FADE DOWN. That was”The Liberty Bell March” by John Philip Sousa, better known to most of you basement-dwelling, bong-scraping mold gnomes as the theme from ‘Monty Python’s Flying Circus.’ Aaaand… we’re back. Well, I am. Fearless Leader is a harder case to argue. As my Dad used to say, he went to defecate and the swine devoured him.

WHAT? I’d say, and laugh, and Dad, who was the son of an old vaudeville hoofer, would bellow back, “HE WENT TO SHIT AND THE HOGS ATE HIM!”

Yeah, that’s right, FCC, I said ‘shit.’ Piss, cock, cunt, cocksucker, motherfucker and tits, as well, may George Carlin be looking down at all this and still shaking, shaking, shaking his sad head at the job I did stacking file cabinets three deep over and around every door, a kind of File Stonehenge, if you will, trilithons of metal buttressed up and down with others after their kind, across every point of ingress or egress in and out of the main studio.

All but one, and that one is covered with a trip-wire I rigged to the slaughtering-gun that Shorty and Dutch the evening shock-jocks picked up at the scenic Willamette Valley Stockyards. It fires a steel rod at something like two hundred miles an hour, and stands now Duct-taped onto a tripod to aim at roughly head level for a person of average height.

We were all going to get fired, just before the Big One hit. All of us. Ratings were down. Dutch’s solution was to bring in every kind of weird toy he could get his hands on, just so they could play drunken ‘MythBusters’ on the air and get paid for it before contracts came up for renewal and the swish, swish, swish of the guillotine blade began…

Dutch’s toy I have trained on that one door looks like a big caulking gun mated with a slingshot, just fires this long steel rail, thwipp, right through the head, just where that guy Shaun Partridge on Public Access says is the only place you can shoot the crumblees where they’ll stay down. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle your ammo.

Bring out your dead! But I’m not quite dead yet, I feel….

I feel like I am so sick and tired of these Meal Ready to Eat packs I could jump on the Boss and eat him myself. But I’m somehow horribly sure that a former someone or someones has recently saved me the trouble of doing so, or even handing in my resignation.

I feel like my eyes are starting to sink in their sockets, my skin to leach pale, my very soul to hunger for a window, a tree, a running stream…

I feel like going for that walk, all right, before some crumblee clubs me like a baby seal with someone else’s severed limb.

But I have all this music we couldn’t play, before. Anyway, you guys, that was an uninterrupted block of… lemme see, three in a row from the Butthole Surfers, Hank Williams the Third’s cover of ‘Cocaine Blues’ by the Old Man in Black himself, the late and hopefully still late Johnny Cash and… that little blast from the past I’ve been using for our new station ID, “People Who Died” by the late and also hopefully still-late Jim Carroll, of the former and probably-still-former Jim Carroll Band.

Work’s been tough lately, loyal listeners. Nicky, the Boss, was the only human being I’ve seen in close to six weeks. Felt just like those monthly safety meetings we had down here, where he’d get me to run down to Andy and Bax for some dumb damn thing like an Army flashlight or some MRE’s. “Company policy,” Nicky informed me, “from the Cold War.”

Ah. I thought about that then. From back when the radio news was considered at least the second or third line of defense during an imagined nuclear attack… But I don’t think Murrow or Kronkite or even Rod Serling could have ever imagined the…abortion… Yeah, I said it, Corporate, abortion, that has swallowed our cities and our civilization whole out there tonight, you guys, and I… I need you all to listen, and use your fucking heads, and… and not go wild with them.

I need you all to shoot for their heads, or burn them. I need you to always leave a round in the chamber for your pal the Foole; well, for yourself, actually. I grew up Catholic, and they say suicide’s a mortal sin, but I’ll take gettin’ whacked in the knuckles for all eternity by Sister Mary Borborygmus to becoming a GWAR-style deli tray for a bunch of…

(Ulp.) The Boss and Shannon Z the Program Director were the only other folks down here with me when the virus, or whatever the fuck this stuff is, reached us. Shame about Z. I always… never mind. She was smart and funny and beautiful and they even ate her bones, they ate her fucking bones, you guys, just crunched them up like Kibble, and I was shooting, you best believe it, but they move so fast when they get in a Charlie Foxtrot sorta pattern, like our one sound guy used to say…

That wasn’t the worst, though. For those just tuning in to this broadcast that has already been in progress round the clock one way or the other for close to seven weeks now and just got a lot more fuckin’ difficult…

Just before we lost all cell phone reception the first week, when we had to actually move this broadcast down here to the studio in the shelter, my wife Lisa’s frantic call in to the show was… Truncated, shall we say? Service Not Available? The Subscriber You Are Trying To Reach Has Just Been Devoured, Please Try Your Call Again Later?

I heard Lisa, my Lisa, dragged through the front window by a wall of rotting meat that moved and swayed in a fungal macumba. I could all but smell the wave and wash of stink, and feel the hideous flock mind. I could…

Shit, need a new bottle of this Old Crow stuff. Any… port in a storm. Dad always said, ‘Never follow an idiot.’ So I’m stayin’ right… here. Here’s one for you, Lisa, from the Violent Femmes, “Please Please Please Please Please Do Not… Follow An Idiot’, I mean ‘ Please Do Not Go’ ..”

#

Excellent. I have found the new bottle and will soon climb back on the mic, as I did when this shitstorm started and will continue to do until everything runs out or they bust in to get me.

Back in three minutes and change, all you out there in ham radio land or dumb luck radio land or steel plate in your head radio land or whoever’s listening to me. The beacon’s on, and I will disarm all defenses if, on camera and on air, you can name for me at least one member of the B-52’s. “Fuck you, fat boy, let me in,” is also an acceptable answer. Just show me you’re breathing.

Shit. I’ve fallen. Legally inab… able… to operate this chair. Fucker. No, see, the way I see it, the Book of Revelation is happening out there Right Now. We gotta come together, right now, and watch, and wait. The graveyards are clean of stones, and all the butchered dead have come home to their destroyers. Us. We did this. Somehow, some way, we didn’t listen.

Some way. Deny it all you want. Like so many other disasters, this one was an inside job.

But Comedy’s just Tragedy plus Time. Tragedy and Time will never run out, here, and Johnnie Law won’t be by any time soon. Nor will the vending machine guy, more than likely.

Our only guests to the lovely station will be introduced to the steel front doors the Boss electrified himself. Those still work, at least. I just have no idea how Joey Genovese, Nicky Tesla to the listeners, could have gotten pinched inside this tiny little glorified office building. I thought I had all the doors covered.

Let’s go to the phones. We’re gonna go back to my buddy Lon Roberts in Alpine, Oregon on his scanner. Lon, you got your ears on, come back?

Is this that weirdo up in Portland on the radio? God damn you, you get me the Army Navy Air Force Marines Coast Guard or some fuckin’ shit or you …

I’m sorry, Lon. I still can’t hardly do jack squat from where I sit, good buddy. The crumblees got me in a querencia. You said before that they’re getting smarter?

Shit, yeah! Can’t get nowhere near the hospital or the old Safeway. They’re tryin’ to starve us out one way or t’other, they…

Say, whatever in the hell you call yourself, I can’t… I can’t hear you any more. What is your situation, son? Acknowledge! Acknowledge! Acknowledge!

Lon, I…

I’m an idiot.

All of a sudden, a very cold idiot, who doesn’t want to look anywhere, or admit that the sounds he’s been hearing for a while are in fact sounds, ah God, Mama, Jesus…

In the Employees’ Washroom, see, there’s this trapdoor in the floor I would have thought about if I’d ever seen anybody use it in a hundred billion years, I swear to the Father Son and Holy Ghost and I never barricaded that door because it’s the only—

Oh.

(labored breathing)

Oh, hell no, Joey.

You’re not Joey.

You were never really that bad of a guy in life, just kind of lived in your own little… This ain’t… Don’t. Joey. You’re gonna… trip the…wire…Joey… Oh, I can’t look.

(THHHWIP.)

(THUD.)

Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ save me from what I see here on the floor.

The hole in Joey’s head is big enough to whistle through. The bolt is stuck in the drilled white composition-board soundproofing behind him.

I think of the Band Room back at Catholic school. I think of my mic still being on, you guys, and I think there is something else in here with me if I could just get to the light—

[SOUNDS NO HUMAN BEING SHOULD BE ABLE TO MAKE]

[DEAD AIR]

#

Hurt. No-time. Long-time no-time long-time hurt hurt hurt Foole hurt so hungry down here in this hole with the other one, the kill, my kill. In the hole in the road, the hole to get under the road, outside WORK outside JOB outside STATION, fall far down hole in road.

When there was no more Living-food at STATION WORK, just that one guy to begin with, ever since NICKY took a chunk out of me and I sent the fuck through the wall, but not before…

No more Living-food there much anyway, just that one roadie guy. I felt… I felt bad, but I was starving, I was in so much pain, and…

Well, let’s face it. I don’t think we were gonna get the zombie vaccine outta that brain. I fed the pain away, and drank the blood from his brain and felt… Felt… STONED. He got stoned before work. I felt it. I could… slow down, think sideways, make connections the living only make when they’re…

#

Stoned. Oh, my god, like when I was alive and I told… I told them a joke, I… I’m standing here in front of the open manhole out on First Avenue that I just kicked him down when I was done. I didn’t eat any more than I had to.

I feel better… but as I look at my hands, and elsewhere, I realize that Better is a long way off. But something good is coming. Something—

#

CLOCK. The fire extinguisher swings from behind on the cowering janitor’s last resolve.

#

Hurt. No time. Fool fall far down into manhole. Foole hurt.

Foole fall far…

#

Green flashlights with funny flickering patterns stitch my cenotaph. The soldiers in their plague-suits are flaming, flaming, flaming all around, laying flaming angelic wings for ten feet out in front of them, slow short bursts that drop clean trails, pour and dance, go Up…

UP… I sit up, on my broken back, and lock eyes with their alpha-dog. He sees. He looks local. I try to remember where my chest-voice is, and then I gamble the whole world:

“COURT FOOLE WITH YOU ON KRAK-105! LIKE TO GIVE A BIG SHOUT OUT TO THE MEMBERS OF THE UNITED STATES ARMED SERVICES WE HAVE VISITING THE UHH SUBTERRANEAN BRANCH OF OUR LOVELY STATION THIS… MORNING? AFTERNOON? ALL KINDA THE SAME DOWN HERE SINCE I GOT TAKEN OUT BY CLOYD THE AMAZING MOP-JOCKEY AND HIS FIRE EXTINGUISHER OF LOVE! HOW ‘BOUT A HAND FOR CLOYD—“

Everywhere, everywhere, my words make the flames suck back into the dark, back up each and every air-cooled bore. LED flashlights and Starlight goggles whicker on like flock telepathy.

“HOLD YOUR FIRE, GROUP,” their Sarge, who recognized me at first, announces quite unnecessarily, “IT’S REALLY HIM.”

Old Sarge draws closer, weapon drawn. “You move on me, I shoot you through the head, Weiland. We gonna have a problem?”

I shake my head, very slowly and painfully. “Just going to need some help up,” I whisper. “I don’t bite, gentlemen. That… that costs extra.”

I let two of the biggest grunts draw up at their sergeant’s hand-signal, and get me to my feet in one arm-bar each. It’s about the only thing keeping me up. Already, the Sarge begins to grouse.

“God damn it, this has got to be like the tenth one I’ve seen still had some kinda sense left in him. You know what kinda paperwork you just generated, Mister Dee Jay? We gotta come back for our dead twice as much, now, since… Oh, I guess you didn’t hear. Bad news: East of the Ohio River’s gone. Good news:

You’re gettin’ inoculated.” He spits. “This rate, I’ll have a deader for a boss.”

I listen, and try to keep up as best as I can, as they lead me out into the light…

#

I… Mommy made me mash my M&M’s. Red leather, yellow leather. Pink-trip slip for a three-cent fare, punch in the presence of the pass-en-jare… Okay. Not as much numbness. We can do this in one take.

This is the Court Foole on Radio Free Seattle. It has been five years, seven weeks and thirteen days since I received the vaccine. I was Patient Number Seventy-Two. Patient Number One, Whitney Streed, is here with us tonight. Stand up, Whitney, there in front… How about a big hand?

You people are the heroes of your own cause. You found me. You created the opportunity for Constitutional Convention 2.0. The borders are a bit smaller now than they were, but… What the hell, folks, less work. I’m just the schlub you picked to supervise this shift.

As the Grateful Dead …ha ha… once put it, what a long, strange trip it’s been. Even now, in this hallowed location, where most of the blood is gone from the walls and I stand with my hand on an old book and say a bunch of stuff that still doesn’t mean anything if you don’t apply it everywhere, and properly…

There’s so much work to do, so much wreckage to clear away. Even now, I have obligations hanging off me like chains from Marley’s ghost. Comes with the gig.

But it’s worth it. I look out at the horizon as it grows dark, as I solemly swear to preserve, protect, uphold and defend the Constitution of the New Provisional United States, so help me God, and all you kind listeners sweep forward in a roar of sound so loud I barely hear the

shot.

#

[END]

Considering what I had planned, you’d think I’d be all keyed up. But last night I’d been all alone in the house. The house that had been empty since my wife took our kids back to South Carolina, two weeks ago. My only companion had been a fifth of Jack and the week-old notice that I was being replaced at my job. It had arrived the same day as the third final notice from the pediatricians and the second final notice from the dentists.

“Dear Officer (fill in the blank) Despite your spotless record, seven years of service with no late days or absences and previous promises that you would be promoted to take charge of the Security Department at Malden College, we are throwing you out on your ass because we found a security company that was better than you at sucking up to us.”

Okay, I’m paraphrasing. You get the idea.

So I wasn’t attentive when I drove into the campus. I remember seeing the crashed police car near the gate, but it didn’t register at the time. My mind was somewhere else. Ditto for the several dozen students staggering around the campus and some general disorder. The crashed cars actually got my attention. It must have been a hell of a party. No ambulances though, so they must have gotten there already. Or so I thought. So I parked my rustbucket Crown Vic in my normal space and suddenly there’s a student throwing himself against the passenger door.

I got out. This kid was bloody. Slashed, on his face and arm. Reflex reminded me there was a first aid kit in the Security office, ten steps away in the Maintenance Building. “Hey! Student! What’s going on-”

I began walking towards him.

He snarled.

Suddenly, I noticed that half a dozen of the nearest students, the ones who’d been staggering around, were now staggering towards me.

“Flynn! Get down!” Tony Nudo, the old LT who bossed our department. An army vet, like me. Barking orders. Reflex cut in, I dropped.

Gunshot.

Another gunshot.

The bloody student dropped, half his skull missing. I looked at Nudo. His hand was bandaged. He was holding that .38 he thought none of us knew about, the one he kept under a false bottom of his desk.

“Ell-Tee, are nuts?”

“Get in here Flynn! Now!”

The other bloody students were staggering faster, coming towards me. Okay, something was off. Then the LT started firing, single, careful shots, dropping the students.

I had to stop this. I threw myself at him, tackling him as I shove him in through the door.

Somebody slammed and locked the door behind me. I heard hands pounding on the fire door.

Lt. Nudo didn’t seemed angry that I’d tackled him. The jowly old guy grinned and winked at me. “Good reflexes Danny. Not so hard next time though, okay? Help me up.”

Earl Helmuth, one of the University maintenance guys, had locked the door. He was holding an axe.

I got off the LT, moving so as not to do any more damage. The bandaged hand looked nasty enough. We were in the garage of the maintenance building. Around us were the University’s trucks, a backhoe, tractors, a lawn mower. The walls were hung with tools. The only windows were slightly above head level, for light, not sightseeing. I heard more banging at the door. “What the hell is going on? What happened to those students out there?”

“You’d know if your phone wasn’t off the hook, Flynn. Been trying to reach you since four this morning.” Groaning, the LT started up the stairs to the offices. “It started sometime last night. People acting crazy, biting each other. I got a call from Ericson, he said some of the students were acting crazy. When I got here, Ericson and Chang were gone, no idea where they went. I think those guys out there ate them.”

“Ate them?” For a moment, I thought, hoped, prayed it was a prank. For about two seconds. This was way beyond people’s ability to fake. We stepped into the security office. It looked bare. We’d been stripping out our personal stuff for the last week, ever since they told us we were all being fired. The incoming Security company had made it plain they had no intention of hiring any of us. I looked out the windows.

There were dozens of bloody people, standing around. One person running, chased by a staggering mob. More of them clustered around the dorms.

I could see Mount Hope hospital from the window. All eight stories were spewing smoke and fire. So much for ambulance service. “Any word on the guys who were replacing us?”

“Nary a one.”

Bainer, the youngest and newest of us, was watching the TV we kept in the office. “Yo, check this.They been repeating it for half an hour.”

The announcer, his perfect voice cracking, his perfect hair mussed. No tie. There were sweat stains in the armpits of his shirt. “The latest word from the Sheriff’s department is do not let anyone who has bite wounds or wounds of any kind touch you. It is some kind of disease, similar to rabies, causing individuals to attack and bite other human beings. The people who have been bitten then attack others, spreading the disease. We have unconfirmed reports – oh, come on! You can’t want me to – Okay, okay, I’ll read it. That these are the bodies of the dead. The recently dead. Somehow attacking the living. There’s another unconfirmed report that shooting them in the head is the only way to stop them.”

“Unconfirmed my ass.” The Lt. sat down in his chair, suddenly looking tired. He flipped open his pistol, replaced the expended rounds one handed as he waved his bandaged hand. “I put three slugs into the little girl who did this. Damn near took off my hand before I shot her between the eyes. Then she dropped. Just our luck the college always wanted their security to be unarmed, huh?”

