 
BOX OF ROT

Short Stories by

William Todd Rose

SMASHWORDS EDITION

Box of Rot

Copyright 2012 by William Todd Rose

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*****

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Introduction ("The Stench") by Carl Hose

  2. Gospel of the Dead

  3. Black Market Funeral

  4. Letter #35

  5. Full Court Press

  6. Fur Elise

  7. Our Last Hope

  8. Rule 22

  9. The Palomino and the Draft Horse

  10. Hips

  11. Author's Notes

# INTRODUCTION: THE STENCH

I've been writing about zombies for a long time. My first stories were in the nineties. In 2001 my story Scoring appeared in Cold Storage, a twisted collection of dead tales edited by Paul Fry. I wrote Deadtown, a western tale featuring a cool hero and more of the shambling dead. There's also Toxic Shock, which I wrote for Deathgrip 3, It Came from the Cinema. That story was inspired by the Return of the Living Dead films, which were inspired by George Romero's Night of the Living Dead, which, of course, inspired me. I haven't stopped smelling that stench yet. My zombie novella Dead Rising will stand as testament to that fact.

But this isn't about me. This is about another writer, who happens to be a good friend and a hell of a nice guy. His name is William Todd Rose.

He smells the stench too.

William Todd Rose writes about more than zombies. Do a quick search on the Internet or at any of the major book distributors and you'll find plenty to read by him. Like I said, though, he smells the stench, and once you smell it, it's hard to get rid of it.

I'm talking about the stench of decay, of course, and you'll smell plenty of it in this fine collection called Box of Rot.

Many of you are familiar with William Todd's acclaimed novel The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People (published by Permuted Press), so the stories here will be a treat for fans. In Box of Rot, William Todd pulls out all the stops, bringing you previously published stuff collected together for the first time. He's also dug up some rarities and tales that haven't seen the light of day for some time. He's dusted off the grave dirt, and like the walking dead, these stories rise again to shamble through the wasteland of your nightmares.

So sit back, if you will, and inhale deeply. Can you smell it? That's the stench of rotting decay. Once it's on you, you'll have a hard time getting rid of it. You can shower, you can bathe, you can roll around in deodorant, but it's always going to be there.

—Carl Hose, Ellenton, FL., 2012

GOSPEL OF THE DEAD

(Published in Zombology 2, Library of the Living Dead Press, 2009)

The following manuscript was found in a ransacked farmhouse deep within the hills of what used to be called West Virginia. The bloodstains on the walls and floor were almost as faded as the ink on the paper, which would seem to indicate that the events detailed within transpired quite some time ago. This assumption is further supported by the unchecked growth of the surrounding vegetation and the amount of rust on the chain-link fencing of the pen referenced within the pages. If pressed for a time frame, I would estimate that all of this occurred five to ten years after the initial uprising. If still alive, the girl mentioned in the story would undoubtedly be a woman now; however, there are so few of us left that I feel it is highly unlikely that she ever lived to see her eighteenth year.

I am writing this, I suppose, in the vain assumption that the human race will somehow endure: that some future archeologist will stumble across the ruins of this place and find not only the handwritten pages of the initial books, but also my notes. Perhaps, in some small way, I can add a footnote to a period of history that these hypothetical survivors would probably prefer to forget. But, as my father used to remind me, those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it... and God help anyone forced to endure what we have suffered.

The First Book of Jedidiah, Called

ALPHA

Chapter I.

  1. In those days it came to pass that a great wickedness had fallen upon the world of man, the likes of which had not been witnessed since the Lord extracted His wrath upon the vile cities of Sodom and Gomorra: His temples were defiled by the greed of false prophets, fathers lay with daughters as their bastard sons shed the blood of innocents in the streets, and graven images were made of their politicians and favored entertainers. The laws of Moses were set aside by the children of the Lord and they embraced the sins of the flesh as if suckling the teat of the eternal whore.

  2. And the Lord looked down upon this cesspool of sin and debauchery from His heavenly throne and was saddened. Had he not provided his grandest creations with seas of sparkling water, with lush forests of fruit and berries, fields of tall golden wheat, and mastery over the beasts of the earth? Yet all of his gifts had been rebuked, broken and cast aside like the unwanted playthings of a spoiled child.

  3. So few were the righteous among the droves of the sinful. So scattered were those who still believed in the Way of the Lamb.

  4. And anger possessed Him then for those who would turn their backs upon all He had provided in His supreme benevolence. He caused the skies to turn black and the moon to become as blood while stars fell from the heavens and burned the cities of the earth with flames that produced no heat.

  5. "If thou cannot be happy with all I provided, then thou deservest not the gifts I have bestowed. Know then the pain of hunger in the pit of thy belly; know the fear and uncertainty of the hunted and what it means to be prey in a world which used to be yours for the taking."

Chapter II.

  1. And the angel of the Lord came to me in my slumber and raised me up on high, showing unto me the vast lands of the earth. Look, he said, and I looked and saw the ground tremble as the staff of righteousness thundered down, releasing a plague from the ruins of fallen cities that spread across the plains and fields and mountains and seas.

  2. Look, he said, and I looked as the creeping sickness lay waste to kings and paupers, to old and young, but touching not the creatures that walk upon four legs nor those that scurry by night or fly or swim. And blood did ooze from their flesh as their sins took and corporeal form and was expelled through their pores and mouths. Their cries rose up on the winds like the voices of one million terrified infants as they begged forgiveness for their vanity and conceit.

  3. Like a great wave washing over the earth, I saw the wicked fall: their bodies flopping and twitching like fish upon a barren sea as three-fourths of their number were mown down by the scythe of the Lord.

  4. Look, he said, and I looked as seven radiant seraphim appeared over the continents holding seven golden trumpets, each trumpet adorned with seven banners of purple and green.

  5. And the bodies of the wicked became still as their eternal souls dissipated like fog before the morning sun. A great silence fell across the lands as those not taken by the Lord gathered round the remains and looked on with puzzlement and fear.

  6. Listen, said the angel of the Lord, and I listened as the seven seraphim raised their trumpets to their rosy lips; a sound like the voices of all who lay dead sung out in a wail the rose slowly in pitch before falling back into a tone so deep that the windows of the mightiest towers still standing rattled before its call.

  7. Look, he said, and I looked as the corpses of the fallen with filled with the spirit of the Almighty. I saw the dead rise from the dust that had settled upon them, the shells of their bodies reanimated through His righteous anger and called upon to be His sacred warriors.

  8. Go, said the angel of the Lord unto them. Go and do thy Father's bidding. Purify this unclean world of those who would make a mockery of the Holiest of Holies, He whose name is sung on high. Strike down His enemies with furious anger and anoint them with your vengeance so that they, too, might rise again to serve in His army.

  9. And the dead did walk the face of the earth sparing only those who knew the path of the Lord and destroying all that were tainted by sin.

  10. Angel of the Lord, I cried, why do you show me these things? Why do I bear witness to this? I can look no more!

  11. But the angel of the Lord remained silent, pointing only to a great fire which leapt between the clouds of the sky; from the hungry flames issued forth a voice which caused my knees to tremble and my eyes to avert lest I be struck blind by the radiance therein.

  12. "Go, My Child, and gather the faithful into a flock which thou shalt tend. Lead them to the land of the hills and valleys where a sanctuary will make itself known unto you. If thou should meet any of My holy warriors on thy journey, smite them not but know that they are doing My work. Verily I say this unto you: remember the Sacred Ones and keep them holy.

  13. But if thou should come across the unbelievers, the heretics and false prophets, I command this of you. Strike them down so that they too may be purged of their trespasses and rise again in My service. Go, My child, for you are of the Lord and blessed among the fallen.

Chapter III.

  1. And go I did, meeting three travelers within the first day of my pilgrimage. Of the first one I asked, Do you know the Lord thy God? Do you see His hand in all that surrounds you, see His design in all that transpires?

  2. And the first traveler replied: I see only sadness and death. I see a devastated world that we brought upon ourselves. I see my brothers and sisters turned into the things of nightmares. There is no God here. He has abandoned us if He ever existed at all.

  3. In accordance with the Word, I raised my staff and brought it down upon his neck, crying the name of Jehovah as I felt His power surge through my veins.

  4. Of the second traveler I asked: Do you know the Lord thy God? Do you see His hand in all that surrounds you, see His design in all that transpires?

  5. And he spat upon me, drawing forth a dagger with which to pierce my heart; but mighty is the armor of the Lord and His hand guided my staff once more as I lowered the instrument of divinity upon the unbeliever.

  6. Upon meeting the third traveler, I asked my questions once more. And she fell onto her knees, embracing my legs, crying Yes! Yes! I see Him among us but do not understand why He has wrought this upon His children.

  7. Rise, I commanded her, and walk with me. Take up thy own staff and I will teach thee the mystery of the Lord. We shall reap the sectarians and harvest the faithful as He has instructed and shall honor Him above all things.

Here there are pages of the manuscript missing. However, the handwriting in the next section differs from the previous author; this would seem to indicate a separate book, though I could find no trace of its title. It can be assumed that the missing verses deal with the pilgrims' journey to this farmhouse and their initial days here. Of course, no estimate can be made as to exactly how much time had passed.

Chapter XIV.

  1. So it was that the Lord said unto His chosen prophet, Jedidiah, "Thou shalt construct a pen and it should be thrice the width and length of a full grown man and its walls should be formed of sturdy wire. Adorn the top with coils of razor and facing the south thou shalt construct an entrance upon which thou shalt set a powerful lock to act as thine seal. Within each corner of the pen should stand a cage which opens only to the outside. And these cages shall be made of silver bars and into each should be affixed shackles of the strongest steel."

  2. "And this pen shall stand as a cathedral unto My chosen warriors. Whenever a member of thy flock should fall before the ravages of illness or be met by accident, move their bodies immediately into this pen so that they might be resurrected by My glory and revered."

  3. "But if My children do not fall upon their knees in worship or if they should stray from the path of the righteous, then confine the transgressors within the silver cages for no less than one cycle of day and night. And they will know My name is the Lord when they witness My wrath burning in the eyes of My chosen ones and smell the stench of the grave upon their breath."

  4. Verily the children of righteousness did comply with their Father's instructions and within the span of a season the pen was erected. Into this pen were placed Mary, who had passed into His service through a great fever, and Thomas, who had profaned the sacred Word and been offered up unto the Highest of Highs so that his soul would be washed in the blood and he would live ever more.

  5. And a keeper was appointed unto the Lazarus Pen who, at that time, was called Mark. Whilst the other children toiled the fields and tended the chickens and goat, he alone kept vigil o'er the sacred space, spending his days in the company of the Lord's chosen ones.

  6. Through a full cycle of the moon Mark did tend the holy warriors, providing them with live foul but always remaining distanced from the virtuous anger that caused them to charge the walls of the pen like beasts driven mad by hunger and pain.

  7. So it came to pass that Mark found favor with the Lord and the chosen ones no longer gnashed their teeth nor sought to inflict him harm. Like babes, they sat in silence as he watched o'er them, stirring not lest he was joined by another. Even then their anger was focused not upon their keeper, but on whosoever had joined him at the gates of the pen.

  8. The holy prophet Jedidiah did see this and rejoiced in the glory of the Lord, decreeing: "Henceforth, he who was known as Mark, keeper of the Lazarus Pen and watchtower of those within it, shall be known as Daniel and shall be a walking testament unto the splendor of our Maker."

A large section of the manuscript is obscured by blood at this point. While several words and passages are occasionally discernible, they are not sufficient to even begin to guess at what events were being detailed. I have discarded these sections and pick up the narrative at the next legible chapter.

Chapter XX.

  1. Into our midst came a girl, a mere child with fair hair and eyes the color of the sky on a cloudless day. From the wilderness she came, so gaunt and marred with scratches that at first at seemed as if a chosen one had emerged from the hills to grace us with its presence. No sounds issued from her mouth or throat nor did she indicate she could hear our greeting or understand our words. But blood still flowed through her veins and her flesh was warm to the touch.

  2. In his great wisdom the prophet Jedidiah, he who is closest among the living to the Divine Maker, did christen her Ruth and welcomed her into the fold, offering warm venison and fruits of the orchard. He placed his hand upon her head and gazed at a small face which was as round and pale as the fullest moon and shone with the same light as she ate. And in that moment, he felt the Lord by his side.

  3. The presence and power of the God of Abraham caused his hands to tremble and his knees to weaken as he stroked the child's golden hair and all could witness the holy light that burned like embers through his eyes.

  4. "Hear the words of the Lord thy God, for He Who Was Before All Things has issued forth a command and His word is as law. Bet it known that He has dictated unto me that I should take this child as another wife, that she should layeth with me upon my bed and know my seed. We shall beget the new children of God so that they might go forth and spread the Word o'er the remains of this world."

  5. And in accordance with the will of the Father, the womenfolk did take the child into the house where water was heated with fiery coals and sprinkled with flowers of the field until their perfume was released on the wisps of steam. As each of them had known the matrimonial bath, so did she, even though she could not lend her voice to their hymn or even hear their holy words.

  6. There arose from the men a great rejoicing and we cried out, "We shall go into the forest and snare a boar with which to feast at the wedding! And we shall provide hares and squirrel and all things which please the Prophet!"

  7. Only the keeper of the Lazarus Pen did not raise his voice in tribute, looking instead as if a great trouble had settled upon the creases of his brow.

  8. "Why do you not cheer this joyful occasion? Are you not happy that I am to wed again and further exult the name of God?"

  9. To which Daniel replied, "Ruth is but a child, my father. Surely she is not advanced enough in years for her womb to know such a heavy burden. Should she not be allowed to learn the ways of the church before sharing this great responsibility?"

  10. A dark cloud of anger rolled across the face of the Prophet and he rose his staff o'er his head as if to call down the thunder and lightning.

  11. "Dare thou question the will of the Lord, my insolent son? Is your wisdom greater than He who has it within His power to raise the dead? I should strike thee down where thou stand for surely thy heart is filled with blasphemy!"

  12. And Daniel was rightfully shamed as he fell to his knees before the Prophet and begged forgiveness, uttering "I know not of what I speak. I too will celebrate this event and offer up prayers for the happiness of the union."

  13. The Prophet saw that Daniel's words were right and just and commanded him back to the Lazarus Pen where he was to meditate upon his lapse in faith while the rest of the congregation made ready.

Chapter XXI.

1 In accordance with the Laws of Jedidiah, Ruth was bathed and scented, clad in raiments of the purest white with flowers woven into the locks of her hair; around her waist was affixed a sash of purple and green upon which were placed silver bells that chimed with her steps.

  2. The womenfolk then took her into the fields where they danced thrice round, stopping only to scoop dry earth from the ground and blow it from their cupped hands to mark each revolution. And once the rite was complete, they left her there to ponder in silence the beauty of her wedding day; for when the sun disappeared from the sky and bonfires lit the darkness, her time as a child would come to an end.

  2. And during this time Daniel did come to me with great worries upon his face and the frown of a man whose troubles are many.

  2. "Do you doubt the wisdom of the Prophet again, my brother? Has sin taken hold of your mind and twisted your reason?"

