it jutted obscenely from the undead cheerleader's stony chest like some sort of alien appendage.
She screamed and sat upright, knocking Thomas aside, flailing and snapping in a dizzying whirl of blond hair and pink taffeta, her fangs clicking together like a pair of wind-up chattering teeth. Her hands wrapped around the protruding ruler and tugged viciously. She shook her head from side to side and long strands of yellowish-green spit flew from the corners of her open mouth.
"Gnarly!" Thomas said.
And then, Julie stopped fighting. Her hands fell from the ruler. Her furious face grew slack. She went as stiff as a corpse should be, and fell back on the table. Her arms slid off the edges and dangled limply in the air.
In the commotion, I never heard my mother come into the room.
Thomas stood at the head of the table, brandishing the Ticonderoga cross as I sprinkled Julie's corpse with garlic powder.
And that's when my mother began to scream.
\*\*\*
In the end, everything worked out okay. My parents decided I didn't need therapy after all and life pretty much went on as it always had. I was grounded for a month and had my bicycle taken away, but that was okay because it meant I didn't have to wear my helmet, and I still saw Thomas every day at school.
Between the hours of nine and three as we walked the halls of Pleasant Valley Elementary School, trying desperately to avoid the wise guys who spent their time squashing my brown bag lunches and thumb-rubbing the lenses of Thomas's glasses, we would always be Safety Boy and the Red-Headed Horr.
But by night we were vampire slayers.
\*\*\*
There you have it, ladies and germs, the tale of how I became a hunter of the undead. A lot of years have passed since that late-September afternoon in 1982, but I'm still in the business, known around the world only as McCoy.
I traded in the plaid earflap cap for a brown boonie cover and it's pretty sharp. A few years ago, after I'd been tossed around by quite a few vampires, I learned that a bicycle helmet can come in pretty handy when you're fighting the good fight, so I bought one---yellow, of course, with black racing stripes---and covered it with round red reflectors. My weapons are a lot less primitive now, but I am always armed with a can of Aqua Net.
I left Pleasant Valley twenty years ago. Now, my home is wherever my next job takes me. I've slain over seven thousand blood suckers in my time, and make a pretty good living. You'd be surprised at how much someone will pay you to obliterate a vampire.
A few years ago my parents retired to Florida where my father spends his days golfing and my mother spends hers bitching about the heat.
As for Thomas? He still lives in Pleasant Valley. He married a local girl and they have a couple of red-haired, freckle-faced sons. McCoy Funeral Home is now Horr Funeral Home. Thomas and his family occupy the third floor of the house and his boys are strictly forbidden to go anywhere near the basement. I visit Thomas every so often, and as the local mortician, he keeps his eyes peeled for signs of any undead activity and calls me when he grows suspicious. We are both determined to keep our small hometown vampire free.
Myself, I'm single. I've loved some women, been disappointed in a few, and was even attacked by a couple when my guard was down. Sometimes, even when you watch for obvious signs and take the strictest of precautions, you just never know what lurks beneath the surface of a human shell, so I find that it's better to travel life alone.
If you ever find yourself in a dire situation, look me up. You can find me on the web. I'm always on call.
Oh, by the way, in case you're wondering...Pleasant Valley really was teeming with vampires back in the day. Thomas and I eliminated every one of those bastards, including the head vampire, over a slow two year period.
But that, my friends, is a tale for another day.
The Terrifying Legend of Jim
by Alva J. Roberts
Jim lumbered through the woods, putting one foot in front of the other in a robotic fashion, the whole while remembering to loom menacingly. The menacing looming was important---there was no telling who was watching. After all, he had no desire to lose his charter with IMMA, the Insane Mass Murderers Association. He had a hell of a time gaining membership and the last thing he needed was to lose his charter over a technicality.
Following all of the IMMA guidelines was a huge pain in his ass, but he needed the benefits package. It was almost impossible to get health insurance when you were a mass murderer. It was a high risk job and the rates were outrageous if you tried to get it on your own.
"The land of opportunity, my ass," Jim said to no one in particular, his voice about three octaves higher than it should have been given his massive frame. An entrepreneur just couldn't get a break.
A chorus of giggles echoed through the night. Jim's only response was a labored sigh.
Teenagers...again.
How stupid are they? This was his territory, been killing in it for nearly fifteen years. After all that time, you would think they would get smart enough not to come to Camp Wannadiealot. But no, every summer it was the same thing. Teenage campers partying and fornicating all over the forest. It was just too easy. What Jim wouldn't give for a change of pace, maybe a bus full of nuns, or some corporate types on a retreat. That would be nice. He had his fill of young, naked, nubile bodies and keg parties.
Jim sighed again as he pulled out his registered Deadly Instrument of Death. The name was a little redundant but the IMMA was not known for its originality. Had Jim known about the weapons registration policy, he might not have joined, despite the benefits package. According to IMMA guidelines, paragraph twelve, subsection A:
All charter holders must register their Deadly Instrument of Death, to be known as a DID for the remainder of this document, within thirty-six days signing of this agreement. It is the aforementioned charter holder's responsibility to keep his DID well maintained and within easy reach at all times. It is also the charter holder's sole responsibility to check the DID database available at imma.org, as no two charter holders may employ the same DID in any one of our seven continental United States regions. Use of the same DID will be viewed a copyright infringement, and is punishable by one hundred and sixty (160) days in jail, a fine of up to one thousand ($1000) dollars and will be viewed as a breach of contract, thus rendering this document null and void.
It wasn't until Jim began reviewing the DID database that he realized how hampering the clause was. There were over one hundred registered members of IMMA in his region alone, which made the DID pickings pretty slim. Jim ended up with a...stick. It was a very intimidating stick to be sure, nearly two inches thick, with a couple of nails protruding out of it, but it was still just a stick.
Jim adjusted his skull-like mask and shook his head, trying to snap out of his funk. He had a quota to meet, and with the economy in shambles, he had better damn well meet his quota or he could say goodbye to his IMMA membership.
"Whoooh, party up, bitches! Why don't you get me another beer, taint licker," a voice screamed from up ahead.
Jim smiled. There was one at every party. No matter how humdrum he found his job, killing a real asshole always made him feel a little better about life.
"A killing we will go, a killing we will go. Hi ho the merry oh, a killing we will go," Jim sang to himself as he stalked forward, his high pitched voice making it sound like a demented trip to munchkin land.
\*\*\*
"I don't know, Tommy...in the forest? Can't we just get a hotel when we get back to town?" a buxom young blonde with vacant eyes said.
"Ah come on, Lisa. You don't know what it's like. I told you before, I got a genetic condition. If I don't do it every twelve hours, I could die," Tommy said, his golden blond hair flowing around his shoulders, his muscles rippling beneath his letterman jacket.
"Well...I wouldn't want you to die."
Jim nearly snorted out loud. Tommy was a football player and, in Jim's rather extensive voyeuristic experience, the young quarterback did not need to make his story so elaborate. A 'hey baby, let's do it' would have worked just as well and saved both Tommy and Jim a lot of time.
Not much later, the sounds of heavy breathing filled the night. Jim tapped his fingers against the tree next to him in impatience and twirled his stick between his fingers. If they would just hurry up, Jim could catch the late, late, late movie on cable. Steel Magnolias was on, and Jim needed a good cry.
"Oh, Tommy, you're so good," the girl moaned.
"I know, baby, I know. I am soooo good at this. Oh, yeah!"
It was time.
Jim stepped out from behind his tree and stalked forward, careful to never move faster than a quick walk (another IMMA guideline). The blonde writhed on top of the football player in obvious false ecstasy. She was overdoing it, but Tommy didn't seem to notice.
In fact, Tommy didn't notice much of anything. He didn't see Jim walk over to them. He didn't see Jim raise his Stick high into the air. He probably noticed when the thick oak smashed through the front of his skull, spraying his brains through the air in bloody waves of gore, but it was impossible to tell for sure.
Lisa noticed. She sprang to her feet, let out an ear piercing shriek, and took off running.
Jim shrugged and followed after her. "Three, two, one," Jim counted out loud, a satisfying crack echoing through the woods as he pronounced the one.
"Ahhhhh, my ankle. Help me!"
Jim strolled forward and swung the Stick like a baseball bat. It slammed into her head with enough force to knock her eyeballs out of their sockets and across the clearing.
Jim surveyed his work, appreciating the blood splatter. There was a real art to what he did. Not that most people appreciated his work, but how many people could get the blood spatter to form the shape of a skull like that? Or the little pony next to it? Not many, that was for damn sure.
\*\*\*
"Come on, Shane, toke up. We gotta smoke this shit before we get back to camp. That Megan sure is a tight-ass. She'd prolly call the cops and shit," Matt said as he erupted in a fit of coughing, his slender frame shaking so hard he looked like he was having seizures.
"Yeah, but she's smoking hot. I heard if you get her drunk enough, she gets crazy," Shane said, running his hands through his red greasy hair.
Jim listened. He was a good listener...his girlfriends always said so. It was one of the reasons he chose his particular career path. Well, that and a virtually unstoppable need to kill. But the listening was still a big part of it. He idly wondered what the pair would say if they knew their friend, Tommy, had died not twenty feet from where they stood.
"Yeah, but you gotta put up with her until then."
"Yeah, she's like...um...ah...dude, did you bring any Doritos?"
"Fuck yeah, back in my tent. I got one of them big things of Red Vines, too."
"Whoa, were you like a boy scout? Always prepared and stuff?"
Silence greeted the stoner's question.
"Dude?"
Jim hit his cue perfectly, tossing Matt's decapitated head at the boy's feet. It was always hard to time such things, especially when you were dealing with someone who was stoned. But Jim was a professional. It was just like his grandma always said---there was no use doing something if you were going to be a half-ass shit-stick about it.
"DAAAMMMNNN," the boy screamed and ran for the woods.
Jim sighed yet again. Scream and run, die, scream and run, die---it was always the same. Maybe Jim was in a rut---maybe that was why he was so bored with his work. Maybe he should switch things up a bit. He would come back for the stoner. How far could someone that stoned run?
Jim turned back to the campsite, stopping to appreciate his artistic blood spatter before walking away. A unicorn and a rainbow. Now that had style.
\*\*\*
"Did you hear that?" Megan stumbled to her feet and thrust her hands into the pockets of her huge sweatshirt that completely hid the shape of her body.
"It was just Lisa. Tommy's just letting her ride the bologna pony. What about you? You want some beef in your taco?" Blake sneered and made thrusting motions with his hips, the campfire casting strange shadows across his muscular and fit body.
"God, Blake, you are so gross. I'm going to see what that was," Megan said, sipping straight tequila from the bottle as she walked toward the woods.
"I didn't want to bang a dyke anyway," Blake said, pounding his beer. "Hey, Kevin, we got any more beer?"
"Beer'z goood," Kevin mumbled from his prone position on the ground, his huge belly pointing skyward like some strange misshapen altar to a lost god of beer.
"I didn't ask if it was fucking good, I asked if we had any more of it. If I wanted an opinion, I'd ask your mom if she liked it when I stuck it in her ass." Blake kicked Kevin in the ankle for good measure.
Jim stepped forward into the ring of light around the campfire. This kid was a real asshole. Jim was going to enjoy this.
"What the hell? Shane, why the fuck are you dressed like that? You look like a retarded gas station attendant going trick-or-treating."
Jim cocked his head to one side. He didn't say a word. There was nothing in the IMMA guidelines about talking, but Jim was rather self-conscious of his high-pitched, whiney voice. When he was on the phone he was often mistaken for a woman. Speaking while he was at work generally ruined the effect he was going for.
"Are you trying to scare me? Fuck you." Blake unzipped his pants and shot a stream of urine across the clearing to land on Jim's boot. "Looks like you scared the piss out of me."
Jim's hand darted forward, his Stick flying across the clearing in a powerful underhand throw that smashed into Blake's most vulnerable area. The cocky jock dropped to his knees with a howl of pain.
"Ahhhh...I'm gonna...nggh...kill you."
Jim walked over and jerked his DID free, then spun around and smashed it into the back of Blake's neck, the long nails severing the spinal cord. But he didn't kill him.
"Whatesh goin' on," Kevin mumbled from his prone position.
Jim stomped down hard, crushing the drunk man's neck.
Blake whimpered at the sight. "Why...are you doing this?"
"It's my job," Jim said in his high pitch lisp before bringing his Stick down against Blake's temple. For just a second, Jim could have sworn the boy was laughing.
Jim stared downward and concentrated on his swing. He had to get the blood splatter perfect if he wanted the fairy wings to look right. Last time it looked like a little bat.
\*\*\*
"Oh man, oh man," Shane whispered to the darkness.
Just as Jim predicted, the pothead had gone in the opposite direction of camp, and had only gone about one hundred yards before stopping to lean against a tree. "Man, I wish I weren't so high." He moaned, his bloodshot eyes trying to peer through the darkness. He looked around and shivered. An owl hooted in one of the tree tops. Shane jumped backward, impaling himself on a large tree branch. Blood pulsed down his stomach, pooling at his feet.
"Damn it. How the hell am I going to meet my quota now?" Jim lisped as he stepped from behind a tree, his voice raising an octave higher in his anger.
"Dude...you sound...totally gay," Shane said as he died.
\*\*\*
"Blake, I couldn't find anyone," Megan called out.
The campsite was empty, just as Jim planned. He smiled as he watched her looking around the clearing. He clenched his teeth to hold back his giggles of excitement. As soon a she opened the car door, she would get a big surprise. This was the best part of his night, even better than killing douche bags. The Last Kill. Soon it would be time to go home, kick his shoes off, and take a bubble bath. After that, it would be time to watch Sally Fields and Dolly Parton in the greatest movie ever made.
"Blake? Goddamn it. He left, too. Probably jacking off in the woods or something," Megan grumbled as she sat on the log next to the fire and began pounding tequila in earnest.
Jim wanted to scream in frustration. Nothing ever went right. She just had to move two feet to her right and open the car door. But no, she couldn't do it. Couldn't make Jim's life any easier, couldn't let Jim have any fun.
He watched for twenty minutes, but all she did was drink more. And while her capacity to drink straight tequila was amazing, it wasn't why Jim was there.
Jim's crestfallen face loomed up out of his hiding place. Kids these days had no respect for tradition. She should have known to check the car, it was a classic move. He had even scrawled a warning across the passenger door in blood to draw her attention.
"Ish that writing?" Megan looked across the campsite at the car, her words slurring. She read the words out loud. "Beth comes for you. Blake, who the hell is Beth? If you think I'm gonna make some girl cum, you can think again. You're fuckin' sick."
"It's death! Death comes for you," Jim shouted across the campsite.
"What? I can't make out what you're saying. Are you Beth? I don't know what Blake told you, but I'm not into that." Megan stood up and stumbled toward the car.
Jim grunted, jumped to his feet, and strode across the campsite. He might as well get it over with. Everything was ruined.
A tequila bottle smashed into his head with unexpected force. The girl must play softball or something, Jim thought clutching his head.
"You wanna get crazy? Let's get crazy!" Megan pulled a large hunting knife out from behind her back.
Jim backed away disgusted. She was one of those. That was all he needed. A fighter. Could this night get any worse? First he had been bored out of his mind, then he didn't meet his quota, then she wouldn't open the car door, and now she wanted to fight back. Some nights you just couldn't win.
Megan howled like a banshee and ran straight for him.
Jim shrieked and jumped to the side, just avoiding the thrusting knife. Maybe he would just let her live. You were supposed to do that once in a while. Let someone live to spread the word about your presence. When it came to mass murder, nine-tenths of the advertising was by word of mouth...unless you made the FBI's most wanted list. But Jim could only dream of being so lucky.
"Stand still! I'm going to gut you, you bastard!"
Jim whimpered. That was it. He would let her live so she could tell everyone how scary he was. He spun around and ran for the woods, ignoring the IMMA guidelines about running. There was time to follow the rules and there was time to run like hell.
"You better run, you little bitch," Megan shouted after him. Yep. Time to run like hell.
Jim sprinted through the forest until his lungs burned and his legs ached. Finally, after a long while, he stopped to catch his breath and leaned against a tree.
"She...can spread...the Terrifying Legend of Jim," he said in a breathless, high-pitched squeak. He glanced at his watch. It was early. He could catch Sleepless in Seattle and Steel Magnolias if he hurried home. He would have to put in a few extra hours later in the week to meet his quota, but he was already resigned to the fact.
"I got you now!" Megan tackled Jim to the ground. The knife slashed downward, slicing through Jim's hands and stabbing into his chest.
Jim howled like a little girl as his blood sprayed through the crisp night air.
"I guess no one told you...I get a little crazy when I drink," Megan growled, her eyes shimmering with a maniacal light. She stabbed downward again and again. Jim's blood splattered across the nearby trees and covered Megan's face. The tiny droplets seemed to spur her to even more dizzying heights of anger.
Jim's arms fell to his sides, too weak to be lifted. His eyes scanned the blood spatter on the trees.
"You've got absolutely no style," Jim whispered as consciousness slipped away from him.
Don't (My Buddy Benny)
by M. S. Gardner
"She's been bitten," I yelled back into the alley to Benny.
Jenna, his wife, had just been bitten by their deceased child. This was all just a series of events gone horribly wrong. Events that could have easily been avoided...
\*\*\*
There are certain things in life that you learn vicariously. For me, it was experiencing death through watching horror movies. Good or bad, I had an appreciation for them all. It wasn't just the intensity of watching my favorite Slasher cutting his way through a whore, her skin splitting like the seams on an overused baseball, fake blood gushing out and staining everything in sight---though I do appreciate that "placed" scene. The nude kill, it's classic. At least as far as I'm concerned. But ever since I was a child I've been enthralled with the dark, the macabre. Evil in its purest form is fear. H. P. Lovecraft had once been quoted with saying, "The oldest and strongest emotion of all mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
I always believed that.
Still do.
It is what we don't know that scares most of us, and I guess that's what happened to Benny. If he'd just listened to me, just once, he and his family might still be alive, passing the time with yours truly. Oh well, I guess I was meant to spend the apocalypse alone.
As a child, my mother told me "don't" quite a few times. More so than I'd like to discuss really. It always seemed, at the time, pestering and unnerving, an attempt to outwit my youthful mind. But Momma was right, a whole hell of a lot of the time---though it's not a fact I let her know. No one's perfect, but my mom was close.
As we grow older, we become aware of things. Often you'll hear someone say that "with age comes wisdom." Who hasn't heard that before, right?
Well, let me tell you about my buddy Benny. Actually, he wasn't really my buddy---notice the past tense. "Buddy" is more of a sarcastic, cynical term that will hopefully bring some humor into the light of the recent weeks of my life. Humor, I fear, is the only thing keeping me sane---and I'm not that good at it. But they say that laughter can cure just about anything, if only temporarily.
Fuck medicine, right? That's never done anyone any good. Hell, it was because of some medicine or "cure" that brought the damned dead back to life. On a side note, I wonder if those suited assholes are still alive, watching through their satellites as the entire world crumbles to the core---maybe that's what their true intentions were. There were a lot of Bennys out there.
Anyway, it seems, in hindsight, that Benny hadn't been brought up in a stable environment. He'd probably never even seen---or at least never paid attention to---a horror movie. The girl that always falls when she's running away. The overweight bastard who thinks that a devilishly sexy woman really wants to have sex with him. Those kids that can't just leave well enough alone. Or, as is the case with Benny, never seen how to survive in a world where the dead won't stay dead, infecting or consuming all that cross their path. The slow ones, the fast ones, it was as if the man hadn't even read the Guide.
\*\*\*
It all started about three-and-a-half weeks ago. I woke up to a violent pounding on my door---at my age, it takes a little time to actually get up. When I first saw Benny, he was halfway through my kitchen window. And Benny was a very impatient person. Two cars in the driveway, the dog on the leash outside, and he still had the nerve to make his way in like no one was home. I guess he thought I'd heard the news and bailed. Well, I didn't.
"Freeze, you son of a bitch," I said to the frail bastard and I pumped one in the chamber to prove how serious I was. I had known about an infection, but had yet to discover just how close it was. But at that time, it didn't matter. Though I am a forgiving person, my Remington isn't. She has the temperament of an infant, and he was lucky I could control her.
Benny screamed, high-pitched and pathetic, much like a teenage girl who had just been caught naked by the next door neighbor, and his limbs went slack. I still remember the thump the back of his head made on my window. It knocked the little guy out. It was then that I heard the shrieks in the backdrop.
"Oh, I told you not to go through the window," a beautiful, twenty-something woman said. Even by my standards she was a looker. She rushed to the intruder, Benny, and began rubbing his head. The woman looked through the window to see an old man and his shotgun, with my golden retriever, Donut, barking in the background. I guess a nap was not in my fortune that day. Immediately I saw the fright in her face, and quickly rested my weapon out of sight. The barrel of my shotgun was not meant to be pointed at a woman, or a child for that matter, which is what I saw not a moment after.
"I'm sorry, sir," she said. "The infection's made its way to the city. We were just..."
I'd heard enough. Seeing the little girl was all I needed. Minutes later Benny was coming to on my couch, and his wife, Jenna, and daughter, Marissa, were on my love seat. Me, well I was in the Captain's Chair, Donut at my feet, watching in amazement as the news flooded every channel.
"Two children have been rushed to the hospital, showing signs of..."
"The first child has died, the second in critical condition..."
"Both children have reanimated but the situation is being monitored by a delegate from the CDC..."
"We've just been informed that there's been an incident. The entire school has been shut down. We urge all parents who still have children in the building to do your best to stay as calm..."
"A riot has broken out in front of..."
Then it all spiraled into pure chaos. We've all seen the movies.
"Please refrain from leaving your homes." The reporter was in tears, barely able to get the words out.
"Avoid any and all contact with anyone infected," another station's anchor instructed.
"If you or a loved one has been bitten, scratched, or has come into contact with the Infected or their secretions, lock yourself in a separate room until the proper care can be administered."
"If there's anyone left out there, we're evacuating to..."
They thought they could contain it. I'll bet my life that someone in that school knocked over something, or accidentally poked his colleague with a tainted syringe. Something miniscule, so minute that it probably boggles God's mind as to how it actually happened. I wonder if that person was related to Benny...
\*\*\*
Most of the city had to be evacuated just as that day began. All surrounding counties had reported incidents as early as dawn. My house has prime location on the outskirts, in the woods, secluded---I guess I've always been preparing for something like this. My pantries were and are stocked with canned goods and bottled water, several months-worth of supplies. And my armory, well, let's just say I have a gun or two. I was going to kick this thing's ass, if that's what the situation called for.
But my buddy Benny, that wasn't good enough for him. Only five days after he tried breaking in, he wanted out.
"Are you fuckin' with me, Benny?"
I mean, I had already sealed off the basement and first floor. Even drew up an escape route after positioning both my vehicles so that we could head either east or west, if the situation called for it.
"But..." his voice cracked as the television fell into a hailstorm of static, "I thought we would head to that shelter the news was talking about."
He was a man that was never satisfied. Probably had a small dick, which made me wonder if that was why Jenna kept giving me that look. She needed a real man, we both knew it. And at forty-seven, with two ex-wives, I think I fit the description. But that's not what little Marissa needed, and that kept my head on the level.
"We're fine here, Benny," Jenna contested, her eyes lit with irritation.
"Benny," I reasoned, "if we go out there we're as good as dead. There are too many things that could go wrong. Think of your wife and daughter, man. We should stay here and try to wait it out, let the government sort things out." At this point in the conversation I knew I was lying out of my ass, but from the look on that child's face, she needed some positive reinforcement. But that didn't change the fact that the infection had reached the borders of Mexico and Canada already, and all planes were downed just hours before. There was no telling how far this thing spread or how fucked everything was going to be. But, stability means survival, and that's what I'd intended on having. It was, after all, my house.
"You've got food and water. I know we just met, and I'm very grateful for your hospitality, but I'm guessing that you're the type to have an armory of sorts, no offense---"
How is that in the slightest bit offensive, really?
"---but don't you think it would be better to head to one of the military outposts? There is safety in numbers."
Jenna looked at him and shook her head, practically laughing.
Benny really was a thinker.
And this is when the horror critic came out. I explained to the short, pathetic man that when an infection like this breaks out there are certain procedures the military abides by. The main thing being this: anyone showing any signs of whatever the symptoms of said infection might be, be it coughing or wheezing or sweating, like being out of breath from fleeing a horde of Infected, would be shot. Those could, and more than likely would, be construed as signs of infection. I mean, put yourself on the other end of the fully-automatic firearm. Countless people unable to help themselves running right toward you, arms waving, some smiling, all crying...each one showing symptoms of what you've been warned about. How could you tell them apart?
You couldn't.
I couldn't.
And they'd be dead, as we would, or so I tried explaining.
"We're all human," I said, "and in a situation such as this, a pandemic of epic proportions, we need to stay solitary. Let the herd thin out a little before we expose ourselves. Especially when there's no real need to."
"But there is a need to," smug little Benny argued. "What if we wait too long and they leave us?"
"That's what they're gonna do anyway, Benny. It's what they've always done."
Benny didn't seem to understand that, in order to survive, sacrifices had to be made. And, through experience, a lot of sacrifices needed to be made. It is the design of life.
"We'll be fine. They're the United States Government. They have to help."
Really? This asshole must've had it coming since the day he left his mother's womb. Benny was "that guy," the nerd in the movie that was too uptight for his own good. I'm not talking about the semi-cool dork that's too pathetic to hate. No, he's the guy that dies one of the worst deaths in the movie because he's too smart for his own good, like the carpenter that gets killed by his own nail gun or something. The one who leads himself to the wolves.
"Haven't you seen any movies, read any books? Come on, man. I worked for the bastards. They ain't worried about you and your family, or me and my dead dog---"
Yeah, I have a dead dog too. Tinkles. Had to put him down just a week before I met Benny and his family. I'll give you one guess as to what that dog was good at.
"---everything's changed. It did once they declared Marshall Law."
But there was no telling Benny. He was set in his ways, a genetic deficiency or something.
"That's an extreme way to put it, Mike."
I rubbed the stubble on my face, looked to Jenna, who was sitting on the ragged and torn couch I inherited with my father's passing. She was holding her daughter, cradling her. There was something about that image that will always stay with me. That was what Benny needed to focus on: tending to his own. Not serving some useless plan he'd read in the Idiot's Guide to Getting Yourself Killed.
"What do you think?" I asked Jenna what Benny should have.
There was a brief smile, and a certain glimmer in her eye. "I think we should stay here, like you said, Mike. If we wait here..."
"But, Jenna---"
That dumbass cut her off. The look in her eyes spoke volumes, but in a language Benny couldn't read.
"---what about our families? Are we supposed to leave them out there?"
"THEY'RE DEAD," she said, startling poor Marissa. I could see the sleep yelling at her eyes, begging and pleading for them to shut. "They're dead, Benny. Can't you see that?" She started crying.
I placed a cautious hand on the trembling man, and turned him around so that we were eye-to-eye. "Do you see what you're doing to your family? Why don't you give it a rest for a while?"
I could see it in his eyes. Tears rimmed the outlines of the lower section of his lids. Benny was losing it...and was going to get someone killed.
There is a book about aliens invading earth, and they even made movies from it. One scene kept playing in my head. The one where the man gave shelter to the protagonist and his daughter, and then slowly started losing it, almost giving up their position to the Invaders. And I felt myself searching for a metal pipe, something quiet, to mimic that vignette.
But I couldn't kill Benny. The only men I've killed were named Charlie, and they lived in a completely different country.
\*\*\*
The nights passed slowly after that. Benny was a persistent little guy, and after a week, I'd had it. He was going to have it his way, and I didn't have it in me to blow the man's brains out or let him get them killed.
After the infection hit it was hard to keep track of the days. They didn't matter, anyhow. All I know is that we left on some night, taking my brand new GMC Sierra. I knew that this was a mistake, but I'd had enough. Death would be better than hearing his bickering and moaning. He was worse than any child I'd ever encountered. I left Donut behind, not wanting the poor old boy to die because of his daddy's big heart. He was left with enough food and water, more so than we had. Besides, they say that animals will survive much longer than humans, especially in an apocalyptic setting.
In hindsight, maybe I should have just sent them on their way that first day. But I'm a generous man, as my grandfather was.
The military installation Benny spoke of took us right through the heart of a city whose name is of no importance---which coincidentally is where this story started, because we actually passed the Benny Family's condo.
Among the many things Benny wasn't prepared for were survivors. And I'm not talking about the friendly ones that want nothing more than to put a smile on your face. No, I'm talking about the mean ones, those that are loaded with fully-automatic weapons and are completely desperate, hungry, and as rabid as the Infected. Ironically, they were the very same ones Benny had wished to meet at the fucking installation.
"Who's that?" Jenna said. Marissa slept on the tiled floor next to her, only a few ads of an old newspaper giving them any bedding.
My eyes darted open when I heard the engine outside revving. The drop-down ceiling cast sight into a different galaxy as my eyes fought to adjust to the darkness. Benny was already making his way into a standing position on the opposite side of his wife.
"Don't, Benny," I whispered. "We don't know who these people are. Get down."
"It's a military vehicle. They're probably looking for gas. I'll let them in."
"No, don't." I reached out.
"Hey," he shouted, waving his hands. "We're inside!"
Fuckin' Benny, I swear.
I had one of my pistols, a Sig Saur P250 .45 ACP, ready for action. And I needed it, because just like I would've, the soldiers opened fire, saving the questions for when Benny's body fell to the floor, blood dripping out of countless holes, forming a lake of bad intentions. But he only received the business end of my shoulder as I tackled him---an action I still find myself questioning.
"Oops. Sorry about your husband, Mrs. Benny," I could've said. Man, the thought wets my parched mouth. Woulda, coulda, shoulda.
But by the time the soldiers and I had stopped firing, little Marissa had started crying (obviously), and that's the only thing that made them stop.
"You alive in there?" one of them shouted.
"Don't say a fucking..."
"Yeah, there are four of us: two men, my wife, and my daughter."
For a brief moment I had a sparkle of hope when one of them said, "None of you infected?"
"No," I yelled out.
"Good," a deep, creepy voice said, then laughed the laugh only a truly evil person could---just like the movies.
I looked at that son of a bitch, Benny, and said, "You just got us all killed." Worst of all, he mentioned the word "woman." I shook my head in disbelief. That's just not something someone says to the people who opened fire on you at first sight.
There was just so much wrong with that situation. You don't go out into the streets and open fire for one zombie that's inside a store, especially if he's waving around and screaming at you. No, these people knew he was alive when they fired, which couldn't mean anything good, as far as I was concerned.
And I was right...
"What?" Benny looked at me quizzically then revealed himself again. "We were looking..."
There was another gunshot, the bullet hitting the wall beside him. He jumped. I took aim from behind the counter, just out of sight.
"We've got grenades," the Creep said. "Throw out your weapons and we'll think about letting you live."
Shit! Sometimes we have to choose our battles. That night I did. It was flight, for the time being---until I could find a way to fix Benny's fuck-up.
The smile on that soldier's face when he disarmed me brought about a piece of me I thought I left back in 'Nam. There was nothing I could do but be taken prisoner. You see, when there are no rules, there are no rules. The balance shifts once the bounds are broken, as it has so many times in the past. Anarchy has its perks when you're on the right side---which we weren't on, thanks to Benny.
I'm sure you're sighing as I had at that moment. Well, at the time, I swear I could see God laughing at the test he'd given me---which, deep down, was the real reason I left with Benny and his family. I've done things, terrible things, back in 'Nam, and this, I felt, was a form of redemption for all the blood that's on my hands.
Those soldiers spared no expense at making the next few days of our lives nothing short of miserable. We weren't fed, starved like neglected and unwanted cattle. And what they did to Jenna...it truly is a shame to know just how low some men will go. They killed her soul the night they took her innocence.
I claimed theirs several nights after...
I negotiated my wrist through one of the ropes that bound me, and then freed the other. All of this had been a culmination from days worth of hard, clandestine work. It was an endurance of patience and pain, and keeping that nosey bastard, Benny, out of my plans. If he found out what I was doing, he'd surely be attempting the same thing. And that would only get us caught...killed.
But it paid off, for the most part. There was only a minor hiccup in the execution.
I dropped to the ground and scanned the room I'd been forced to memorize over the days of Jenna's rape and all of our starvation. Just as I'd measured in my head, the door out was eight-and-a-half paces away. The closet to the immediate right was as barren as I'd expected it to be. Bastards. They were clever, and it should have been their team I was on---until they went mad.
I guess the decimation of all known civilization---or what I had assumed was---will do that to a person.
Just as I put my hand on the knob, that idiot, you-know-who, said something behind the duct tape. And he didn't say it quietly.
"Hhhlllpphh nneeee," he cried, and then repeated.
My eyes had adjusted to the dark the moment they turned the lights off. Jenna and Marissa were still asleep, thankfully. Stability. If everyone got all riled up, my entire plan would have gone further down the shitter than we already were.
"Benny," I said, "you need to listen and listen good. Stay quiet."
Well, he didn't, and for the first time since I'd met the man, I had a moment of clarity, a release only comparable to an orgasm, less anything sexual. As my fist collided with his sternum, I felt like a new man, different...younger. It invigorated me, drove me more into the state of what I was preparing to do.
We were going to survive this.
Or at least I was.
With Benny unconscious, still dangling next to his family, I proceeded down the hall. I knew by the moon's position in the sky that it was early in the morning. That was the last thing I saw before I shut the door. There were three other doors---the room I exited was the last in the center: the master bedroom. I passed the doors on both sides, and then the one to the left---which I assumed was the bathroom---and entered the living room. But my attention was past the dining room and into the kitchen. Two things hindered further unplanned movement. One was sprawled out on the floor, a bottle tipped over, staining the floor with wasted wine---I was never a fan of alcohol abuse. The other had his forehead resting between crossed arms on the kitchen table.
They were killed without a problem. It was when I entered the first room that I heard Benny coming to. He was a resilient son of a bitch, I'll give him that. I hurried in the room and to the bed to kill its occupant, slitting his throat with the same kitchen knife that ended his comrades' tour of insanity. Each time, I felt the pressure of the skin parting, heard the blood seep out, felt their last breaths. I took in each of the little popping sounds of dripping plasma. I could taste their pain, a thirty-two ounce serving of food saved for the gods. And I savored every bit of it, because Jenna couldn't. What they did to her, I feel, completely justified my actions.
There is no humor in actions like that, only justice, revenge. But I'll be damned if I didn't smirk as I left their corpses.