Bainer swore. “Damn. Two tours in Iraq and I come home to this? I knew I never should have gone to work as unarmed security. What do we do now?”

“I got my twelve gauge out in my truck, if we can get to it.” Earl spoke up. His axe already had blood on the blade. It didn’t seem to make him any more confident. “Kinda makes me think of when I used to play dungeons and dragons. We’d have called them things zombies.”

Things began sliding into place in my head. I looked out the window. Dozens of those things. Zombies. Clustered around the dorms. Trying to bite people. If they were trying to bite people, those dorms must seem like a buffet to them.

My hangover had gone away. I got up and walked to my locker. “Y’know, I’ve never been the right man in the right place at the right time before. It feels pretty good.”

I opened my locker and pulled out the AKM inside it. The bag of six 30-round magazines for it as well. I tossed that to Bainer. “You did two tours in Iraq, you should know how to use that thing.”

Bainers’ eyes went wide. Then he crammed a magazine into the weapons and jacked the bolt, chambering a round.

I pulled the two TEC-9’s out of their back, shoved in the mags. Each had two 30 round magazines, jungle-clipped. The TEC-9 is a cheap piece of junk but it had been all I could afford and right now, it was 60 bullets I could fire off without reloading.

Lt. Nudo and Helmuth looked at me in shock. Bainer looked even paler than he had looked before. “What the hell were those doing in your locker?”

“I was a boy scout, El-tee. Be prepared, right?” Last, I pulled out the old Mauser rifle. I only had a hundred rounds for the ancient cannon, but what can you do? I handed it to Helmuth. “You can shoot this, right?”

Helmuth didn’t bother arguing. He loaded the rifle.

“Okay, Helmuth, you go up on the roof and start popping zombies with the Mauser. Us three, we’ll go out the side door. I don’t think there are any zombies there. We’ll clear the street.”

Bainer spoke up. “With this rifle, I can nail them with head shots from the roof too. AK’s aren’t’ accurate, but within a hundred yards, I can hit what I aim at.”

“Okay, you two go up on the roof and start clearing us some space. El-tee, you feel up to clearing the streets with me?”

He was looking pretty rough. But he got up. “You have the firepower, Flynn. Unless you’re willing to give me one of those TEC-9’s?”

I could actually grin. “No way in hell. Just watch my back.”

That was how we went out the side door. It was like clockwork. I’d been practicing with the TEC-9’s and in my hands, sixty bullets meant sixty dead zombies. Well, fifty, maybe. Forty definitely. A solid forty kills and change. I learned to concentrate on firing one at a time. Occasionally, I’d hear the LT pop one that was coming at us from the side. The guys on the roof were doing their job as well. We rolled up one side of the nearest dorm and down another. I barely had time for a clip change, as they came from all directions, looking for whoever was shooting. That made it easier. After a hot 15 minutes, most of the campus seemed clear. Except for bloody corpses, the non-moving kind.

One of the students from the dorm came running at me. I almost shot her before I recognized Annie Traxler, the Dorm manager for one of the girl’s dorms. She was carrying a baseball bat and wearing a hockey mask and work gloves. It looked kind of odd with the “Hello Kitty” T-shirt she had on, but who was I to judge? Besides, I liked her. She brought us cookies last Christmas. “Mr Flynn! Thank heavens you’re here. We’ve got those crazy people all around the outside of the dorm. They’ve tried to break in and bite us! They pulled- they pulled my best friends out and she screamed and-”

I was about to grab her by the shoulders when she steadied herself. “What do we do?”

“Barricade the ground floors and get everyone on the second and third floors of the dorms. Then find anything heavy, anything that might crack a skull and drop it on them from the third floor. See if you can find some kind of protective gear, anything to keep them from biting you. Gloves, leather jackets, football padding, whatever. And if they get in the building, you need some of your girls with clubs. Axes. Anything they can grab to bust these things in the head. You got that??

Just then, half a dozen of them came shambling towards us. Annie screamed. I popped them, then realized I had to be low on ammo. I had a couple of boxes of loose 9mm back at the locker to reload. I turned to Lt. Nudo. “Ell-tee, you got anything to..”

Nudo looked awful. Almost ready to faint. He was still trying to load his pistol. Annie grabbed him before he fell. “We need a doctor.”

“It’s way beyond that, Annie. Get back to the dorms and get your girls organized. If the cell phones are still working, can you call the kids in the other dorms, tell them what I told you?”

“I want to go with you. We don’t have any guns back at the dorms.”

“Annie, your people need you. You have to get them organized or they’ll all die.”

She sniffed and nodded, getting steadier. Then she kissed me on the cheek and ran back to her dorm.away.

Heh. Go figure. My last day of this job wasn’t what I’d expected.

I got Nudo back to the office, taking him up the stairs in a fireman’s’ carry. Every step reminded me of how out of shape I’d become the last ten years. Up on the roof, I could hear Helmuth and Bainer firing, slowly now. Good. Conserving ammo. I put the LT in a chair, looked at his bite mark. Dark red and black streaks were running up his arm. He was perspiring, panting for breath, fevered.

On the TV, I couldn’t help but hear one of the network doctors speaking frantically in a sing-song Indian accent. “This conforms to no known plague of any kind. There are over two hundred reported infection sites, scattered all over the world. There could be hundreds more not reported. This could be everywhere.”

“But what is the cure?” The network anchor, speaking in a desperate tone that I’m sure they don’t teach in broadcasting school.

“There is no cure. No antibiotics or anti-virals have even slowed the infection, let alone reversed it. Every bite victim, even those bitten in the most minor ways, all of them have died and then reanimated. There have been no exceptions.”

I looked at the Lt. He looked bad. Eyes red-rimmed, face pale. He handed me his .38. I took it, made him as comfortable as I could on the couch in the office, the ragged couch we put against the wall when they pulled out half of our lockers. “I don’t want to be one of those things, Flynn. You’ll take care of that, won’t you?”

“Gotcha covered, El-tee. Y’know, I was pretty mad at you this morning, but, well, hell, you been a good guy to work for.”

“And you were always a whiny pain in the ass, Flynn. But I could always count on you.”

He gave his last chuckle then. It turned into a death rattle. A real death rattle, honest. He spasmed and died.

I took the ball peen hammer we keep in the toolbox. Gotta save ammo. Crush his skull. But I couldn’t. Not him.

I laid him on the floor and cuffed his hands and ankles together instead.

Helmuth called down on our walkie talkies. “Y’all gotta see this! Up on the roof!”

I went up to the roof.

It was quite a sight.

Columns of smoke were rising in all directions from burning buildings. The neighborhood to our south was a poor, older neighborhood. It had been nicer when the university was founded, back when there were actually factories with decent jobs to be had in this town. As it had gone downhill, the University had erected a six-foot high brick wall, very attractive. It had one gate.

Apparently, people had been dying in that neighborhood last night. A lot of people.

And they were all coming through the gate.

Earl whistled. “Must be a couple-thousand of ‘em.”

Dead winos, not looking much more bedraggled than they had in life. Dead old grannies. Dead students, killed at their off-campus rentals. Dead EMT’s, cops, firemen who’d been called in to help and died not knowing what killed them. Worst of all, the children. How many had died in their beds? Hiding, running from adults who were suddenly monsters worse than any of their nightmares?

That was when it really hit me. What justified this? How could they have possibly deserved to die? What right did anyone have to kill them? But I’d been ready to-

I shook my head. I was getting off track. Deal with it later. Tactical problem now. Large number of hostiles, moving slowly. “Bainer, how are you for ammo?”

“Sorry dude, down to your last magazine. You got any more ammo?”

“If we survive this, there’s a gun shop three blocks to the north of here. We’ll hit that and load up. But we have to stop that bunch or they’ll swarm the campus.”

“Good luck at that.”

“Oh, I have an idea. You have the keys to the snowplow, right?”

“Nope. Simonides took the keys and locked himself in his office.”

Oh great. Steve Simonides, head of the University Support Services. The guy who’d made the decision to replace us. Gads, I hated that little weasel. We went down to his office.

I banged on the door. “Simonides, open up!”

“Flynn, you will use a civil tone when you speak to me!” The mans’ quavery voice was hard enough to hear through the door. “You have a job to do! Go do it!”

“Steve, we need the snow plow keys.”

“That is not security equipment! And there’s no snow!”

That was it. It took me three tries to kick in the door. Simonides was screaming for the police by the second kick. I came through the door, a reloaded TEC-9 in either hand. He handed the keys to me, silently. I could smell urine in the room as we left. So he wet himself. It was better than what I’d been planning to do to him.

Okay, it made me smile a little.

I tossed the plow keys to Earl. Bainer was there too. The snowplow was a medium sized dump truck with a massive plow blade on the front. I’ve seen it crack through two inches of ice. “Earl, start it up and lock the door. Bainer, get in the back, keep those things from getting in. I want you to plow clean through that bunch coming onto campus in the slow plow, then turn around and come right back through. I’ll be right behind you, in my Crown Victoria.”

“Shouldn’t you be in the back of the truck too?”

“Nah. I got a little surprise. But when I honk my horn, stop the damn truck. Got it?”

“Okay, Flynn, it’s your funeral. Good luck!”

I made my preparations in the car. Had my button ready to press.

For his part, Earl drove like a champ. He hit the zombie tide at forty, the big diesel engine roaring. Bodies flew everywhere. I followed, bumping furiously on the crushed bodies on the road. Amid the horror, I suddenly got a new dread. What if I messed up my suspension on the corpses?

But we made it through into a spot where the zombies were thin. We turned, banging the occasional zombie even now, sending them flying. Then Earl was plowing through again, bodies flying until I leaned on my horn. The truck jolted to a stop. I stopped as fast as I could, hit the button, went out through the sun roof. Bainer was using up his last few rounds to give me cover as I leaped into the back of the truck. “Go, go, go!”

I felt cold bloody hands grabbing at my ankles. I slipped back as the truck jolted, rolling forward, me holding onto the smooth metal of the truck. Dead hands began to squeeze.

Bainer grabbed me, gripping one of the safety grips and pulling.

I felt myself being torn in half.

Undead muscle gave way, damp body fluids cool on my leg while Bainer pulled me up into the truck.

I had a few seconds to realize I was going to live.

Then my car exploded.

Well, the two hundred pounds of high-nitrate fertilizer and diesel oil in my back seat exploded.

The Crown Vic, all American heavy metal that it was, disintegrated.

A wave of shrapnel tore through the zombies, dropping most of those it didn’t vaporize.

We got cheers as we rolled back into campus. The football team had decided to make themselves useful. They had on all their protective gear, including what looked like arm guards and padding borrowed from the hockey team. Their weapons were an interesting mix of bats, axes and shovels. The mascot was leading them, in his outfit. I guess it’s good to have a team called the Crusaders if it gives you a mascot wearing full plate armor and waving a broadsword.

I went up to the office as they congratulated themselves. A couple of the halfbacks took the opportunity to bust open a soda machine and pass around free drinks. Me, I steadied myself for what I knew I’d find.

The El-tee’s body was there. He was gone. A snarling, milky-eyed horror was in his place, thrashing in the cuffs. Wrists and ankles already bloody. I took the ball peen hammer, got ready to do my job.

“Why did you have those guns?” Simonides, behind me. He had recovered a little nerve. “What was that explosion? Why did your car-”

He went silent as I glared at him. Then I cracked the skull of the zombie with a hammer. It stopped moving.

I got up, wiped my hand. “Hey director, what can I say/ It was going to be my last day at work.”

The look of horror in his eyes was truly sweet.

I laughed.

“Oh chill out. I’m all better now. I just needed to be shown what’s really important. We need to establish a perimeter. Organize the students to defend themselves. Get some real weapons. If this plague is worldwide, it could get really bad.”

“You will do no such thing! As soon as I can get my call through to the police- I’m on hold for the Chief now, he and I-”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “You do that. I guess this isn’t my last day at work after all.”

The rushing water of the shower brought back memories of odd dreams. He remembered the wail of emergency vehicles and what sounded like moaning. Moans and groans were something that his bed hadn’t seen in a while, but by the time he was down for a quick breakfast the dreams had slipped back into his sub-consciousness. Grabbing some juice while he burnt his toast, Daniel ironed his shirt for the morning and put on his suit. A few minute later he was halfway down the hill to the train station, i-pod blaring and head down. As he approached the station he began to notice how quiet it was, though it wasn’t a busy road he hadn’t seen a car go past. Almost on queue he had to jump back as a 4×4 came screeching out of a driveway packed with what looked like camping gear, parents, their two kids and a family dog. ‘Must be hoping to miss the morning traffic’ Daniel thought. The car went at a manic pace down the road and over the tracks before disappearing in the distance. I-pod off now, Daniel wondered if there had been an accident on the main road and it had been blocked off, which would explain the lack of cars. Passing an old people’s home just before the station there was an unusual amount of activity. A group of nurses and the sprightliest residents were nailing boards over the ground floor windows and doors. ‘Seems a bit harsh’, Daniel joked to himself, ‘I wonder if they are keeping them in or the rest of us out!’

Stepping onto the station platform it was unusually quiet. Being a small town station with only two platforms it was never busy but there were usually at least fifteen people waiting for the 6.45 fast train to the city, at the moment there was only half a dozen. After waiting five minutes he looked at his watch and cursed the train for being late again. The information board was on the blink so he didn’t know how long the delay was going to be. Yet another twenty minutes later there was still no train and no announcement. Even for regular commuters, a species that likes to keep itself to itself, it was too much and as if some unknown power grabbed hold of each of them they all turned and trundled into the ticket office to find out what was going on. The booth was closed. This was strange because even if the station manager was ill they would have sent a temp in to answer questions and sell tickets in case the machine was out of order. The commuters looked at one another and weighed up their options, before any of them took the actual step of talking, they heard a train in the distance and they all visibly relaxed and dispersed out on to the platform.

The train pulled in with perhaps a third of the regular passengers on board. Daniel even treated himself to a seat for a change. As the train moved away the driver apologised over the tannoy for the late running which was due to multiple signal failures. It mattered little now, there was only one more stop before the capital, in about thirty five minutes. Daniel sat back and relaxed.

It didn’t last long though. Less than ten minutes later other passengers had started talking to one another in blatant disregard to what came natural to all commuters, ignoring everybody. Daniel noticed they had started gathering at the windows on his left side and looked out at the blur of passing scenery. When there were gaps in the trees he started to see what had got people’s attention. In one field he could see a jogger running along a path followed by a mob of perhaps twenty five people. Before he could digest this his eyes flicked to one of several plumes of smoke rising as they passed through a town. He could see a fire engine still flashing but stopped on a high street with two hoses spraying wildly across the road with not one person in the vicinity. The train had become quiet. No one chatted, just stared out of the windows, minds racing to come up with explanations for the odd scenes that popped up in front of them as they flew through the towns edging closer to the sprawling suburbs of the city.

Moving through the last isolated town, a pattern emerged of people dotted on roof tops. Some in small groups, others on their own, the roof people peered over edges as if looking for something, a ripple of nervousness spread through out the carriage. Someone suggested the idea that perhaps a tsunami was coming and people were moving to high ground. An older man in an expensive looking suit and bowler hat said,

“Would have to be a hell of a wave, we must be hundred miles from the nearest shore.”

This didn’t make any one feel better but no one offered up a better reason.

“Look riots!” a young guy in a pin stripe suit said a couple of minutes later, looking out the opposite window. A group of flats marked the edge of the capital and the train had slowed slightly as it went through more built up areas.

“That’s not like any riots I’ve seen” someone commented almost under their breath. A group of well over a hundred people shambled through a small park and had begun to surround and file into a tall block of flats. Glimpses of people running along balconies and leaning out of windows could be seen. Before it went out of view those on the train saw a couple of people fall from some of the highest floors. Once on the ground they could see many of those in the crowd move over and engulf the fallen, as if to help.

“What could have been behind the people who jumped to make them leap out like that? I couldn’t see a fire”, an air-hostess thought aloud, nobody replied.

Well into the urban area now, things were getting worse outside. The ever changing view in front of the boxed in travellers had stuck with chaos as a theme. Overturned cars blocked roads, people emerged from wreckages looking half dead and silent or screamed wildly as people moved towards them as they scrambled to pull themselves away. Daniel noticed that the people he saw fell into two categories. Those that ran, looking terrified and those that moved slowly usually in crowds, as if they had all the time in the world. Sobs could now be heard among his fellow travellers as death became more prominent in their sight. The train slowed down even more as they would be there in about ten minutes.

A woman’s scream at the end of the carriage pulled everyone’s attention from the window, that was until they followed her gaze. A group of maybe six kids, none of whom looked older than 12, were being cornered up against some fencing surrounding a school playground by a mixture of adults and youngsters. A couple had managed to climb the fence and were trying to help the other kids up, but it was too late. The crowd were upon them dragging them down, the kids on the inside looked out through the fence reaching to the two now on the other side. From the train they could not hear them, but the fear and agony was etched on their faces as hands and mouths descended ripping them apart. Daniel stared in disbelief, mind blank he continued to stare at the same spot in the window though it had passed.

The air in the carriage was filled with a mixture of profanity and calls to Jesus and his immediate family. Some people had started freaking out or throwing up. Most sat down and rocked, eyes closed. Daniel was considering these options as he saw a running battle between several armed police and more of those…packs. This one was mostly made up of anti-war protestors who had organised a rally that day, some still dragged their banners behind them. Their mouths were all open as if they were speaking in unison, but they were not cheering and the police fired randomly towards them. As Daniel lost sight of them he saw a smaller group advancing on the police from behind.

