Marshall squinted in the sunshine as he scratched his chin in thought. He had to keep the game going or Ford would win again.

“All right, I got one.” Amused with himself and sure he had a stumper, Marshall kicked an island of sand that had gathered on the asphalt, scattering it to the wind. “‘The good guys always win…even in the 80’s.’”

He glanced over and up at Ford, checking his face for any sign of recollection.

“Hmm,” Ford puzzled.

Marshall smiled. “Need a hint?”

“Hmm.”

“You want the year, lead actor or story concept?”

“You think you got me, huh?”

The smile fell from Marshall’s face.

“Don’t bring it unless you’re ready for it to be brought-en!”

“Damn it. Go ahead,” Marshall sighed, defeated. “Give it to me.”

“ ’82, Barry Bostwick, Mega-f’en-force, bitch! Ugh!” Ford stopped and stooped into a Mr. Universe pectoral flex.

“Damn,” Marshall cursed as he walked past. “Your turn.”

In two long strides Ford caught up with him. “All right,” he said cheerily, “you wanna pull from the stumper stack? I’ll give ya one.” Donning a British accent, Ford emphatically said, “‘If I were creating the world I wouldn’t mess about with butterflies and daffodils. I would have started with lasers, eight o’clock, Day One!’”

Marshall laughed. “You’re really going for the gonads aren’t ya? Well, for your info, I got this one, needle-dick. ’81, David Warner, Time Bandits! Now, which one of the Time Bandits midgets was in Star…”

“Kenny Baker.”

“I didn’t even finish!”

“I know, but you wouldn’t pick someone harder like David Rappaport, who was Rinaldo in The Bride. Or Mike Edmonds and Tiny Ross, who were in Flash Gordon. Or Ian…”

“How’s my shoes look, butt nugget?” Marshall chided. Ford’s words were cut off in a garble as Marshall leapt up and grabbed his neck in a headlock. Marshall tightened his grip as his feet touched down, doubling Ford over.

“‘Check out the big brain on Brad!’ Who said that one, huh?” Laughing, Marshall playfully spun Ford in a widening circle, keeping him off balance. Ford chuckled and attempted to catch Marshall behind the knees. “You know, if I didn’t know any better I would say that a noogie might be coming your way,” Marshall chided.

“No!” Ford gurgled.

Ford struggled to get loose, but there was no way; Marshall had him locked.

Twirling asphalt grain was suddenly replaced by blue sky and white billowy clouds when Ford caught Marshall’s left knee and pulled the leg out from under him. The two crashed to the ground, laughing. As soon as Ford released his brother’s leg, implying an end to hostilities, Marshall rapidly rubbed his knuckles on Ford’s scalp.

“No!” Ford shrieked, struggling against his brother.

Marshall jumped to his feet and ran down the road, laughing, with Ford in hot pursuit. “‘Oh yeah!’” he shouted gravelly over his shoulder, channeling his inner Kool-Aid Man. “Who said that, smart-ass?”

Fear and excitement fueled his acceleration when the solid thumping of Ford’s footfalls came up quickly from behind. “Oh shit,” Marshall squeaked. A few seconds were all that separated him from what would be either an atomic wedgie or a near-fatal wet willy.

Marshall risked a peek over his shoulder and saw Ford slow and stop with three heavy footfalls. It was then that Marshall noticed the smell.

He skidded to a halt, arms flailing forward, trying to maintain his balance.

“Christ! What the hell is that?”

“It’s that car.” Ford motioned to a black sedan, the first car they’d seen in two days, parked neatly on the shoulder of the deserted back-country highway. A breeze picked up, wafting the sickly smell in their faces.

“Whew! What a stink!” Marshall coughed, waving his hand in front of his nose.

“C’mon. Let’s go check it out.” Ford smiled devilishly.

“Hell no! Man, ain’t a damn thing in that car we need.”

“No, nothing in the car. I just want the car.”

“Dude!?”

“Aren’t you tired of walking? I am. I say we kick whoever’s in there out, and drive our happy asses for a while.”

Marshall stood in stunned silence, blinking in disbelief. “Fuck that noise! I’m staying right here.”

“It might not be that bad,” Ford said cheerily as he strode up to Marshall. “Maybe they’re all mummy-like in there, and all’s we gotta do is drag ‘em out, air that bitch out for a bit and BAM! We got a ride!”

“You go right on ahead and do that,” Marshall said sarcastically with a dismissive wave, “I’m staying here. Besides, I don’t think ‘dead fucker’ comes out of upholstery all that easy.”

****

The condensation clinging to the inside of the windows obscured their view into the car. A ghostly shadow in the driver’s seat seemed to move slightly, its silhouette so thin that the neck appeared to be only a few inches wide. Were it not for the stench, one might think the driver had pulled over to take a nap.

They stood fifteen feet behind the black sedan when the wind shifted, blowing the offensive stink away and giving the brothers a brief respite. “Thank God for that.”  Ford said as he walked toward the car. He looked back at Marshall with a giddy smile. “Another minute and I was sure I’d lose it.”

Marshall glared at him. “I serious, man. If I suffer through this for nothing, I’m gonna kick you square in the nuts.”

Marshall’s displeasure ramped up a couple notches when the wind shifted again, basting him in a hot breeze weighed down by the oily reek of rotting flesh.

Ford wretched so hard his knees buckled. He caught himself, bracing his hands on his knees, grimacing at the horrible odor. He slapped his hand over his mouth and nose and wretched again.

Marshall’s eyes watered at the noxious odor. Its penetrating stink was unbelievably thick. He could taste it in the back of his throat. As smell-laden saliva slid past the point of no return, he reflexively swallowed and immediately gagged.

Wiping the tears from his eyes and fighting back the urge to vomit, Marshall looked up to see Ford standing beside the car, reaching for the driver’s door handle.

Ford hung his head and retched, then spat onto the ground, making a sour face.

“Hey, leave it,” Marshall shouted. “There’s no fucking way we’re driving that!”

“No way man!” Ford laughed. “No damn way! I’ve come,” he gagged the “come” out with a guttural heaving that left him leaning over with his hands on his knees again. “I’ve come too far to stop now. I’ve gotta see…” Ford covered his mouth with the back of his hand as a new, richer stench found its way onto his tongue. “I gotta see this asshole.”

“Goddamnit. It’s fuckin’ pointless, Ford! Leave it!”

Ford curled his fingers under the door handle and dropped into a wide stance. Marshall knew immediately what Ford was going to do. Like knocking down a wasp nest and running for cover from its angry inhabitants, Ford was going to yank the door open and run.

“One.”

“Leave it man!”

“Two.”

“Aw, Jesus.” Marshall drew his .22 pistol and took aim at the sedan.

“Three!”

Ford pulled the door handle and managed to take a step toward freedom before he realized that the door was still shut. Wincing at the smell, Ford reached again, grabbed the handle and yanked harder. As the door swung open, he sprinted to the opposite side of the road, across from the driver’s door, fending off a barrage of flies and the smell of rot.

“You ok?” Marshall shouted.

Hands on his knees, Ford waved off Marshall’s concerns as he squinted and grimaced against the putrid stink issuing through the open door.

Ford ducked his head, swatting at something that landed on his neck as sloppy brown liquid sloshed out of the car and onto the road.

“Zed?” Marshall shouted, watching Ford’s face for confirmation.

Ford straightened up, craning his neck for a better view into the car. Suddenly he pointed at the car and heaved hard, his body buckling under the tremendous force with which it wanted to throw up. He staggered back a few steps into the grass and spun around.

Looking back to the car, Marshall heard the splatter of Ford’s vomit striking the ground a second before more brown goop sloshed out of the driver’s seat, adding to the vile pool forming on the road. He rushed forward, putting himself between Ford and the creature.

Like a spider crawling from its burrow, withered black fingers wrapped around the edges of the doorway. Four fingers clung to the metal frame beside the windshield; the other four clutched midway down the door frame beside the driver’s seat. A hint of bone poked through the shriveled fingertips.

A leg swung out from the car, spilling more gelatinous brown goop—now tinged with streaks of black and green—to the asphalt as its penny-loafered foot flopped to the ground. The shoe made a wet, gurgling fart as fluid squished over the top and down the sides of the leather. Death-black flesh hung loosely at the dead man’s ankle.

The monstrosity tried to stand but fell backward into the seat. Marshall watched as what looked like gloves fell to the ground, slapping wetly as they landed in the expanding pool beneath the driver’s door. Like horrible rubber novelty items, the blackened finger-socks of flesh jiggled when they struck the ground.

Marshall felt the bile rising in his throat.

His mind could take no more. His stomach could take no more.

Marshall stepped back and took aim at the thing as it tried to sit up. The smell issuing from the car burned his nose; it was an acrid, pungent stink that made his eyes water. Bile pressed urgently at the back of his throat.

The zed in the driver’s seat floundered to pull itself upright. The skeletal fingers of one hand, clad in brownish-red muscle, clutched the steering wheel while the other grasped the driver’s seat headrest.

The luxury sedan’s leather interior was caked with maggots, flies and mold. The driver, rotting in the insufferable and stagnant heat, had provided a smorgasbord of nutrients for fungi, bacteria and insects capable of climbing in though the air-conditioning vents. Small patches of black and grey fluff clung to the zed’s clothing and the car’s interior. The driver’s polo shirt was a gray and green tie-dye of putrid body fluids and decay. The fabric, made translucent from the rendered fats of purification, clung to the corpse’s skin. The ribs and sternum showed through; languid flesh had allowed the cloth to sink into the interstitial spaces between the ribs.

It shook as it pulled itself forward, its decay-weakened muscles straining under the weight. Like a rubber Halloween mask, the thin flesh of its face dangled wetly from its head. The eyelids and nostrils hung well below their intended spaces, revealing slick, blackening muscle through the empty holes. Marshall could see the zed’s soaked and stained shirt through the gaping hole where the mouth should have been.

Marshall put two rounds into the head of the melting thing behind the wheel then threw up.

He kicked the door shut, holstered his .22 and walked over to Ford’s hunched figure. Pebbles scraped the road as he walked, held fast to his lug soles by remnants of vomit and putrescence.

“You ok?”

“Yeah. Did you see that one? Its face?” Ford wiped away tears produced by forceful heaves.

“You want me to kick you in the balls now or later?”

Ford chuckled hoarsely, pulled his canteen from his belt, rinsed his mouth and spat onto the gravel at his feet.

“Hungry?” Marshall slapped Ford heartily on the back, hoping to extract a little revenge by making him throw up again.

Still fighting the oily smell clinging to the back of his throat, Ford paled at the thought of food and gagged.

“‘How about a nice, greeeeasy pork sandwich served in a dirty ashtray?’” Marshall said with a sadistic lilt, sporting a smug grin.

Ford belched, then spit out what came up. “Chet aka Bill ‘Game over man’ Paxton, Weird Science, ’85. Douche nozzle.”

David remained quiet and still as he surveyed the dark aisles of the long abandoned grocery store. Sunlight filtered through the still intact wire clad glass at the front of the store allowing David to confirm that nothing moved. He silently climbed down from the hole in the ceiling and glided down the aisles pausing every so often to listen. The only bodies in the store were the dry long decayed jumbles of bone and clothing that posed no threat.

Mommy says I have to eat vegetables to keep strong.

David stopped in front of the rows of canned vegetables that stood in ranks on the store shelves. He unslung the pack from his back and pulled from it a fistful of thick cotton socks. He carefully selected cans of vegetables from the shelves, placing each can into a sock before placing them snuggly into the backpack. David tested his pack to make sure it made no sound when he moved, then satisfied moved down the row and did the same thing with two jars of peanut butter. As he moved to the exit something caught his eye. He stopped in front of a display of boxes at the end of an aisle.

Poptarts!! David’s mouth watered. He loved poptarts. Several boxes disappeared into his pack. He mentally marked this place as a place to visit again.

David shrugged on his backpack. It was heavy on his back but not unbearable. He left the store and began the slow halting journey back to his sleeping place. Only a couple of times did David see “them” but he was quiet and able to keep far away.

The noise from a falling trashcan lid echoed loud from a nearby alley. David ducked into the shadow of a crumpled police cruiser. He banged his leg on the open door, a jagged edge of metal drawing a thin red line on his shin. He winced in pain and froze, scanning the area for the source of the sound. Several minutes passed.

David waited and watched. Slowly a large grey cat emerged from the shadows of the alley, a freshly dead mouse held firmly in its jaws. The cat jumped silently to the stoop and then disappeared through a half open window in the tenement building across the street from where David watched.

“Poor mouse”, thought David, “I guess he was not quiet enough”.

After a few more minutes David resumed his journey to the safety of his sleeping place.

David’s sleeping place was in the crawlspace above his empty apartment in a tall four story tenement building. A louvered vent allowed in enough sunlight to see. In one corner was a jumble of blankets and a worn blue and red Spiderman sleeping bag. Peeking out from under the blankets was a ragged brown stuffed toy rabbit. Nearby the sleeping bag stacked in neat rows were cans of food, bottles of water, soda, and sports drinks, and boxes of other odds and ends David had collected.

He sat near the vent placing the last of ten multicolored bandaids on the cut in his shin. “Mommy would be proud of me” David thought, “Even though it hurt real bad I didn’t even cry.”. His leg ached. The bandaids did nothing for the pain but their bright colors made him feel better anyway.

After retrieving his rabbit and a tattered book from the blankets David sat down close to the vent. With “Mr. Moppet” perched in a place where he could “see” David opened the book. Colorful characters told their stories as David flipped through the pages. Pink and blue butterflies danced in the fading light. Sad bears in trousers, dashing capeclad cats, and pigs with hats and petticoats played across the pages. He remembered his mother speaking the words that went with the pictures. He remembered her warm presence as she read to him out of the book of bedtime stories.

He sat in the crawlspace above his apartment by the vent looking at the pictures in the book until the setting sun cut off his only source of light.

David awoke to the sound of rain. Eagerly he fumbled in his stack of supplies then sped quickly but quietly to the flat roof of the apartment building. He stopped and made sure the area was safe before he walked out in the open to the large tub slowly filling with rainwater.

Mommy says I have to get clean when I can.

David stripped off his clothes and threw them casually off the side of the building to the growing pile of clothes in the alley below. He opened the bar of soap and after allowing the warm rain to soak his naked body stepped into the tub and began to scrub his skin. The rain washed away layers of dirt and sweat. The water in the tub darkened to a murky brown as he bathed. David made sure to wash “all” the places just like his mother showed him.

After washing David ghosted through several apartments looking for fresh clean clothes. He was familiar with the area and knew the apartments that were occupied and the ones that were empty. Even with this information he still took time to check out each place before entering. He found clothes neatly folded on a shelf in a closet waiting for a child that would never again need them. They were a little big on him but otherwise OK. He chose a blue shirt with the picture of Mickey Mouse and shorts with pockets in case he found something. It was not long before he was once again clothed, the fresh clean clothes feeling good on his clean skin. By the time he had returned to his sleeping place the rain had stopped.

Mommy says never to talk out loud when I am away from my safe place.

Days later David again made his way into the unfamiliar neighborhood of the abandoned grocery. He crouched on the fire escape peeking into the open window of an apartment. He could see part of the living room and the entire kitchen. He waited, listening for the telltale shuffling that signaled danger.

Suddenly he saw her. She moved silently and tentatively down the hall and into the kitchen, stopping to look and listen for several minutes before going to the kitchen cabinets. David watched fascinated as she wrapped several cans in cloth before putting them in a bag. His heart beat fast within his chest. “She is not one of them” he thought. He made a decision.

Carefully he climbed in the window and glided over to her. Suddenly she turned on him, her body tensed in preparation to flee. His eyes met hers, round, white and full of fear, two large orbs in a dirty face. David raised his finger to his lips and gently said “Shhh.” They remained looking at each other for several long minutes.

David broke his mother’s rule, leaned forward slightly and softly whispered, “Come with me”. He turned and padded back to the open window. He looked back to see her hesitate with indecision, then slowly follow him.

The journey to David’s’ sleeping place took longer than before. David moved tentatively making sure she could follow, stopping and waiting for her or encouraging her with follow me hand gestures when she showed reluctance. During the journey he marveled at the way she moved, her steps nimble and silent. She always stopped to listen at all the right times. “She plays the quiet game really good” he thought.

They arrived at David’s sleeping place just as the sun was going down. Safe in his crawlspace David relaxed and saw her relax a little as well.

“We are safe here” he said in a soft voice, “I’m David, what’s your name?”

“Amy.” She replied in a small still voice.

“Do you want a poptart, I have lots” David said offering her a package labeled cherry.

Amy quickly devoured the offered treat then licked her fingers. David gave her another which Amy made disappear as quickly as the first.

“Is anybody with you?” asked David handing her a bottle of water. It felt good to watch her accept the things he gave her.