  2. To which Daniel shook his head with great sadness. "No, brother. I have seen the err of my ways and made myself right with the Lord."

  2. "Then tell me, Daniel, what troubles you? Why is your heart so heavy on this happy day?"

  2. And then Daniel told me of what he had seen in the field beyond the place where the Lazarus Pen doth stand. He told me of how he had watched the womenfolk perform the marriage dance and how his heart was gladdened by their celebration. He told me of how he had continued to watch Ruth after the others left, thinking what a fine bride she would make for our beloved Prophet.

  2. But once the women were out of sight and the girl believed herself free of observation, he told of how he had witnessed her profane the sanctity of the day. He had seen her cast off her clothes and revel in her nakedness in a manner forbidden by the Laws of the Prophet.

  2. "She must be cleansed," he wailed, "for the Prophet cannot be allowed to wed a tainted woman. So it is written and so shall it must be. But how can I tell our father of what I saw? I fear he would surely believe the devil has once again seized my mind and discount my words!"

  2. So it was that I came to tell the Prophet of these tidings as if they had been seen by my own eyes, mentioning not the role of Daniel so that suspicion would not cloud our father's judgment. And the great Prophet Jedidiah was saddened at this turn but knew the Law must be obeyed if his matrimony was to be perfect in the eyes of the congregation. But his anger was also great that I had not come to him immediately so that he could witness the sins of his bride with his own eyes and know that her punishment would be just.

  2. The congregation was called forth and gathered round as Ruth and I both had our hands bound behind our backs. Blessings were laid upon us as our foreheads were anointed with oil and prayers raised unto the heavens. When finally the sun began to set, we were lead across the fields to where the Lazarus Pen awaited.

  2. Into the cages at the corners of the pen we were delivered, the ropes on our hands giving way to the chains therein.

  2. "As you look upon the faces of the Sacred Ones, know that you have angered your father and He who fathered him. As they grasp at you through these bars, know that they only want to claw the sin from your dark hearts and leave you purified in my eyes. If by tomorrow your lungs still carry the breath of life, then you shall know forgiveness. But if chosen, their hands will find purchase o'er the course of this night and with the breaking of dawn you will take your rightful place by their sides."

  2. With a final prayer, we were left to face His holy warriors, who were now thirteen in number, as written in the Book of Law. Yea, though her eyes grew wide with fear and the stench of urine stung the air, Ruth's throat still could not find the scream it so surely sought. Her tears were silent as we faced our penance, and the coming darkness, alone.

Chapter XXII.

1 When the moon had risen to her highest point, I became aware of a presence and turned my head to see a shadow standing outside the pen. My garments had since been shredded by the hungry hands of the chosen ones and deep scratches like furrow in the field marked my chest in blood. With a voice aged by my own cries I croaked, "Who is there? Who has come to this place in defiance of the word of the Prophet? Who has condemned us to another night of endless torment? Man or demon, show thyself and speak!"

2 And from the darkness came a familiar whisper, the voice of Daniel, keeper of the Lazarus Pen and shepherd of the chosen ones.

3 "My brother, I beseech your forgiveness for I did not dream that you would also face atonement whence I told you my tale. But for my lies your heart would never have known the fear it has on this night."

4 With these words, I knew that I had been tricked, that Daniel had never seen Ruth's nakedness, though I could not fathom the reasoning behind his deception.

  6. "For this reason, you shall live through this night. But when the morning lends her warmth to the world, run far from this place and do not look back. Take only the time to record what has transpired into The Book and then go out into the world knowing you were spared as a simple kindness."

  7. "What madness has taken you?" I tried to shout. "I hear your words but know not your meaning, my brother!"

  8. "I could not allow him to take this girl, this child, for a wife. What loving God would allow such a thing to transpire? The prophet has gone mad, I tell you. Mad with the power he wields over us! He has given in to the very temptations and sins which brought this current plague onto the world. Tonight, my brother, it ends."

  9. With these words, Daniel flung open the gate of the pen, allowing the Sacred Ones to stagger forth from their confinement. As always, they paid him no mind, as if he were just another of their number, and within minutes the pen was emptied of their presence.

  10. By the faint light of the moon, I saw their silhouettes moving toward the darkened farmhouse and thought of the congregation who slumbered, unaware of the danger looming just beyond their too frail doors and windows.

  11. "Daniel be not thy name." I wept. "Judas! Traitor! Oh, what have you wrought upon our heads?"

  12. But Judas paid me no mind, moving instead to the cage where Ruth had been secured. Even as the first screams echoed through the hills and valleys, I heard him say in a small, still voice: "Rest now, child. For you are safe."

BLACK MARKET FUNERAL

( _Published in Through the Eyes of The Undead, Library of the Living Dead, 2010_ )

Remnants of memory still flitted through Lonny Holiday's head like dusty ghosts that refused to abandon their haunt. He could recall the day he died with startling clarity, could practically smell the stinging fumes of gasoline and hear the crackling of flames behind him; he could still feel the fluttering wings of panic within his heart as he fumbled with his seatbelt and the heat which made the back of his neck feel as if he were standing too close to the world's largest oven. So much smoke this his lungs felt as if they were on fire as well, the stench of burning rubber and upholstery, and the sound of his screams as he struggled to open a door that now looked more like a twisted hunk of metal than anything even remotely useful. And the pain... good God the searing agony as his skin began to blister and bubble, the torment of a million nerve endings shrieking for relief. He remembered his long, brown hair engulfed in a blazing halo, his clothes bursting into flame, melting into charring flesh, rendered fat dripping and sizzling in steaming contrails to the floor below. And then blessed darkness: no more anguish, no more fear, no regrets, anger, or anything what-so-ever. Simply beautiful enduring void.

Further back, things were more hazy. He could remember a woman with dark hair and freckles, a woman who touched him lightly and whose eyes sparkled as she laughed. He'd stroked her face, not once but countless times. He'd held her hand and pressed tightly against her in the gloom of night, happy for the added warmth and the rhythmic rise and fall of her breathing. He'd known her in ways he'd never known anyone else, perhaps even better than he knew himself. And yet he couldn't recall her name, not even the first syllable.

Further still and people were nothing more than blurry blobs, voices that sounded as if they were echoing through an infinitely long and distant tunnel; but these were only snatches of conversion, little bits of sound that seemed as devoid of meaning as the moans which now passed through his lips.

... need that report by noon....

Throw the ball to papa, Lonny, that's it, throw the ball....

It was easier not to try to remember, to simply allow these impressions to drift away into the darkness that surrounded him. So much confusion in the past, so much that made his mind feel like a dried leaf spiraling into a well.

He reached his hands into the gloom and flexed fingers that felt stiff and unresponsive. Somehow, he'd expected the darkness to simply go on forever but hadn't even fully extended his arms when his fingertips brushed against something cool and smooth. He could feel folds and ripples on the surface, creases that shifted with his touch. And beneath that something soft and plush. Some sort of fabric then? Yes, it had to be.

Lonnie realized he was lying down and tried to sit up, however his head thumped against something hard in the darkness above. Something covered in this same slick material. Something that only allowed him to bend slightly at the waist. The crease formed between his belly and hips caused his stomach to feel as if it contracted into something the size and consistency of a walnut; and some of those meaningless sounds bubbled up through the depths of his mind at the same time, taunting him with vague familiarity : _hungry, so hungry...._

Images of the dark haired woman again. She was clutching a small, pink bag in her lap and he was sitting beside her. Both of them in identical chairs, both fidgeting like nervous children in the principal's office. Across from them was a desk of polished wood, so dark that the soft lighting cast reflections of the lamp into its finish as the man in the chair swiveled back and forth slowly.

He was dressed in a powder blue suit and a silver cross glinted against his black tie like a beacon in the night. His hair was gray at the temples, the bangs slicked back so that the creases in his forehead were clearly visible, and he looked at the couple through wire-rimmed spectacles.

"You must understand, Mr. and Mrs. Holiday, such a practice is frowned upon in my profession. In fact, federal law clearly states that failure to remove the brain within the first three days can result in...."

"My husband and I are aware of the law, Mr. Krieger."

The dark haired woman's voice was soft and polite, yet gave the impression that her opinions were as solid and immovable as the oak bookshelf built into the wall.

"Then you are also aware of the considerable risk involved. Not just for Krieger and Sons, but for you as well. This threat is taken very seriously, Mrs. Holiday and...."

"Please, call me Lanette."

"Very well. As I was saying, _Lanette_ , the threat is taken very seriously. Considered to be tantamount to international security, even. By the CDC. By the FBI. And especially by the Department of Reanimate Control."

"But we heard from Jason Swartz," Lonnie had said, "that your business is open to alternatives."

Mr. Krieger had leaned back in his chair and stroked his chin as he looked at the young couple. For what seemed an eternity they sat in silence with only the ticking of the grandfather clock and the faint strains of organ music from another part of the building to fill the void. He had scanned them with a small box about the size of a matchbook when they had first entered the office – ostensibly to check for any type of hidden listening device – but his lips were now pursed almost pensively and doubt seemed to flicker in his blue eyes. When next he spoke, his words were slow and deliberate.

"We are old fashioned in our beliefs here at Krieger and Sons. We believe that all of God's children were created in His Divine image."

"As do we."

"We also believe that the brain is the seat of the soul. As such, and in accordance with our understanding of the Divine, we are willing to take a few liberties, shall we say, with the laws of man."

"So you'll do it then?"

"You must understand that such a thing does not come cheaply...."

Pain flared in the darkness like a white hot explosion. Every fiber of his body, every cell from his toes to the top of the head, simultaneously felt as if it had been plunged into a vat of acid. Burning, stinging, five millions needles jabbing repeatedly into the charred remains of his flesh, and he wanted to scream to cry and beg for mercy but nothing more than a soft wheeze passed through his tortured throat. And at the same time it felt as though his skin was constricting, as if it were being pulled taut against a skeletal frame encrusted with shards of broken glass.

His fingers clawed and pulled at the unseen fabric, shredding it in a flurry of activity. It gave way easily and within moments he had yanked mounds of stuffing from behind the tattered lining but then his hands hit something that felt as cold and hard as the little staples that formed the shape of a Y across his torso. Metal? Was that the word for it? Or did that mean something entirely different?

"...entirely lead-lined. While it is true this will add a bit to the heft, the pallbearers never really seem to notice. However, this lining ensures that there are no nasty surprises. It simply wouldn't do to have the dearly departed splinter such a beautiful box, now would it?"

Now that the conversation had turned to the actual details, Lonny and his wife had fallen silent. They seemed content to simply shake or nod their heads, as if afraid that words might cast some sort of dark magic that would strike the other one down. It wasn't easy planning ahead like this, to think that one day one of them would be standing by the side of a grave and tossing handfuls of earth into the hole as tears glistened in the morning sun. But what the government was requiring undertakers and funeral directors to do... it wasn't natural. And wasn't it really a matter of personal choice? Wasn't this still a free country?

"Between the lead lining and the outer shell, there is also a layer of acoustic absorbent foam. This helps ensure those gathered for the interment are none the wiser if the antecedent should happen to begin thrashing about. Which brings us to another point: gyroscopic stabilization. No matter how much ruckus might go on within, those bearing the load will not feel so much as the slightest shift in weight. Nor is there any danger of the entire box toppling over during the viewing. You see, it's the attention to detail that makes Krieger and Son stand out among...."

Thoughts of the dark haired woman and the old man caused Lonnie to kick and pound at the walls surrounding him while his head banged against the soft pillow as if he could somehow smash through the material beneath him. His teeth gnashed at the empty air, snapping together with clacks so loud he could feel them vibrate through his skull. Rather than throbbing in pain, his muscles now felt like tightly coiled springs as if they would shoot out of this confinement with the speed of a striking snake. If only the lid would open. If only he could break free.

Somehow, he knew they were out there. He couldn't smell them, couldn't hear them. But he knew. He sensed their presence and longed to rip into their skin as easily as he had torn the fabric from overhead. The red liquid hidden beneath their too frail flesh would be warm and salty, would drive away the residual aches that burned like embers within his marrow.

hate them kill them need them feed....

So close. Mere feet away.

Images of the dark haired woman were diffused now, as if he were envisioning her through the haze of a thick, roiling fog. Her features began to smooth out into an expressionless blur, the words in what remained of his memory now muffled and lacking even the smallest semblance of meaning.

His fingernails were jagged and torn, cracked and splintered to the quick. But still he kept scratching at the metal lining. Still he kept searching for a way out. A way to _them_.

As the crowd above began to disperse back to the cars that lined the side of the winding road, those still among the living huddled together; tears were absorbed by the shoulders of jackets reserved for funerals and church and voices whispered clichéd condolences to the grieving widow. They would go back to their homes and offices, back to the comfort and normalcy of their lives, never knowing the truth.

They all believed he had perished that night out on Route 50; that the Good Lord had called him home and welcomed him into a golden mansion of many rooms. That he was at peace. But as the final car rounded the bend and the yellow backhoe crested the hill from behind which it had hidden... as the mounds of dirt began to roll off the lid of the casket and file the hole... as the birds chirped overhead and clouds drifted lazily across the blue sky... as these things happened, the last shred of humanity in Lonny Holiday died six feet below the ground.

He growled in the darkness and continued to claw at his prison with a single-minded passion.

He needed to kill.

He needed to feed.

A MOTHER'S LOVE

(Published in Children of the Dead, Living Dead Press, 2011)

The monsters came into the house like a stream of ants attacking a picnic. They shambled through the splintered remains of the door, crowding and pushing, their hands reaching out with fingers that clutched and grasped at empty air. For the most part the creatures looked like people, like the friends and neighbors Davie Stapleton had known his entire life. The one in front, for example, could have been Mr. Shockley from the butcher shop. It had the same round belly bulging out against a stained, white apron; the same bushy sideburns and crop of curly, gray hair above eyebrows that looked like two albino wooly worms had made a home on the furrows of his brow. Only this couldn't be Mr. Shockley.... The monster's face was torn and shredded, the waxen flesh flapping in loose ribbons that revealed dark seams of glistening flesh below. Where lips should have been, there was nothing more than a jagged hole that exposed the teeth and gums in an expressionless sneer. Plus, Mr. Shockley would have said something, would have made some little joke about girls which Davie never really understood. No, that couldn't be the neighborhood butcher shouldering his way past something that was shaped like a woman but looked more like a marshmallow that had been held in the campfire for too long....

Davie's mother pressed his small face into the side of her yellow dress and cupped her hand over his ears as if she could somehow muffle the screams, explosions, and shots that filtered in from the streets outside. But even through her hands, even though Daddy's shouts and the sound of his own heartbeat thudding in Davie's head, the wail of sirens and cries for help invaded their home as thoroughly as the creatures at the door.

"Don't look, Davie, don't look, don't look...."

His mother's voice quivered and her face glistened with the tears that streamed from the corners of her eyes. His arms were wrapped around her and he pressed his face against her thigh so tightly that he could feel the trembling in her legs: it was like a current the coursed into his own wet cheeks and it made him want to throw up, almost like that time he'd ridden the merry-go-round after eating half a bag of candy. His stomach churned and the back of his throat stung as sharply as his eyes and he wanted to listen to Mommy, to simply disappear into the fabric of her dress and be safely hidden within the folds and creases. But somehow, he couldn't turn away. Not entirely. There was something about the monsters that seemed to make it almost impossible to look anywhere else. Maybe it was some sort of magic or evil spell; whatever the cause, he glanced at them continually from the corner of his eye, watching as they shimmied through a veil of tears like blurry nightmares emerging from a waterfall.