The guy with the bowler hat had started banging on the driver’s door, shouting to get her attention. The door opened and the driver’s quizzical expression dropped as she felt the panic in the air.

“I’m sorry we are going to be late sir, but I am going as fast as I can.”

“Fuck that”, replied Bowler, “Haven’t you seen what’s going on out there! People are eating each other, they’ve turned mad.”

“Errr…” the driver looked around for support, waiting for someone to drag the man away apologising about him missing his medication, but no one said anything, they just stared, some blocking their views of the windows, tears streaming down their faces.

“I’m sure there is some sort of explanation…” The driver was cut off by thuds coming from the front of the train. Daniel, the driver and Bowler ran in to see dozens of people wandering across the rails as the trains took them one by one. The driver slammed on the breaks and started pressing the horn to warn everyone on the tracks to get out of the way. They all turned to the train but expression didn’t change even for the ones that they ploughed right through. One had become stuck to the font of the train and began hauling itself up to the window. The driver began yelling “Sorry!” and “Hold on!” as the train slowed. She reached round through the side window to see if she could grab the guy and help him. As he did the guy’s head turned and bit down on the driver’s hand, taking a chunk out of her wrist. The driver retracted her hand pretty quickly in response as Daniel pushed the accelerator lever back up hard. The guy on the window chewed on the flesh like a chicken strip and then began banging his head into the window creating bloody splinters in the glass. The three of them all took a step back as a hole appeared and the head came through, Daniel grabbed an umbrella from the corner and shoved it hard into the skull, the man fell limp off the train and underneath it.

The air-hostess from the carriage had found a first aid kit and began wrapping up the driver’s wrist to stop the bleeding. She sat in first class with her head between her legs trying to control her breathing. Through the pain, without looking up, she said,

“The train, ease back on the lever, you don’t want us crashing into the station do you?”

Bowler went back to the controls and after a few seconds they could all feel the train slow to a steady pace. The pin stripe suit walked into first class,

“What the fuck was that?”

“I don’t know,” replied Daniel.

“I’ve been getting no answer on the radio since before the last stop,” said the driver, “can’t get a signal on my phone either, so we can’t change track directions. We either stop the train or pull into the station.”

“I’m thinking station” Bowler said, “There are loads of those lunatics still out there.”

About 15 people from the back two carriages had by now piled into the front one. Everyone wanted to know what was happening. Daniel stood on a chair and shouted out the facts; the driver was hurt but they should be arriving in the city in about two minutes. He left out about the mental guy on the windscreen.

A young guy in a hooded top came forward,

“We had a fat guy in our carriage in the back die with a heart attack about 5 minutes ago.”

The air-hostess stood up,

“I’ll check it out, the driver has passed out from blood loss but I think she’ll be okay.”

She stepped through the crowd and as Daniel watched her leave he noticed everyone else was still looking at him. Not sure what to say he improvised,

“I think the best thing we can do is stop on the bridge just outside the station. Hopefully it will be a quiet spot and we can plan our next move.”

Bowler stepped out of the driver’s room,

“Bad news, I think there are a few bodies now stuck under the train, the breaks aren’t working. I’ve taken the acceleration right down, but I think the rest is out of our hands.”

Another wave of panic swept through the carriage. Now in the middle of the capital the windows were mostly filled with brick work and small back gardens with the odd church spire and office block. ‘Great’ though Daniel, ‘I’m on a run away train in crazy town’. They were now travelling slowly as they crossed the bridge over the River Ache. They all turned in silence and looked out. The sun was still rising and bathed the city in a warm glow. The morning mist was still hanging on, supplemented by smoke from large scale fires. Daniel’s eyes followed the arc of a pigeon as it flew over parliament and into the distance. A large airplane had crashed, devastating the old city. It didn’t look real. Everything that had looked familiar now looked like a disaster movie.

They crossed over the bridge and under the city, an automated message came over the tannoy,

“We are now arriving at your destination, thank you for travelling with City Hill Rail. This train terminates here, all change.”

The tunnel leading into the station was silent and black. They waited with bated breath for what and who would greet them. Suddenly the air-hostess came running back into the carriage,

“The guy who had the heart attack, he is up but when I got closer he tried to attack me! I managed to get away because he doesn’t seem to be able to work the doors between the carriages!”

The driver’s eyes slowly opened and she rose from her seat just as the automated message came on one last time,

“There may be a short delay before the doors open, please mind the gap.”

—

Daniel turned as the driver reached out to him, he made to grab her shoulders to give support, as he did he noticed there was something wrong with the look on her face. Just then the train bumped to a halt as it came to the end of the line. Everyone standing fell forward, the driver flew further than most though and on going through the still open doors into her cabin she impaled herself onto the umbrella still sat on the controls. As it passed through her back and exited out her stomach the friction caused it to open, revealing it to be a souvenir of a holiday to Pala. Any hint of a tan was faded though as she pushed himself up of the controls and attempted to walk back through the door only to be rebuffed by the open umbrella and narrow entrance. The passengers struggled to their feet and froze one by one watching the driver bouncing off the doorway, falling backwards, recovering and then repeating the procedure, the slack jawed mouth and lifeless eyes unchanging, a low moan constantly coming from somewhere deep inside her.

No one moved to help not understanding what was happening but some instinct telling them that the driver was now dangerous. The train doors slid open revealing the world as it now stood, or shuffled, to the passengers, and in turn revealing the passengers to the world. Their platform appeared empty, underground now half of the lights were either not working or turned off. A few trash cans had been turned over and some bags were left dotted around but besides that there was no sign of the chaos they had viewed on their journey. A few individuals on other platforms could be seen moping about but that was all. That was until the Heart-Attack guy made his appearance. A few people had stepped cautiously off the train and had seen him lumbering along. He had left his end carriage and was making his way the length of the platform to the open doors at the front of the train. People pressed the close buttons frantically but as this was the last stop, that was not an option.

“There was an over-ride switch, I saw it among the controls”, piped up Bowler.

He and Daniel realised they were going to have to tackle the driver somehow.

“I don’t suppose you have an arsenal of weapons in that suitcase?” Bowler asked pointing at Daniel’s bag he had unconsciously brought up with him from his seat.

“Yeah, just so happens I’m a gun runner and this is your lucky day. No! Unless we can take her down with paper cuts, I’m all out.”

They began scrabbling round, but first class offered up little except for a rolled up newspaper. The guy in the hoodie from the rear carriage stepped forward,

“I don’t want to be a cliché, but I have a 6 inch blade that might help.”

He pulled out a kitchen knife, that whilst sharp did not instil much confidence.

“You guys grab this bitch’s arms and I’ll shut her up.”

Daniel and Bowler were able to grab an arm a piece and hold them inside the carriage safe from the gnashing teeth as its head was trapped with the rest of the body in the front cabin. Hoodie didn’t flinch, whilst the driver was distracted, he grabbed a handful of the woman’s hair, held her head back and was halfway though sawing through the windpipe before Daniel and Bowler knew what was happening. The moaning became a muffled whisper as the knife went through the throat and took out both jugulars and arteries. The driver hardly struggled now, Daniel and Bowler couldn’t look as Hoodie butchered away, now only the spinal cord remaining. The knife stubbornly refused to finish the job, so instead Hoodie snapped the head quickly forwards then backwards, so hard it actually became separated and fell into what now ceased to be the driver’s room, the driver herself now slumped only held up by her arms. They were quickly let go as Hoodie stepped backwards, a smile on his face. Bowler gingerly stepped over the body and head pressing down on the door control shutting them before Heart-Attack guy could get to their carriage. Daniel turned and looked at Hoodie as he cleaned the knife on the driver’s uniform, unsure of what to say.

“What?” Hoodie said, “It’s a fucking zombie, innit. What did you want me to do? Negotiate with her?”

Between the three of them they shoved the driver into front seat, head back between her legs,

“Sorry Karen”, said Daniel looking at her name badge

They turned to face the rest of the train who were now distracted by Heart-Attack. He had his head pressed against the carriage’s windows, eyes wide open moving up and down the carriage staring at the contents, much like he probably used to at the window of Krispy Kreme.

“I think we are going to need a bigger knife.” said Daniel.

“I think we need to start moving again,” replied Bowler, “Look over there”.

Daniel then saw just under a dozen, what he now accepted to be zombies, as so eloquently put by Hoodie, rounding the platform corner, perhaps attracted by Heart-Attack’s continuous moan. They looked like a mixture of cleaners, shop workers and ticket inspectors, some clearly injured with severe wounds whilst others had no visible marks. The three of them looked down the train at about 20 faces, some looking for guidance, some for a way out, all panicked. Bowler stood forward,

“We need to move, maybe my hooded friend here is right and we are facing some sort of zombie attack, but we can discuss that later, right now the longer we stay here the more of those things we will attract.”

“I need to get home, to my babies, they need me!”

A lady began panicking just in front of them as the extent of the situation began to dawn on her. She began to start pressing the exit button, which had been turned off. When this didn’t work she started slapping her hands on the glass screaming to be let out. Heart-Attack came straight over and stood right in front of her on the platform, spit drooling out of his open mouth. The Air-Hostess came over and managed to lead her away and sit her back down with some soothing words. Hoodie began to speak,

“Everybody grab what you can to use as a weapon, those bitch zombies are shit-ass slow and we can take them out with ease.”

Though not sure if the people on the train were fighting fit and up for an apocalyptic battle, Daniel thought any weapons they could get their hands on right now would probably come in handy. He managed to pull the umbrella out of the driver with a literally gut wrenching sound. Bowler grabbed the emergency hammer used to break the train’s glass in a power failure. After a couple of minutes most people had something, but it was pretty desperate, weapons ranged from a crutch, a fire extinguisher, a pair of scissors and one woman was brandishing her stilettos with what she hoped would be killer heels.

“They are slow and we can probably move round them, only use your weapons if absolutely necessary and don’t get caught in a fight, keep moving.” Daniel said to everyone.

He hoped his pretence of confidence may rub off on him and the rest of the group. Nobody paid attention as the woman who screamed about her babies made her way back to the door, she managed to pull the emergency handle and rushed out. People shouted at her to come back but she didn’t flinch at she just about dodged around Heart-Attack who spun round and lumbered after her. The train stood hushed willing her escape as they had a preview of what they were about to face. She stopped in front of the larger group of zombies who were starting to block off the end of the platform and weighed her options. The moan of the shambling crown increased as she moved to the far left, shuffling in between the platform edge and grabbing hands. As she dodged one hand she lost her footing falling backwards to the electrified rails but was momentarily saved as another hand grabbed a handful of hair and pulled her back up, she let out a terrified cry as she went out of view and the zombie group fell over one another to get to her, at least two falling off the platform in the process.

The passengers had little time to think about the scene though. Heart-Attack had realised he was going to be too late for the hors d’oeuvres and had turned back round to go straight for the main course. The train panicked and started pushing down the carriage to get away. They were filtering into the next carriage as Heart-Attack came onto the train and his frame blocked any exit as he moved down the aisle. Hoodie looked at his knife and the prospect of having to take him on by himself in a cramped space was not appealing as he, Daniel and Bowler were in the rear of the retreat. Once they were all in the next carriage the automatic door closed behind them and they felt safe for a moment knowing that Heart-Attack no longer had the wits to press the button to open the door. Still they had to make a move, the longer they left it the more zombies that would approach and the less time they would have to make a plan. Daniel shouted for them all to move along one more to the last carriage which they duly did as a little calm restored.

“Okay”, Daniel said again as he attempted to rally the motley troops, “I know this is a nightmare scenario, but we have to focus. Let’s just get through the next few minutes. They are slow and we out number them about 2 to 1. Everybody get a partner.”

Daniel opened up the carriage doors with the emergency lever and they filtered on to the platform. The zombies were now 30 yards away but were slowly closing the gap.

“In a line people!” shouted Daniel. He started to feel like an officer in the First World War leading his men over the top. A line of sorts soon formed behind him.

“They have blocked our escape so it is either us or them. Choose your targets and work in pairs. Try to keep them at arms length, we have seen what they can do when they get close, and aim for the head, we know they are vulnerable their thanks to… sorry I don’t know your name?”

“Virgil” Hoodie replied.

“Mine’s Daniel, a pleasure to meet you.”

They shook hands and the adrenalin began to run through him as a look of determination spread though them all. He lifted the umbrella in his hand, the moment was slightly ruined by the fact that it sprang open, a la Mary Poppins, but he soon popped it closed and pointed it menacingly at the encroaching enemy. He let out a war cry that rose in volume as it was joined by first the living bodies on the platform and then the moan of the dead ones. He led them forward on a jog. Weapons held aloft the men and women, ranging from mid-twenties to mid-sixties, nearly all of them suited, bared their teeth to match their foes. Someone let off a fire extinguisher and a mist surrounded the platform as the weapons came crashing down and the noise of battle rose.

“Look,” Kathryn said, “this one has the keys in it.”

“It’s probably out of gas,” Maureen acknowledged, “most of the ones with the keys left in them are out of gas.”

“Well,” Kathryn stripped off her business suit jacket and searched the mercifully empty streets, “we’re gonna have to give it a try.” She climbed behind the wheel and unlocked the passenger door so that Maureen could climb in the other side.

“I never thought that I’d be caught dead in a Hyundai,” Maureen said as she shut herself in.

“Yeah,” Kathryn commented, “but I’d rather be caught dead in a Hyundai then caught by the living dead.” She tried to turn the ignition over but the car coughed like a sick old woman.

“See,” Maureen said, looking around cautiously, “the piece of shit’s dead. Now let’s get the hell out of here, we’re makin’ way too much noise.”

Instead of answering, Kathryn tried to turn it over again, and this time the car sputtered to life.

“Hot damn!” Maureen said and squeezed Kathryn’s arm. “Let’s cruise.” Maureen was a huge woman; bordering on morbidly obese. Her thin, patchy, gossamer strands of blonde hair framed her red face and the blotches of psoriasis which traveled up and down her exposed arms were shaped like small countries on an oceanographic map. Kathryn was glad that they had found a car, not for her sake, but for Maureen’s. She was not sure that the heavily breathing fat woman could escape quickly enough in the dreaded event that they should become cornered.

But now that Kathryn had the compact car started, she was faced with a new problem. This model was equipped with a stick shift; a four on the floor.

“You know how to drive one of these?” She asked Maureen. ”

Maureen looked at her confused. “Put it in drive,” she said.

“Well hell, I’ve never driv…” Halfway through Kathryn’s sentence the passenger side window shattered and a white arm roughly grabbed Maureen by the hair. The big woman screamed, scratched and pushed at the chest of an attacker who’s face could not yet be seen. “GO! GO! GO! GO!” she shouted. Kathryn threw her arms up in vexation and scanned the car’s controls. But she may as well have been staring at the console of an airplane and her panic was giving her even less chance of figuring it out.

“GO KATHY GO!” Maureen continued to buck and kick at the form which was trying to enter the cab.

“I’M TRYING! I’M…” As she pawed the gear shift the clutch inexplicably popped and the little car scooted a few feet, momentarily shedding the assaulter whose gruesome white face then came into view as it stumbled: one eye gone from a rifle shot which must have missed the brain. But the car soon stalled and the abomination was on them again. Maureen scooted across the seat in an effort to avoid the cold white hands of the monster but this move only squashed Kathryn up against the driver’s door; making it impossible for her to try the ignition again. For several seconds all she could do was try and catch her breath as her friend fought for her life against one of the living dead. She couldn’t even reach the door handle. But then, just as she was contemplating what it would be like to roam the city as a shuffling corpse, the sound of a gunshot reverberated off of the high buildings. And she heard Maureen’s voice go from high pitched wails of terror to sobs of relief. A second later she felt the considerable bulk of her robust friend ease up and off of her. Maureen was shivering as if she were wearing soaking wet clothes in sub zero temperatures. “OH Jesus, OH Jesus, OH Jesus.” She kept repeating.

When Kathryn could turn around again she saw that the back window of the Hyundai was smeared with bright red flecks of rose colored blood. As Maureen recovered enough to climb out of the car, Kathryn leaned over across the upholstery and inspected the slumped over body of the dead-dead man. His second eye now shot out also. She tried to start the Hyundai again, but it was as dead as the felled ghoul; out of gas after all. Kathryn got out of the driver’s side and looked back over the roof of the car towards the source of the snipe.

“Just in the nick of time,” an approaching voice said and Kathryn locked eyes with a man in a plain green soldier’s uniform with a matching helmet. A long rifle hung from a strap around his neck. This was obviously the marksman who had re-executed their deathly pale stalker. The man’s round and puffy face seemed much too swollen for his trained and trim body.

“OH, Thank you, thank you sir!” Maureen gushed as she took two uneven steps over trash and rubble towards her savior. Kathryn suspiciously brushed her long brown hair off of her alabaster cheek. “How will we ever be able to make it up to you.?” Maureen continued.

“Well,” said the man, “I’m not sure that you can.” And Kathryn was wary of his weird grin and the facetiousness which she sensed in his tone. She walked around the deceased car and stood at her friend’s side; her taut yet curvy body evident even under the business skirt and long sleeve white blouse. “But I might be able to think of something your friend here can do.” The man quipped. Kathryn understood what he was getting at perfectly, but Maureen didn’t seem to get the gist of it. She took another step towards the man and was now standing no more than four feet from him.

“Well,” she smiled, “if there’s anything that we can do, I’m sure… I mean, you saved our life. We really don’t know how to thank you.”