But when I left for the room directly across from this one, Benny was at it again, only this time he was flailing around, some part of his body constantly colliding with the wall. I guess I pissed him off with the whole punch thing. I still don't know why he didn't just listen to me, and as you might well have guessed, little Benny's actions caused a ruckus to stir about in the room I now stood in front of.
I swear that man was trying to get us all killed.
I can only imagine what it looked like from the walls' perspective. The occupant of the room opened the door with such force that I felt a trickle stream down my leg. In a situation just as this, it was a safe bet that whoever was inside would be armed. After all, it was very early in the morning. They should rightfully be paranoid, assuming the Infected had broken into their gated compound. But the Infected hadn't, and they must've known. The door opened to reveal a man in tightie-whities. The look on his face was priceless. Seeing me, a man bloodied and bruised, beaten by him and his friends because of a man named Benny, standing there, in front of him with a bloody knife, wearing the same wardrobe as he, only keeping appropriate composure. And then there was a rustling from behind him, which scared me doubly.
"What is it?" another person asked. To my surprise it was the other soldier. I was going to be in a fight with twice what I bargained for.
But the man in the doorway didn't get a chance to answer his boyfriend. I swiped at his throat, going four-for-four. And when the next body came into sight, though only a silhouette, I attacked, ending its life. I never cared for don't-ask-don't-tell, but I never wanted to express it like that. In a time before, I thought, I'd have taken each of these heroes out for a drink. It helped me cope with having just killed five men---I'm still human. A lot of emotions were going through me at that moment.
And one thought I still have yet to shake.
Part of me, a very small but still existing part, is grateful that it wasn't me being raped. I don't know if I could handle that sort of violation. They say you learn something every day, and I learned two things that day. One was that I had a new-found appreciation for any and all rape victims---as for the following days, I saw the after-effects of such a devastating and cruel act. The second, well, I'm not so proud of that one. I learned just what type of person I really am. Though I have only expressed this thought externally this one time, it has to be a defining trait of my personality.
It's a very depressing thought, and I made sure to thank Benny every time that I saw fit---which was a lot. Something like that should never be forgotten. But mind this, it was never said in front of either of the girls. To them I was a gentleman, their savior, and I needed that more than anything else at that time. Because out there, in infected territories, you need something to keep you stable, or else you lose it all.
We eventually found and holed up in a warehouse in the industrial district just outside the heart of the city. From here we could see the fences of the military outpost. But it wasn't an outpost at all---it was a fucking strip mall, with poorly erected mounds of sandbags and toppled machinery. It was built in such haste that they hadn't even had the chance to think of a way out. The more I think about, and put myself in that situation, I can see how it happened.
It's unfortunate, but almost everybody knows a Benny. They might not share the same name, but they share the same traits.
And true to his manner, just being alive at that point wasn't good enough for him. No, now he wanted to exact revenge on those that he'd misplaced his faith in, possibly hitching a ride on my ego. I still don't know if he acted this way to restore some confidence in his mentally-shattered spouse and daughter, or a horrible attempt at fooling himself. I've seen this routine before, just not as serious.
He really was going to get someone killed.
Just like a child that couldn't let a sleeping dog lie.
We'd all barricaded the lower floor of the warehouse we found not soon after leaving the empty "outpost." But our activities drew the undead to us. It was inevitable, I guess. For the first day, we had no problems. Benny's attitude was stable enough to keep a grasp on what needed to be done. But with time comes impatience, and it caught up with him on the second day, the day we ate the last of our food. It had rained the day before, so water wasn't an issue---which was a bright fucking ray of light, if you ask me.
But guess what...
"We're all gonna die up here," he shouted, either in a dream or in a daze, I couldn't tell. It was dark, early. "We're all gonna die." He practically cried.
My eyes opened when I heard the constant splashing of his nasty-ass feet in our drinking water. I mean, sipping water from the floor was bad enough, not to mention unsanitary. But to top off that sundae with foot cheese and abused skin, possibly a renegade hair or two, it drove me mad, like clocks to Hook.
"Benny." I approached his general direction. "Benny, what the fuck are you talkin' about, man? We're fine up here. Everything's kosher, man, chill out. You're gonna wake Jenna and Marissa."
"They're dead," he said.
What a thing to say about the last of his family, who was sleeping soundly just meters away. But, having not thought of it at the time, I was dealing with the last bit of his sanity. It finally happened, just weeks after everything went to shit. Benny's mind reverted to a primitive state that night, working on such limited function that reasoning was an impossibility---one that we couldn't afford.
I went to put my hand on him, bring him back home so-to-speak. That small action, a gesture meant for nothing short of prosperity, drove him to the brink and beyond.
"Get your fucking hand off me," he swiped my hand away. "We're all gonna die up here. We'll run out of food." He began pacing around. "I...I have to save my family...it's up to me."
"Benny..."
"No, no, no, I get it. I'll...I'll be right back."
No, I couldn't let that idiot go wandering about in that sort of mood by himself. I held back, creeping in the shadows, listening. He spoke to himself in a way that only a lunatic could, saying things that no man should say, especially about himself. I won't repeat what he said exactly, but let's just say the man's self-esteem was clinically alarming. He answered questions a tone deeper than that which asked. It was part demonic, part nightmare, wholly unrealistic as far as I was concerned. And yet, I had to follow the man that was obviously intent on leaving this structure, exposing us all to those that wanted nothing more than to tear the flesh off our living bodies and jam it down their decaying throats. I was going for more "part nightmare" at this point. Everything I'd seen in the movies had led me to this point, and every point that I'd encountered before. There were countless signs that predicted this outcome.
This man, Benny, truly did fear the unknown. He'd said he was a network technician in his pre-apocalyptic life, his days planned far in advance. But now, when you didn't know when your next meal was or even if you were going to get one, nothing could be planned. I can almost see how that would drive someone with his demeanor to the state he was in now.
I still wonder if he knew that it was a mistake coming out here.
Had I not "prepared" myself as a child, I very well could have been Benny. I'm sure the military training has something to do with it, too. Just a little.
A man can only take so much, some of us less than others.
Benny made for the bottom level and headed for one of the barricaded windows. It was a smaller window, which would only allow limited access to the outside world, or more importantly, giving the outside world access to us. I thought, only briefly, of letting that idiot out and then sealing the aperture with what he'd already started to remove. But then the thought of him actually making it back came to mind. And that would surely lead packs of infected to what had to be the last of the living. If I were lucky he'd die out there, but as you've probably guessed, I'm not that lucky.
"Benny," I said as deep as I could, grabbing a piece of wood off the floor, "Don't do it. I'm not kidding." I ran up to him, done reasoning with a man that couldn't be reasoned with.
I caught up to him and turned the man around.
Then everything went black...
That son of a bitch pulled a fast one on yours truly. I'm sure all my war buddies got a kick out that from wherever it is their souls rest. From what I can gather---since I would not inquire---he'd had some sort of blunt object in his grip, concealing it in the darkness, waiting for when I'd momentarily lost it. Maybe he wasn't as gone as I'd previously thought. Maybe he'd put on that show as a way to lure me into a trap because he knew I'd refuse to let him leave this place.
Some hero, eh?
I awoke to the sensation of a spinning mind and a throbbing forehead. Had Benny done this because I was becoming too much of a control freak? I had been what most would call the "leader" of the group since its formation. Had it been my actions that allowed for such things to happen?
The answer is "yes." I royally fucked myself when I allowed us to leave, rather, leave with a woman, her daughter, and her fucking insane, never-satisfied-with-what-he-had husband. My mind said "don't," and I didn't listen. I hated myself for the next few hours the three of us sat, waiting for Benny's return. I couldn't even look the girls in the eye I was so ashamed.
Hours later he finally came back, running with only a small purse full of candy bars and one bottle of water. Great, right? On a high note, an hour later, after saying he "secretly made his way through the back," that same horde I spoke of earlier came-a-knockin'. They should have made the movie, Benny of the Dead, 'cause that prick practically stole the scene, only he didn't have a Winchester, he had a family. And that was when his game of cat and mouse and real and not so real came to a screeching halt.
In our botched escape, Marissa was bitten. One of those things, what used to be a pretty young girl wearing a desecrated and soiled blouse, sunk her rotted teeth, or what remained of her teeth, into that child's arm. I've never heard a scream like that before. A mother calling for her now-dying child. It was a death sentence, and it happened right in front of Jenna. And there was nothing she could do, nothing any of us could do.
I went a round with the rabid thing, fighting my tears as the girl kicked and screamed. The pain was so much. Too much for such a beautiful child. I snapped the thing's neck, the skin soft and warm, depending on the location. It was slimy, and smelled a horrid smell I dare not describe other than the word "rot." The Infected fell back motionless, and I scooped up Marissa, carrying her over my shoulder, and grabbed Jenna by her arm, saving them both. Benny was caught up in some internal battle, and didn't even lift a finger while his daughter cried his name.
"Benny, come on!"
The four of us made it outside through a series of offices on the first floor, finding sanctuary through a now broken window. We found ourselves in an alley, and that was where the infection claimed Marissa. Whatever this thing is, it works quickly---or had so for the little girl---bringing death just minutes after exposure. I knew I shouldn't have brought her. Part of Benny must've rubbed off on me, I guess. But I am positive that was the only way I could get Jenna to follow. I was damned either way.
I could feel the pain she was experiencing. Her loss was at such a cost that I couldn't stand to watch her cry. I left her there to meet up with Benny.
"I'm sorry, Mike," Benny said with a sense of lucidity in his tone. Tears streamed down his face as he watched the Infected enter the building en masse, searching for us. There was a realization, enlightenment with the sight. "I've killed my family, and quite possibly, I have cost you your life. I can see clearly now. You were right. This entire time, Mike, you were right. My impatience was always a curse." He turned to me, smiled, and put his hand on my shoulder, rubbing it. "My mother always told me that my attitude, my temper, would get the best of me one day. She'd always worry, saying that I would die young if I wasn't careful."
I couldn't find the words to respond to his confession. I knew then and know now that he'd done better than most. So many had already died, our expectancy had been surpassed days ago. He just needed to listen.
"Look at me," he said, breaking the silence between us. "I'm only twenty-eight." He choked up for a moment. "I've taken everything I've loved and cared about, and thrown it down the damned drain. I should have listened to you. I should have listened to my mother..."
The way he was talking, he knew it was too late, that there was no reversing the world's reactions to his actions, his "can do" attitude in a "don't do" world, and I felt immensely sorry for him. No man deserved to feel that way, to go through what he had. But it didn't change the fact that one phrase I'd heard so much as a child cycled through my mind: I told you so.
And then it happened. Marissa reanimated and attacked her grieving mother. Though we had only met weeks ago, part of me loved her and Marissa. And I knew she felt the same about me, if only somewhat.
Benny ran and pushed his daughter off with so much force that she went airborne and crashed into a dumpster head first, which in turn caught some of the horde's attention---they were in the street roaming aimlessly until then. Marissa was motionless, possibly dead. Jenna was dying. And Benny just looked to God and let out a scream.
The last "don't" he'd ever commit: Don't ever alert the horde.
"She's been bitten," I yelled, trying to pull him out of his daze.
It was only a matter of time before she'd pass, and I couldn't take it anymore. Something inside told me, "Don't leave them," but I found it hard to reason with such a preposterous request.
The last thing I saw him do was kiss his wife. Then the Infected found him. Some chased me, but I never looked back. Not even once. What was done was done, and I rubbed my hands clean of it.
\*\*\*
Benny and his family died on a gloomy day, the sky filled with gray tones, clouds even darker than their background. I ran until I could run no more. And here I am, finally. In my house. Safe and sound. I even have Donut! My boy survived this whole time, his bags of food long gone. Never did I have a doubt, I guess. Just never really thought about it. Haven't thought about much since my return. Being alive is good enough for me.
And when the next batch of survivors comes across my doorstop, they'll read my sign: No Bennys Allowed!
Wasteload
by Kevin Wallis
Jenny looked at Jeremy's naked body and tried not to laugh. She had never seen nipples so hairy on skin so pasty. They looked like the eyes of an albino werewolf.
"You ready, baby?" Jeremy said. "Cuz I'm about to bring the heat. Gonna sex you up real good."
Jenny wondered again what the hell she was doing here with Mr. Color Me Badd. Just get it over with, she thought. She hoped her friends in the other rooms of the warehouse were faring better.
Jeremy lowered himself over her splayed body and entered...she thought. She was anything but new to this practice, and Jeremy's manhood, ha ha, boyhood, was hard to discern through his scraggly nest of pubic hair.
As Jeremy pumped like an epileptic Sasquatch, Jenny closed her eyes and cursed herself for letting Traci and Holmes talk her into this.
"The warehouse is abandoned," Traci had said.
"We can bust out a window. Just the six of us. All night." Holmes had smiled. Horniness layered his face like makeup.
So here she was, being ridden by a scrawny nobody with hair ripped from the eighties and a body ripped from a concentration camp. She---
"I'm coming!"
"Not in me, you're not," Jenny said, visions of birthing muskrats suddenly raging through her head. She pushed her partner away.
Jeremy's eyes widened, his moans getting louder. Louder. Louder still, crescendoing to screams, the screams to shrieks.
She crab-walked backwards and stared at Jeremy, her own eyes widening now. Jeremy bent over, clutching his junk and wailing like a prepubescent schoolgirl.
"What the fuck?" she whispered.
Jeremy stood, arched his back, and gazed down at his rod. The head was red and swollen, like an apple speared by a twig. It pulsed, seemed to breathe, then exploded in a haze of blood and semen like the backfiring muskets from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.
A streak of white burst from Jeremy's exploding hog and plopped wetly on the ground between Jenny's thighs. She jumped up, back-pedaled, her hands sliding through the remains of Jeremy's pride and joy as she scurried.
The glob of goo thrashed around on the floor, then shuddered and lay still.
Oh. My. God, Jenny thought. That's a...a...
A sperm the size of a baseball stared up at her, its foot-long tail streaming behind it like an enraged snake. At least she thought it stared. It had no eyes, yet she could feel its gaze on her, its hunger, its need for the exposed lips between her legs.
The sperm lunged like a rabid flying squirrel. Jenny swung her arm and batted it away. It landed in the corner of the room and turned toward her again. Before it could come for her, Jenny leapt over Jeremy's fallen body and sprinted for the door, slamming it behind her.
Screams greeted her in the lobby, screams she recognized as Traci's. Her friend burst from one of the warehouse's back rooms, naked and panicked. She rushed toward Jenny, then turned toward the door from which she had emerged.
Her lower back was covered in blood.
Shoulda known she preferred it that way, Jenny thought. She always did walk kind of funny.
She grabbed her hysterical friend and spun her around. "Where's Holmes?"
"Dead!" Traci shouted. "His pecker! It...it..."
"I know, Traci. I saw it. Just calm down. Where's Debbie and Sanchez?"
More screams from a third room answered her question. It was Debbie's turn to run to her friends, her screams more sobs than shouts. Blood plastered her face. Figures, Jenny thought.
Before Jenny could reach her, Debbie stopped running. She lurched once, her knees buckling. Her lips curved upward through the blood, and she fell face first on to the floor.
From Debbie's bare ass, a thin white tail wiggled, then disappeared into her like a burrowing worm.
In the silence that followed, Jenny heard trembling words escape Deb's grinning mouth.
"I'm a Mommy now."
Jenny grabbed Traci's limp arms and dragged her toward another room, hopefully one without a dead, dickless boyfriend.
Safely barricaded behind the door, Jenny took a moment to calm her frantic friend and reassess their situation. They were in an office, an old wooden desk in the center of the room. Aluminum lockers stood along one wall. A closet bisected another wall, its white door in drastic contrast to the lime green floral wallpaper.
Okay, she thought. All of our guys are dead. Gigantic sperm-monsters exploded from their tallywhackers. One of them screwed Debbie in the face, and now she might be dead too.
She turned to Traci. "This was a great idea, girl."
Traci shrugged and wiped snot from her nose. "Sorry, Jen. I just wanted to be with Holmes. He's hung like a---"
"Okay, I got it."
"Seriously, have you ever seen those nature shows? He's like a human zebra."
"Dude, enough, Trace. I don't---"
"It, like, brushed his knee---"
"He's not hung like anything anymore, Traci. And there are at least two more pieces of spunk out there hunting our vajayjays. Let's take a look around, try to find something to help us get out of here."
Traci crossed her arms over her breasts and shivered. "Or at least some clothes. It's freezing. I could cut glass over here."
The office was plain and nondescript; just a desk, lockers, and a closet. Jenny opened the desk drawer and pulled out a thick, leather-bound book.
"Look, Trace. A photo album." She opened the book, gasped, giggled. "It's porn. We just screwed our boyfriends to death and now we find porn."
Hundreds of pictures filled the album. Men humped women, women humped women, men humped men, one chick humped something furry. Some pictures featured so many naked, sweating bodies that they became indistinguishable from one another. A grimacing face here, legs intertwined with necks there. Mouths open in pleasure, mouths full of flesh. One showed a caped dwarf straddling whom appeared to be Jack Spratt's wife, nearly smothering in the folds yet grinning like Rumpelstiltskin gone worse.
"Look at the walls in the pictures," Jenny said. "Lime green, flowers."
The two nude women looked at the walls around them. The same vomit-inducing pastels blinded them.
"We're in an old porn theater."
"Let's see what else we can find."
Traci walked to the lockers and opened one. She yelped as dozens of boxes collapsed to the floor.
"Latex gloves," she said. "Hundreds of 'em. And lubricant. Tubes and tubes of it. And, oh look, dildos." Jenny shook her head. Only Traci could describe dozens of dildos falling to her feet from a mysterious cabinet like she was describing what she had for dinner last night. Which probably wasn't far from the truth.
Jenny had been examining the closet on the opposite wall. "Cleaning supplies. That's all. Boxes and boxes of unused cleaning supplies. Lysol, Mop-N-Glo, wood cleaner. Not a single box opened."
"No wonder this place is filthy," Traci said. "No one ever bothered to clean it."
Clarity dawned. Jenny grabbed Traci by the shoulders. "We're in a porn theater," she repeated. "A porn theater no one ever cleaned."
"So?"
"Traci, can you imagine how much bodily fluid had been tossed about in here like so much salad? How much jizz fired across the rooms like giants snorting milk through their noses? And now we're being stalked by giant mutant sperms."
Traci looked confused.
"Dammit, Trace, it's wasted sperm. They must have grown among the filth of this place until they mutated!"
"But they were in our guys. How did they get inside them?"
"First of all, if you ever call Jeremy my 'guy' again, I'm punching you in the throat. Second, I don't know. Maybe even the air in here carries enough grime to morph a person's regular sperm into giant Sperminators or something."
"My God, Jenny. Do you know what this means? That's what they do, that's all they do, and they won't stop, ever, until you are pregn---" Traci's eyes protruded into fear-blinded orbs. Jenny only had a brief moment to see another thrashing flagella wiggle its way into Traci's virginia before her friend smiled and fell backwards. Then the white sperm-tail was gone.
"Goddammit," Jenny muttered as she ran from the room once more, slamming the door in the middle of Traci's blissful words.
"I'm a Mom---"
Jenny quickly scanned the lobby for the third cumbeast. Nothing. Eyeing one last door on the far side of the lobby, she ran toward it and ripped it open.
Bad idea.
"Now that is one big fucking sperm."
Its white dome grazed the ceiling, its pulsating sides snuggled between opposing walls like a wet soccer ball slammed into a shoebox. Its creamy exterior oozed with millions upon millions of baby swimmers. Its tail flopped against the tile floor, cradled beneath its hulking body.
Jenny could make out a small section of wall behind the Spermasaur. She saw the tops of pink curtains hanging from a large window and settling around the outside of the monstrous wad.
Jenny felt it watching her, hungry and horny.
Chunks of white began to drip from the thing and wiggle toward her, tiny balls of ivory trailing slithering flagella behind them. Like waterfalls of milk, the sperm cascaded from their parent and streaked toward Jenny.
She ran, not knowing where to go. The porn studio seemed to have grown from a small, abandoned warehouse into some palacial, ever-shifting mansion.
From the corner of her eye she spotted Debbie, still lying prone in the corner of the lobby. An enormous splash of blood spread from beneath her naked body. From beyond her friend, Jenny thought she heard a baby crying.
Screw that.
Figuring the office was her safest bet, Jenny sprinted that direction, legs pumping, breasts bouncing. She heard the slithering of hundreds, thousands of sperm chasing her. Her snatch tingled as if calling them home.
She whipped the office door shut a split second before the first of the sperm could follow her inside. Quickly judging the size of the crack under the door against the size of her pursuers, she decided that she was safe from the intruding jizz.
Now what? She felt like she was in some bad horror story, too ridiculous to comprehend.
Traci still lay on the floor. Her belly was swollen grotesquely, throbbing and straining against whatever horror was trying to escape.
Jenny scanned the room, remembered the boxes of gloves and lube, and grinned.
\*\*\*
Jenny lost track of time as she worked, readying her weapon. Throughout her toils, she could hear the baby sperm smashing against the door, demanding entrance to the room, to her womb.
She had dragged Traci to the corner, praying that the thing inside her stomach would stay home until she could escape.
Now she was ready. She checked her set-up for the hundredth time. It's the best I can do, she thought, and pulled on the laced-together mop-head strings she had tied around the door handle in order to open it from the far side of the room.
The sperm spewed forth, charging with unabated anger and unquenched hunger...straight into a seven-foot tall, spermicidally lubed condom of latex gloves.
Jenny had spent hours tying the gloves together and slathering it with the sperm-killing gel. Now it stretched across the doorway, stapled to the roof with the backs of her earrings, opening its rubber arms and inviting the sperm to their doom.
She had hoped the sperm were mindless enough not to realize the fate of their brethren who died in front of them, and her intuition was paying off. From behind the enormous rubber, her view of the carnage was blocked, but she could hear their death-cries and envision their demise as wave after wave of spooge-bombs slammed into the lube-caked latex.
Then a rumbling sounded from beyond the condom. Jenny knew what was...coming. She grasped her weapons. In her right hand, a hot pink King Dong Progasm 3000, double-headed for those nights you're feeling extra randy. In her left, a Beaded Back Door Rotator XL. Both toys dripped spermicide. She prepared to meet the Queen Sperm.
It smashed through the door, bits of wood flying through the air like wartime shrapnel. Bursting through the makeshift condom, it barreled toward Jenny with the speed of, well, of a determined sperm.
Ducking under the lashing flagella, Jenny stabbed at Spermzilla with King Dong. Its sticky hide sizzled at the spermicide's touch. The beast mewled in rage. Jenny jumped over a slash of its tail and drove the Rotator into the sperm's head, aiming where she imagined a brain would reside if sperm had such things.
Already weakened from the condom's lube, the Queen Sperm sagged beneath Jenny's relentless blows. The toys struck again and again, pausing only to knock aside any babies fortunate enough to have survived the condom wall. Battle lust overtook her as she wailed at the monster. She was Joan of Arc gone wrong; she was the Womb Raider. She lashed and hammered, the plot of every videogame junkie's wet dream, the speed in every lonely old man's hands, until, finally, the beast sagged to the floor and lay still. Its exterior melted upon its death, millions of sperm slushing across the floor like hundreds of gallons of spilled coconut oil.
Jenny collapsed against the wall, careful to cover her womanness against unwelcome visitors. Her rage satiated, she now only wanted to sleep.
A cry, tiny and trembling, prevented any rest, however. Rising, Jenny walked toward the sound, senses keen, dildos cocked and loaded.
The sound came from the corner, from Traci. Her belly had split open in a torrent of blood and amniotic fluid. Strands of placenta snaked from her abdomen, dirty-Duncan side up.
From behind the lump of flesh that used to be her friend, a tiny, bloodied hand arose. It grasped the remnants of Traci's belly and started pulling itself up, babbling and wheezing. The crown of head emerged into view, lumpy, misshapen, purple, then a single eye peered over the corpse and locked on to Jenny. Sinful glee coated that eye, and Jenny froze before its gaze.
Something wet and bulbous slammed into Jenny's crotch and wiggled into her canal. She grasped at the tail, but it disappeared into her sweetness before she caught hold. Too late, so goddamn late, she realized she had never accounted for the fate of one last sperm.
Fucking Jeremy, she thought.
She fell to the floor, her head landing inches from Traci's newly-birthed spawn. A tiny wet hand caressed her face, and she smiled, dreaming of the glorious sibling she would make for this child.
I'm a Mommy now.
The Texas Inbred Mutant Massacre
by Shane McKenzie
"But that girl said not to come this way, remember?" Courtney said as she tugged on the back of George's thinning Jimmy Hendrix t-shirt.
"That bitch was whacko, man. Looked like she ain't never seen a bath. Ain't that right, Lamar?" George pulled the tail of his shirt from Courtney's grasp. He'd been sick of hearing her voice ever since their trip started, nagging about this and that. Then she gets all worked up about the girl they found wandering down the side of the road, looking all lost and covered in filth and dried blood. George figured just a crazy-ass, hillbilly local.
"You know it. Light up that doobie, man," Lamar said as he ran a comb through his small afro and stuck it there for holding.
"Can you guys stop smoking pot for one second and think about this?" Courtney stomped her foot and crossed her arms. "That girl back there told us there was a house in these woods, said she barely escaped alive, was covered in blood, and you don't think any of that is strange?"
George rolled his eyes, pulled the joint from his shirt pocket, lit it, inhaled deeply, blew the smoke toward Courtney's scrunched up face. "We're in the sticks, girl. Everybody's got a house in the woods out here. We're lost, maybe these folks can point us in the right direction."
"Say, man, pass that shit this way."
George passed the joint, reached down and slapped Courtney on the ass. She yelped and scowled at him.
"I'm not going in there. I'm gonna go wait by the car." And she stalked back into the woods and disappeared.
George smirked and he and Lamar shared a laugh. "Sometimes that bitch can make me crazy, you know?"
Lamar puffed on the joint and stared at the house that stood about fifty yards away from them. "You think folks in Texas racist against blacks?"
"They're probably too stupid to even know what racist means, man. Just stay with me, you'll be fine."
"Yeah, really. You know what they say about black folks and horror movies, jack. And right now, this sho feels like one."
Right on cue, a violent grinding sound exploded from the distance and Lamar flinched, grabbed George's arm, dropped the joint from his lips.
"What the fuck was that?"
It sounded like a saw of some kind revving, and George held his ear to the air, then laughed, shrugging away Lamar's grip.
"Probably someone cutting firewood, you ol' pussy ass. Now let's get inside and ask for directions to the highway, all right?"
Lamar stretched his neck in every direction, his eyes wide enough to tear at the corners. "Just hurry yo honky ass up, man."
"You boys lost?"
This time, George jumped too, nearly threw him and Lamar to the ground. A shrunken, wrinkly man stood in the doorway, shoving the screen door outward as he stepped into the sunlight. His face was a roadmap of cracks and lines, his bottom lip sticking out and covered in black spots. He spit on his own porch and studied George and Lamar with one eye, the other squinted shut.
"Scared the shit outta me, man," George said, walking toward the man with an outstretched hand. "We are lost, actually. Wondering if maybe you could tell us where the highway is from here?"
The man spit again, ignored George's hand.
The sound of the saw echoed in the air again, this time closer.
"Say, George, man. Let's just go." Lamar had his hand on George's arm again, his eyes searching the distance.
"You boys hungry?" The man held up a fork and knife, which George hadn't noticed he'd been carrying. A dark tongue, decorated in more black spots, wiggled out from his concrete lips and tasted them.
"Nah, man. Not hungry, just need directions. Can you help us out?"
"George...man...let's go!" Lamar tugged on George's arm. He pointed toward the open field. "A big ass muthafucka comin' at us! And he's got something..."
"That's just Jethro, boy. He's hungry too."
George craned his neck to see where Lamar pointed, and saw the big fellow dashing across the field toward them. He still had a good football field length to go, holding something long over his head with both hands, waving it around menacingly. It roared and choked as the behemoth swung it. Then the big bastard looked like he got winded, stopped running and put his hands on his knees, sucking in air. Then he stood back up and kept coming. His face was...different. From that distance, George couldn't tell what he was seeing, but it looked like an ass on the guy's face.
Then George screamed when something stabbed into his neck, and by the time he realized it was the fork, the old man was already swinging the knife. It stabbed into the soft flesh of his throat and out the back. George's eyes fluttered shut and his body went limp.
\*\*\*
Lamar wanted to run, but his legs kept him rooted to his spot as the old man sliced the flesh away from around the fork, then pulled it to his mouth. He chewed happily, blood dribbling down his wrinkled, jiggly chin.
"Oooo Eeee, that's good eatin'. You sure you ain't hungry, boy?"
Lamar felt how stoned he was for the first time and shook his head to try and clear it. He had something clever and witty to say in return, really let the old honky tonk motherfucker have it, but he didn't have a chance.
"Jethro loves him some dark meat, don't you, Jethro?"
Lamar turned just in time to see Jethro, a big fucker, like a house with arms and legs, square and strong-looking, and a...butt face. From that close up, Lamar could see it was strapped to his head: an ass mask. The skin was dried up and shiny, shriveled and crispy-looking with a jagged eyehole on each side. A tattoo of Tweety Bird was on the right cheek; the crack of the ass ran right down the middle of his face, his nose peeking out beneath it. His mouth was a shit stain with teeth.
He lifted his weapon over his head and revved it. It roared and coughed white smoke into the hot Texas air. A weed whacker, its neon orange strings spinning.
"You boys quit messin' around and bring our dinner inside." An elderly woman in a wheelchair rolled into view from inside of the dark house. She had both breasts out, two babies suckling on one each. As she rolled outside, Lamar saw that there weren't two babies, but one with two heads. The wet, sucking sound killed his high.
"Yes, Mama," the man and Jethro said together. Then the weed whacker descended on Lamar's face and he hit the ground.
\*\*\*
Courtney sat in the driver's seat of the Camaro and tossed pebbles into the distance as she waited. George was in one of those moods, the kind where she can't seem to do or say nothing right. The kind when he made her feel like a child. And with his buddy around, he was trying extra hard to treat her like shit, look all macho in front of Lamar. But Courtney knew he'd be back to his sweet self once there was nobody around to see him do it. Those were the days she held on to, those were the days that kept her around.
She stopped tossing pebbles, her hand turning into a fist around the remaining rocks in her palm.
What the hell was that noise?
It sounded like some kind of power tool, a chainsaw maybe. It was hard to tell, but it sounded far enough away, so she shrugged her shoulders, tossed away the rest of the rocks. She wished she would have grabbed the keys from George before retreating back to the car---at least she could have listened to some tunes while she waited for Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dumbass to finish up with whatever they thought they were doing. But considering they were both high as the moon, she figured they'd be taking their sweet time. She rested her forehead on the steering wheel and sighed.
"Howdy, ma'am."
Courtney flinched and honked the horn with her head. She knew from the tone and politeness of the voice that it was nobody she knew. She turned to face him.
"Didn't mean to startle you, ma'am. You need some kind o' help or sumptin?"
A tall, tan, broad-shouldered man in a black cowboy hat and skin-tight jeans stood a few yards away. A smoldering cigarette hung from his lip, bouncing when he spoke. A gold and silver belt buckle the size of a fist, the shape of Texas outlined in chainsaw teeth, reflected the sun into her face, and she squinted as she continued drinking in the southern God before her. He was nothing less than a honky tonk hunk, and Courtney felt her cheeks glowing. She had to peel her eyes away from the massive bulge in his jeans, which seemed to pulse slightly, as if breathing, but she demanded her eyes to move back to the man's' face and stay there. He smiled and tipped his hat.
"I...uh...I'm just waiting for my boy...my friend to get back. He went to ask for directions at the house just inside these woods."
"Probably not a good idea to go knockin' on doors round these parts, ma'am. Some people real sensitive bout their property."
Her eyes tried to disobey her, tried to take the elevator down to the bulge, but she kept them trained on the man's piercing eyes, sparkles shining at her from the shadow under the hat. "I tried to tell them that, but they won't listen."
"They?"
"Yeah, George and Lamar. We're headin' to the Doobie Brothers concert in Waco, got lost along the way. Man at the gas station told us about this shortcut, said it'd save us three hours minimum." Courtney wiped the sweat from her face. "I Told George we shouldn't be taking dirt roads in an area we're not familiar with."
"Smart girl. Your friend don't sound too bright, if you don't mind me sayin'. If he woulda listened to you, there's a good chance you'd all still be alive."
"Wait...what?"
He lifted his hat and spun it on his hand. Three eyes stared back at Courtney, one on his forehead just below the hairline. It was pink and yellow, blinking rapidly like something was caught in it. Thick, gray chunks of mucus filled the corners, and as the man took a long drag from his cigarette, the eye closed in ecstasy. He tossed the butt and stomped his snakeskin boot over it. Then he went for his zipper.
Courtney had one hand behind her, blindly searching for something to defend herself with. Her body tingled, her stomach churned.
"Not too often we get purty girls round here, ma'am. I might hafta get Mama to let me keep you fer awhile. Would you like that? Would you like to spend some time with me, ma'am?" He had the buckle off and the zipper down. The bulge inflated and deflated, giving off heat that dwarfed the Texas sun.
Her hand found something, sticking up from behind the passenger seat, hard and tubular. She wrapped her shaking fingers around it.
"You and me gonna have a good 'ol time. Names Bo. But you gonna call me Pappy." He reached into his pants and pulled out his junk.
Courtney vomited into her mouth, choking on it and stinging her nostrils with it before finally swallowing it back down. What he pulled out of his pants was nothing her worst nightmare could have conjured. The testicles were swollen, red and purple, pulsating and giving off a slight squeak. The penis thrashed like an unmanned firehose, the head warped and discolored. The slit at the tip opened and closed like a fish gill with two long, curved rat-teeth that clicked together. The man cupped his balls and moaned, took a step toward the Camaro.
"You stay your podunk ass back!" She swung the object, yet unidentified, over her head. The bong smashed against the bulging testicles, and shards of glass stuck into them, protruding out like porcupine quills. Yellow fluid leaked out, throwing a thick, sickly scent into the air.
Bo fell to his knees, wincing and groaning. The pink and yellow eye quivered and blinked. The diseased penis roiled in the dirt like an injured worm.
Courtney stood up, still holding the jagged, broken stem of the bong. She stepped to Bo who looked up at her like a child in timeout.
"P-please, ma'am. I only wanted to play."