They had stumbled into the front hall now and Daddy was running down the stairs, the fire poker raised over his head like a samurai sword, and his voice cracking with the wordless battle cry that rattled through his throat. Daddy looked different, however. His face somehow seemed older and more like the pictures of Grandpa that hung over the mantle in the living room. His cheeks and forehead were etched with deep wrinkles and his yell pulled his cheeks and chin downward, making them appear to be longer and more angular than what they normally were. But then Davie could only see the back of Daddy's head as he charged at the crowd of monsters that had burst into their house.

Mommy screamed Daddy's name as her hands pressed tightly against the sides of Davie's head. It felt like she were crushing his skull and he was sure she wasn't meaning to hurt him, that she didn't realize her clenched fists were pulling his hair or that the sound of terror in her own voice had caused a warm, wet stain to blossom across the front of her little boy's pajamas and trickle down his thighs.

"Charles!"

Daddy was halfway down the steps when a monster with a ragged stump where the left arm should be pounced like a cat. It flew through the air with its tattered and ripped clothes, arms stretching out with fingers that were as stained as if the thing had been picking raspberries earlier in the day. At the same time, Daddy swung the fire poker and the metal rod cracked into the thing's head. The little hook on the end of the tool tore a craggy gash across the monster's brow and it thudded to the floor.

"Sons of bitches! Sons of bitches!"

Daddy kept screaming bad words again and again as he swung the poker in an attempt to beat back the creatures that thronged through the door. The metal thudded and whacked against bone and flesh but they just kept coming; even the one he'd knocked the floor had sprung back to its feet, as if it didn't feel any pain from the bloodless slash across its forehead.

Snot bubbled from Davie's nose and he tried to pull away from Mommy as he yelled for his father, but she grabbed onto him and pressed his body against her own as he squirmed.

"Daddy!"

The creatures were closing in. They'd formed a ring around the man now and darted forward as he whirled and spun.

"Kathy! The attic!"

He swung the fire poker in wide arcs, kicked monsters away as their fingers clutched and pulled at his red shirt.

"Now, Kathy!"

But, for some reason, Mommy didn't move. It was almost as if she were as much a part of the stairway as the wooden bannisters and scarred handrail. All she could do was hold her little boy and scream her husband's name in a shrill screech.

Daddy had started backing away, as if he were making a retreat for the stairs, when one of the monsters leapt in a blur of movement. The man scrambled backward as he thrust the poker like a spear. The sharpened end plunged into the thing's right eye, but even then it didn't stop. It continued clawing at Daddy's clothes until he grimaced and rammed the tool even further into a socket that now leaked thick goo down the monster's face. For a moment the thing twitched like Sally Peterson when she was having one of her fits... but then its body slumped to the floor as if whatever magic that had possessed it was suddenly and inexplicably gone.

As the thing fell, Daddy tried to pull the fire poker back out, but the little hook must have got caught on something within the creature's skull. He yanked with both hands and cussed so loudly that the word turned into a meaningless sound of frustration and rage. But his weapon was firmly embedded into the monster and, as it fell, the weight of its body yanked the iron rod from his father's hands. It jutted out of the fallen creature's eye like a dark flagpole and Daddy was swinging his fists now, punching and kicking and head-butting as the ring of monsters closed in around him.

And then all Davie could see was a glimpse of his father's arm poking through the wall of bodies that engulfed him. His screams caused Mommy to fall to her knees and bright spurts of blood splattered against the family portrait by the bookshelf. Mommy was shivering and trembling and Davie could feel the hitches of her sobs against his body; but he felt numb now, kind of like when he'd sit in front of the TV for too long and his legs would fall asleep. Only this tingling sensation seemed to burrow deep down inside him, into the bones and organs of his body, into the dark and secret places that no other living soul would know existed. His own tears were cool against his hot face and everything taking place at the bottom of the stairs seemed like one of the movies he wasn't allowed to watch. Not something that was really happening, not something real. There was too much blood: people didn't really have that much blood in them, couldn't have... it had to be a nightmare, something he'd awake from in the darkness of his room, and Daddy would bring him a glass of water and tell him how monsters were nothing more than shadows and imagination, that there was nothing to be afraid of under the bed or in the closet or....

Davie realized his mother was shaking him by the shoulders so roughly that his teeth clacked against one another. He blinked several times and tried to focus on her blue eyes, the round and dark pupils, on the words tumbling out of her quivering lips.

"Run, Davie! Run!"

His father had stopped screaming at some point and the monsters' heads had all snapped toward the stairs, as if noticing the woman and little boy crouched upon them for the first time. For a moment that instant seemed to stretch into eternity. They hunkered over Daddy's torn and motionless body with blood streaked faces and unblinking eyes. They peered at Davie as if they could somehow see all the plump and juicy guts hidden within his too frail flesh. But there faces were blank: they didn't look hungry or even angry... they were simply as expressionless as the carpet beneath their feet.

"Now! The attic!"

Mommy's hands shoved him toward the top of the stairs as she pulled him to his feet at the same time. The flurry of movement seemed to break through whatever paralysis had momentarily possessed the monsters and they rushed toward the staircase, scrambling over one another in a tangled cluster of arms and legs.

Davie took the stairs as fast as his legs could carry him, but his muscles felt like cooked spaghetti and he kept hoping to hear his father's voice boom out, Leave them alone! But there was nothing but his mother's labored sobs, the creak and pop of wood, and the thudding of feet against steps.

Mommy kept shoving his back, as if she could somehow make him run faster, and the top of the stairs seemed further away than it had ever been. It was as if it were somehow growing longer, expanding five steps for every two that he covered, and he was crying again.

"Go, go, go!"

The staircase wobbled and shook and he knew the monsters were almost there, that the things had almost caught them, and that what happened to Daddy would happen to him and Mommy, too.

"Run, baby, run!"

Davie finally reached the top of the stairs and spun around to make sure that Mommy was still with him, that she was still there, still safe....

He saw her pale face inches away and her hair was all messed up and stringy, as if she'd just gotten out of bed; her face looked longer than it normally did, kind of like when Daddy first started to attack the monsters, and her nostrils flared wide with each snort that gusted through them. Just over her shoulder, a face appeared: it was like something that had been clawed by a large and viscous animal, crisscrossed by scratches and gouges with one eyelid dangling from its brow by thin strands of tissue. A hole in the side of its face revealed a glimpse of a tongue that looked pink and swollen. Ribbons of flesh flapped from the wound and dangled over the corner of lips that looked pale and wrinkled. The thing's teeth gnashed and chewed at these strands of flesh, pulling them away from its face with a sound that was like the ripping of wet fabric.

Davie screamed and his mother whirled around, pushing out with her hands at the same time. The thing tumbled backward and fell into the crowd pressing in at its back, toppling all of them over like pins at the bowling alley. The ones furthest away tried to climb over the writhing knot of bodies, but they were already grasping at the railing, pulling themselves back up. Scrambling and crawling up the stairs, dragging their twisted, broken bodies closer and closer to the little boy and his mother.

"Damn it, Davie!"

Mommy was running toward the top of the stairs again and Davie knew he had to run, too. That they had to make it to the attic and lock themselves inside, where the monsters wouldn't be able to get to them, just like Daddy had told them to do just before the creatures had broken through the front door.

But just as he was about to dart down the hall, he saw Mommy fall. Her chin hit the top step and he felt the thud travel through the floor and up into the soles of his feet.

"Save yourself, baby! Run!"

One of the monsters had its hand wrapped around Mommy's ankle and she kicked with her feet like Cousin Brittany did when throwing a tantrum. Her sandals pounded into the creature's face as her fingers clawed at the hallway carpet as if she were trying to pull her way toward the yellow umbrella that Daddy had told him again and again to get out of the hall and put in his room.

The other creatures almost seemed to be fighting with each other and for a second Davie felt hope flutter within his stomach. Maybe they were turning on each other, maybe they would fight it out until none of them were left and he and Mommy would be safe and all the monsters would be gone. They would all rip one another apart and then he and Mommy could call 911 and the ambulance would come and they would save Daddy just like they always did on television.

But then it dawned on him. They weren't wrestling each other... they were struggling to get to Mommy, to reach her before she could free herself. They would swarm over her just like they'd done with Daddy and then....

Davie found himself moving across the hall and it almost seemed as if he were sitting in the back of his head somewhere, watching as someone else controlled his body. He saw his small hand wrap around the handle of the umbrella, felt his feet carrying him toward his mother's thrashing body. Her screams sounded muffled and distant, almost like he had cotton stuffed into his ears, and an image of his father flitted through his mind: it was right before the monsters had gotten him, when he'd killed one of them with the fire poker....

The creature that gripped Mommy's ankle had its face buried into her calf and it jerked its head away, revealing a large chunk of what looked like pink rubber clenched in its teeth. And there was a hole on Mommy's leg that hadn't been there before. Blood pooled up within the ravaged flesh, pulsed and throbbed as it streamed down the sides and spurted with each kick.

Davie jabbed the metal tip of the umbrella forward, just like Daddy had done with the poker, and it sank into the creatures eye. If it felt any pain, there was no sign: it simply continued chewing on the flesh within its mouth even as the little boy threw himself forward with all of his weight. The umbrella sank further into the creature's head and there was a squish and pop that Davie could feel more than hear; but then the creature fell backward, thumping down the stairs and tripping the ones who'd made it back onto their feet. It was like a line of dominoes falling as each monster crashed into the one behind it.

Mommy was on her feet and had her arms around him, continuing to push him forward as she limped down the hallway. Blood oozed from the wound on her leg, weaving a trail of bright crimson splotches against the beige carpet.

"We won't make it. The bathroom, baby, the bathroom!"

Davie darted into the bathroom as his mother hobbled in behind him. Though he couldn't see them, Davie could hear the monsters in the hallway now, their feet padding against the carpet as they charged toward the boy and his mother.

She slammed the door shut just as something thumped against the other side with enough force to shove the woman backward. For a moment it seemed as if the door were about to fly open. He could see clothing through the gap between it and the wall: the torn sleeve of a flannel shirt, a blood spattered apron.... But then Mommy drove her shoulder into the door and it slammed shut.

As her hands fumbled with the lock, the things on the other side began pounding and scratching. They hit the wood hard enough to make it look as though the door were bulging inward, as if it were only seconds away from exploding amid a shower of shards and splinters.

Davie sank to the floor and pressed his face against the cool porcelain of the tub as Mommy ran to his side. She dropped to her knees and scooped him into her arms, pressing his face into her shoulder and allow his tears and snot to seep into her dress. Stroking his hair, she rocked back and forth and whispered to her little boy.

"Shhhh... it's okay, baby. Everything's okay."

He didn't want to look at the wound on her leg. In fact, he wanted nothing more than to squeeze his eyes closed until everything went away, until the hammering on the bathroom door stopped and Daddy came in with a smile and told him it was time for dinner. After dinner, he would go outside and play. Maybe see if Tommy Gibson wanted to go to the playground and he would get so dirty that he'd be forced to take another bath before he was tucked in for the night. But for some reason, he couldn't tear his eyes from the blood that gurgled out of the wound. It looked so dark against Mommy's pale skin and there was so much, it just seemed to keep coming and coming. It flowed down the side of her leg and spread across the white linoleum, the puddle growing larger with each passing second.

"Shhhh...."

Mommy trembled as if she'd went outside and forget her jacket and even though she kept telling him that everything was going to be okay, he knew it wasn't. He could hear the strain in her voice, the fear and pain that made her stutter, and feel the way her muscles tensed when the bite flared in agony.

The door shook and rattled and he saw fingers reach in through the crack by the floor, as if one of the monsters were laying down and trying to flatten itself to the point that it could slip in like a sheet of paper.

Mommy looked at the bite on her leg and choked back a sob. Her eyes then flittered to the bathroom door: sharp snaps filled the room, cutting through even the sound of Davie's crying, and the wood was beginning to look as if long cracks were beginning to appear like fault lines in the crust of the earth.

"Oh, my baby... my sweet baby boy...."

She was looking at the stand across from the toilet now, taking in the stacked rolls of toilet paper, the hairspray, and bars of soap. Something about the plastic shopping bag on the bottom shelf seemed to catch her attention, almost as if she were wondering exactly what it was doing there; but then she shook her head like a dog flinging off water and hugged Davie so tightly that he had to squirm in her arms just to take a breath.

And still the things kept throwing themselves against the door. Why didn't they just go away and leave them alone? Why couldn't things go back to the way they had been before?

Mommy's eyes flitted between the bathroom stand and the hinges on the door. The little pins had begun shaking almost as badly as Mommy and they looked as if they were inching their way out of the slots that held them. At the same time, the wood around the fissures had begun to bow. This was just how the front door had looked before the monsters had broken it down and Davie knew what would happen once they'd battered it in.

Mommy placed her hands on his cheeks and made him look into her eyes.

"Do... do you trust me, baby?"

He nodded his head so vigorously that snot flung from his nose and splattered against the side of Mommy's face. She didn't seem to mind, though, and started petting his face as tears streamed down her cheeks.

"I love you so very, very much. You were the best thing to ever happen to me, you know that? You changed my life, baby."

She was crying so hard that Davie could barely make out the words and he had to bite his bottom lip to keep himself from crying even harder, too.

"I... I got bit, sweetie. That's not good, not good at all. Even if those things don't get in here, it's only a matter of time before... before I...before...."

She collapsed against his chest, pressing her face against his t-shirt as sobs overtook the words.

"Trust me, okay Davie? I never want to hurt you. I never want...."

Loud pops resounded from the door and the pounding was so loud now that it nearly drowned out Mommy's whisper.

"I'm sorry, sweetie. I'm so, so sorry...."

She pulled herself away from the child and took a deep breath through her nose. Turning, her hand reached toward the bathroom stand but stopped halfway, as if unsure of whether or not she had the necessary strength within her quivering arm. But then, with a low moan, she continued the journey and snatched away her prize.

"I'm gonna send you somewhere safe, okay sweetie? Somewhere they'll never be able to get you, understand? Somewhere I'll never...."

She broke down into sobs again, but then wiped the tears away from her face with the back of her hand.

"I love you, Davie. Don't you ever forget that."

The thumping on the door and the cracking of wood masked the rattling sound within the bathroom. Davie's heart raced within his chest and he wanted to ask Mommy what she was doing, why she was tying it so tightly and to let her know that it hurt his neck. But another part of him knew he had to trust her.

She cradled the boy in her lap and held his wrists as she rocked back and forth. Her strained voice tried to sing You Are My Sunshine, but the words blurted out in spurts that were punctuated by moans and sobbing.

"Just go to sleep, honey. Go to sleep, now...."

With the plastic bag tied around his head, Davie could barely hear the shattering from the holes that were beginning to appear in the bathroom door and Mommy's voice was nothing more than a low murmur.