“Hey,” the man held his palms out innocently and continued through an earnest smile, “don’t mention it.” He then quickly raised the rifle and shot Maureen in the throat. She didn’t fall at once, but could only stand back and cover the wound in shock. Then she took her hands away from it for some desperate reason and a straight line of blood shot fifteen feet across the asphalt every time that her heart beat. Kathryn rushed to her friend’s side and dropped to her knees, almost catching her as she collapsed onto the cluttered street. Oblivious to the gunman, she tore off a strip of her blouse and pressed it against the wound; but Maureen only gaped for air, her mouth opening and closing like a manatee out of water. Kathryn heard a second loud boom; as if she were an inch from two cars colliding and now there was a hole in Maureen’s forehead to match the one in her throat. The big woman’s eyes grayed over and stared into the distance of the next world.

Kathryn scooted away from the body and stared up at the murderer from the seat of her skirt. He was chuckling, yet his weapon was pointed at the ground.

“You’re not going to kill me?” she asked.

“Why would would I shoot a smokin’ hot fox like you?” the man answered.

“But um… But I… you shot you… killed her. Why did you kill her?” Kathryn stuttered through the shock.

“I was doin’ her a favor.”

Kathryn mulled this over for a few seconds. “And you won’t do me the same favor?”

“No,” the man answered, “I’m not going to shoot you.” A gleam twinkled in his eye that must have been similar to the one Adam and Eve saw with as they bit into the apple. “But don’t worry,” he finished, “there will certainly be favors involved. Now March!” He raised the gun again.

“No!” Kathryn resisted defiantly, “kill me here but I’m not going with you.” She meant it. She did not want to see what this violent cretin had in store for her.

“Look bitch,” he began, “there are worse things than gettin’ shot: now get up and make that nice ass a yours march before I show you what those things are.” Kathryn didn’t move.

“MARCH!!!” This mean bellow frightened her enough to where she got up and began marching in the general direction of where he had his gun sight pointed. They walked for perhaps ten blocks without speaking, around stalled cars, crude makeshift sandbag forts and fire blackened barricades. Finally they rounded a corner and Kathryn found herself staring at a huge edifice of crushed cars. They stretched in between two buildings to create an impressive blockade. There was a doorway sized opening which had probably been left there intentionally by the crane operator. A second soldier stood in this entrance, listlessly smoking a cigarette. The men nodded at each other as they passed. On the other side of the junker wall there was a long segmented vehicle painted camouflage and covered with nets of black mesh. It reminded Kathryn of a mechanical caterpillar. Reacting to a shuffling sound off to her left Kathryn caught sight of a dead MAN IN A SUIT AND TIE as he stumbled out of an office building. He did not have to push the exit lever since all the glass doors had been busted or shot out. Before Kathryn could even cry out, yet another boom raped the silence and the zombie jumped as a head shot met with its scalp. A JFK sized flap jutted out from the side of its exposed skull right before it fell. There was a sniper atop the caterpillar which Kathryn had failed to notice and he had skillfully lopped the dead man’s brain off.

There was a wrought iron door in the center of the long bus which opened down like a draw bridge. The soldier softly tapped Kathryn in the small of the back with the tip of the powerful gun. Feeling that she had little choice she climbed inside. There were several other women within the capsule/cell. They laid haphazard under freckled spots of sunlight which circled in through small, perfectly round holes in the wall, as if coin blanks had been knocked out of them. None of them spoke to Kathryn or offered up any theories in the way of explanation. Some of them wore clothes which were dirty and disheveled, others still looked halfway presentable. The soldiers were obviously on patrol to collect prisoners and this made Kathryn wonder why Maureen had not also been spared? The draw bridge like door clanged closed behind her.

Then as she looked around the cab the similarities began to hit her: even with their tatted hair and torn clothes; even with their grimy skin and wept away mascara; even with their stinking underarms and chipped nails: all of the women confined within the car were at least fairly attractive.

2.

“Well it has to be better than wandering around out there,” a pale girl with tired, purple chevrons underneath her pretty hazel eyes was saying, “I mean, at least we’re away from those dead things.” Some of the women shook their heads yes, but most were too exhausted to answer. Kathryn and the others had been led into a brightly lit room where they sat at small exam desks like school children or collage students. There was a blackboard on the wall but there wasn’t anything written on it and no chalk could be found on its built in shelf. There was no apple nor was there a teacher’s desk to set one on. The room had no windows but there were two doors: one which they had been led through after exiting the caterpillar and a second door which was in the complete opposite corner. On each desk a glass of ice water had been placed and most of the women drank greedily.

After about fifteen minutes, the door which they had been led through opened and a man sauntered in. He wore a similar uniform to the one sported by the men who had captured Kathryn, only he had a baseball cap on rather than a helmet and there were two silver bars on the shoulder of his long sleeve shirt. His polished boots were free of dust and grit and tufts of thick black hair sprouted out from underneath the hat at wild intervals. He looked the ladies over with maddening turquoise eyes and even though his movements were controlled and strict, Kathryn sensed that he was deranged inside his mind.

“Hello Ladies,” he began, “my name is Captain Enervy.” The women straightened up and cocked their heads to listen even though he was speaking at a drill sergeant’s pitch. “I have some very good news for all of you: we are now inside a guarded and heavily armed compound. You are completely safe from the monstrous creatures which have, unfortunately, taken over a large part of our city. This is a situation that our forces are working hard to rectify. In the meantime you will be given food, lodging and you will be able to wash whenever you wish. You will also sleep in a warm bed.” He paused here and some of the women began to rejoice; clutching each other’s hands, cheering and even crying. But Kathryn, who had watched her friend executed, did not join in the celebration. “All that we ask in compensation is that you women comply with our orders which includes supplying companionship to and satisfying the needs of our troops.” The joyful chatter ebbed quickly and the happiness decelerated down into a bleak silence. Captain Enervy proudly surveyed the scene, ready to gauge the women’s reactions and field objections. After a few confusing seconds one woman stood up.

She wore nothing but a grungy tank top and a pair of tattered Levi’s. Her hair was cropped into an extremely short crew cut. But even in this unflattering apparel she was a breathtaking beauty: boson brown eyes large atop chiseled cheekbones.

“You mean,” she said, “that you want us to have sex with them.” Captain Enervy looked the woman right in the face and Kathryn saw a flash of the temper which he was making an effort to conceal.

“Yes,” he answered simply, “we want you to have sex with them.”

“Jesus,” the standing woman said, “you guys are unbelievable. Instead of using your weapons to help people you want to turn the world into one big brothel.” Kathryn felt like telling the dissident to pipe down; she was sure that the girl did not realize how hot the fire she was playing with could scorch. Perhaps her introduction to this army had been kinder than Kathryn’s violent, murder splattered initiation. Oblivious to these grave dangers however, the girl continued. “Well I won’t do it. I refuse! I will not! I will not! I’d rather take my chances with the walking dead than have some sweaty grunt rape me every night. At least the dead are honest and up front about their intentions.”

Captain Enervy slowly strolled around the room, addressing everyone except the short haired woman. “I strongly suggest to all of you that you stay here with us in comfort and safety. I’m sure that, at some point, some of you may have to perform acts which you might find distasteful or immoral, but I assure you! There will be no rough stuff and you will be treated with respect as brides of the regiment. And I implore you…” Here he paused for effect, “I implore you to consider the heinous alternative.” The room fell silent as the women’s troubled, overloaded minds contemplated this difficult choice. The defiant woman continued to stand but she didn’t shatter the break. Finally, after about half a minute, Captain Enervy seemed to be speaking for her.

“Of course, if anyone feels that they have a better chance out there, with those shuffling ghouls, then they are free to go. Private Gliet!” He called out to a man at the back of the room. Kathryn hadn’t noticed the man before and she wondered how long he’d been standing there. She even supposed that it was possible that he’d been there for the duration of Enervy’s announcement, but she didn’t think so. He was a tall soldier: perhaps six foot two or three, in marvelous physical condition. Although his features seemed tainted by a trace of mental retardation; almost as if he were a mongoloid.

“Show this nice young lady the way out.” Captain Enervy said as Kathryn shivered and trepidation traveled up her delicate spine. Private Gleit nodded and gestured towards the standing woman like a waiter ready to show someone to their table. He held his arm out towards the second door; the one located on the opposite side of the room from which they had entered. The woman took a few timid steps, perhaps starting to sense what Kathryn already knew: that this seemingly carefree release from the regiment was too good to be true. And so it was.

As the woman approached the threshold, Private Gliet simultaneously accosted her while swinging open the door. The sunshine which flooded in was even brighter than the room’s white lights. There was no floor or stairway beyond the frame: just the thin air floating invisible over a twenty five foot drop. Before the short haired women even had a chance to scream Private Gliet hurled her out head first. When she did scream, it sounded as if her voice were floating up and out from an elevator shaft. At the bottom of her drop were the dead; hundreds of them crawling and falling over each other like salamanders in the mud. They did not even have the sense to catch her or break her fall. So when her vivacious frame met with the hard, packed down sand something could be heard snapping: perhaps an arm or a leg. They converged upon her quickly however; pulling her apart like lions raking at a bison carcass. Mercifully the screams didn’t last long as they soon pulled out her voice box. Her clothes quickly disappeared along with her skin. The carnage ended as someone who had once been someone ate her beautiful face.

Back up in the room panic ensued. Private Gliet, his mission accomplished, stood at attention with his back to the wall. The women roared and screamed and cried and several of them stood up on their chairs. They stomped their feet on the seats like cartoon wives in white aprons afraid of a kitchen mouse; as if trying to put as much distance between themselves and the dead pit as possible. Kathryn did not get up, but she buried her face in her hands and tears sizzled out from in between her fingers. Captain Enervy stood upright with his hands still clasped behind the back. The mad violence which always seemed to be spinning in his eyes momentarily quelled.

“Now!” He shouted spiritedly, “if there are no more conscientious objectors, I suggest that you all get some sleep.” He paused here to salute the moaning women. “Report for makeovers at 0900.”

3.

The salty smell of the nearby sea tickled their nostrils and billowy strips of evaporating clouds dissolved in front of the unbridled sun. The group rode on the back of a flatbed wagon; much like a hayride only devoid of any leisure or fun. They were being pulled along by a tractor which was driven by a heavy set, thick legged matron who was also wearing the now familiar uniform of the regiment. Only this version came with a skirt instead of pants. She had no holster for a gun, but a long truncheon hung from a loop on her accessory belt. The words: PENIS ENVY had been carved neatly down its shaft.

All of the women had gotten a chance to shower and they were furnished with toothbrushes, deodorants and other sundries. Not having a fresh change of duds however, they had had to put their soiled clothes back on. They did not see any soldiers along this path save for the matron and talk among the passengers soon turned to crude escape plots.

“I wouldn’t,” said Kathryn. Then she pointed to a distant tree line. Barely visible in the rising haze was a tall chain link fence with looping scribbles of razor wire and spikes at its highest point. As they got a little closer to that spot and rounded a bend, the dead could be seen clinging to its tiny octagons in between crawls of climbing vines; like grotesque butterflies on a screen door.

“We’re still inside the compound,” she whispered, “they must have gunners perched atop the perimeter: not so much to keep us in as to keep the dead out, but I’m sure they’d shoot anything that moved.” As if on cue a distant spit of machine gun fire crackled in the morning air and the peering dead peeled off of the fence. It was 8:45 AM.

Finally, the tractor ground to a halt in front of what had been a department store. Mannequins stood naked in front of the shattered out display windows and fallen clothes littered the aisles. Some of the panels were missing from the ceiling and sunlight made its way through the voids, taking over the job of the snuffed electricity. Otherwise, it looked basically alright. The heavy set woman who had been driving hopped down from the tractor seat.

“My name is Sergeant Marge,” she shouted, “what I need for your ladies to do is go inside there and pick yourself out some clothes. If I were you I would select something short, bright and sexy. You will also find a large assortment of cosmetics inside. I suggest that you paint those pretty faces up bright and rosy; the more the soldiers like you the faster they’ll be finished with you and you can go on back to your barracks. Do not use any hairspray as the men don’t like the way it feels and DO NOT select any outfits with pants: DRESSES only! Don’t worry about the living dead as this sector has long been cleared and you are behind friendly lines.”

Here one of the women, a thirty something brunette with thick, preened eyebrows, scoffed and whispered to her friend: “Yeah, real friendly.” This prompted Sergeant Marge to stop her instructional speech and walk through the crowd where she met the brunette. She put her chin one centimeter from the woman’s cheek and spat at the side of her face, “DO NOT interrupt me!” The woman froze and stood at attention. The big woman turned as if to walk away, before quickly spinning around, drawing her club and bringing it around in a three quarter circle onto the back of the woman’s leg. The brunette hit the street and cried out in agony as she tried to massage life back into her throbbing calve. Satisfied, the sergeant continued.

“So,” she picked up her lost thought. “You will be safe at all times. You’re all welcome to try and escape, although I can assure you that it is impossible and even if you did manage to breach our security you would still be without food, water or shelter. Not to mention that you would be at the mercy of the living dead, who, as we all know, are not capable of mercy.” She paused here, and looked around, waiting for her words to sink in. “While, on the other hand, if you’re smart and go along with our curriculum: you will be well fed, comfortable and in no danger. Hell,” before finishing this sentence, she even had to scoff at herself, “you might even find that, after a while, you’re startin’ to enjoy it.” The women said nothing, although the way most of them shuffled in place clearly indicated that they had their doubts. “Alright! I need you little whores to make yourselves beautiful. I’ll expect to see you back here and lookin’ like super models at eleven hundred.”

4.

When the sun was at its pinnacle, Sergeant Marge led Kathryn and the others down towards the beach on foot. It was a little treacherous walking on the sands since some girls had selected high heels or pumps. As they approached a sentry post which led onto the dunes two guards looked Kathryn and the others over lustfully. A wolf whistle was heard as one of the men feigned masturbation and leered like a chimp. Some of the girls had a little trouble climbing a high sand cliff in their prissy shoes. But the ground leveled off at the top and they all looked out over the omniscient ocean. A chubby cloud suddenly blocked off the sun’s rays and the waves whipped a dark blue like an endless dream of troubling shadows.

The soft and salty squalls teased the teased hair of the forced prostitutes as they were led towards several tents. The structures were small and circular, lavishly draped in velvet like a knight’s quarters. Triangular flags, tugged straight out by the ample winds, flapped atop each bungalow. As they approached the initial doorway, the first woman was ordered inside. She put up no opposition and disappeared behind the curtain. It did not take much imagination on the part of the group to know what was going to happen to her next, and even if it would have, they would soon be experiencing similar treatment themselves and would have no need to vex their imaginations. After three more stops it was soon Kathryn’s turn and she was ushered into one of the tents.

A black man sat at the edge of a wide cot; wearing only an army green t-shirt, dog tags and loose fitting boxing shorts. He was slowly breathing through a cigarette and made no more movement then a waiting spider. There was no floor save for the sand of the beach as Kathryn demurely stepped inside. There was a bottle of Crown Royal Whiskey sitting on a nearby backpack and two collapsible director’s chairs across from and facing the cot. At last he moved a little.

“Sit down,” he said, “you want a drink?”

Kathryn thought about this for a beat, decided that she’d never wanted anything more, and shook her head yes. Although the man had yet to look at her, he somehow caught her nod and poured her a sip in a plain plastic glass. She sat down across from him in one of the chairs. “Stuff’ll be gone pretty soon,” he said, “be a real shame to never drink Crown Royal again. Who knows what kinda shit we be resortin’ to drinkin’ after that; mother fuckers be goin blind and shit.” Kathryn didn’t answer or react in any way. After a few seconds, she did take a sip of the hard brown liquid. When she commenced coughing the man spoke again: “Yeah, I know you scared, but you got to ask yourself: who worse? ME!? Or them hordes out there? Any sane individual know the answer. If there are any sane people left that is. Hell, I ain’t that scary.”

In the pause, the man poured himself another. “What’s your name?” He asked.

“Kathryn,” she answered blandly.

“Hmmm, how you feelin’ Kathryn?”

It was an odd question, and after mulling it over for a couple of seconds, Kathryn just felt compelled to answer honestly. “I feel a little under it,” she whispered.

“Yeah,” he half laughed, “no wonder, me too.”

He got up and walked over to a basin of water; bending over to splash some onto his tough and leathery features. As he toweled off he said: “Well, we best be gettin’ on with it. Climb up on that cot over there.”

Without much vigor, yet resolved to her fate, Kathryn walked over and laid down on her back. She didn’t even have a chance to settle in before the man was on her; his service revolver pressed up against her temple and his breath on her cheek. She gasped in shock.

“What you think huh?” he raved, “you think I’m like these animals roun’ here HUH! You think I force myself on some poor girl ain’t willin’ HUH!” Kathryn’s only defense from this offbeat attack was to close her eyes tight, forcing a hot tear to leak out and streak across her cheek. “What I want with you white bread? Me I gots… I mean I had… a wife and baby a my own. I know they out there somewhere,” He waved his arm in a gesture which represented everywhere. “I know they…” He stopped talking and jumped up suddenly. Kathryn rose up to a sitting position as he knelt down in the corner of the hut and began to weep roughly. When he had quieted some, she got up from the cot and walked over to where he was doubled over. Putting her petite hand in between his muscular shoulder blades she softly spoke.

“It’s okay,” she said, “We have all lost someone that we loved.”

After a couple of more minutes of sobbing, he slowly picked himself up and walked back over to sit on the cot. Kathryn stayed where she was, her knees in the sand. He swallowed the final gulp of whisky and began speaking on a new subject:

“Enervy is a monster,” he said, “not just a close minded grunt, but a dangerous killer. When he picks you, and sooner or later he will ’cause he always picks the pretty ones, you as good as dead.” Kathryn could only stare at him. “He like to make porno and snuff films; force chicks to fuck the dead, evil shit like that. I only wish that there was somethin’ that I could do for ya.”