"Play time's over, Bo." She jabbed with the glass and punctured the third eye. Gray fluid as thick as oatmeal ran down his face, and Bo hollered and fell to his side. The snakeskin boots kicked in the dirt.
Twigs snapped behind her.
She spun to face it, saw the thing staring at her from the tree line, backed away. She kept her eyes on him as she blindly back-stepped. He raised the weed whacker over his head and made it roar, spinning its twine to cut the air. Black, curly hair hung over a butt that seemed to be strapped to his face. Drool oozed from the snarling mouth beneath it.
A hand snapped shut over her ankle.
"Get her, Jethro! She hurt me, she hurt me!"
Courtney tried to tug her leg away, but the grip was too tight. She stomped her free foot on the shuddering, ruined eye, and the hand released her with a scream from Bo. But Jethro came for her then. He grunted, his weapon still held high, and shuffled after her.
Courtney took off. She weaved through the trees, refusing to look over her shoulder, though she could hear the whacker loud and clear. Jethro growled as he chased, revving the whacker every chance he got.
Then she tripped. A fucking tree root. Her face bounced off the dirt and her ears rang. Bo whooped and hollered in the distance, cheering on Jethro.
Courtney pushed off the ground, but was kicked back down. She rolled over and stared directly into the eyeholes of the ass face, then felt the grubby hands seize her. Jethro giggled like a special ed student playing with himself, then she fainted as he tossed her over his shoulder.
\*\*\*
She woke up strapped to a chair at the head of a table. The ropes around her arms, legs, and stomach bit into her skin with every movement. An old man sat on the other side of the table, leaning forward and staring at her. His face was kind and gentle, his eyes regarding her with a hint of regret.
"Help me," she said.
"It's too late, child. How did you get yourself mixed up in all this? A pretty little thing like you?"
The old man had ropes around his midsection. He looked down as if he'd just discovered them.
"Who are they?" she said.
"Hungry, my dear girl. And only one thing will sustain them. The stomachs of abominations are difficult to fill."
"I wanna go home."
"You cannot. You are here now, as food or mate, and there is no escape."
"Awe, shut up you old coot." A woman's voice mixed with a mechanical whir. "Don't listen to Grandpa, he can't talk so good."
"I can talk fine, you miserable harpy. Undo these straps so I can relieve myself!"
"You see? Can't understand a word, can you?" The woman rolled into the room on a motorized cart, a sleeping baby in her lap...two sleeping babies...a two-headed mutant. She came until the cart slammed against Courtney's chair then smiled with blackened teeth.
"Let me go. You gotta let me go."
"But honey, you know I can't do that. Yer part of the family now. Gonna give us plenty a strong little ones, right?"
Courtney's head became heavy and drooped over her chest. A string of drool stretched from her lip and dangled, swaying as she choked up.
"Now now, honey, it ain't all so bad. My boys are sweet boys." Her finger lifted Courtney's chin. "Such a pretty thing. Wanna hold my darlings?"
The two-headed toddler was tossed into her lap like a football. One head still slept, but the other blinked and made a sucking sound. It turned to face its brother, leaned over and bit his face. Now they were both awake, one crying, the other looking for a teat on Courtney's lap. The smell wafting up was like sharp cheddar.
"My boys sure are hungry. We got us a good haul today. Some dark meat, too."
"I'm going to piss my trousers if you don't untie me, harlot!" Grandpa said.
The woman reached over and scooped up the baby, then pulled out her breasts. The heads wiggled and jerked, then calmed as she pressed them to her chest. They suckled on the oversized raisins, and the woman's eyelids fluttered.
"Well, any appetite I had managed to conjure has just been vanquished. And a fresh pair of slacks is required."
Courtney screamed. The old couple flinched and stared as she wailed. Her throat felt shredded, but she kept at it, fighting against her restraints---the rope ate away at her skin.
"No screamin' at the table. Ain't that right, Mama?"
Bo, Jethro, and a short wrinkly man with spotted lips shuffled in, wheeling a cart covered in a checkered tablecloth. A bandage was wrapped around Bo's head and he walked with a limp, but he smiled. Jethro wore a new mask, but there was no mistaking his huge frame. The penis hanging from his face made him look like an elephant, and when he turned to face Courtney, it swung and whipped the side of his head. She recognized the scar where George had been scratched on the dick by the family cat when he was little.
"What did you do? Where's George?"
Jethro giggled and nodded---the penis swayed.
"Dinner is served." The wrinkly man ripped the tablecloth away. Lamar lay there, steam swirling from his cooked body.
Courtney's mouth watered at the savory scent, then she vomited into her lap.
"When we're done eatin' I'll show you my room," Bo said. "We gonna have us a good time, ain't that right, Mama?"
"That's right, honey. Mama needs more grandbabies. Especially since yer sister went and took off. Left her poor babies behind."
Jethro shaved off slices of Lamar's leg and handed out the plates. His eyes blinked away the pubic hair that rested on his forehead. He dragged his feet as he moved toward Courtney, set a plate with a large helping in front of her.
Despite the sickness in her stomach, she was hungry. Grease oozed over the hot meat, creating a beige pool around it on the plate. Bo sat beside her and winked, then grabbed handfuls of meat and jammed them into his mouth. A brown stain grew bit by bit on his bandage.
"Eat?" Jethro said. He plucked a wiggly piece and dangled it in front of her mouth.
She curled her lips around her teeth and pressed her mouth shut, shaking her head as Jethro pressed the morsel against her face.
"You gonna need yer strength, girl. Eat up," Bo said through a mouthful of food.
"Yeah, it's bad manners not to eat at Mama's table," the wrinkly man said through a mouthful of masticated meat.
"Come on, Courtney. Wake up," Jethro said. His voice was clear and strong all of a sudden. He reached up and pulled away the groin mask. He smiled at her.
It was George. He reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a wrinkled joint, clamped it with his lips. He dragged the dick mask across the table and the head ignited, then he lit the joint with it.
Lamar sat up as steam spiraled off his body in smoky curls. "Say, man, pass that this way."
"What the fuck is going on?"
The table exploded into laughter. Their mouths were perfect circles on their faces, staying that way as they laughed. Courtney's hair flew back from the wind rushing from their throats.
Then she laughed too.
George blew a cloud of smoke into her face and leaned in. "Wake up, goddamnit."
\*\*\*
Courtney jerked awake, slamming her knee against the glove compartment of the Camaro. George passed a joint to the back seat where Lamar sat. They both laughed.
"Bout time, girl. Been talking in your sleep, saying some crazy shit."
"What's a dick mask?" Lamar said.
She ran her damp, shaking hand over her face and took long breaths. They were parked in a clearing somewhere, trees all around them. Her shirt was pasted to her chest and stomach.
"Where are we?"
"We're lost."
"Let's get outta here, George. I'm serious. We can't be here." She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and tugged on it.
"Calm down. You had a bad dream, that's all."
"No, it was more than that. First, I was you, and we came to this house, and you got killed, then I was Lamar, and he got killed too. A mutant, hillbilly family---cannibals. They got me, wanted me to give them babies. Jethro was wearing your pecker on his face and Bo had teeth on his dick." The words tumbled from her lips and she tried to catch her breath after. George and Lamar looked at each other without saying a word, and Courtney knew they thought she was crazy.
"Just...nevermind. Where are we?"
"Like I said, we're lost. But I found this old camp. Figured there's gotta be a groundskeeper or something around. Maybe he can point us toward the highway."
Courtney looked around at the cabins stacked one after another. A lake sparkled behind them.
"Hey, Lamar, pass that shit this way," she said.
Zombies Don't Eat Blondes:
Blondes on the Prowl
by Heather Whittington
I watched the young man stumble out of the night-black alley, crashing into a garbage can and sending it into the wall with a noise that would wake---well, never mind. Those jokes are so old they stink worse than the zombies do. Hunkered on the top of the building, I had a good view of the city. I could watch the pods of undead weave their way street to street, and I could keep an eye out for idiots like the one I watched now.
He scrambled to get his feet under him again, reminding me of those old toy ducks with the wheel of webbed feet that spun underneath its body. I snorted, the closest I got to laughing these days. I checked my Waki sword in its sheath on my back, straightened my clothes, and smoothed my hair. Then I jumped down onto a lower roof, shimmied down a drain pipe, and landed with a ninja thump on the ground. Pumping my arms, I ran after the guy.
Peeking around the corner of the red brick pharmacy building, I spotted him. The zombies surrounded him, moaning their triumph. I still can't help that little shiver that runs down my arms and draws out the gooseflesh when I listen to their "I'm about to gorge myself on fresh brains" song. It sounds like humpback whales dying from lung cancer. The young guy, messy brown hair falling into his face and hiding his eyes, crouched on the sidewalk, hands held up over his head and screaming. I shook my head. This dude needed help. In more ways than I could count.
I dashed down the sidewalk and stopped a couple of yards away, just to the edge of the stench cloud that always trailed them. Legs askew, I placed one hand on my hip and blew a piercing whistle with my fingers.
The moaning stopped as all zombie eyes turned toward me. The guy kept screaming.
"Yo, loser," I yelled at him.
His trembling hands lowered until I could see his face. Though he seemed a little older than me in stature, his maturity level remained to be seen. I knew what he was seeing: a lithe body clad in white blouse tied just below the boobs, black pleated skirt, black thigh-high stockings, black sneakers, and light blonde tresses that streamed to the small of my back. And before you ask, yes, it's natural. I ain't no bottle blonde. That's why I'm able to pull off this kind of thing so well.
When I was sure I had his attention, I told him, "Scream again, and I'll let them have you."
Confusion contorted his sharp cut features, but I had other things to deal with. I vamped through the crowd of zombies. They all stared at me, following me with their eyes, those who had them. I hate the smell of them---it makes my tripes clench. But they stayed with me until I was between them and their latest meal.
I spun on my heel to face them, twirling my hair around a finger. "Now this guy don't hardly seem a morsel. How about you all shove off and leave him be?"
"Wha---?" the guy sputtered.
I scowled at him over my shoulder. "Shut up. And run."
At least that got through his thick skull. He jumped up and took off down the sidewalk.
The first zombie that roared and lunged after him met a quick fate: I whipped my Waki out of its sheath and swung it through his neck. His head thudded on the cement, rolling in a lazy circle. As the others looked at me, I swung my sword up and over my head, spraying green blood from the blade into their faces.
Another one started heading for the guy, who slowed down at the end of the block to turn around and watch me. I rolled my eyes at his stupidity and swirled the blade in an arc, slicing off an arm and a leg. I cut downward to remove the head, and the blade clanged. Damn, I'm gonna have to sharpen it again. I'd wanted to redo my pedicure tonight.
I faced the horde once more. There were five left. One stared at me with his jaw hanging from a single piece of flesh. I brandished the Waki, holding it aloft with both hands. "Anyone else?" I dared them.
The zombies shifted side to side, looking at our favorite guy again. He made the big mistake of stepping toward us when he saw they weren't chasing after him.
All five howled and charged. Son of a bitch.
I leapt into the air and hacked at the one in the lead, hoping his body would trip up a few of the others. It did. That gave me time to spin over them, knock the next one down with a crescent kick, and slice a third across the chest, leaving a dark gash that welled with green blood. As the others tried to get up, I relieved them of their heads, as well as a few other body parts. The ground was soon littered with zombie pieces that inched along, still moving any way they could manage.
Yuck. I checked my blouse and skirt---no green stains, thank God. I hate messes. But my new friend apparently didn't know the meaning of the word "run." I guess he needed more details.
I drew an old handkerchief from a little pocket in my skirt and wiped the blade free of blood. As I slid the sword back into the sheath on my back, the man came up to me.
"How...? What did you...? Why didn't...?" He didn't seem to know which question to ask first.
"Why didn't they attack me?" I asked for him.
"Yeah."
"Because I'm blonde."
There was that confused look again. I hoped he had other expressions besides confused and scared. "What does that mean?"
I sighed and started off down the road back the way we came, not caring if he followed or not. Of course, he did. "What's the first thing you think of when you think of a person being blonde?"
"If brains were taxed, she'd get a refund," he said automatically. Then he realized what he said. "Oh, God, I'm sorry. I didn't mean---"
"Don't waste your energy, I know you didn't. But that's the point. Everyone, and I do mean everyone, thinks that, whether they believe it or not. Of course not all blondes are dumb."
"I still don't understand---"
"Look," I cut him off with my hand. "We still need to get out of here without alerting any more zombies of your tasty presence. They can smell you from miles away if the wind is right, and they don't have a lot to eat left in this area. Let's get to my camp outside of town and I'll explain more." I kept walking. "You need the learning, anyhow."
I could feel the insult in the stiffening of his body, even though I wasn't watching. His curiosity was too great to stop following me, though.
\*\*\*
I'd made a camp right outside of the city limits, where the trees grew thicker and enclosed us pretty well, keeping our smell from reaching too far. Zombies usually stayed in the city where all the human scents are the strongest, even if there aren't many live ones left. And most of them, unless they are recently deceased and have all their body parts, don't move very fast to begin with.
I saw the shining eyelids of my guards before my new friend did. As we approached the camp, an orange glow emanating from behind the trees illuminated our path. I smelled cooking meat on the breeze that tickled my cheeks. There, directly in front of me, sat four Furbies. One tiger striped, one gray with white beard and ears, one blue with pink spots, and one green with yellow ears. When we got a couple of feet away, their motion sensors triggered and they woke up, opening their huge plastic eyes and beaks as they yawned. Some spoke in Furby gibberish, some said, "Hi!"
My companion jumped a foot in the air when he heard them. "What the---?"
I sighed. He needs a larger vocabulary. "Furbies."
He nodded, dusting off the front of his dirty flannel shirt as though disguising his ignorance. "I can see that. What are they for?"
"They're the best for guarding against zombie attacks. Anything gets near them, and they wake up and talk. Zombies get hypnotized by their moronic babbling and they're easy to pick off. The Furbies are loud, too, so their noise wakes us up if we're sleeping." I stepped between them and kept walking toward the orange glow. He trotted to keep up with me. "There's a ring of them around the camp."
"How do you keep them going?"
I gave him a look. Is he really that dense? "Batteries from the abandoned stores."
We entered the camp to find my chubby friend Kaylee bending over the fire and stirring something in a pot. Her blonde curls dangled a little too close to the flames.
"Watch out, Kaylee, or you'll burn your hair again," I said as I stopped next to her.
She squeaked and grabbed hanks of her hair, dropping the spoon with a clatter into the pot. "Oh, crap," she muttered, pouting her pink lips and smoothing the smoking ends of her hair. Leaning over the pot to fish for the spoon, she held her hair back with the other hand. "Thanks a lot."
"Anytime, girlfriend," I said with a grin. I sat down in the pink and white plastic lawn chair, motioning for the guy to take the blue one. "Would you tell me your name, please, so I have something to call you in my internal monologue?"
He flopped into the chair and crossed his legs at the ankle. "John. John Smith."
I snorted. "Well, if you prefer to remain anonymous, I suppose that's about as discreet as you can get."
He grinned. "It's really my name. My parents were boring."
"Hmm." I stretched my legs out and yawned. "Call me Wicked."
John's jaw dropped. "Excuse me?"
I sighed. Yet another explanation. Am I really that odd? "My favorite musical in the whole wide world is Wicked. I sing the songs from it all the time. So my friends started calling me Wicked instead of Wendy." I felt the corners of my mouth turn down as I thought of happier, easier times. "Karaoke used to be one of my favorite activities."
Kaylee came over holding out a spoon caked in stew. It dangled from her two fingers as if it were zombie flesh. "It's almost ready. I just need to rinse this off and fill the water jug."
"Got your chainsaw?" I said as she walked away. She nodded and pointed to it, sitting next to a tree. She scooped it up by the handle as she passed and plunged into the foliage.
"Where's she going?" John said.
"Stream."
John tucked his hands behind his head. "I'm trying to decide what to ask about first."
"How about I save you the trouble and start from the beginning?"
A smile. "Works for me."
I crossed my legs and folded my hands. "I'm just lucky that the jokes about blondes having no brains is so buried in the psyche of our society that even the zombies believe it. That's why they don't attack me---because they think there's nothing there to consume."
"So they eat only brains then?"
"Well, that and anything that's in the way. But it's the desire for brain matter that drives them." The corner of my mouth lifted in a half-smile. "My friends and I had loads of fun creating distractions for the zombies. I loved the brain Jell-o mold the best."
"Jell-o mold," John murmured, squinting as he tried to picture this.
"And when we got to the mall, that's when we discovered---" I spread out my fingers and widened my eyes, "the mystical powers of the Furby."
He cackled and slapped his knee.
"Yeah, I know. It's ridiculous. But I don't sneeze at what works. My martial arts training only carries me so far. I can still get bitten like anyone else."
"Ah." John shook a finger at me. "That explains the fancy kicks and sword play."
"Well, the martial arts training is real enough." I unbuckled the sheath and slid it from my shoulder, holding the Waki lovingly in both hands. "The sword play is courtesy of watching too many movies in my teens."
John fell silent, probably pondering the events of the evening. He twiddled his thumbs as he stared off at the trees. Kaylee returned, lugging the water jug in one hand and the chainsaw in the other. The spoon stuck out of her cleavage.
"See anything out there?"
"Not a soul. Or a soulless beastie." She set the jug down, sloshing a little water on the ground. The chainsaw went back to its spot near the tree. Taking the spoon from her cleavage, she bent over and checked the fire. "Oh, rats!"
"What?"
"I just broke off a nail and it fell into the fire."
I sighed. "Come over here and I'll fix it for you."
She fetched my nail care bag, a small pink thing covered in sparkling rhinestones. After unfolding a third lawn chair, this one green, she plopped down with a grunt of exasperation and held out her index finger for my inspection. I got out the nail file to even out the ragged edges. "Do you want to keep the same polish theme?"
Kaylee took back her hand and looked at her other nails: red with little black dots to look like ladybugs. "Yes."
John watched as I applied glue, then a nail tip, and filed the edges to make everything neat. As I rolled the red nail polish bottle in my hands (shaking the bottle makes bubbles in the polish), I noticed John had a slightly disgusted look on his face. "What?"
"I'm not... I just... I'm afraid I don't get what you're doing right now."
I exchanged a glance with Kaylee. "I'm giving Kaylee a manicure."
"But why? Why now?"
I shrugged. "Why not now? We're safe in our camp, we're not sleepy, the food can wait a bit."
John shook his head. "I mean, why bother with stupid stuff like that? You're surviving in a zombie apocalypse. Your nails should be the least of your worries."
"Does it look like we're worried about it?" I turned my attention back to my work. I felt, rather than saw, John cross his arms in frustration. When I finished, I told Kaylee to dunk the nail into the ice-cold water she'd just brought to help harden it faster. She nodded and wandered back to the fire.
I put all my equipment back into the bag and set it aside before I faced John. "Yes, we're surviving the zombie apocalypse. We're saving the asses of idiots like you who don't know how to survive. That doesn't mean we want to be ugly hags or bitches without breeding. We're still the same people we were before, only tougher. Why should we give up the things we enjoyed before this mess happened if it's still here for us to enjoy?" I paused. "Which reminds me, I need to brush my hair."
John snorted as I went for my shoulder bag, made out of a pair of cut-off jeans with the legs sewn up, and pulled out a hair brush. I worked all the tangles out, counting to a hundred strokes. Kaylee had brought a bowl of stew to John and was eating some herself by the time I put the brush away. John still appeared disgusted.
"Another thing," he said as I settled back in my chair with my own bowl. "Why do you dress like a naughty Catholic schoolgirl? Hardly seems practical."
I grinned at him. "Do you like it? Does it get a rise out of you?"
His face flushed pink as he struggled to think of a response. I snickered at his discomfort.
"Don't worry about it. That's the point. It still has an effect on the zombies, at least the male ones. And the women who were lesbians when alive. And the transgender ones. I think they get fashion envy." I flapped a hand in the air. "It allows me to get their attention long enough to dispatch them."
"I think I've heard about enough." John set his empty bowl on the grass and got up. "I need to get going." He turned and started walking toward the trees.
"Hey, where are you going?" I said, sitting up in my chair.
"Isn't it obvious? I'm leaving."
I cocked my head. "Don't you think it would be best to stay here for a while?"
"And what? Have my nails or my hair done at your little sleepover in the woods? No thanks. I'm going to find a group that wants to get rid of the zombies and join them."
I glared at him. "And what do you think we've been doing? If you stick around, I have a lot more information I think you'll find---"
"Forget it," John cut in. "I'm gone." He vanished into the shadows. I heard him galumphing through the bushes, occasionally cursing. I sat back in my chair and pulled a compact out of my bag. I powdered away the shine on my nose as I opened my ears to the sounds of the night.
Crickets. Snapping twigs. Wind in the leaves.
I popped the cap off my favorite strawberry lip gloss and slicked some on my lips.
A scream.
A roar.
A bunch of Furbies babbling.
I put my makeup back in the bag and picked up my sheathed Waki. Strapping it to my shoulders, I stood up and turned to see Kaylee holding her chainsaw.
"And they say blondes have no brains," I said to her. She nodded, and we left camp, following the screams.
Flashlight: A Parody
by Jeni Decker
"This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever seen." Ed looked around the room, his pale face reflecting the multi-colored refractions cast from the dozens of disco balls hanging from the ceiling.
Students danced to 80's music but were attired in the fashion of the 1800's. The extravagant costumes worn by the graduating class of Mount LotsaTrees High School perfectly illustrated the lengths to which rich parents would go to appease their pampered and pedigreed children.
Unfortunately, the other thing it perfectly illustrated was the Student Council's ineptitude with regard to party planning. One camp had wanted a Victorian theme for the yearly Halloween bash, the other an 80's theme. The committee voted and deadlocked at five to five. But instead of coming to a cohesive plan that actually made sense, they proceeded to compromise by way of fusing the two vastly different ideas. This resulted in a hot mess of kids dressed in bulky Victorian clothing, all trying to do the MC Hammer or the Cabbage Patch to the timeless vocal stylings of Madonna and the B52's.
The effect was an audio/visual combo that only managed to chafe where Baz Luhrmann's Moulin Rouge had sizzled. Sweaty, mottled cleavage shoved high and tight into corsets abounded. Guys in hats (and for some reason monocles) kept adjusting themselves in their fancy britches.
Beula moon-walked over to Ed. One look at his simmering gaze and her knees almost buckled. She wanted him. She wanted his pointy teeth to pierce her lily-white skin. Yes, oh yes! Orgasmic Yes!
But then she cast her eternally flitting lashes across the room toward Wulfie. Poor, sweet, tragic, love-struck Wulfie---who she'd earlier that day shared a lustily chaste kiss with---was busy fiddling with his cell phone. Probably tweeting. Beula couldn't help but notice the dexterity his agile fingers displayed as he fondled the keypad.
Beula sighed, shivered, and then returned her attention to Ed.
"Eddie, poo-poo, bloody-kins? I'm feeling a little tired. Can we go? Fly me to the top of the trees. I love it when you take me to the trees---the breathtakingly cinematic forest of trees that somehow always looks like it's undergone a saturation and hue adjustment by God himself."
When she mouthed 'pretty please' with her rosebud lips, Ed gave her one of his trademark I'm-a-deadly-vampire-and-I-could-suck-you-dry-in-the-time-it-takes-an-ADD-riddled-kid-to-siphon-the-contents-of-a-sugary-juice-box-but-I-won't-because-you-are-my-beloved looks.
"Beula, this flying thing is getting ridiculous. I know it's a novelty, but seriously. You can walk." Ed's tongue flicked out and tickled the tip of Beula's wan nose.
"Edddddd..." Beula sighed because she was prone to sighing when she spoke, grew tired, apathetic, bored or was premenstrual (which she was not tonight, thankfully).
"You know I can't say no to you, Beula, even when it almost gets me staked." Ed switched to his Colgate, non-threatening human smile.
"Then let's go." Beula hopped into his waiting arms, a move they'd perfected to Olympic precision having done it so many times. She leaned in and whispered into his ear, "Oh, and just so you know, I got vagazzled today."
Ed groaned with desire and closed his eyes. But suddenly his eyes opened. "What about trick-or-treating?"
"Huh?" Beula queried nasally.
"Well, I...uh...it's just that I got turned before this whole candy thing came about and I think it's pretty damn cool that people give out free candy. I mean, we're already dressed." Ed motioned down at his flamboyant Oscar Wilde brocade jacket and buckled shoes, but because he removed a hand from beneath her derriere in order to do so, Beula fell onto the dance floor with a thud."Oh shit, I'm sorry!" Ed bent down and offered Beula a hand. Still emotionally smarting from the horror of dropping her, he underestimated his super-human strength and jerked her into the air.
Beula flew across the room and landed, again, on the floor, this time her skirt over her head, giving all of her fellow students a nice Spears-esque photo-op. She could only thank Beelzebub she was properly coiffed down under.
Ed zoomed across the room in a vampire blur, pulling her to her feet. "I'm so sorry, Beula."
"Don't worry about it." She wiped her hands on his shirt. "Yuck. Sticky."
Ed's tongue darted out, and in the time it takes for a balloon to pop, he'd thoroughly drenched her dirty hand, licked between her fingers, and suckled every knuckle and fingernail.
Beula stared at her sopping hand. "I need to use the bathroom. Wait for me outside?"
Ed stared hungrily at her as she crossed the room. Just before she entered the restroom, she looked over her shoulder with that angst-ridden face he'd grown to know and love. In, like...a week.
Inside the bathroom, after washing her hands, peeing, then washing her hands again, Beula touched up her already pasty white face with baby powder. Over her shoulder, she saw Candy enter the bathroom. Candy was the one person in Ed's family who clearly despised Beula for her pulse. Candy was delirious with jealousy on most days, but strangely buddy-buddy on others.
"Sup, human?" Candy asked, leaning up against the wall next to the hand dryer. Like the show-off that most vampires are, she touched up her lipstick and mascara, painted her nails, waited for them to dry, then washed her hands in a split second.
Beula opened her mouth to answer just as Candy tapped the button on the dryer and the room was filled with a loud hum.
Beula screamed, "Nothing how about..."
"What?" Candy cupped a hand around one ear. "I can't hear you."
"I said nothing, how about you?" Beula screamed louder.
"Not much. This Halloween party is lame, just like you humans. Lame." Candy's eyes glowed.
"Ed and I are leaving," Beula yelled, leaning closer to Candy.
"What?" Candy said again, mocking Beula, hands cupped behind both of her undead ears.
"I SAID ED AND I ARE LEAVING AND I AM GOING TO SCREW HIS BRAINS OUT TONIGHT!" The last half of the sentence ricocheted off the walls against the abrupt silence as the dryer went off.
A group of sweaty girls in Victorian regalia entered at the same time, and now stared at Beula, their mouths agape.
"Gross," the one dressed like a Victorian whore murmured.
Candy cackled and exited the bathroom.
"You know he's dead, right?" the other one dressed like a Victorian whore added as she repositioned her cleavage.
"So, you're...like...into necrophilia?" the last one, dressed whorishly as well, said.
Beula shrugged off the anti-vampire affront and exited the bathroom in a hurry, slamming directly into Wulfie.
"Uh, hey, Beula. How's it going?" Wulfie looked up from his Blackberry.
"You're going to get carpal tunnel, Wulf." Beula batted her eyelashes at him.
Wulfie smiled.
Beula smiled.
Wulfie worried the floor with his toe.
Beula twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
Wulfie gulped.
Beula stared.
They both stared some more.
"Okay, so..." Wulfie trailed off.
"Yeah, I have to meet Ed."
Suddenly, Wulfie flew into a very restrained rage. His eyes were blazing, but his dimples were still visible and his voice tempered. "Beula. He's not good for you."
"Neither is Red Bull but I suck those down by the case-full." Beula grinned flirtatiously.
"I'm being serious, Beula," Wulfie crooned through his still restrained rage. Another dimple appeared on his chin.
"Oh, Wulfie. You agonize too much. I'll be fine." She kissed him on the cheek and Ed appeared instantly by her side. When Wulfie turned to look at him, their noses touched and a spark of testosterone mixed with the unmistakable smell of dog shampoo fueled the air.
"Hello, Wulf." Ed was clearly not amused.
Beula gently finagled her body between her two supernatural admirers and sighed. Again with the sighing, this time because she had Ed plastered to the front of her and Wulf firmly pressed against her backside and she liked it very much. Too much...
"Let's go, Ed," Beula whispered, leaving lipstick on his frilly shirt.
Not one to have to be asked more than once, Ed grabbed her around the waist, glared at his doggie nemesis, and everything became a blur.
Within seconds, they were perched atop a strong branch of one of the many lush trees in Mount LotsaTrees, deep within the forest. The full moon provided the only light, a sultry and seductive precursor to the momentous occasion.
Beula had been planning this for days, which was how long she'd known Ed give or take a day or so.
"I love it when you do that," Beula sighed. "I thought we were going to go trick-or-treating."
"We'll get candy later. I want to see your vagazzle first, you tease." Ed began peeling up layer upon layer of skirts, finally running a hand up her thigh.
Beula chastely smoothed her skirts down. "Not till...after."
Ed shook his head. "I can't do it! I would never hurt you, Beula. You are my beloved. My reason for liv...uh, my sweet, luscious, undead baby."
"Okay, take it down a notch, Ed. I'm nobody's baby. Nobody puts Beula in a crib. Bite me! We can't go on like this, hiding our lust or dealing with all of the, 'You screw dead people' crap. Now bite me and make me a vampire before you guys go out of style again!"
Ed looked toward the heavens for an eternity. After a painfully long musical interlude-ish movie-like moment where even the trees surrounding them were groaning 'Do it already!' he hung his head in defeat.
"As you wish, my love."
"Oh, please. Like you haven't been wanting to sink your teeth into my carotid since the moment you met me." Beula was not chastising. This was her version of verbal foreplay. Smart-ass, mouthy bitch---that's what the vampires liked. Beula knew this because she read all the Sookie Stackhouse books.
Ed's teeth popped out, unfortunately not with the snappy click of the vampire teeth on True Blood. Now those were some fabulous fangs! No, here in Mount LotsaTrees, the vampire teeth just suddenly appeared---no fanfare, no sound effects. Since the vampire popularity spike in pop culture, Ed and his real undead mates had been left feeling a bit...out of vogue.
"Are you sure, Beula?" Ed mumbled around his fangs, insecurity plaguing his lust-filled, glowing eyes.
"Oh, Eddie. Come on. Sookie lets Bill drink from her regularly."
One of his perfectly tweezed eyebrows shot up. "You are aware they're not real, right?"
Beula playfully punched Ed in the shoulder, knocking him out of the tree, but because he is a vampire, his ascent was quick and only slightly off-putting.
Beula pulled a flashlight and compact mirror from somewhere beneath the folds of her skirt. "I've got to see this. Hold the mirror like this..."
"What?" Ed seemed a bit off his game, the intense moment of before now spoiled.
Beula put the mirror in his hand, then rested it on her shoulder. "Just angle it that way...a little to the left...right there! Now don't move." She laid her head back against the tree, making sure she could still see the pulsing vein from her position. She flipped on the tiny flashlight and aimed it at her neck. A tiny bat signal highlighted the target zone.
Ed looked around, confused. "Where are you hiding all of this stuff?"
Beula giggled and shrugged. "I have secrets too, Ed."
Under strict instructions not to move, Ed hovered over her in a less-than-vampirely way, looking awkward and slightly daft. "Beula, I---"
"Oh, for God's sake, Ed! What's the problem? Just do it!"
As always happened when Beula got pushy and teenager-ish with him, Ed became even more enamored by his beloved. His fancy britches were rapidly growing tighter around his groin area. With great care, he leaned in toward her. He savored the moment, his fangs suspended above her pallid skin. He hovered so long, he started to drool and a few drops fell onto Beula's coif.
"The hair, Eddi-kins. The hair," Beula whined, pushing Ed away from her. "You have no idea how much product is involved in making my long tresses look like a cross between bed-head and freshly-styled." Beula gently tossed the wet lock of hair over her shoulder, exposing even more of the vast landscape that made up her colorless neck.
Ed lunged, instead, for her mouth, throttling her tongue with his roving maw. A wet, slippery lip-lock ensued until Beula accidentally (on purpose) knocked Ed in the forehead with her flashlight.
"Ouch!" Ed sat back up.
"Sorry, but the makeup, sweetie. Watch the makeup. It cost Daddy seventy-five bucks to get me this almost-in-a-coma-because-I-haven't-eaten-in-three-days alabaster translucence and you're licking it all off. "
Ed shifted preternaturally, pinning her beneath him in a split second.
Beula stared up into his glowing eyes, inviting him closer by using the beam from the bat light to trace circles on her neck.
"Come to Momma," Beula purred.
Ed sprang. Just as his incisors made contact and a tiny trickle of blood was let, Beula shrieked, causing a gaggle of crows roosting in the surrounding trees to cackle and take for the skies. The beating of wings and the birds' plaintive squawks filled the air around them.
Beula bellowed. "The dress, hon! This thing cost my father a fortune to rent. If you get blood on it, we'll lose our deposit!"
"I'm starting to think you don't actually want to do this." Using his vampire wiles, Ed flew to a neighboring treetop to mope. The whole "bite me, don't bite me" thing filled him with a growing ennui. All of his friends had warned him: Humans are trouble. High-maintenance trouble.
"Ed-eeeeee!" Beula wailed. "Please come back."
"You like him, don't you. The...dog," Ed lamented.
"Don't be silly," Beula said, not wanting Ed to get a whiff of anything Wulf-related. She certainly couldn't let him know she had any feelings, other than friendly ones, for Wulfie---not to mention the fact that she considered Wulfie her plan B, her little doggie-bag of possibilities should her détente with Ed's vampire clan go further south.
"We can't do this, Beula. It's wrong." Salty, bloody tears streamed down Ed's face.
"Ed, get your ass back over here, now!"
In an instant, Ed was at her side, levitating next to the branch she sat on. His head hovered near her belly.
"I'm sorry, Beula. It's just...you seem indecisive. About us, about me turning you, about that idiot, Wulfie, who by the way, is a dog. You know that, right? A peek-a-poo, to be exact." Ed tried to stifle a jealous guffaw, but that set off a coughing jag which severely limited the control he had over his powers of levitation. Ed plummeted sixty feet straight down before he recovered enough to clamor back up the trunk of the tree.
Now, sitting in front of her on the branch, his legs in the crisscross-applesauce position, he took Beula's hands. "You don't have to do this. We can be together just as we are."