“My mommy is downstairs in my house” Amy said, “She can’t come up the stairs because of her legs. Only she is different now so I can’t be with her. I still see her sometimes through the window.”

“Yeah, My Daddy is like that” said David in commiseration, “I used to see him sometimes when I went out, but I haven’t seen him in a while. My mommy says he is not my Daddy anymore and I should run away if I see him.”

“Is your mommy here?” asked Amy with just a hint of hope in her little voice.

“No” replied David, “She got hurt and had to go away.”

They sat in silence for a while as the sun went down, the light in the crawlspace slowly fading.

“Do you want a sleepover?” asked David hopefully, “It’s almost dark outside and I’ll let you sleep with Mr. Moppet” he said holding out his stuffed rabbit for her to take. “You can have poptarts and peanut butter for breakfast.”

Amy took the offered bunny and after deliberating for a moment said “OK”.

David smiled. It was his first ever sleepover.

Amy was soon asleep on a pile of blankets, Mr. Moppet clutched tightly to her chest. David listened to her soft measured breathing in the dark. His nose twitched as he realized she smelled. He felt himself happy that she was here, even if she smelled. “Maybe her Mommy did not tell her the clean rule” he thought, “Maybe I could teach her the clean rule.” That thought made him feel good.

One last thought drifted through his head before sleep overtook him.

“Maybe she is not the only one out there” he thought, “Maybe there are others.”

“Quiet.”

“Like me.”

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.

*He takes a long drag, eyeing me wearily as he slowly exhales it out*

In those times, before the creatures — let me get this out of the way right now, I’m sorry. I refuse to say “zombie” in reference to the walking dead, I just won’t. There’s too many legends and superstitions from the voodoo people that still wander around here, and they take credit not only for the word “zombie”, but for creating the first ones that caused this whole outbreak in the first place, which we all know is total horse shit, so I just don’t say the word. Anyway, the time we lived in before the walking dead was one of fear already. Our country was in war in the Middle East, and every day there was something new to fear for our lives because of. Whether it was terrorists, or a new strain of the flu, or biological warfare, or that goddamned North Korea threatening to drop a bomb on us, there was always somethin’. So, when a member or two of the congregation would stand up in front of the rest of us, and confess they were worried about the state of the world, and what we should do, my answer was always “Pray, and trust in God.”

That answer worked out pretty well for me up to the point of the outbreak, as no bombs ever fell on us, and Mississippi never experienced any terrorist attacks. The congregation was happy, and I was in the clear for dispensin’ some good ol’, God-fearing, American Christian wisdom. When the outbreak started knockin’ on the door of the US, one of the ladies of our congregation came forward in her Sunday best, and confessed that she was truly scared of what was going to happen, and asked what we as a church were going to do to prepare for the coming apocalypse, how we were going to fortify the church, and if this was God’s judgment. I stood there, blank stares washin’ over me, waiting for my answer. Something burned in my stomach, and the Holy Spirit overtook me.

“This is just the propaganda of liberal communists takin’ over America, tryin’ to corrupt our system and ruin our faith in the good Lord. If ya’ll want to be runnin’ scared of the sins and lies spread by our so-called leaders, then let you leave this town in cowardice. Let the rest of this congregation stand strong together, and unify under the roof of the house of the Lord, and we shall not move, or be scared out of our home. For where the Lord is with us, so we shall stay.”

I sweatin’ under the collar the whole time I was sayin’ it. It was if an angel of the Lord himself was speakin’ through me. The entire congregation rose to their feet and applauded. That Sunday night, we began preparations to meet every night of the week, from then on out, to discover the lies bein’ told to us, and what we as God-fearing Americans could do about it. Everyone brought in food, and we had a magnificent potluck and fellowship every night. The first week went pretty well. Everyone was still on my side, buyin’ in to everything that I was spewin’ out. I have to tell you right now, I believed everything I was sayin’. Honest. I weren’t to believe that I was lyin’ to these good folk for a moment. Not them. They were the salt of the earth.

The second Monday of our daily meetings, that’s when things started seemin’ amiss. We had outta towners rollin’ in big, loud trucks. The tiny main streets through our shops got packed fulla cars, trying to go every which way out of the town. That night, at our meetin’, the congregation was full of yellin’ and fightin’ so fierce, not even I could quell it.

“They’re runnin’! None of it was a lie, they were all right! The dead are walking, and now the town’s so crowded, ain’t none of us gonna be able to make it outta here alive!”

“Let’s hole up! We’ll hold up in the church! We won’t allow any outsiders! We’ll take all the food and water for ourselves.”

“Pastor Thomas.” Now they wanted my attention. “Pastor Thomas, how could you lie to us like this? You said the Lord was on our side! The Lord can’t allow the dead to walk the Earth. Where is the second coming?”

I, of course, had no answers. There was only one thing on my mind from then on, and that was getting the hell outta the town and surviving. While everyone was focused on gathering food and supplies, and trying to barricade the church, I took the opportunity to slip out a window in one of the Sunday school rooms for the children. As I made my way from the church, the outta towners were comin’ in, screamin’ ‘bout how they’d taken all the food, how if there was safety, they were all entitled to it. “Isn’t that the Christian thing to do?” I heard a lot of them say that. They threw bottles with rags in ‘em at the church. Burst it in to flame. Then there was more screamin’. Not the kind of anger, but pain. Panic. People trying to get the children out of windows, adults tryin’ to get out of windows themselves, trampling children. I don’t think any of them made it out alive.

Out in the town itself, the roads were flooded with cars point every which direction. Some were collided in to each other. Some had the trunks popped open, and smears of brown, gross fluid trailed out, and in to the streets. It had already started. There weren’t many of ‘em, but the creatures were already eatin’ the livin’. Blood was staining the sidewalks, sides of buildings, cars. Gunshots could be heard. You always knew who was fightin’ and who was givin’ up. The fighters would climb to roofs, and you’d hear several shots at once. The givers…you just heard one shot.

I made it out of the city limits, away from Wade, and away from Helena. You could still see the fire from the church burnin’ down the road. The swamps of the Everglades extend out here, and this is where I decided to stay.  There weren’t a lot of supplies out there, and I packed out pretty light, having just been responsible for the deaths of an entire congregation and all. It’s been a fight to stay alive, and I’ve done things I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’m proud of. Survival is survival, though. I’ve shot more dead bastards back to death than I care to think about. Shootin’ ‘em ain’t that bad. You know they can’t feel. It’s raidin’ the bodies for anything useful that’s disgustin’. Putrefactin’ smell, and grimy, sticky clothes and pockets, but it was worth it for matches, lighters, water, ammo, hell, I even found a pack of cigs on a guy once. That’s what started me smokin’.

Tobacco’s actually been pretty easy to come by if you know where to look, but it took a long time to figure out where to get the paper to roll ‘em from. I chose the first page very carefully, it took a lot of thought. After several days of mullin’ it over, I smoked my first hand rolled cigarette. The words, “In the beginning” were visible just past the end of my nose. They were the first to burn away. I’ve smoked the whole book of Genesis, and right now I’m working on Revelations. It’s been pretty satisfying to smoke the beginning and the end.

At 19, Zenith just finished his first semester of college, and he loved being away from home. Z’s dorms were officially closed from December 24 through January 2, so he’d spend that week at home, bored. He planned to head home only after watching his favorite film star cascading through an epic action adventure: he expected a bloody, plotless film stuffed with grisly effects and a muscled hero saving the day. Way better than watching his sisters unwrap a bunch of junk and pretending he thought about the presents he’d purchased last week before heaping them into a sack. He’d had about all the holiday spirit he could stand in wrapping the dumb presents.

Right now, things were looking better. He was tooling around looking for a spot to park, nothing too far from the door since it was so damn cold. The whole parking lot was teaming with last minute shoppers. Fake holly draped around every window, beckoning people inside. The outdoor mall dripped with the spectacle of holidays past, someone’s idea of a quaint Christmas turned consumer nightmare. Roving carolers in Victorian era clothes sang at the main intersection, holding up battery operated candles, no less, and meanwhile people were pushing their way in and out of every store looking for the perfect bit of nonsense to add to their holiday expense account. What a crock Z shook his head, relieved that all he had to do was force through the crowd and enjoy some action.

Shoving his way in line for tickets, Zenith relaxed as he inhaled the salty air of movie popcorn, and felt downright psyched about enjoying a slasher flick before kicking off all that crappy holiday nonsense at home with his family. They didn’t get how over it he was. To him, it was all a bunch of phony showing off about who spent the most money or who pretended to be thoughtful or got the best presents. His girlfriend chided him for the bah humbug attitude last week after he announced his desire to celebrate gift-free holidays, and he quickly retorted, “No one means any of that sentimental peace on earth shit. Wouldn’t there be more, I don’t know, peace, if any of it were true?” They didn’t talk about it again, but he did buy some stuff for his sisters, the little dizzy angels were too young to understand his more serious motivations. They’d just think he was cheap.

The theater was more crowded than he expected, and he had to jam himself between two fat guys to find a seat. Wow. Who knew Van Osterof had so many die hard fans, he thought to himself. Once the previews kicked in he was ready to be entertained, so he texted his friends not to bug him: “Dudes- in a movie. Go deck your halls.” He snorted a laugh to himself, and settled into the sights and sounds of the dark room. The air smelled like popcorn and sugar, and the room was thick with the sound of chewing and crunching, crinkling bags, and an occasional snicker or whisper. It was warm, probably because it was so crowded, and soon the smells of the room included an unpleasant sort of sticky sweat smell, but it didn’t take long for the bombardment of images from the previews to swallow up any sense of irritation he harbored while sitting in the packed room.  The lights dimmed even further for the main attraction.

While Zenith reached down into his bag to fetch a snack, the movie screen flashed a mesmerizing light between the previews and the opening. After the bright feverish blast of white hot light and a few odd clicking noises, a vibrating swirl of colors cascaded from the projector. Momentarily, it felt like a sort of mist transmitted through the air, and a ripple of wet coughing and grumbling swept through the crowd. As Zenith sat up, the reel for the main attraction finally began. Zenith sat in the center of the theater, his seat now compressed awkwardly between the two large men whose arms fully blocked his armrests on both sides.

Zenith briefly considered pressing his elbows into one of them, jabbing just persistently enough to garner himself a little more space, but it wasn’t worth the effort. Distracted by the sheer delight in the impending sequel to Blood Rains, he put on his best holiday cheer and sacrificed his armrests for the greater good. He smiled to himself, content with his good natured attitude and settled in to his scrunched seat with his snacks. In addition to the popcorn he purchased, he brought in a few candy bars, a bag of toffee, a can of soda, and a soft pretzel from the vendor in the mall. That’s plenty he thought, as he glibly smiled at the chubby man to his right. Ten of these wouldn’t fill him, he thought, grabbing the pretzel.

The film credits rolled into an opening action sequence, and the audience rumbled with delight. Soon the chomping got weirdly loud, it drowned out the revving engines in the first chase scene, much to Zenith’s surprise. Then he noticed some faint growling sounds coming from behind him.

Was it in the movie or something in the room? He couldn’t tell. In the darkness of the theater he couldn’t quite source any of the increasingly weird gurgling sounds. He tried to focus more intently on the movie, but the slurping, fat mass of flesh to his left was getting seriously annoying. Mr. Slob went from chomping to snarfing, and Zenith was about ready to tell him to shut up when he noticed a candy cane was stuck to the side of some kid’s face in the row ahead of him. Gross he thought, squirming in his seat, trying to inch away from the gurgling soda monster at his left.

To his right bulged another huge mess of a character who kept wiping his grease smothered, hands on his pants and snorting as he inhaled popcorn from a giant cardboard trough. Blegh, Z. recoiled again, only to see in the kid with the candy face now had two people chewing at the sticky bit of striped sugary candy. Chewing it right off his face.

Shit, they didn’t stop at the candy- his cheek is bleeding. Zenith, mortified, jumped up and shouted, “Hey, leave him alone, you freaks!”

A roar of groaning interrupted his outcry, and his isle-mates grabbed him by the shoulders and tugged him back down into his seat. They clasped him firmly, refusing to let him wiggle out of their tight clutches. Zenith couldn’t over power the two of them, couldn’t pry off their grimy fingers.

You quiet” one of them yelled, the words garbled from a mouthful of chocolates, or something gooey Z hoped were chocolates as he watched it dribble from the goon’s lips and down his flabby chin. Zenith looked around the theater and couldn’t grasp the hideous magnitude of what he saw. Through the dark with the flickering light of the projected images and minimal footlights, he perceived only snippets and flashes.

The boy with the bloody face was chewing something, crunching through what sounded like bone. Zenith shuddered. He glanced over his shoulder at the women behind him, and their sickly sweet perfume nearly gagged him as he turned around. The women behind him were shoving heaps of food in their mouths with both hands and incidentally unaware of having bitten off bits of their own fingers in the process. The bloody nubs of hands dripped into their popcorn buckets, but they expressed no pain as they stared up at the screen and continued to mindlessly devour the larger than life serving of Hollywood hunk in the shape of one very brawny Van Osterof. “MMM,” they groaned and cackled when Van’s shirt was ripped off on screen displaying his fiercely pronounced biceps and chest muscles.

What the . . . Zenith twisted forward quickly and gave a shiver at the sight of the grotesque pair of them. All down the row, everywhere he could see in the filtered dim celluloid haze were hoards of people in a writhing frenzy of consumption. Their fiendish yowls, slurping, and endless chomping echoed through the theater, rendering Zenith both disgusted and terrified. Their skin faded as open wounds from misplaced bites oozed blood that smeared with sugary soda, forming a dark slime that soon pasted patches on the seats and clothes nearly everywhere Zenith looked.

Zenith was surrounded. Some strange sickness had taken over the room, at least, he hoped it was limited to the room. Maybe the flash on the screen, the mist, he wondered. More importantly, he wondered how to escape their repulsive clutches. Every effort he made to stand up resulted in their disgusting, desperate grasps tugging him down into his seat. He couldn’t know for sure that he was the only conscious being remaining in the dark room, but it sure felt like it.

Zenith patched together a plan as he sat as still as possible. From what he witnessed, he could rely on the distraction of the movie. His mind wandered to unthinkable thoughts: what if it’s not confined to this room? What if the entire movie theater or mall has been possessed by this sickening force? What would happen when the movie ends?

All around him, movie goers-turned-zombies seemed to be engulfed in a frenetic surge of eating anything they grabbed. They groped forward and gnawed into each other’s heads, grabbing at chunks of hair that ripped out like cotton candy from a stick as they sat, eyes unwavering from the movie screen. Everywhere he looked he saw their graying faces mindlessly chewing on any bit of food or skin they could grasp. Their clawing hands murkily stretched out in the darkness of the theater to find any loose scraps to nab. The sound of nibbling surrounded him; like a room full of hungry rodents, the creatures feasting while their eyes remained fixed on the movie screen.

Zenith couldn’t assume the unsettling spell that overtook the moviegoers was temporary. He had to plan a way out, something to free him from the entire region, get him on his way home. If the thing, whatever it was, had spread, at least his home town was sparsely populated, giving him better odds of survival than in the densely coagulated streets of the city. He had to get to his car, to the highway, and escape. He assumed the worst in order to plan his best chance for slipping out of this nightmare.

Zenith couldn’t stand to look around. His breath quickened as he listened squeamishly to the gnashing teeth of the dead eyed monsters all around him. Their heavy strained grunting breath punctuated by the ravenous feasting noises made him gag. The seething congestion of the audience, its relentless chomping, filled him with repulsion.

Their insatiable appetites and mindless devouring rendered Zenith startlingly precise in his strategizing. He watched them haphazardly ripping and chewing at seat backs, clawing at the hair and skin of those near them. Zenith drew himself up onto his seat tighter and tighter, folding up his legs and surrounding himself with his own arms as if to minimize the space he took, his volume in the room. If he could make himself small enough, perhaps he could remain unfettered by the greasy fingering, pawing hands that beset him.

If they had independent thoughts, Zenith couldn’t figure out what they might be. From the looks of things, it was a room full of empty headed monsters unlike anything he’d seen, even in his favorite B movies. The crowd hinged on the action of the movie, growing agitated when the it slowed. That’s when they seemed to be most interested in each other’s flesh. When the action rose, Van Osterof leaping across the hood of a transit train or speeding through an alley way firing his machine gun through the window, the monster crowd gaped and grinned, grunting in satisfaction as gobs of gooey food dribbled from their open mouths. Zenith noticed the open wounds from the bite marks oozing a strange bubbly liquid, like some sort of fermented concoction from the combination of junk food, flesh, and whatever heinously dark force possessed the gathering and rendered them hapless to imbibe on anything their grasping, eager fingers could reach. Can’t let them touch me, he thought.

The movie was the only thing holding their attention, and Zenith realized he would have to escape before the action stopped. The next big sequence, he thought, I’ll move through the mass and go through the rear exit while they’re mesmerized.