Kathryn shrugged and smiled faintly. “Wait a minute,” he said suddenly as if a thought had just occurred to him, “wait a minute.” He leaned over and reached into his backpack; retrieving a handsome military issue buck knife complete inside a camouflage sheath. He got up quickly and offered it to Kathryn. “Hide this, don’t show it to that dyke Marge, don’t show it to any of the bitches in your barracks, don’t show it to no one. When Enervy picks you, wait until you get him by himself. When he turn around you bury this spike in his black heart ya hear me? It’s your only chance.”

Kathryn looked at the knife. It was long and intimidating, but she supposed that she could hide it inside her bottoms. She smiled gratefully and took the bracketed blade. “Thank you,” she said.

“Yeah alright,” He sauntered back over and reclined onto the cot. His relaxed posture a sharp contrast to the madness he had demonstrated throughout their rendezvous. “By the way Kathryn, my name is Granderson. Pleased to meet ya.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“When that dyke Marge comes back you tell her everything was cool; you had a good time.”

5.

Several days passed inside the stainless steel barracks which may have been more accurately described as a cell. Kathryn didn’t do much of anything during this interlude aside from lying forlornly in her bunk and praying that she wouldn’t be selected for a second and surely more intimate date. Now and then the dull, mirrored door would roll open and Sergeant Marge would call out the name of the next unfortunate escort.

Kathryn didn’t make many friends throughout this period, nor did she want to. Sporadic spurts of conversation floated past her ears intermittently, but the topics were limited to such small talk as the good condition of the food, the affable temperature of the cell and the crisp and clean sheets. No one seemed eager to touch upon the subject of their forced sexual encounters or the horrific encounters they’d had with the dead which had led to their imprisonment here. Kathryn didn’t much want to talk either, even though she’d been fortunate enough to avoid being blackmailed into intercourse; at least so far.

She hid the buck knife underneath her mattress since that was the only place to hide anything. At times when she felt the most dread, she would finger the blade which Granderson had loaned her, praying that she would have the courage to use it when the crucial moment came. Then she closed her eyes and drifted into a rash phantasm:

She was trapped inside a burning mobile home which had been surrounded by the dead. She could see the tops of their squash colored heads moving past the small, weak, roll out windows. She fled into the hallway bathroom and closed herself off inside a cramped closet. But the moaning marauders were relentless. They shredded their hands and forearms, even bashing their soft heads against the aluminum siding until she could sense that the panels were starting to give. Then they were walking inside the blaze; becoming the fire, awash in flames, willing to endure any Hellish barrage to get at her. Until they wrapped their cold burning arms around her and the last sound she would ever hear were chained up dogs howling in the distance. She awoke to Sergeant Marge calling out her name, in the same gruff pitch as the pit bulls from her nightmare.

She rolled over on her side before rising and slid the knife down inside her pink underwear.

Once outside she discovered that it hadn’t been night after all as the hot sun blushed in an endlessly clear sky. There was no clock or fixed schedule inside the barracks, making it impossible to tell the time of day. They did not return to the tents, but rather walked for a short stretch along the shore until they came to a lavish beach house. Its picturesque balustrade affording any onlooker a scenic view of the tumultuous pacific.

As Kathryn climbed the wooden stairs which led up from the beach, she recognized Captain Enervy sitting leisurely on a deck chair. His tan and muscular body covered only by a pair of oak green army issue swimming trunks. “Hello,” he said with surprising friendliness, and then as he looked past Kathryn, “that will be all Marge.”

The Sergeant saluted and said, “I’ll be at the bottom of the stairs if you need me Captain,” with that she turned and exited. Enervy studied Kathryn for several seconds before sipping an icy drink in a tall glass. His gaze did not seem as disquieting in this relaxing setting although he did not ask her to sit down or offer her a beverage. Finally he said, “Do you know why you’ve been brought here?”

Kathryn’s mouth turned up at the corners, “for sex,” she said bluntly.

Enervy chuckled petulantly, “because there are some things going on here at the base that I think you should know about.”

“Why tell me about them?”

Enervy got up then and began to pace. This reminded Kathryn of the military manner which he had displayed in the classroom and of his potential for being gravely dangerous.

“Because I like you. I’ve liked you from the first time that I saw you.”

“That’s nice,” Kathryn said sarcastically. He seemed to get a little peeved at this.

“You don’t understand, there are dangers everywhere. My offer to you could save your life.”

“Offer?”

“You could become an exclusive. An officer’s mate if you will. A position which would give you a chance to get out of the barracks; living in an officer’s quarters with only one man. In a monogamous relationship. Yet before I can offer up these luxuries, I need to have a sense of your attitude towards this promotion. Not everyone gets a chance to avoid the camp’s pitfalls.”

“You mean like the pit that women fell into when you ordered her murdered.”

Enervy grimaced again, he seemed to be getting annoyed at the way that she kept shooting him down.

“That was very unfortunate,” he said, “but she was trying to instigate a riot. We cannot have anybody stirring up controversy or inciting rebellion. DISCIPLINE!” He shouted with such force that Kathryn was taken aback as he began raving, “We must have order here or else every women in that room, including you, would have had to die. Every woman in that room would have to be sacrificed to preserve order and… wouldn’t that be a shame to waste all that beauty?” Here he smiled slyly and with a wave of his hand finished, “one bad apple, you see.” He sat back down and took a sip of the drink. His anger having passed as quickly as it came about. This gave Kathryn the courage to say:

“So you’re a good guy, is that it?”

He hatched a peevish grin, “There are no good guys or bad guys, only survivors.” He got up from the chair and stepped towards her. “It’s a difficult call, I understand. But I’m afraid that it’s one you’ll have to make rather quickly.” He was standing right in front of her now and she tried not to step back from him or seem intimidated. “I’m afraid that humanity no longer has any time for courting. And I personally have many responsibilities here at the base, so I won’t be able to wine and dine you.” He took her firmly by the shoulders and kissed her softly on the mouth. Her heart began to beat as if she were searching for a bomb in a maze of industrial pipes. She could feel the knife pressing against her abdomen as his hands traced down the small of her back and squeezed her buttocks. She knew that the time for action was now; it would only be a few seconds before he pressed against her and discovered the knife. But she was frozen by fear and stress. She leaned back, almost feinted and then was righted by his strong arm. When she went limp however her muscles contracted and the knife slipped and dislodged from her underwear. It hit the wooden deck with an audible thud. It then bounced under the railing and onto the sands below.

“What was that?” He shouted, “You bitch you… who sent you here to kill me?”

Kathryn couldn’t answer, the scene was too much for her nerves and she was going in and out of consciousness. He let her go and she collapsed onto the deck. Enervy abandoned her felled frame and walked over to the railing.

“Sergeant!” He shouted. Marge walked out from under the deck into view and looked up at them. “Fetch me that weapon.” She looked at where he was pointing and walked towards the knife. Enervy stormed back over and lifted Kathryn’s dizzy head off the wood planks. “Now bitch,” he began, “you’re going to tell me what you’re doing here or I’m going to cut your fucking eyes out!”

Marge stomped up the stairs then. “Hold her down Captain,” she said, “I’m going to teach this little hussy a lesson.”

He did so. “Don’t kill her Sergeant,” he said, “I need to find out some information from her.”

“Oh don’t worry Captain, don’t worry about anything.”

What happened next flabbergasted Kathryn to the point where she didn’t know if it was real or imagined: Sergeant Marge stepped around Captain Enervy and, in one swift motion, plunged the buck knife into his unprotected eye. He wavered, wavered and a stream of yellow liquid shot out from his retina. Sergeant Marge quickly reached over and extracted the knife before plunging it back in again as if she were hacking through a watermelon. This time the Captain fell; the blade still protruding from his eye; its handle covered by a wash of blood and other internal fluids which dripped down onto the deck and Kathryn’s fair forehead. She could feel his heavy body pinning her down and before her mind revolved into blackness, she heard Sergeant Marge say:

“Get up murderer, you’re going to have to answer for killing the captain.”

6.

When Kathryn awoke she was being marched down the beach. Sergeant Marge had her arm twisted behind her back; tangled in with the club like a splint.

“March whore! March whore!” She kept shouting and finally Kathryn’s feet began to walk for themselves, even though she had lost her shoes at some point and the grains of sand felt like miniscule shards of glass. They soon abandoned the beach however and Kathryn’s brown toes burned on the hot asphalt. Before long they came to a block building with the anagram Y CA hanging from the second story bricks. The second letter in the abbreviation was obviously missing with two bare, rusted prongs sticking out between the Y and the C. As Kathryn was being marched through a locker room she began to hear the moans. Like the cries of the prisoners of Dante’s Inferno themselves. She tried to run but Marge tightened the splint. “Don’t even think about it bitch.”

They came to the room which was the source of the ungodly noises. There had once been an Olympic pool at its center but the water had long been drained. Now the dead were crawling around on the hard floor; trying to climb out; sliding back down the walls and falling over each other; writhing like fat snakes. Marge marched Kathryn right to the edge of the pool. The dead made no reaction aside from continuing to try to escape. Kathryn braced her self for the cruelest of deaths but before she could be thrown in, she heard the sound of applause or rather; one man clapping.

Sergeant Marge whirled around as Granderson walked out of the shadows laughing heartily.

“Captain Granderson,” she said, “this woman murdered Captain Enervy and then she tried to attack me. I was taking her to the pool.” Kathryn stared at Granderson, desperation in her eyes. He shot her a reaffirming look that gave her hope.

“How was he killed?” He asked Marge.

“With this sir, she must have stolen it from one of the officers.”

Granderson nodded and retrieved his own gore splattered knife from the Sergeant. “Yes,” he said.

“Captain Granderson, this may be an inopportune time to bring this up. But you’ll be needing a replacement for Captain Enervy. I’d like to respectfully submit my name for serious consideration.”

“Don’t worry Sergeant Marge,” he answered, “you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“I’m glad to hear that sir, I have done my best for the regiment.”

“Mmm hmm, mmm hmm,” Granderson was staring at the knife and seemed to be thinking about something else.

“What about this wretched underhanded bitch sir? Do you want me to toss her into the pit?”

Kathryn stiffened in terror.

“Well,” he said while hatching a smile, “why don’t you let me worry about her?”

Marge looked around slightly confused and then, perhaps not wanting to defy the Captain, she released Kathryn from the wrestle hold.

“Will there be anything else captain?”

“I don’t think so,” he said before quickly pulling out his service revolver, “at ease Sergeant.” He pointed the gun and shot the thick bodied soldier right between the eyes. The back of her head exploded before she blinked once in shock and fell onto the tiles like a folded up lawn chair. Kathryn stepped back agape; this was the third time in less than a week that she’d watched someone executed at point blank range before her very eyes and the impact which the shock had upon her did not lesson with repetition. Granderson casually strolled up to them and nudged her body over the edge of the pool with his boot. She hit the pond of dead and bounced around like a dingy in a hurricane; before her body went under their solid surface and disappeared in a violent whirlpool of gore. He then looked at Kathryn and smiled wide.

“Ah, thank you, thank you so very much Kathryn for doing what I could not: I’ve wanted Enervy out of the way for some time now. But the sycophants within his faction never would have stood for it. I would have been tried for it and well… the trials around here usually end the same.” He gestured towards the pool. “But this: this senseless self defense at the hands of a whore. Why it’s practically perfect and I even get rid of that dyke Marge to boot. Too ambitious that one. Now I’ll follow you, through those doors.” He said before sticking the revolver in between her two shoulder blades. As she’d done so many times in the last few days, Kathryn began to march. He continued: “And with Enervy out of the picture my faction will take over the entire compound with me as commander in chief. Tantamount to a king nowadays.” Kathryn noticed for the first time that the colloquial street lingo he’d been using back in the tent was gone and he was now talking with the brio of a college professor. They crossed through a tiled opening which had no door and into a shower room. “Now as a reward for so bravely assassinating my biggest political rival I’m prepared to make you a star.” Kathryn rounded another corner and standing in front of a row of shower stalls she saw a video camcorder perched atop a tripod.

“A porn star maybe, but a star none the less.” Kathryn could hear an awful gurgling sound coming from one of the stalls which was obscured by a curtain, like a dog which had been run over by a milk truck whimpering and wounded on the road. She slowed down as she approached the source but Granderson urged her on with the gun. “I’d like to introduce you to someone.” He quipped. Grabbing her mane tightly so that she could not run. Granderson pulled back the shower curtain revealing a monstrous spectacle.

There was a purple faced dead man standing in the shower stall. He was held in place by an intricate web of barbed wires which made deep laceration in his beige skin. There was no blood flowing from these fresh cuts however and his upper lip had been either been lopped off or had disintegrated from decay. There was no teeth in his mouth and both of his arms had been surgically amputated at the forearm. He looked up at them with a savage longing in his bright teal eyes.

” This is Corporal John,” Granderson said, “he may be dead, but he does have one attribute that not every zombie has;” here Granderson paused and pulled a toga off of the hideous creature’s midsection. “You see old John here still has the fire down below.” Kathryn tried to bolt, but this only tightened the grip that Granderson had on her long hair. He continued as if she had not even tried to escape: “That’s right: John here, long lost buddy of ours, will respond to sexual stimulation.” Kathryn struggled and cried, but the Captain was much too strong for her. “So what I want from my actress is very simple Kathryn,” he reached up over his head and switched on a boom box which had been sitting atop the block divider wall. The familiar riffs of the Rolling Stones ‘Start Me Up’ strummed out. “You just listen to old Mick Jagger here, where ever he may be. Because he’s got some good advice for you and we’re goanna find out if your hot enough:” He switched on the camcorder. “We’re gonna see if you can make a dead man cum.”

7.

Private First Class John Wilkes Scooter Benson was glad that he’d joined the army. God knows where the hell he would have ended up if he’d went to college with his pencil necked high school buddies; probably roaming the streets like some possessed puppet, looking for some poor bastard’s entrails to munch on. Whew, he shivered. As it were he was situated inside a safe compound. He slept in a firm but comfortable bed inside a five star barracks. Chowed down on a hot breakfast, before reporting to his cushy duty. And while there were still poor bastards out there somewhere, scavenging for their very lives, he pulled on clean, laundered and starched socks every morning. Hell, next week it was going to be his company’s turn with the women. They… His thoughts were interrupted by a flash of motion on the far right of his peripheral and a quarter of a second later he emptied a clip into a walking corpse who had once been a very attractive woman in a yellow sun dress. Not long after the big slender bullets ripped her apart his two way crackled out a garbled spiel.

“What’s goin’ on over there tower sixteen? Over.”

Scooter picked up the two way. “What the hell da you think’s goin’ on? I got a walker two blocks northwest and I just took her head off. Over.”

There was a brief pause and then the radio barked again, “10-4. Over.”

Scooter had seen them riding by on the back of the flat wagon. Jesus they had looked good; some of those dresses didn’t cover much more than a napkin would have. They must have sent a rescue squad over to the Playboy Mansion to come up with those bitches. One more work week and he would get to sample the goods: if you could even call this work that is. Sitting in an armored tower shooting at these slow, stupid, mothers like they were clay ducks. He’d played video games which were ten times harder. Hell, some of the guys were even bringing twelve packs up into the towers with them. May as well drink as many cold ones as possible before the supply was gone forever. Sniper command knew about it but they didn’t give a shit. Hell some of the guys aim was even a little sharper with a couple beers in em, took the edge off. And the… His thoughts were boggled again by a stir of dust a great distance away; out past the old fish hatchery, which was barely visible on the farthest rim of the firmament. It looked like a dust storm kicking up or fog maybe.

“What the hell,” scooter muttered and picked up his binoculars. But he wasn’t really prepared for the sight he beheld once he lifted the field glasses to his eyes: THE DEAD! Hundreds of them, thousands of them, millions of them marching across the exposed prairies down past the old dilapidated foundries towards the outskirts of the town. Like maggots on the carcass of a deceased world; shaking and squirming and deathly white. Ready to attach themselves to any living or dying population. Scooter lowered the field glasses.

“Holy fucking shit!” he said.

8.

In her bare feet Kathryn scrambled across a high asphalt parking ramp. She could not see the beach, but she could hear the roar of the ocean splashing up against the concrete barriers and continuing on up underneath the beams which held the structure she was standing on in place. The drum like pop of automatic gunfire came from every direction; challenged in pitch only by the locust like drone of the moaning dead.

Back inside the Y CA from where she had just fled, Kathryn had stood up straight in front of Captain Granderson and told him to shoot her in the chest rather than force her to copulate with the grotesquely disfigured and demonized Corporal John. The officer looked out from behind the camcorder and grinned like a hyena, but just as he was preparing a fresh wisecrack, an invisible force slammed into his shoulder. He screamed in agony as a small geyser of blood leaped from the new wound in a vivid splash. Before he could even collect himself a second projectile struck him in the opposite shoulder, causing him to fold down onto his knees. Kathryn took a step forward towards the front of the stall as the shooter came into view; With his one eye twisted into a cruel taffy like laceration, which resembled a mass of egg yokes mixed with ketchup and tarter sauce, Captain Enervy approached them. Thick spiraled designs of dried blood on his bare chest. His good eye shining as blue as a whirlpool whipped by a cyclone; relishing the prospect of retribution and vengeance.