"Yeah, real easy for you to say. You'll look like that forever and I'm headed toward looking like Margaret Thatcher." Beula buried her face in his chest. When she'd finally had enough brooding, she looked up at him and grimaced. The evidence of his earlier attempt at biting her was all over him.
"Your face is a mess. There's blood all over it. Gross."
"Beula, you want me to make you a vampire and you have blood issues? That's kind of a deal breaker." Ed ran a sleeve across his cheek, wiping away the bloody mess of tears and pine needles that had stuck to his face as he'd made his way back up the tree.
"You know what I think? I think it's you that doesn't want to make me. Then you wouldn't be able to sneak in and watch me sleep every night like some creepy pedophile. You are six hundred years old, after all. I'm sure there's some kind of law against that, Ed. And if I were a vampire, I could fly like you and feed and torment humans and I wouldn't be your sweet little Beula anymore. You don't want me to be a vampire, that's what I think!" She locked her challenging gaze on his unwavering pupils.
The hunger overcame him. Ed yanked the neckline of her dress down, sinking his teeth into her neck. There was a fair amount of eye-rolling, moaning, and writhing around, accompanied by a not-so-sexy slurping sound that seemed to go on for hours.
"Yes, baby. Suck it. Suck it hard." Beula suddenly lapsed into a trance and started speaking like a female rapper. "Ooh, baby. Yes, tap that garble, garble, EBONICS, garble..."
Ed reached out and slapped her. "Beula!"
Her eyes opened. She was breathing hard. So was Ed. She sat up and gave herself a quick once-over, licking the blood from her lips. She didn't feel any different.
"Well, that was kind of anti-climactic." Beula pulled a handkerchief from between her breasts and dabbed at the already healing wounds on her neck. "We done here?"
Below them, Ed and Beula did not see the cute little peek-a-poo running around in circles at the base of the tree. When the dog tired himself out, he stopped, fell over from dizziness, then phased into a man. Wulfie stood, naked, hiked up his leg and peed, then shook his head, blinking rapidly.
On the ground by his feet was a little flashlight lying in a pile of leaves, covered in his pee. The flashlight he'd given to Beula earlier, in the cute little Halloween goodie bag with the Now and Laters and the fake vampire teeth made out of wax.
He closed his eyes and sniffed. Then he sniffed a bit more. Wulf's eyes slammed open and his head jerked up. He could see the hem of Beula's skirt hanging far up in the tree.
He could smell her. He could smell him. He could smell Beula's blood.
With his fists raised high above his head and his naked body shimmering in the moonlight, Wulfie howled, "Be-ula!"
Leonard Has an Evening Out
by Richard Jay Goldstein
Lightning flashes through the dark air like Superman through cobwebs. Sheets of rain sluice across the window in sheets. Leonard pushes himself away from the desk. Drops his PlayStation controller. Slams his fist on the desktop. Rubs his smarting fist.
Eleven forty-five, says the clock. Almost midnight. His eye falls on a framed picture of Annabel and he drops his face into his hands. Tears squeeze out from under his eyelids.
Annabel is Leonard's wife, and she has just broken Leonard's heart by walking out with a suitcase full of clothes.
"I've had it," Annabel shouted when she left, keeping her suitcase in front of her like a shield. "You're a grown man," she shouted. "Grown men don't sit around playing TV games all day. They go out and get jobs."
"Video games," Leonard said.
"What?"
"Video games. Not TV games." Leonard changed direction before Annabel could shout again. "There are no jobs. And you've got a good job."
But Annabel left anyway, breaking Leonard's heart.
More lightning shatters through the storm, etches trees against the dark.
"I can't stand this," Leonard mutters. "I've got to get out of here. Get some air." He goes to the closet for his coat.
"You're not going out there, are you?" a voice says. "Not on a night like this. Who knows what's out there?" If this were a movie, instead of real life, and we were watching it, the voice could be yours or mine. But, as it happens, it is Leonard's mother's voice, which he imagines as he pulls on his coat.
"Who cares?" Leonard says. "Nobody cares about me."
"Oh, Leonard," his mother complains.
Leonard opens the door, and a wet and angry wind swirls in, scattering rain and leaves.
Outside, the sidewalks stream with water as if they are sweating heavily. Walkers are few, and churn by with heads down and jackets clutched tight. Cars leave twin wakes as they splash past.
Leonard walks quickly, like the others, head down, hands in pockets, like Superman would if he had a pocket full of kryptonite. He is already regretting coming out.
He comes to a nearby park. It is even darker under the trees. He turns in, sloshes up the walk. Shadows of shadows. Drip drip drip of leaning trees. Even Superman would be nervous. Leonard sees a playground he has seen before, the jungle gym like bare tree branches silhouetted against jagged city skyglow, the swings moving in the wind as if ghost children are riding them.
Leonard cuts across the lawn, which has turned to swamp. He has some vague idea of swinging on the swings, even though he is not a ghost child. But when he gets to the playground, he can see beyond, into the murk. He sees a strange house sitting amongst the trees---trees hung with festoons of moss. This is odd because he is in West Hollywood and moss does not festoon the trees in the parks in West Hollywood. This is just a neighborhood park, stuck in between boulevards and malls, not this big and deep and dark, even in the rain at midnight.
And another thing, come to think of it, Leonard cannot recall the last time he heard thunder or saw lightning in LA. Now it is crashing and sizzling all around him.
Plus he has been in this park many times and has never seen this house before. If house it is. Sharp spires stab upward into the low clouds. Towers leer. Dead ivy tatters in the wind. The gray stones of the walls glisten with rain.
Leonard finds himself standing before the immense iron-clad door of the house. As he watches, the door slowly opens, creaking. Tendrils of mist curl out, like tendrils of mist. Inside, Leonard sees shadowy stairs leading upward. Or downward, depending on where you are standing. Then, without knowing quite how it happened, he is inside himself, climbing the shadowy stairs. At the top of the stairs a man waits. Presumably waits for him, Leonard, since he is the only other person there. A man dressed in elegant, shiny black evening clothes.
"Good evening, Leonard," the man says, in a sinister voice, and then he smiles.
Leonard sees the man's smile, and for a while he sees nothing.
\*\*\*
Leonard awakens in his own bed. For a moment he thinks Annabel is beside him, but it is only his extra pillows piled there. A wave of sorrow washes over him. Something itches on his neck. He reaches up to scratch it and feels two tiny scars. How had that happened?
He looks out the window and sees it is night, clear and soft. But hadn't there been a storm? He is confused. How long had he been asleep? The clock says eleven-thirty, which is no help at all. He's sure it was later than that when he first went outside. Is this a different night? Could he have slept an entire day?
Leonard rises and a hunger, a bizarre desire, washes over him, displacing the sorrow. It is an irresistible, unnatural craving. He cannot resist it. Because it is irresistible. And unnatural. He must satisfy it. It must be satisfied. Now. His hunger cannot wait.
He goes to his desk, finds the phone book, opens it, dials the number for A-1 Formal Wear.
"I want a tuxedo. Now," he growls into the phone, but it is only an answering machine. He leaves his number, but that is not enough. He is not quenched. Quickly he throws a beach towel over his shoulders, cape-like, and stalks out the door.
The air is soft, the shadows silent. There is no trace of storm. The streets are dry. Leonard stalks down his own street, stalks down a bigger street, until he comes to a shopping center. He knows there is no tuxedo store in this center, but he has another hunger as well, one that must be satisfied. And so on.
Like a shadow himself, Leonard melts through the shadows. Superman could not be more quiet.
Leonard stands hidden behind a downspout in front of a movie theater. He is like one of those lizards that look like whatever they are standing on and you can't see them unless they move, which Leonard does not. His preternatural hearing tells him the movie inside is almost over. His preternatural intelligence suggests that he Google the word preternatural as soon as he gets home. Meanwhile, he fixes his dark eyes on the theater door from which his prey will emerge.
And here they come, a gaggle of teenage girls, giggling, flipping their hair back from their bright eyes, licking their wet red lips. They titter and twitter and wobble out to various cars. One lags behind.
She is the one.
Leonard speaks with the voice of an old woman. He has always been good at impressions. For example, he does a very good Bela Lugosi. "Excuse me, dear," Leonard says like a kindly grandmother. "Can you help me for a moment?"
The girl hesitates, peers into the shadows behind the downspout, and before she can scream, Leonard has her. His preternaturally strong hand clamps down on her neck, and he drags her into the tiny alley behind the downspout. The girl's eyes widen in shock and dismay.
Much to his surprise, deadly fangs sprout in Leonard's mouth like the spires on a strange house in the park which should not be there but is. He bites into the girl's soft neck and hot blood springs forth. Her eyes roll back in agony and ecstasy, as if she is a book about Michelangelo. Leonard laps at the salty carmine feast, in considerable ecstasy himself. He lifts his eyes to the theater marquee, and irony fills him deliciously, as if the girl's blood is spiced with salsa.
Twilight: The Saga Continues, says the marquee.
Leonard stumbles away from the shopping center, filled with revulsion and blood. Behind him the girl's body lies pale and empty in the convenient alley. Leonard has thoughtfully covered her with his beach towel. Her sad little hand is stretched out from under the towel, as if it is reaching for her sad little teenage dreams which will never come true now, because she is dead and her sad little life is over. Even Superman would cry if he knew about it.
Leonard is filled with revulsion because he is filled with someone else's blood. He does not understand the bizarre compulsion which has compelled him to kill a young girl and drink her blood.
Am I really a vampire? he thinks. Cool.
As he runs, shedding hot pink tears, a vague image floats just above his head of a strange house and a man in a tuxedo with a frightening smile. Even as he admires the tuxedo he somehow knows this man is somehow responsible for the strange things which are happening to him. The man's face melts away and he sees Annabel's face. What if Annabel returned? What if he killed her and drank her blood? How bad would that be? He cannot face such things, such thoughts.
Leonard realizes that he must find the house again, find the man in the really nice tuxedo with the terrible smile. He must confront the man, find out what terrible, smile-like curse is upon him, Leonard.
Leonard runs stumbling up the deserted street, his face hidden in his hands. It is very hard to run that way, even for a vampire, and so he stumbles. He turns one corner, then another. The park should be just ahead. But when he turns the final corner he does not see the park, with trees and playground equipment rearing up between houses. Instead, round hills roll away into the distance, like ocean swells, covered with thick grasses and a fuzz of coarse bushes. These bushes are heather and bracken but Leonard does not know that yet. Pale, cold moonlight from a fat full moon pours down, turning the hills silver. Leonard can't remember moonlight pouring down like silver on the shopping center he just left, but being a resident of LA, he has absolutely no idea what phase the moon is in.
A long wailing howl rends the silent moonlight into liquid tatters. The howl sends shivers down Leonard's back and his vampire fangs shrivel back into quiescence. Leonard quickly files quiescence with preternatural for later attention.
The howl seems to have come from a hollow among the hills just ahead. A hollow howl. What could that have been? Leonard wonders. I better have a look. He starts down the hill.
"For God's sake, don't go down there," Leonard's mother says, always attentive, though not present. "Are you crazy? Haven't you ever seen a horror movie?"
"I'm a vampire, Ma," Leonard says. "I don't have to listen to you anymore. And I'm married. Or I was anyway. I'm a grown-up man. Besides, I have quiescent preternatural strength."
Leonard's mother has nothing to say in the face of this monstrous vocabulary, so Leonard continues down the hill. The moonlight feels thick, like water, or Jell-o, silver-flavored Jell-o. At the bottom of the hill the heather bushes are thick. A musty, muddy smell rises around Leonard. From the shadows ahead Leonard hears a crackling of twigs, rough breathing. What is it? Could it be someone injured? Perhaps a young girl? A young girl with hot red blood? And a tuxedo in her sad little bag? His fangs grow large again.
Leonard pushes aside the heather branches, or maybe they are bracken branches.
Like Superman bursting out of a barn where he has been imprisoned by kryptonite, a dark sinister shape bursts out of the shadows, comes flying at Leonard. Leonard has a brief impression of a snarling face, fangs even bigger than his own, wicked curling claws, an immense, powerful body, and then the shape crashes into him and there is a flash of light, or lightning, and then a preternatural darkness closes about him, completely free of silver moonlight.
\*\*\*
Leonard awakens. He is lying on a lawn under a palm tree. The lawn belongs to a cute West Hollywood bungalow. He looks about him. There is no trace of the strange moor, no trace of bracken or heather. The moon pokes its silver face above the houses across the street and Leonard is bathed in waxing moonlight.
A different night? Did I sleep a whole day? he wonders. Aren't vampires supposed to sleep in dirt or something? Doesn't daylight kill us? But he seems to be alive, even if he is among the undead. He wishes he knew more about vampire lore. He doesn't want to make any mistakes. Jeez, he thinks, for instance, am I supposed to be afraid of garlic, or am I supposed to eat it? He hopes it is the latter, because he loves Italian food.
The moon soars above the horizon of houses and it is like being hit by a bus, instead of by cold silver photons. Leonard doubles over in pain. His limbs twist, stretching, shrinking. He retches. He retches and stretches. His bones feel like they are breaking. His body shortens, lengthens, deforms. Coarse hair sprouts all over him like a Rogaine commercial gone terribly wrong. His face gnarls until it is utterly gnarly, his teeth grind into mighty fangs. He drops to all fours, and his hands become be-taloned paws, and he crouches like a beast, which he is, a wolverine-like wolf-like caricature of monstrosity. He sinks to the ground in agony. But no ecstasy.
Then it is over. The moon sails proudly in a clear sky.
Leonard stands, and is shocked to find himself leaping ten feet in the air. He lands lightly upon his four powerful legs.
Hey, not bad, he thinks, surprised and pleased with his new power.
Experimentally, he gnashes his teeth and is gratified to find they do indeed gnash. No mere pair of blood-sucking fangs now. He has a whole mouthful of powerful, bone-crushing, flesh-tearing, wicked-sharp chompers.
His metamorphosis complete, Leonard throws back his powerful, shaggy head and howls a howl of something that you would only understand if you had just changed into a powerful werewolf. He lopes powerfully down the street.
Footsteps. He hears footsteps. Two sets of them. He whirls about, sees no one. Then realizes they are coming from several blocks away, one set to the east, one to the west.
It's my hearing, he thinks.
His hearing is downright preternatural. Even better than a vampire's. He can hear the wings of a moth crashing in the air above him. If he listens closely, he can tell that both sets of footsteps are multiple. One set belongs to a woman and a small dog walking beside her. The other set belongs to two men.
Inhaling, he can smell them all too, with a wolf's keen sniffer. Perfume, slightly sweaty cotton, doggie breath, dirty shorts. Olfactory hyper-acuity he can live without. But then he catches a whiff of the woman's warm body, and saliva floods his impressive chompers. His powerful stomach growls. He growls.
He crouches behind some forsythia bushes in the bungalow yard, wishing for a little decent bracken. The men appear first. They walk quickly, talking loudly in British accents. Leonard ignores them and they pass by unharmed.
Then she is there, a tall shapely blond woman, holding a delicate diamond-studded leash at the end of which is a tiny white dog, a peekapoo maybe, or a pompadoodle, or possibly a maltomeal. The woman is dressed in a long stylish coat, stylish sandals.
As the moonlight falls impassively down, Leonard springs forth. Before the woman can scream, Leonard has clamped his jaws together on her neck, and all she can do is gurgle, which sounds like music to Leonard's keen hearing. In a fit of appetite and bloodlust, Leonard tears the woman's coat apart with his mighty claws, and is surprised to find she is now dressed in a tattered, white cotton nightgown, which flutters sadly in a moist sea breeze, the sea being only a few miles away, across some freeways and gang-turf.
Leonard releases his hold for a moment and the woman tries to run, but she gags on her own blood. It is a running gag. Then Leonard has her again.
The tiny white yorkamanian flaps wildly at the end of its leash as Leonard bites out the throat of the blond beauty with his new teeth. The tiny white poodoodle cowers and wets itself as Leonard savages the gorgeous blonde's body, devouring her liver and pancreas. When he has eaten his fill, Leonard turns his attention to the tiny white shitzapoo. He holds it up, dangling and choking at the end of the leash. He takes just a little bitty nip from its haunch, then releases it from the leash. The tiny doggette yelps with pain, races away across the lawn and down the street. Leonard smiles a big toothy smile. Hopefully, the bitty bite is just enough to infect it with were-ism so it becomes the smallest were-creature ever, a terrible were-terrier---which would deserve a story in its own right.
Filled with warm, sweet, blond flesh, Leonard throws back his powerful head and howls again, a howl of power and triumph. Then he lopes down the dark street. Barking dogs in the yards of Middle West Hollywood America are silenced as he passes.
He finds a sheltered spot in some weeds behind someone's garage, curls up, pretends the weeds are heather, closes his powerful yellow eyes, sleeps, digests. Has vague, hungry dreams of Annabel, whom he has almost forgotten in his beastliness.
\*\*\*
Leonard awakens. He is lying curled up on something hard and cold. He is still in wolf form, all wolverine-like. This is good, because the transformation process is really a bummer.
The full moon has again slipped over a horizon of West Hollywood houses.
Another night? The same night repeated? The same night repeated?
Did he sleep the day away? Again? Did he transform back into human, or at least vampire, Leonard, and back to wolf, all while asleep? Could this be more confusing?
The hard stuff he is lying on proves to be a sidewalk, but a sidewalk broken and crumbling, slabs of it tilting up crazily. And there is something wrong with the horizon of houses too, above which the moon creeps. The houses are in ruins, burned and smoldering, or with smashed windows, and doors broken in.
He is hungry again, and there seems to be a shortage of ripe, blond women. In fact, there is a shortage of people entirely. The streets, yards, desolate houses---all empty and silent. He rises and lopes away down the street, in search of ambulatory food.
He comes to a wide boulevard, wanders down it, block after block. There are stores, strip malls, more houses, all the same: broken, ruined, empty of people.
Suddenly he stops, listens intently. He hears distant footsteps, many of them---a crowd, a mob. And another sound, one he cannot identify: a murmuring, like a restless sea which does not rest.
He lopes on, half-expecting to hear his mother's voice telling him not to be crazy, to get away while he can. But evidently his mother is still sulking over his use of big words like preternatural and quiescent, and says nothing.
After a time he sees what makes the cacophony of footsteps he has been hearing. Cacophony? Is that something preternatural? Something quiescent? His mother would love that.
Would Superman know about cacophony, with his super brain?
And speaking of brains, the murmuring he hears is also about brains.
Brains, comes the murmur, brains.
Around the corner surges an immense mob of ragged people in various stages of decomposition: clothes in tatters, eyeballs falling out, skin peeling away in maggoty slabs, crooked, broken fingers with extremely unkempt nails. They stagger relentlessly forward, rotting feet slapping, rotting arms outstretched. They advance on Leonard.
Brains, they cry in hollow voices, give us brains.
As the mob approaches, Leonard rears back on his powerful hind legs, prepared to defend himself. In a blur, he rakes his talons across the front row of murmuring zombies---for zombies they are. He shreds the leading zombies, and they tear apart with a sickening stench, fall wetly to the pavement in pieces. He rakes the next in line, and the next after that, and the next, and the next. But the zombies are endless, apparently the entire population of West Hollywood. And Beverly Hills as well, for Leonard catches glimpses of the rags of rhinestone-covered sweat-suits and mink running shorts.
Leonard rakes, and bites, and tears, and rends, and chomps, and claws, and mauls, but it is to no avail. Every zombie he dispatches is replaced by ten. He suspects Culver City is now involved. The mob of zombies surges around him like a surging torrent, and he is surrounded. They close in, pressing, pressing.
Brains, they cry, brains.
"Wait," one zombie shouts. The mob halts, waiting, decomposing. Leonard stands motionless, exhausted, listening, waiting.
"Why brains?" the zombie shouts. "We're only saying that because we think it's expected. I say let's eat the whole damn thing."
And the mob of zombies surges forward like surging waves, and covers Leonard, raking, biting, tearing, rending, chomping, clawing, mauling. And so on. Leonard feels one of his eyes plucked from its socket, a limb or two pulled off, skin flayed, muscles devoured. He cannot believe the unbelievable pain. He begins to lose consciousness and he knows he is dying. Blackness seeps in at the edges of his awareness. He sees a distant light. He reaches out toward the light.
And he dies.
\*\*\*
Leonard awakens. At first he does not know who or what he is.
Bright golden light dazzles his eye. He squints.
The light is the sun.
He squints down at himself. He appears to be Leonard, the human Leonard, not a powerful wolverine-like wolf, and he is missing an arm. He cannot completely rule out being a vampire, but he feels no craving for fresh blood or tuxedos.
He stands slowly, feeling as though he is climbing up his own bones. Both his legs are present, but great swaths of his rotten, greenish skin hang loose, and his guts gape in a couple of places. And he notes that he is seeing these things with one eye, the other being gone.
But wait. He now has a violent craving for living meat. And for brains, no matter what the other zombies might say. In fact, a fragrant memory of smell assaults him---his grandmother frying calves' brains with eggs in butter. His mouth tries to water but only slime comes out.
Just then a small crowd of zombies squishes and flaps past, a block away. Leonard finds himself shuffling off to join them. As he shuffles, confusion whirls in his half-putrefied mind.
So am I a zombie now, or what? he wonders. I must be, because didn't I die? No, wait, how could I? Aren't I the undead? A vampire? And was that after I was a werewolf, or before? What the hell am I? Didn't I just step out for a little air?
A face floats before his tottering mind, a beautiful face, and a name to go with it.
Annabel.
Who's Annabel? Wait. OMG, I remember. It was a dark and stormy night. Oh, Annabel, Annabel. I remember.
Thick tears of pus overflow Leonard's one poor, sad eye, trundle down his mangled cheek.
This is terrible, he sobs. It must be a dream, an awful dream.
\*\*\*
But Leonard is wrong. It is not a dream.
It's a video game.
And now Frank switches off his Xbox. The screen goes black. He pushes back from his desk and glances out the window. Lightning slashes through the dark like Ironman through tinfoil. Rain sluices the glass. Preternaturally.
Death and Taxes
by A.J. Sweeney
Martin walked home from work. It was an act of economy, for his rent was due and he didn't get paid until the end of the week. He worked in a small brown office, wore small brown leather shoes, and carried a small brown shoulder bag with an even smaller brown bag inside that usually held his lunch. His job involved pushing a lot of paper, but if you asked him precisely what it was he did all day he couldn't really describe it in any succinct way. There were small columns of figures and something to do with shipping, and a lot of things that were always being misplaced, which then had to be found again.
In a perfect world there would be no work and Martin could curl up in a ball under a big blanket and wait for it to all be over. But there was little succor forthcoming for such a man, and so Martin got up and went to work, every single day.
Martin's apartment was in a solid brick building on the other side of the park. It was a squat low-rise inhabited mainly by pensioners and immigrants. Tonight, as he walked into the vestibule, he saw Mrs. Fernandez getting her mail. She was in her pajamas---Mrs. Fernandez always wore her robe and slippers to get the mail, every day at six o'clock.
"Hello, Martin." She stared at him with her glass eye---her real eye wandered off into the distance.
"Good evening, Mrs. Fernandez."
She was a creepy old crone, but pleasant enough. From time to time she would bring Martin soup or stew she had made, and he would throw it all down the drain in the kitchen sink and bring the pot back to her, hanging it on the handle of her door in a plastic bag. Once she brought him spaghetti and meat sauce with suspicious looking sausages. He ate the spaghetti because it was in the box and it was still sealed.
Mrs. Fernandez trembled and shook her way up the stairs. Martin was worried he'd have to offer her his arm. Instead, he just walked very slowly and awkwardly up behind her. His feet were cold and wet and he wanted to get home, but it was impossible to pass her. And so he shuffled along while she blathered on about the other old people in the building, how someone had called the city to complain about the heat, et cetera. He feigned interest and wished her goodnight, opening his door as quickly as possible.
In his dim room he noticed an unfamiliar blinking red light. It took him a moment to register that it was the light on his answering machine. He hit play and listened to the message: "Hello, Martin. It's Bob Jenkins. Long time no speak. Listen, I've got something to discuss with you. I'm going to be at the Little City Café tonight at seven-thirty and I'd love it if you could join me. Actually, I really need to see you there. It's kind of important. Try to make it. It's important. That's all. It's Bob Jenkins."
A cold sweat broke loose and ran amok under Martin's shirt. It couldn't be Bob Jenkins. He replayed the message and had to sit down, his face as white as Mrs. Fernandez's chignon. Bob Jenkins! It was impossible. Literally, figuratively, physically---metaphysically---impossible. But a third replay confirmed what he knew all along: it really was his voice. It was indeed the voice of Bob Jenkins.
With some difficulty, for he was badly out of shape, Martin knelt on the ground beside his bed and pulled out a box. He pulled out a newspaper clipping dated September 17th, 1994. "Banker Burned in Biz Blaze," it read. The story below detailed how fire gutted Jimson and Sons Light Fixtures on Midwood Avenue and claimed the life of accountant Robert Jenkins who'd been visiting the office on a routine audit. The proprietor had escaped with only minor lung damage and retired comfortably, since the store had been heavily insured.
Turning the clipping over and over as if looking for reassurance, or proof that he was somehow not insane, Martin tried to figure out what to do. Should he meet this guy? Should he meet this disembodied voice from beyond the grave? And if he did go, what should he wear? Feeling---for the first time in his life---what other people knew to be curiosity but which he couldn't exactly understand or describe, he decided to meet the voice that claimed to belong to his dead friend. This might prove to be a more interesting than average Thursday night. Not only was it dark and stormy and filled with voices from the dead, but the Little City Café was quite trendy and he hadn't been there before.
Martin changed into his other pair of shoes, hoping he wouldn't be miserable tomorrow with nothing but two wet pairs of shoes. "What's the point of working," he thought, "if you can still only afford two pairs of shoes?" Very wisely, he remembered his umbrella.
\*\*\*
Bob Jenkins was the same as ever: slender and gangly with sloping shoulders and thin, light-brown hair. He had a Midwestern, American-Gothic-in-tapered jeans look to him.
"Where have you been all this time?" Martin said as he embraced him in an awkward hug.
"I've been busy," Bob said. "Tons of work. Mountains."
Martin frowned, but said nothing. He wasn't sure how to broach the subject. Bob was behaving as though no time had passed.
"How's Ginny?" Bob said, sipping his Corona.
Martin goggled. Ginny had been out of the picture for years. He realized with dismay that he'd never had another real girlfriend after her. "Fine," he said. He assumed she probably was.
"And how's work?"
"Boring." This was true. "And you?"
"Well, like I said, busy."
"Oh. Right. Seen any good movies lately?"
"Nah. I feel like I haven't been out of the office in about ten years."
Martin nearly choked on his beer at that.
The rest of their conversation passed surprisingly smoothly, aided by a few Coronas. Martin eventually confessed that he was no longer seeing Ginny, Bob confessed that his workaholic ways were keeping him from really finding the right girl, and they both admired the ass on the female bartender, knowing they would never in their lives get any closer to an ass like that than some high resolution porn. It occurred to Martin that Bob had died before the advent of internet pornography, and he felt sorry for him. At no point could he bring himself to ask Bob what had really happened in that fire, or approach the subject of him possibly being dead.
At the end of the evening, Bob said, "Walk me home, Martin. I don't live far."
Usually such a request from another man would strike Martin as strange, but he was a little buzzed and admittedly happy to have his friend back. He was also curious---there was that feeling again!---to see where Bob was living. Bob led Martin past the park, down Fifth Street, and through the great Neo-Gothic arch of Trinity Cemetery. They walked through the whimsically-named lots---Pasture Place, Eternity Avenue---and stopped in front of a minimalist, grey marble slab simply engraved with: ROBERT JENKINS 1969 -- 1994.
Martin stood there wondering, mainly, how Bob succeeded in getting in and out of the grave without disturbing the topsoil, when his friend turned to him, gently grabbed him by the shoulders, and said, "Martin, listen to me. You and I have been friends for years, right?"
Martin nodded mutely, unsure where this was going.
"So you won't take this the wrong way, but...I have to tell you something you probably don't want to her."
Visions of death danced before Martin's eyes. So this was it---this was the meaning of the visit from beyond the grave. It was a portent of his own death. The great big duvet in the sky was calling him home and he would never worry again. So this was the end of him! Tears of joy and self-pity sprang simultaneously to his ducts.
Bob pressed an envelope into Martin's hands.
Martin opened it slowly, cautiously. "Dear Mister Macdonald. We are writing to inform you that there are inconsistencies on your tax return for the year ending 1994, and that we have performed an audit. You owe an additional $3,437.26---" Martin looked up in disbelief. The letter was signed "Robert Jenkins, Claims Adjuster, Internal Revenue Service."
"What?" Martin bellowed this part. His face was aubergine.
"I'm sorry. I was waiting for the right time to tell you."
"But...but..."
"We don't get to choose our cases, if it makes you feel any better."
"No, it doesn't! How could you do this?"
"I went over your return again and again. There are inconsistencies, I'm afraid."
"I don't have to listen to you! You're dead!"
"That may be true, but work is work and it has to get done by somebody."
"This is insane! I'm getting out of here."
Martin attempted to run for it, but tripped over a votive wreath. Bob was on him in a second. He pinned Martin to the ground. Martin struggled, grunted, and shoved the dead man off him. He grabbed his umbrella and drove the pointy end of it right through Bob's heart, impaling him atop his own grave.
"You can't kill me, you know," Bob said quietly. "I didn't want to do this, but I'm afraid you have no choice. Either you bring me a check, or you'll have to call our toll-free service number and set up a payment plan. I'm sorry, my friend." Bob turned his head and wept. "You can't fight us, Martin. You know you can't."
Martin staggered away from the cemetery. Moonlight threw eerie shadows over the graves, but these weren't half as frightening as the specter of the heretofore-unknown debt. It was half past midnight when he let himself in through his front door. How could this have happened? He couldn't make sense of it. His head whirled and he wished he kept Scotch around the house. That would have been a good, manly, reassuring thing to do. The image of Bob's distraught face haunted him.
Martin looked at the bill his dead friend had given him. This had to be some kind of hoax. It was impossible. The toll-free number was written on the bottom of the bill. He picked up the phone and called it, punching in his social security number when prompted. "You currently have a balance of $3,437.26 on your account," said the disembodied automated voice.
He still couldn't believe it. One careless mistake he hadn't even known he committed, coming to haunt him now. It was appalling. Even more appalling was the fact that he couldn't have paid it if he'd wanted to. He simply didn't have it. Sure, he could set up a payment plan---then what? He'd have to put it on his credit cards. That meant more debt, endless payments, maybe bankruptcy, which, as everyone knew, was a fate worse than death.
Death---that was it. It was the only answer.
He had to stop in at the deli to pick up razor blades since all he had at home was a Bic, but he did it. And as he slipped into oblivion, he thought, "Take that, Bob. You can never get me now."
Unless... But that occurred to Martin precisely thirty-seven seconds too late.
\*\*\*
Scratch. Scratch, scratch.
Martin opened his eyes. It was dark at first until---Scrrraaapppe--- the lid came off the casket.
Bob was smiling down at him. "I told you you couldn't fight us, Martin."
He dumped a sheaf of papers into Martin's lap and threw him a ballpoint pen and pocket calculator.
"If you start working it off now..." He consulted a small calendar and made a few notes. "Shouldn't take more than a couple of months. That's our one advantage here---no expenses."
Work it off. What else could he do? It didn't seem there was any other way out of it. He sighed, and resigned himself to it. He'd pay this one last debt and then he'd never have to deal with it ever again.
"And when I'm done with these? Then I can rest?"
"Well..." Bob looked around helplessly. "Dave, do you want to field this one? I don't know how to tell him."
"Hi, Martin." A friendly-looking face appeared beside Bob's. "I'm Dave Glass. I represent the Great Lakes Savings Company?"
Great Lakes. The name alone made Martin freeze in fear.
"Ah yes, I see you haven't forgotten. Neither have we. Martin, today I'm here to talk with you about your student loans."
Pabst Blue Ribbon Moon
by Vic Kerry
Marrisa watched Simeon as they drove down Interstate 65, heading to Pensacola Beach for spring break. She couldn't believe it. She and Simeon Wolfe, the hottest man she'd ever known, much less dated, would be sharing a room for a whole week.
She'd never spent an entire week alone with Simeon. To think of it, he'd only stayed the night with her maybe three times during the six months they had been dating, and she had never stayed with him. It surprised her when he asked her to go to his family's condo in Florida and stay the weekend on their farm, somewhere in way back Alabama.
A McDonald's emblem blazed on the green reflective paint of an exit sign. They'd not eaten anything since leaving Nashville and her mouth felt dry.
"You think we can pull off and get a bite to eat?"
Simeon looked at the clock on the stereo. His blue eyes sparkled. "It's not that long until nightfall."
"We can't eat until after dark?"
"My mom's cooking for us this evening, and I told her we'd be there before the moon rose."
She looked at him. The late afternoon sun shown in through her side of the window, but it caught the highlights in his short cropped hair. His strong jaw flexed.
"What's the matter?" she said.
"Just nervous."
"I'm sure I'll love your parents, and I know that they'll like me." She played at being overly narcissistic. It always got a chuckle.
Simeon stared at the traffic ahead of him and continued to gnash his teeth.
"Want me to flash you?" she said. "That might calm you down."
A small grin stretched across his lips. "That'd be okay."
"Well, I'm not. I don't want you wrecking before we get to the beach. I don't want to spend my spring break in..." She gazed out the window at the passing road sign. "Evergreen, Alabama."
"It's not that bad of a place. Not really a spring break location though."
Now she smiled. He hadn't said much since the trip started, but he seemed to be loosening up. Usually, she couldn't get a word in edgewise with him.
"What's got you so worried?" she said.
"Full moon's tonight."
Marissa hadn't realized that it was the full moon. Simeon told her that he had a rare disorder where the intensity of the gravitational pull of the full moon gave him severe migraines. He'd hole up in his apartment for three nights, wouldn't answer the phone or reply to text messages, and said there was no medication for it.
"Are you already feeling a migraine coming on?" she said.
"Not yet. They don't start until the moon comes out. That's why Momma's expecting us before then. She knows I can't keep anything down once I get one."
"This is going to be interesting, Mr. Wolfe. I'm finally going to get to see you on a full moon. Who knows, it might bring the beast out in me."
"I'll be locked up in my bedroom tonight. I can't stand lights or noise. I can't describe how bad this...these headaches get."