Zenith knew he couldn’t rise fully, so he prepared himself for a low crouching run. He’d rely on the momentum and force he’d gain pushing against their knees to progress. It would have to suffice. If he kept his stature at seat level, he wouldn’t draw much attention pushing through them. He’d risk some contact, but hoped they wouldn’t be quick enough to grab him as he angled his way out of the row. He stuck his snacks onto the outsides of his coat, tossing a little food in their faces would surely keep them occupied long enough to push through the row.          It was as good a chance as any other he could imagine. If he could make it to the isle, it could be no more than twenty or thirty feet, he could make it to the exit. He eyed the exit, which remained fortunately unblocked, the writhing zombies stayed mostly leaning forward, slumping and slouching in their seats, drunk on entertainment.

Finally the climax of the film erupted onscreen, Van Osterof leapt from a building and Zenith followed suit, plunging himself over the last two seats in the row to reach the isle, then diving quickly for the door. He thrust open the exit, allowing the hallway light to illuminate the grisly scene only for a moment. The masses bellowed, “No, no light! Off!”

The door slammed closed behind Zenith, who was well on the way to his car, plummeting through a dispelling throng of shoppers. He paused to glance around him, uncertain if the messy bewildered flock of people hurrying through the mall were like him, conscious, or if they were merely a brainless horde of shopping drones. He couldn’t tell and he didn’t care. He sped through the heaving herds of people weaving in and out of stores, their bags jostling about them like the shackling chains of Jacob Marley himself. Zenith felt a sudden, sharp need to return to his family, to confirm their safety from the repulsive multitudes.    Zenith arrived at his car, hastily jostling the key into the ignition and speeding to the highway. He pictured his family’s simple plans around the piano and yearned for their off-key singing, their modest feast, the homemade gifts of his sisters. He didn’t take the time to try to discern anything about the miserable swarming crowds at the stores, now scarcely discernible in the distance. In the parking lot he only heard only a few rumbling engines and slamming car doors. Nothing worth investigating even if he had felt less afraid.

Few cars were on the road, and he noticed several dozen groups of what he could only assume were more zombies collected in gatherings at the roadside near collapsed cars. They waved their arms out aimlessly, roaring as Zenith sped by them, stranding them to each other. If they were still conscious beings, they’d have to fend for themselves. Zenith couldn’t afford any more chance encounters.

Finally after two hours of forgetable highway as desolate as he’d hoped, Zenith found himself arriving at the comforting sight of his unpeopled home town. Acadia boasted no more than 500 villagers, and its quiet life looked undisturbed thus far. The town general store, still whitewashed and well groomed was long closed for the holiday. A simple green wreath hung on the door. Its owners no doubt at home with their grandchildren. The Post Office, a cubicle brick building across from the gas station, and the community center looked just as he recalled. No one hovered on the street corner, no one could be spotted eating anything rancid or hiding behind corners. No one could be seen at all. Nothing was open, no one bustled about town, and Zenith sighed in relief. Normal he thought to himself.

Festive colored lights hung lazily blinking in the dimming light of the day as he pulled up his parent’s driveway, gravel spitting out beneath his spinning tires. Zenith arrived at his parents home to find them exactly as he’d hoped: Dad shuffling around in his gray felt slippers, Mom on the couch with a cocoa, the fireplace warming the living room, and his sisters nestled at the piano bench thumping out familiar carols in the easiest chords possible.

“Hey everyone! I’m home!” Zenith announced merrily, relieved by all the comforting sights and sounds of his family. The gang welcomed him heartily with enthusiastic hugs and hurried him inside. As Zenith unwound himself from his sisters’ wiggly hugs, he untangled the bag of gifts he had so haphazardly purchased and set it beside the tree. The girls ran outside to make snow angels, giggling and cavorting. Zenith watched them from the window. Home, he sighed.

Zenith’s mother beckoned him to the couch, patting the space beside her. She clicked on the TV and hit the mute button while commercials ran.

“Call back the girls. We were just going to watch It’s a Wonderful Life. Such a sweet movie. Let’s grab some snacks from the kitchen,” she added, standing up and waving her arms inviting everyone to help. As they headed toward the kitchen, Zenith noticed from the corner of his eye a strange flash on the screen. That’s weird.

Zenith clicked off the TV and said, “Hey, let’s just catch up instead, I’ve missed everyone so much.” Zenith didn’t mention the freaks at the mall. He didn’t even know if they would believe him. If more were coming it didn’t matter. They’d find out soon enough.

At times I yearned to drown myself in the mountain streams, or wander off into the forsaken lands beyond the forest, to be torn and tortured by the walking dead.

I suppose the entire town considered giving up at some stage. We had all lost someone we loved to those who walk the earth and feed off the living. After losing my wife to flesh eaters… God knows what I’d do if I had to lose my father and my little boy as well.

And on one fateful day, ten years after our lives changed forever, it was altered once more. No matter how hard I’ve tried to rid myself of its gruesome facts, I can still recall walking across the town square towards the cave entrance. It was actually more of a village than a town. Somewhat of a last vestige of mankind since the zombie war started. We had no communication with the world beyond the forest, and none of the scouts my father sent out ever returned with survivors.

Surrounded by electrified fences we taught our children to farm and to fight, to survive. The Drakensberg Mountains stood guard to our rear and, with the forest forming the rest of the perimeter, we thought we’d be safe. Little did we know that the true evil lived amongst us.

The glare of the setting sun reflected off the solar panels mounted to the side of the mountain and into my eyes. I entered the vast cave system of residential domiciles and laboratories. All the civilians lived inside the caves, but most of the soldiers, including me, were content with living outside in their tents. The sky was about the only thing that hadn’t changed since the outbreak, our own piece of heaven.

The elders had just finished one of their regular meetings as I walked into the command centre. Mr Rice – who always managed to rub me the wrong way – whispered something in my father’s ear. He looked angry.

A cloud of exhaustion hung over my dad like the living dead over a cadaver. He shook hands with Mr Rice and smiled when he saw me waiting at the door.

“What brings you here?” he said as he approached.

“I wanted to know if Lucas could stay with you tonight.”

My father gave me a suspicious look, one that said he knew what I was about to say, and was prepared to argue if I said it. “Why?”

I nodded at Mr Rice as he walked past, a malicious grin plastered over his face. “I’m on patrol duty tonight. I swapped so I can go with Jamey, I mean Private Thompson.”

He shook his head. “You’re the son of an elder, dammit. You’re a captain yourself. You don’t have to –”

“I like to do my share. I want to protect the people. I feel like enough of an outsider already.”

“You’re already living in a tent outside, and even worse, making my grandchild live there with you.”

“Lucas loves it.”

“Is that why you’re hanging out with Private Thompson? You want friends?”

I loved my dad, but he could really get my blood boiling. “The guys respect me when they see me work just as hard as they do. Unlike them, I wasn’t a soldier before the war. I don’t want them to think I was promoted just because my father’s an elder.”

He grabbed my arm and whispered, “Not so loud,” into my ear as he pulled me out of the room, nodding and smiling to anyone who might’ve noticed our dispute. “Fine, I’ll watch Lucas tonight. But tomorrow we talk about this. You want to make friends, you chat with the people who are in that room right now. If you want to take my place one day, you’ll have to stop hanging out with the soldiers. They are not your friends.”

It was really strange that, although I had always been known for my bravery on the field, I still hadn’t managed to scrape up enough guts to tell my dad I didn’t want to be an elder. I liked to fight. Like my mom used to say, “It’s in our blood.”

A few hours later I left my tent in full battle-ready uniform, covered in a lightweight steel, gauze-like netting, like the ones the divers used for swimming with sharks, back when people still did recreational things – other than killing zombies.

I gave a last check over the essentials. Pistol; machete; rifle loaded and with extra ammunition; small backpack with solar-charged torch and fresh water from the stream, sterilized, just in case.

Lucas eyed all my weapons. He was the fastest learner in his class, and loved to watch me take my weapons apart and clean them. I can still remember the day I first saw him. Birth and marriage had become great symbols of life since we started our little town. Therefor death by natural causes was seen as a religious journey, one from which no zombie infection could wake you from. My mom’s death wasn’t natural as such, but at least her body lies at peace in the cemetery. She fell from the mountain pass.

My dad didn’t say a word to me as I dropped Lucas off at his place. I didn’t feel much like talking either, since I could see the lipstick-stained glass on the table behind him. The scientists were capable of creating lipstick and makeup from the plant life, but it was only available to the elders and their partners. Looks like my father’s new relationship had reached a new level of benefits, for both of them.

A few minutes later I was with my best and only friend Jamey, patrolling just inside the outer perimeter. Our assignment was to check for holes in the fence or any other abnormalities.

Sometimes we’d get a few civilians charging the fence. The elders blamed it on people feeling institutionalized. Since then we tried to have less soldiers on patrol and more spots where civilians could just sit and relax. Basically, to most of the men and myself, night patrol’s only purpose was to soothe the fears of the civilians.

“I hate this,” Jamey said with a troubled look on his face.

I adjusted the rifle strap and peered at the eerie shapes the sawn-off trees cast in the moonlight. “Can’t say that I blame you. Nothing scarier than a couple of zombies in the dark. In daylight they’re just sluggish and comical.”

“At least you’re here,” Jamey said. “Thanks for swapping out.”

We made our way along the fence, past the small patches of corn and tomato fields, and into the graveyard. Some of the tombstones had been shot to pieces in the first zombie raid. That was before the electrified fence. It was also the day they took my wife. Not a day goes by that I don’t wonder where she is. Or what she’s doing.

At night, only the thrum of the generators reassured me the fences would still shock the hell out of anyone brave enough to touch it, living or dead.

“Man, I still can’t believe your dad’s getting married,” Jamey said. “Your mom’s only been dead for a few months.”

“Jeez, Jamey. Ever heard of subtlety?”

“Sorry, Chris. I’m just trying to draw my attention away from the graves. So, does it bother you?”

“Of course it bloody well bothers me. But… I guess he’s old enough to make his own decisions. I just wish he’d let me make my own.”

“What’re you talking about?”

A dull thud saved me from an unwanted conversation. “Shh… you hear that?” I turned to a group of graves to our right.

Jamey froze.

Another thump.

I readied my rifle. Jamey followed me through the maze of shadowed graves towards the source of the sound.

“That’s Ms Crowley’s grave,” Jamey whispered.

“And?”

“She’s one of the teachers, man. I hated teachers. I’ll shit myself if she jumps out and tries to eat me.”

“She’s not coming back, Jamey. She died from a heart attack.”

A scratching sound crept through the ground. Another thud. The crack of wood splintering. Then silence.

Procedure dictated that I should wake the elders, yet excitement and the power of making my own decisions dictated my actions. I ignored Jamey’s blank expression and thrust a nearby shovel into Ms Crowley’s grave.

By the time the steel of the shovel scraped against the wooden surface of the coffin, the moon had already dipped behind the mountain. I wiped the sweat from my brow and, with Jamey taking aim from above, opened the coffin. The revolting cocktail of rot mixed with formaldehyde and an empty coffin overwhelmed my senses. A large hole in the side of the box clearly showed why Mrs Crowley was no longer there.

“That’s impossible,” Jamey said.

I reached out my hands. “Give me the lamp.”

“Are you nuts?”

Call it male bravado, widower’s will or just plain daddy-issues, but I had to go in. “I’ll be back in five minutes and then we’ll call the others. Stop worrying so much.”

“I’m not worried about you,” Jamey said. “I know you can take care of yourself. I’m the one who has to stay up here, with Mrs Crowley possibly strutting around right now. Not to mention ghosts.”

I smiled, stepped into the coffin, and bent down.

“Who says they don’t exist,” Jamey continued. “People used to say zombies only belong in stories. Now look where we are. Standing in a graveyard looking for disappearing corpses.”

After pushing a few vine-like roots out of the way, I thrust the lamp into the darkness, thankful my hand didn’t get bitten off. But my relief quickly turned to unease as I pushed my face through the hole and the shroud of creepers that covered it. It reminded me of the opening curtains welcoming me to the start of an old circus freak show.

A cornucopia of spiders, worms and deformed insects scrutinized my every move as I crawled into the small tunnel, the lamp dangling inches from my face. At first I was calm, yet I soon jerked at every imagined movement within the shadows.

A few seconds later I reached a dark opening, much like the black hole our teachers taught us in astronomy, or the throat of a sleeping serpent waiting for its meal.

I slipped into a larger tunnel, several meters in diameter. The lamplight flickered across the walls. I swatted at something running up my leg only to see a dim splotch scuttle across the ground.

The mordant stink of death and rotting corpses were nothing new to the survivors of the zombie war, but I noticed another, unusual odor below the graveyard. A smell that ate at my nostrils. A smell of chemicals. The combination of these odours compelled me to spew my supper over my boots.

I placed my hand against the side to steady myself. It fit perfectly into a void in the wall, the handprint of a dead soul most likely. I watched in awe as thousands of handprints draped the dirt-compacted walls.

Beyond the reach of the lamp, zombie moans echoed in the distant dark. Dozens of smaller tunnels twisted into the side walls, no doubt linking up with other graves. Only then did I realize that, although one end of the huge tunnel led to the forest, the other twisted towards town.

My heart raced. I scrambled back to Jamey, squashing six-inch worms beneath my palms. I suddenly felt claustrophobic. The smaller tunnel closed in on me like a casket over a corpse. I couldn’t turn. What if something grabbed me? I could already see the rotten hands reaching for my legs.

“Wake the elders!” I shouted at Jamey as I reached the outside. I placed the lamp in the empty coffin and stood.

“What’s down there?” he asked.

“Tunnels to town, Jamey. Now run. Before it’s too late.”

Jamey nodded and bolted, leaving me by myself.

“And tell them to wake the townsfolk,” I shouted after him. “Start the evac!” I looked up at the stars and took a deep breath. I had risen from the grave like the living dead. Unlike them I felt freedom, not torment.

A thump forced me to look down. Two festering limbs breached the vines and grabbed my feet. I tried to yell but only managed to choke on my own fear.

I reached for the machete in backpack, too late. The creature pulled me down, inching me bit by bit into the hole.

I reached for the side of the coffin and hung on, but the creature’s unexpected strength proved too much. The casket groaned under the pressure of my grip. I knew it wouldn’t be long before it would shatter. My weapons lay so close, but still unreachable. I lunged towards the shovel that stood against the far side of the grave. I seized it and flipped onto my back. The zombie yanked me through the hole.

Two bright yellow eyes pierced through the blackness below. I thrust the shovel towards them and hoped for the best. The zombie did not let go.

We crashed into the darkness of the main tunnel. A heavy weight fell on top of me and slammed onto my shoulder. The zombie was trying to bite me. His teeth ground against the safety mesh of my uniform, his groans muffled.

I did my best to roll out of the way or kick myself free, knowing that it only took a few seconds for a reanimated corpse to work his derelict teeth through our safest suits.

I got to my feet and pull the machete from my backpack. I stabbed it into what I believed was the middle section of my attacker. As soon as its jaws loosened I swung the machete in the direction of the undead creature’s moan. The blade struck its target with a soggy thump. Silence.

I fumbled for my torch. My heartbeat throbbed in my throat. I switched on the torch and checked my surroundings. My shoulder was fine. I stared at the headless corpse beneath my feet, relieved to have survived such a close call.

I shone the beam into the blackness ahead and felt the need to explore further, just in case the zombies were launching some kind of attack – the town would have to be protected. I guess I should’ve waited for the elders and the town guard, but being a trained and well-armoured soldier, I had to press on.

Recovered from the shock of the attack, I stepped forward, reminding myself that those moving corpses were nothing more than mindless shells that only follow their natural instinct to feed. Besides, zombies weren’t the toughest opponents if you had the right gear on.

Still I felt anxious.

I stopped in front of a side entrance and, hearing grated breathing from within, switched off the torch. I inched past the blackened opening. A luminous glow emanated from the walls within the cave-like room. With my machete still in hand I watched the somewhat lifeless undead sway from side to side. The shadowy figures moaned and grumbled as they stared at the walls, unaware of my presence and perhaps even of the world they now inhabited, well trained circus animals awaiting orders.

A few meters further another entrance beckoned. Awe pressed down on me. I gazed at the stacks of bodies piled up along the sides; putrid, decapitated bodies missing several limbs. I wiped the chunks of dilapidated flesh from my machete and continued on.

I found another entrance, a vast cavern with several coffins spread out in the centre. On top of each coffin lay severed heads, limbs and organs, some unmoving while others writhed and convulsed on their dusty beds. If I didn’t know any better, I’d have assumed them experiments.

A moan drew my attention towards a pile of what looked like wood stacked against the far wall. I barely noticed the stick-like arms stretching out towards me.

“Please,” a male voice whispered.