“Hello Granderson,” he said, “didn’t think you were going to get rid of a soldier of my caliber that easily did you?” Granderson didn’t answer but only writhed in agony on the hard shower floor. a huge circumference of gore widening around him. “You think I don’t know the people who want me out of the way around here? Your coup is through asshole and another bullet’s too good for you. Now get up and march to the pit.” Kathryn would have backed into the stall and hid, but with Corporal John zoned into the booth she had little choice but to stand her ground. Finally Enervy noticed her and turned towards her.

“Ahh, the little cunt.” he said, “still think you’re an assassin? I ought to throw you in the pits.” Kathryn said nothing, but could only stand dumbfounded by the awful sight of the maimed soldier. “Nah,” he said after a few seconds. “I think I’ll just blow your fucking head off.” But even as he pointed the gun at her to carry out this threat, Granderson sprang up from the floor. The two men locked onto each other as the gun went off again. The bullet ricocheted throughout the block partitions before hitting Corporal John in the head. His brain exploded like a stink bomb full of thick black ink and his horrid body collapsed only to be held up by the web of wires. This sight drove Kathryn into a near frenzy of fear and she shot around the two struggling men to escape down the hallway. She heard several more gunshots as she exited the building but would never know who shot whom.

Now she was crossing over from the asphalt and back onto the beach; grains of sand digging into the balls of her red feet like metal shavings. Wasps sang around her and she slapped at her head dizzily, before realizing with a rising sense of terror that it was gunfire in the air which was making the buzzing noise; gunfire which was narrowly missing her pretty head. She dropped onto her stomach to avoid the bullets, but a lump in the sand brushed up against her: It was a severed head with a hole the size of a grapefruit underneath its blood soaked hair line. She screamed and rose again. Running down the beach in an aimless panic.

She ran for a great while without reason or direction, zigzagging through a field of the living dead. But they were slow and cadaverous and she managed to avoid most of them easily. Periodically, some of them exploded and were hurled fifteen feet into the air; their frail bodies cracking apart like wooden figures on a firing range. Although Kathryn, in her distress, did not even realize that she was running through a mind field.

Ultimately, she came along to a line of soldiers. Slowly retreating as a massive front of the dead converged upon them. They fired their impressive weapons continuously; the large pellets seeming to evaporate in the cold flesh of the creatures like snow melting onto a hillside; only the occasional shot finding its target and obliterating an evil brain. They also coated the creatures with the incinerating spittle from a squadron of flame throwers. But, just as in the dream which Kathryn was now recalling in a deja vu, the wall of flames had a minor effect.

After Kathryn ran around and then past the battle, the soldiers began to be overcome. The sheer numbers of their maggot ridden opponents defeating their ample firepower. And the dead covered them over like the tide washing out the sands; their screams piercing the air like a bite pinching through flesh.

She continued on at a full sprint; darting in a line concurrent with the fence; the dead clinging to the links like fancy colorful insects pinned to a cloth; an endless mass of their decaying brethren swelling against the ramparts behind them. Hundreds of thousands of white ghouls as far as the eye could encompass. Kathryn fell for the second time, filling her eyes up with the coarse sand. For a few seconds she could only crawl slowly before she sensed a great violence around her and rose to run down the beach blindly. She bounced off of mysterious forms now and then but had no way of knowing whether or not it was one of the soldiers or one of the dead. After a few frightful seconds of this she could feel the warm ankle deep waters of the Pacific sloshing through her toes. She dropped to her knees and frantically washed the sand out of her eyes. When she could open them again, she saw the flags of the tents; the knight’s quarters where she had first encountered Granderson and the girls in her group had first encountered the lust of the regiment. The fabric was being ripped apart by the dead; who were perhaps hoping to find even more quarry inside the makeshift huts.

Instinctively, she began slowly backing into the waves until the warm waters were at her waist. Thankfully, the flesh eaters did not seem to be following her into the depths. Most of the soldiers gamely fought on against long odds rather than flee into the ocean. Perhaps the instincts instilled in them during their training spurred them on to make a stand or maybe they just did not want to get their precious guns wet. Now the water was at Kathryn’s neck as the fence collapsed in many sections under the great push of the lifeless yet living throng. The creatures crawled across the hot sands as if blind and hungry like a million infant crabs searching for a slimy meal in the wet dirt. The death shouts of the regiment were somehow louder and more painful than the steady moan of the cold crowd; as if the souls of the soldiers were suffering more misery than even the tortured, solid ghosts who confronted them. But even if they could defeat the dead in terms of agony, they could not defeat them in battle. The last pocket of the regiment was cornered and torn apart like strips of red rags. Kathryn sighed, nearly cried, turned from the horrid scene and began to swim.

END.

Joseph had seen them heading out to check out the zombies hanging around No. 4 wind turbine; ‘Sarge’, ‘Gomer’ and Barnes, the rancher that they’d hooked up with two days back. The ranch had five wind turbines built on easements leased to a Texas power utility, and the ranch was unlikely to ever be without power. They had power, and a good, deep well; now they needed food, some kind of fence, and a lot more; an endless list.

He and some civilians made a morning sweep of the area around the ranch house, barns and outbuildings, after those three drove off in the ranchers’ pickup, a mobile treasure with its portable generator, hundred gallon diesel tank and pump. A little later, he heard gunshots, and saw zombies go down for good a half-mile away. It was a wonder, this new situational awareness; surreal, hyper-real. There were zees about, and where you saw one, yeah, where you saw one, there were always more.

Always.

The three, plus two, rolled back soon after, unhurt and un-bit. No, make that plus one. Gomer was holding a young woman’s arm behind her, and his ugly mug had a look of infinite sadness. That’s when Joseph knew, even before they got out of the pickup and he saw her bloody pants leg. She’d been kicking at the zombie, the fresh cut of meat that had still had it enough together to climb up after the young woman and the little girl.

There was also something ineffably sad about the skillful way that they had separated the little girl from the woman, her older sister. “Go on, little Jay. Big Sis has to go.” ‘Jay’ didn’t ask, didn’t need to ask. Those eyes were full of knowledge, and she was only being brave for her sister. She went with the old woman, the rancher’s momma. She was seven or eight, and her sister was barely a woman, but they both had haunted eyes, ancient.

Sarge called him over. “Joseph? We’ve, ah… come here, please.”

Joseph had made himself the ‘designated hitter’, their self-appointed executioner. In his opinion, it made more sense that only one man should have to carry this burden, and that it shouldn’t fall to the Sarge, who was not even really a sergeant, although they called him one. Everybody had to be able to trust Sarge, and it wasn’t right, or safe, to put it on the bitten.

“How bad?” he asked, businesslike.

“It got me deep, and carried away a chunk of m-” ‘Big Sis’ suddenly turned and threw up against the corner of the barn that that bastard, Smith, had shot near to hell on the first day. Most of the men looked pointedly away. The vomit smelled like rotted lettuce and probably was, for all Joseph knew. He put a hand out and carefully squeezed her shoulder. She reached around and grabbed his wrist, so fast and violently that Gomer jumped and his rifle went halfway to his shoulder. Joseph didn’t start or wince.

“Do you know what happens?” He asked her. Even now, days after, some didn’t; but the young woman nodded.

“If you’ll come with me, ma’am, there’s something we have to do. Do you understand?”

“Y-yes,” she stammered.

“Lean on me, if you need to; I’m here to help.”

Gomer had gone pale as death, only they all knew better, now; death was bloated, black and mottled, and smelled bad. Joseph knew, because he had seen death go a-walking, shambling along the road. His job was to keep death away, to keep it out. The problem was, death still managed to get inside, no matter how hard you guarded against it. He had seen death in the mirror this morning, and that was very, very bad.

The two of them went around the corner of the barn, a slow three-legged race with her leaning increasingly heavily on him. They found a little privacy out behind the buildings, on a hay-wagon with the high metal framing on three sides. The steel was rusty beneath the flaking red paint. He sat on the front edge, legs kicking loosely, and she sat inside, cross-legged, leaning back against a post.

“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked. He always asked.

“Not particularly, but I guess that I should.” She looked up at him. “Why would you even want to know?”

Joseph shrugged, helplessly. “It’s sort of a barometer. When I don’t care, it’s time to stop.” He had picked out a bullet against that need, when he was no different from the walking dead. It rolled around in his pocket, over his heart. With any luck at all, he’d use it on the real deal, instead. Luck!

“My name is Sarah, and the little girl is my baby sister…” Her face crinkled up in grief, then smoothed out a little, and she did not cry. There were more than ten years between their ages, Joseph thought. Mom and Dad and how many children? “Jacqueline, ‘Jay’. There were three Jackies in her 1st grade class. She’s seven, going on thirty-seven, so she’ll make it.”

“I expect that she will.”

“Do you have any idea what happened, I mean, why?”

Joseph couldn’t say that he did, but he felt the need to say something, anything. “I heard, well, I heard it was terrorists…”

She started laughing, bitterly, and crying. Joseph set his rifle down, and crept over to her, scared and sick of it all. He wondered, idly, if he was trying for ‘death-by-zombie’; maybe.

She was feverish to his touch, a very bad sign. This normally ran its course so very fast only when the bite was in the neck. Her eyes were yellow and bloodshot, whereas, just a little while before, they had been the prettiest blue. Those eyes held death, promised death, and very soon would yield to death.

“Why?” Did she mean, why was she dying, why she had to?

“I don’t know. I wish to Christ that I did, but I don’t.” Joseph shrugged, again with the helplessness. “I really don’t want to be here, doing this, not anymore-”

“Don’t you dare give up!” Sarah pulled his face around in her hands. “I don’t know these people, but I-” She swallowed, then coughed and coughed. Death had her by the throat.

“I need to know that someone will look after her. Not just her, but not give up just because it’s all gone to shit, and-”

“Sh, sh; I will.”

“I can barely see; it’s so dark.” She looked around, her eyes cloudy, now. It was a bright and sunny morning, turning into an unseasonably warm October day. “I want you to hold me, but I don’t think that you should…”

Joseph held her anyway, and after a while she asked him, “What happens next?”

“Do you trust me?”

“Yes.”

“Think of something nice, and I’ll take care of the rest.”

She was smiling, but oh, how she trembled, from fear and her body giving way to the inevitable. He would not have to steal too much away from her, at least.

Joseph got his knife out, and then he used it.

When he was alone again, he made sure that she wasn’t going to get back up, ever. Then he carried the body over to the little pile of exed out roamers. They really needed to dig a pit and burn the pile, for hygiene. Walking dead wasn’t the only way to get dead.

“She had such pretty eyes,” he said to himself. Then he turned away and went in search of Sarge, the guys from his squad, and the rancher.

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

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

“C’mon. Let’s get you back into bed.”

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

“Jesus, Mother you’re sweating… and it’s freezing in here.”

He turned on the electric space heater and scooted it a little closer to the bed.

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

“Jesus, Mother?!”

“Seymour! There was a man in the backyard.”

“No now there wasn’t, Mother. It’s ten degrees outside.”

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

“Mother, don’t tell me you went out to that garden. Why there’s a foot a snow coverin’ those plants over. No wonder you’ve gone and gotten yourself a fever. It isn’t fit for man nor beast out there.”

The old woman didn’t say anything else and for a moment he thought that the garrulous spell had passed, so he said: “Why don’t you get some sleep, Mother? I don’t think anyone’s going to bother you.”

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

“Mother?”

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

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

“Hell’s bells Mother, how in the world did you get that?”

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

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

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

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

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

“Mother?”

No reply.

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

“Mother! Mother!”

He fumbled through the top drawer of the vanity until he came up with the old woman’s ancient, gold plated, compact mirror. He held it under her nose for several seconds but no foggy breath clouded its silvery surface.

“Oh no, OH NO!” He said as he grabbed the phone on the night stand and began dialing. “Alice it’s Mother. I don’t think she’s breathing.” An inaudible squawk lisped out from the other end of the line. “No Alice I don’t think she is. You’d better get over here. Yes I’m calling the ambulance now. Hold on let me check.” But as he took up the old woman’s wrist to feel for a pulse, as Alice had no doubt instructed, Seymour’s dead mother leapt to life and sank what was left of her halitosis inflicted teeth into his forearm. He screamed more with surprise than with terror and dropped the phone onto the rug. With the damage done, the old woman’s frail body dropped back onto the bed. Where she writhed into a couple of convulsions and then seemed to lose consciousness. Seymour jumped back and inspected the fresh bite. Blood was oozing up into the teeth marks like swamp water filling up muddy footprints.

“Dear Lord, Dear Lord,” he kept repeating.

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

“It’s okay Alice, I thought that she wasn’t breathing for a minute, but now she’s up. You’d better be gettin’ over here pretty soon anyway, I’ve got to be gettin’ down to the mall.” After he’d hung up, Seymour covered the old woman over with a blanket. She had quieted back down even though her eyes were open and blazing like the torches of a lynch mob. Once he was out in the kitchen, he let the tap water run over the wound and down into the sink. Once the blood had been rinsed from the teeth marks, the indentations were a blue color and the viscous cuts still smarted even under the flow of the faucet.

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

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

#

“You look a little under the weather Seymour,” Stan said, “or at least equal with it.” He was referring to the blizzard which had quickly converged upon the mountain town and was now raging on outside.

“Ah, it’s just Mother again.”

Stan took a sip of scalding black coffee and said, “ya know Seymour, there ain’t no shame in putting a dying person in a…”

“…nursing home I know,” Seymour finished the sentence for him.”I can’t do it Stan. Not after the way she cared for dad all those years.”

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

Stan held the speaker up to his mouth, “you got me.”

“Stan, you better get down here. I think we got a shoplifter at Spencer’s.”

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

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

“Look, don’t think about any of it tonight,” Stan offered as parting advice, “just have a good time makin’ the kids happy.”

But as Seymour walked past the store fronts out in the mall, his limbs felt stiff and their joints aflame. Breathing was difficult as if the oxygen were igniting a liquid fire inside his chest. He doubled over in discomfort and pawed the bite which was now hidden underneath his red and white sleeve. It throbbed with each beat of his heart and when he pulled the cloth back to inspect it he saw that it was practically glowing with a seeping green liquid.

“Look! It’s Santa.” Then the children were all around him. Usually, he enjoyed the walk through the mall. It gave him the opportunity to pass out his surplus of small, striped red and white hard candy canes to the excited kids.”HO HO HO,” he made himself say. But what he really wanted to do was floor the first snot nosed brat who tried to touch him. He shook his beard like a wet dog and sighed. What the hell was he thinking; he loved children, he’d always loved children. Maybe it was just that awful episode with Mother which had put his nerves on edge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Hey Sarah.”

“Hey Seymour.” The ultra-attractive elf acknowledged his greeting.

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

“I don’t have to write any of it down; my elves are recording it all.”

“The boy looked around as if checking for recording equipment and locked eyes with the vivacious Sarah instead. “She’s got pretty big tits for an elf.”

Before Seymour had to say anything else, the Polaroid’s flash popped and Charlene shouted, “Next!”

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

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

“Are you okay Seymour,” Sarah, the breathtaking elf inquired.

“Yes, I’m fine kiddo,”

“Maybe we should close early? You don’t look so good.”

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

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

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

Not until a darling little girl; with a look that could challenge the style and overwhelming cuteness of Shirley Temple herself, began slapping the face of the deceased Saint Nick did they take notice. The little girl snickered and hopped down. Only to be replaced by a huge boy who was obviously much too old and oversized to subscribe to such childish fables. While Charlene and Sarah glanced at each other in confusion the boy began running through his list. After a few seconds he paused and said: “Santa? Are you asleep?”

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

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

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

Sarah walked up to the sled. “Seymour doesn’t drink. Wait a minute; I think he’s coming around.” Indeed, Seymour had began to stir and when his eyes re-opened they were as red as his jacket. Thinking that Santa had revived the boy continued with his delayed wish list.

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

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

“Seymour?”

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

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

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

“Good God, Seymour,” she said without much steam, “stop!”

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

“Stop Seymour! Don’t make me shoot you again!”

But the monster who used to be Seymour didn’t stop. He rose and continued to bite patches out of both the boy and Charlene, that pair now rendered unconscious inside the sled. This prompted Stan to empty his gun into the red and white clad target. The final projectile, however, grazed the gray antler of one of the (rein)deer and the balsa horns exploded into dull confetti. This panicked the animals and they were so spooked the no constraints could hold them. They quickly trampled the chain link petting zoo. The reins connecting them to the sleigh pulled it right out of its stanchions and away from the flimsy rods that no one had thought would be needed to help contain the docile deer.

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

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

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

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

A few blocks from this accident a young family, perhaps thinking that this obscenity was some type of holiday parade float, pulled up next to the sleigh. A small girl peered out from the back seat and the evil Santa showed her his red and white teeth. Which looked as if he’d just chewed a ball of dentist’s dye to reveal cavities. Charlene’s corpse bobbed up and down along side the carriage, reddening the fresh flakes. The family, then realizing that they were dealing with something deplorable, quickly sped away.

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

“What have you got car four?”

“Uh, this is four, we’re in pursuit over.”

“Request license plate number of suspect over.”

“Um, no plates, suspect is dressed in a Santa suit and appears to be dragging a dead body through the streets over.”

Pause.

“Clearance to shoot out the suspect’s tires over.”

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

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

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

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

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

END.

It was Jenny Cupcake who found the body. An avalanche had exposed a transparent wall of ice; and behind the ice, an elf hung, suspended in ice, arms akimbo and skin blue. His eyes stared forward blankly, and his mouth had dropped open. He looked flash frozen.

Jenny Cupcake tapped the ice with the butt of her Uzi. “You okay in there?”

The elf made no reply; didn’t blink, didn’t move, made no sign that he had even registered Jenny’s presence.

