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What music best describes to you the majestic horror of the fall of the world to the hordes? We’re not talking the hope of the few who survive, but the point at which evil reaches it zenith – what is Cthulu/a necromancer/the evil government scientists hearing in their head(s) when they realize their triumph? Feel free to submit a track or two in the comments.

Sequel to Part I

I don’t know how they hone in on their game. The workings of zombies are too esoteric for me, but I can tell you that within their cold husks, there are, indeed, workings. I bring the Suburban to a halt and pop my door. I reach back into the back seat and bring out the M14, inserting a magazine and ramming it home.

“Doors closed, hands over ears, kiddo,” I tell Ferlita. She puts her small palms over her ears and bites down. I slide the muffs over my own battered ears and sight down toward the hollow in front of my own ancestral house. There are twelve zombies milling about, but recently aroused from their aimless shambling by the sound of my truck’s exhaust. (more…)

So after much hand-wringing and an ill-timed work trip on your main editor’s part, we announce the contest winners for the second half of 2011, a scant 20 days late. We’ll try to do better next time. And an emphatic THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU to all the authors and readers over the past months – it’s been a great batch of submissions, and we’re always loathe to rate them in any way.

1st place: Apocalypse and Andy, by T.J. McFadden

Runner up: …The One-Eyed Man is King by MadHarlequin

Congratulations to both. T.J.’s recognition is long overdue, and MadHarlequin’s tale was hell of a first story submission. We’re grateful to the two of you for your talents.

Pete Bevan’s collection of stories is now available in paperback form – ordering info for all formats on the original post.

She’d always said, “monsters aren’t real”
to comfort me when I called in the night.
She’d say,

“Ghosts don’t exist” and she’d
tweak my nose and chuckle and
call me Casper. (more…)

In the Everglades, deep in the swamps of Mississippi, you can find a structure that’s something between a junkyard and an homage to the Great Wall of China made out of rusted Volkswagen Beetles and other small sedans. This is where I encountered former pastor Thomas Lawerence, who preached at the Wade Baptist Church in Wade, MS. I found him with a handrolled cigarette in his mouth, something scribbled on it burning down slowly, leaving a small wisps hanging in the air, drawing out like his sentences accented by his southern drawl.

You have to understand, first of all, that this is only what happened with our congregation. I can’t speak for religious leaders or churches worldwide, or hell, even nation-wide, but if they were anything like us, there were reasons they were overcome by the dead. Just try not to make assumptions, and don’t let my opinion speak for what’s left of organized religion, or those who fell from it. (more…)