I rushed to his side and withdrew slightly. A group of starving people sat hunched inside a crude cage of human bones and splintered coffins tied together with roots. The stench of piss and faeces was clearly winning the battle against the cocktail of death and chemicals.

Another voice begged me for help.

“What is this place?” I asked.

An old man pressed his face against the femur-bars and licked his lips. “They… they’ve evolved… elp us.”

What I found even stranger than my surroundings was the fact that I didn’t recognize any of the captives. Where did they come from? Could the tunnels possibly stretch towards other villages as well? Or were they all that remained of a former world?

A loud drum resonated in the coldness. Growls and footsteps echoed closer. My mind was a mixture of disbelief and panic. Could the undead have found the body in the main passage? Did they actually just sound an alarm of their own?

My body trembled. “I’ll get you out,” I promised them. I hurried to the wall beside the entrance and pressed my back against its clay surface. My clammy fingers curled around the machete. Adrenaline pumped through my veins. I had to save these people. A part of me craved a fight, yet another told me to hold back and pick my fight. Especially if what the old man said was true.

The moment the snarling zombie horde sprinted past I realized the severity of the situation. Those zombies were indeed like nothing we’d faced before. They were faster, perhaps even stronger than what we were used to. The one who pulled me down earlier certainly was.

The creatures passed. I almost jumped as I noticed something hard press against my back, a large rock within the sand perhaps. I flicked on the torch and scraped my fingers into the hardened sand. There was a wooden beam that ran up the side of the wall and connected with a larger frame. It most likely connected to a structure that kept the entire cavern and tunnels from collapsing. Either those zombies were smart, or those tunnels were man-made.

I moved the torchlight to the far wall, fracturing the shadows. A steel construction with several levels of shells reflected back. It contained what from that distance appeared to be test tubes and glass bottles filled with human body parts and unborn babies. I didn’t dare go any closer.

Someone was coming. I switched off the torch and crouched down. An icy dampness poured down my body as I turned corpse-cold. Something entered the cavern. It sniffed the air and growled. I could almost feel the ground shake. I had only seconds to react.

I set the torch on the ground, pointing it in the direction of the zombie’s grated breathing, flicked the switch and charged forward.

The undead being raised its hand to deflect the blade, but the steel cut through his rancid flesh and split his skull. I was relieved to know there was nothing special about the zombies.

Another zombie, dressed in what looked like a white outfit, stepped into the light. I almost hadn’t seen it enter the cavern. Somehow its features seemed a bit more alive than dead. It studied me for a moment, then rushed forward with the same animalistic hunger all the undead possessed, its yellow teeth protruding from its pale brown face.

The survivors issued a few futile attempts to scream, but I hardly noticed as I readied myself.

I slashed the machete towards the zombie’s throat. He dodged out of the way with incredible speed. I sliced air. He struck me against the chest and sent me crashing into the wall.

I reached for my handgun.

“Wait,” he grunted.

The voice startled me, but I charged forward once more. Again he evaded my attack.

“I’m not a zombie,” he yelled.

I stopped, raised my machete in warning, and waited for his next move. “Well you move damn fast for a… whatever you are.” Only then did I notice his outfit was more of a uniform, a scientist’s lab coat to be exact. “Who are you? What are you doing down here?”

“Those senseless elders of yours.” His speech was calm yet dominant, an evil genius discussing his masterful plot. “They put me here.”

“Then why have I never seen you around?”

“They needed me to find a cure. Forced me out of my safe-house and into the back of a truck.”

Could it be? An actual survivor? Then why did my dad tell me they never found any? “You’re lying.”

“Do you think I care what you think, boy? They left me down here to die. Those bastards!”

“Hey.” I pointed the tip of the machete towards his face. “One of those men is my father. You watch your mouth.” I pulled my pistol from my belt, knowing that a gunshot in those enclosed spaces would not only attract the other zombies, but also cause a lot of damage to my ears.

“You watch your father’s expression when you tell him about me. If you don’t get eaten first.”

More out of anger than thought I lunged forward. The scientist bounded over my head with superhuman strength, striking me against the back of my head. I plunged forward and crashed over the coffins, falling face first into the dirt. Severed limbs started to move, to waken, to grab hold of a prey it could no longer devour. Good God, where was my pistol?

The scientist snarled with a zombie-lust as he circled me.

“What are you?” I asked.

“They started bringing me other humans after a while. For testing, at first.” He continued to circle. Drool dripped from his chin.

He had to be lying. My father would never do that. Mr Rice perhaps, but not my father. “Why would they do that? We’ve been looking for survivors for so long.”

“Silence!” He circled faster and faster. “They stopped feeding me after a while. Probably ran out of survivors.”

I kicked at a amputated hand making its way up my leg. “God, what did you eat?” Glancing at the prisoners and detached appendages scattered across the cavern answered my question.

“I’ve been building up my army of super-zombies to attack your base and then spread across the land. With my help the virus has mutated. I allowed it to take hold of the earth and spread through the roots.”

“That’s how you reanimated the corpses from the graveyard.” The thought of my mother ambling through those dark corridors made me dizzy. “You’re mad!”

The scientist circled me like a hungry dog waiting for its master’s order. He stopped in front of the torchlight. Darkness swallowed his face as he calmly spoke. “Soon I will release the virus into the earth’s water. It will spread across the land and oceans and every corpse, bitten or not, shall rise. I will be their god.” His voice grew deeper, almost animal-like. “They’ll worship me. Obey me!” His breathing grew louder.

I searched the sand for the pistol, but it was too dark to see. I fumbled for my rifle and, from my slumped position against a coffin took aim. I had to stop him from raising more of the dead.

“Move forth my children!” With outstretched arms he formed a black cross blocking out the light. “It’s time to take back our land.”

The volume and pace of the distant drum increased.

I braced myself for the intense sound and fired. The scientist slumped forward with one knee on the ground, but quickly leapt towards me and swatted the rifle from my grasp. The wooden handle struck me in the face and knocked me down.

With the taste of blood and dirt in my mouth I crept over the limb-infested soil towards my rifle. The hands grabbed at my clothes. I grasped onto the rifle and spun around.

The scientist withdrew a few steps and then approached again. “I am a god!”

I steadied my aim and fired. He buckled, wavered for an instant and pushed himself up again like a drunk. A piece of his skull hit the dirt, yet he stood upright.

I scrambled to my feet and cursed as I once more took aim. The second shot ripped half his head clean off.

I yearned for the cheer of the prisoners to invigorate me, but all I could hear was a loud ringing in my ears accompanied by more dizziness.

With my flashlight and weapons retrieved, I stared at the dark opening of the main tunnel. The distant drums continued to pound. Part of me wanted to go to its source, another craved to escape. Staying underground had almost cost me my life.

“Don’t leave us,” the old man said.

I glanced at the prisoners. “I’ll come back for you. I promise. It isn’t safe yet.”

The possibility of meeting the remains of someone I knew in that blackness beneath the graveyard poisoned my mind. The thought of killing an old friend – or my own mother – haunted my every step through the darkness.

I glanced into the cavern where the mindless dead had stood earlier. Its emptiness sent shivers through my body.

Something stirred behind me. I swung the flashlight around, catching only a glimpse of movement that disappeared once it reached the wall. It scuttled above me and fled from the light of the torch. My heart pounded, the rifle slippery within my clammy hands.

Muddled gunfire and hell-bound shrieks reverberated from above.

I moved as quickly and silently as I could towards the exit. I spun at every sound and shadow, expecting to find one of the radical zombies at every turn. I could hardly focus. Where was I?

A large figure loomed in the distance. A zombie, shoulders drooped and lengthy arms almost touching the ground, waited for me in front of the Mrs Crowley’s tunnel. I took a deep breath to calm myself. My left hand clutched both the flashlight and the belly of the rifle. I aimed at his head, only to see him cower behind his arms. I lowered the rifle, but kept the light on him. Still he cringed. Only then did I realize who it was – Mrs Crowley herself.

I moved forward. Mrs Crowley snarled and scratched towards me in her retreat. More zombies emerged from within the darkness behind her. Others moaned in the distance behind me, their deathly groans growing louder. A fire fight was no longer an option.

Knowing I couldn’t make it through with the rifle and torch, I placed the rifle on the ground and grasped my pistol. I turned my back to the hole and slowly reversed inside. They swarmed the hole to watch me, waiting for the light to expire.

I squirmed out of the hole and into the coffin, never before so pleased to gaze upon the inside of a moonlit grave. Two zombies lay beside me, riddled with bullet holes, arms and legs bent in all directions. “Don’t fire! It’s me, Chris.” I stepped onto the edge of the coffin and waved my hand so they wouldn’t think I was a zombie, then pulled myself out.

Out of the gloom appeared several figures, running towards me. I reached out my hand towards the first guy. He raised his foot and kicked me back into the grave, knocking the back of my head against the bottom of the coffin. “Stay where you are,” he shouted in a familiar voice. The other soldiers surrounded the grave.

“What’s going on?”

“Back up,” the soldier ordered. I quickly realized it wasn’t a soldier. It was Mr Rice who kicked me, his face vexed, his fingers fondling the pistol in his belt. I couldn’t believe what was happening. Men who had previously jumped at my directives now pointed their rifles at me. I wanted, no, yearned to get out. “What’s going on?”

Mr Rice waved his hands at the gathering soldiers. “I said back up!” My father walked up behind him, a look of anger wrapped across his face.

“Come on, the zombies are right behind me,” I said. They’re not normal. They’ve got tunnels leading towards town, dammit.”

Mr Rice knelt down beside the grave and whispered, “You keep your mouth shut. Those tunnels are properly sealed, anyway.”

“Not anymore.”

“And whose fault is that?” Mr Rice said.

“Don’t worry. I killed your little scientist.”

My dad walked closer. “Dammit, Chris. Why did you have to go down there?”

“You can’t leave me here.”

Mr Rice stood and turned towards the other soldiers. “We can’t risk it, men. Captain Winters stays in the grave until we’re certain he hasn’t been infected. I’d say by morning. Now reset the perimeter.”

“If you make it that long,” my father whispered to me before walking away. Something in his voice made it sound more like a warning than a threat. Then again, maybe that’s what I needed it to sound like.

“What about the zombies?” I shouted as they left. I continued to explained how the new breed of moving corpses hated bright lights, not sure if anyone was listening. It wasn’t long before the spotlights came on. Unfortunately for me the lights did little to purge the shadows from my tomb.

I was such an idiot to have stayed in the tunnels after Jamey had left. I should’ve gone with him. God knows what they did to him. How could my own father betray me?

I could only imagine what my son was going through. I had to see him again, but I knew they wouldn’t let me out. I knew too much. Just like they probably thought Jamey knew too much. They’d find a way to silence me before morning, if the zombies didn’t get to me first.

A deep rumble beckoned from the opening in the side of the coffin.

In an effort to save my ammunition I scrambled to the far corner and raised my machete, waiting for the foul mouthed demon to show his head. His head emerged and I thrust the blade through his cranium, his stale, semi-coagulated blood sloshing like a rogue wave across the wooden surface of the coffin.

Several hours passed before anything else happened. During that time I contemplated returning to the tunnels and looking for another exit. Something moved above ground. They were coming for me. I quietly relocated to the other side of the coffin and raised my pistol. Whatever happened, but I wasn’t about to give up without taking a last stand.

My father stepped into view, a shotgun dangling by his side, a gratified grin on his face. At least he had the guts to finish me off himself. He knelt down. “I’m sorry, kiddo.”

“Where’s Jamey?” I demanded. “Is Lucas alright?”

He nodded. “I should’ve told you about all this earlier. I guess what you haven’t seen down there yet you’ve pretty much figured out.”

“Pretty much.” I refused to lower my aim.

“You have to know, I was against it from the start. But the elders are very strict about matters of discretion. Plus, they really hate being stood up to. And… there’s one more thing.”

I lowered the pistol and fought the urge to raise it.

“They had mom killed. Rice caught her eavesdropping on a conversation about the tunnels and gave the kill orders to one of the other elders.”

“And you did nothing.” I said it a bit louder than I had hoped.

“They threatened to kill you.” I imagined a tear shaping in my father’s eye. Perhaps I wasn’t imagining. “I’m really sorry,” he continued. “It will never happen again. I’m making sure of that.”

“What do you mean?”

Before he could answer Jamey walked up beside him. He held a bloodied Mr Rice by the neck and dropped him at my father’s feet. He smiled at me and turned back.

“What’s going on?”

“We took over the town. The soldiers weren’t too happy about you being stuck in a hole. Most of the elders have been taken out. A few of them are on our side, but I took care of the bastard who killed mom.” He looked down at a beaten Mr Rice and then back to me. “This one’s yours,” he said as he shoved him into the grave.

A wave of happiness coursed through me. I knew things were about to change for the better. “Thanks, Dad. Sorry for giving you grief about your new girl. I should’ve known something was wrong.”

“No problem. Now shove this sack of shit down that hole so we can get out of here.”

“Not yet. I have a promise to uphold. Pass me your torch, Dad.” I flicked my own torch on and, after sheathing my machete, thrust the other torch into Rice’s hands. “You’d better hold on to this.”

“No, please,” Rice begged as I pulled him through the hole with me. I dragged him along the main tunnel, enjoying the act of occasionally allowing him to stumble to the dirt. I could hear the zombies surround us, keeping just outside the reach of my torch.

Rice couldn’t stop screaming about not being eaten alive. “I’ll make you an elder,” he pleaded. “You’ll be the youngest leader ever. Imagine the perks.”

“Is being threatened a perk? Is getting your family torn apart a perk?” I shook my head and smiled. “I’ve never even wanted to be an elder. And guess what, there will never again be any more elders. From now on no one will be denied any of your royalties. From now on there will be no more hierarchy.”

I pushed Rice into the cavern. The prisoners struggled to their knees.

“Oh, God,” he said. “They’re alive.”

He turned towards me and I struck my fist in his gut. “Stay here.”

I drew my machete, and with the help of a few strong kicks, hacked the makeshift dungeon to pieces.

I pulled out the old man and three more survivors, their skin stretching across their frail skeletons. “Can you hold onto this?” I asked the old man. “It’ll keep the zombies back.”

“Who’s he?” the old man asked pointing at Rice.

“Our contingency plan.”

The creatures growled extra loud on our way back, perhaps not keen on the idea of having their food taken from them. Or could they possibly have been aggravated by the death of their creator? They drew closer, ignoring the intensity of our flashlights more and more with every step. Luckily I was prepared.

I kneed Rice in the gut and watched him collapse the ground.

“No, please.” He clutched onto my uniform. “Forgive me.”

I grabbed hold of his hand and sliced the machete through the air, stopping only after I held his amputated arm in my grasp. His screams echoed through the tunnels. “That’s for my mother.” I hung onto his arm as we continued forward, listening to Rice’s screams increase and eventually stop. “That should keep our rear open for a while.”

We reached the exit. The old guy and I stood watch as the survivors made their way up the narrow tunnel, knowing that my dad would be on the other end to greet them. I took the other torch and managed to keep the advancing zombies at bay while I helped the old guy up and into the hole.

One of the undead flung a piece of Mr Rice leftovers at me, knocking one of the torches out of my hand.

A daring zombie charged forward. I kicked him against the torso, snapping his ribs beneath my boot. He stumbled back into the pack of hungry flesh guzzlers. I hopped into the hole and crawled as quickly as I could, ignoring my newly found fear of small spaces.

A hand grabbed onto my ankle. Its skeletal fingers squeezed so hard I thought I’d been bitten.

I let go of the torch and clung onto several overhanging roots, kicking my free leg at the zombie’s hand. I squeezed my one arm down the side of my body and reached for my pistol. My fingers encircle the butt of the pistol. I pulled it free and fired. A hot burning sensation ripped through my leg. I’d been bitten. I fired again and again until there were no bullets left. Finally the zombie’s grasp fell.

I pulled myself through the darkness and into the moonlight. My father jumped into the grave and pulled me up. We both stared at the blood seeping down my leg, relieved to discover it was only a bullet. Most bullet wounds heal, all zombie bites kill.

We climbed out of the grave together and I collapsed onto the grass. I hadn’t realized how tired I was. The old man winked at me as they carried him off to his new home.

I pushed myself up and turned towards the soldiers. They stood at attention and saluted, even my father. I had finally earned their and my dad’s respect. I returned the salute and promoted Jamey on the spot, placing him in charge of a full scale advance on the tunnels. Our town had a rat infestation that required clearing.

—–

Joe Mynhardt is a South African speculative fiction writer and teacher. While having dozens of short story publications in several e-zines, websites and anthologies, Joe also tends to a tome of story ideas scraping for a chance to be written. His influences stretches over a variety of writers from Poe, Doyle and Lovecraft to King, Connolly and Hill.

In his spare time Joe blogs about haunted buildings and the horror writing craft. He is also a moderator at MyWritersCircle.com.

“It’s quiet outside” he said. “I’m going to the shops, get some supplies.”