She peered at him. His uniform was outdated but identified as a worker from Sector 7-G. A ragged stump marked the spot where his left thumb had been savagely removed from his hand, and angry looking red gashes criss-crossed his palm. He had probably been a wood worker.

She shouldered her weapon and tapped the ice in front of the elf’s face. “Hey,” she said again, softer than before. Her voice was higher pitched than anyone else’s in Perimeter Patrol, and she always worried she might cause an avalanche and bury the entire workshop with a careless word or shout.

The elf’s left eyelid twitched.

Jenny jumped back, and cried out. Her heart pounded in her throat. Goodness gracious, she thought. He’s still alive! She smiled, and then started to giggle. She always did when she was nervous.

A hideous squawk erupted from beside her, and she jumped again, looking around wildly. When it sounded again, she chided herself. It was just her walkie-talkie. Trying to bring her giggling under control, she flipped it open. “Prancer Five here.”

A deep voice boomed out of the speaker. It was the Big Guy himself. “Report!”

Jenny cleared her throat. “I think we’ve got a situation here Santa.”

“What kind of situation?” The Big Guy’s voice was terse. He was in a bad mood. It was just a week before Christmas, and production was backlogged, particularly in the Electronics division. The programmers were having a hard time integrating USB expansion ports into the new robot dolls and making them compatible with the newest circuits from YoYoDyne. They kept protesting that it was a hardware issue, not a software issue, but Santa was unsympathetic. Quotas had to be met.

“I think you should come out here and take a look,” Jenny said.

The walkie-talkie vibrated in her hand even though she couldn’t hear anything. Santa was grumbling. “Where are you?”

“Quadrant 2L. South side of Peppermint Mountain.” She relayed her exact coordinates.

“I’ll be there in a few minutes. Santa out.”

Jenny Cupcake released the “talk” button and reattached the walkie talkie to her belt clip. “Well, old buddy,” she told the elf, “we’re going to get you out of there and back to work.” She started to giggle again, completely unaware that within just a few hours she would be giggling even more wildly, and for the very last time in her life.

#

Doctor Evergreen stared at the frozen elf. It did indeed wear an outdated Sector 7G uniform. Seriously outdated. Like, by two hundred years. Doctor Evergreen hadn’t seen that particular pattern and fabric in Santa’s workshop since the 1700’s. “You found him buried on Peppermint Mountain?”

Jenny Cupcake nodded, the bell on her cap jingling merrily. “I found him in Quadrant 2L. I think an avalanche uncovered him.”

“Hm.” Doctor Evergreen peered at the body.

“The point is,” Santa thundered from behind him, “is this elf still alive? Can we put him back to work?”

Doctor Evergreen sighed. It was always work for the Big Guy. “He could be. If he is I’ll have to be very careful in reviving him.”

“Oh, he’s alive!” Jenny blurted out. “I saw his eye move!”

Santa laughed, a cheery “HO! HO! HO!” that reverberated throughout Sick Bay.

Doctor Evergreen made his way over to his instruments. “Then I can definitely revive him. He should be back online in just a few hours.”

“He’ll need reeducation,” Santa said. “We phased out Sector 7-G in 1947. Nobody wants wooden toys anymore.” He yawned and stretched. “Give me a holler when you’re done, will you? I’m gonna take a nap.” He lumbered out of the room, muttering to himself.

“Can I stay and watch?” Jenny Cupcake asked. “I’ve never seen one of your experiments.”

Doctor Evergreen looked at the young elf, and decided she was probably harmless. He shrugged. “Sure. But don’t touch anything.”

“Oh, I won’t!” Jenny bounced to a workbench and jumped up, laying her Uzi down next to her. “I’ll be perfectly good!”

Doctor Evergreen grunted. As long as Jenny stayed out of his way, she would be fine. Of course, the whole thing couldn’t have come at a worse time. He was pretty sure he was on the verge of a major breakthrough in advanced toymaking. If this newest project worked out, then the elves would be able to control toy assembly nanomachines through a special neuro-computer interface. It was exciting research, but none of his test subjects had survived for long after he had put the implants in their brains.

The frozen elf gave no hint that he was alive. Doctor Evergreen wondered how to proceed. He hadn’t been in this lab for long, only eighty-three years. His predecessor, who had vanished under very strange circumstances, had been a sloppy note taker and an even worse house keeper. Doctor Evergreen was still trying to work out the man’s organization system, and it seemed he was always losing tools. He kept stumbling over items labeled “Project Epiphany”, but there was no hint as to what that might have been.

At last he decided the simplest route was the best, and he picked up an ice pick from his medical bag. He wiped the tip clean of his last test subject’s brains, and began picking at the ice.

After he had been at it for an hour, he heard snoring behind him. He turned. Jenny Cupcake was fast asleep on the workbench, cuddled up with her submachine gun the way children worldwide cuddled with their teddy bears. The sight was adorable, and Doctor Evergreen smiled. Someday she’d make someone an excellent specimen.

A sharp crack from the block of ice drew Doctor Evergreen’s attention back to the frozen elf. He blinked, then rubbed his eyes, not sure he was really seeing what he thought he saw. Just a moment before the elf had been lifeless and still; now its eyes rolled wildly in its head and the muscles in its jaws worked. Its mouth was still blocked by ice, so it couldn’t talk. It looked like it was suffocating.

“Oh my goodness!” Doctor Evergreen exclaimed. He had expected that hours of resuscitation efforts lay before him. “Keep calm,” he told the elf. “I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy!”

He took up his ice pick again and tapped away at the ice that trapped the elf, working first on its face so that it could talk and breath.

Finally a chunk of ice fell away from the lower half of the elf’s face. Working carefully with a pair of tongs, Doctor Evergreen removed a chunk of ice from its mouth.

“There you go,” he said. “What do you say to that?”

The elf said nothing coherent, but its mouth dropped open and air rushed out. Doctor Evergreen staggered and nearly fell over when the stench of its exhalation assaulted his nose. Then the elf let out a low, drawn-out groan.

“Huh,” Doctor Evergreen said. He leaned closer to the elf, and its jaws snapped shut with a loud clack. Doctor Evergreen jumped back. The poor thing was disoriented. A couple of centuries trapped in ice would do that to anyone, even one of Santa’s elves, who were bred to handle extreme conditions.

Doctor Evergreen chipped away more ice. It came off in big chunks now. When it was all gone and the elf was completely free, Doctor Evergreen took a step back and looked over his handiwork with pride. Sure, the elf was confused and probably terrified, but it would get better with time; and then it would be re-educated, and back online in no time, probably in a sector that needed less specialized skills.

Then the elf’s mouth dropped open again, and this time a single sound came out. He said a single long, drawn out word as he lifted his left hand and reached out toward Doctor Evergreen. “Braaaaaaaaiinnsss!”

“Holy crumbcakes!” It was the foulest curse Doctor Evergreen knew, and he stepped back as he said it. The elf reached for him.

“Calm down!” Doctor Evergreen shouted. “You’ll be all better soon!”

“Braaaaaaaaaiiinnnsssss!” the elf repeated. It took a shaky step forward.

Doctor Evergreen stumbled backwards and reached out blindly behind him, hoping to grab something to use as a weapon. He bumped into a chair, nearly knocking himself over. He grabbed the chair and sent it hurtling on its casters toward the elf.

The chair bumped into the elf and it fell over on his back. Doctor Evergreen let himself relax for just a moment. How was he going to treat this? This was going to take more than a couple of days in a re-education camp.

“Hey!” a new voice squeaked. Doctor Evergreen turned. Jenny Cupcake had woken up; she sat on the workbench, looking confused.

“Jenny, get out of here,” Doctor Evergreen shouted at her.

The shambling elf thing on the floor raised its eyes to Jenny. “Giiiiiirrrrrrllllll braiiiiiinnnsss!” he hissed. And with a speed that Doctor Evergreen would not have thought possible, the elf was up on its feet and shambling toward Jenny.

“Goodness gracious!” Jenny cried. She reached down, grabbed her Uzi and disengaged the safety.

“Don’t shoot!” Doctor Evergreen yelled. Jenny was good with her guns, he knew, but even a carefully applied spray of bullets would destroy his sensitive equipment and he still didn’t know what half of it did.

“Eat hot lead, you motherfucking zombie!” Jenny shouted. She squeezed the trigger, and her submachine gun spat out bullets and smoke. Shells flew everywhere. Doctor Evergreen was well out of Jenny’s line of fire, but he dropped to the ground anyway, despairing as he watched glassware shatter and computers explode.

Several bullets hit the shambling elf. The elf staggered backwards, but did not fall over.

“Holy crumbcakes,” Doctor Evergreen cursed again.

Jenny’s gun suddenly ceased firing. Doctor Evergreen risked a look up and saw her fussing with the weapon and cursing. And, strangely, she was giggling, a high pitched little laugh that was somehow even more disturbing than the zombie elf’s moans.

“Jenny, look out!” he shouted at her.

Jenny looked up just in time to see the elf — bullet ridden, slimy and still wet from the ice that had so recently entombed it — stumbling toward her. She screamed as it grabbed her and spun her around so that she faced away from him. It bit into the back of her skull and then pulled its mouth, flesh and hair dripping from its mouth. It spat out bone fragments, then took another bite.

Doctor Evergreen watched for a moment, then clambered to his feet. It was too late for Jenny. The elf — no, the creature — chewed, and Jenny screamed that she was blind. Well, no wonder, Doctor Evergreen thought wildly. The thing had eaten her occipital lobe.

But there was no time for analysis. Doctor Evergreen had to take advantage of the creature’s distraction. He ran out of Sick Bay and slammed the door behind him.

This, he thought, was not going to end well. Not end well at all.

He took a moment to catch his breath, then reached down for his cell phone. Damn. He’d left it in the lab.

“Code red!” he shouted. He began to run toward the Big Guy’s office. “Code red! Santa! Help!”

#

Five minutes later, Doctor Evergreen stood in front of Santa’s big desk, wringing his hands as the Big Guy watched the tape of the events in the lab. Santa was a big guy. There was no denying that. Even the huge easy chair that Mrs. Claus had given him last year was too small for him now.

On the screen, in grainy black and white, the elf bit through the back of Jenny Cupcake’s skull and started eating her brain. The tiny speakers conveyed Jenny’s screams — and her odd giggles — in a voice as tinny and small as the electronic chip in a musical Christmas card.

When the tape was done, Santa punched the power button on the monitor. “Huh. Didn’t see that coming.”

“This is horrible.” Doctor Evergreen kept rubbing her hands on he moaned. “All my equipment smashed, all my research gone. Even my predecessor’s research. What am I going to do?”

“Doctor Evergreen, there’s a brain-eating monster in there, and all you can worry about is your research notes?”

Doctor Evergreen looked up at Santa, who looked genuinely annoyed. “Sorry, sir,” he said.

Santa huffed and then looked back at the monitor, though he left it switched off. He leaned back in his chair and templed his fingers before him. “We have to figure out how to kill these things.”

“There’s just the one.”

Santa looked surprised, but recovered his composure quickly. “Of course. Just one. I meant, let’s hope there aren’t any more of those things out there. So we need to figure out how to kill this thing. In case any more show up.”

Doctor Evergreen sat down in sat down in the chair and thought hard. None of his research had prepared him for this. But he remembered some scary movies he had watched late one night back in the 60’s; he’d been so stoned that night it was amazing he remembered anything about it at all, but one piece of information floated up. “I think,” he said slowly, “that if we cut off its head or destroy its brain or something, that might kill it.”

“You think so?” Santa asked.

“Yes. Definitely.”

“Excellent.” He leaned forward and pressed the TALK button on his intercom. “Miss Gingerbread, would you contact Mr. Peartree and have him report to me immediately?”

A tiny voice squeaked through the intercom. “Yes, Mr. Claus.”

Santa turned to Doctor Evergreen. “Peartree’s my finest sniper. He should be able to shoot the thing right in the head.”

The door opened just a minutes later, and an elf stepped through. At just under three feet tall, he was taller than most elves. The clothes he wore were so black they seemed to eat the light. His black curly-toed looked like puddles of oil. The bells on his toes and his cap were muffled, and barely jingled at all when he walked. Large mirror-lensed sunglasses hid his eyes, and a deadly looking rifle hung from a strap over his shoulder. A cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth, and the smoke encircled his head like a wreath.

Santa stood up slowly from his seat. “Mr. Peartree. “Thank you for coming.”

“Yeah.” The deadly-looking elf’s speech was as terse as his outfit was dark. He dropped his cigarette to the floor and crushed it out under his heel. “What’s the job?”

Santa swung around his monitor around to face Mr. Peartree, and typed a few keystrokes on his computer. The scene of the elf eating Jenny’s brain replayed itself. “We need a good clean shot to the head. Just one should do it. Do you know that room?”

Mr. Peartree lit another cigarette and took a long drag. “Sick Bay. No problem. I know all three entrances to that room.”

“There are only two!” Doctor Evergreen said.

Mr. Peartree smirked. “That you know of.”

“That’s enough,” Santa said. “Mr. Peartree, this needs to be done as soon as possible. You’ll be paid the standard rate. Just be careful. That thing is deadly.”

“No problem.” Mr. Peartree spun on his heel and left the room as liquidly as he had arrived. The door closed behind him.

Santa sat back down on his chair; it creaked ominously. “Let’s watch,” he said. He twisted a dial on the side of the monitor and a new picture appeared: a live streaming image of the medical lab.

The elf’s face, still dripping red and gray, dominated the screen. Its mouth opened and closed, opened and closed, as it looked back and forth.

Doctor Evergreen had been staring at the elf so intensely that when a black shadow passed before it, momentarily blocking the view, he jumped. “What was that?”

“I don’t know.” Santa fiddled with the controls, and the view pulled back, showing the elf’s entire body, and the now-empty workbench that it stood before.

“Doctor Evergreen?”

“Yes, Santa?”

“Where’s Jenny?”

Doctor Evergreen shuddered. Jenny’s body should have still been on the workbench where the elf had dropped it. But it wasn’t. “I don’t –”

Then the shape passed before the camera again. This time, Doctor Evergreen saw it for what it was. “It can’t be,” he breathed.

Santa leaned forward, squinting. Then he reached into his breast pocket and removed a pair of reading glasses and slipped them on to his face. “Son of a bitch,” he muttered.

“It’s Jenny!” Doctor Evergreen exclaimed. “But that’s impossible! I watched the thing eat her brain!” He swallowed past a huge lump that had suddenly appeared in his throat.

“Do you know what this means?”

Santa sighed. “Taking out their brain’s not gonna kill them.”

Doctor’s Evergreen’s stomach lurched as he watched Jenny’s reanimated corpse shamble around in the lab, moaning for brains and giggling. “Holy crumbcakes. We’ve got to stop Mr. Peartree!”

Santa picked up his walkie talkie and adjusted the frequency. “Mr. Peartree, come in! Mr. Peartree, do you read me?”

The walkie talkie clicked and then fell silent. Santa cursed, then punched the “talk” button on the intercom. “Miss Gingerbread, assemble an armed response team at the medical lab on the double!”

“But Santa, I can’t.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because last week you reassigned all security personnel to Toy Production. Don’t you remember?”

Santa swore again, then picked up his walkie talkie once more. “Mr. Peartree, if you can hear me, I want you to abort the mission immediately. Do you read me? Abort!”

He put the walkie talkie down, then stood up again, pulled open one of the drawers of his desk and pulled out a pistol that Doctor Evergreen thought looked as big as he was.

Santa flipped open the chamber and spun it, checking the cartridges. Then he shot Doctor Evergreen an urgent look. “Let’s roll.”

#

Mr. Peartree slid through the corridors of Santa’s complex, unnoticed by the other elves that toiled there. Half of that was stealth; the other half was the overworked and burned out state that every elf went through this time of year. His walkie talkie squawked at him one, and he stabbed the “Off” button reflexively. He had a job to do.

The door to the medical lab was closed but unlocked. He chuckled. The creature, whatever it was, obviously hadn’t worked out the basic principle of the doorknob.

He raised his gun, keeping it up with his left hand, and placed his right hand on the knob, flattening himself against the door itself. He counted to three, slowly, under his breath, then twisted the knob and thrust the door open. He took a step inside and brought the gun’s sights level with his eye.

He had been expecting the monster to be standing right in the middle of the room, but it wasn’t there. He grinned. “The chase is on,” he muttered. It was the most dangerous game. Elf.

He scanned the room slowly, then he heard a low moan to his left, like someone trying to talk through mud. “Brrraaaaaaaiiiinnnnssss!”

Mr. Peartree spun and fired his rifle. It was a perfect shot; a tiny black hole appeared in the elf’s forehead. But instead of falling over and dying, it simply kept shambling forward.

“Oh, so you’re gonna play tough, huh?” Mr. Peartree grinned; he liked a challenge. He took aim again, this time right at the undead elf’s eye.

But before he could fire, another voice welled up behind him, a high pitched squeaky voice.

“Brrraaaaaaiiiinnnssss!”

Mr. Peartree turned. Jenny Cupcake stood right before him. He recognized her; they’d actually been married for some time, but she’d walked out on him, claiming that she could no longer handle what he did for a living. Now, it appeared, she was an undead brain-eating monster from hell.

Some people, it seemed, never change.

Mr. Peartree aimed his rifle again, and a thrill went through him. “See you in hell, bitch!” he cried at her.

He never fired. The back of his head exploded into a raging storm of sharp pain. Everything went red, then black. His head felt oddly cool, like there was a draft in the room.

“Ah, shit,” he muttered. And that was it for Mr. Peartree.

