The damned are reinvigorated

in the twilight

their husks

suffused with a new and

unwholesome potency, (more…)

Sequel to Part II

I rationalize my serial theft from the quiet crypts of civilization by imagining myself as the inheritor of all those now dust. Perhaps not me, an old man, a relic, but Ferlita, at least. It is she who stands some chance of seeing our species coming back from the brink, she the one who may lead us back into the light.

The pattern of larceny, once begun, grows easier with repetition. The Kinneys, strange as we were, earned what we took, and were proud of standing on our own two feet. Aside from our trophies, we hated to borrow, rejected help, and bought only those things which we couldn’t gain by direct action. My primary action now is to think of things I can rob from the community chest and ways I can use those items to prosecute a war perhaps only myself and Ferlita have formally declared. (more…)

Sequel to Part I

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

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

Prologue:

“You stand right there for a minute, you son of a bitch. You just abide there and I’ll do what ought to be done.”

My old eyes don’t line up a peep sight like they used to. Something about vision when you pass those sweet years of youth by…it just ain’t happy with settling down to giving you equal perception all through the range. I’m breaking down, but as I steady the M14 over the roof of an abandoned and rusting Hyundai, I can still feel the shot. I take a breath and let half of it out. I squeeze, real gentle. (more…)

A bicycle stands against the wall of the antique store, whose windows have long been dark, the soap-written deals yellowed with long decay. The hand holding a digital voice recorder trembles despite the warmth of the day. The smell of blood fills the air, the crimson brightness splashed against the dull surface of the sidewalk in Rorschach blots. A thumb hovers above the play button, finally engaging the playback. (more…)

The yoke about our necks, this crux of all human bondage, is that we remember the suffering of the past.  This awareness of the illusion of time, this surety of our own presence, of our own history…these are the constituents of our misery.  External misfortunes are but the clarion call at the head of our army of woe.  As we have often seen, we humans are capable of misery even in the absence of tragedy.  Lacking true unrest, we will make ourselves un-restful with petty tricks of the mind, picking endlessly at the single dropped thread in the great carpet of life.  We are destined for this, made for it.  Apocalypse aside, we have always gloried in the gloom of our own bruised dreams.  The only difference now is that there are far fewer of us to do the suffering. (more…)

Morris blinked, looked down at his coffee on the table, then back at the restrooms where he’d been. Something had happened. Something big. The whole coffee shop was empty, only wisps of ash floating in the air. The peppy morning music still poured out of the CD player on the shelf above the milk machine.

There were no sirens, no honks from the street, though it appeared there’d been a massive accident, and several cars were pushed out of line. An SUV was actively burning, but no one was doing anything about it. Morris swallowed, took a big sip of his coffee, and put it down. He had to see this. (more…)

The scene couldn’t be purchased for hard currency in any amount. The last three werewolves on earth, defending the Acropolis against a legion of zombies too numerous to count. The evening sky boils with blood, the still air electric, the fallible gods of old looking down on us. (more…)

Broadcast Tape Archive/January, 2011/RZFD 322/Full Transcript:

Hey there, living listeners.  It’s Big Dave here, broadcasting live from the fortress of ass-kickery at Radio Zombie Free Denver.  Yeah, I know I’ve been off the air for a while, and I bet some of you faithless heathens probably thought the zombies lunched up on me, but I’m back, kicking out the tunes, anti-zombie rhetoric, and inane observations at a newly-beefy one hundred thousand watts of AM fury.  I’m on AM bands 800 and 1320, FM 99.5, and Short Wave One where the BBC used to live. (more…)

Andrea leaned against the wide windowsill of the capital building and looked down into the square. In the distance, fire was consuming the outlying districts of the city. The end of everything—the big, stupid hammer between the eyes that knocks society down—the movies, bibles, and chiller books always made it seem as if it would be so loud. Eardrum-smashing screams as everything blows up and goes dark. Really, it had been quiet. Maybe that was the whole idea. You just exhale, and it goes away. Free at last, free at last. (more…)