Simone turned her head in the direction of his voice, glad for a noise other than the baby’s unending cries. “Have you got the gun?” she asked.

“Yes”

“How many rounds have you got?”

Wayne checked the magazine. There weren’t many. He had a spare magazine in his inside pocket but if he ran into a group of the things he was in real trouble.

“Enough.” He said. He had a couple of grenades as well, in case of real emergency, but after the accident last week, they were definitely a last resort. He still limped when he walked, the shrapnel in his leg impossible to remove without surgery – and doctors had been among the first to go, working as they did amongst the dead and the dying.

Simone had come off the worst though. Whether her sight would return was down to whatever gods ruled over a world as fucked as this one. The baby had been fine thanks to those same gods and was the only one without a mark on him.

“Do you have to go?”

“We’re running low on food. If I don’t go today we’re going to run out.”

“If you see any baby food pick it up, I was thinking of starting Gary on solids”

“If I see any I will. Do you think that’ll keep him quiet? The noise is going to attract those things if it gets any louder”

“He’s not feeling well poor mite. He’s running a temperature. What’s his colour like? I hate this not being able to…” Simone choked on her words, tears flowing from her sightless eyes.

“He looks fine, a little bit red, but that’s only to be expected, the energy he’s putting into those bloody screams. Look, I’ve got to go while there’s none of them about. If I see any Calpol I’ll grab that as well, help with his temperature.”

Wayne checked he had everything, one more time, and opened the front door, locking it securely behind him before he ran in a strained gait to the range rover outside, leaving Simone to deal with the baby’s screams. It was almost a relief to just have the shambling hordes of the dead to deal with.

Simone heard the door shut and lock. The baby took the noise as a cue to scream louder. There were times when Simone wondered what the point was of staying alive in a world like this, thought about taking a pillow and putting the baby out of it’s misery before taking a gun or a knife or finding a nice high bridge to…

But then her mother instincts would kick in. No matter how desperate the world was she could never bring herself to hurt Gary. It seemed clichéd, even to herself, but the mother/baby bond was stronger than anything she’d ever felt. She would kill or be killed to ensure her baby’s survival, even in a fucked up, zombie infested shithole like this.

It had been so different just a few months ago. Zombies weren’t real then. They were something out of those shit horror movies that her brother (god rest his soul if he wasn’t out there shambling with the rest of them) would make her watch. Then the illness came and whole communities were quarantined. It struck fast and hit hard. People started dying in their hundreds every day. Hospitals closed as the doctors, despite all attempts at infection control, (even the yellow hazmat suits were either ineffective or used too late) succumbed to the disease.

Then came the reports that the dead were walking.

It was a joke at first. No one believed it – until it was too late. Until the dead invaded the streets and survival became day to day life’s top priority. Just like the movies, if you were bitten, you became one of them within a day. If you died of any natural or (nearly any) unnatural cause you would get up and join the hordes. Also, just like the films, the only way to stop them was to destroy the brain. Now the dead outnumbered the living and the living had become a rare breed. Life was harsh but, for the sake of her child, necessary.

Simone stood from her chair and reached for the walking stick that had once belonged to the man next door. It was her improvised white stick for feeling her way round. She tapped her way across the room till she found the wall, which she followed through to the baby’s bedroom.

In the last few days Wayne had moved all the furniture in the house to give as much space as possible for Simone to navigate. It wasn’t entirely successful. Simone’s body still remembered for itself where the furniture was before she’d been blinded. As a result she’d walked into tables several times, leaving her with a temporary limp almost as pronounced as his (although she’d never seen it) before Wayne had found the walking stick for her. At least she knew he was trying for her although she’d shouted at him more than once for moving things.

She reached Gary’s room and tapped her way to the cot. Reaching in, she realised how warm he was. She unbuttoned his shirt and removed it, apologising to the infant for her sightless clumsiness. She picked him up and nursed him, checking his nappy with a briefly probing finger as she did so. Nappies had been Wayne’s job since she’d lost her sight but she was sure that even blind she could manage it if she needed to.

She didn’t need to as he was dry, but he was still crying. He quieted slightly as she walked round in small circles, making cooing noises and patting him gently on the back. “Are you hungry?” she asked. It was only an hour since his last feed so she didn’t think this was likely – and her nipples were still tender from the last feed.

It was a good thing he was still on breast milk as it made feeding him easier on the supplies front. However he was nearly six months old and his teeth were pushing through. She poked a finger into his mouth to feel for any new lumps in there – not the same finger she’d checked the nappy with. There it was, at the back, a new molar pushing through.

“Is that what’s wrong darling?” she cooed gently into his sweaty forehead. “Daddy will be back soon with some lovely medicine for you. You’ll like that won’t you? You’ll like that won’t you?”

The baby bit down as if in answer to this and Simone withdrew her finger quickly. “Ow, little baba’s getting sharp teeth now isn’t he?”

After a few minutes more nursing, the baby settled and started snoring softly against Simone’s shoulder. Simone breathed a sigh of relief and, gently, laid him back in his cot, hovering over him for another minute in case he woke again before retrieving her stick and tip-tapping back to the living room.

Once there she settled into her chair to wait for Wayne’s return with nothing but her personal darkness and the sound of Gary’s soft breath on the baby monitor for company.

—–

A few miles away Wayne was worried. The baby’s colour wasn’t good. He really looked ill and Wayne thought he needed more than Calpol. Without a doctor or even the internet to check though, Wayne had no idea what to do. And Simone wasn’t coping well with blindness, accusing him of moving the furniture when he hadn’t touched it. The baby’s illness was easier to cope with than the thought that Simone might be losing her mind.

There was a pharmacy in the next road which miraculously hadn’t been raided last time Wayne had driven past. He would have to break in and see if any of the pharmacist’s handbooks could help him. There had to be some kind of guide they used to match drugs to symptoms.

Once round the corner he saw the pharmacy was still apparently untouched. The shutters were all down and the glass in the windows behind was still intact. A quick check for any zombies and he was out of the car, gun in hand in his pocket, just in case, and peering through the gaps in the shutter. The shelves inside still appeared to be stocked. This was incredible. The estate agent had been right when she said this was a quiet area. Even looting gangs in a post apocalypse world left your local pharmacy alone.

Of course one reason for that might have been the security of the locks on the damned shutters. Wayne tested the shutters but there was no give at all. He reached for a hacksaw blade but then realised he couldn’t see the locks to cut through.

A snuffling noise made him start. He turned round to see a zombie shuffling up the street, one arm stretched out in front of it, one arm dangling, no, actually missing – an empty blood-stained sleeve dangling down it’s left side. It had once been a blonde girl and possibly quite pretty. Wayne could imagine if he’d seen her in a pub after a few drinks he might even have flirted with her when alive, but now he took no hesitation in reaching for his gun and shooting her.

The first bullet went wide, but the second was a direct hit to the temple, a small hole forming below the hairline a fraction of a second before the back of her head exploded, spilling brains and skull to the floor before she… it crumpled at the knees and fell face first into the tarmac. The silencer was still working. Good, that meant less noise to attract further distractions.

Wayne walked slowly round the three sides of the pharmacy. There was no way in short of chaining those bloody shutters to the back of the range rover and driving off, but that was likely to cause far too much noise and attract every walking corpse in a mile radius. There had to be another way.

In his previous life, soon after leaving the army, Wayne had once worked for a few months insulating lofts. It was this that gave him a potential answer to his problem. In several streets in this area, in houses of this style, the lofts were interconnected and it was possible to climb from one to the next. All he needed to do was break into one of the less well protected houses – like the one two doors down with the front door wide open – climb into the loft and hopefully he’d be able to drop down into the flat above the pharmacy.

Gun in hand, he entered the house, listening for the grunting/snuffling noise the zombies made instead of breathing. Hearing nothing he limped up the stairs as quickly as he could and scanned the ceilings for the trapdoor into the loft. He found it in the second bedroom which had a convenient set of bunk-beds he could drag underneath to use as a ladder. Within a minute he was in the roof space. He shone his torch round and almost cheered when he saw the open spaces that extended near roof level from one end of the terrace to the other.

He carefully clambered over the low walls into the attic of the pharmacy. The trapdoor was awkward to open from the inside but Wayne managed it and looked through. It was going to be a painful drop with his leg the way it was but he could handle it if it meant finding the medicine for the baby. He lowered himself as far as he could and braced himself as he let go. He hit the ground and managed to stay standing despite the pain.

Pausing to catch his breath he heard a grunting noise from behind the door nearest him. He pulled his gun and quickly pushed the door open, levelling the barrel of the gun at the source of the noise and stopped, finger frozen on the trigger. I didn’t know zombies still did that, he thought.

“Mick! I’m in here,” yelled the figure in the bathroom angrily before it turned to face Wayne, at which point it screamed and pulled its pants up quickly. “Mick! Help!” he yelled. “There’s someone here”

“I’m sorry” Wayne said, his face as beetroot red as the teenager’s in front of him. “I heard noises and thought you were a zom…”

The young man adopted a fighting stance. “I’m a black belt in Tae Kwon Do, don’t come any closer,” he said as menacingly as he could. The image was somewhat spoiled when his rapidly shrinking (but still rather large, Wayne noted involuntarily) penis flopped out of his boxer shorts and he had to tuck it back in.

Wayne heard the noise of a man barrelling up the stairs and a shout “Stuart, are you ok? Where are you?”

“In here!” Stuart grinned at Wayne, “You’re for it now you looting scum.”

Wayne turned from the teenager as the footsteps reached the top of the stairs. A large man, six foot five at least with dark hair and glasses, appeared on the landing wielding a golf club – a man Wayne had thought he’d never see again.

“Mick?” Wayne laughed out loud. “Mick you old bastard! You’re still alive?”

“Wayne? What the fuck are you doing here? How did you get in? We’ve got this place sealed up tighter than a gnat’s arsehole.” The big man dropped the golf club and grabbed Wayne in a tight hug. “Stuart, Wayne, Wayne, Stuart,” he said as he released Wayne. “Put some clothes on Stu and come downstairs. So what are you doing here Wayne?”

“The baby’s ill, I needed to find some medicine.”

“I’m sure we can sort you out with that,” the large man guided Wayne down the stairs and into the back of the shop. Reaching into a drawer he removed a yellow book – BNF for Children 2009 – then turned to Wayne and asked “so what are his symptoms? We’ll see what this little bible says.”

—–

Simone woke in her chair from bright dreams of colour and light into her world of darkness. She was thirsty but she knew it was a real obstacle course to reach the kitchen. Reaching round for her stick she knocked over an object, God only knew what, on the table. She heard it roll off the table and smash.

She wished she hadn’t kicked off her shoes. Now she was barefoot with possibly broken glass on the floor. Her groping fingers finally found the stick and she used it to find her shoes and drag them over to her. They had no laces so it was a quick job for her to slip them on. Feet now safely clad she stood up and started tip tapping with the stick toward the kitchen.

She was only 29, she shouldn’t be feeling so old and helpless, but being blinded like she had been in a nightmare world like this was bound to affect her somehow. The stick hit the wall and she groped for it with her hands. The only sound was the baby’s breathing through the monitor.

Only a few weeks ago she would have been desperate for the other neighbour, a Salford lass called Lisa, to turn her bloody music down. Lisa had been an early casualty of the zombies. Simone herself had beaten her walking corpse with a table leg with a bolt in the end of it till her face no longer resembled anything human and her lank black hair suck to the wood in gloopy strands. It was the first time she’d killed anything bigger than an insect.

She’d almost started to enjoy it until Wayne had pulled her away and held her tightly.

Now she would have killed a living person just to hear music playing again, but with no electricity that wasn’t going to happen soon. Wayne had several talents, but music wasn’t one of them. He’d been the one who managed to steal the gun and ammunition from the house of a local(ish) recently deceased wannabe gangster – sometimes it paid to have friends in low places. He’d also stolen the grenades from the same illegal arms store… That had turned out to be a mixed blessing to say the least. He was the reason they were all still alive, but he had the musical ability of a zombie with its jaw ripped off.

Her leg suddenly collided with the edge of the telephone table. She yelped in pain and dropped her stick. “Damn you Wayne!” she yelled as another unidentified object smashed on the floor.

“But I didn’t move the table” Wayne’s voice behind her in the darkness.

“You did, I saw you!”

“But you’re blind, you couldn’t have seen me.”

Even in her confused state she had to admit he had a point.

“And I’m not even here. Who are you talking to?” his voice continued. In her head or behind her or even in front of her in the dark she couldn’t tell.

“You must have moved the table!”

“Or you turned the wrong way. Is the kitchen left or right from the living room?”

“Left, no right, no I… I don’t know…” Simone sank to the floor, ignoring the sharpness of whatever broken object on the floor that stuck into her leg. “I don’t know.” She cried. Wayne’s voice was gone again and the only sound in her world of darkness was the baby’s rasping snore.

As if in sympathy with his mother, Gary woke and screamed. Simone listened from her seat on the floor but did nothing. He could scream like that till the zombies knocked down the door. She couldn’t cope any more. She needed Wayne, the real one, not some voice in her head, and she needed him soon.

—–

The real Wayne was talking over old times (if six weeks ago counted as old) with Mick over a snifter each of Talisker. They’d been in the same quiz team at the Farmer’s Arms and won more often than they lost. As Stuart reached the bottom of the stairs (now wearing black tracksuit bottoms and an old brown leather jacket), they were bemoaning the fact that they still had vouchers for free drinks that it was unlikely they’d ever be able to cash in.

They’d sorted out medication for the baby, they weren’t entirely sure but the drugs seemed to match the symptoms. The book even gave advice on correct dosage so Wayne was feeling a lot happier.

“Hey Stuart, sorry again for busting in on you like that… all I could hear was grunting noises behind the door. I thought you…” He couldn’t keep a straight face any longer and both Wayne and Mick collapsed into a fit of giggles.

Stuart’s face turned bright red again. “Bastards,” he said in a strong northern accent, before starting to giggle himself. “Hey, if you’ve opened that whisky I’ll have a shot as well.”

Mick looked at him with a sly grin. “How old are you again?” He poured one finger of the pale amber liquid into a glass for Stuart. “Don’t get too drunk. We’re going on a food run. Then we’re going to pick up Wayne’s wife and baby and bring them here to live – if that’s ok with you. This place is more secure than their house”

“A baby?” for a second he looked like he was going to object but then his face softened and he grinned. “I didn’t think I’d get to see one of those again. I’m not doing nappy changes though.”

They finished their drinks and prepared to leave the house. Mick and Stuart’s entrance was the exact opposite of the one Wayne had used to get in. They dropped through a manhole in the cellar and climbed up out of the rat free sewers (possibly the only advantage of a zombie infestation – even the rats were dead) into a secured yard a hundred metres away. From here they climbed a ladder and looked over the wall to see if the path was clear.

It wasn’t. A group of four zombies were shuffling down the street, snuffling and grunting. There were three ex-men and an ex-woman. From the looks of them they’d all died violently, their clothes torn and rotting flesh and wounds visible underneath.

Mick looked at Wayne. “How many bullets you got mate? These are the only weapons we’ve got.” He indicated the golf club he was carrying and the baseball bat that Stuart had slung in a makeshift harness across his back.

Mick had filled Wayne in on the details earlier. Stuart was the seventeen year old son of the ex-owner of the pharmacy. He’d locked himself in with a few weeks’ supply of food when the outbreak started, only leaving through his secret exit he used to use to sneak out to visit his girlfriend when he needed more.

Mick had been lucky enough to run into him on his first trip out. Mick’s car had run out of fuel and he was on foot, travelling light, desperate for safe shelter and armed only with the golf club – the only weapon he could grab before a pair of zombies had seen him and started toward him. He’d been forced to abandon a whole stack of sharp and blunt instruments in the car. Stuart had invited Mick to stay and was now almost like an adopted son. When they returned to the car a day later, it had been looted and vandalised so they couldn’t even use it for transport.

They’d managed to carry back stacks more tinned food from nearby empty houses to keep themselves going. One wielding a weapon, the other carrying the food they’d snuck though the quiet streets, picking off the occasional lone zombie and somehow avoiding large packs.

Now Wayne climbed the ladder and checked the gun. He had five bullets in the magazine; he needed to be a good shot this time. He breathed in deeply and took aim. The first shot was a direct hit and the largest of the zombies fell in a shower of brain and skull fragments. The second shot was also true and the female zombie fell backwards into one of the remaining zombies.

Knocked off balance it stumbled and turned so Wayne’s third bullet only clipped its shoulder and it needed the fourth bullet to finish it off. The final zombie seemed to register that its companions were dead for a second time and it started walking in the direction of the gunshots, each one louder than the last as the silencer wore out.

Wayne only had the one bullet left before he would need to reload. He sighted slowly and carefully down the barrel, centred the sights on its forehead and gently squeezed the trigger just as he’d been taught all those years ago.