Marissa got migraines occasionally. They were a symptom when she had a really bad cycle. She didn't remember them being quite that bad though. She remembered her grandmother would go numb on one side when she had a "sick headache."
"Does anyone else have migraines like you?"
Simeon nodded as he took the exit off the interstate. "My daddy gets them really bad. My sister and my brother too. I guess they run on my daddy's side. The Wolfe side."
\*\*\*
A deep orange light hung over the tops of the pines as Simeon and Marissa drove down the gravel driveway to the Wolfe farm. Marissa stared out the window as they drove over a small bridge. Water swirled around rocks in the shallow stream that cut across the front fields. The house loomed over the fenced-in yard with a flagpole in the middle. The flag blew in the light wind, its colors glowing in the dying light.
Simeon parked and Marissa climbed out and stretched. The air had started to chill with the coming twilight. A flood light flickered on, bathing the flag in bright white.
The deep musk of animals filled up her nostrils. Somewhere, wood smoke penetrated the other odors with its gamy smell.
She took a chance to study the façade of the house. It might have been from the set of some old Civil War movie. The driver's side door slammed, and she looked over at Simeon. He smiled.
"We're here."
"Yes, we are."
She walked around the back of the car and hugged up to him. He put his arm around her, but then pushed her away.
"We need to get the stuff out and into the house." He popped the trunk open.
Marissa tried not to feel slighted as she pulled out two small periwinkle suitcases. Simeon reached past her and jerked his black gym bag out. He smiled as he took the larger of her two bags from her.
"I figured Rueben would be here by now," he said.
"Your brother is coming in from Troy?" she said. "I didn't know they had spring break the same time as we do. You should have invited him to go with us to the Gulf."
Simeon pushed down on the trunk lid. "He's not on spring break. He always comes home at the full moon."
Marissa picked up her bag and followed Simeon up the brick steps, to the gate, and into the yard. It seemed strange that his brother would drive all the way home just because of migraines. Troy University wasn't as far away as Vandy, but it still seemed inconvenient. "Why does he do that?"
"He lives in the dorm, and getting away from the noise and lights would be hard. If he stayed, it would be torment for him." Simeon pushed past her and up the steps to the large front porch. "I used to do the same thing when I lived in the dorms my freshman year."
"You drove all the way from Nashville once a month for a year?"
Simeon sat her bag down on the plank floor and rang the doorbell.
"Yeah." The door opened. A woman with Simeon's eyes smiled out.
"Momma." He hugged her. "Momma, this is my girlfriend, Marissa Ross." He turned, smiling to Marissa. "This is Momma."
"You can call me Mrs. Wolfe or Darlene. It's your choice." She stuck her hand out.
Marissa took it. Mrs. Wolfe shook hands like a man: hard grip and powerful up and down motion.
"Nice to meet you, Mrs. Wolfe."
She took Marissa's bag and pulled Simeon through the door. "I can't believe y'all came on a full moon weekend."
"I figured we could get here before moon rise," Simeon said.
Marissa stepped into the house's entryway. A staircase disappeared to the next floor, and a grandfather clock with a large crescent moon carved into the top sat in another corner. The whole place smelled like fried chicken.
"Supper smells good," Simeon said.
"Fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and biscuits---your favorite," Mrs. Wolfe said closing the door behind her. "I figured that it'd be a good meal for everyone." She looked at Marissa. "You like fried chicken, don't you, sweetie?"
Marissa nodded. "Oh yes, that'll be fine."
"Y'all come on into the kitchen. I'm just finishing up. You can help me get the table and everything set." Mrs. Wolfe walked down the hall and into the next room.
Simeon took Marissa by the hand and followed. The hallway opened into a large living room. A sectional sofa took up most of the central floor space. Three large portraits covered one of the walls. She recognized a younger Simeon dressed in a tuxedo with a black bowtie. A girl with shoulder length hair and a black velvet collar was in the middle picture---she looked like Simeon. The last picture was of his brother, Reuben. She'd seen his picture in Simeon's apartment.
"Those are our senior pictures," he said. "You've probably never seen a picture of Dinah. I don't keep any of her around. I don't like for my buddies up at Vandy to see her. They always want me to hook them up with her."
"Why not?" Marissa said.
"Have you met my buddies?"
They laughed as they walked into the next room. A dining table sat between the wall and a counter bar with several oak chairs surrounding it. Mrs. Wolfe stood in the kitchen on the other side of the bar with her head stuck in the oven.
"Biscuits are almost ready," she said, turning out to face them. "Go ahead and start setting the table."
"How many places do we need, Mrs. Wolfe?" Marissa said.
"Six."
"Why so many?" Simeon said. "Is Reuben bringing somebody with him?"
Mrs. Wolfe took the biscuits out of the oven. "No, Dinah's coming home this weekend too."
"All the way from Ole Miss?" Marissa tried not to sound so surprised. "Is she on spring break too?"
"She's started coming home on the full moon since moving into her sorority house. She can't get a moment's peace. We told her not to do it, to stay in her apartment, but you know her."
"These must be some horrible migraines your children have, Mrs. Wolfe."
"Migraines?"
"Yes, Momma. You know the full moon causes us all to have horrible headaches," Simeon said.
Mrs. Wolfe fluttered her hand and screwed her eyes up like she'd just remembered something. "I don't know what's gotten into me. We don't usually call them migraines, Marissa dear. We call them moonaches, and have for years. I just had a slip."
"I think I'm starting to feel a twinge of one now," Simeon said. "Could you go get me an Excedrin from the bathroom, Marissa? Just go back into the hall and take the door by the clock."
Marissa walked away. She found the bathroom and probed into the medicine cabinet until she found the green bottle of migraine medicine. She took the whole bottle back with her. As she came to the doorway into the dining room, she stopped and stood in the shadows. Simeon and his mother whispered on the other side.
"I can't believe you haven't told her the truth," his mother said.
"Believe it or not, I'm not sure she'd take it well. I mean think about other girlfriends who have found out. A few of them almost died."
"Don't be so dramatic. You know that I've tried to protect every girlfriend and boyfriend you and your brother and sister have had."
A hand took hold of her shoulder, and Marissa jumped and dropped the bottle of Excedrin.
"I'm sorry." The voice was deep, almost a growl.
Marissa turned around and looked into the deep blue eyes of an older version of Simeon. He smiled with long white teeth.
"I didn't mean to scare you," he said. "I'm Jake Wolfe. You must me Marissa, Sim's gal."
"Yes, sir," she said, trying to sound relaxed and at ease.
Simeon came through the door. He looked at his dad and then at her. She saw the look in his eyes and felt guilty.
"I was about to sneeze," she said. "I stopped to keep from doing it near the set table." She smiled back at Jake Wolfe. "I guess you scared it out of me."
"I knew that would stop hiccups, but I never heard of it handling sneezes," he said, still smiling. "We got the table ready, Sim? I just saw Dinah and Reuben pull up."
"We're all ready."
"Good. I like to get finished eating before the moon rises." He handed Simeon the bottle of medicine after picking it up from the floor. "I hope your headache isn't already starting."
Simeon rubbed his temple with his empty hand. "I'm feeling a little tension pain starting."
"Better take some of those pills then." He patted Marissa on the shoulder. "Let's get on in there and get everything ready. Reuben comes in like a ravenous tornado and might eat the table otherwise."
\*\*\*
Marissa sat a pile of plates down beside the sink. Mrs. Wolfe turned off the water. Suds frothed to the rim of the sink. Jake, Dinah, Reuben, and Simeon sat around the table.
"Are you sure you don't want me to help you wash the dishes?" Marissa said.
"No, go spend some time with Simeon and the others. You won't see them again until tomorrow morning sometime. They'll sleep late. Those headaches always take their toll on them."
Marissa walked back to the table. She started to scoop up the knives, spoons, and forks. "Don't start washing yet. I've still got to bring you the silverware," Marissa said.
Everyone at the table hissed. It sounded like each had been slapped on a fresh sunburn.
"We don't call it that," Mrs. Wolfe said from the kitchen.
"I'm sorry." She tried to keep the confusion out of her voice.
"We call it flatware," Jake said. "It's bad luck to say silver."
Marissa walked back to the kitchen and set the flatware beside the plates.
"It's an old Gypsy thing," Mrs. Wolfe said. "I'm the only one that will say it without cringing. I'm also the only one who will wear it."
"So you are of Gypsy descent?" Marissa said.
"We prefer Romani to Gypsy, but yes," Jake said.
She walked back to the dining table and sat beside Simeon. "You never told me that."
"You never asked."
"Can you read palms and that sort of thing?"
Dinah made a psst noise and rolled her eyes. "That is so cliché."
"It may be, dear, but we can do it," Jake said. "Mind you it's not a genetic thing." Everyone at the table chuckled. "It's a learned behavior. It's part of our culture."
"Just like stealing babies and swindling people," Reuben said.
"Hush." Simeon popped his brother on the back of the head. "We don't really steal babies."
Marissa patted him on his hand. "I know that, but I never knew you could tell fortunes."
"Sim is good with the palms," Jake said. "Reuben reads the tea leaves, Dinah's an expert with the bones, and I use the Tarot."
"You're pulling my leg," Marissa said.
Jake looked at the clock over the stove in the kitchen. The black cat, whose tail flicked and eyes blinked the seconds, said it was seven o'clock. Marissa could see through the kitchen window that the night had come on, but the moon had not risen.
"We have just enough time," Jake said. "I'll go get my deck. Dinah, get some of the chicken bones from supper, and Reuben, let Marissa fix a cup of tea."
Jake left the room, and the two others gathered their items. Simeon sat with both hands on the table. He drummed his fingers.
"I don't think this is a good idea," he said to no one in particular.
"Why not? It'll be fun," Marissa said.
"For you perhaps, but I can feel my headache starting."
"Come on, Sim. She's got to learn about us sometime," Dinah said, placing a plate with several chicken bones on the table.
"Especially if she's going to stick around." Reuben put a tea cup with steaming water in front of Marissa. He set a tea bag beside her. "Go ahead and start dipping."
"No really, we should save this for tomorrow, or never," Simeon said.
"Son, she's going to find out one way or the other," Mrs. Wolfe said.
"We still have nearly an hour, yet," Jake said as he walked back to the table. He shuffled a deck of cards. "Dinah, you start."
Marissa let her fortune be told. She first did what Dinah instructed and found out that a great mystery would be revealed to her, but the bones could not say what. Next, Reuben read her tea leaves. He saw a fuzzy glimpse into the future. Love would either grow stronger or weaker, he couldn't tell. He decided that he should have used Earl Grey instead of Lipton. Marissa let Jake read her cards. She drew five: death, the lovers, the two of swords, the devil, and seven of coins.
"I don't like the look of those," she said.
"Do not worry. Things are often different than what they seem," Jake said. "Everyone worries when they get the devil and death, but those, in your case, are positives."
Marissa looked down at the figures printed on the cards, every one of them wolf-like in appearance. Death wore his black cloak, but his hand was furry and clawed. The lovers were two rampant dogs, and the devil was a wolf in sheep's clothing. All had dripping, ravenous fangs. Jake stared into the cards as if he were reading a great novel.
"Tonight, you will have the secrets of love revealed. All the questions will be answered." He looked at her and smiled. "The cards say love will grow strong, and your life will change forever. That's what the death card means."
"For the better or worse?" Marissa asked.
"The devil would say for worse, but he is upside down, so probably for the better," Jake said.
Marissa bounced in her seat. She was happy to move away from the disturbing cards and let Simeon read her palm. She held out her right one. He shook his head and folded her fingers back to her palm. His touch felt cold as he pulled her left hand forward. She opened it.
"I don't want to do this," he said.
"Go on, everyone else has. It's fun," she said.
He looked at his family, one at a time. Marissa did the same. Mrs. Wolfe nodded her head in approval, and Simeon licked his lips and stared down into Marissa's palm.
"I see that you will have a change tonight. You will never be quite the same." His hand started to shake as he held hers. "I-I can't go on."
"Please," Marissa said.
"Yes, son, it is ill luck not to finish a reading," Jake said.
"I can't. Don't make me."
"Go on, you wuss," Reuben said.
Simeon looked at his mother and then back at Marissa's palm. His hand became clammy as it held hers.
"I see the pentagram."
Everyone at the table gasped. Simeon let her hand fall to the hard wood surface. He pushed away from the table and stormed out. Reuben and Dinah followed him. Marissa looked around, first at Jake who looked thunderstruck, and then at Mrs. Wolfe who had sympathy in her eyes.
"What is it?" she said. "I don't understand. What's happening?"
Jake stood up. "There's about fifteen minutes until moon up. I'm going to help the kids out. You know what to do, dear."
He left. Marissa wanted to jump up and grab Mrs. Wolfe, shake her until something made sense. Everything inside her seized with icy fear. Mrs. Wolfe hurried to the table and lifted Marissa up.
"Wear this." She took off a silver charm in the shape of the Confederate Battle Flag and handed it to her. "Keep it on from now until I tell you otherwise."
Marissa pulled the necklace over her head. "I don't understand. Please, tell me what's going on. I'm scared. Have I done something wrong?"
"No." Mrs. Wolfe started to pull her away from the table. "We've got to get you to your room, and whatever you do, don't come out until tomorrow morning."
Marissa walked with her. "What if I need the bathroom?"
"There's a half bath in the bedroom."
"Why won't you tell me what's happening?"
Mrs. Wolfe stopped and pulled Marissa to face her. The older woman's eyes glowered with a heavy seriousness. "If you don't do exactly what I've told you to, you won't be around to worry about needing the bathroom."
\*\*\*
Marissa tossed and turned under her covers. Too much light shined into her room for her to sleep. The moon seemed extra bright tonight. Perhaps it just shined brighter in the country, she thought, turning her back to the window.
Two o'clock stared back at her from the digital clock on the bedside table. She'd lain down around midnight after reading the same out-dated Good Housekeeping three times. Two hours of listening to her thoughts seemed like an eternity.
A loud slamming echoed up from the ground floor. Marissa sat up. Her red sleeping shirt looked pink in the sickly yellow moonlight. Another door downstairs slammed. The bed shook from the force.
Marissa hurried out of bed. She scurried to the door and shook the handle. The door was locked, but something had to be going on. Was there a fire? She breathed in deeply, trying to detect smoke. The room smelled like eucalyptus and Comet.
A loud yell rose from below her window. Marissa abandoned the door and ran across the room to the window. She pulled back the sheer curtain so that she could get a good look at the yard below. Several people ran toward the large barn at the back of the house. Marissa didn't recognize them. They seemed hunched over and almost animal-like. One threw his head up toward the full moon and let out a howl.
Marissa thought it looked like Simeon, but that wasn't possible. He would never go out on a full moon night. His migraines wouldn't let him. She opened the window, and cool night air blew into the room.
"Simeon, is that you?" she yelled to the figure.
The figure looked up at her, let loose another howl, and ran after the others. She caught a good look at his face. At that distance, she thought the howler was Simeon, although his features seemed...different.
"Are you all right?" she yelled, but he kept running.
She watched the runners until they disappeared into the shadow of the barn.
What's going on here?
The lock on the door wouldn't give, and no ramming her shoulder into it would break it free. The window was the only way out, so she put her shoes on and crawled out onto the sloping roof. The shingles were slick with age. She kept a hand on the wall of the second story to balance herself until she came to the corner. A latticework entwined with budding wisteria vines rose from the ground.
The little nibs of wisteria stems poked into her hands and legs as Marissa climbed down from the roof. Some of the limbs tangled with her clothing and tore it in places.
She started toward the barn. A choir of whoops and howls rose into the night. The smell of wood smoke wafted into the air. Her stomach started to knot. Everything seemed like some kind of bad horror movie. The full moon cast a jaundiced light over everything. Someone, or something, kept baying at the moon.
Marissa's head danced with fear as she passed through the open pasture gate. The stronger smell of wood smoke brought her back to her mission. An orange glow vanquished some of the shadows at the side of the barn. Music filled the air. The twang of a honky-tonk piano mingled with the whine of a steel guitar. Some nasally singer warbled about whisky and women. Another wolf-howl cried into the night.
"What are you doing here?" Mrs. Wolfe asked from the shadows as Marissa passed the corner of the barn.
Marissa yelled and grabbed her chest. "What are you doing?"
"I'm making sure my family doesn't lose control," Mrs. Wolfe said. "It's my duty as their mother and wife."
"Why would they lose control?"
"They always run that risk during the full moon." Mrs. Wolfe grabbed Marissa by the arm and pulled her away from the barn.
"I don't understand."
"Where's that necklace I gave you?" Mrs. Wolfe said. "I told you to wear it all the time."
"I don't like Rebel flags. They're, well, tacky."
Mrs. Wolfe shook her head. "You don't understand. It was your protection. Get back to the house before Simeon knows you're out here."
"Why should I care? He's my boyfriend."
A whooping howl came from behind the barn. Marissa recognized Simeon's voice. Mrs. Wolfe looked over her shoulder and started pushing Marissa back toward the house. The moonlight glinted off a silver Rebel flag charm hanging from a silver necklace around her neck.
"You've got on one of those necklaces," Marissa said.
"It keeps me protected. Why do you think I'm not one of them? I've never taken it off since Jake's mother gave it to me."
"Somethin' smells good." Simeon's voice came crashing from around the barn. His accent sounded thicker than usual. "Momma, what am I smellin'?"
"Nothing," Mrs. Wolfe yelled back. "Just get back around there with your daddy and drink another beer."
Marissa saw Simeon's outline at the edge of the shadows. It looked different, more slumped and primitive.
"Naw, I smell a girl, and woo wee, she smells nice."
"What's going on?" Marissa said, almost crying.
"Yee haw!"
Before she knew what was happening, Simeon ran from the shadows. His yellow teeth bucked out, and his hair rested on his shoulders, but only in the back. The top was short, almost a crew cut. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves ripped off. His arms were white from just above his elbows to his shoulders. The lower part was a rust color. As he drew closer, she saw that he had a Fu Manchu moustache and a stubble beard. The sweet smell of cheap beer permeated from him like stench from a skunk.
"Run," Mrs. Wolfe said. "For goodness sake run."
Marissa did. She turned and dashed as quickly as she could back toward the house. Simeon whooped from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see him pursuing. Mrs. Wolfe yelled at them both, but Marissa couldn't make out the words. Her blood pulsed through her ears, deafening her to everything except the song Simeon sang: Give me a Redneck Girl.
Before she could run through the pasture gate, he pounced on her. Marissa crumbled under Simeon's weight. She wriggled and tried to free herself, but it was no use. She felt his teeth against her neck and smelled his beer-laced breath. He bit down like he was giving her a hickey, and everything went black.
\*\*\*
Marissa woke up when something wet and icy touched her forehead. She grabbed it and pulled it away from her face. The blue and white label of a Pabst Blue Ribbon can glistened in the moonlight. A fire blazed a few feet from her. Simeon, still wearing his flannel shirt and his hair still in a glorious mullet, sat on a stump near the fire. He finished off a beer and slammed the can against his forehead, crushing it. Jake and Reuben sat near Simeon. Both had long mullets and drank beer. Dinah danced near a boom box. Her bangs stood up high and didn't move as if set in place with the strongest hairspray known. She held a wine cooler in her hand. Conway Twitty serenaded the night.
"Put that beer on your bite, sweetheart," Mrs. Wolfe said. "It'll help with the fever."
Marissa looked beside her. Mrs. Wolfe rolled an open beer can between her hands. She wore a downtrodden look of failure on her face. The silver flag pendant caught the light of the fire.
"What happened?" Marissa said.
"He got you, just like he warned," Mrs. Wolfe said. "Now you're one of them, like it or not."
"What are they?"
"Were-necks," Mrs. Wolfe said. "Every full moon, they turn into rednecks for a three-day cycle. A hickey from them during that time will turn whoever receives it into a redneck too." Mrs. Wolf shook her head. "I tried to warn you."
Marissa only half-understood what Simeon's momma had said. Her head itched. She scratched it and felt the stiff puff of bangs piled high on her head. A sudden craving for Pabst Blue Ribbon overtook her, and she'd be danged if Conway Twitty wasn't the best singer in the whole wide world.
Killer Interview
by Chris Lewis Carter
The intercom plays a tinny rendition of Chopin's Funeral March, and my secretary's voice fills the office.
"Mr. Shax, your 4:30 has arrived."
"Just a moment, Cheryl." I pop open the bottle of polish stashed in my briefcase and slather a handful over the onyx-black horns jutting out of my forehead.
For the love of Lucifer, please let this be the last one.
"All right, send him in."
My door opens, and the grizzled old man who steps inside is exactly what I'm looking for in an applicant. His assigned body appears to be in its fifties with a tangle of silver hair and a knotted beard that twists in all directions. He's wearing a long black cloak that's covered in dried bloodstains, and has a patch over his left eye.
Promising, sure, but appearance can only take you so far. Yesterday, a candidate tried to impress me by wearing a suit jacket made of human skin, but he forgot my name twice during the interview. Twice!
DemoniCorp wants me to hire a psychopath, not a moron.
Still, I've got a good feeling about this one. After we shake hands, I offer him a seat across from my desk built entirely out of varnished skulls.
"Thanks for seeing me," he rasps, sounding like he just finished eating a carton of cigarettes. "I'm grateful for the opportunity."
Satan's pitchfork, he even talks the part.
"My pleasure. It's nice to finally meet the man behind the résumé," I boom, trying to sound even more baritone than usual. "Arson, robbery, homicide... Very impressive credentials, Mr. Miller."
"Call me Charles," he says, tracing a finger across the ridges in his chair, which is made from thousands of children's teeth. "And thank you. It's always nice to hear your work is appreciated."
I nod, then click my blood-red pen and hover it above the questionnaire on my desk. "Right then. Down to business. Tell me, Charles, what do you know about the position you're applying for?"
He pauses for a moment, like he's unsure if I'm testing him somehow, then says, "The ad said supernatural killer. Sounds pretty straightforward to me."
"Well, yes, but let me elaborate," I say, scribbling a few notes on the paper. "For over five thousand years, DemoniCorp has been the Underworld's largest exporter of ghouls, demons, and reincarnated serial killers. We send them back to Earth to terrorize unsuspecting teenagers and, in return, they help thin out some of the planet's, shall we say, less intelligent occupants."
Charles reaches inside his cloak and pulls out a rusty machete, which he then uses to prune his gnarled fingernails. "Everyone wins."
We take a moment to admire the shower of molten rock outside my office window---one of the many advantages of working at the base of an active volcano.
"Not anymore. Kids these days are becoming incredibly good at destroying our monsters. In fact, we've lost over a dozen of our employees in the past six months alone," I say, as flakes of ash collect against the glass. "That's why DemoniCorp is looking for an exceptionally evil soul to return to Earth and extract their unholy wrath upon our target demographic."
Charles rubs his hands together and flashes a grin full of yellow teeth. "Yes, I definitely feel this position matches my... skill set."
"That's the spirit," I say, tapping the questionnaire. "All you need to do is answer a few simple questions to see if you're qualified for this particular line of work. We take reaching our quota of dead teenagers very seriously here."
"Good to know," Charles says, tossing his machete onto the kitten-skin rug lying at his feet. "Fire away."
Sweet Beelzebub, please let this one work out. If he's half the lunatic I think he is, that promotion is as good as mine.
"Question one," I say. "Did you die in a unique or brutal fashion, potentially causing others to fear your return in search of bloody vengeance?"
"Oh, well, um..." Charles shifts awkwardly in the teeth-chair.
Is the magma outside catching the light, or is he actually starting to blush?
"It's a pretty crazy story," he says finally.
My pen quivers in anticipation. "Do tell," I say. "Struck by lightning on Halloween? Committed suicide on an ancient burial ground?" I shoot him a quick wink. "Did it involve a pagan ritual, by chance?"
"Slipped in the driveway," he says, suddenly becoming very interested in his shoes. "Hit my head on the mailbox."
I laugh politely, thinking this must be his idea of a joke, but his expression is unflinchingly grim.
"Seriously?"
"Yep."
"Oh." I'm not even sure what box to check on the questionnaire.
"Would you describe the mailbox as being malevolent?"
"Not really," he says. "It was shaped like a duck."
I sigh, then stroke my pointed beard for a moment. "Let's mark you down as 'Other.'"
So what if his grand exit wasn't that impressive. Not everyone gets to be impaled on a cursed Aztec spear. He'll still work out.
"Question two," I continue. "With your final words, did you swear the bloody vengeance referred to in question one?"
"You want to know my last words?"
He's squirming again. Sweet Sammael, he looks uncomfortable.
"We're out of mozzarella."
"Excuse me?" I say.
"My last words." Charles clucks his tongue for a few seconds. "I told my wife that we were out of mozzarella. I was on my way to the store, but..."
"Mailbox attack?" I offer.
"Yeah."
Two days ago, my co-worker, Gaap, interviewed a guy who was put to death by the electric chair. His last words were---and I quote---"Today I fry, but tomorrow you'll die!"
Seriously, how perfect is that? He would have got the job if he didn't insist on not working holidays. Special occasions are our bread and butter. Just ask Ici-kill, he's nonstop during Christmas.
I check off, "Inaudible," and move down the list.
"Ah, here's a good one," I say. "Question three. Would you prefer to return in humanoid form, or are you comfortable with your soul being housed inside an inanimate object?"
Charles grabs a hot coal from the candy dish on my desk and pops it in his mouth. "You mean, stuff my soul inside a toaster or something?" he says between chews.
I hadn't thought about it, but that's not a bad idea. I'll pitch it to R&D first thing tomorrow.
"It's entirely your decision," I say. "Sure, there's a certain level of comfort in a typical body, but never underestimate the element of surprise. Imagine how easy it'll be to get the drop on a group of teenagers as a homicidal toilet seat."
When he narrows his good eye at me, I quickly add, "DemoniCorp loves to have employees who are team players."
"Humanoid, please," he says.
I check off the box, then rub my temples so hard that another pair of horns poke through the surface of my leathery skin. "All right, let's try another one. Question four. Do you have any relatives currently living on Earth who could carry on your dark work in the event of your unfortunate demise?"
Charles shakes his head. "No."
"No? Honestly, Mr. Miller..." I chuck my pen over my shoulder, where it sticks in the eye socket of the human head I have mounted on a hunting plaque. "Not even a child? I'm telling you, they make the best successors. Sure, they might try to stop you at first---maybe even side with the teenagers out to destroy you---but give them a year or so to mull things over and they'll take up your legacy every time."
Charles shrugs. "No kids. Think I've got a cousin in Ohio, though. Heard he became an accountant."
Why me, Baal? Just once, can't an arch-demon interview a well-spoken serial killer with an extended family, who died in a tragic incinerator accident, and wouldn't have a problem being reincarnated as a snow-blower?
Is that too much to ask?
"Question five, and this is a big one," I say. "Assuming you are sent back to Earth, describe to me your ideal method of slaughtering teenagers."
"Hmm, that's a toughie," Charles says, then gets up from his seat and grabs the machete. "If you people gave me a bunch of spooky superpowers, I'd run straight for the biggest group of teenagers I could find and cut them to ribbons before they knew what's what." He waves the blade around like a possessed feather-duster. "He-ayah! Ha! Woo-ah! Ga---"
"Mr. Miller, I'm going to stop you right there." I crumple the questionnaire into a ball and throw it in the trash. "Honestly, I don't even know where to start."
Charles cocks his head to the side, then slumps back down in the chair. "You didn't let me finish."
"Trust me, you've said plenty," I say. "First of all, our killers never run anywhere---they walk. Sure, your target is allowed to run, but you're supposed to know exactly where they're headed and calmly stroll to that location. It's like the old saying, slow and steady wins the chase."
Charles opens his mouth to respond, but I don't give him the opportunity. It's been a long day and I'm in the mood to rant.
"Not to mention that nonsense about finding the biggest group of teenagers. Everybody knows that you focus your attention on four, maybe five tops, and at least two of them better be dating each other!"
A glob of lava slaps against the window, casting Charles in a shaft of red light.
"And who kills an entire group all at once? Amateurs, that's who. Where's your sense of drama? Your showmanship? At least tell me that you'd single out a finale."
Charles screws up his face, then fiddles with the bottom of his eye patch. "I don't follow you."
"A finale!" I pound my fist against the desk, causing a skull to break free and clatter to the floor. "The one you pick to kill last. It should be the popular girl, but not cheerleader popular. Someone who's able to appreciate it when you finally explain to her why you've slaughtered her best friends. Honestly, this is day one stuff here!"
Chopin's Funeral March blares from the intercom again, which is probably for the best. I'm about two seconds away from lecturing this wannabe on the finer points of stalking teens while they shower.
"Mr. Shax, I've got a John Gordon here to see you," my secretary says. "He says it's urgent."
Mephisto's ghost, will this day ever end?
I take a deep breath, then push the intercom button. "Gore-Eyed Gordon is back already? He just got reincarnated last week."
The line goes silent for a moment, then Cheryl comes back on. "He says that he's really sorry, but his long-lost son tricked him into revealing his true weakness."
"Unbelievable," I say. "So help me, he's not getting another chance until somebody recites his name three times!"
"I'll tell him you're busy, sir."
"No, it's fine, Cheryl. Just a minute." I turn back to Charles, and see that his patch is now on the opposite side. He quickly slides it back, but not before I notice that both eyes are perfectly fine. "You aren't really psychotic, are you, Mr. Miller?"
He fidgets with his hands, then sighs. "Err, not exactly, no. It's just so hard to find employment these days," he says with the smooth voice of a television announcer. "I didn't bathe for a week to prepare for this interview. Even had to borrow an outfit from my neighbor. Now there's a nut-job. The guy loves earwigs. Seriously, he makes wigs out of human ears!"
"No kidding. Tell him to drop off his résumé." I push back my chair and stand up. "At any rate, it's been a...pleasure meeting you. We'll be making our final decision within the next few weeks."
Charles nods, and we exchange another brief handshake.
"Level with me, Mr. Slacks," he says, tucking the machete back inside his cloak. "I'm not getting the job, am I?"
Ugh.
"Truthfully? Not a chance," I say. "But we encourage all applicants to apply with us again in the future. Judging by the current rate of humanity's progress, DemoniCorp should be opening a brand new division within the next hundred years."
"Oh yeah?" he says, "That sounds exciting."
"It certainly is. We're going to revolutionize the supernatural killer industry." I walk him to the door, then clap my hand around his shoulder. "Just think about it. Executing teenagers in...outer space!"
Night of the Killer Whatchamacallit
by Emma Ennis
Author's Note: Due to the fact that it goes against the grain of the genre, there will be no use of electric lighting in this story.
It was a dark, windy night in the throes of autumn. Big blustery clouds swarmed over the full moon in droves, smothering its every attempt to catch a breath of air. Far beneath this celestial struggle, inside a line of tossing trees, a twig snapped. The bottommost branches parted and a being stepped out into a clearing in front of an abandoned manor house.
The creature was unlike anything you have seen before. It stood upright with the bearing of man, yet its legs were bent in the wrong direction, the knobby knees to the back. Its body was clothed in a layer of mangy fur, unruly in patches where its skin was stretched tightest over its emaciated framework. But its head, now that was the strangest of all. It was no round, cherubic visage that topped this anomaly of nature, but rather an elongated, snouty thing with rheumy eyes and pointed ears, coated in the same tufted fuzz.
It gazed up at the careering skyscape as though it was looking for something. All of a sudden the moon slipped free, glancing once over its shoulder before racing across the sky. The thing raised its ugly head in salute and let loose an unearthly howl. The sound rose to an eerie pitch before it was cut short by a hacking cough. The creature bent over double, barking and wheezing, its eyes bulging with the pressure. Its body convulsed, its skin rippling with each spasm. The skeletal frame was on the verge of snapping in half when a slimy hairball finally belched from its throat and slithered to the ground, wet and glistening like a baby.
It had just enough time to catch a breath before its head whipped to the side, slobber flying from its jaws. Still as a stone, its ears cocked on alert, it listened for several seconds before scarpering back into the trees, leaving a trail of fleas in its wake.
\*\*\*
Just as the branches settled back into place, a group of teens entered the clearing. A boy of Asian ethnicity, a blond cheerleader with blue and yellow pompoms attached to her wrists, a beefy jock, and an African-American buck were among the body of halfwits that crept along in a cautious train, giggling and hooting and tripping over one another.
The two at the head of the chain were lugging a metal beer keg between them. When they reached the front porch of the abandoned house, they dumped their load with relief.
"Who's got the crowbar?" The question came from one of the beer-bringers, a dark haired, handsome boy with an athletic build (the popular one).
A ripple ran down the line of revelers as each looked to the other in expectation.
"So nobody brought a crowbar?" The boy on the porch threw up his hands in despair. "What the hell are we doing here then?"
The Asian boy (the nerdy one) at the back of the group chimed in, his hand in the air as a testament to the saying 'old habits die hard.' "That's actually a very logical question," he said. "We don't even know one another, and we have nothing in common, so the probabilities of us liking each other are slim. Unless of course, we were to get caught up in an extremely intense situation and---"
"Shut up, Nikon," the cheerleader snapped. She turned to the two on the porch, focusing on the hulking jock in particular. "Can't you do something, Dirk?"
The behemoth shrugged his shoulders and lumbered over to the door. Lengths of timber were nailed across it and he slid a big stump of a hand behind them, ripping them off without even breaking a sweat.
"Booya!" The black dude strolled on into the house, cool as a fart in minus temperatures.
The rest filed in behind him. Handsome clapped Dirk on the shoulder as he passed by. "Nice one, buddy."
The house was in darkness. Somebody flicked on a torch (I warned you) and they followed its beam to the sitting room. It was still partially furnished. A tawny girl with a thick set of glasses spanning her be-freckled nose found a spot on the sofa where she watched the others set up. Before long another girl joined her; she was your typical first-to-die character, unremarkable in every aspect apart from a slight Australian accent. We could go on to describe her hair, her eyes, her ample knockers, but trust me, there's no point.
"Gillian," she introduced herself.
The girl on the couch pushed her glasses up on her nose before accepting her handshake.
"Amanda."
They fell silent, their eyes on the rest of the group who were gathered by the empty fireplace, looking for something to burn. Amanda's attention was focused mainly on Handsome and it was not long before Gillian noticed.
"You like Trey?" she teased.
Amanda ducked her head, her cheeks flaming. Gillian smiled in a knowing way.