"I love you, baby. Be safe. Be safe, be safe, be safe...."

LETTER #35

(Published in Letters from the Dead, Library of the Living Dead, 2010)

Dear Baby Girl,

This is the hardest letter I ever wrote. I'm in this here cellar listening to the banging and pounding on the door at the top of the stairs. Trying to be as silent as possible. As if I actually thought I could trick em. As if they might forget about me after a while and just go away. Every couple minutes this little voice in my head says, "Well, Joan, maybe they will." And then I hafta tell myself not to be so stupid. They NEVER go away once they know where you're at. They just keep coming and coming and the sound of them trying to get at you brings even more of them. Sooner or later that old door up there is gonna splinter and they'll come spilling down the stairs and I won't have nowhere left to run. So I guess I'm making what Bobby Ray used to call one last stand. I won't let them take me without a fight, believe you me. That ain't the way my momma raised me and that ain't the way I woulda raised you neither. The Rucker girls are fighters, always have been and always will.

Am I scared of dying? Not really so much. Some ways, it will almost seem like a relief. I reckon you can only hide for so long before a body just don't wanna hide no more. 'Specially when you've seen everyone you ever gave a damn about torn apart by those damn monsters out there. But I try not to think too hard about it. I try not to think too hard about anything anymore. It's easier that way, in the long run.

What I do regret is that I'll never get to see you smile and laugh, never get to hear your first word or stroke your hair when you wake up in the middle of a nightmare. I won't even get to figure out if I wanna name you Regina or Suzy Anne. Truth be told, I reckon I won't even find out for sure if you even are a girl. But Granny Poppet always said that if you pull down the skin under your left eye and look at your eyeball and see a vein that looks like the letter V then that means you're gonna have a baby girl. And I got one of those veins. So I'm pretty sure that you woulda been a beautiful little daughter. Probably with dark hair like your Daddy and blue eyes like mine.

Some ways, I always felt kinda bad bringing you into a world like this. It's not like you would been able to play in the park or go to school or anything. You woulda spent most of your time hiding out with me, searching for food, looking for other people to keep us company. A lot of time we woulda been scared and hungry and cold. But I always wanted to be a momma more than anything else. And I woulda been SO good to you. No matter what else happened, we woulda always had each other and that woulda been enough.

Which I reckon is the reason I'm writing you this letter, even though I know you're never gonna get to read it. When they finally break through that door up there, I wanna leave a little something behind. Something that will tell anyone who might find it how much I love you, even if you haven't been born yet. You gave me hope and maybe, in some way, that can give someone else hope. And even more than food or water or someplace to hide, that's what folks need most these days. Something to believe in, a reason to keep on going even if it is just for one more day.

So many people try to take that from you, which isn't fair. 'Specially when it's all you got. Before they got to him when we was crossing through Louisville, Thomas used to try to steal that from me. He tried to tell me all the time that you was dead inside me. He said all the blood and discharge wasn't good, that if I didn't do something you would just rot away in there and end up poisoning me. But he wasn't half as smart as he thought he was. I know you ain't dead, cause I can still feel you moving around inside me.

I just heard a sharp crack from the cellar door. Sounds like it's only a matter of minutes now so I better wrap this up. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH, BABY GIRL. In a world gone crazy, you were the only bit of sanity I had left. I'm sorry I failed you but know that in just a bit we will be together in Heaven and for that I am thankful. And ready.

Love always,

Mommy

FULL COURT PRESS

(Published in Book of the Dead 5, Living Dead Press, 2010)

I'm crouched behind the little wall up in the nosebleeds, trying to stay low and quiet as screams echo through the stadium. I want so badly to close my eyes, to look into the darkness and try to pretend this is all some fucked up nightmare that I'll eventually awake from. But I can't. I have to stay alert, to watch for the slightest sign of movement. As far as I can tell, those things are pretty damn slow; while it's true that I'm not in as good of shape as I was back in my gridiron days, I'm pretty sure I could outrun those fuckers if I had too. Give 'em a good solid shoulder block and just keep right on trucking. The problem is, there's so many of them. They're swarming all over the court like ants on a crust of bread and I'll be damned if I know how the hell I'm getting out of here.

This was supposed to be just a routine assignment, you know? Go to the game, capture the highlights, and be back at the office in time to write it up for the morning edition. It's not like this was even something important. In the grand scheme of things nobody outside of this town would give a damn if Harrington High tromped the Chester Wildcats in double-elimination overtime. For the rest of the world, life would go on just as it always had. People would wake up, have their coffee, and trudge off to work. Kids would pass notes in the middle of class and watch as the hands of that clock slowly crept toward three. But that's not the case anymore. I'm as certain of this as I am that the fucking cheerleader with half her face chewed off wants to do more than just rile up team spirit.

They don't pay me enough for this shit. I mean I saw that girl, someone's daughter for God's sake, pulled down near center court by the referee and that fat coach in the yellow shirt. They were like animals: clawing, biting, ripping at her clothes and skin while wordless screams escaped in these short, shrill shrieks. And all that blood.... It was almost like time slowed down just so I could witness every damn detail. The way their teeth yanked those long strands of flesh from her neck and cheek; the crimson arc that spattered against their faces, glistening beneath the lights of the stadium almost like there were these little candles flickering within all that liquid. I wanted to help her. I really did. But by the time I made it down there, it would've been too late. Any fool could see that. With the way they were tearing at her and all. There was nothing I could do. _Nothing_.

Once she stopped kicking around, they kept pulling away these ribbons of skin and muscle for what seemed like an eternity. Shoveling them into their mouths with those gore streaked fingers like a couple of good 'ole boys at that spaghetti eating contest Lawson made me cover last month. Only that wasn't Mrs. Larsen's prize winning sauce smeared all over their chins and they sure as hell weren't going to walk away with a cheap, plastic trophy when all was said and done.

Of course, that cheerleader wasn't the only one down there. For some reason, though, my mind just kind of seized on her. It was like I had to watch ... even if it felt like the hotdog and soda I'd wolfed down earlier were about to come shooting through my nose and mouth. I wanted to look away so badly that this little voice in the back of my mind just kept repeating _Charley, you don't wanna see this ... you don't wanna see this, Charley_. But the rest of me felt like I was frozen in place. I couldn't even blink, for Christ's sake. I just stood there, watching those things literally devouring this beautiful young girl who'd had her whole life ahead of her. She wouldn't graduate high school, wouldn't go to prom or fall in love; everything that could have been winked out of existence as her blood dribbled across that polished court.

But after a while, see, she started moving. Just her fingers at first. They kind of wiggled like she was waving to the bastards that were tearing out her throat. Then her arms bent and she was sitting up, pushing herself off the floor as the other two just kind of shambled away. Her white sweater was now as red as the opposing team's uniforms and her blond ponytail looked like the tip of a brush that had been plunged into crimson paint. And, oh God, her face was all fucked up. I mean, I could see bits of jaw bone in all the torn skin and her neck looked like it had been wrung through a thresher. Hell, I've covered car crash victims who looked better than that poor girl. But there she was: stumbling around like a drunk trying to regain balance, head jerking from side to side as she took in the flurry of activity surrounding her. And then she staggered after this Asian guy who'd appeared out of nowhere, swinging a metal folding chair and screaming as if he could somehow scare those things off.

By this time, my heart was hammering in my chest so hard I felt like it was about to burst right through at any second. I had this cold sweat dotting my forehead and my legs were shaking so badly that they seemed like they were about to collapse out from under me at any second. And all I could think was _Thank God_. Thank God I liked sitting up near the top of the stadium where I could get a bird's eye view of all the action below. Thank God I wasn't down there courtside, trying to wrangle some inane quote from the starting forward. Thank God none of them had noticed me yet...

As soon as that thought went through my mind, I hit the floor like a duffel bag in the locker room. I pressed my back against this here little wall and pulled my knees up to my chest, trying to make myself as small as possible. Part of me wanted to cry; I could feel the sob building up in my chest like an inflating balloon and everything in my field of vision got all blurry as tears welled up in my eyes. But I clamped my hands over my mouth nice and tight like, forcing that sound back down inside me where it burned like a shot of rotgut.

But how long can I stay hunkered down here? Sooner or later, those screams are bound to stop. Either those still alive will somehow make it out of this massacre or they'll end up like that cheerleader. And once there isn't anything more than the squeak of feet shuffling across the court, every little sound I make will seem as loud as the half-time buzzer going off. Hell, something as small as a fart could draw those fuckers up here. And I don't want to die ... not today ... not like _that_ ...

Jesus, I wish I had a cigarette. But, of course, it wouldn't do me much good if I did. Lighting one up would be like sending smoke signals to the enemy. This is so fucked up, man. I mean, I don't deserve this shit, you know? I pay my taxes, go to church every Sunday morning, try to do right by my friends and family. And for what? To be reduced to nothing more than a rabbit hiding in a thicket from a pack of rabid dogs? To feel like I'm going to piss myself at any minute but, at the same time, knowing that soaked pants would be the least of my worries?

Shit. I just need to calm down. The cops will be here soon, right? Something like this goes down and someone on the outside is bound to hear. I mean, it sounds like a fucking horror movie in this place. And it's mostly kids in here so the cops will come running. They'll take care of this mess and then I'll go back to my boring little apartment with my boring little life and I'll praise the Maker for each and every tedious little second. I've just got to wait it out. Sure. Stay low, stay quiet, stay alive.

But what if the cops don't come? What if whatever the hell is happening isn't confined to just this damn stadium? What if this shit is going down everywhere, man? For all I know, the streets outside could be overrun with those things. If the whole town is under siege, then I could be waiting up here a long, long time.

No. They'll come. They _have_ to come. They're the cops, man.

Fuck. Oh fuck, fuck, fuck. Thought I just saw something over there by the door. Something walking by. Maybe it was just a shadow, a trick of the light. They can't know I'm up here. I've been too quiet, too still.... Can they _smell_ me? Can they hear my fucking heart like it's some kind of speed metal Morse code? What if they just have some kind of instinct, man? I don't know, it could happen, right? I mean, someone messed up as bad as that cheerleader shouldn't just get up and walk the hell away. If she can do that, then maybe anything is friggin' possible.

I've gotta get out of here. At least out there on the street I'd having a fighting chance. There's places to run, places to hide. And, for all I know, it's just another sunny day for anyone not caught up in this bloodbath. If I can make it through the lobby, then may there's a chance that I'll see normal people, doing normal things, and I'll shell out thousands of bucks working this shit out in therapy over the next few years. It could happen, right?

I turn around as quietly as I can but my legs feel like someone is ramming thousands of tiny needles into them. I should've thought to flex my muscles, keep the circulation flowing and shit. But I've got to know what I'm dealing with here if I have any chance of making it out of this alive.

I peek over the top of the little concrete wall and it's like looking down upon a battlefield. Streaks of blood are smeared all over the floor and there's a pile of something that looks like a giant mound of pinks worms blossoming out of the Asian guy's stomach. He's laying perfectly still and is surrounded by a pack of those things. Their hands disappear into his body and I can see the little lumps moving around underneath the skin and now they're pulling out more of the bloated pink worms, stuffing the shit into their mouths like it was fucking linked sausage.

Everywhere I look, they're wandering around. Blood, gore, ravaged faces and splinters of bone jutting through flesh and clothes.... My God, why don't they just leave already? Why don't they just go the fuck away?

What was that? Sounded almost like something scuffling behind me. Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

The little hairs on the back of my neck are all standing up and I've got this hard little knot trapped somewhere between my stomach and chest. Feels like someone whacked me with a sledge hammer.

I try to listen by my heart is thudding in my temples so damn loud it's like I can hear the blood surging through my veins.

I don't want to turn around. I don't want to look.

Maybe it was just a candy wrapper that got caught up in some little cross breeze. Or a rat. This place could have rats, right?

But it feels like there's someone back there, man. Like there's some sort of _presence_ looming over my back, getting closer with each step.

There's a lot of food gets dropped in a place like this. It's a wonderful smorgasbord, orgasbord ... .

Even as the thought crosses my mind, I picture those things pulling chunks of tissue away from the cheerleader's face and bile shoots up through my esophagus, all bitter and stinging.

I imagine arms reaching out behind me, clawed fingers stretching toward my back.

I've got to know. At least if I go down, I'll go down fighting, right?

I spin around and pull my fist back, ready to smash whoever is there with a haymaker.

But there's no one. I'm alone in my little hiding place, still safe and sound. Relief floods through my body like a tidal wave and I laugh as I shake my head. I can't believe I let myself get all worked up like that over nothi ... .

I slap my hands over my mouth so hard that my lips bash against my teeth, filling my mouth with the sharp tang of blood. But it's too late. The sound has already bubbled out of me, has already announced my fucking position like a damn beacon.

How the hell could I have been so flippin' stupid? I'm, going to be ripped the hell apart because I couldn't help but laugh?

Okay, calm down. Maybe it wasn't as loud as you thought. Maybe we're still cool here. Just take another peek over the wall and you'll probably see that they're still shambling around down there like a bunch of lost mental patients.

I raise my head over the top of the wall again, just enough that I can peek through the space between the concrete and the blue metal bars.

For a moment, it feels as though my heart has forgotten how to beat. They're tripping over one another, stumbling and staggering up the bleachers, climbing higher, forming a loose horseshoe shape that is slowly closing in around the general area where I'm hiding.

I've got to get out of here. And _now_.

They already know I'm here, so I spring to my feet and whirl around, ready to bolt like my pants are on fire. Only the doorway is blocked. I see this hulking silhouette and its clothes hang in tatters like streamers on a bike. It's limping toward me and I see its arms stretching out like it thinks I'm going to just run up and give it a big 'ole hug.

Fuck that. It's just one. I can handle just one of them, right? Didn't I think that earlier? Just pull out some of the old football moves and ... .

More shadows crowd the doorway behind it, entirely blocking out the light with their twisted bodies.

Where they hell did they come from?

This is not fucking fair, man, not _fucking_ _fair!_

I press my back against the railing as my head darts from side to side. The ones from the court are closing in, all of them clawing at the air as if they think I'm actually much closer than what I am. But it's still close enough. Too damn close.

No way I could break through that many of them. I wouldn't stand an ice cube's chance in Hell.

My crotch is suddenly warm and this warm, sour stench wafts up and stings my nostrils with its pungent bite. At the same time, I'm trembling like my cousin Joey when he has a fit and I've got snot bubbling out of my nose and tears streaming down my face and I don't want to be eaten, I don't wanna fucking die, I don't wanna go out like this.

They swarm closer, cutting off all routes of escape. Some of them are so close now that I can see little bits of flesh stuck between their teeth, can smell the coppery stink of blood like I was standing in the middle of a slaughter house.

Fuck this. This isn't how Charley Cobb is going to bite the big one. Not if I have anything to say about it.

I climb up on the railing and for a moment I get this ridiculous image in my mind. This is my congregation, flocking to hear The Word, and I their humble prophet standing with outstretched arms and piss-soaked pants.

Gather round, my children, gather round and hear the good news about resurrection...

I shuffle my feet so that I'm turned around and now I'm staring at the floor below. It looks so distant, so hard and imposing. So final.