Unfortunately, at that precise moment, the corpse slipped on the spilled brains of one of its “companions” and the bullet flew high and embedded itself in a nearby telegraph pole.. The zombie fell to the floor and the three men on the wall cheered and jumped to the ground.

Wayne’s car was round the corner still. They’d decided to drive to the outskirts of the town to raid empty houses there – the zombies seemed to congregate in the centre, a shambling crowd of stinking corpses in grotesque imitation of a busy shopping day, their snuffling breath noises all merging into a disturbing simulacrum of conversation.

As they walked to the car, Wayne removed the magazine. They were custom-made add-ons for the gun and supposed to hold 20 rounds each. When in place, they dangled below the butt of the handle, spoiling the look of the weapon somewhat, but very useful when facing hordes of ravenous zombies. He slid the empty magazine into his pocket and pulled out the spare. He checked it before loading. Damnit! There were only 8 rounds in it.

Behind them, the last zombie climbed to its feet. It shuffled toward the living flesh in front of it, snuffling and snorting in hungry anticipation of the meal to come.

“Bad news guys. This clip’s only half full. I need to find more ammo from somewhere fast.”

“Where did you get it from last time?” Mick asked.

“Remember that guy who always used to shoot his mouth off in the pub about the weapons he had at home, turns out he wasn’t bullshitting. I broke into his house and took it. But this was the only ammo I could find. I’ve got the gun and a couple of grenades left.”

Stuart’s eyes lit up. “Grenades?”

Behind them the zombie moved ever closer, it had already halved the distance between them.

“They’re not toys you stupid kid. It’s thanks to a grenade that I’m limping and my wife might be blinded for life.”

Mick put a warning hand on Wayne’s shoulder. “Don’t talk to him like that. He didn’t know.”

The zombie sniffed the air. The smell of life made it hungry and excited. It was now only ten meters away.

“Yeah, I’m sorry Stu.” Wayne held out his hand and they shook.

“He used to hang out with that Irish bloke didn’t he?”

Wayne gave a quizzical look.

They’d stopped at the car and the zombie was closing in. Five meters to go.

“Mr Gangsta, used to hang with the Irish bloke…You know the one, six foot two, ginger hair…” Mick said. “He lived near the mad cat woman. We could try his house; see if he’s got a stash as well.”

“Good idea…” Wayne started to reply when Stuart cried out in panic.

“Zombie!” he yelled, looking at the reflection in the car window of the fourth zombie which had nearly reached them. It reached out for Stuart who was closest, succeeding in grabbing his baseball bat. Stuart struggled for a second before unclipping the harness and spinning round, delivering a perfect palm heel strike to the tip of the zombie’s nose, pushing upwards with the blow, breaking the nose and driving the cartilage through the nasal cavity and straight into the brain. The zombie fell backwards to the pavement with a wet slap.

“They always told us that could kill with one punch… I never knew if it was true.” Stuart sounded more than a little proud of himself. His Tae Kwon Do prowess hadn’t been an idle boast after all.

“Check your gloves. If you caught its teeth that counts as a bite.” Wayne levelled the gun at Stuart. “If you’ve been bitten, you know what we have to do.”

Stuart’s face dropped. He looked pleadingly at Mick who shook his head sadly and stood next to Wayne. Stuart swallowed nervously, the movement of his Adam’s apple starkly visible against his thin neck. He flicked his long hair from his eyes and examined the glove on his right hand.

“It’s fine. I hit it in the nose. I didn’t touch the mouth!” he held his hands out for Wayne and Mick to check. The gloves, though dirty, were intact. He bent down and wrested the baseball bat and harness from the grip of the dead thing at his feet. Then he fastened the harness in place, removed the bat and slapped it in his palm. “Now are we going shopping or what? I promise I’ll use this on the next one.”

Mick grinned, the relief as plain on his face as on Stuart’s, and opened his arms wide. “You see that you do.” He said as he hugged Stuart tightly, engulfing the slim built teen in his massive six foot five frame.

—–

“You’re a bad mother!” Simone heard her mother shouting at her. “Listen to that screaming. Can’t you do anything right?”

The baby’s screaming seemed to surround her, echoing from the walls, making the direction of the sound impossible to locate.

She staggered to her feet. “Mum, that’s not fair! What am I supposed to do when I can’t even see him?”

“He’s a miserable baby! That’s your fault! When was the last time you heard him laugh. He does nothing but cry!”

This wasn’t true, Simone wanted to cry out herself. He was always giggling. He was a brilliant. beautiful and happy child normally. What she wouldn’t give to hear him giggle now instead of the incessant cries. He had a giggle that made the world happy.

“You’re still breastfeeding him! When are you going to start him on solid food like a good mother would?”

“Shut up, you’re not even here!” Simone lashed out at the darkness, not knowing who or what she thought she might hit. Part of her knew she was completely alone in the house and her internal darkness made the feelings of isolation so much worse. That must be what was causing these hallucinations, the sane, logical part of her argued. Unfortunately, the rest of her was in control at the moment and wasn’t listening.

She stumbled forward, forgetting her stick, and her head struck the opposite wall. For a second she saw stars. The sane logical part of her brain saw that as a good sign that maybe the optic nerve wasn’t permanently damaged. The rest of her just felt the pain and the blood that trickled down the side of her nose.

The baby’s screaming quieted somewhat; growing weaker, exhaustion setting in from the sound of it. How long had she been sitting on the floor? She was a bad mother, just like her mother told her she was. She spun round, arms wheeling, trying to work out where exactly she was in the fucking house. Her left hand struck painfully against what felt like the hallway cabinet and she yelped.

“Calm the fuck down you silly bitch!” her father’s voice shouted at her from the darkness. “Your mother was always a bitch to you! Ignore her.”

Simone stopped. Her father never sounded that angry. “Sorry Dad” she pleaded.

“That’s it. Now you’ve stopped, get your bearings you silly cow.”

She did as she was told. The cabinet was here, and nearby was the coat stand, that meant she was near the front door and behind her must be the living room which meant the kitchen must be over… there. The baby’s mewling cry was behind her, the echo fading as the volume grew quieter.

“That’s better,” her father sounded calmer now. “Your stick is by your feet, pick it up and use it properly so you don’t crack your head off every bloody wall.”

She shuffled forward till she felt her foot hit the stick, then slowly bent and picked it up.

“You were going to the kitchen, remember. You’re going to get yourself a drink and then you’re going to check on the baby.”

“Yes, that’s right.” She tapped her way across the hall to the kitchen and felt her way round to the fridge. Of course it no longer worked but it protected food from any mice or rats – not that there was much vermin around these days. They used the fridge as much out of comfort as anything else. Also with its nice compartmentalised layout it was easy for Simone while she was sightless to find things.

She reached in and found a can of soft drink. She pulled the ring-pull and drank. It was orange juice of some kind. It would have been nicer if it was cold but the sweet fizzy liquid felt like nectar flowing down her throat.

The baby’s screams had stopped, finally. There was silence from his room. For a few minutes Simone struggled to hear even the smallest sound of breathing from the monitor in the next room. She must have been too far away to hear it. When she tapped her way back to the living room to listen more closely, she could hear him again.

“Poor thing must have a bit of a cold” she said to any of the voices that might be listening.

He’d stopped screaming though so she sat down to rest for a while. She would be up to feed him soon, once she’d finished her drink. For now she listened to his quiet snuffling breath over the monitor.

—–

Wayne stopped the car. They’d reached the very outskirts of the town. They were killing two birds with one stone. The Irish friend of the wannabe gangster used to live close by so they were going to look for the ammo at the same time as the food.

He’d stopped the car beside a house with baby toys in the front garden. He remembered what Simone had said three hours ago about finding baby food to start Gary on solids. This house might have supplies. It looked good – the door hadn’t been smashed in so it probably hadn’t been looted already and there was no sign of movement inside…

“This one” he said.

Mick and Stuart nodded. They piled out of the car and ran to the front door, checking for any signs of life, or un-life, around them. Mick tested the front door; it was locked. They ran round the side of the house to the back door. This was also locked.

Stuart checked the windows, looking for any movement inside at the same time as trying to open them. As the smallest of the group, he was the one who would have to climb through and open the door for the rest of them. He didn’t want any surprises.

Mick had noticed the garden shed was open. He looked inside quickly, to see if there were any tools they might be able to use as weapons.

“Bingo!” he yelled and ran back to the house with a crowbar in hand. “Housebreaking and zombie skullbreaking in one!”

Stuart grinned. “Can I have first go with it?”

Mick handed it over and Stuart, after only a moment’s hesitation, used it to pop the lock on the back door.

“You look like you’ve done that before…” Mick said with a raised eyebrow as they entered the house.

The kitchen was messy, plates piled in the sink and a strong smell from the dustbin. No one had been in here for weeks. There were no signs of a panicked exit or violence in the house. The prior occupants had clearly gone out never to return. The cupboards were still well stocked with food which the three men loaded into their bags. There was even the stash of baby food Wayne had wanted. This was turning into a good day. Reunited with old friends, plentiful supplies and a more secure new home in the offing.

As they loaded the supplies into the back of the car Wayne asked “Where did the Irish guy live?”

“Next door to mad cat woman. It was one of those two over there. I can never remember which one was which.” Mick pointed at a pair of semi detached houses further up the road. He’d been the local postman in his previous life and knew most people in the small town they lived in.

“I’m on it.” said Stuart, running over to the first of them with the crowbar in his hands. He looked round quickly and started working on the front door which appeared to be locked in at least three places.

“Be careful Stu,” yelled Mick. “He’s too eager that kid.”

Mick and Wayne followed more cautiously and checked round the back and side of the house. There was no sign of life; the back door was locked, except for the cat flap which was too small to be useful. They heard a crack from the front of the house as the last of the locks popped.

“I’m in” shouted Stuart. A brief pause and then, “Hey, when was the last time you guys saw a cat?”

—–

Five weeks earlier, Caroline Callaghan, known to all and sundry as the mad cat woman because of the dozens of cats she shared her house with, had locked herself in and waited for the end.

When the cat food ran out, Balrog, small black cat with a small white bib and alpha male of her clowder, had gone hunting. Despite wanting to protect her little babies, she couldn’t bear the thought of watching them starve to death – or worse – she knew that when she died she would turn into one of those… things – that she might be the thing that killed them. Far better to leave the cat flap open so they could take their chances and hunt for their own food outside. Her cats were tough, they could fend for themselves.

While out sniffing for mice, Balrog was grabbed by a passing corpse. He instinctively lashed out as the zombie bit down on his back leg. Even a zombie with limited use of its pain receptors will drop what it’s holding when it receives a full set of cat claws across the eyes. Balrog hit the floor with feline grace and ran with a slight limp back home.

The infection had set in though.

Being so small, Balrog was a walking corpse almost as soon as he entered the house. Caroline saw the limping walk and heard the snuffling noise in his mewling and dropped to her knees to tend to the wound in his leg. The ex-cat bit her hard and scratched at her face. She threw him away from her and backed off, shaking, into the bathroom and slammed the door.

She was in her fifties, with grey permed hair, dyed dark brown. Her gold rimmed glasses had fallen off her almost too-big-for-her-round-face nose when the dead cat had scratched her. Her normally rosy cheeks faded to the same pale shade as the rest of her skin as she lay sobbing on the floor by the bathtub. Within a day she was dead and walking about the house, unable to operate the locks to escape to the outside world.

Balrog in the mean time had attacked other cats in the house and the infection had spread through the whole clowder. Except for those who were so small they had been completely devoured, they all walked with a shuffling gait and mewled with a strange snuffling sound. Every now and then they went hunting for fresh meat.

It was this house that Stuart had just broken into.

—–

Wayne and Mick ran round to the front of the house just in time to see Stuart step in and kneel down with an outstretched hand, the crowbar forgotten on the doorstep behind him.

“Be careful.” Mick yelled.

“It’s only a cat.” Stuart replied as he tried to click his fingers in his thick gloves.

“My god this place stinks.” Wayne wrinkled his nose in disgust. He stared for a moment at the cat. “Stay away from that thing!” he warned.

Stuart ignored him and took off his glove. “You’re not scared of cats are you?” He clicked his fingers to attract the cat’s attention.

“Look at it. Smell it for God’s sake! It’s dead. Look at the hole in its leg!”

Mick looked at his friend, “A zombie cat? Are you kidding? It’s just been locked up for a while.”

The cat sprang forward, uncertainly. It wasn’t as agile as when it had been alive but it was faster than any human corpse and clamped its teeth into the fingers of Stuart’s bare right hand.

“You little bastard!” he yelled and swung his arm against the doorframe, trying to dislodge the snarling ball of fur attached sharply to his hand. After the third blow it left go and Stuart kicked it hard. It limped into the main body of the house.

Wayne reached for the gun. “Sorry Stuart. You know I’ve got to do this.” He held the gun out with a shaking hand, pointing it at Stuart’s face.

“Please no, it’s just a cat! It’s not a fucking zom…” Stuart raised his hands either side of his head. “Like Mick said, it’s just been locked in.”

Wayne released the safety catch. Suddenly Stuart whipped both arms forward, his hands in tight fists with one finger of each raised into a charley horse. He punched Wayne’s inside forearm and the back of his hand simultaneously; the pain and the reflex action making Wayne open his fingers and throw the gun to his left.

Mick grabbed Wayne from behind and Stuart quickly went through his pockets, taking the grenades before picking up the gun from the floor.

Mick held onto Wayne a moment longer. “Let him prove things one way or another before you do anything. That’s only a fucking cat. You’re not killing that kid for a fucking cat bite!”

Stuart ran into the house shouting “It’s not dead! I’ll bring it out for you and prove it!”

Mick let go of Wayne and followed, brandishing the golf club. Wayne was left outside, weaponless. He picked up the discarded crowbar and slowly followed the other two into the house.

The next thing he heard was the gun firing twice and Mick yelling. He raced in the direction of the noise and saw Mick standing opposite the zombified form of mad cat woman. She advanced on Mick with a limping gait not too dissimilar to her walk when alive, her snuffling breath sounds louder and more excited with the prospect of a fresh meal. She had a bullet hole in her left shoulder where Stuart had just shot her and there was a fresh hole in the plaster where the other shot had gone wide. Stuart might have been good at hand-to-hand fighting but his marksmanship was questionable.

“Throw me the gun!” Wayne yelled at Stuart. “With that hand you can’t shoot straight, you’ll kill Mick instead!”

Mick took a step back to get the right distance and swung his golf club as hard as he could. The clubbed end struck the ex-caroline just above the left ear, tearing the skin and leaving a large dent in the skull. She fell to the floor and Mick clubbed her again and again till her plump cheeks and round face no longer existed, replaced by a gaping maw and pulped brain matter. Her dyed hair hung in strands from the end of the club.

Before they could relax they heard a sound from their deepest nightmares – a mewling noise like a choir of ghost infants wailing. Underneath that noise, and clear in the magnified volume of dozens of cats singing at once was the all too familiar snuffling of the recently revived.

They turned slowly to see nearly fifty cats approaching. If there was doubt as to the living status of the first one they’d seen, there was no doubting with some of these, flesh hanging off in strips, chunks gouged out of them, they had no right to be walking. A damp patch appeared in Stuart’s crotch and spread down his left leg. He looked at the wound on his hand and threw the gun across the room to Wayne.

“You were right man,” he said.

The cats shambled forward and a dozen of them leaped at Mick, who was closest. He tried to bat them away but, armed with no more than a golf club, he couldn’t stop them as they climbed up his clothes, claws digging through into his skin as they tried for uncovered flesh to bite into. He staggered backward and stumbled over more of them, landing on the floor and squashing three of them into a more permanent death.

As he hit the deck they swarmed over him, tearing with their claws and biting where they could. Half a dozen found his face and ripped the flesh from it.

“Helf eee!” was the last thing he managed to say before Wayne recovered enough from the shock of what was happening to put a bullet through his head.

Most of the remaining cats that weren’t feasting on Mick’s body advanced on Stuart, attracted by the smell of fresh blood from the wound on his hand. He was in the corner of the living room and completely surrounded.

Wayne swung the crowbar at the cats closest to him, batting one across the room and spearing one of them when it was caught between the crowbar and the wall. It didn’t seem to notice the metal skewering its flanks and continued hissing and spitting at Wayne. He threw the crowbar and it’s occupant at the next closest grouping of cats and started shooting. The first bullet took out the hindquarters of one of the cats, the second bullet disappeared into the writhing throng of fur with no noticeable effect and the third went astray, taking out a beautiful leather bound edition of the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

“Come on Stuart, we can get you out of this!” He yelled. “If you run you might get through them.”

Five minutes ago he’d been looking forward to a new chapter of life in this world and now… If he could just rescue the boy, look after him for Mick’s sake, maybe something could be salvaged from this mess.

