Hello zombie slayers,

So we’re aware that the site has lain fallow for quite some time. Neither Ryan nor Pete have the time available to edit and review submissions. That being said, we’d like to put out the call to interested parties who might want to assume the mantle.

We can’t really pay anything (our ad revenue doesn’t even cover the cost of hosting the site), but you’d have the eternal gratitude of our readership.

Interested? Shoot us an email at west@talesofworldwarz.com and we’ll talk.

Yours,

Ryan West

Chester grabbed the feet of the first body in the pile while Will grabbed it just under the armpit. Chester had on a pair of HazMat gloves, reaching up above his brown elbow. Will was an older white man, in his forties with a gray and brown beard that covered most of his neck. The man was twice as broad as Chester, easily. (more…)

Betrayal, revenge and murder; lovely meaty sounding terms, eh? They’re such thrilling, blood dripping and juicy words that I’ve always loved, but only in fiction of course. I mean… I never thought, not for one second, that I’d ever become the central character in such a terrible story myself, but I have. And that’s the thought that runs through my mind as I move sneakily up behind Tommy O’Brien to push him over the edge of this high sea cliff. (more…)

Jack hadn’t eaten in two years. There was no point – his digestive system no longer worked properly. Even so, this afternoon his stomach was churning.

Or he imagined it. The mind is a funny thing.

Is this what nausea feels like? he asked himself, rattling his leg up and down to shake out the nerves; his knee cracked musically. Drawn by curiosity, his waiting room companion – there was only room for two – regarded Jack from the corner of his eye then quickly turned away.

Jack knew the man was afraid. (more…)

“Now, what kind of ceremony did you have in mind? Did you want a traditional burial or a reawakening?”

The two women, mother and daughter, exchanged a look. “We’re very traditional people,” the mother, Elizabeth Reed, said. “I think we’ll just go with a burial.”

I nodded. “I understand,” I said, keeping my voice soft and even, trying not to show how desperately I needed this to work out. The rising of the dead had not been easy on my business. After the cemeteries had opened, sending the dead staggering out onto our grounds and destroying the property, most of the family had left. Once, we’d been Walters, Gambol, and Sons. Now, it was just me, Rebecca Gambol, not even one of the sons. It figured. (more…)

Their wedding picture, spattered with her blood, kept him company when he couldn’t bear to look at her. The plague now confined him to his home, and one look out the window showed him a staggering, shifting army of half-rotted people, their once pristine clothing now tattered and dust stained. (more…)

She sits by a lake, a massive body of water so cold that just thinking about it should have made her shiver in the morning light. But her legs are splayed out in front of her carelessly, and her arms lay unfeeling and cold on the dying grass that bristles on the sloping banks.

The girl tries sorting through her web of tangled thoughts, but gets snared despite being the spider. She tilts her gaunt face back to stare at the sky, so clear it seems to be deliberately mocking her. So many tears have already been shed that nothing will come; only the vaguest feeling of loss permeates her chest and travels slowly to her jumbled thoughts like a storm cloud over a playground. (more…)

At about what age do young boys stop fighting over whether or not their pretend bullets merely maimed or killed their friend?

“You can’t shoot me. I already shot you!”

“No! You only shot me in this arm, so I shot you with my other hand!” Are they just playing together one day when one of them finally realizes it doesn’t make sense to argue about it? (more…)

His backpack sways lightly on his back as he walks, the worn straps hanging low from his shoulders. He can feel the few items knocking against him with each step, a constant reminder of the bag’s emptiness. His breathing echoes loudly inside of his gas mask, his hot breath reflecting back on to his skin. He clutches the hammer in his right hand, his calloused palm gripping its eroded rubber handle. The muscles in his wrist ache from the swinging weighted end of the tool. He flexes his hand around it as he reaches the turning for the street. The sun burns down, toasting his exposed arms. (more…)

The rain was driving down when the police came for Melanie Atkinson. She lived in a trailer on the verge of town and had, ever since the fire that obliterated the childhood home she had shared with her dad, Mitchell.  It had been a story of thwarted aspirations and dead ends, that sometimes occurs in depressed rural areas. About ten years before, Mitchell had moved to the town to start up a mechanics business, but the promised Taranaki oil boom had never eventuated, and the strains on his marriage with Alannah had led his soldier wife to take up with another man.  Or had it been Mitchell and Irene, the school teacher, at the same time? For whatever reason, Melanie became cold and distant. And then, one evening, she came running into town, with the night torn by the sound and fury of her home going up behind her.  Blackriver was a small, insular New Zealand town, and in such places, prejudice and rigidity are the main course. Anyone with ambition and drive left when they hit eighteen and went off elsewhere to learn a trade, or headed off to polytech or university. They never came back. (more…)

Hey zombie fans,

First, sincere apologies for the radio silence on the part of your editor. It’s been an insane 2014 for numerous personal reasons, including the death of a parent. Given the multitude of things happening in and around my life I need to face facts and step down as the editor of this fine publication. 7 years feels like a good run.

That being said, I’d like to open things up to a new editor: you(?). Given the number of outstanding authors and contributors we have on the site, I’m sure one or more of you would be a great, likely better editor than yours truly.

If you’re interested, email the story submission address on the site and Pete and/or I will get back to you.

I will continue to pay for hosting the site and will continue to keep the technical side of things up and running. I just don’t have the time to dedicate to working with the submissions we receive.

Thank you all for your patience.

Ryan West