I climb the top two railings like they were rungs on a ladder and can already feel gravity tugging at me, causing me to wobble back and forth as I pinwheel for balance. I don't want to fall. I want this to be on my terms, you know?

My mouth is dry and, for a moment, everything shifts into sharp focus: the scuffling of feet behind me, a smell something like a cross between shit and half-digested food, the cool air of the stadium drying my sweat-drenched armpits ... everything is more real than it ever has been.

God, forgive me.

I feel a slight tug at my shirt as the first fingers begin to clutch and grab. But, by then, it's too late. The cheap fabric rips and I'm falling toward the ground floor, the wind whistling in my ears and running cool fingers through my hair as the floor below rushes toward me.

There's a blinding explosion of pain, bones snapping and cracking sharply like limbs snapped before the force of a tornado. My teeth bite through the tip of my tongue and I try to scream but drawing in a breath feels like inhaling fire and every nerve in my body screams in agony.

God it hurts, it hurts, make it stop hurting, why aren't I dead, holy Christ it didn't kill me, I'm still alive and I can't move and I know they're coming for me, I know they're coming with their teeth and their fingers and they're going to eat me and please God just let me die, just let me fucking die already.

Darkness closes in and for a moment the pain is gone. Sweet, lovely void.

But I hear screaming, soft and distant at first like it's coming from the end of an infinitely long tunnel. The screaming gets louder and my throat feels like burning and I realize it's me screaming, I wasn't delivered into the Great Beyond, I'm still alive and really, God, really? _Really_?

Out of the corner of my eye, I see a crowd of feet slowly shuffling toward me, making a full court press toward the sorry, pathetic little man who couldn't even kill himself right.

Son of a bitch ...

FUR ELISE

I.

As he stood before the mirror in his darkened bedroom, Damien Rodriquez realized he was old. Creases had crept onto the corners of his eyes and hair that was once as dark and silky as a raven's feather was now streaked with gray. The narrow angles of youth had rounded over the years, making his chin less pronounced and filling out cheeks that had once almost looked hollow and sunken. He ran his palm across a stubble of beard and tried to ignore the gurgle of hunger from a stomach that had only recently begun to lap over the top of his belt. Instead, he looked back on his life as if it were a scrapbook through which he slowly paged: there were carefully posed portraits of him and Elise, senior year, hand in hand in front of an arched trellis lined with red and white balloons; him hunched over the black and white keys of a grand piano, his dark eyes blazing with such intensity that his reflection in the polished wood almost seemed to tremble before their passion; Elise again, all white frills and baby's breath, strawberry-blond curls peeking out from beneath the pushed back bridal veil; and, of course, what he'd always thought of as his GQ parody on the cover of Keys In Time: The Classical Music Quarterly.

And he'd been good, damn it, so fucking good... . It was almost as if he'd been able to coax colors from the thin wires of the piano like audible pigments which he swirled upon the canvas of concert halls. Notes and chords, melody and counter melody: he'd used them all, painting musical landscapes of the most hidden regions of his soul. Some critics hailed him as the new Mozart, others as an aural messiah leading the faithful into an entirely new realm of tone and texture. He was fawned over at cocktail parties by middle-aged matrons with faces as stylized as the iced swan in the champagne fountain; with five thousand dollar designer dresses draping breasts more perfect than a humble Gog would allow, they would lean in close, touch his hand, and crane graceful necks that were subtly powdered with the scent of money. Tickling his ear with warm breath, they'd whispered and smiled coyly as their stuffy husbands pretended not to notice; they'd laugh at all of his little jokes as they toyed with their hair and slip room keys into his pocket with all the deft of a master magician. Keys which, time and time again, he'd drop onto the marbled check in counter as he staggered out the door with Elise on his arm.

However, each time it had become a little more difficult: he'd slip his hand into his pocket through the course of the evening and run his fingertips along the smooth, plastic cards as delicately as if they were a lover. He'd look into the eyes of these Botoxed sirens and imagine them wrapping those sinewy legs around him as he nodded and smiled and sipped his drink. But then he'd spy Elise from across the room or hear her laughter bubble through the drone of conversation like music so heavenly that he could never hope to capture its essence; and the guilt would crash over him like the waves of a tsunami, leaving nothing but emotional wreckage in its wake. She'd worked two jobs to help offset the expenses of Julliard, had inspired and believed in him like no one ever had: and there he was, considering the possibility of discarding her loyalty and love as if it were nothing more than a crumpled piece of sheet music. So he'd accepted more and more drinks in an attempt to drown the shame, but this only seemed to weaken his resolve further and the key cards began to feel warm to the touch, tempting him as if the Devil himself had forged them in the fires of Hell.

But then one day he'd come home to find Elise curled into a ball in the middle of their four poster bed. Her face was cupped in her hands and her shoulders twitched with sobs as she pulled her knees to her chest. He'd sat beside her, held her hands as the light of the lamps glistened on her wet, puffy cheeks.

"Let me in, baby. Please. Just talk to me, okay?"

"Damien," she'd sniffled, "you're going down a path that I don't think I can follow."

And that had settled it. In the amount of time it took for a drip of snot to trickle from his wife's nose, he made a decision that completely altered everything he'd worked so hard to achieve. The years of practice, of having his knuckles rapped with rulers, of playing jazz in smoky nightclubs to supplement their income through the six long years at the performing arts academy: it was as if none of it had ever really mattered to begin with. If the path he was on was one which Elise couldn't walk with him, then it wasn't a path worth taking.

Despite her protestations, he'd disappeared from the music scene as quickly as a meteor in the night sky, not so much burning out as fading into that dim obscurity reserved for trivia questions. He'd taken a job teaching music at Willow Grove Middle School and eased into the Norman Rockwell existence of life in a small, country town: he and Elise had taught themselves to garden, had laughed in the evenings at the raccoons that waddled across their yard, and swam naked in the waters of the Elk River, kissing gently in the moonlight as water lapped against their goose-bumped flesh.

Those were the memories he cherished most, the little movies that surprised him throughout the course of his day with their clarity and force. It was so much better to remember her the way she'd truly been; not as the frail and shriveled wisp of a woman who'd fought for even the smallest puff of air from the respirator. Not the paper-thin wraith who couldn't muster the strength to raise a Dixie cup of water to her own parched lips.

He'd traded a lifetime of fame and renown, of tours that would have spanned continents, and fingers that would've been insured for millions: all of this for three good years with a woman who'd blossomed before him like the most rare and exotic flower. This had been followed by another year and a half during which that flower had slowly withered into a charcoal gray dust that he scattered upon the wind from the top of Cougar's Bluff. But he'd never regretted it. Not for a minute.

Over the years, he'd catch glimpses of her in his peripheral vision. Her hair, as radiant and shiny as rose tinted strands of silk in the sunlight. A hint of the blue dress she'd loved so well, glimpsed as it disappeared through the door frame during his students' recitals. Her scent, like honeysuckle on a dewy morning, lingered in the hall. And sometimes he'd awaken in the darkness and feel her warmth spooned against his back, hear the slow and rhythmic lull of her breathing... He'd lay there with his eyes closed, as motionless as if he were still wrapped in the arms of sleep; for he knew that the moment he showed signs of being awake, she would dissolve like smoke on the breeze.

She'd never really left him. Damien was more sure of this than anything else in his life. He'd spend his evenings talking to her, sharing all the little details of his day, and asking questions followed by long pauses. Equipment that had once been responsible for perfectly capturing the timber of each piano note now recorded these one-sided conversations that rambled into the night. Later, he'd fiddle with the gain, slow down the track to the point that his voice sounded low and slurred, and close his eyes as he listened to the hiss of the pauses through cushioned headphones. He searched these moments of silence like a prospector sifting through mounds of useless silt, searching for that single, shining nugget: a word or two, hidden within the waterfall-like static; a few seconds of a voice he knew more intimately than he'd ever known any fugue or adagio.

So it was not out of character in the least bit for Damien to address an otherwise empty room as he stood before the mirror.

"Toilet tank's almost empty, honey bunny. And I'm down to just a can or two in the kitchen. Fuckin' sauerkraut... can you believe that? You always loved that stuff. Remember how I always said I'd eat a sewer rat before I'd touch the shit? Well darlin', both of them are looking pretty damn good right about now."

Damien forced a laugh and shook his head, but there was no trace of mirth in the reflection of his eyes. They shimmered behind a haze of tears and were as bloodshot as if he'd spent the last three days on a whisky bender instead of huddling in the corner of the room, trying to remain as silent as possible. Dark bags hung underneath them and his shoulders drooped as he pressed his palms against the sides of his temples.

"They're... they're all dead, Elise. Everyone." He took a deep breath as he squeezed his eyes shut and felt a tremor of anxiety pass through his bowels. "It's been four days since I've heard a car. Nearly two weeks since we lost power. I kept thinking someone would come, you know?"

Damien's voice cracked with the strain of emotion and a single tear followed the contour of his nose as his bottom lip quivered.

"I thought all I had to do was sit tight. Eat the vegetables we'd canned from the garden. Conserve my water. Just sit tight and wait for someone. Police. Military. The National fucking Guard. Anyone."

He rubbed his eyes with his fists like a sleepy child and turned away from the mirror. For a moment, he simply listened to a silence so complete that there was nothing more than a phantom ringing in his ears. It was almost as if all the little sounds of life had been sucked into a vacuum from which they could never escape: no air hissed through the floor registers, no canned laughter resounded from a sitcom that had been left to play to an empty living room. There was only the occasional creak and pop of the wood settling.

He walked to the bed and sat down upon its edge, pulling a pillow to his chest and hugging it as tightly as if it were the woman to whom he spoke.

"I'm scared, honey. I know I'll have to go out there. Sooner or later. To get food. Water. But... I'm really, really scared. I've seen what they do. I've seen... I've seen... ."

Not able to finish the sentence, he plopped back onto the mattress and stared up into the gloom He'd pursed his lips and sucked on the back of his teeth in an attempt to stifle the sob that tried to force its way up his throat. Breathing strictly through his nose, he struggled to exorcise the images which haunted his memory; but they were simply too strong to be ignored.

Rather than playing like a linear, mental film, they burst through his consciousness in a rapid-fire montage of blood and death: Ms. Paulson, running down the hallway, her heels clacking against the polished tile, screams echoing off the rows of lockers, as blood drenched children raced after her; a truck careening along Oak Street as if driven by a drunken NASCAR driver, the charred body clinging to the hood as it bashed its used its head like a battering ram against the spider web cracks in the windshield. Chuck Witherspoon, the postman, launching himself out of the bushes, clawing, gnashing, as frenzied as a wild animal. This particular memory was so vivid that Damien could practically feel the tingling in his hands as the Louisville Slugger cracked against the postman's skull, could see every individual hair in the bloody clump of scalp stuck to the end of the bat as he brought it down time and time again.

Blood had flowed through the streets, houses, and businesses of Willow Grove. Screams had resounded like the souls of the damned as they roasted in a lake of fire. But after obliterating the postman's head into nothing more than a pulpy mass, Damien had locked himself away within the safety of his little Cape Cod. He'd sat in the corner of the bedroom with a numbness that sank into the very core of his being, clutching his bat as he rocked back and forth. Waiting for it to end. Waiting for help to come. Waiting for thought to return to a mind that was empty as the whiteboard he'd left back at the school.

It could've been a day. It could have been three. But eventually he realized that no one was screaming anymore, There were no explosions. No gunshots. He'd crept to the window like a thief in his own house, peeled back one of the slats on the venetian blinds, and peeked out at what was left of his once peaceful town. Chuck Witherspoon's body was still spread eagle on the sidewalk and Damien's blue Neon was still parked half in the lawn and half on the street. In the distance, silhouettes of people staggered through the rays of the setting sun. They seemed to shuffle down the center of the road aimlessly, like an uncoordinated marching band whose drum major had gone insane. Other than the milling crowd and the clouds in the sky, nothing moved.

Damien's first instinct had been to throw open the door and shout for help; but then he'd heard Elise's voice in the back of his mind, as calm and rational as always: they're not right, honey. They can't help. No one can. Stay safe. Stay hidden.

And that was exactly what he'd done. But now, with the food nearly gone and only a few cups of water left in the toilet tank, he knew that it was a luxury he could no longer afford. Somewhere out there, were cans of tuna, beans, and vegetables. There were bottles of water and houses with wells. He could stay here and slowly starve to death... or he could go out there. Among them.

"I'm tired, Elise. I'm so... fucking... tired."

Life in the house consisted of catching sleep when he could; but it was never anything that amounted to any real rest. There was always something scratching against the wall outside: something that could've been the branches of the old Elm swaying in the wind... or blackened fingers that were beginning to show the first signs of decay. If it wasn't scratching, then it was a thump. Or something that may or may not have been the creak of a door opening slowly. During the day, he stayed far from windows, read tattered paperbacks whose plots he knew by heart, and tried to hold his bodily fluids until the sun had set. Under cover of darkness, he crept into the basement to relieve himself on the floor so as not to taint his only water supply. He opened cans of food so slowly that it took nearly a minute for the opener to make a complete revolution around the lid. Always cognizant of every sound, no matter how small. Once his life had been defined by sound and music... but now there was only the furtive silence of hiding.

"I shouldn't even be talking now. But, damn it, I need you, baby. More than I ever have."

Damien sat back up and stared across the room at the bedroom window. How much longer until dawn? An hour? Two? The wristwatch his mother had given him lay on the bedside table and the phosphorescent numbers glowed softly in the dark. But he'd been so tired that he'd forgot to wind it a few days back and, like the rest of the world, its cogs had slowly ground to a halt.

The springs of the bed creaked as he arose and he crept across the bedroom, shifted the drapes just far enough to accommodate his head, and peered out through the blinds. The street was bathed in moonlight and everything seemed to have an almost bluish glow. Down the block, he could just make out a single person wandering through the night.

You gotta stop thinking of those things as people, honey. They're not... not anymore.

Elise's voice again. The grief counselor he'd briefly seen had claimed that moments such as this were really nothing more than his own thoughts donning a comforting mask. A psychological trick, he'd said, and nothing more. The smug bastard. Was it really such a stretch of the imagination to think that maybe, just perhaps, those who'd passed into the great unknown could still communicate? That they could interject their own thoughts into his? No, Damien was sure that the guidance came from his wife and that her love and loyalty was so strong that it transcended the barrier between life and death.

You gotta go out there, Damien.

A lump formed in his throat as all the moisture seemed to evaporate from his mouth; his eyes darted to the body of Chuck Witherspoon. Was it just a trick of the moonlight or did the fingers just twitch? And was that a breeze rustling the tattered strips of cloth that had once been his uniform... or the first rustlings of a corpse that was preparing to walk again?

It's dead, honey. If it was going to get back up, it would've done it days ago. I know you're scared... I know nothing makes sense anymore. But you have to go out there."

"I will. In a couple days, okay? Once the sauerkraut is gone and I don't have any other... ."

You'll be too weak. Kraut is a condiment, Damien. You need food. Real food.

His eyes shifted from the outside world to the baseball bat that was propped against the wall. He imagined it coming down on the mailman's head, whacking again and again like a wooden piston, driving the man... the thing... . to its knees with the ferocity of the barrage. The head caving in; the crack and squish noise; little fragments of bone erupting like shrapnel from the skull: could he really do it all again?