Stuart reached into his own pocket and withdrew a grenade. “Wayne, get out of here!” he said. He took off the leather jacket and threw it over a clump of the feline undead, delaying them for a few seconds.

“Wayne! I mean it, get out of here! That first one bit me, I’m already dead” Stuart pulled the pin from the grenade and jabbed it into his arm, drawing more blood. He raked the pin through the artery in his wrist with a cry of pain and a spurt of blood jetted ten feet across the room. All the cats turned from wherever they were and ran towards the source of fresh blood. The last Wayne saw of him was as he collapsed to the floor buried in the creatures, all ripping and tearing at his now exposed flesh.

He turned and ran out of the house towards the car. Halfway down the garden he heard the grenade explode. The window shattered, glass flying outwards, mixed with blood and fur. Wayne opened the car door, sat inside and sobbed.

—–

Simone heard a thumping noise through the baby monitor. Little Gary sounded like he was getting restless. She was impressed he hadn’t started crying again yet, it must be time for his feed now and that snuffling on his breathing sounded like he was coming down with a really bad cold.

She drained the last dregs from the can of juice and stood up. She needed to keep her bearings this time. No more freaking out. She reached for her stick and tripped, her head hit the floor and the cut from earlier opened up again.

“For fuck’s sake girl, can you not even stay on your feet?” her mother’s voice again.

“Shut it Mam!” Simone reached round for her stick and, slowly, climbed back onto her feet. She tip-tapped to the doorway and paused, taking a moment to get her internal map correct before moving toward the baby’s bedroom.

The blood from the cut on her head trickled down the left side of her face and dripped from her chin onto her breast. She blinked her eyes to try to clear them of the blood and then used her sleeve to wipe it clean. If Wayne was here he’d do it for her, he’d take his time, tenderly wiping her face with his strong hands. She needed him back soon.

Her stick missed the wall and entered swung into openness. She was at the baby’s room and his snuffling breathing was clearly audible here. Nine paces straight ahead and she was at his cot. Reaching in she realised he wasn’t at the same end where she’d lain him earlier and the bedding was ruffled and… was that torn? When did that happen? Wayne could sort more bedding out when he got back.

She felt round the cot till she found the baby. His temperature was down and he certainly was more active, trying to crawl already. She felt simultaneously proud that he was such an advanced child and sad that she couldn’t see it. His forehead felt damp, almost clammy. Poor mite, he’d gone from being too hot and now he was cold to the touch. She needed to put his pyjamas back on him. He’d catch his death lying there in just his nappy.

She lay him on his back again and felt her way to the drawers where she picked out a fresh pair of pyjamas. No wonder he was snuffling like that. Maybe her mother’s voice was right and she was a bad mothe… No she wasn’t. She loved this boy and would die for him. It wasn’t her fault she was blind and finding it difficult to cope.

She shuffled back to the cot and awkwardly started dressing Gary in his fresh new pyjamas. Bloody hell he was wriggling a lot, trying to suck at her wrist as she sat him to put his top on. “Calm down,” she said, pulling the top over his forehead, covering his face. “You need to get some clothes back on you.” She pulled at the lower hem of the pyjama top and heard the slight pop as his head was exposed again. She lay him down again and manipulated his arms through the sleeves.

“Are you trying to scratch Mummy?” she asked, as his little cold fingers closed over the fleshy section of her palm. “Good thing daddy cut your nails yesterday isn’t it? Oh yes it is.” She lifted the pyjama top to expose his stomach and blew a raspberry into his belly. Strangely this didn’t make him giggle the way it normally would.

“You must really be hungry. Are you a hungry Gary?” she asked him as she pulled his pants over his chubby cold legs. She ticked his feet but still he didn’t giggle. Wow! Normally his giggles when you tickled his feet were enough to set Wayne and Simone laughing like drains (whatever that strange northern expression meant).

“Now you’re all dressed and lovely, mammy’s going to feed you, is that what babby Gary wants? Is that what babby Gary wants?” Simone sat down with the baby on her knee and loosened her gown, exposing her bloodstained left breast.

The baby on her knee reached out, wriggling and grabbing for the breast with his short stubby arms. His snuffling became an excited gurgling noise.

“Be patient, you’ll get it in a second,” Simone cooed softly. “If you’re lucky, Daddy might be bringing you some proper food.” She stood Gary up and turned him round so he could suckle.

The baby grabbed her breast with both hands and started licking the blood from the nipple and surrounding skin.

“What are you doing?” Simone scolded gently as she placed the nipple securely in the baby’s mouth.

She grunted in pain as the dead baby in her arms bit down, tearing the nipple away and suckling on the blood that flowed out. He bit further and deeper, now the pleasure sensors in his brain did activate the giggle that Simone had wanted to hear.

She sat back, a beatific smile on her face.

—–

Wayne had driven straight home as fast as he could after leaving Mad-cat-lady’s house. He’d run over half a dozen zombies in the car, stopping to reverse over one that was still twitching. The fucking bastard things! He shot at another two as he drove past them, the bullets missing by considerable distances.

His house was a welcome sight and he practically raced up the stairs to the front door and threw himself in. Simone would make him feel happy again. He knew this as certainly as he knew the sun would rise again the next day on this blighted fucking world. Simone was what made this shithole worth living in since…

She wasn’t in the living room or kitchen so he ran to the baby’s room where he stopped dead in his tracks and took the gun very slowly from his pocket.

Simone looked up from her chair. The baby was in her lap, clearly dead and chewing at her breast, gurgling and snuffling happily. The blood covered his chubby cheeks as he turned and grinned at Daddy.

“I told you he wanted to start on solid food.” Simone said.

He raised the gun and checked the magazine. In a final prayer to the bastard gods he no longer believed in, he wished “Please god, let there be three bullets left…”

Turn left at the light. Hit the interstate. Just keep driving. Don’t worry, I know where we’re going.

Always in control, the true pilot of our vacations. I just navigated us where she said to go.

Somewhere along the lines, I got turned around. It didn’t dawn on me until I fled Jolapa, my skin still crawling with the thought of how close I came to being supper to an old man’s dead wife. Part of me wanted to turn around, go back to that small town right out of Mayberry and put the dead out of their misery. But, it had been too close. I wanted to see another living person so bad my judgment had been clouded and I put myself in danger.

It would be morning again before I thought much about the direction I had been going. The truth was I had been heading toward Charleston, the opposite direction of Tablerock. I wasn’t even on the right interstate—26 not 385 like I should have been.

It dawned on me when I saw the sign for Summerville, a little town that claimed the Sommerville Lights as one of its main attractions—a female ghost who was always searching, lantern held high, for her loved one. I pulled onto the shoulder, stared at the sign. Charleston was a few miles down the road—one of the bigger cities in South Carolina. There would be thousands of zombies swarming about that area.

I laughed, trying to keep from getting aggravated. I didn’t succeed.

“Damn it, Humphrey. We’ve been going the wrong way.”

It reminded me of the time Jeanette and I had taken a wrong turn once before. Healing Springs had been the destination, a little elbow just outside of the small town of Blackville.

“None of this looks familiar,” Jeanette said as she watched the world pass outside her window. It rained the night before and the morning air was still cool. Gray clouds loomed in patches, surrounded by the clarity of blue skies.

“I thought you said take 321.”

“I don’t think that’s right.”

“You did say to go through Gaston, right?” I asked, pulled along the shoulder of the highway.

“Yeah, but we didn’t pass the dump or the airport or—”

“The airport?”

She nodded. “Yeah, the airport. We should have gone by the airport.”

“Babe, that’s fifteen minutes from the house—we’ve been driving for an hour. That didn’t hit you until now.”

She stared at me, blinked a couple of times, her eyes telling me she thought we were lost.

“That’s Edmond Highway,” I said. “It’s the other way. I go that way to work everyday, remember?”

Jeanette bought a GPS shortly after that trip, kept a notebook with travelling notes in it, just in case the GPS died on the way. She became obsessive in her research of where and when. We never got lost again.

And there I was, on the side of the road staring up at the big green sign that said Summerville 1 Mile.

“We have to go back.”

Humphrey said nothing.

I lowered my head to the steering wheel, my heart and hopes deflated. The longer it took me to get to Tablerock, the less chance I had of ever finding my family alive. I had taken too long already, spending three months in our hometown, wiping out as many of the dead as I could, burying them where I killed them. I lifted my head, punched the steering wheel. The horn had long since been dead and gave only a thump when I struck it. “Shit,” I yelled. “Shit. Shit. Shit. Damn it.”

Up ahead I saw a handful of the dead coming toward me. Their bodies wavered from side to side as they lumbered toward me. My face grew hot with anger, jaws clenched tight. “Fuckers,” I said as I thought of my brother, Rick, how the doctors let him die after they realized what was going on. I thought of Davie Blaylock and how a group of six or seven of those rotting creatures cornered him in the hallway of Tallie Holmgrend’s house. His screams were loud, but he managed to get one shot off before they tore him apart. I thought of Jeanette and Bobby, of how they begged me to go with them before I sent them away with my baby brother. I thought of Lee, the oldest of our group of five siblings and the rapid descent from healthy young man to the fragile, blood vomiting shell of himself and how his eyes held fear in them as he died while laying on the floor of a furniture warehouse.

“Little Bro, promise me you won’t let me get like that. Promise me you’ll put me down before I die.”

I had promised, but in the end, I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t kill my own flesh and blood, even as his eyes held hope and fear all at the same time. I had stared at his lifeless body, the warmth gone out of it, the stench of his bowels and bladder release hanging in the air. When his foot twitched—a slight movement I barely caught—I backed away, waited a moment for another body spasm that came in the form of that same foot moving, the knee bending enough to make it look like he would stand.

No gun has ever been heavier for me than my rifle as I stood above him, the barrel aimed for his forehead. When his eyelids fluttered, then opened, I squeezed the trigger. Fear had swallowed me whole at that point. I couldn’t let him get up. I might not have been able to put him down if I had waited any longer.

I thought of Pop, repressed the look in his eyes as he put the gun to his head with Lee and I standing there. His back had been mauled by several of them and death was imminent. His body slumped to the floor, his life ended by his own hands rather than coming back—it was the only way for him to be sure he would remain dead.

“This is my burden,” he said when we told him to let us take care of it. “Not yours.”

All these thoughts raced through my head as the zombies lurched toward my truck, coming from the woods and the overpass and just down the interstate. I opened the truck door, grabbed my pistol and rifle, slung the machete over my shoulder. The pistol went into my waistband.

“What are you doing?” I like to think that was Humphrey, but the truth is it was probably just me in my state of grief and anger and the close call from the day before and how fucking fast the world went to hell all rolled up into a package ripe for exploding.

“Hey,” I yelled to the nearest one as I approached it. “You want some of this? You hungry?” I did what all stupid men do in times of extreme anger. I ripped my shirt off, slung it to the ground and beat on my chest. A show of defiance to a world gone insane.

I no longer saw people trapped inside decomposing shells, their memories and feelings still intact, their souls still very much bound to their bodies. What I saw was death, a bunch of grisly grim reapers, their hands and mouths their scythes.

“Come on, bitch,” I said to the woman with matted brown hair, her jaw slack, tongue lulling from between yellowed teeth.

The machete came from off my shoulder and I dropped the sheath to the ground. I swung it in a high arch, the blade striking her just above the left ear and severing the top of her head. She shuddered before dropping.

“Who’s next?” I yelled, turned to see an old man, his button up white shirt half open, a chunk of flesh missing from his chest. “Is it you? Are you ready for this?”

He groaned or growled. I’m not sure which. I swung the machete down as hard as I could, split his skull in half all the way to his upper lip.

There were others—more than I thought at first, but anger and hate combined together is a powerful motivator… and an all too dangerous form of gasoline. Another woman was followed by a little girl, her skirt dirty, part of her leg missing. Two younger men came in quick, freshly dead. The pistol took them down. I focused on the singular zombies with distance between them and the nearest one.

A middle aged man groaned as we neared each other. I screamed back at him before taking the top of his head off with the machete. The pistol took out several more, just click and boom and down they went.

I spun and saw another zombie moving toward me. His glasses were still on his face, though hanging cock-eyed, just on the tip of his nose. His hair was short, a few cowlicks kicked off the edges. He was thin and all I could think was Paul Marcum taking a bite out of Lee, essentially ending my oldest brother’s existence. The man looked similar to him.

I backpedaled to the truck, climbed in the bed and shoved aside part of the tin can alarm system. There were other guns back there, plenty of ammunition, but all I wanted was a vantage point.

The other dead approached, their stench filling the air, making my stomach churn. Even after these few months that smell still makes me want to heave. I plucked them off one by one until only the Paul Marcum look alike was standing at the tailgate. He was missing three fingers on one hand and up close he was a lot worse off than I originally thought. Skin had peeled away from his face, exposing facial muscles as tough as jerky.

“How you doin’, Paul?”

He looked at me, gave a moan and stretched out his arms.

“Okay, so you’re not Paul—at least you weren’t in another life. But, today… Today, you’re Paul Marcum and you killed my fucking brother.”

I brought the heel of my boot down on the bridge of his nose. He stumbled backward, let out what sounded like a howl. He was in pain, and I was happy to put him through more of it. I jumped from the truck, landed a few feet from him. A quick whip of the machete on one arm and it split from his body.

“You think that hurt?” I yelled as he groaned. “You haven’t felt anything yet.”

I circle around him, rage having consumed me entirely. The blade found the other arm. The snap of bone and the rush of fetid blood spilled from a new wound as the arm fell away. Another pain-filled howl left the Marcum look-alike. I pulled the pistol from my waistband and took two shots at his legs—two wasted bullets that I’ll never get back, but at that time… at that time wounding an innocent man who unfortunately looked like another one was all I cared about. The zombie fell to the ground, lay there with no hands to pull himself along, his legs as useless as teats on a bull.

With the toe of my boot I rolled him onto his back. His teeth clattered together as he gnashed at me. His filmed over eyes held anger in them.

“You’re mad at me? Is that how it is, Paul? You kill my brother and you’re mad at me?” I laughed. Maybe the wheels had finally come off the car and my mind had taken the short road to insanity. I don’t know, but at that moment—that frozen horrible moment in time—I didn’t care about the pain the dead must have been in, the fear that must have been sitting in their undead veins. The only thing that mattered was revenge. Plain and simple. And revenge I would have.

I brought the blade down on the dead man’s chest, yanked it out, slung it down again. Over and over I bashed the body of the poor man as black blood spilled from each wound and the dead tissues tore free, bones broke. After several minutes I finally stopped, my arms aching a little, my breathing heavy and harsh in my ears. The zombie still stirred, his mouth still opening and closing, his eyes still focused on what could have been a meal.

And the anger was gone from me, all of it unleashed on that poor dead man. I shook from adrenaline and sudden guilt. A hand went to my mouth and I dropped the machete to the ground. I took several steps back until my back hit the tailgate. The man still moved, still made little groans and moans and his head turned from side to side like he was saying no no no no over and over again.

I pulled out my pistol, walked the short distance to the mutilated body and pulled the trigger. The man’s head ruptured and he stilled. Hands shaking, I got into the truck, closed the door and locked it. I could feel Humphrey’s eyes on me, sense his disappointment.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered as I stared out the windshield at the carnage around me. The dead were truly dead, their bodies lying where I felled them.

“Feel better?”

I looked down at Humphrey. He stared straight ahead.

“Not really,” I answered.

“You’ve blood on the side of your face.”

I ran a finger along one cheek, wiped the black gunk from it and stared at my finger for a while. Wiping the blood onto my pants I cranked up the truck. “Reckon we should be going?”

“Yes, we should.”

I didn’t bother looking down at the stuffed bear with its floppy bunny pajama ears. He wouldn’t be looking at me—or at least not when I turned to him.   With the truck in gear I pulled onto the road, weaving in and out of the bodies. Up ahead about a mile the Summerville exit would take me off the interstate. I could circle back and end up in the opposite direction, heading back toward home and, hopefully Tablerock…

There should be nothing in their caves that would have allowed them to grow. There was only moss, exposed bedrock, volcanic debris, and small insects. But somehow, they did grow — stronger, more disfigured as they holed deeper and deeper inside the subterranean caverns.

It started with four missing children in the village. They swore to never being near those kids, swore with their inch-long incisors and the yellowish glow in their eyes. We believed them. Weeks later, we found the four corpses in the marshes. The nails and hair were longer. The rib cages were ripped open. A bloodied portion of a butterfly wing was clutched in the hands of one of the dead children.

The first of the creatures we killed during the weeklong hunt was unrecognizable. The darkness must have transformed it to point that even its eyes, when fully opened, were just pinpricks of light. In time, we realized that the second-generation creatures would outgrow the use of their eyes. In time, they would have no need for eyesight. When they retreated away from our spears, there was nothing inferior in their gait, nothing harmless in the protrusions on their stunted wings.