"He doesn't bake my biscuits. But Clifford on the other hand..." Their eyes moved to the Negro pyromaniac who stood off to the side, waiting to stick a light to the pile of debris they had accumulated. "The only reason I'd kick him out of the bed is to do him on the floor."
Nikon was trying to build some kind of tepee in the fireplace, giving a spiel about oxygen and draughts and whatnots. Trey shoved him to the side and beckoned to Clifford.
"Spark it, homeboy."
Clifford dropped one shoulder and raised the eyebrow on the opposite side. "I ain't yo homeboy, snowflake."
He flicked a match and the construction in the grate caught with a whoosh. Tiffany, the cheerleader, gave a squeal of excitement and shook her pompoms. The next task was the keg. After much aimless fiddling, peppered with a range of schematics from Nikon, it was Dirk's brute strength that got it running in the end. He twisted the nozzle, pressed down on the bunghole, and the sweet nectar began to flow.
"Ennui High!" he roared and a cheer erupted from the rest of the crowd, harmonized by the rustle of pompoms.
Plastic pint glasses were passed around among the unlikely bunch and music started up from somewhere...let's not get into the details. Gillian soon sidled off, mincing her way over to Clifford where she promptly began to lay foundations. Amanda watched Trey and Tiffany gyrating to the music, oblivious to everyone else. At some point Nikon sauntered to the sofa and tried it on, but sensing the frigidness, soon gave up, and he and Dirk started a game that involved tossing coins at the wall.
\*\*\*
Outside in the darkness just beyond the glow from the windows, something lurked. From his vantage point among the rustling trees he had a clear view of the room. His breathing was erratic with excitement as he watched the tasty teenagers flirt and frolic. He could almost smell the hormones that flew between them like a virus.
Two of the party, a blonde with something bizarre hanging from her wrists and a tall male, broke away from the rest of the group and moved to the doorway. Nobody inside noticed them leave, but he did. He kept pace with them, skulking along the fringe of trees to the second window which gave him a different perspective. From there he could see the backs of the blonde's legs, rising tanned and toned to a tight little ass that jiggled like two eggs running around in a hanky.
Forgetting himself, he stepped a little closer, but the couple had disappeared into the dark hallway. There was another girl by the fireplace; there wasn't anything particularly interesting about her, but the African-American at her side looked meaty. He took another step forward. His foot caught on a root and he fell flat on his face.
\*\*\*
"What was that?" Amanda jumped up from the sofa and backed away from the window.
Nikon was at her side in a flash, peering through the glass as if he could actually see something.
"The chances of anyone besides us being out in the wilderness at an abandoned house in the middle of the night are astronomical. It's probably just the trees."
Amanda exhaled. "Thank God for that."
They turned back to the party.
"Who's missing?" he mused, looking around. "Hey, Dirk, where are Trey and Tiffany?"
Dirk shrugged and raised his drink. "Ennui High!"
They all cheered and joined his toast.
\*\*\*
"Over here." Tiffany taunted with a playful giggle.
Trey felt his way along the wall, following the sound of her voice. He had been chasing her for fifteen minutes now and his stiff-one was growing limp with boredom.
"Cut it out, Tiffany."
"I'm right here." Her words landed on his ear, scaring the shit out of him.
His pecker twitched, whether from the fright or the closeness of her body he did not know, but he planned to use it whatever the cause. He slipped his arms around her waist while hers encircled his neck. The plastic fronds of the pompoms tickled him and he pulled away in frustration.
"Jesus, Tiffany, can't you put them down for half an hour?"
"Trey!" she whined, "they're in the script."
He shook his head. Whatever. He could take one for the team. His lips found hers at the same time as his fingers found the catch of her bra. He was beginning to sweat when the damn thing finally gave. She moaned. And he hadn't even touched her yet. He lifted her Ennui High shirt over her head, struggling to pull it off over the pompoms on her wrists. It let go with a jerk sending her staggering away from him. He caught up with her before she got too far and slipped the bra off her shoulders. He dropped it to the ground where it landed with a dull thunk.
Flexing his thumbs in anticipation and wishing he'd had the foresight to adjust his pants, he reached out. For a moment he thought she had turned her back to him until his hand brushed against nipple, so small it should have had a homing device attached.
Fucking Wonderbra! The only thing guaranteed to drop a cock faster than the word 'circumcision'. Get it together, Trey. Never look at the mantelpiece when you're poking the fire. Avoiding the offensive things, he delved lower and began working on the skirt. His jeans were starting to tighten again, and he had almost struck gold when there was a scratching sound at the door.
Tiffany pulled out of the kiss with a loud smack. "What was that?"
"Nothing, baby." He leaned over to kiss her again.
Just then the door burst open and Dirk fell into the room. The blinding beam from the flashlight fell on them.
"Daaaaaaamn!" Clifford exclaimed, training the light on Tiffany's bared chest. "Check out them bee stings."
Dirk snorted on the floor.
"Dirk!" Tiffany's tone was dangerous.
He looked up, his eyes unfocussed as though he was trying to think of something to say. "Ennui High!"
\*\*\*
All the prancing and flirting had made Gillian want to pee. Clifford had gone off some time ago with Dirk, having hatched a master plan of some kind that was seemingly epic. She decided to take advantage of his absence to find a quiet place to relieve herself.
Taking a spare torch, she wandered the empty hallways in search of a bathroom. The kitchen was at the back of the house, and through a door on its right was the utility room. Leading off this was a poky restroom. The window was broken and the gusting wind whistled through the cracks, making the room a chilly and unsavory place to bare one's wares.
She shone the light on the bowl of the toilet and recoiled. Ugh. She had never seen a brown bathroom suite in her life and, try as she might, she could not quite convince herself that's what it was. There was nothing for it---she was going to have to squat this one out.
Balancing the torch on the cistern, she held her shirt up with her teeth, dropped her pants, and gripped the wall for support. Already her thighs were beginning to ache and she could have kicked herself for letting it build up so much.
\*\*\*
The torchlight was angled perfectly to afford him an awesome view of the tiny room's sole inhabitant. For a moment he was disappointed to find it was that girl, the nondescript one. But sometimes one had to take the good with the bad...and she was alone.
His breathing hitched. He moved away from the window and, as quietly as he could, let himself into the utility room door.
\*\*\*
Gillian heard the click of the door outside and her hand slipped down the wall in fright. She managed to steady herself before she'd done any damage, but not before her elbow knocked against the torch, sending it rolling along the porcelain. It clattered to the ground and the light went out. For a moment the moonlight served as backup, and then that too was extinguished.
"Shit."
She gave her ass a quick shake then pulled up her pants. There came another sound, closer this time, and she dropped to her knees, scrabbling around on the dirty floor.
"Dirk," she warned. "Piss off."
Her hand found the cold shaft of the flashlight and she sighed with relief. She flicked the switch.
Nothing happened. She flicked it again.
"Fuck."
Somebody opened the door to the bathroom. Her heart froze. She slapped the torch with her palm. The light flickered then equalized. She whipped around to the door.
"Dirk, I'm going to kick your---"
There was a flash of steel and a scream ripped from her throat, echoing through the house.
\*\*\*
Down the hall in the sitting room, the festivities ground to a halt. Dirk, Clifford, Trey, and the tit-less wonder had rejoined the party---it's not always easy to make the beast with two backs when there is an audience.
For a moment everyone stood stock still, listening for a repeat of the sound they collectively thought they had collectively heard. But it did not come. Dirk began to get restless---the keg was just out of arms reach. His fingers started to twitch. Finally, Trey shrugged, a 'what-you-gonna-do' look on his face.
"Must have been the wind."
Everyone relaxed and slipped back into the groove.
Maniac Killer one, High School Kids zero.
Trey wandered over to where Amanda was sitting. She saw him and quickly averted her eyes. Her palms grew sweaty and she tried to wipe them on her jeans without him noticing. She gave a nervous cough and adjusted her glasses just as he sat down beside her.
"Anyone ever tell you you're real cute?" His thigh was pressed against hers. She coughed again. "Because you are."
He draped his arm across the back of the sofa behind her and began to twine his fingers in her hair. Amanda was painfully aware of Tiffany standing on the other side of the room, watching their every move, her eyes like daggers that threatened to cut them to shreds at any second.
"Trey," she called, sweetly enough, but venom flew like spittle through her gritted teeth, "are you coming upstairs?"
Amanda looked at Trey. He continued to whisper sweet nothings in her ear as though Tiffany had never spoken.
"Trey!" Her voice sounded like a cat caught in a lawnmower, yet still he ignored her.
You could have cut the tension with a knife. Dirk had stopped, bent halfway over the keg in an experiment to cut out the middleman, also known as 'cup'. His bleary eyes darted back and forth between the assembly, trying to find a safe place to rest. "Ennui High?"
"Fine. I'm going." Tiffany fluffed her pompoms once and stalked out of the room.
Everyone looked to Trey, who shrugged his shoulders indifferently. Nikon's eyes widened and he dropped his drink, actually dropped it deliberately on the floor, and took off in her slipstream, muttering something along the lines of, "I'd eat a mile of shit to get to that ass."
"Hey, Tiffany, wait up," They heard him shout from the hall. "In theory this house may be structurally unsound. Let me..."
And his voice was lost to the howling wind and the music. Clifford and Dirk high-fived.
"That nigga be stuffin' da muffin tonight!"
\*\*\*
Meanwhile, back on killer-cam, things were heating up. He had gotten a taste for it after Jane Doe, and now two fresh little lambs had been delivered to the slaughterhouse. After number one, he had needed to find a quiet place to...take himself into hand, so to speak. He had helped himself to a room upstairs and had just finished...purging, when the door opened and the two teens stepped into his lair.
He slipped into the shadows and watched them. It was beginning to get light outside and he could make out the blonde with the short skirt and the lovely buns, and another male. The very fact that they were in the room with him, just inches from his reach, almost made him purge again.
It was a worthy offering, laid right at his table. And one should never look a gift horse in the mouth.
\*\*\*
Tiffany plopped down on a bed-like object in the center of the room. Nikon sat beside her, covertly checking the stability of the thing, mentally calculating its ability to stand up to a little pounding. He hoped she wasn't high maintenance---it was hardly the ideal surroundings in which to bump uglies.
"He's such a dick," she burst out.
Nikon wrapped his arm around her shoulders, trying to imitate what he had seen Trey doing with Amanda earlier---it had looked smooth.
"You're too good for him," he agreed.
"I've waited for him for six months."
She started to cry. He caressed her cheek with his finger. Waited you say?
"Forget about him," he advised, having to work hard to not make it sound like the plea that it really was. "You deserve to be with somebody who respects you."
She sniffed and looked up at him. Her eyes were unfocussed. Awesome. She was drunk.
"You're actually pretty sweet," she said.
That was green light enough for him. He leaned over and kissed her. When she did not protest he pushed on with more assurance. Easing her back on the bed, he rolled on top of her.
"Is that you breathing?" she said.
"Uh huh," he said. She could have been asking if he was the tooth fairy in his spare time and he wouldn't have known any different.
She planted her hands against his chest and pushed him away.
"Seriously, I thought I heard someone."
Nikon sat up and looked around. The weak light of dawn dispelled the absolute darkness and he was able to make a vague inventory of the room. Door closed, chair, dresser, hulking shadow, check.
"There's nobody here but us, babe."
She must have been satisfied because she pulled him back to her. He shifted around, easing himself into takeoff position. She caught his bottom lip between her teeth and he gave a powerful jerk. She hung on. He moaned.
"Oh you like that do you, big boy?" She released his lip with a wet slap.
Something warm dripped onto her chest.
"What the...?"
Her hand flew up to investigate, knocking against his chin. His head rolled to the side, severed from his body. There was a ring of metal and the flash of a blade above her eyes. She did not have time to scream.
\*\*\*
"Shouldn't we go check on the others?"
The idea came from Amanda. As much as she welcomed the attention from Trey, she needed a breather from it. Clifford and Dirk were in the middle of something really bizarre in the corner. Dirk had his pants down and what looked like a long sheet of toilet paper was trailing from his quivering butt cheeks. He was standing in a half squat, as though he was preparing to take a dump. There was a full pint held at the ready in his hand. Clifford was kneeling at his feet, a match poised to strike.
The charade was doing nothing to ease Amanda's discomfort. Trey, probably reading something completely different into her question, was more than happy to oblige. They stood up and he reached for her hand. Their eyes met and she smiled, dipping her head shyly.
"Guys, we're going to investigate."
Clifford gave a vague sign of acknowledgement. As they walked away they heard him count down from three. When he reached one, there was a hiss of flame and he began to chant, "Chug, chug, chug, chug."
Their sounds faded as Amanda and Trey wound their way upstairs, kicking open doors and calling for their missing comrades.
"I really like you, Amanda," Trey said as he threw open a door at the top of the stairs. "Tiffany?"
He flashed the light around the empty room and they moved down the hall to the next.
"Will you go steady with me?"
Amanda's vision blanched. She had to convince herself that it was really happening, that it was not just another one of her fantasies.
"Tiffany?" Another empty room. Trey closed the door behind him.
"I'd like that," she forced herself to croak.
He looked at her and smiled, then planted a kiss on her lips. It was better than all her dreams put together. She felt like she was flying. Electric tingles coursed through her body, firing hotly at the nerve endings. He reached behind her and turned the handle of the door at her back.
The torch picked out a soiled mattress in the center of the room. It took a moment for the realization of what they were looking at to sink in, and then Amanda let out a prolonged, bloodcurdling scream.
Nikon's dead eyes stared up at them from a sticky puddle on the floor. The rest of his body was sprawled across the bed. There was not much left of Tiffany to identify. The only evidence that she was part of the massacre at all was a minced-meat mess beside Nikon's lifeless body, and a stained set of blue and yellow pompoms sitting atop.
Amazingly, Amanda was still screaming, the din providing the background music while they took in the scene. You had to give it to her---the girl had lungs.
Trey grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the stairs. "Let's get the fuck out of here."
They stumbled down the steps two at a time. There wasn't a sound coming from the sitting room and they presumed the others had passed out. Perhaps that might have been the case, on a Sunday, when there was no Mass. But when they ran into the room it was a whole different story. They skidded to an abrupt halt. Amanda's scream bounced off the walls.
Dirk lay on the floor in a pool of his own blood. His neck and stomach were sliced open. Blood streamed from his mouth and a pitiful gurgling noise came from his throat.
"Aw, buddy." Trey fell to his knees by his friend's side, gripping his bloody hand in his own. "Hold on, man, we'll get help."
Dirk choked out a watery sound. He was trying to say something.
"What is it, buddy? I can't hear you." Trey leaned in closer.
Dirk coughed again, spraying Trey's cheek. The scene was sadly lacking a violin or two.
"En...En...Ennui High..." he wheezed, then his eyes glazed over and his head rolled to the side.
Trey got up, his face teeming with snot and tears. "Come on," he said, taking Amanda's hand again.
They ran to the front door. Trey yanked at the handle. Nothing happened. He braced himself against the wall and pulled. Still nothing happened, so he tried to ram it with his shoulder. Amanda started to tug him in the opposite direction, deeper into the house.
"There must be another door."
At that exact moment a hand clamped down on her shoulder and her uvula was treated to another blast of the foghorn that was her scream.
"Girl, what you trippin' for? Be easy."
She almost collapsed in relief at the sound of Clifford's voice.
"Dude, we gotta get the hell out of here," Trey said. "We found Tiffany and Nikon upstairs, they're dead. And...and Dirk..."
His sorrowful eyes fell on the sitting room door, his explanation cut short when the waterworks broke again.
"No shit, foo'," Clifford said, as cool as a polar bear's swimsuit. "I just found what's-her-name in the bathroom, nigga. She's like sausage meat."
"Can we go?" Amanda begged.
They followed Clifford down the hall to the kitchen---Amanda clung to Trey's back. The room was empty and they slowly made their way to the paneled door. As Clifford reached for the handle, a figure passed by the window. In the dawning light they could just make it out. Its head was huge, its ears pointed like that of a wolf. Its long snout pressed against the glass, making foggy impressions with each breath.
Amanda screamed. They turned and ran back into the house. At some point Trey caught her hand and yanked her off the main thoroughfare into one of the connecting rooms. He slammed the door and they found each other again in the darkness.
"What was that thing?" she said in an undertone.
"I don't know," he whispered.
They were silent, watching the darkness roughly where the door was.
"Where's Clifford?"
"Shit," Trey muttered, then as loud as he dared, "Cliff? You here, dude?"
Silence answered.
"We have to go find him," he announced with finality.
"But, Trey," there was a fierce urgency to her protest, "you saw what it did to the others."
"So we sit here and wait for it to find us?"
That stopped the airflow to her windbag.
They linked hands and felt their way to the door. After a steadying breath, they opened it a crack and peered out. The coast was clear. Staying close to the wall, they inched toward the kitchen. There was not a sound in the big old house. The archway into the kitchen was dark and foreboding, like a gateway to hell. As they eased their way through, their eyes were trained on the back door, so at first they did not see what was happening to the left of the room.
A small noise alerted them and they stiffened, their heads turning reluctantly toward the sound. When they found the source---what do you know---Amanda screamed. Trey clapped his hands against his head.
"Amanda, babe, seriously, my ears are bleeding here."
Sitting at the table, looking as startled as they felt, was the wolf-man. His hands were frozen in the air, one still clutching a carving knife. Folded neatly in his lap was a napkin. Clifford lay along the middle of the table like a ham, roasted and basted, an apple in his mouth and an onion up his arse.
Unless you are a teen caught in a slasher storyline of that persuasion, you will never understand how long it felt as they stared across the room at each other, wondering who should make the first move. It can only have been seconds, though, before Amanda screamed and Trey winced.
Despite the fact that there wasn't a fireplace to be seen, a fire hook stood against the wall. Amanda grabbed it and launched herself at the atrocity on the other side of the room. With a sickening squelch, she drove the dangerous end through the wolf-man's eye socket. His jaw just had time to drop in surprise before he slumped to the ground, dead as a dodo.
"Take that, bad guy," she declared, dusting off her hands.
Trey had stood to the side, watching it all go down open-mouthed. But when her unforeseen heroic act was done, he jacked up his manhood and slung his arm in a protective crook around her shoulders.
"Nice one, babe."
"That's what he gets for killing all those people I didn't know."
They pushed open the back door and walked out of the house, cooler than a pair of snow cones. The sun was just coming up as they made their way back to the lane and started toward the main road. At the turning they met a whistling logger on his way to work who tipped his hat to them as he passed. Amanda stopped and looked back at him.
"What's up?" Trey said when he realized she was no longer beside him.
She shook her head. "There was something weird about that guy, but I can't quite put my finger on it."
He watched the man for a second, his eyebrows all askew.
"It's been a rough night," he said.
"You're right," she said. "Let's go."
They turned their backs on the man and the house, and walked out onto the main road just as the sun peeped its head over the horizon.
\*\*\*
He felt their eyes on his back, but when that burn dissipated, he turned around. He watched them with a crooked grin until they disappeared from sight, then he swung a mucky spade onto his shoulder, followed by a bloody axe. With that he walked off into the woods surrounding the house, leaving the story wide open for a sequel.
The Undead Pay the Bills
by Kara Race-Moore
Mike stood at the kitchen counter and tallied up his latest stack of checks while he waited for the coffee to finish brewing, silently blessing Congress for passing the Zombie Civil Rights Act.
He had the TV on just for background noise as he made breakfast. He threw the frozen burrito in the microwave and then glanced at the TV screen. A pretty young woman with lots of makeup smiled at the camera. She had probably been a camera operator assistant herself before the Z.A. Mike snorted. Hell, she might have just been the girl they sent to get lattés. A lot people had gotten to move their careers up quite swiftly after the Z.A.
"The House," the young woman reported brightly, "is scheduled to vote today on legislation that will grant further immunity to people currently being prosecuted for looting during the Z.A. The bill is expected to pass through the House, but most members of the Senate are saying they will vote against it, citing that the law must be obeyed, even in times of crisis. The President is urging the passage of the bill, saying that now is the time to move forward."
Mike tuned out the rest of the report as various experts were interviewed. The majority leader of the House, who also looked like he'd recently climbed up the ranks pretty quickly, claimed that just because the prisons were now nearly empty, that was no reason to immediately start over crowding them again with people who had just been trying to make sure they didn't starve during the Z.A.
The news moved on to cover the latest progress on bringing the surviving members of the Israeli and Palestinian governments to the table, both just finally acknowledging the fact that they were both facing extinction if they didn't at least try a little fraternization.
The newscaster moved on to the entertainment section: "The international uproar continues over the casting of Chinese actor Yi Zhu to play the part of Utagawa Kuniyoshi in the upcoming film Last Man in Tokyo."
The woman made a sad face, trying to demonstrate empathy at the mention of the man who had come to be a symbol for the tragedy of many. While she talked, the screen showed the now wearily familiar footage shot on Kuniyoshi's phone as he left a last message of love for his child while taking out a city block of zombies.
"The surviving Japanese community insists more effort should be made to find a Japanese actor to play the part of Kuniyoshi, who made a heroic last stand to protect his infant son when Tokyo was overrun by the infected."
Mike noted that the word "zombie" was coming up less and less in the news. It seemed the media, at least, was following along with the government mandate that those who had been infected by the runaway, man-made Addison-Wilkes virus should be referred to either by the clinical term of "infected" or the politically correct "living-impaired."
Mike had thought no one would pay any attention to such an asinine order, but apparently the media was following the party line on this one. The coffee pot was full; he mentally shrugged as he reached for a mug. The mug was dingy and scuffed up, a promotional item from his old business. The words "Mike McCormick's Landscaping, Inc, Let us spruce up your yard" circled the mug in faded blue stenciled lettering.
The phone rang---it was his business cell. Mike hit mute on the TV and answered the call as professionally as he could before coffee. "DeadEx. Government licensed removers of the undead. How can I help you?"
He listened to the woman's frightened babble, calmed her down, got her address, reminded her of the simple, basic precautions that everyone should have known by heart by now, and promised her that he and his crew would be there between 10 A.M. and 2 P.M., and that someone would need to be at the house to meet them when they arrived.
When not even his smoothest talking could calm her down after that, he reluctantly promised he would see what he could do about being there sooner.
He hung up and rolled his eyes. Zombie removal may have been more lucrative than landscaping had been, but at least with the old landscaping business, people were a lot more agreeable to being part of a schedule rather than demanding instant attention. Nowadays everyone expected him to arrive immediately, as if he were the fucking zombie police or something.
Of course, that was the reason he was in business---there weren't enough people at the precincts, or animal control, or the town, county, state, or federal governments to clean up all the zombies still shambling around.
The Zombie Civil Rights Act was actually passed under the very bland name of Bill Z1-5AG7. The bill established clearly that only those specially licensed by the government were allowed to attack the living-impaired. Punching, bludgeoning, attempted drowning, electrocution, cross bow action, target practice, lynching, pea shooting, fire setting, etc, were now all banned. Destruction, attempting to destroy, or even simply what was legally known as "badgering" of the undead were all outlawed by the Zombie Civil Rights Act.
The brief glory days of free range zombie hunting died with the establishment of Act Z1-5AG7. Only those authorized by the government could hunt down the undead. And the government was more than happy to farm the work out to third parties. The police and the courts were overworked with catching "hidden" murders---a lot of people thought they could get away with killing people during the Z.A. and then claiming, "I thought he was a zombie."
Also, the probate courts were overloaded, especially after the Supreme Court had ruled 6-3 that zombies were not entitled to the powers of ownership, and given the same legal status as anyone else without a heartbeat. This was despite heavy lobbying from the ACLU who wanted zombies accorded the right-to-life. True, they no longer had heartbeats, but, their supporters argued, there was definite brain activity going on.
That final ruling meant everyone caught holding or harboring a zombie was guilty of the misdemeanor of not reporting a dead body and those filmmakers fulfilling the niche of zombie porn were able to be tried for the felony of necrophilia.
And, with the government stretched thin to begin with by the mortality rate of the virus, licenses for zombie hunting were made available to anyone who filled out the correct paperwork, paid the $50 application fee, and took a two day seminar---The Undead and You---with one day of written tests, one day of field tests.
Everyone on Mike's crew was certified, and he was thinking of hiring more, get enough so they could make multiple calls at once, maybe step back and focus more on the finance and advertising. He looked down at his coffee mug and reminded himself he needed to order new ones with the new name, in black and yellow to match the new lettering painted on his truck over the old one.
He turned back to the TV, but the news had been replaced by commercials. FOX was doing a special program that night showing a montage of the more famous celebrity funerals held after the Z.A. Clicking off the TV, Mike radioed in his crew and told them where to meet him. He gathered up the checks he had been counting into the cashbox to deposit at the bank later, scowling as he reminded himself how much had to be put aside for taxes.
He went to the garage and, after double checking the vicinity and the supplies, got in the truck and put the woman's address into his GPS. Turning onto Maple Street, flicking on the signal more out of habit than any real thought of cutting someone off---there wasn't much traffic these days---he was surprised to have another truck pull up beside his at the red light. He grinned when he saw who it was and rolled down the window.
"Hey, Sam! Where you headed? I know you're not about to try and poach my current customer. She wants the herd stinking up her lawn decapitated, pronto."
Sam Gupta gave him a very sour smile. "My customer wants the infected that's milling around his house carted up and taken in for possible cure," he answered stiffly.
"Cure, right. I'm sure they're getting real close, just like a cure for AIDS and cancer," Mike mocked him.
The light changed and Sam pushed down hard on the gas, taking off down the nearly empty road with more speed than was usually seen in the suburbs. The inside of his truck rattled with currently empty chains and straps flapping around. Sam's truck was enclosed, unlike Mike's open truck bed, the white panels on the side reading Sam's Zombie Control. Sam was Mike's main competition in town, but not really.
"A Humane Solution to an Inhuman Problem," Sam advertised on his website. He insisted on carting away every single zombie he and his crew caught, head attached, brain intact. Sam went for the niche market of people who wanted the zombies shuffling around their homes taken away, but were still attached to the damned things, either because the undead used to be friends or relatives, or the customer was just a ridiculous bleeding heart liberal who couldn't stand the thought of killing anything, even the undead.
Private zombie hunters were paid for each afflicted person they brought in to the specially set up government hospitals---$100 for a "live" undead person, $20 for a dead undead head. The price difference was supposed to encourage hunters to bring them in "alive" so to speak, but many found carting a truck bed full of heads was a hell of a lot easier than transporting two or three "living-impaired" people in the special outfitted vans that cost an arm and leg to properly rig with all of the required restraints. Mike thought it was pretty perverted to drive around a van filled with chains and cuffs.
Mike whistled cheerfully as he drove to the latest customer's house. DeadEx was booming as Mike and his crew cleared out local infestations. Most of his landscaping crew had died during the Z.A, and he'd been forced to hire a nearly all new crew, most of them pimple-faced kids with no experience in the workforce and great expectations of huge wages, just for not being zombies.
Mike privately thought zombies might do better jobs---if you could somehow retrain them to stop eating every living thing in sight. But the kids picked up on the basics pretty quickly---most of them boasting about their video game experience finally paying off. Mike rolled his eyes every time he heard it---that joke had gotten cliché within about the first six hours of the Z.A. But even paying the kids the wages current market forces demanded, he was still raking in the cash, paid twice for every zombie, once by the customers for clearing away zombies, and second by the government for his headcount.
Someone high up in the state department had tried to put a positive spin on things after the Z.A. by releasing a report that the unemployment rate had dropped significantly. She was pushed out of office after the succeeding outcry, the loudest voices coming from the shocked and appalled Zombie Apocalypse Survivor Support Group, and her statement had only been oil on the fire with the conspiracy theorists---the Z.A. truthers---who were convinced the virus had been deliberately released by the government.
However, the Zombie Apocalypse had, overall, been anti-climactic. It began on a Tuesday and the CDC had things well in hand by the following Monday. Low level office workers, clerks, fast food employees, retail workers, and teenagers in general were seriously bummed out that life went back to normal so quickly. People working in the cities especially missed the brief span of time huddled in the top floors of the high rises, stairways blocked, living off of vending machine food, and dropping various office supplies down onto anything shambling down in the streets below.
Of course, it was taboo to say anything about having fun during the Z.A.---you never know if someone you were talking to or someone passing by had lost a close relative or friend to the virus; it would have been really rude to boast about your head shot count in front of someone who had been forced to tearfully shoot their dear mother in the face.
Miss Manners had written a whole editorial on it in which she had sternly taken to task a letter writer who had whined about causing a young woman who had lost her brother in the Z.A. to burst into tears when he had bragged that he'd spent the whole Z.A. holed up with his buddies in their apartment and using the time to get drunk and watch every zombie movie they could download from Netflix.
There had been over three million posts in the comment section of Miss Manners's website within six hours, about 50/50 for and against, before the servers fried and the whole thing went down, which was just as well, as the comments were getting pretty nasty, with the new insult "zombie-fucker" being tossed around by both sides.
Mike got to the address, where most of the crew was already parked. The zombies, unprovoked and not smelling the humans safely inside the zombie-proofed house, were milling around the yard and not yet attacking.
A car pulled up. It was Emily, one of his first hires after the Z.A, and what looked like the new kid. Emily, smart girl, followed the rules for exiting from a car to a building. The new kid, however, needed to be pulled roughly back when he almost exited the barred windowed car without his gun out. Mike shook his head as he readied his own gun and prepared to safely exit the truck.
When the whole crew was gathered in the woman's living room, the old lady herself dithering about getting everyone tea cups despite Mike's protests that they were fine, he gave orders for everyone to get their weapons loaded and ready for a final inspection.
Mike circled around the inside of the house, making notes on the layout of the yard from the windows, deciding on how best to divide the area into different sections for each crew member to handle, not all that different from when he had once assigned different sections of lawn to his old landscape crew for leaf raking or mulching.
When he was done he went over to his senior assistant, Sven, who was pulling on the metal/nylon weave protective jumpsuit. "You explained the rules to the new guy?"
Sven grunted as he pulled up the pants. "Nah, thought I'd leave that up to you, boss. You really know how to put the fear of God into the new kids with your first day speeches."
"Thanks."
Amongst the sound of rapid clicks and cha-chunks as people made sure they had full ammunition for all three weapons each crew member carried in the field, Mike went over to the new guy, busily readying his Winchester 2087.
"Okay, Dominic. That right?"
The new kid nodded.
"Okay, great, Dominic. First rule, under no circumstances do you ever get closer than ten feet to a zombie, understand? Expect the unexpected---just when you think they're down, they can take a leap at you and rip out your throat."
The kid gave him a condescending smirk and Mike suppressed a groan. "Hey, no problem. I survived the Z.A."
Emily snorted. "Yeah, you and everybody else here, kid," she said, sounding more like a battle-hardened colonel than a teenager.
Mike went around and gave everyone their assigned area, and then launched into his usual Pre-Kill speech, speaking to everyone, but focusing on Dominic, reminding everyone that, even though the living had won the Z.A., the undead hadn't given up yet, that the battle raged on, and that using brains meant keeping brains, that thinking ahead was the best way to stay alive, and that to never underestimate the danger, even when armed and prepared.
"Okay, everyone, helmets on and let's kill some zombies!"
The crew cheered, their exuberance covering up the old lady's whimper as she walked into the room with a tray of fine bone china cups and a teapot. Ignoring her, they headed out the front door.
For most of the crew, actually getting the kill order was clearly the high point---the rest was all about checking and double checking your supplies and the horizon and underneath vehicles and behind your back, and then double checking weapons and then the area again, so getting to finally take action became pure relief.
Once outside, they fanned out, taking out zombies with precise head shots, everyone staying the prescribed ten feet away.
Half an hour later, when there were no more signs of moving undead, and a lot of dead zombies on the ground, Mike radioed to everyone's handset: "Perimeter sweep!"
The group fanned out, methodically checking the area for any lingering undead. After a few minutes the crew radioed back from different points.
"All clear."
"All clear, boss."
"Finito!"
"Nothing but splatters over here, boss."
"This herd looks to be cleared out."
"All clear."
"Clear!"
"All Z's blown away in my sector, boss-man."
"Good work, folks," Mike radioed back. "Sven and Emily, you're on decapitation duty. Dominic, Jayden, assist with B 'n B---that's beheading and bagging, kid. The rest of you, we've got bodies to load."
As the group set to work on clean up, Mike took off his helmet and surveyed the yard, counting corpses. It was a grand total of 17 zombies, an about average size for the herds still shambling around. He smiled as he tallied the take for this job. Between the amount they would get for the overall service, the price per zombie from the woman who'd called, and the collection they would get from the government for the heads, it had been a good day's work.
There was a yell behind him and he spun around to see a zombie burst from the bushes, no less than five feet from him. It was coming from the section Dominic had been assigned to clear---clearly he had missed one. Mike went for his sidearm and managed to get three shots off in quick succession, but hitting the torso instead of the head, and the zombie was chomping onto him before he could raise his gun high enough to get a head shot.
That zombie-fucker Sam is gonna steal all my business, was Mike's last thought before the virus took full hold and his only conscious thought was "braaaaaaiiiiins."
If he had still been able to think, he might have been impressed with the fact that Dominic took him down with just one shot from a good twenty feet away.
The Return of the Revenge of the Curseof the Mummy's Tomb
by Gary Buettner
Jack Tracker stood triumphantly on a collapsed statue of the sun god, Ra, and stared into the desert.
The Egyptian sun baked Cairo like a stone in a kiln, while the bored drift of hot air failed to muster the strength to ruffle the sun-bleached tents in Jack's camp. There was something in the air, though, some kind of menace that hung above the heads of the assembled explorers.
"It's hotter than a camel's balls," Dewey said, mopping his face with a dirty handkerchief. Rivulets of sweat drained down from his aviator goggles and receding hairline, and his t-shirt was plastered to his gut.
Jane Harrison, statuesque and blond, made a sound like steam escaping from a faulty boiler to silence him. "Jack looks like he's going to say something!"
The other explorers turned to look. Dewey sighed. He'd been with Jack since the beginning, when he was more of a grave robber than a globe trotter. The new blood: the archeology students (mostly female), the diggers, and the hired guns, all thought that they could somehow breach Jack's inner circle. What they didn't realize was that Jack was Jack's inner circle, a circle of one. Dewey had no illusions about his importance to this or any other expedition. He was a pilot---an okay pilot, truth be told---that could fly a plane and, nine times out of ten, land it. In life, as in aviation, Dewey found it prudent to fly close to the ground, just in case you had to jump.