Maybe Elise was right. Maybe whatever had made them human had long since fled. But they still looked like friends and neighbors. Those blank expressions were plastered across faces he'd come to know and love. Faces that served him lunch down at The Dog House. Faces that had waved from across the street and asked to borrow his lawn mower or cups of flour. Faces that had brought him covered dishes and sat in the living room, held his hand, and shared their memories of the wonderful woman who had been his wife.

He'd never really cared much for scary movies, not understanding why people would elect to be terrified when there were already so many horrible things in the real world... but he'd seen a few. And they had made it all look so easy. A bullet to the head. A major trauma to the brain. And you just went about your business as if nothing had ever happened.

In reality, it was much, much harder. Witherspoon still haunted him in his dreams, ringing the doorbell and holding out a registered letter as globs of brain slid down the side of his shattered head. The man swayed back and forth, opened his mouth to speak and vomited a stream of wriggling maggots, each one bearing the face of a student or other townsfolk. They plopped against the welcome mat and wiggled toward him, their tiny eyes dark and cold as mouths lined with needle-like teeth gnashed at the air. Always the same nightmare. Plaguing him on those rare occasions that he could sleep long enough to actually enter REM.

Remove it from the equation then. Don't let it be a factor at all.

Damien looked back out the window again, this time focusing on his used Neon. He tried to remember that last day he'd driven it. Not the insane, breakneck race home, but that morning. When it had seemed like just another average workday. He'd put gas in the car that morning, hadn't he? He remembered thinking that there were two still two days until his pay check was direct deposited and he should probably only put five dollars or so in the tank.

But that would be enough. It would get him out of this little town, away from all of the faces that were so tightly tied to emotion and memory. Maybe then it would be as easy as those movies had made it appear.

Turning from the window, he saw the silhouetted bottles sitting atop the vanity like a miniature skyline. Perfumes, powder, deodorant, hair spray: he could never bring himself to throw them out. They were like a tangible connection to the past, things that Elise had touched daily... objects that had she'd personally selected because, in one way or another, they pleased her.

Panic stroked Damien's soul with cold fingertips and caused his scalp to tingle; his heart palpitated like the erratic drumbeat of improvised jazz and beads of sweat formed on his furrowed brow.

What if she didn't come with him? What if she were tethered to this place, to these objects, to this town? What if he drove away in the hopes of ensuring survival and left behind the one thing, the one person, who made it all worthwhile? Losing Elise to the cancer had been hard enough: could he really take the chance that she would finally disappear from his life altogether? That he would never catch glimpses of her again or smell her scent or lay in the darkness with her essence pressed tightly against his back?

But then her voice spoke in his mind again and it chased away the nagging fear as easily as the morning sun burns through fog.

Damien, honey... I'll be with you. Always.

And so it was decided. He'd catch a few hours of sleep if he could, pack some things, and head out once daylight had chased away the shadows of night. He took one last look at this home they'd built together and sighed.

For better or worse, tomorrow he'd leave it all.

He'd venture into the world.

Out there.

With them.

II

It was a cool morning and the rising sun streaked the sky with bands of orange, yellow, and pink. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves of the old Elm, but other than that the world was completely silent. The transformers perched atop the power lines didn't hum. There was no hiss of traffic, no distant babble of children laughing as they scampered through playgrounds and backyards. Even the birds weren't singing. It was almost as if they'd hidden themselves away in their nests and little wooden houses, cowering from the things that had laid claim to the world. Afraid to cheep or tweet, afraid that they'd be discovered.

But that was silly. On occasion , Damien had seen dogs and cats trot across the street as he peeked through the blinds. One tabby in particular had even rubbed itself against the legs of Tom Brogan, the local insurance agent. It weaved between the shuffling feet with an arched tail, as oblivious to the fact that he was dead as the man was to it. They had no interest in animals, these things... only humans.

"Nice apocalypse we're having, isn't it? Yeah... for ducks."

He thought this feeble attempt at humor might calm the acids that churned and roiled in his stomach. But his legs still trembled as if he were an old man who'd been deprived of his walker and the baseball bat felt as heavy as a steel rod in his sweaty palm. He stood on the front porch with the strap of the duffel bag digging painfully into his shoulder and swept the landscape with eyes that blinked a little too rapidly.

Nothing moved. No one shambled through the streets or clamored over the crumpled truck that looked as if it had fused with the wall of Willow Grove Hardware. It was almost as if they had all disappeared with the coming of dawn. As if they'd scurried back to their warrens and dens, fleeing from the rays of the sun, waiting for darkness to reclaim the world... .

They're not vampires, Damien. Don't fool yourself. They're out there. Somewhere.

His feet felt so heavy that it almost seemed as if the concrete porch had encased them. As if he were as much a part of the construction as the wooden beams that supported the triangular eaves overhead. But, at the same time, he also felt vulnerable and exposed, as obvious as if there were a neon sign winking All You Can Eat just above his head.

The corpse of Chuck Witherspoon lay between Damien and the car and he eyed it as warily as Elise always had the panthers at the zoo. Despite his dream imagery, the flies wanted nothing to do with this battered husk. It had lain in the yard for so long that its wounds should have been crawling with tiny, white worms. Pockets of flesh should have bulged and shifted as they feasted on dead flesh. But there was not so much as a speck of white among all of that mush.

Damien seemed to remember reading somewhere that insects played a large part in the decomposition of remains. Or perhaps Kristine Blake, the science teacher at Willow Grove Middle, had mentioned it in passing. But he was sure he'd garnered this little fact from somewhere. And that knowledge soured in his stomach like curdled milk. If even the bugs were shunning these things, how long would it take for them to completely break down? How long until they simply rotted away and left those still alive to pick up whatever pieces of society they could and move on?

Speaking of moving on... .

He walked toward the blue Neon as slowly as a hunter in the woods, skirting around the corpse on the lawn as if the gasses that bloated the sun baked body might cause it to explode in a shower of guts and gore at any moment. Holding his breath so as not to breathe in the greasy pungency of putrification, he gripped the bat as his eyes darted from the dead mail carrier to the streets beyond.

Still no sign of those things. Maybe this was going to be easier then he thought.

Damien slid into the driver's seat, closed the door as softly as he could, and gasped for breath only once it had been completely shut. Fishing the key out of his hip pocket, he inserted it in the ignition and turned before he lost his nerve.

In the silence that had become his world, the engine turning over was like the roar of a jet. It rumbled through the stillness as clouds of exhaust belched from the tailpipe and a dinging noise chimed with the flashing seatbelt light on the dashboard. Though he'd been too distracted to remember hearing it the last time he drove, the CD player automatically queued up and strains of violin wafted from the speaker.

His hand shot out instinctively, his index finger mere centimeters from the power button that would quiet the sudden burst of noise. Only it wasn't noise. Not really. It was the essence of beauty in audible form, the core of human experience burned into a shiny little disc that had probably outlived most of the orchestra that had performed it. Turning off the song would be like admitting, once and for all, that all hope was gone. Besides, the engine alone would have made his presence known... how much more attention would Berber's Adagio For Strings really attract?

Shifting the car into reverse, Damien backed onto the street as the music swelled. Elise had always loved this rendition best and somehow it seemed to be a fitting soundtrack. As the violins and cellos wove a melancholy tapestry of sound, glass from broken windows caught the morning sun and flared like tiny nuggets of white fire against the bloodstained sidewalks. The Foster's house had been reduced to a mound of cinders and ash and wrecked cars littered the street like playthings that had been cast aside by a petulant god. Everywhere he looked, scenes of ruin and destruction slowly scrolled by: they blurred and wavered as tears welled in his eyes and his chest trembled with suppressed sobs. All of those people... . His neighbors. Coworkers. Even crotchety Ms. Givens with the army of gnomes standing silent guard over his precious lawn. All gone.

The music seeped into his soul, running its bow over strings of emotion, and he gripped the steering wheel as if it were the only thing anchoring him to reality. He'd always said there was a reason musical passages were referred to as movements: that something as simple as a wooden instrument could dredge the human spirit and bring hidden passions to the surface. But that had never been truer than it had on this morning: with the sun casting long shadows from buildings that were now left to the ravages of time and entropy; with the bodies of those who'd risen only to be put down again sprawled across the same sidewalks they'd once strolled on a daily basis. And the music, coaxing the tears from his eyes and leaving him feeling as hollow and empty as the darkened storefronts... .

If something like this had went down in sleepy little Willow Grove, he wondered, what must the cities be like? For now that he'd left the safe and familiar refuge of his home, Damien could no longer deny what he knew to be the truth: the entire world now resembled a war torn, third world country and its orphans cowered in the shadows, shedding silent tears for all that had been wrenched from their grasp.

"Sweetie... oh, dear God, Elise... ."

He passed the remains of a Toyota whose fender and hood had wrapped around one of the mighty trees that gave Oak Street its name. Trapped between the fusion of metal and bark, a body wriggled as if it could somehow slither out from the truck that pinned it in place. It skin was mottled with dark splotches that almost looked like bruises and it reached its hands toward the Neon as Damien drove by, following him with a turn of its head. In a way, it almost seemed as if this trapped torso were reaching out for help: as if it wanted nothing more than to be pulled free from the wreckage and allowed to die on the mossy ground below.

You know that's not true, honey. You know what it really wants. Don't look. Just keep driving.

Despite Elise's instructions, Damien could help but to take one final glance in the rearview mirror as his mind tried to place that sunken, slack jawed face. And that was when he saw them.

They streamed onto the road behind him like a swarm of rats converging on a discarded slab of meat. Flowing out of the alleys and side streets, climbing through broken windows, darting from behind bushes and trees. Some of them jerked and twitched as if being pulled by invisible strings; others ran with outstretched arms, and he even thought he saw something clawing its legless body over the pavement like a wounded soldier.

"Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!"  
Damien's fist pounded the steering wheel and his foot pressed down onto the accelerator as his eyes returned to the road ahead. Inside, he felt as if all of his organs had shriveled into a hard-packed knot and he couldn't seem to get enough air, no matter how quickly he sucked in breath. His gaze flickered between the road and the receding horde in the mirror. But now they were coming from everywhere. It was almost as if the gates of Hell had been flung open, spilling its vile denizens onto the face of the earth.

He saw a lacerated face in the driver's side mirror, hovering like a nightmare above the letters spelling out Objects In Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear. A gaggle of children with bloodstained hands and chins scuttling across the parking lot of Wilson's IGA. From all sides they converged, surrounding the car like a constricting wall of flesh.

Ahead an ambulance had toppled onto its side and from its open doors sprang a monstrosity with jagged shards of bone jutting through discolored skin. It's jaw looked as if it had been knocked several inches to the side and the dress it wore had been reduced to tatters. One breast plopped out of the drooping fabric and a network of blue veins radiated from the nipple as if it were a metropolis on a road map. It's hair was a tangled mass of knots and matted with blood, but Damien immediately recognized her anyway.

"Oh God, that's Kristine, that's fuckin' Kristine Blake, oh God, Jesus... ."

He cut the wheel so sharply that the tires squealed as the car skidded around the intersection of Oak and 7th, fishtailing wildly as he watched what was left of the science teacher stumble after him. Bile stung the soft lining of his throat and he felt as if he were only seconds from throwing up... but the rest of his body tingled with numbness.

7th to Cypress. Third right onto 4th. Past Mcpherson's. County Road 31. Do it!

Elise's voice shouted directions in his mind, guiding him through the streets of Willow Grove at speeds he never would have dreamed possible. The familiar scenery blurred by as former residents continued popping up like monsters in some demented game of Whack-A-Mole. But the tightly packed homes and buildings gradually became more dispersed; as the fences surrounding yards lengthened, the number of dead decreased exponentially. By the time Damien crossed the county line, nothing but trees and guardrail lined the sides of the winding two lane. Sunlight dappled through the canopy of leaves and deer dashed across the road. It was all too easy to pretend that he was simply out for a drive in the country: that none of the horrors he'd experienced had ever actually happened. He'd return home before dark, fix himself a sandwich, and thumb through photo albums as he described the countryside to his departed wife.

Don't think like that, honey. Things are different now. You always have to be alert. Always ready. There's no place in the world for daydreams anymore.

Elise was right, of course. The paradigm had shifted. Reality had changed. And for the rest of his life, no matter how long that might be, he would never be able to let his guard down again.

The Age of Comfort had come to an end....

III

It was dark by the time the Neon sputtered to the side of the road. Damien had stopped several times during the day to check abandoned cars for gas; but each time he found the cap laying on the ground and the tank entirely drained. One on hand, this frustrated him to no end: he felt safer in the car, almost as if the metal and glass were some sort of magical barrier that could indefinitely keep the world at bay. But the drained tanks also meant there were others out there like himself. Refugees fleeing from their shattered lives, scrounging for necessities and supplies wherever they could find them. And simply knowing they were out there somewhere gave him hope. As long as there were men and women with the indomitable will to survive, no matter what the cost, then there was hope for humanity yet.

Damien had spent the better part of the day turning those ideas over in his mind as he searched the static for even the weakest radio signal. By the time he abandoned the car and trudged along the road with his bat in one hand and a red gas can in the other, they'd melded from scattered musings into a solid philosophy.

He, as an individual person, no longer mattered; for he was part of something much larger now. No more than a single knot in the net of life, the true importance was the survival of the species as a whole. Mankind had been sucker punched and driven to its knees; its buildings and monuments had both figuratively and literally crumbled into dust. All that remained now were the dispersed remnants of society: people like him who had no clue where to go or what to do next. If he could find others, perhaps they could band together. With strength in numbers, they could fight the undead menace, could repopulate the earth and take back the towns and cities. The interests of self had to give way for the good of the whole... he was no longer a man, but simply human. And that was enough.

"I swear, baby... I'll procreate if I have to. It's kind of my duty, you know? But I'll never love another woman. Not like I love you."

Damien's footsteps padded against the tar and chip road and an owl hooted from somewhere deep within the dark forest. Occasionally, he heard animals crash through the undergrowth, unseen life that remained unfazed by the calamity that had befallen their two-legged brethren. Clouds masked the light of the moon and then moved on, only to be replaced by more moments later. Wind rustled trees. The cycles of nature continued, just as they had for millennia.

In the distance, Damien saw a house silhouetted in the darkness. From the general outline, it looked like any other old farmhouse: two stories with a chimney perched on top, long porch spanning the entire front of the facade, and a split rail fence surrounded the perimeter. Places like that usually had a well with cool, clear water. And larders packed with dust covered Bell jars of produce. Perhaps even a generator and some gas to power it.

He wanted to run toward the house as fast as his legs would carry him. But Elise urged caution. Where there were houses, there were usually people... and where there were people, there could conceivably be the walking dead.

So instead of sprinting the length of two football fields, Damien slowed his pace and sidled to the furthest edge of the road. The shadows from the overhanging trees cloaked him in obscurity and he clutched the bat in a white-knuckled grip. Listening for the smallest sound that would betray the presence of someone other than himself, he eased closer and closer to the old farmhouse as his muscles tensed.