“Dear Grandpa, and all my honored forefathers, please bless your humble and unworthy granddaughter-in-law the strength to overcome these series of unfortunate events that have besieged the peace of our village. I seek your guidance in all my actions, so that in turn, I can help protect the villagers, just as how all of you, my fathers have been—honoring the family and shouldering the responsibilities. I’ll do whatever I can to stop the evil at bay until Zhenjing return. My fathers, please ensure his return! I will be forever thankful.”

The ancestral hall was dark. No windows opened, a lone candlelight flickered slightly as she left it on the round table. Small feeble rays of sunlight pierced through the little creaks of the old wooden doors.

I have to do this. It is the only way our village can survive, and I’m the only person that stands between all my family and friends, and them.

She stood in front of a large drawing, crafted by Grandpa countless years ago, with only his calligraphy brush and ink. The phoenix was an exceptionally beautiful bird—glorious stature, proud demeanor, graceful yet strong. Only Grandpa can instill such dignified artistry with only the black ink.

She turned away from the drawing, and walked forward in a straight line. “Thirty-four, thirty-five, thirty-six,” she finished counting her steps and looked at the thirty-sixth tile, and with a heavy kick, the tile burst open, revealing the ultimate weapon of the Jia household.

Grandpa’s warnings spoke in her mind.

It is said that the wielder of the Phoenix is bestowed with the courage of a lion, cunningness of a fox, accuracy of a striking viper, and the strength of ten bulls.

She pulled out a golden sword from the depths, its carvings intricate, gleaming ever so brightly and wondrously—a labor of ancient craftsmanship that no living possessed now. It brightened the dimmed hall and her spirit. The sword was lightweight and sharp, and Qiaohua, clutching the Golden Phoenix, was already feeling much more confident about herself.

But be warned, my children. The Golden Phoenix is a cursed blade. Though invincible in battles, those who wield the Phoenix are cursed with a shortened, unfortunate life. Use it only when all hope is lost.

She picked a few daggers from the weaponry wall, and her personal favorite—the shuangdao (double blades). She thanked the forefathers again, before heading out of the hall, the Phoenix answering the sunlight with its own powerful gleam.

She paused at the Middle Hall, where Grandma, and Zhenjing’s first wife—Ximei, or ‘Big Sister’ (the way Qiaohua, the second wife addressed her) were sitting and worrying.

“I’m ready, Grandma. I will hunt down all the sangsi and keep the village safe,” she said, with a determined tone. She knew her skills were a far cry from her father’s, and even her husband’s, but she must do whatever she can. Grandma was pleased, with tears rolling in her milky eyes, her frail fingers caressing the young woman’s cheek and said, “I’m sure you will make the Jia household proud, my granddaughter,”

Ximei, the first wife, was lying on the couch, with two servants flapping feather fans to keep her and her bulging belly cool, and to flap away the rotten stench of the sangsi that might ‘jeopardize’ the health of the unborn child, according to the village doctor. Ximei was never fond of Qiaohua. Qiaohua was younger, slender, and had the kind eyes she lacked. The harbored grudge for the second wife had become her second nature, but this time Ximei smiled at the younger woman, hands holding hands, and whispered softly, “Good luck, sister. And I will pray for your safe return,”

Hidden beneath the smirk was the evil laughter, knowing clear that Qiaohua would ultimately be sacrificed, as she could hear the collective moans of five hundred reeking, walking corpses pushing and slamming themselves onto the far gates, weakening their bars of safety by the minute. She couldn’t care less. She had the baby now, earning favors from Grandma and Zhenjing again, and when her husband returns from the imperial hunt, she will be the only one he set eyes upon.

Qiaohua bowed to them again, and headed out of the house. Everywhere she saw the women and children, desperate and frightened. The unholy moaning of the sangsi that lasted for days has broken their spirits. Food supply ran low as none of them would venture out of the village, and the local businessmen have stopped coming to trade. People were feeding on stale leftovers once fed to their dogs in a more peaceful time. The dogs were gone too, most of them slaughtered by their owners, their skinny meat cooked in tasteless stews, chewed to the bones. Life in the village was not so different from life of those pounding at the gates.

It had been three weeks since the men left the village to assist in the hunt for sangsi, as commanded by the government. Men from Old Mister Thousand Wrinkles, to little Ming Ming that had only started his puberty growth, all forced to join the ‘imperial hunt’.

The sangsi swarmed to the village, and without the previous fortified efforts of the men, they would have crept in, threatening the lives of all the helpless, the frail, and the young. Being the wealthiest and most powerful, all eyes looked upon the Jia household for hope and resolution, and with the men gone, it was up to Qiaohua, and Qiaohua alone.

She never reckoned it as suicide. It was always what she wanted—to contribute to the family and the village. She was another nobody, a daughter of a lowly peasant family, no education, no friends. ‘Second Lady’ of the Jia household was merely a name in disguise, as she was to work like all the servants, while every day withstanding the taunts and evil pranks of ‘Big Sister’. Unable to provide a child her husband craves, and her martial arts skills were deemed a ‘waste’ and a disgrace to the household, for it was dishonorable for a woman to wield swords.

Grandpa is no longer here to protect me. My Zhenjing, my only love, when are you coming back? I need you in my arms, I longed for your presence! But I have to stay strong, in order to see you again!

The day had come for Qiaohua to prove her worth. And if she cannot succeed, she would die trying.

“Madam Yong, open the small gateway please,”

It was far from the main gates, where the sangsi hordes were gathering. The small gateway was almost hidden and impossible for a person to get in. Fortunately for Qiaohua, she was petite and short, even for women of her age, and she squeezed through easily, her flexible limbs helped inching her way out.

She heard a faint good luck from Madam Yong before the small gateway was shut again.

Keep calm, Qiaohua. Today is the day you’ve been living for.

Yet her heart was pounding so loud she was sure that all sangsi could hear her. Every few steps into the wilderness, she looked behind her shoulders, afraid that her presence may be detected. Every passing of a bush led her fingers to clench at her weapons, any moment a grey hand may reach out and grab at her.

As if self-prophesizing, she felt a grip on the sleeves, and instinctively she drew out her shuangdao and instantly beheaded the stinking devil before it could moan for others to come. The headless body stumbled to the ground, its fingers still reaching out to her for a brief moment and eventually stopped moving.

That was her first close encounter with the undead. She studied the fallen predator—maggots and centipedes and all sorts of wriggling little creatures rearing their ugly heads out of the various wounds. The skin was of greenish grey, the staring eyes red and violent, pieces of human flesh still sticking on the dirty yellow teeth. It was almost half-naked, its tattered silk clothing barely covering embarrassing parts.

This girl is an aristocrat from the capital! Zhenjing has dealings with that class of wealthiest of the wealthy. Serve her right, this spoiled brat.

With the agility of a cat, Qiaohua climbed atop of a tree, and from there she could see the undead congregation at the main gates. No differences in class or wealth for the sangsi, a thousand hands waving frantically for the same wants and needs—blood and flesh.

Among the trees were several sangsi, roaming aimlessly and occasionally stumbling on tree stumps or knocking themselves on boulders and plants. Qiaohua ambushed the wandering ones with her quick blades, never giving them an opportunity to moan and scream, she was too fast for any of them.

Unfortunately, fate decided to test her, as she failed to pull her stuck blades from a skull. The nearby undead had saw her before she could silence it.

The moan immediately attracted a massive bunch of sangsi towards her, and stealth was no longer a necessary. Qiaohua stabbed the moaning sangsi through its eye socket, and without pulling out, she flung the blade and the broken head to the two approaching ones. The heads collided on each other, and diseased brains spewed out all over the ground.

Lead the sangsi away from the main gates!

She zigzagged her way through the woods, whistling and shouting as she went, her shuangdao beheading the devils, stabbing eyes, spilling more rotten brains, sometimes even splitting their stinky grey bodies into two. Every stab and every chop accompanied with the familiarly strict, yet terribly missed voice of her father in her head.

“Too slow, Qiaohua, you need more speed!”

“A slash must not only be quick, but equipped with formidable strength, to ensure your enemies to fall and never get up!”

“That stab is not accurate!”

“Again!”

It was like training in her youth again, except instead of practicing on wooden statues, she was facing moving, and deadly creatures.

“Come on! Come on! Over here!” she taunted as she moved to higher ground. More than a hundred severed heads rolled down the hill but the sangsi hordes knew nothing about fear. There were driven only by hunger and thirst for blood, all slouching and lurching forward even as many of their comrades earned their final deaths. Arms are still stretched forward, fingers clawing for the fresh prey that stood not far away.

She was nearly ambushed by the two silent ones that stood before her, and again she failed to pull out her shuangdao as they were stuck in those gritted teeth. She cursed at her uselessness, as more were emerging from behind and closing on to her, and she pulled out her dozens of daggers from the already filthy and tattered battle dress. Years of practice in blindfold served its purpose, as her flying daggers were accurate and deadly.

Finally she was surrounded from all sides. She was out of daggers, and the shuangdao was gone. Yes, so here shall be my final stand, I will cut down as many of them and I shall slit my own throat when I fail. I would never be one of them.

She looked to the direction of the main gates, and she smiled. The remaining villagers had been re-fortifying the entrance when she distracted the sangsi devils to the hill.

Her arms were shaking involuntarily with fatigue, her battle dress soaked with sweat and fallen leaves stuck on her disheveled hair. She had been reluctant to use the Golden Phoenix. She knew there would be a payment of blood for wielding the cursed sword.

I’ll rather die by the curse, than becoming a monster!

At last, the Phoenix was unleashed. She raised the sword to the heavens, the great rays of golden light blinding her pursuers. It was like the Gods finally anointed her with their powers to cleanse and purify their lands.

With reformed strength and confidence, Qiaohua charged towards the diseased crowd. She was invincible. The sword enhanced her speed and courage, deflected all her weaknesses, and she spun around like the most powerful typhoon. Each and every sangsi that touched itself with the Phoenix fell and never stood up again.

The Phoenix ended its battle song as Qiaohua crushed the last moving skull and jumped out of the wall of corpses that lay around her. She could hardly believe it. She never thought she could come out of it alive.

At last she reached the gates, and being too tired to carry on, she collapsed and closed her weary eyes.

Qiaohua stirred and awakened from sleep to find herself in her own chambers. She was bathed and put in tidy clothes, the Golden Phoenix resting on the mirror desk.

She was grateful of the sword. She knew she would be cursed, her life shortened, but she was grateful, for now. Even happier for her was that Grandma and Big Sister were sitting beside her, and smiling proudly.

“You did well, Qiaohua. Grandma is so proud of you, and so glad that you are awake now. The whole village is celebrating,”

Qiaohua smiled although she did not care for any celebrations. Through her cracked lips she whispered, “Grandma, any news of Zhenjing yet?”

“Yes, my dear. We have word that he would return tomorrow,” replied Big Sister with a grin, as she caressed her belly.

“Is the baby alright. Big Sister?”

“Yes, I think he will be. The doctors said it is coming out real soon,”

“I’m glad. Finally there will be a son for Zhenjing,”

Grandma soon retired to her own chambers, as a servant arrived with a bowl of chicken soup. Ximei sent her off and insisted on feeding Qiaohua by herself.

“Come, sit up. You must be tired and hungry. I’ve made you some soup,” she helped Qiaohua adjusting herself and the pillows, blew lightly to cool the soup, and raised a spoonful to Qiaohua’s lips.

“Thank you, Big Sister. I know you’re strict to me, but I also know how much you cared for me,”

“It is alright, my dear. It is actually my fault. My jealousy has made me cruel towards you in the past. I hope you’ll forgive me,”

“I’m never angry at you, Big Sister. As second wife, it is my duty to take care of Zhenjing and to also obey you and the rules of the household,” and she nodded for more of the delicious soup. It was the first time ever she was treated so kindly and graciously by her in-laws.

“Thank you for understanding, my dear. And with a new baby soon, our family will be prosperous. Grandma would be most pleased,”

“Yes Big Sister. When I’m suitable, I will go to the town and get you some incense, and we shall honor the ancestors together, as sisters,”

“I should never ask more from you, Qiaohua,”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Big Sister. Your words are my duties,”

“I hope you’re not mad if I ask for another favor,”

She stood up, and placed the half-emptied bowl on the table.

“I want you dead, my dear,”

She cackled softly when she saw Qiaohua’s horror and agony all over her face.

“My recipe of Black Scorpion Chicken Soup. Enjoying it, stupid bitch? In a minute you shall be dead, and forever Zhenjing will be by my side. I had enough of the lonely nights when you seduced him to your chambers, and all the arguments we had because of you! And with my baby, I will gain the favors of Grandma, while you shall rot in hell!”

Qiaohua fumbled towards the Phoenix and overturned the bed side table, while Ximei, in fear of Qiaohua attacking and the dangerous spill of the ‘soup’, immediately took a few hurried steps backwards. She clutched at the edge of the closet and balanced herself again. The baby kicked hard.

Regaining herself, she saw Qiaohua reaching for the sword, but was too tortured by the internal pains to stretch out any further. Ximei smiled again, knowing that she was of no threat to her, picked up the Phoenix and pointed on Qiaohua’s neck.

“I’ve waited for today…for such a long, long time,”

The blood sprayed all over the bed as she slashed onto the throat, the red moisture sunk into the fabrics of pillows and mattresses, and Qiaohua gulped and choked in pain. It was almost an eternity before the blood stopped spilling, and she stopped breathing. Ximei wiped her face clean, and placed the sword into the hands of her dead competitor.

What are you smiling at, stupid bitch?

As the lightning stricken the sky with sudden lights, she saw the eerie smile that did not seem to go away. In her crazed fright, Ximei squeezed at those cheeks to pull that smile off of her face.

“Stop it! I want you to stop that stupid smile and go to hell!”

The smile was plastered on the blood-splattered face and refused to dissolve. Ximei raised the Phoenix and gave the face a dozen slashes, disfiguring all the beautiful features, and still, the smile was inextinguishable.

“You…stop it you crazy bitch…”

The eyes flipped open and stared at her murderer.

Ximei hurriedly sped off from the room and ran back to her chambers, shaking as she went.

Stop that, you stupid baby. Damn!!

It dawned to her that it was no usual kick. The baby was coming out, and soon she was attacked by a frenzy of pain and agony. Maids rushing in and out of her chambers became a blur. The midwife spoke to her but she could no longer catch those unintelligible mutterings and before long she rested her eyes into oblivion. She dreamed of moaning creatures, eerie smiles, and black scorpions climbing all over her.

Ximei stirred and awakened in her own chambers. She was bathed and put in beautiful, prosperous red. She was too weak and exhausted to even move her fingers.

Grandma was cradling the baby in her arms, with maids surrounding her, afraid that by any minute her frail bony arms may slip the baby, but Grandma held him tight, it was her precious treasure.

“You did well, Ximei. Grandma is so proud of you, and so glad that you are awake now. The whole village is celebrating,”

Ximei smiled back. But she wanted to have her own celebrations. Her success demands some compensation. Through her cracked lips she whispered, “Grandma, any news of Zhenjing yet?”

“Oh yes, word has it that he’ll reach the gates soon,”

“I want to go and see him! Take me to him!”

“Oh sure, my dear. Flower and Grass, take First Lady to the gates,” The maids bowed and carried Ximei off her bed. As they passed through the village, the inhabitants were all packed in their ‘Sunday best’ and were beaming at her. Grandma was nodding and smiling at them too.

Yes of course, I deserve all these.

“Oh, those gates,” exclaimed Grandma, “This is tiring, walking all the way. Now all of you, just tie her up here,”

The servants moved towards the confused Ximei, rope in their hands and quickly she was under its spell.

“Grandma, I don’t understand! I honored the family! I brought you a son!”

“I know, my dear. I know,” she gave a toothless grin, “Once again I’m going to ask a favor from you,” And before Ximei could answer, Grandma turned her back and left with the baby and the maids. The villagers bowed before her and followed.

They reached the main gates and she was tied to a stick. And there she was, dangling in the air as a hundred sangsi swarmed below her, desperate hands clawing at her but a few inches out of reach. Yet every one of them was excited to see her, the sweat and fear certainly appealed to their appetite.

She screamed and screamed until she could do it no longer. From the far corner of her eyes she saw the small gateway creaked open as the villagers fled to safety, no fear of pursuit as all the undead set their eyes upon her.

“Zhenjing!” she exclaimed in voiceless joy, as the tall, well-built, and strong familiar figure came from behind the trees, along with all the men of the village.

Her brave husband coming to rescue her at last!

Look! The way he pushed and tore his way into the creatures with his bare hands!

Her smile vanished as her seven feet tall husband easily grabbed her delicate feet and ripped her toes off.

While still crunching on her toenails, his lips torn out by the other hungry sangsi contesting for a bite. He did not care. He was far too happy to taste her wife again.

It was that same eerie smile on his face.