Jack turned to the assembled masses, removed his hat, and held it in his hand. "I'm not going to stand up here and make a speech," he said, which began most of his speeches.
Dewey stared at Jane. If she wasn't the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, then she was missing one hell of a chance. Jack had been ignoring her, which pretty much guaranteed that she would be chasing his bullwhip by the time this adventure got into full swing.
"I guess what I'm saying," Jack said, finishing up, "is that we're all in this together." He paused for effect and then pointed into the desert. "Adventure is that way, my friends."
The small crowd cheered and followed him into the desert.
Watching the ground for cobras and scorpions, Dewey followed.
\*\*\*
The caravan of explorers marched through the desert under the blinding sun and over the searing sand. Dewey brought up the rear, watching the line of adventurers snake through the desert and making sure that none of the halfwits wandered off or got left behind.
Eventually, they reached their first destination, the Temple of Screaming Awful Death (according to the tour book). The ring of massive columns and cross pieces rose into sight like some kind of ancient Egyptian Stonehenge. Here, with any luck, they would find the location of the Temple of the Golden Waters, where Jack was convinced they would find "gold and stuff."
In the shadow of the massive columns, pitted and scoured by millennia of blowing sand, they made camp. Eager to get started, Jack Tracker pulled the diggers aside and got them working, then disappeared with the voluptuous Jane and a handful of other beautiful archeology students. Dewey's mind dripped with the possibilities.
Dewey got camp up and running, doing the best he could to conceal the massive Top Secret crate that Jack entrusted to him. When he was finished, he went to check on the diggers' progress. Dewey stood on the edge of the dig site. "Well...shit," he said and went to find Jack.
\*\*\*
Dewey found Jack, surprisingly alone, standing in the middle of a sandy flat yanking on a rope that disappeared into the sand some thirty feet away. The muscles in Jack's arms bulged with the herculean effort. "What's new, Dew?"
"I'm concerned about the diggers."
"Why? They seem like a trustworthy lot." Jack had used that same description for any number of thieves, cutthroats, and lunatics over the years.
"It isn't that."
"Then what?"
"Do you...speak Egyptian?"
Jack stopped pulling on the rope. He stood twisting it around his finger. He shrugged.
"Jack, do you actually speak the language?"
"No, okay, no I don't actually speak the Egyptian language...as such." His shoulders drooped. "All right, we'll go talk to them. Help me with this rope, okay?"
Dewey stepped in, grabbed the rope, and pulled. After a few minutes of struggle, Jane Harrison popped out of the sand tied to the end of the rope. She took a massive gasp of air. "I got it, Jack!"
"What the hell was that about?" Dewey said.
As they reeled Jane in, Jack nodded toward the sand. "Saw something out there in the quicksand. Something with writing on it. I figured it was a clue."
"So...you sent Jane out, tied to a rope, into quicksand?"
"Yup."
"Did it not occur to you to try and lasso it? You're pretty handy with a rope."
Jack was wrapping the rope around his arm with a practiced hand. He had been a cowboy. "Well, no. The rope was actually the third girl's idea."
Dewey stared at the quicksand. Its surface was smooth as glass. "Third girl?"
"Yeah, but she couldn't hold on worth a damn. That's when I got the idea to actually tie it around Jane."
"Good plan," Dewey said, stunned.
"Here ya go," Jane said, proudly handing Jack what looked like a piece of wood with writing on it.
"Now we'll see if those sacrifices were in vein and...huh, how about that?" He tossed the piece of wood back into the quicksand. "Let's go talk to those diggers."
Dewey glanced at the piece of wood. It was a sign that read DANGER QUICKSAND.
\*\*\*
"I really don't know how there could be any confusion. I told the diggers that I was looking for a massive temple in the sand and---" Jack, Jane, and Dewey reached the dig site. "Well, shit."
The diggers had built a sandcastle.
\*\*\*
It took some doing on Dewey's part, but he managed to bridge the language gap and get the men working on a proper archaeological dig. It was only a few hours later when the diggers appeared with a stone box the size of a steamer trunk. A scorpion had been carved into the top of the stone.
Jack and Dewey crouched on the sand next to it. The diggers, the remaining archeology students, and one or two hired guns crowded around. "Jackpot," Jack said.
"Scorpion," Dewey said.
"Yeah," Jack said, looking the box over, "some kind of warning. Maybe they put scorpions in the box. Stupid. They'd all be dead now."
"No," Dewey said. "Scorpion!"
A giant scorpion rose from the sand and towered over them. Pincers as big as trucks. The venom dripped from the spear-like point of its tail.
Before anyone could move, it reared back to attack, hit one of the columns, knocked it over. The cross piece tumbled forward onto the creature's tail, driving the venomous spear down into its own back. Poisoned, it flopped dead to the sand. The ground shook with the weight of it.
"Well," Jack said. "Let's get this box open."
Inside the box was a scroll covered with hieroglyphics.
"I can read that," Jane said.
"Now we're cooking," Jack said. "Speaking of cooking, can you eat scorpion? To keep the expedition light and quick, I didn't really pack any food."
Dewey shrugged.
"Grill it up, boys," Jack told the diggers.
\*\*\*
Jane took the scroll, laid it out on top of a crate. She removed her glasses from her pocket, cleaned them, put them on, and stared at the scroll. "Ready?"
The assembled crowd tensed with anticipation.
"Okay," she said. "The hieroglyphics say: bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider." Jane grinned proudly.
Dewey's stomach growled and he left the tent to see how the barbecue was going.
\*\*\*
Dewey stood over the bodies of the diggers. Apparently, he thought, you can't eat poisoned scorpion. It was a shame, though; it smelled fantastic.
Dewey ran his fingers through his sparse hair and stared at the ruined columns. He had a bad feeling about this adventure. He looked at the hieroglyphics on the column nearest him. Bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider.
He laughed, thinking about Jane's translation. The answer could be staring them in the face and they wouldn't know what it meant.
He looked at another column. Bird, dog, bug, palm tree, and spider.
Dewey laughed again. That was the same hieroglyphic that...
It was the same. They didn't know what it meant, but it matched. It wouldn't have been put it in a box, buried in the sand, and protected by a giant scorpion if it meant nothing. Dewey looked at the columns. The crosspieces were actually tapered, like a wedge, like an arrowhead pointing North.
Dewey had found the temple. He ran back to the tent to get Jack.
\*\*\*
They marched until dark and found the temple just as the moon was shining in the sky. They lit torches, but didn't bother to make camp. There were, Dewey noted, a lot fewer members of the expedition to have to house.
Dewey joined Jack standing on a dune, staring at the Temple of the Golden Waters.
The three story doorway was buried in sand and only the very top of the keystone was visible.
"No diggers, huh?"
Dewey shook his head. "Nope."
The two men raced across the dunes and fell on the burning sand that blocked the doorway, digging at it with their hands, uncovering more.
A ghost appeared, startling them.
The ghost, transparent with a bluish tint, stood in front of them in full, proper-English gentleman explorer regalia: khaki uniform and pith hat. He wore a mustache that looked like part of a broom and a cracked monocle. He stood with his arms behind his back like a high-ranking military official addressing his troops.
Jack and Dewey were suitably impressed by their brush with the supernatural.
"My name is Sir Reginald Endsley, the third. I have come to warn you that not all of your expedition will survive..."
Jack shrugged, "And?"
"And..." the ghost added, visibly miffed. "By coming here you have awakened the wrath of the horrible Mummy, who will, most likely, smash your bones, devour your flesh, and generally frolic in your intest-tynes."
"There's gold here, though, right?" Jack squinted at the specter.
"Indeed," the ghost said, smirking. "There is only one way to save yourselves from the wrath of the Mummy."
Dewey leaned forward. "Well, what is it?"
Sir Reginald Endsley, the third, laughed until his head literally fell off his body. "I'm not going to tell you!"
Perplexed, Dewey shook his head. "Wait, I thought you said you were going to warn us."
"I am warning you. I am warning you that I am not going to reveal the secret to saving yourselves."
"Why not?" Jack held his empty hands up.
Sir Reginald sighed. "I'm lonely. You will be damned to haunt these ruins after the Mummy, well, you know, and then we'll have enough for cricket. And you've brought women. Good show, chaps!"
Jane had come to stand next to Jack.
It was Dewey's turn to sigh. "Will you at least tell us when the Mummy is coming?"
"He could come at any time. Days, weeks, months...oh wait, there he is!" Sir Reginald disappeared into the ether.
Jack, Jane, and Dewey spun around. The Mummy was right behind them. Jack pulled his pistol. Dewey pulled his, slightly smaller but just as good, pistol. Jane's breasts heaved. "We don't need his help," Jack said and gritted his teeth.
\*\*\*
"Everybody's dead," Jack Tracker shrieked, sheer terror in his eyes. "Run for your life!" He shoved Dewey and Jane aside. Dewey managed to catch her by the arm before she fell into the path of the rampaging Mummy.
Behind them, it lumbered down the dark, stone hallway, dragging one bandaged foot behind. Beneath the wrappings, its skin was black with age and evil. One red eye glared out from beneath its death mask facade, one arm clawed hatefully at them.
Dragging Jane behind him, Dewey ran after Jack. "What do we do?"
"Jack will know," Jane said.
"I don't know," Jack said, ducking and weaving down the hallway as if trying to keep the other two between him and the Mummy's wrath.
The hall came to an abrupt and disappointing end.
A basin of clear water dominated the wall at the end of the hallway. Flanked by smoldering torches, it seemed so out of place that Jack, Jane, and Dewey could only stare at it. The foot falls of the accursed Mummy behind them broke them out of their spell.
"It's a puzzle," Jack said, rubbing his hands together. "That's why its here. I figure this out and the Mummy can go back to its, uh, Mummy box..."
"Sarcophagus," Dewey said.
Jack reached his hand out and gently brushed a lock of hair out of Jane's eyes. "He can go back to his mummy box and sleep for another three thousand years."
Jane's chest heaved.
Dewey covered his eyes and waited for death.
"Okay," Jack said. "We're in Egypt. What's in Egypt? Pyramids. Sand. Mummies...duh, water, water..."
"The Nile," Dewey said, keeping his hands over his eyes as the Mummy got closer.
"That's a river, right, what else? Jews...aren't you Jewish, Dew?"
"I'm actually Presbyterian, but...Mummies smell very spicy, did you notice that?"
"I have the answer," Jack said, grinning.
Dewey and Jane smiled. "And?"
"I'm...Moses!" Jack bent over the pool of water and began splashing in it with his hands in two different directions like an idiot child trying to swim.
The Mummy appeared in front of them.
"I figured it out! I'm parting the Red Sea you undead son-of-a---"
The Mummy snapped Jack Tracker's neck with one hand.
"I don't think it is a puzzle," Dewey said, pushing Jane out of the way of the Mummy. He fell to the ground on the other side of the pool.
The Mummy glared at the two of them and then stepped up to the pool.
"It's a toilet."
The Mummy glared at the two of them again.
"I don't think he can go with us watching," Dewey said, leading Jane away from the basin.
A three thousand year wait was fulfilled. It sounded like the whole Nile emptying into a coffee can.
Dewey led Jane out of the tomb. After a moment, she took his hand in hers. He smiled at her.
Jane glanced over her shoulder. "Shouldn't we wait for Jack?"
Dewey sighed.
Passing of the Scythe
by Gary McKenzie
Charlie Chaos dipped his gloved hand into the fresh pool of blood and carefully smeared it across the living room wall, completing the smile on the happy face. He stood back and admired his handiwork.
"That oughtta mess with the cops," he laughed to himself.
For years, Charlie has crossed the country committing countless murders, never once repeating his brutal methods. He'd always been extremely careful and never left a common connection. The police have never linked any of the bizarre murders to each other.
Charlie wandered from room to room, looking for some creative touch to add to his method of devastation. He considered these random acts as a way to keep anyone off of his trail---and also gives him something fun to do. Sometimes he will take a family heirloom and drop it off in a neighbor's garbage, while other times he'll drive miles out of the way and leave the stolen object in a bad neighborhood. It amused him knowing that the police would waste countless man-hours and tax dollars trying to figure out what the significance a baseball card shoved into the mouth of a victim meant, or why a family portrait was hung upside down. While they desperately searched for clues and connections, he would calmly make his way across the country until the urge to creatively kill inspired him once again.
Stepping into the bathroom, Charlie started to wash the congealing blood from his gloves. He stopped and ran back to the pool of blood. He bent over, swiped two leather-covered fingers through the crimson puddle, which strangely reminded him of cooling pudding, and drew two angry eyebrows over the eyes of his finger-painted masterpiece.
Suddenly, from behind the demented artist, an unnaturally cool breeze filled the room, followed by a sound like thin, hollow twigs banging together.
A cold chill passed over Charlie's sweat-covered body. His bowels almost released. Had he finally been caught? Reaching for his back pocket, he grabbed the hilt of his knife and spun around, ready to pounce on the intruder. What he saw knocked the air from his lungs.
Across the room, hovering over the lifeless body of Charlie's latest victim, was a clapping skeleton clad in an all black robe with a black hood over its head. Against the wall leaned the long, shiny blade of a scythe as it balanced on its blackened, wooden shaft. Screaming faces could be seen in the rotted knotholes of the ancient stick.
Charlie's legs failed him and he slumped to the ground, still holding the knife out in front of him, but now for protection.
"Stay away!" he tried to yell, although it came out as merely a whimper.
"Relax, relax," the grinning skeleton laughed. His voice was more of a whisper in Charlie's head than an actual "physical voice." "I'm not here to hurt you, Charlie Chaos. In fact, I'm a big fan."
Charlie shook his head in disbelief. Could this really be happening? Was he actually having a conversation with Death himself? Even better, was Death really a fan?
"What do you want from me?" the humbled murderer asked, trying to hold back the quiver in his voice.
"Charlie, my friend, I've been watching you for a long, long time," the Grim Reaper said as he floated over to a blood-soaked reclining chair. His ancient bones cracked a musical tune as he sat down. Not concerned about getting his cloak dirty, the specter leaned back in the chair and exhaled a sigh of relief. Reaching out toward his scythe, he opened his skeletal hand and the ancient artifact floated across the room into his vice-like grip.
"For years, I have watched you slaughter hundreds of innocent victims," Death began. "At first, I thought that you were just another of those run-of-the-mill, mindless maniacs with Mommy-issues that pollute our world, especially since you killed your own mother. But, when you started showing your creative side, that's when I thought to myself, 'This one's special.'
"It was a few years ago, I believe it was in Cincinnati, when you slaughtered the Olson Family. At first there was nothing really memorable about it, but when you decided to cook and eat their goldfish, even taking the time to properly season it, that's when I knew that you were the one."
Charlie managed to regain working ability in his legs and stood tall. He smiled as he fondly remembered the 'Filet O' Fish' incident.
"You know," Charlie said as he made his way over to the couch and flopped down onto the cushions, "I didn't even know I was going to do it. Something in my head just told me to do something that would totally fuck with the police. Sure, I could have nailed the goldfish to the wall like I did to that hamster back in Portland, but I'd already done it. What better way to show confidence in a murder than to take the time to scale, season, cook, and eat something so fucking unimportant? It was then that I knew that murder should be fun."
"Well said," grinned the Taker of Lives. "I couldn't have put it better myself, which brings me to why I am here. Since the dawn of time, I have been the 'Bringer of Death' and quite frankly, I'm getting a bit bored with it. In fact, you might even say that I have become nothing more than a joke that appears on heavy metal album covers and bad tattoos.
"You've kept me busy, and might I add, quite entertained over the years. That time you decorated the Christmas tree with the entrails of that stockbroker had me dying, so to speak. But the icing on the cake was when you gift wrapped his head, complete with a little bow in his hair, and addressed it to the Chief of Police. That's the attention to detail that sets you apart from the rest."
"Speaking of details," Charlie interrupted, "how'd you like the time I strung up the bodies of all those campers in Yosemite Park? It took me forever to climb those trees, pull up the bodies, secure them so that they wouldn't fall, and then tie a red ribbon from one body to another to form the circle, and then do it all again to form a star. As soon as the cops saw the pentagram, every Satanist within a hundred miles was rounded up."
"Brilliant," Death chuckled.
"Or better yet," Charlie gleefully continued, "how 'bout that time I chopped up that old woman and buried most of her in her cats' litter-boxes? That lady was crazy! What did she have, like thirty cats in her cramped apartment? I really thought it was fitting that I hollowed out her skull and used it as a serving bowl. Those greedy little bastards couldn't care less that I just offed their master, just as long as they got to eat their Nine Lives."
"A true masterpiece," the Reaper said as he pushed back his sleeve and looked at the bare-bones near his wrist. "I hate to cut this short, believe me, I could talk about your accomplishments all day, but I need to make sure that a chicken bone gets lodged in the throat of a certain politician from Texas.
"So, Charlie, what I need to know is if you would like to become the new Grim Reaper. You seem to be a natural."
"Hell yeah!" Charlie said. "I'd have to be insane to turn you down...er...well, I guess I'm a bit insane already, but fuck yeah, I want the job!"
"Excellent," Death said as he rose from the chair and silently floated over to the giddy psychopath. "As is custom in this day and age, all it takes is a handshake and the deal is done. You could start as soon as you like, perhaps even come with me tonight and see how it's done."
The Harvester of Souls thrust out his skeletal hand and waited for Charlie's acceptance.
Just as Charlie started to reach for the Reaper's hand, he stopped.
"Hold on a second," the killer said as he jerked back his hand, much to Death's surprise. "When I become the new Reaper, do I have to look all skeletal and shit? You know, do I have to look like you?"
Death laughed. "No, my boy, you could look however you want. Keep your current look if you want. Hell, if you want to add two extra arms and shoot fire from your ass, that's all right with me. I chose this look to instill fear into my victims, but times change. What was once horrifying in my youth is cliché nowadays."
Feeling a bit relieved, but now even more excited at creating a new look for himself, Charlie grinned like the dog who ate the cat who ate the canary.
"Grim, my man, we got a deal!" Charlie stuck out his hand, grabbed Death's cold, skeletal claw and dropped dead right on the spot.
The Dark Angel shook his head and laughed out loud, causing all the lights in the quiet neighborhood to flicker.
Don't Go in the House!
(Because Being Indoors, No One Will HearYou Scream!)
by Matt Kurtz
The 1980 Pontiac Firebird Trans Am barreled down the dirt road then whipped into the country store's parking lot, skidding to a stop beside the single gas pump out front. The cloud of dust kicked up by the hotrod blew across the old man scavenging through the trashcans along the building.
Coughing up a glob of phlegm, Jasper popped out of the can clutching a half-empty whisky bottle and a partially devoured chicken drumstick. He studied the vehicle with his one good eye that wasn't shot to shit by a cataract.
The car was too flashy to be local...which only meant one thing: interlopers.
City Folk.
By God, they had to be stopped.
The Firebird's engine cut off and its two doors swung open. Meat, christened such by his friends because of his beefy (fat) stature, climbed from the driver's seat and stretched his aching back. Amanda, his beautiful and buxom girlfriend, exited from the passenger's side, grimacing from the pain of a full bladder. She flipped her seat forward to let Saul, Meat's best friend and roommate, slide out from the cramped backseat. Jenny, Saul's girl of only a month, climbed out behind him.
Jasper stumbled in front of the two couples, blocking their path to the store's entrance. "Yer all gonna die!" he screamed, pointing at the group.
Saul hid behind the girls while Meat stepped in front of them, holding up his hand. "Whoa! Just take it easy, old timer."
"Mister, death's inevitable," Jenny said. "That's a given. But what are you talking about in this instance?"
"What I mean there, young lady, is that ya can't go up there. It'll get ya. And you'll never be seen again!"
"What'll get us?" Amanda said, giggling at the old man's hysterics.
"Oh sure, laugh it up, toots. But ya won't be thinking it's so funny when Dookie Boy gets ya!"
Meat shook his head. "Dookie Boy?"
"Oh, ya'll don't fool me one bit. I know ya came to see if he's real. Well, I'm here to tell ya Dookie Boy exists! I've even heard his calls in the middle of the night coming from that old Matheson house."
Jenny did a double take at the old man after hearing the name of the place.
"And what's this Dookie Boy say?" Saul asked.
Jasper grimaced. "Never ya mind that." He shuddered and pointed to the house looming on the hill. "The only thing that matters is that ya keep away from that Matheson place! It's haunted and all that roams in it is unholy!" He stepped closer, not for dramatic emphasis, but to get a better gander at the cleavage on the corn-fed chippie with the big hooters. "Ain't nothin' good gonna come out of y'all rootin' around up there."
"Wait-wait-wait-wait!" Meat said, pointing to the house in the distance. "You mean to tell us that the place up there is haunted?"
"Well...yeah..." Jasper said, dumbfounded.
"AWESOME!" Meat turned back to his friends. "We gotta go check it out."
"I...I don't know," Saul said.
Jenny nodded. "We really should be getting back before---"
"Oh, c'mon on, guys," Amanda said. "Meat's driving. And if he wants to swing by and check out what this ol' fart's claiming to be---"
"Hold on just a damn second!" Jasper said. "You mean to tell me that y'all ain't here to meddle in the supernatural? That ya didn't come to expose the town's black cloud?"
"Ah...no," Meat answered. "We just pulled off the highway for gas and snacks."
Jasper quickly glanced over his shoulder for any potential witnesses to his stupidity. He couldn't believe he opened his fat trap again regarding the community's private matters. "Y'all didn't hear squat from me about Dookie Boy or that damn house. Ya hear? Nothin'!" He turned tail and ran, disappearing into the woods behind the store.
Amanda bounced up and down (and so did her ample bosoms). "Oh, forget him. I gotta tinkle."
Meat wrapped his arm around her and kissed her. "C'mon, beautiful. Let's go find you a crapper to tinkle in." He and Amanda disappeared into the store.
Jenny noticed Saul staring at the house on the hill as the warm, orange sun slowly dipped behind it.
"You really think it's haunted?" she said.
Saul swallowed hard. "Guess we're about to find out, huh?"
\*\*\*
The two-story house stood dark and foreboding against the night sky. The property's vegetation was overgrown---or just plain dead---from years of neglect. A cool breeze sent the autumn leaves tumbling across the gravel driveway. An owl hooted from one of the branches of the surrounding trees---gnarly twisted oaks that looked as if they had once been dipped in tar and set ablaze.
The Firebird made its way up the winding path along the hill. Pulling into the driveway, the vehicle came to a stop, facing the house. Its headlights blasted the front door, which appeared to be ajar, daring the brave and beckoning the stupid to enter. Staring out the windshield, the group attempted to take in the scope of the manor which was much more formidable up close.
"Babe, are you sure you really wanna go in there?" Amanda said.
"Hell yeah. 'Cause we've been warned not to."
Amanda looked back at the house and gnawed at her lower lip.
Meat playfully poked her and clucked like a chicken. "Wassa matter? Is da wittle baby scared?"
"Oh my God!" Jenny said, inhaling sharply.
Meat jumped and hit the horn.
Saul slid to the floorboard. "What? What's out there?"
"I just remembered where I heard the Matheson name before. It was in a story my Gammy always told me and my brother on Halloween when we were kids." Jenny glanced back to the town at the bottom of the hill. "We're in Hoffman County, right?"
Meat nodded.
"Well, Gammy always told us about this Matheson brood, a real weird bunch that kept to themselves out here in these parts. Apparently, back in the early twenties, Matthias Matheson made a fortune up north in the cannery business. I think Gammy said he made beans or something. Anyway, he later sold it for a handsome sum and retired at the young age of thirty-three, moving down here and taking himself a southern bride. Before their first wedding anniversary, Mildred Matheson gave birth to a boy. By their third anniversary, she was planted in the ground out back, having died during childbirth delivering a baby girl."
"Awwww," Amanda groaned. "This isn't scary. It's sad."
Meat patted her thigh. "Just wait, babe. I'm sure it'll get scary in a second."
"Well," Jenny continued, "that baby girl lived but was shunned by Matthias, who took the death of his wife extremely hard and never fully recovered from it. It was said that he blamed the little girl for killing his wife. So the burden of raising the baby girl fell upon her older brother. Older by only two years, remember. A baby taking care of a baby. Because both children were essentially orphans, with their mother's death and father's neglect, it forged a life long bond between brother and sister that eventually turned twisted."
"Hold on," Meat said. "How come in all these stories everyone knows about what went on inside the house? I mean, wasn't the family supposed to be recluses?"
"Well...yeah, but---"
"So how do we know what they're thinking and stuff?"
Jenny shrugged. "Because! It's only a silly spook story, okay? Anyway, so the Matheson kids, they---"
"Wait! These kids. What were their names?" Saul asked.
"Adele and Hu---"
"Hubei Matheson!" Saul said. "Oh my God! I've heard this story before from a friend that knew a dude that grew up in this area."
Jenny's mouth gaped. "Did he tell you that the kids were---"
"Halfwits!" Saul said, nodding. "Yeah, neither was right in the head, the brother more so than the sister. Hell, the people of Hoffman County thought---"
"Wait!" Meat screamed. "The Halfwit Siblings of Hoffman County? I know this story! Only I heard it from a buddy of mine that heard it from a friend of a friend...of a friend...of a..." Confused, Meat paused to count on his fingers. Since he was never good at math, he brushed it off. "Anyway, my buddy told me that with the mother dead and the father eventually goin' batshit crazy, the kids were forced to fend for themselves. Then once the old man croaked---a fresh grave out back being the only proof of his death---no one ever caught glimpse of the kids. People would see the flicker of candlelight coming from the house at night, but Adele and Hubei never once showed their faces in town, let alone outside."
"Then, it was years later," Saul continued, "after the lights stopped burning in the windows that some local kids broke into the house. They were all ready to claim squatter's rights for a party pad until they heard weird noises that freaked 'em out and scared 'em off. Noises in the walls and stuff."
"No, I heard it was a baby's cry coming from somewhere below the floor," Meat said.
Jenny nodded. "Yeah, Gammy told me it was a baby's wail that they heard."
"Hold on a minute," Amanda said. "I'm confused. Where did the baby come from?"
"From Adele's belly," Saul said.
Amanda's lip curled. "Well...if they was recluses and all, then how did she get pregnant?"
Meat, Jenny, and Saul all smiled. "Inbreeding," they said in unison.
"Ewwwwwwwww, grody. They had sex with farm animals?"
Saul and Jenny blankly stared at Amanda then turned to Meat. He shook his head for them not to bother.
"After that," Jenny continued, "the town turned a blind eye to the house. They wanted absolutely nothing to do with the new stock of family and left them to themselves, just the way they liked it. But occasionally, local kids would dare one another to come up here at night and spend an hour alone in the house. The few that thought they were brave enough didn't last more than a couple minutes. And all of them said they witnessed signs of someone still living in the house. Stuff like bare footprints stamped across dusty floors. Broken cobwebs in the walkways. And the half-gnawed skeletal remains of varmints littering the ground." Jenny couldn't help but smile. "I guess the very stuff we're about to look for to see whether the story's true or not."
All four peered through the windshield to the dark house.
"But the real question is: who's this Dookie Boy that the old man mentioned?" Meat said. "And does he take kindly to trespassin'?"
\*\*\*
The group gathered in front of the Firebird, each holding a flashlight.
"Okay, here's the plan," Meat said. "We go in and, after we do some exploring, we steal something to prove that we were here. An old letter with the Matheson name on it. Or a picture. Something with the family crest. Whatever."
All nodded. They clicked on their lights and stepped up onto the creaky porch. Meat led the way, pushing open the front door and shining his light inside.
Cobwebs hung from the wooden rafters. The silky filaments gently stirred from the breeze that blew through the open door. Crossing the entryway, the gang stopped in the gigantic living room. Their beams picked up the once beautiful furniture, now smashed, rotting, or infested. An enormous stone fireplace was embedded in the far wall.
Amanda scrunched her nose. "Smells like tinkle in here."
"Probably from the local kids after drinking all that hooch," Meat said, pointing to the fireplace littered with broken beer bottles.
As the group moved to the staircase leading to the second floor, Meat stumbled. He looked down to see what the culprit of his clumsiness was and found a rusted and empty bean can at his feet. He kicked it aside and joined the others at the bottom of the stairs.
Aiming their lights to the second floor landing, they spotted a child's stuffed animal peeking down at them. They slowly ascended the creaky stairs to find the tattered toy torn apart, its stuffing scattered along the hallway floor. While Amanda, Saul, and Jenny stared at the child's plaything, Meat crept down the dark hall.
"You think it belonged to someone that lived here?" Amanda said.
Jenny shrugged. "It could have been planted by one of the local kids to keep the mystique of the place alive."
"Or maybe it was left as an offering," Saul said. "To some...thing...in order to keep it occupied."
"SHIT!" Meat cried from the darkness.
His buddies rushed in the direction of his call, finding him standing in the middle of the hall with his flashlight illuminating his feet.
"What? What's the matter?" Jenny said.
"Nothing. I just stepped in some." He scraped the sole of his shoe against the door trim. "Careful where ya step."
Choking on the foul odor, they shone their lights at the huge pile of feces---half of it squashed across the carpet.
"I think that's the biggest turd I've ever seen," Saul whispered, awestruck.
Amanda guffawed. "You obviously haven't seen what Meat can produce after eating at one of those Chinese buffets." She held her hands a foot wide apart.
Meat proudly added, "And that wasn't including what was hidin' down the little porcelain hole. There must have been another---"
"Okay! Enough!" Jenny pointed at the feces. "What I want to know is what that could've possibly come from."
Meat gave it the once over. "Well, if I was a bettin' man, I'd say...something's asshole."
Saul snickered. Meat nodded at him, flashing a grin that read, "Good one, huh?"
Jenny rolled her eyes. "Come on. Let's keep moving."
They continued down the long, dark hallway until they came to the half-eaten rat lying in a pool of blood on the floor.
"That ain't skeletal remains," Saul said. "That's a fresh kill."
"Notice something weird?" Meat said. "How there ain't no cobwebs up here?"
"Or dust on the floor," Saul added.
Meat nodded. "Yeah, like someone's been going up and down these halls."
"Maybe it's The Dookie Boy," Amanda whispered.
Meat wrapped his arm around her for comfort. "He ain't real. Just something the old man made up to keep us away."
They pushed on toward the end of the hall, not noticing the lumbering shadow that slid across one of the walls then quickly disappeared.
\*\*\*
The door to the master bedroom creaked open. Four beams of light shone into the room, illuminating the huge canopy bed that was practically encased in cobwebs.
A large rat scuttled across the floor toward a hole in one of the baseboards.
Amanda screamed and clung to Meat.
The rat got stuck halfway through the opening, leaving its furry ass exposed. It wiggled back and forth until finally disappearing.
"Oh my God," Amanda said.
"It's okay," Jenny said, turning to her. "It's gone now."
But Amanda wasn't looking in the rat's direction. She was gazing deep into Meat's eyes. "Is this...for me?" she purred.
Jenny glanced down and saw Amanda cupping Meat's bulbous package.
He nodded. "The bed's right there. Wanna fuck?"
"Hell yeah, baby!"
"We got dibs on this room," Meat told Jenny and Saul. "So scram!"
Jenny shrugged in disbelief. "Please tell me you two aren't going to actually make love in here."
\*\*\*
Jenny and Saul barely made it from the room before the door slammed shut behind them, farting a cloud of dust into the air.
"Jesus," Jenny said. "They were like animals."
"Sex makes people like that. 'Cause it's fun. Not that you would know."
Jenny shot him a look, one that Saul was quite familiar with over the past month.
He figured he'd try another approach. "Ya know..." he said, smiling seductively. "There's plenty of other rooms. I'm sure some with beds. We could finally lose that pesky virginity of yours right here in a haunted house. Wouldn't that be cool?"
"No."
"Than how 'bout a blowjob?"
"I'm not dropping to my knees in this filthy place."
"You won't have to. I'll find a chair to stand on."
"Gee. How considerate."
"Fine. Then how 'bout a tuggie? Can't you at least give me a handjob?"
"Nope."
"C'mon. Five minutes is all I'm asking. If I'm not done by then, I'll finish it myself."
"How about you just start without me?"
"So what then? We're just gonna wait out here while they have all the fun?"
"Yep."
Animalistic grunts suddenly sounded from the other side of the bedroom door. Jenny looked around, trying to ignore them. Saul couldn't help but smile. They heard Meat say, "Now, c'mon, babe. Bend over and show Daddy your fart-hole," followed by Amanda's giggles. Then the bedsprings squeaked---faster and faster.
Jenny threw her hands up. "That's it. I'm going downstairs to look around."
"Fine. Whatever. Have fun."
She marched away, disappearing around the corner.
Saul glanced around the murky hallway and shuddered. Being alone in a place like this was not a good idea.
"Hey, wait. Don't leave me," he yelled, chasing after his girlfriend so she could keep him company.
\*\*\*
Meat rolled off of Amanda, sending up a cloud of dust from the filthy bed. They both lay on their backs, fighting to catch their breath. Amanda cuddled up to him and traced her finger over his big belly.
"Good stuff?" she said.
"You know it, babe." He kissed the top of her head and slid to the edge of the bed. "Gotta take a whiz."
Amanda grabbed his arm. "You're not leavin' me all alone, are ya?"
"Sure. Why not?"
"Because I'm scared of Dookie Boy."
"Oh, c'mon. I already told ya that old coot made him up. The guy's probably homeless and crashes up here at night. So he came up with this Dookie Boy as some sort of boogeyman to keep people away." He snatched his tightie-whities off the floor, stepped into them, and pulled them up. "There's nothing to be scared of."
"Tinkle over there."
"What?"
She nodded to one of the corners. "Pee over there. Just don't leave."
Meat glanced over at the far corner where she was nodding. "Get outta here." He stooped to kiss her and snatched up a flashlight. "Be right back," he said, smacking her ass. "Don't you go anywhere."
Amanda giggled. Once Meat left the room, she rolled over, exposing her entire backside.
As Meat's shadow disappeared down the hall to the right, a lumbering shadow approached from the left.
Trying to get comfortable, Amanda fluffed her pillow and coughed on the dust.
The floor creaked over her shoulder.
"Back so soon, sweetie?" she said, closing her eyes.
The mattress shifted behind her as someone crawled into the bed.
\*\*\*
Jenny sat behind the desk in the small library next to the living room. Riffling through the dusty contents of its drawers, she hoped to find something in writing as proof of their exploration.
Saul was rolling a joint while stretched out on a chair in front of the desk. "Why don't you forget about that and focus more on this?" He proudly displayed the blunt and fished for a lighter in his pocket.