Moonlight reflected on the windows and he was now close enough to see the sagging gutters and flaking, brown paint. A porch swing, moved by the breeze, creaked slowly back and forth and the tinkling of wind chimes sounded as if some hidden toddler was randomly striking a xylophone with mallets.

Chills crept along Damien's spine and he sat the gas can by the side of the road, choosing instead to grip the bat with both hands. Asphalt gave way to wet grass and he followed the fence line, his eyes never straying far from the house looming before him.

Was it just his imagination? Or did something dark just flit by the upstairs window?

Maybe it was just another cloud passing across the face of the moon, a trick of light and shadow... .

But no. At the moment, the heavens were clear. Stars twinkled like sequins on a vast, velvet cloak and the moon was a pearl brooch clasping it all together. So what had it been then? One of them? Or just his tired mind having its way with him?

Across the road, and directly opposite the farmhouse, sat a typical country church. A steeple rose from its whitewashed walls and stained glass shimmered in the dim light. Butting up against the church was a small, gravel parking lot devoid of cars.

If there was a church, Damien reasoned, then there had to be more houses close by. Perhaps another town a few miles further up the road. So it was entirely conceivable that one of those things could be lumbering through the darkened farmhouse; but what if it was more than one? He knew from his run in with Witherspoon, that he could defeat a single corpse fairly easily; but if that crowd back in Willow Grove would have caught up with him... Well, he was positive that the end results wouldn't have been pretty.

Creeping across the front porch, Damien pressed his ear to the cold, wooden door and closed his eyes, listening for the tell-tale shuffle of feet from the other side. Or the thud of something bumping against furniture. Anything to indicate that the house wasn't empty. But he heard nothing more than the chirping of crickets from the surrounding woods.

Placing his hand on the knob, he turned and pushed the door open so slowly that the hinges didn't so much as squeak. He looked past the shadowy furniture within, searching for a patch of darkness that was human-shaped. Searching for signs of movement where there were none.

Satisfied that the front room, at least, was empty he stepped into the foyer and tiptoed from room to room, checking each one in turn. Everything within the farmhouse looked as if the occupants had simply stepped out for a few hours. The beds were perfectly made, dirty dishes were piled up in the sink, and a opened book lay face down on the coffee table in the living room. The walls were covered with family photos, paintings of Jesus within gilded frames, and one of those calendars banks give away at the end of each year.

Damien made his way back to the front door and stood at the bottom of a staircase, peering up into the gloom as he tightened his grip on the bat. All that remained now was the upper floor. Once that had been cleared, he'd be comfortable enough to scavenge the house for whatever necessities he could find, perhaps see if there was an outbuilding where there might be... .

His breath caught in his throat and the darkness suddenly seemed to rush in at him. He was keenly aware of the hammering of his own heart, the blood surging through his veins in a rapid series of thumps and swishes.

He knew now that he wasn't alone. That was a thud he'd heard. No doubt about it. As if something heavy had fallen to the floor upstairs.

He stood as still as the railings on the staircase with his head cocked to the side, straining to hear even the faintest sound from the top of the stairs.

Things just didn't fall of their own accord. They were knocked over. Or pushed.

The ceiling overhead creaked and he followed the sound with his eyes.

It made its way slowly across the living room.

Soft and furtive.

Pops..

The groan of old floorboards as something put its weight upon them.

Drawing closer to the top of the stairs.

Which was better? To wait for the thing to come charging down the stairs? Or begin the ascent and meet it head on?

The bat was slick and warm against Damien's palms and he held his breath as indecision weighed down upon him like a physical force. Part of him wanted to turn and run, to disappear back into the safety of the night and forget he'd ever set foot in this dusty farmhouse. But, in the same light, he was positive there was food here. The place hadn't been ransacked or looted... it was as perfect as a museum diorama.

Now that the sounds were closer, he could distinctively hear each individual step. Soft and light, as if the creature above had all the time in the world to stalk its victim.

You're nobody's victim, Damien... .

Elise was right. If he were to survive in this new world, he had to be willing to take calculated risks. There was obviously only one of those things upstairs: more than that would have caused more noise. He'd climb the stairs, meet the thing in the hallway, and club its head until the last spasm twitched its fingers.

"You can do this. You can do this."

The step squeaked as he placed his foot upon it and, even though the sound was slight, it didn't pass undetected. The footsteps above now thudded against the floor, obviously running, and Damien realized the choice had been made for him. He'd never be able to make it to the top in time. He would have to stand his ground and let the fight come to him.

He raised the bat over his shoulder, just as he'd done in little league as a child, bent his knees slightly, and braced himself.

A face formed in the darkness at the top of the staircase. With wild eyes and snarling lips, it bellowed out a roar that seemed more animal than human. At the same time, its hand flew up and a lick of fire appeared from the end of it as a loud bang echoed down the narrow stairs.

The wall beside Damien's head erupted in a shower of splinters and he reflexively ducked as the stench of spent gunpowder stung his nostrils.

"Jesus Christ!"

From somewhere upstairs the wail of a crying infant cut through the ringing in Damien's ears and everything snapped into place. The bat clattered to the floor as he threw up his hands in front of him, showing his empty palms to the figure at the top of the stairs.

"I'm not one of them!" he yelled. "I'm alive! I'm fucking alive!"

The man above him kept the pistol leveled in his general direction. While he didn't squeeze off another round, he still seemed tense and jumpy. As even the smallest miscalculated move could elicit another shot.

"I just need some food. Water. Maybe a little gas if you have any. I won't hurt you."

"Damn straight, you won't." The voice was low and raspy, but trembled as if it were just as frightened as the former composer at the bottom of the stairs. "Cause you ain't stayin' here."

"Look, I don't want any trouble. I just want... ."

"You wanna get your ass shot? Cause that's what's going to happen, my man. I swear to God, I'll put a bullet in your brain if you so much as put another foot on those stairs."

The two men stared at one another in silence while the baby bleated like a terrified goat.

"Tasha! Give her the tit or something, woman, and shut her the fuck up!"

The man with the gun. A crying baby. An unseen woman named Tasha. Just a family trying to survive as best as they could. Hell, in all likelihood this probably wasn't even their house.

Damien's mind flashed back to the philosophy he'd formed earlier in the day: the good of the whole over the needs of an individual. That crying little girl upstairs... she was the hope of humanity and, as such, was far more important than some middle-aged music teacher with a receding hairline.

"Look," Damien said softly, "I'm just going to leave, okay? I'm going to get my bat and walk out that door. I don't want to cause any problems for you and your family."

He stooped slowly, never breaking eye contact with the man at the top of the stairs as his fingers sought the smooth handle of the baseball bat. Then he stood and backed away, ensuring that his weapon stayed at his side the entire time.

As Damien grew closer to the front door, the other man visibly relaxed and the muzzle of the gun dipped slightly.

"Look, man... there's... there's a shed out behind the house. Think I saw a can of gas beside the lawnmower. Can't rightly say there's anything in it... but you're free to check. Ain't got no car anyways."

Damien nodded and eased onto the porch.

"You keep that little girl safe. You do whatever you have to. I understand."

Closing the door, he turned away from the farmhouse. Now that the surge of adrenaline had dissipated, he felt the strain of the day wash over him. His arms and legs ached, the duffel bag on his shoulder felt as if it were weighted down with bricks, and his eyelids were as heavy as if pennies had been taped to each one.

He found the can of gas exactly where the man with the gun said it would be and the liquid sloshed as he picked it up. There was enough there for between a quarter to half a tank... but his thighs cramped with each step and he knew he'd never be able to make it back to the car. Not tonight.

He needed rest. A little sleep. Tomorrow morning he would trek back to the Neon and decide where to go from there. But, for now, his focus was upon the little church across the road.

By the time, he got to the heavy, wooden doors, the last of Damien's energy was nearly spent. If they were locked, he'd simply climb into a tree and lay down upon a branch. He simply didn't have it in him to search for another shelter for the night.

The doors, however, opened easily.

The pulpit was lined with votives and a box of kitchen matches sat within a brass collection plate, almost as if someone had been preparing for a midnight sermon before being called away. Directly behind the pulpit was a mural that spanned the entire back wall. It depicted a tomb carved into the side of a hill with a large boulder partially blocking the darkened opening. Off to the side, Jesus stood with his beard and purple robes, holding up his bloody palms for all to see while a faint aura radiated from around him.

"You always wanted to get me to church, Elise... I don't think this is quite what you had in mind."

A carpeted aisle cut through the center of the church, dividing the rows of long, wooden pews into two distinct sections. On the back of each pew was a rack containing song books and Damien's eyes followed the benches to the front of the church. To the right, sitting on a small riser, was a scuffed piano and he smiled like someone who'd just spotted an old friend from across a crowded room.

But then he sank onto the closest pew, closed his eyes, and allowed himself to be pulled into the darkness of sleep.

It could have been half an hour. Or maybe two. But something stirred him from his dreamless slumber. At far he stared up as he tried to figure out why the ceiling was so far away. Why his mattress was so hard and unforgiving.

He heard a baby crying. The sound seemed as if it were lost somewhere in the fog clouding his mind, like the remnants of a dream that clung tenaciously to his consciousness . A thin, high pitched warble that drifted in and out of reality... .

The baby. It all came back to him and he bolted upright on the pew, rubbing the sleep from his eyes as he searched for his bat. It some point, it had rolled onto the floor and,. Just as he was about to retrieve it, four gunshots sounded through the night in quick succession.

"What the fuck?"

Damien ran to the doors of the church and opened them just enough to peer through the crack. He saw the farmhouse across the road and the baby's wails were so much louder without the heavy wood to muffle them

"Oh shit, Elise... shit."

The farmhouse was surrounded by a ring of bodies that pounded against the walls as if they could somehow smash their way inside. Though cloaked in shadow, Damien didn't have to actually see them to know that this wasn't the welcoming committee bringing chocolate cake and casseroles to the newcomers. The jerky movements, the animalistic fury with which they pawed at the walls of the house: these actions told him everything he needed to know.  
Three more shots rang out and a window on the second floor flashed as if lightning were contained within the room. In the quick bursts of illumination, he caught a glimpse of the man who'd shot at him from the top of the stairs; those fleeting seconds were enough to register the pale expression of panic that elongated his features.

A woman's screams joined the baby's cries and Damien squeezed his eyes shut as his hand clenched the door handle.

The man's bullets wouldn't last forever. Especially since he seemed to be firing wildly. His rounds had pumped into backs and chests and legs... but not a single headshot to reduce the number of corpses outside the house.

And the house itself... it was old. How long would those cheap doors last? How long before one of them inadvertently smashed a window and discovered that they could easily climb inside?

They'd throng into the house, crowd up the stairs, and close in upon the little family holed up inside. The baby wouldn't stand a chance.

A gust of wind wafted through the crack of the door, carrying the scent of honeysuckle of a dewy morning, and Damien closed his eyes in the hopes that the tears welling there would somehow soak back into his ducts without wetting his cheeks. More than ever, he needed his wife; she always knew what to do or say, always saw bright lattices of logic in what appeared to him as a dismal tangle of confusion. It had been ages since he'd known the warmth of her touch or the reassuring squeeze of her hand in his.

Panic quickened his pulse as an image of framed photos appeared in his mind. Back home, she'd smiled at him from every wall, had glanced coyly from shelves and end tables. He'd surrounded himself with pictures of Elise, but had left them all behind. What if her image started to fade without those glossy snapshots to prime his memory? What if she slowly dissolved into nothing more than the most basic details – facial shape, hair and eyes color, weight, and height? Would there come a day when he no longer remembered the tiny freckle on the tip of her nose or the scar on her heel that almost looked like a question mark?

Damien couldn't lose her. Not again. Once was more than enough for a single lifetime.

Opening his eyes, Damien knew what he had to do. He threw open the wooden doors and darted through the church, snatching a candle and the box of matches from the pulpit as he headed for the piano. Leaping onto the riser, he snatched a match and scraped its blue tip along the side of the box. The resulting flame sputtered as if it were about to fizzle out, but he held it to the candle's wick anyway and was met with success.

Sliding onto the bench, he knew there was no time for warming up, so he simply sat the flickering candle on the lid, cracked his knuckles, and closed his eyes. His fingers danced over the keys, playing Fur Elise slow and sad, just as his wife had always liked. Now the scent of honeysuckle was even stronger and the tears slid freely down his face as he nodded his head in time with the music. Yet there was another smell present as well. One which stung his nostrils with its sharp bite an slowly permeated the church.

Continuing to play, Damien opened his eyes and could see the undead through the opened doors. They charged across the road, the family in the farmhouse forgotten in favor of easier prey, and he knew it would be a matter of moments before they were vaulting up the stairs and into the church. By then, however, the overturned can of gasoline would have spread across most of the floor. A toss of the candle was all it would take.

He'd had his chance at life. He'd lived and loved and laughed and grieved. Now, it was the baby's turn to have that same chance. By the time he reached the end of the refrain, there would be no turning back. But he was okay with that.

In his peripheral vision, Damien caught sight of her. Her hair, as radiant and shiny as rose tinted strands of silk in the candlelight. A hint of the blue dress she'd loved so well, glimpsed as it disappeared through the door frame leading further back into the church. And he smiled.

"Elise," he whispered, "I'm coming, sweetie. I'm coming home."

OUR LAST HOPE

(Published in Zombonauts, Library of the Living Dead, 2009)

They are our last hope.

This thought constantly goes through my mind whenever I pass through the holding bays. I look at the oblong boxes, stacked side by side and towering overhead like the vertebrae of some enormous beasts, and think of the men, women, and children slumbering within. On the end of each box is a small, touch-screen computer that monitors their vital signs: if necessary, it can adjust the pulse rate, increase the flow of oxygen to the chamber, and can even bring the brain waves back down to an acceptable range if it looks like one of them might be beginning to awaken. Being on the maintenance detail, I don't really understand all of the science behind hibernation; I only know that all of their needs are taken care of, that they are so deeply sedated even dreams are minimal, and that they are the last chance for the survival of our species.

It's staggering really. There are fifty thousand of them in each holding bay. Eight holding bays to a ship, twenty ships to the convoy... we carry a small nation across the stars, a country comprised entirely of people carefully poised on that thin border between life and death. The project was called ambitious by some, a folly by those less polite, and a complete waste of time by others. But did we really have any choice? Our options had become so limited that even the faintest glimmer of hope was better than the alternative.

Sometimes, I still bolt upright in bed with the remnants of a nightmare clinging to my mind with talons that rip and shred the fabric of reality. I can still hear the screams, the cries for help, the sobbing; I can smell the stench of rotting flesh, can almost see the corpses staggering in the shadows of my quarters, their hands reaching out, teeth gnashing as they draw ever closer.

By the time we left, our cities were already overrun. They swarmed through the streets like a colony of voracious insects, packed together so tightly that they almost seemed to move as if driven by a unified consciousness, a hive mind that urged them on, demanded the blood of the living and a fulfillment of the rage that seemed to possess them. I remember looking down at them from the rooftops and thinking that there was no way we could survive: there were too many of them and something about the virus slowed the decay of their tissue... we couldn't simply wait it out and let the ravages of time waste them away.