#

“What do we do? What do we do? What do we do?” Doctor Evergreen was panicking. He and Santa had not made it to the lab in time; in fact, Jenny and the first elf had just finished eating Mr. Peartree’s brains when they’d shown up. If Santa hadn’t thought quickly and pulled the lab door shut with a slam, they would have been eaten for sure.

“Where are the other doors?” Santa demanded, interrupted Doctor Evergreen’s frantic mantra.

“There’s only one other door,” Doctor Evergreen replied. “It’s in the back. It’s locked and there are dozens of heavy crates in front of it.”

“What about the third door?”

“There is no third door. Mr. Peartree was just messing with me, I’m sure of it.”

“Are you sure about that?”

Doctor Evergreen nodded. “Of course I’m sure.” He realized he was shouting, and made a deliberate effort to lower his voice. “If there was a third door, I’d know about it by now. I’ve been all over that lab.”

Santa regarded Doctor Evergreen for a long moment. Then he said, “All right. Let’s get back to my office. I can coordinate crisis response better from there. You!” He pointed at one of the harried-looking elves who was scuttling by with a large bundle under her arm.

“Yes, Santa?”

“Stay here and guard this door. As of this moment you are officially relieved from toymaking duties until further notice. If anything happens, you let me know immediately. Do you understand?”

The elf saluted sharply and stood at attention, her bells jingling authoritatively. “Yes, Mr. Claus!”

Santa didn’t even acknowledge her. He simply grabbed Dr. Evergreen’s arm and began to run.

“I was afraid this would happen,” he panted.

Doctor Evergreen pulled himself to a stop, forcing Santa to turn around. They were at the intersection of two corridors. “You knew about this, didn’t you! You knew something like this was going to happen!”

“Not now, Doctor Evergreen. Come on!”

But Doctor Evergreen was adamant. “No, Santa. Tell me what’s happening.”

Santa sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah. I guess I did know that something was going to happen.”

“So tell me!”

Santa took a deep breath. “Project Epiphany. It was your predecessor’s idea. We thought we could disable the lower brain functions in elves and injecting them with a reanimation tincture I created and make productivity skyrocket.”

Doctor Evergreen blinked in shock. “What! And you didn’t tell me!”

“It was a failure. The things were unstoppable. We couldn’t kill them. We finally just drove them out into the Arctic waste and hoped that nature would take its course.”

“The Arctic Circle,” Doctor Evergreen muttered. “It’s just like a deep freeze out there. You should have known when you saw that elf encased in the ice!”

Santa shook his head sadly. “I just assumed all the zombies were dead. I had no idea what Jenny had found.”

“You just forgot, didn’t you?” Doctor Evergreen was flabbergasted. “I can’t believe it! You just forgot!”

“Okay, so I’m a bad Santa. Let’s just get back to my office.”

There was a loud scream from the right. It was followed by another scream, and then the familiar moans: “Brrrrraaaaaaaiiiiiinnnnnssss!” This was followed by a ghastly high pitched giggle.

Doctor Evergreen looked back to the lab. The door was still shut. What on earth was happening?

“The third door,” Santa said.

Doctor Evergreen’s heart sank. “I swear I didn’t know!”

“I ought to just leave you here,” Santa snarled. But then he grabbed Doctor Evergreen’s arm and began to run again.

#

Doctor Evergreen stood silently watching the carnage on one of the closed circuit TV screens in the Big Guy’s office. The number of zombies shambling through the corridors of the workshop had already tripled. Even now he could see Jenny and another elf fighting each other for the brains of a young elf in a Programmers’ Union uniform. His stomach turned at the sight. “What are we going to do, Santa?”

Santa said nothing for a long moment. Then he sighed. “We’re going to have to go with emergency plan Omega Z.”

“Omega Z? Nuke the facility from orbit? But you can’t! It’s only a week to Christmas! The toys!”

“We’ve got no choice. Get into the escape hatch, and I’ll initiate the detonation sequence from here.” He punched the intercom button again. “Miss Gingerbread, I want you to make an evacuation announcement. Anyone still able to leave the workshop must do so within ten minutes. We’re going Omega Z.”

“Goodness gracious!” Miss Gingerbread squeaked. “For real?”

“Yes, for real. Now do it! Then get out of the building as quickly as you can.” He turned to Doctor Evergreen. “Move it!” He typed a series of commands into his computer, and a panel on the south wall of his office slid aside, revealing a black tunnel.

Doctor Evergreen ran for the tunnel and ducked inside. He heard Miss Gingerbread’s voice start to blast over the PA system: “Ladies and gentlemen, this is an evacuation alert. All elves who are still alive must evacuate the facility within ten minutes. This is not a drill. Repeat, this is not a drill.”

Doctor Evergreen paused to listen to the voice. This was the worst thing he could imagine. Santa’s workshop invaded by zombies. The entire facility being nuked, and only a week before Christmas! How could this be happening?

“Move it!” Santa’s voice was loud and commanding from behind him. He looked behind him; Santa was crawling into the tunnel behind him, barreling on him like a giant boulder. Doctor Evergreen didn’t have a chance to turn around completely before Santa was on him, shoving him backwards down the tunnel. He scrambled to get himself turned around, but he couldn’t get a grip on the floor or walls. Then high pitched voices screamed out, “Santa braiiinnnssss!!!”, and then Santa screamed.

Heart pounding, Doctor Evergreen ran.

#

When he opened his eyes again, Doctor Evergreen found himself out in the snow. Before him, flames leaped skyward from the ruins of the workshop. Smoke billowed upwards, colored orange and red by the flames. Elves milled about them, looking lost and confused. Doctor Evergreen counted less than a dozen of them; Santa had employed close to five thousand.

“Holy crumbcakes,” he said. Grief welled up in Doctor Evergreen’s chest, and he fell to his knees. “This is all my fault!” he wailed, pounding the sides of his head. “Everyone’s dead! I should never have released that elf from the ice! I should have known where that third door was!”

One of the other elves patted Doctor Evergreen on the shoulder. “There, there,” she said. “You couldn’t have known what would happen.” She paused. “Could you?”

Doctor Evergreen shook his head. “I suppose not. Well, there’s nothing for us to rebuild at this point. We’ll have to find a new Santa and issue some press releases. I think…”

He was interrupted by a sound overhead, something like a jet engine, something like hoofbeats. He looked up, saw a miniature sleigh pulled by eight tiny reindeer.

Santa.

Doctor Evergreen felt his heart sink. Santa had a list, and he would be checking it twice.

And as he drove out of sight, Doctor Evergreen heard him exclaim, “BRAAAAAAAAIIINNNNSSSS!!”

THE END

More on Mr. Crawford at www.mossroot.com

The weather was becoming warmer as the wintry months passed, but for May it was still chilly. It rained almost every other day with eerie regularity. Thankfully, the sky showed no signs of precipitation, only the usual depressing gray of pollution.

Riley hiked the trail leading to Old Route 17 and crossed the bridge over the Beaver Kill River before arriving in town. She crouched, peering over a weed infested dirt mound. Using the binoculars, she surveyed Roscoe.

The town looked dead, lonely. Store windows were either broken or layered with dust and grime. The roofs of the buildings were falling apart, shingles missing. A fire had taken one building to the ground. Seeing no danger, which meant very little, Riley headed into town.

The way in was wide open, something Riley wasn’t used to having been living in the wilderness for so long. Anyone watching through a window would see her approaching; have a clear shot at her.

She kept close to the buildings, using them as cover. She moved slowly, cautiously, making sure to keep quiet. The only sound, besides gusts of wind whipping through the abandoned streets, came from an old weather beaten sign dangling from a storefront. It clanged recklessly against the siding like a damaged church bell. The wind was blowing Riley’s hair into her face. Annoyed she tied it back with a piece of string. If there ever was a ghost-town, Roscoe was it.

She entered a convenience store. The place had two dead bodies lying on the floor. The stench was horrendous, but she continued searching nonetheless. A brown button with an eagle engraved into it lay on the floor. It was her father’s. She picked it up, staring at it before placing it in her pocket. She remembered when he had left for town his jacket was in fine condition. Returning to the cabin, it had been torn and missing a button. He hadn’t said much of what happened to him, but she imagined that where she now stood was the place he received his death sentence. When she returned to the cabin, she would visit his grave and say a prayer.

She didn’t find anything else worth taking. The shelves were empty. Broken cardboard boxes and soda cans littered the floor. Old pieces of newspaper clung to the corners like they’d been plastered with glue. She left feeling a twinge of disappointment.

She passed the laundromat feeling no need to enter. The place was pitch black inside, the only windows were in the front and layered with debris.

A gas station had some old rusted tools, but nothing worth her trouble. Her day had been a big let down so far, except for the button, a “hello” from beyond the grave. She guessed the town had been visited by so many people that it simply had nothing left to offer.

An hour since entering town, she came upon the Roscoe Diner. Unlike the rest of the buildings, the diner only had one smashed out window. The others were caked with grime. Someone had written the sentence: THE WORLD IS FOR THE DEAD NOW on one of the panes of glass. How sad, she thought. She walked up the steps, pulled open the doors and went inside.

The interior was dismal with only a small amount of light penetrating through the one broken window. The air was stagnant, filled with a plethora of repugnant odors. Rot, mold, feces, and urine all assaulted Riley’s nostrils like evil unseen spirits. The counter, which had once been white littered with tiny gold specs, was covered in a sheet of dust as thick as dryer lint. The booths and tables were the same.

She stepped carefully, avoiding a few sets of skeletal remains. The dining area was a bust like the other buildings she’d entered. She headed for the double doors leading into the kitchen. She stopped before entering, looking around. She imagined people, families, truckers, and travelers, all enjoying themselves, laughing and eating civilly together. All were gone now. Would she ever see humanity like that again? So taken for granted it was. She pushed the doors open.

In the kitchen she found a few knives and a dirty pot. With a good scrubbing the pot would come clean. It would be useful for holding and boiling water. She left the kitchen, ready to leave the ghostly eatery. She cracked one of the front doors open, making sure the way was clear. Two zombies were walking down the middle of the street. Damn, she thought. She’d have to wait them out.

She watched, never letting them out of her sight, as they entered and exited the same stores she’d visited, and in the same order. Their path was eerily familiar. Double damn. They were Trackers or Sniffers as some called them. Zombies able to track down brain matter with keen accuracy. Riley’s trepidation grew as the zombies drew nearer. They had a few stores to go before they reached the diner. She readied the rifle. Taking them out would be easy from her vantage point. Aiming, she readied her shot when movement from her left caught her attention. Taking her eye off the target, she saw three more walking dead. Another four were entering from Stewart Avenue. Within minutes the streets had become packed with zombies. Where the hell did they all come from? They moved around like birds without the ability to flock. The Sniffers were still in tandem, coming toward the diner.

Riley let the door close and sat back. She’d have to wait until the Sniffers entered the diner. Then take them out in the kitchen and hope the others wouldn’t hear.

Cracking the doors, she looked out, seeing a third Sniffer had joined the others. Riley let the door shut and made a beeline for the kitchen.

She ran to the farthest end, crouching behind a steel prep table. Dust particles flew around the room like soot. She’d wondered how long it had been since someone disturbed the place. It didn’t matter. If she made it out of the town alive she’d forever remember to dust the cabin at least once a week. She wanted to laugh, but nerves kept her silent.

Minutes later she heard them, their awful moaning as if they were sick and dying. She wished they would just die, once and for all and stay dead. The monsters’ dragging feet and moaning sounded almost musical. Like some new deranged techno-rock.

The double doors began to push open, revealing the first of the walking dead. Riley fired her weapon. Inside the white tiled room, with nowhere for the sound to travel, the gunshot was deafening. The zombie’s face caved in between the eyes as it crumpled to the floor.

The second zombie took a bullet to the temple. A perfect shot Riley was proud of. The third hadn’t come through yet, but she heard its moans. The doors burst open as if a powerful wind had blown in. The zombie dashed forward, running stiff-legged, but quickly. Riley fired, missing. White tiles shattered behind the monster. The thing was fast, knocking over a pot, sending it crashing to the floor. She fired again, hitting it in the chest hoping to slow it, but it kept coming fast. Its eyes were filled with hunger. It was difficult to get a steady bead, but she kept firing.

The zombie approached, its mouth chomping at the air, revealing rotten decaying teeth.

Patience, she thought, knowing she had to stay composed. Every shot counted and she’d already wasted three. Her arms began to shake, nerves getting the best of her. She took long, deep breaths, steadying her pulse as the zombie drew within a few feet. She could smell its rot. Insides turning to ice, she fired hitting the zombie in the forehead. Brain, skull and flesh exploded out the back of the zombie’s head. It dropped like a stone.

She waited, taking in long measured breaths. Her ears were ringing. Swirls of faint smoke seeped from the end of the rifle barrel, dissipating into the air. Had the zombies outside heard? Riley waited. When no other zombies showed she relaxed, her shoulder’s slumping. She left the kitchen.

From inside the dining area she heard yelling and gunfire. It sounded like a war zone outside. She ran to the door, peeking outside.

Men in camouflage and black fatigues roamed the streets firing machine guns at the zombies. They were all aiming for the heads. Suddenly the diner’s door was whipped open. A large man wearing black fatigues stared down at Riley. He pointed an M-16 at her head.

“Drop the weapon,” he demanded. She leaned the rifle against the checkout counter wall. “You infected?” he asked. “Bitten?”

“N . . . no,” she stuttered.

“Got one here,” the man yelled, waving another soldier over. “A young girl.” He bent down so their eyes met. “We’ll get you checked out, make sure you’re okay. Anyone else in there with you?”

“No. I’m alone and I wasn’t bitten I said.”

“Okay, sweetie,” the man said before marching off. He began plugging zombies as he went. A man with a Red Cross patch on his arm came to her. He had a machine gun, but it was slung over his shoulder.

“You alone?” he asked, before looking over his shoulder. He seemed impatient, in a hurry. He turned back around to look at Riley before surveying the interior of the diner. “Is anyone with you?”

“No. I’m by myself,” she told him.

The man shoved Riley inside. She fell backwards onto the floor, hitting her head. Bright lights, like fireworks, filled her vision before she heard the door close. She opened her eyes, looked up. The man was standing over her, a large hunting knife in his hand. “Don’t make a sound or I’ll cut that pretty little face of yours off.”

“What do you want?” Riley asked, the back of her head throbbing.

“Shut the hell up,” the man said. He grabbed her by the jacket collar and dragged her through the double doors and into the kitchen, stopping abruptly. “Holy shit! We got fresh zombie kills in here.” He snorted and cleared his throat, launching a phlegm-filled ball of spit onto the nearest corpse. “You do this?” he asked Riley. She remained silent, not answering. One second she thought she was getting rescued and the next was getting hauled off by a man with a knife. She was confused and terrified. He swatted her in the head, further irritating her bruise, causing dagger-like pain to shoot into her brain. “I asked you a question.”

“Ye . . . yeah,” she stuttered.

“You a tough little bugger, eh? Growing up in a world like this . . .” he shook his head as if he was sorry. “Guess it’ll make even the tiny ones dangerous.” He laughed, before tugging her deeper into the kitchen. He patted her down, finding a knife, tossing it away. “You can have that back when I’m done with you.” He told her to take off her backpack and she obeyed. “Now the jacket, but just the jacket.” She gingerly removed her coat, placing it on the metal countertop. “Now, lie down on the floor and don’t move.”

Riley lay down; the hard tiled floor softened by layers of dust. It filled her lungs as it flew through the air, disturbed from its slumber. The man, his smile widening into an evil grin, got down on his knees and lowered himself over her. His breath had the odor of cigar smoke and feces. “This won’t take long darling, but it may hurt a little. Riley heard him unzip his pants, then he grabbed hers and undid the top button. Fear seized her like a giant boa-constrictor. She was paralyzed, her body no longer hers, but someone else’s–a distant piece of flesh that she watched from across the room. The man looked eager. This had been what her father had warned her about–the evil men will try to do to her. Hurt her in the most vicious of ways. As quickly as she left her body she returned, having seen her chance to get away. The cooking pot the zombie had knocked to the floor lay to her right. She grabbed hold and with all her might, grunting, she brought the cast-iron pot up and smashed it into the side of the man’s head.

The man’s eyes went wide, then vacant. Blood dripped from the side of his head. He let out a sigh and fell lifelessly on top of her. Riley had the wind knocked out of her, dropping the pot, and found it difficult with the man’s weight on her to draw breath.

After struggling for some time, she managed to wiggle out from under him. Without hesitation, she grabbed her knife from where the man tossed it and held it to his neck above the carotid artery. She felt for a pulse. He had none. She’d killed him.

The man was a pig; a dreg of the new world. He deserved no better sentence than the one she’d given him. The zombies were only part of the world’s problem. It was men like the one that had attacked her that, like the undead, needed to be eradicated. Riley ground her teeth, cheek muscles flexing with anger. Was anyone in the world trustworthy? Her father had taught her to be vigilant and that meant trusting no one. She’d let her guard down, thinking she was safe because the army had come. Who even knew if they were the official United States Army? Maybe they were a band of rag-tag survivalists. She would never make that mistake again. She gathered her things–the gun by the door–and hid in one of the large cabinets until the army left the area. Tonight, when she was safe, she would cry.

The End

–

When David, a.k.a. MacabreZombie, isn’t writing horror, he can be found reading or watching it. He’s been published in a number of horror magazines and anthologies. He is currently working on a novel, but keeps getting ideas for short stories and has to write them. He lives in the NYC area with his girlfriend of eight years. He can reached at dbern77@hotmail.com

scabrous eyelids
the tips of her finger bones
beneath cracked nails

shoulder bitten
the burnt taste
of the rifle barrel