"Saul, you know how I feel about you smoking marijuana cigarettes in front of me."
"Sorry, babe. But firing this up might help numb the pain from the blue balls you gave me."
Jenny bit her lip and returned to her search. That was it. Once they got home, she was going to break up with him. Thankfully, she'd only invested a month of her life with the idiot. Good thing her purity was still intact, having never lifted the embargo on the Spooge Trade with this stoner loser.
Saul fired up the joint, oblivious to the hulking figure creeping up behind him.
"Ya know," he said, "you're way too much of a goody-goody."
Jenny kept her nose buried in a drawer, refusing to look at him.
"You're a virgin. Don't do drugs. Make straight A's. Ya know, if this was some cheesy horror flick, where someone was running around killing us off one by one, you'd probably be the sole sur---"
A huge hand smacked the back of Saul's head.
He screamed and almost fell from his chair. Jenny jumped in hers. Both were temporarily relieved that it was only Meat until they noticed his lack of attire. The beefy fellow was only wearing his briefs and tube socks.
Meat reached for the joint. "Don't bogart it, man."
"What are you doing down here?" Saul said.
Meat took a long drag. "Looking for the crapper." He held up the joint. "But I guess I found another kind of pot, huh?"
Jenny rolled her eyes at the stupid stoner humor.
\*\*\*
Nestling against the beefy body that spooned her, Amanda grabbed hold of the enormous hand cupping her breasts. She groaned, closed her eyes, and raised one of its fingers to her mouth.
"Guess you're ready for round two, huh?" she said, sticking the grubby nub in her mouth to suck on it. She almost gagged. "Good God, Meat! How many times do I have to tell ya to wash your hands after ya go poo?"
"Clean...me...?" a child-like voice said, directly into her ear.
Amanda's eyes widened in horror. That wasn't her boyfriend's voice. Meat could never speak in that high of a falsetto, even if his balls were caught in his zipper. She spun around and her jaw fell slack at the sight of the person behind her.
\*\*\*
Amanda's bloodcurdling scream echoed throughout the house.
Saul shrieked in response.
"Amanda!" Meat yelled. He and Jenny ran out of the library, sprinting toward the stairs.
Saul smashed out the joint on an end table. "Wait! Don't leave me!"
\*\*\*
With his bare belly and man boobs swinging like a pregnant go-go dancer, Meat burst through the bedroom door. Saul and Jenny rushed in behind him.
Amanda was gone.
All three scanned the dark room. "Amanda?" Jenny called out, her voice trembling.
Meat checked the floor on the other side of the bed. "Great. All our clothes are gone, too." Walking back, his foot slid forward, almost causing him to do the splits. "SHIT!"
Jenny whipped her light at him. "What? What is it?"
Meat caught himself on the dresser. "Nothing. Just stepped in another pile of it." Holding up his foot, his sock was smeared with excrement. "Dammit!"
Jenny gaped at the enormous dropping on the floor. "I don't remember that being here. Do you?"
Peeling the soiled sock off his foot, Meat grimaced. "Nah, we would've smelled it. Wait a minute..." He held the sock up, dangling it in front of his face. "Is that...corn?"
"Poo-poo! Doo-doo!"
"Shut the hell up," Meat snapped at Saul, tossing the sock aside. "I know what it is, smart ass."
Saul's bulging eyes shifted back and forth. "I...I didn't say anything," he whispered. "It came from..." He pointed at the wall behind him.
Jenny and Meat stepped closer, inspecting the paisley-patterned wallpaper.
"I don't see---whoa!" Meat lurched away from the bloodshot eye peering at him through a hole in the plaster. Jenny moved closer. Saul stayed planted.
"Hello? Is someone there?" Meat said.
The eye blinked.
"Who's there?" Jenny said.
The eye suddenly disappeared and the hole sealed up from the other side.
"C'mon," Meat said. "They're right next door!" He ran out with Jenny following close behind.
As they passed Saul, he clawed for Jenny's hand. "Wait! Don't leave me!"
\*\*\*
Meat kicked in the door with his socked foot. He and Jenny entered the darkness and waved their flashlights around. Saul slid behind them, peeking over their shoulders.
The room was bare. Windowless. Painted all black. A pile of plaster chips sat below a framed painting on the far wall. Jenny slid the frame aside, revealing the peep hole to next door.
Meat aimed his flashlight at something on the floor. "Amanda's necklace," he said, snatching up the silver chain with heart pendant.
"Looks like the clasp is still locked," Jenny said. "Which means it was torn off her."
"Oh, c'mon," Saul said. "We don't even know if it's hers. It looks pretty common."
"I gave it to her last Valentine's Day. It's hers."
"Look." Jenny pointed to a small door left slightly ajar in the corner of the room.
"My Ma's got one of these in the back of her closet," Meat whispered. "She used to use it for storage and shit."
Jenny nodded. "My parents had one also. Only theirs was a passageway through the walls that me and my brother used to play in when we were little."
Meat ripped the door open and blasted his light inside. Crouching down, he leaned in and looked around. "It's a passage way, all right. And I bet we'll find Amanda at the end of it."
"You guys thinking what I'm thinking?" Jenny said.
Saul nodded. "Yeah, but we've gotta get our story straight. How about Amanda just ran away on us? Simple as that. Anything more complicated and we're bound to slip up---"
"I'm not talking about leaving her here, you coward!"
Saul went to Meat for support. "C'mon, big guy. Ya wanna weigh in on this? Majority rules."
"I love her, man. You know she's my girl." Meat shook his head. "Besides, the keys to the Firebird were in my pants. Wherever Amanda is, my pants are probably with her."
"Fine," Saul said, exhaling. "We'll go look for your pants." Glancing into the dark, cramped passageway, his face suddenly lit up. "Hold on a second. We don't know if Amanda was even taken by whoever's in this house, whether it's this Dookie Boy or simply the old man from town playing a joke on us. Maybe she got freaked out by this whoever and took off. Just grabbed all your clothing and ran like hell outta the house. Ya know, back to the Firebird."
Meat and Jenny weighed the possibility for a moment.
Then Jenny brushed it off. "Her necklace. It was in here, behind a locked door."
"She's right. We're goin' in," Meat said, nodding to the crawlspace.
"Fine. You guys go, and I'll check the Firebird."
"I don't think we should split up," Jenny said. "Strength in numbers, right?"
"Look, I'll run down real fast and check. If she's there, I'll blast the horn like crazy. If she isn't, I'll come back and catch up with you guys."
"Hurry up, man," Meat said.
"Sure thing. I'll be right back," Saul said, then ducked out of the room.
"You ready, Meat?"
"Yeah, just give me a second to psyche myself up. Being rather large, I ain't too keen on tight places." After handing Jenny his flashlight, Meat shoved Amanda's necklace into his sock and pulled it up to his shin. He bounced his head from shoulder to shoulder, taking deep breaths, then hooked his thumbs in his underwear and snapped the elastic waist band.
"All right. Think I'm good."
Jenny offered him the flashlight back.
"Woop. Wait, wait, wait." His face scrunched up and he squeezed out a long, wet fart. He quickly cut it off with a tight clench of his ass cheeks. "Whoa! That was close," he said, slightly scared. Taking his light back, he read her look of disgust. "What? I had to get it out. We're gonna have to crawl in there and, with me leading the way, do you really want me ripping cheek flappers right in your face?"
Jenny didn't know whether he was being crude or courteous.
Meat turned back to the crawlspace. "All right. Now let's roll."
\*\*\*
Saul ran down the stairs, taking three at a time. He knew he wasn't going to find Amanda at the car. She had to be somewhere in the house. But he wasn't about to squeeze into some dark, dank crawlspace and search for her.
He skidded to a stop at the bottom of the stairs. "Ya gotta be kiddin'."
The Firebird's keys lay on the dusty floor.
Saul stood motionless, eyeballing the place and listening for anything strange. Was it a trap? Or had they simply fallen out of Meat's pants when whoever stole them was rushing away? Whatever the case may be, once he got the keys, he was going to get the hell out of there. Amanda was probably dead, with Meat and Jenny about to be as good as. Since someone had to survive to tell the authorities what happened, Saul volunteered himself.
He stepped forward to snatch the keys. They slid across the floor away from him. Saul paused for a moment. In his haste, had he accidently kicked them?
He stooped again to grab them. And once again, they jumped forward...closer toward the closed drapes in the doorway.
Saul cursed his clumsiness for kicking them a second time, bent down, and snatched the ring up. Brushing at the dust bunnies and spider webs that clung to the keys, his eyes suddenly widened. That wasn't any spider web...
It was a fishing line.
With his heart drumming in his chest, he visually followed the filament until it disappeared between the seams of the drawn drapery.
"Clean...meeeee..." someone whispered from the other side of the doorway, causing the curtains to slightly billow.
Saul's scalp prickled and a ball of dread hardened in his belly. He took a step back, trying to be as stealthy as possible with his retreat. But a floorboard creaked under his weight.
Then...
The drapes ripped back.
Saul screamed as the hulking figure lunged at him.
\*\*\*
"Did you hear something?" Meat said, frozen on all fours within the cramped crawlspace.
Jenny nodded at Meat's plump ass staring her in the face. His butt crack was sweating and staining his white briefs with a vertical stripe. "Sounded like a scream," she said, quickly turning away from the sight.
"Think it was Saul?"
"I hope not. But we did warn him. Come on. Keep moving."
"Ya know," Meat said, crawling again, "once we find Amanda and get the hell outta here, I'm gonna take her to Crofty's Steakhouse and get us the biggest---"
His arms suddenly gave out and he fell, sliding forward. Jenny saw his upper body drop out of sight as if the floor had gobbled him up. She grabbed hold of his cankle, hoping to anchor him in place. But as Meat flew forward, his mighty mass yanked her up and over the lip of what was essentially an enormous dirt chute. They slid, tumbled, and rolled...
Then burst through a pair of swinging doors, dropping six feet onto a pile of filthy mattresses and linens. Sitting up, they glanced back at the double doors closing near the ceiling then looked around the candlelit room, wincing from the overwhelming stench---a nauseating trifecta of urine, feces, and body odor.
The large room appeared to be some sort of a subterranean hideout. It was windowless with long, mismatched planks of wood providing structural support to prevent the dirt walls from caving in. Tree roots hung between the various pieces of wood. All of the lumber was covered with illegible writing and crude, child-like drawings. One wall was practically hidden by a landslide of tattered stuffed animal toys.
Jenny scooted to the edge of the mattresses.
"Careful," Meat said, pointing to the large piles of feces littering the floor.
As if maneuvering through a minefield, Jenny weaved around the droppings, moving toward the wooden object in the far corner of the room.
Meat peered at the wide array of empty bean cans next to the makeshift sleeping quarters. "The dude sure likes his fiber. No wonder there's turds everywhere."
"So it's true..." Jenny nodded to the corner.
Meat climbed to his feet and came up behind her. Both stared at the rotting wooden structure that was once a baby's crib. The word BOY was crudely scratched into the crib's headboard.
"Boy?" Meat said. "That's original, huh?"
Jenny gave the room the once over and felt a shudder race up her spine. "Dookie Boy's real. He must be the offspring of the incestuous relationship between Hubei and Adele. That stockpile of beans is what they must have lived off of. Some of them probably taken from the cannery when Matthias first sold it and moved here."
"What about all these stuffed animals?" Meat said. "How did he get so many when Hubei and Adele never even left the house?"
"Maybe Saul was on to something. About the townsfolk leaving a stuffed animal as an offering. I mean, the old man did mention that the town wanted to keep its dirty secret hidden. Maybe over the years, as long as they brought things here, such as beans and stuffed animals, Dookie Boy wouldn't stray from the house to get them. He'd stay hidden. With this being his hideout."
"Like some kid's clubhouse?"
"Exactly. The chute must have been constructed to get down here quicker." She nodded at the door across the room. "And that must be where he exits. So let's check it out."
Opening the door, Meat stared down a dimly lit, dirt tunnel with dripping candles embedded in its walls.
"Oh shit..." Meat said.
Jenny glanced at his feet. "Again? Really? Have you just given up on looking where you step?" But neither of his feet, bare or socked, had excrement on them.
Meat tapped her shoulder and pointed to the end of the tunnel. "No. I'm talking about him..."
Jenny squinted and, through the dim candlelight, saw the hulking figure at the end of the tunnel. His round head---completely bald except for the curled wisp of blond hair at his forehead---sat atop a gigantic, pear-shaped body. Wearing only a tight, dirty t-shirt that partially covered his huge belly, he was completely naked below the waist except for a single black sock on his right foot.
"Dookie Boy..." Jenny gasped.
As if hearing her words, Dookie Boy nodded and cracked a smile, showing off big, bucked teeth. "Cleannn...meee..." The request came out something akin to a yodel.
Jenny gawked at the tiny size of his exposed Pig-in-a-Blanket cocktail weenie poking from his nether regions.
"Clean him?" Meat said. "What does he mean by that?"
"Wait a minute..." Jenny glanced back at the bean cans...then over to the turds on the floor...then to the man-sized baby without a diaper or pants. "Oh...my...God. He...he wants his bottom cleaned."
Dookie Boy nodded again, grinning ear to ear. "Cleeannnn...meeeee..."
Meat did a double take at Jenny. "What?"
"That's why he's not wearing any pants. He needs his bottom wiped before he can put any on."
"Cleeannnn...meeeee..."
"I figure his parents must have always done it. But since their deaths, there hasn't been anybody to clean him properly for years. He's probably got a lot of gunky buildup down there that's irritating him. Making him fussy."
"Cleannnnn...meeee..."
"So you're telling me Baby Huey wants us to put him on a changing table, hold his legs in the air, and wipe his ass for him?" Meat flipped Dookie Boy the bird. "Go wipe your own ass, fat boy!"
"Meat. Don't."
"No, fuck him. Hey! Double Stuffed! What did you do to Amanda?"
Dookie Boy balled his beefy hands into fists. An uncontrollable tremor of rage shot through his body, causing him to jiggle in all the unflattering places.
"You hear me? What the hell did you do to my girlfr---"
The pink, chubby behemoth unleashed a deafening roar that made Meat and Jenny step back. He sprang forward, charging toward them with arms flailing above his head like some bald mountain gorilla on the attack.
"Clean me. Clean me! CLEAN MEEE!"
Jenny pulled Meat back into Dookie Boy's playroom, slamming the door behind them. She flipped the lock on the handle. "Find something to barricade the door with!"
With naked flesh bouncing, Meat dragged an old wooden bookcase to the entrance. "Look out!" He dumped it on its side, kicking up a cloud of dust.
Jenny grabbed two rickety chairs and tossed them on top of the bookcase. They flipped the mattresses, pushing them against the door. The wood scraps from the crib were next, followed by all the ratty blankets. The only thing left in the room that wasn't being used to block the entrance was the avalanche of stuffed animals.
Jenny and Meat shrugged at one another.
As they tossed the rotting teddy bears and cartoon characters at the door, a thunderous slam came from the other side. The wood bowed and a rain of dust fell from the dirt wall.
"CLEANNNN! MEEEEE!"
"Until this dude has his poop chute cleaned," Meat yelled over the commotion, "I don't think he's gonna take no for an answer."
Poop Chute? Poop Chu---? Wait a minute! Jenny's eyes shifted to the swinging doors near the ceiling. "The chute! We can climb out through it!"
They ran underneath it and Meat bent down, interlacing his fingers. "Here. Step in and I'll boost ya up."
Dookie Boy rammed the door again, causing the wood to crack.
Meat lifted Jenny so forcefully she almost crashed into the ceiling. She clawed at the doors, spread them open, and gripped a loose tree root on the chute's floor. Meat pushed her up even higher and she was able to pull herself in. Taking a step back, his foot slid in something cold and soft---another goddamned turd! He stumbled and fell into the mound of stuffed animals, their plush bodies cushioning his fall.
"Come on!" Jenny said, crouching in the chute. "Hurry up!"
WHAM! Another thunderous slam at the door caused dirt clogs to break away from the wall. The mattresses fell away, flopping to the floor and kicking up a blast of dust that blew into Meat's face.
"Meat! The door isn't gonna hold much longer. Get over here. And I'll try to pull you up. Hurry!"
Floundering within the pile of stuffed animals, Meat flipped over on his belly. The plush animals felt kind of good on his naked flesh. (Boy, would it be embarrassing if he were to pop a chubby in front of Jenny wearing only his tight man-panties!)
About to push off the ground, he froze at the sight of his girlfriend's face staring back at him from only a few feet away. She was buried up to her chin in the mound of soft toys. "Amanda?"
Jenny craned her neck to see over Meat's rotund frame.
He scuttled forward, brushing away the stuffed animals. Pushing two aside, he froze in horror, simply staring at his girlfriend's head.
Her severed head.
Jenny gasped and covered her mouth.
As Amanda's head fell on its side, gelatinous chunks of flesh and gore dangled from her neck stump like tiny fingers waving hello.
Another mighty crash over his shoulder further weakened the door.
Meat held up Amanda's head for Jenny. "Look...what...he did to her."
"Jesus! Meat, please put it down. That's not...that's not Amanda anymore."
"Sure it is," he said, studying it. "We just gotta find the rest of her."
"Put it down, Meat. Now! We'll come back later for her, but right now we have to get outta here."
Staring deep into Amanda's eyes, Meat nodded and gently placed her head on the ground. Rising, he turned to Jenny with a simmering rage that evaporated all tears from his eyes. "You go. I've got some unfinished business with this fucker."
"No-no-no-no-no," Jenny pleaded. "You have to come also."
Ignoring her, Meat walked to the door and kicked away the debris with his socked foot. "Go find Saul. If he's not at the Firebird, just leave. Run as fast as you can back to town and get help."
"Meat, please. No!" Jenny said with tears streaming down her face. "This is suicide."
Meat locked eyes with her and wiped a tear from her cheek. "No, it's called being a man," he said in a deep, raspy voice. "Something you know nothing about. Ya know, 'cause you're a woman and all."
An enormous fist broke through the door, sending wooden shrapnel into the room. Dookie Boy yanked his hand back and took a peek through the gaping hole. "Clean Me!"
Meat shoved Jenny back into the chute. "Someone has to live to tell what happened. Now scram. Go, go, go!"
"You give him hell, Meat," she screamed over her shoulder, worming her way up the slide.
Once she disappeared from sight, Meat spun toward the room's entrance.
"CLEAN ME!" Dookie Boy exploded through the door in a cloud of wood splinters, saw dust, and dirt.
"C'mon you son-of-a-bitch," Meat growled.
Dookie Boy smiled at him, flashing those huge bucked teeth, perfect for shucking corn.
The two men faced each other, ready to unleash hell. Although their bodies were similar builds, Dookie Boy outweighed Meat by sixty pounds. Both men were dressed as mirror opposites. Meat was only wearing his tight Fruit of the Looms and left athletic tube sock, while (the bottomless) Dookie Boy was garbed in his tight, dingy t-shirt and right dress sock.
Circling the room like two Sumo wrestlers, Dookie Boy eyed Meat's briefs with envy. "Clean me!" he demanded.
"Oh, I'll clean ya, fatso! Clean your plump ass all over these walls!"
They rushed each other.
Meat struck first, throwing a jab to his opponent's face and following through with a hook to the kidneys. Before Dookie Boy could counter, Meat threw an uppercut and another hook, this time to the side of the head.
When Dookie Boy giggled at the blows that made his plump parts jiggle, Meat knew he was in trouble. Like a gorilla, the inbred gork raised his arms high in the air and slammed them down on Meat's head and shoulders, pummeling him to the ground.
Meat landed on his back, his skull slamming against the floor. The room spun. He quickly shook it off and glanced up, getting a face full of naked flesh and matted hair.
Dookie Boy was squatting over his head. He was smiling down at Meat, offering him a tattered washcloth. "Cleannn.....meee...."
Meat shrieked at the naked junk dangling inches from his face. He covered his head, sliding down and out. Before the crouching, psychotic halfwit realized he was gone, Meat sprung up and grabbed hold of Dookie Boy's oversized ears, yanking the man-child's head down and bringing his own knee up. The two connected in a bone-breaking crunch.
Meat screamed in agony and hopped over to the corner, clutching his injured knee cap. It felt like he had just slammed it against a brick wall.
Giggling from all the fun he was having, Dookie Boy climbed to his feet and spit out one of his front teeth (now leaving him with only one in that thick skull of his).
With Meat hunched over, clutching his wounded knee, Dookie Boy barreled forward and grabbed him in a headlock. He wrenched Meat's neck, squeezing it tight like an anaconda suffocating its prey.
Meat was yanked closer to Dookie Boy's flabby belly and naked hip---again, inches away from the behemoth's exposed frank 'n beans. Meat clawed at the hands around his neck.
Knowing how overpowered he was in this life or death battle, it was time to fight dirty. Meat thumped Dookie Boy's fuzzy marble sack with his finger as if he were checking the ripeness of a melon.
Dookie Boy only giggled from the blow.
Meat thumped harder---faster---at the bouncing targets, hoping to bring his opponent down.
Caught up in all the excitement of playing with his little buddy, Dookie Boy forgot how easily the fragile things can break.
There was a sickening crack at Meat's neck. He tensed up and his entire body went stiff as a board. A few moments later, when Meat went limp, Dookie Boy dropped his lifeless body to the ground.
As fun as all this was, playtime was over.
And his bottom had yet to be wiped.
\*\*\*
Jenny burst through the tiny door, scuttling from the cramped passageway on bloody hands and knees. She climbed to her feet and stumbled out into the dark hall, moving as silently as possible down the stairs to the first floor.
She needed to get to the Firebird. She knew Saul wouldn't be there since he was probably halfway to town by now, running on foot. And when he got there, she was pretty damn confident that he wouldn't get help. No, he'd probably keep running until he hit the highway to hitch himself a ride home. Get the hell out of Dodge like the goddamned coward he was.
Jenny made it to the foyer, shoved open the front door, and leapt off the porch.
The Firebird sat in the dark driveway, the full moon reflecting off its windshield and high gloss paintjob. Glancing over her shoulder to make sure she wasn't being followed, Jenny sprinted toward the car. She ripped open the driver's door, hopped in, and slammed it shut, locking it behind her. She slid low on the seat and fought to catch her breath.
Her trembling fingers ran over both sides of the steering column, hoping that Meat had been mistaken about the keys and left them dangling in the ignition.
Nothing. So it looked like she was going to have to do this the hard way.
She fished in the car's console for any tools.
"Bingo," she said, finding a Leatherman at the bottom of the compartment. She frantically kicked the steering column until hearing the sound of cracking plastic. Jenny grabbed the flashlight from her pocket and clicked it on. Tearing back a portion of the steering column with the Leatherman's pliers, she searched out the wires for the battery and starter then went to work on hotwiring the Firebird (yes, having a brother that was also a professional car thief came in very hand right now).
She sat hunched in the driver's seat, tapping the two live wires together. "Come on, come on, come on!" The wires sparked and the dash lights flashed, but the Firebird didn't turn over.
Preoccupied, Jenny didn't notice the figure rising from the shadows in the backseat.
She looked out the windshield, scanning the dark house while tapping the wires. "Come on, you stupid son-of-a-bitch." Her eyes shifted to the rearview mirror to find a pair of bloodshot orbs staring back at her, just over her shoulder.
Jenny screamed and threw back an elbow, catching the person in the face.
"Owwww!"
She spun around to find Saul cupping his nose. "What the hell are you doing back there?"
"Why did ya hit me?"
"Why didn't you go get help?"
Saul glanced into the darkness outside the window. "You kiddin'? It's scary as shit out there."
"Then why didn't you come back inside and help us?"
"Because it's just as scary in there. Besides, some big, psychotic fatty chased me out. It wanted me to clean it or somethin' but I ran like hell."
Jenny resumed trying to start the car. "So you sat here, hiding like a little bitch?"
"Yeah. Pretty much."
"Shit!" She let go of the wires and pulled the hood release. "I've got to check something on the engine. I need you to sit here and tap these two wires together when I tell you to. Got it?"
Saul nodded. Jenny jumped out and he climbed into the driver's seat.
Jenny went to work under the hood (yes, having to rebuild car engines at her father's auto garage on the weekends came in very hand right now).
"All right! Go ahead and tap them!"
Saul did as requested and the vehicle fired up. Jenny slammed the hood as the headlights lit her up.
She brushed the dirt off her hands and smiled at Saul through the windshield. "Bet you never thought that a girl could...do..." She read the utter terror on his face. He stared directly over her shoulder. Jenny felt icy fingers squeezing her insides.
"Cleannn mee..."
She slowly turned to find Dookie Boy standing on the front porch, illuminated by the car's headlights.
Still bottomless, he had a one-tooth, shit-eating grin on his face. In one hand he tauntingly waved around Meat's tightie-whities and athletic tube sock, while in the other, a tattered washcloth. "Cleannn...meee..."
"No..." Jenny whimpered, realizing that now two of her friends had fallen victim to the chubby, homicidal halfwit. "Oh, Meat. I'm so sorry."
With the items in hand, Dookie Boy raced forward in full attack mode. Gums bared. Arms flailing. Junk flapping. He leapt at Jenny. She ducked and he sailed over her, landing on the hood of the car.
Spotting Saul behind the wheel, Dookie Boy squealed in excitement at a potential new playmate. "Clean me? Clean me!" he said, waving the washcloth.
Saul recoiled in horror, flattening himself against the driver's seat.
Rejected, Dookie Boy swung his fists, raining blows that dented metal and shattered glass.
Saul screamed and slammed the car into gear, hoping to dislodge the halfwit on the hood. In his panic, he mistakenly shifted the vehicle into drive instead of reverse and floored the gas.
The Firebird shot forward.
Blinding headlights and the ear piercing screech of car tires caused Jenny to tuck and roll out of the way.
The car barreled across the lawn. Swerving wildly, with Dookie Boy on the hood, the Firebird raced straight for the large oak tree by the side of the house.
Jenny heard Saul's scream and Dookie Boy's squeal of excitement over the roar of the engine. Then the Firebird hit the tree and exploded into a bright orange inferno.
The blast's shockwave knocked Jenny to the ground where she slammed her head against a large rock. As the horizon spun, she struggled to her feet, hoping to rescue Saul from the burning vehicle.
Taking a few steps, her body simply gave out, collapsing to the ground where a darkness washed over her.
\*\*\*
When her lids fluttered and opened, Jenny was lying in the hospital bed. Her wounds were bandaged, her body cleaned. An old Hispanic nurse stood beside her, checking her IV drip.
"Welcome back, sweetie," the nurse said, smiling.
Jenny tried to speak but her words came out a croak. She cleared her throat. "Where...where am I?"
"You're in the Hoffman County Hospital. Let me go get the sheriff so he can explain everything to you."
Ten minutes later, Sheriff Perkins was shaking his head at Jenny. "We didn't find any Dewy boy, ma'am. In fact the only body we did find was that of your friend..." He glanced at his notebook, "...a one Saul Rogers."
Jenny shook her head. "Not 'Dewy boy'. Dookie Boy. Dookie Boy!"
The nurse shuddered at the name, quickly making the sign of the cross. The sheriff shot her a look over the reaction.
"He's some hulking halfwit hiding in that haunted house," Jenny continued. "Only it's not haunted. He's real! He's the one that killed my friends!"
Sheriff Perkins cleared his throat. "Like I said, we didn't find no bodies besides that of your friend Saul Rogers. Now instead of all this silly talk of inbred imbeciles, I'd like to know what you and Saul were doing trespassing on private property. From the looks of the accident, you two must have been joyriding..."
As the sheriff's voice faded to an inaudible mumble, Jenny gazed out the room's window. To the large house on the hill in the distance.
If they didn't find his body, Jenny thought, then he must be still alive.
\*\*\*
Within the cold, silent, subterranean level of the Matheson house, a spot was cleared on the cluttered tabletop by a filthy, pudgy hand---its fingernails painted fire engine red.
A large charred skull---containing a single front tooth---was placed in the open space and surrounded by burning candles.
The crimson-nailed hand patted the blackened skull and a female's voice growled, "Cleannn...meee...Jennyyy..."
And with those three words, a twin sister's quest for vengeance was born.
THE END (?)
About the Authors
Gary Buettner lives in Indiana with his family. His fiction has appeared in the anthologies Rotting Tales, Gone With The Dirt: Undead Dixie, Dark Things V, Daily Bites of Flesh, Powers: A Superhero Anthology, and online at Eschatology Journal. To be fair, he can't read hieroglyphics either.
Chris Lewis Carter was born and raised in Newfoundland, Canada, where he currently lives with his wife, Melissa. His work has been featured in 3AM Magazine, The Cuffer Anthology: Volume Two, Word Riot, and multiple Pill Hill Press anthologies. He is currently working on his first novel, and can be reached at chrislewiscarter@gmail.com.
Graduating with a degree in English from WVU in 2004, Lesley Conner lives near Hagerstown, MD with her husband and two beautiful daughters. She started writing with the intent of publishing in 2005 and since then has had a handful of stories included in various anthologies; the most recent being "Adaptation" in Ruthless: An Extreme Shock Horror Collection and "Walking the Path" in Dark Tales of Terror, both published in 2010. To keep up to date with all of Lesley's newest writing news, check out her website at www.lesleyconner.com.
Jeni Decker lives on a farm in rural Michigan with her husband, two autistic sons, some chickens, the occasional pig, her dog, and an albino frog named Humbert Humbert. She is the co-author of Waiting for Karl Rove (available on Amazon.com) and has two books coming out in the fall of 2011; her memoir I Wish I Were Engulfed in Flames (Skyhorse Publishing), and Far From Happy (PD Publishing). You can find her blatantly exploiting her children and the occasional politician on her blog: http://closetspacemusings.blogspot.com.
Emma Ennis hails from Ireland---the land of poets and scholars, leprechauns and legends. She currently lives in Norway but frequently returns to her beloved home for some fantastical inspiration. In her downtime she likes to play computer games, watch movies, or to spend time with her partner and friends, maybe having 'a sociable few' in the local pub where she works; you can take the girl out of Ireland but you can't take the Irish out of the girl!
M. S. Gardner resides in Virginia. He writes when he can, and plays guitar in "The Day of the Beast." His short stories have been published in several anthologies by Wicked East Press, Pill Hill Press, and Library of the Living Dead/Horror Press. He often interviews fellow authors at www.livingdeadcorner.blogspot.com.
Richard Jay Goldstein lives in the mountains just east of Santa Fe, New Mexico, where it's nice and quiet, thanks. He's a retired ER doc, has been writing for about 20 years, and has published 40-some stories, essays, and poems in the literary and sci-fi/fantasy/horror presses, including a few anthologies.
Vic Kerry lives in Alabama with his wife, three dogs, and two cats. He doesn't have a mullet, at least when the moon isn't full.
Matt Kurtz grew up on a steady diet of horror films. "Don't Go in the House!" is his homage to the "Killer Halfwit in the House" horror subgenre found in such classic films as HELL NIGHT (1981), MADMAN (1982), THE FUNHOUSE (1981), THE UNSEEN (1980), and HUMONGOUS (1982), which also carried the classic tagline of, "It's loose, it's angry...and it's getting hungry!"
Gary McKenzie is the author of quite a few short stories. House of Horror was the first to publish his horror stories while his venture into the superhero genre can be found in Static Press' Powers. His crowning achievements are his two 'Gingerbread Kingdom' children's books which can be purchased on Amazon. He is still waiting on that elusive 'deal with the devil' so that he doesn't have to continue working his day job. You can keep up to date on his stories at www.facebook.com/garymckenzibooks.
Shane McKenzie is going to kill you. Really hard. If you have a problem with that, you can contact him at shane.p.mckenzie@gmail.com. If you feel like reading about the things in his head, you can go to www.shanemckenziewriter.blogspot.com.
Kara Race-Moore lives in Massachusetts and enjoys stories about all kinds of monsters, from mythological beasts to advanced computer programs. She studied History at Simmons College with a focus on Tudor England to have a legitimate excuse to read about sex and violence that took place in gorgeous clothes. She got an English minor in Children's Literature, and thoroughly enjoyed reading the gruesome stories the Victorians told their children. She gives many thanks to everyone in her writing group, the Buzzards Bay Writing Project, who all encouraged her to write about the Zombie Civil Right's Act. Some of her favorite authors include Anne McCaffrey, Kage Baker, and Alison Weir.
Graeme Reynolds has been called many things over the years, most of which are unprintable. By day, he breaks computer programs for a living, but when the sun goes down he hunches over a laptop and thinks of new and interesting ways to offend people with delicate sensibilities. He lives somewhere in England with two cats, a flock of delinquent killer chickens, and a girlfriend that is beginning to suspect that there is something deeply wrong with him. Visit him at http://www.graemereynolds.com.
Alva J. Roberts (pronounced Al-Vee J. Roberts) lives in Western Nebraska with his wife and his dog. When he is not writing he works as a librarian. He writes in all genres of speculative fiction but his passion is writing fantasy. For a full listing of his published works visit: http://alvajroberts.blogspot.com/.
Eva Glynn Stephens is the author of several short stories of horror. She lives in a small northern Ohio village with her husband and three children. Readers can visit her on the web at www.evaglynnstephens.com.
A.J. Sweeney is a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. She is aware that this is a cliché. She lives with her husband across the street from a cemetery and a high-voltage ConEd substation, and hopes that one day, maybe during a thunderstorm, this combination will result in some really cool zombie action.
Kevin Wallis wrote this story for his brothers after his younger brother Matt started working in a warehouse on Congress Ave in Austin, TX. A few weeks after starting the job, six of the women who worked there became pregnant. Around this same time, Kevin realized that his own sperm were larger than those of a lesser man. To his knowledge, however, his sperm have never killed anyone. Intentionally. His darker, less-utterly-ridiculous works can be found in his collection "Beneath the Surface of Things," available on Amazon.
Heather Whittington lives in Alaska with her husband, three cats, and two dogs. She teaches fitness classes and martial arts by day. She performs in local musical theatre productions and writes stories by night.
Joseph Zieja is a world traveler, Air Force officer, and pizza connoisseur from New Jersey. He has always been a storyteller, dabbling in prose (or something like it) at a very early age. Now, some years later, he lives with his wife and cat as he continues to pursue the art. Joe has several short stories in publication and is currently working on his fourth novel. You can visit his website at http://josephzieja.wordpress.com.
Table of Contents
by Graeme Reynolds
Table of Contents
by Graeme Reynolds