So we gathered everyone who was willing, assigned jobs based on individual strengths, converted our old star freighters for their new purpose, and pleaded with those who wished to remain behind. I still remember watching from the observation deck as the planet receded, growing smaller and smaller until it looked like a little blue marble against the vast, black backdrop of space; and then it was gone, leaving me with a feeling inside that was as cold and empty as the great expanse our ships were about to cover.

The scientists had insisted, of course, on bringing a handful of those things on board. They were never so arrogant as to think they could find a cure: after all, there is no treatment for death. But maybe, if they studied the virus long enough, they could find something out there that would act as a vaccine. Some sort of immunization that would at least prevent us from rising again once our lives had run their courses. Something that would allow us to win what was otherwise a futile battle for our very existence.

And, to their credit, that is exactly what happened. So now we our returning home, our precious cargo safely tucked away, ready to repopulate a dying world; each of us secretly wondering, I suspect, if there will still be anyone left on the surface, any survivors to herald our return, to praise our triumph over this scourge. But even if there is only the undead, wandering through forgotten cities like that ghosts who refuse to abandon their haunt, there are still enough of us to start rebuilding, still enough raw materials to manufacture the vaccine until the last wretched corpse has been disposed of and the planet reclaimed by the living.

It's staggering, really. There are fifty thousand of them in each holding bay, eight holding bays to a ship, and twenty ships to the convoy. We can extract and process almost two hundred doses of serum from each human before they are used up and their shriveled bodies set adrift in the great void. And yet they slumber on, unaware that they are the last chance for the survival of my species. That they are truly our last hope...

RULE 22

(An excerpt from The Dead & Dying, Library of the living Dead, 2011)

Fifteen miles out of Bloomburg, the engine started sounding as if one of those damn corpses had crawled up under the hood and was pounding away with a hammer. About the same time, that 'ole temperature gauge started creeping up and threatening to ease its way into the red. Doc eased up off the gas for a fraction of a second as he slammed a fist into the steering wheel, causing the horn to overpower the growl of the engine for the same amount of time it took him to curse. But then both hands were back on the wheel again, gripping it so tightly his knuckles were white as bone.

"Can't stop now!" he yelled over the sound of the engine. "We'd never stand a chance out there."

He was right. Though most of the scenery was nothing more than a blur, it was all too obvious that those people out there weren't bored locals who just up and decided to take a leisurely stroll down the interstate. And this late in the game, I didn't have to actually see them to know what they looked like: I was more than familiar with the festering wounds that even maggots wouldn't touch; I'd seen bones jutting through flesh, little kids with half their faces looking like the skin had been peeled back, refugees from a burn ward staggering along as bits and pieces dropped off. After a while, your mind kind of goes numb and you really don't think too hard about that old man with a screwdriver sticking out of what used to be his eye or that pretty young girl dragging her intestines along behind her.

"Bout ten more miles or so and we should be outta the 'burbs." I yelled back.

Personally, I wasn't quite so sure the old Chevy would make it another five miles, much less ten. It'd taken quite a beating when we tried to force our way through the downtown district. In the movies, you could always just plow your car through small groups of them and they would go flying and rolling off the hood. In reality, a person – even a dead one – does quite a bit of damage to a vehicle. There's this thud that you feel all the way in the pit of your stomach and the hood just kind of crumples up. Sometimes they do bounce off the top of the car but more often than not they just kinda disappear a fraction of a second before there's a bump in the road that wouldn't have been there otherwise. I could tell 'ole Doc was having a hell of a time trying to keep the steering wheel from jerking right out of his grasp but I was only seeing that out of the corner of my eye. Mainly, I was watching the plume of steam that had begun rising from the buckled remains of the grill and cursing myself for talking him into coming this way.

By the time we hit the on-ramp, the notion of just busting our way through anyone or anything that stood in our way had been left with our front bumper back at the corner of 53rd and Swanson. I braced myself against the window with one arm as Doc swerved in and out of the mangled hunks of metal that used to be cars.

Part of me had expected the Interstate to be virtually clear of the dead, but they were everywhere. The rotters shambled along as quickly as their decomposing tissue would allow and tended to cluster in small packs; the freshies, however, were a different story. Once they had broken through the initial rigor mortis, they still pretty much had control of their muscles. They ran behind the car like a pack of wild dogs chasing down a rabbit: zigzagging through overturned buses and multi-car pileups, leaping over barrels that had fallen from trucks, crashing through clumps of rotters....

To make matters worse, the sound of our engine was like a beacon for the bastards. They scrambled up embankments and fought to break through the glass of the cars they had died, and subsequently become trapped, in. Every ramp we passed was already congested with a rush hour of rotting flesh by the time we got there and I began to taste that metallic tang of fear in the back of my throat.

"This ain't looking good, Carl. This ain't looking good at all."

Even though Doc was practically standing on the pedal, the car was beginning to lose speed. Every few seconds it would shimmy and lurch as the gears whined in protest; something that smelled like a cross between burning rubber and ozone flooded through the vents, causing my eyes to water and the little hairs in my nostrils to tickle as if I had to sneeze.

"Come on, come on damn it come on!"

We weren't going to make it. The certainty of this hit me like an cold fist in the gut. Our car was going to shudder and die. Within moments we would be overtaken.

An image flashed through my head of ants clambering over a crust of bread that I had dropped onto their hill as a child. I remembered how quickly they had descended; how, for a moment of two, not so much as a speck of white could be seen through the densely packed bodies that swarmed over their prize. And then they began ripping and tearing at it, carting away jagged little pieces....

We'd dropped to about thirty miles per hour by then and the little icon of an engine was flashing red on the dashboard.

"We had quite a run, huh Doc? I just want you t' know...."

"Don't you talk like that, Carl! This ain't over, my friend. Not by a long shot."

We were coming up on an overpass and by now were going so slow that I had time to notice the lone zombie standing up there. Strangely enough, for a second or two I felt this wave of sadness wash over me. As if this walking corpse with his missing left arm and tattered clothes were looking out over the Interstate like the Indian in those old commercials from the seventies: surveying all the damage that had been wrought as a single tear slid down the oozing flesh that had once been his cheek. In my mind, I heard this voice, this narrator, say in a deep baritone: "People start pollution; zombies can stop it."

I felt a laugh bubbling up within me and knew I had to fight to keep it down. I was afraid that if I started with even the smallest chuckle, it would keep right on growing to the point that I wouldn't be able to stop. I could all too clearly imagine them tearing and biting and gouging while I continued to cackle like some exile from the loony bin.

Doc was so focused on the labyrinth of twisted metal and decaying bodies that he didn't see what happened next. Since I had already been watching that lone zombie on the overpass, though, I saw everything as it played out. It couldn't have been more than just a fraction of a second, but time seemed to kind of slow down; it was almost like I were a character in one of those movies I used to watch and someone who knew what was coming up had decided to hit the slow-mo button on the remote.

The freshie on the overpass looked as if it jerked to attention, almost like the roar of the engine below had startled it from a state of reverie. Without a moment's hesitation, it vaulted over the concrete wall, launching itself into the air as if it would be able to soar like a bird of prey on the wind currents. Gravity had other plans, though, and I remember noticing how the shredded shirt covering its body flapped in the air like streamers.

"Doc, look ou...."

The falling corpse smashed into our windshield, releasing a spider web of cracks through the glass. It's one remaining hand sought for purchase, clawing at the smooth surface as if it could dig its way in before its entire body slid off the car and tumbled across the pavement. At the same time, Doc had lost all control: the car spun in circles for what could have been an eternity or merely the amount of time it took to blink an eye before a bone jarring crash stopped its momentum.

Doc blinked his eyes a couple time and shook his head as if trying to get the world around us to stop spinning.

"Son of a bitch."

The engine had died when we smashed into the side of an overturned tanker and Doc frantically turned the key in the ignition. It whined in protest, but tried to turn over.

"Start damn it start...."

For a moment, it caught and the car sputtered to life.

"Hot damn!"

Doc slapped the transmission into reverse and, as he did, the entire car shook like we had suddenly found ourselves in the middle of an earthquake. There was a loud pop from under the hood before the car flooded with the smell of gasoline and died again.

"Shit shit shit!"

Through the shattered windshield, I could see a small cluster of corpses about half a mile away, shambling toward the bridge that stood between us and the next off-ramp. From that distance, they looked to be mostly rotters.

"What the fuck happened?"

Doc's normally deep baritone now bordered on a squeal and dark stains had begun to spread around the armpits of his t-shirt.

"Zombie. Jumped off the overpass to try t' get us when it saw us comin'. We hafta get out of here, Doc. We hafta get out of here now!"

A freshie had burst through the pack of rotters on the bridge, toppling several and leaving others reeling in the wake of its enthusiasm. Though too far away to actually see its eyes, I had no doubt that they were solely focused on our wreck of a car.

"Damn it, Carl, you think I don't know that? Shit!"

A quick glance over my shoulder caused a chill to settle into my entire body so completely it was as if I'd been dipped in liquid nitrogen.

"Doc, we're in it deep my friend."

The interstate behind us was swarming with the dead we'd already attracted. They were practically shoulder to shoulder, packed so densely that the freshies among them had to claw and climb their way over the top of the throng.

Doc stole a glance and what little color he had left drained from his face. He was silent for a moment as he gnawed repeatedly on his lower lip.

"Well," he finally said, "there's definitely no turning back."

Ahead of us, more and more corpses joined the slow march toward the bridge. Two more freshies were fighting their way through and the original one had closed half the distance between them and us.

"Just a matter of minutes, now."

I pulled a cigarette from the crumpled pack in my pocket and studied it for a moment. I looked at the little tears in the paper, the dark stains where it had gotten wet and then been allowed to dry again. Doc may have thought I was trying to play it cool, but in reality I was wondering if my hands would stop shaking long enough for me to actually light the damn thing.

"These things will kill ya, Doc. Be glad you never took up the habit."

"Son of a bitch, that bastard's still kickin'."

I raised up in my seat a little so I could look out the driver's side window at whatever it was Doc had noticed.

"I'll be damned...."

The freshie that had leaped from the overpass in the throes of homicidal zeal looked as if it had been attacked with sledgehammers. Jagged shards of bone jutted through just about every part of its body; both legs were splayed out in angles never meant for the human form to experience and the left side of its face looked as if it had caved in. But even so, it was wiggling its way across the asphalt, inching closer and closer to the side of the car.

"Crazy fuckin' zombies . . ."

I lit the cigarette and took a long, slow drag. The smoke scratched my throat and tasted like oven-baked shit, but I would be damned if I was going out without one final puff.

I looked over at Doc, ready to tell him how much of a pleasure it had been knowing him and that I wish we woulda met before the whole world turned upside down. But he had that look he sometimes got. His eyes darted from zombies making their way toward us to the road beyond them and I could almost sense excitement starting to rise in him.

"I got an idea, Carl. You still buckled in?"

"Yeah. What's up? What you got in mind?"

Doc took the little cross that dangled from his neck and lifted the chain to his lips. He closed his eyes for a moment before kissing the pendant.

"It's the bottom on the ninth, Carl. We're down by one run and got one man on. No balls, two strikes, two outs. If I don't hit a homer on this pitch, it's all over...."

With his eyes still closed, Doc reached for the ignition one last time. He hesitated for only a fraction of a second.

"Please...."

The original freshie from the bridge was close enough now that I could see the rage in its eyes, that burning hatred that seemed to fuel its existence.

Leaning out the window, I pulled the pistol from the glove box and took aim. Two squeezes of the trigger and one sulfuric-smelling cloud of smoke later, the zombie dropped with a wet smack to the ground below.

Doc turned the key and the car rumbled to life; but it was a life sort of like the ones those things out there lead: sluggish, nothing more really than an shadow of its former existence really, and destined to succumb to the ravages of wear and tear in a relatively short period of time.

"Hot damn! I think we can avoid those rotters, " Doc shouted, "but we gotta do something about the freshies or else this car starting doesn't mean jack."

I could tell he wasn't so much talking to me as working out his thoughts, so I stayed quiet and let his mind work.

"You pick off those freshies quick as you can, Carl. If your aim is good and this works out the way I think it will, we just might stand a chance."

Before I could respond, Doc threw the transmission into drive and stomped his foot on the gas. The car lurched forward and, for one sickening moment when I felt as though my stomach had just plummeted into some bottomless abyss, I was positive it was about to shudder to a stop again. The engine coughed and wheezed, sputtered, and then roared to life again.

We were speeding toward the next freshie as it continued its mad dash toward us, the distance closing with each passing second. Leaning slightly out the window, I tried to steady my hand and pulled the trigger.

Rather than shattering the damn thing's skull like I had intended, the bullet slammed into its shoulder, causing it to spin around for a moment like some bizarre ballerina.

"Damn it, Doc, this car's shakin' too bad."

The knocking from the engine was now so loud that I could barely hear the sound of my own voice and that dang corpse was so close that I could clearly make out the blood splattered Nike logo emblazoned on its shirt.

Doc slammed on the breaks, the tires squealing like a band of demons loosed from the gates of hell as the stench of burning rubber filled the air. Still leaning halfway out the window, I drew a bead, held my breath for a fraction of a second and pulled off another shot.

This time I hit my mark and couldn't resist letting out a whoop as the god-forsaken thing slumped to the ground. Part of me wanted to take a moment to cherish the small victory, but I knew there were still two more barreling toward us, intent of exacting their rage before the rotters, who were just now beginning to shamble across the bridge, ever had a chance. Two more shots rang out, both as steady and true as if they were guided by the hand of God.

"That's it for the fresh . . ."

But Doc was already laying on the gas again, his eyes narrowed into mere slits and jaw set in an expression of grim determination.

"Hold on tight, Carl, you hear me? Hold on!"

The crowd of rotters loomed before us like a wall of cadavers, packed so tightly together it was hard to see where one body ended and another began.

"We can't break through 'em, Doc! There's way too many!"

The car thumped slightly as it bumped over the little ridge of asphalt where road turned to bridge. Fifty yards away now and I could smell the stench, sweet and greasy and sickening all at the same time, overpowering even the odor of exhaust and scorched oil, becoming trapped in my hair and clothes and nostrils.

The side of Doc's mouth turned upward into a slight grin.

"Through? Who the hell said anything about through?"

He jerked the steering wheel sharply to the right and we were suddenly racing toward the waist-high wall of the bridge. I opened my mouth, to cuss or scream or maybe just to make some wordless sound of fear; but before the breath had even left my lungs, our car smashed into the wall and we were flipping, the rear end lifting up and over, forward momentum carrying us over the little wall with the screech of metal on concrete vibrating through my teeth.

And then we were falling, toppling, road maps and empty soda cans tumbling like weightless astronauts through the compartment. It could have been an eternity or just the amount of time it took to blink an eye, neither would have surprised me; but eventually, my entire body felt a jolt like it had never known. Pain flared through every joint in my body simultaneously and I tasted blood, warm and salty, as I inadvertently bit through my lip. Everything still rolling now, put punctuated with bangs and crashes that whipped my head back and forth, pain shooting through my neck and shoulders.

We ended up upside down and I sat there for a moment, blinking and trying to make sense of exactly what had just happened, wondering where that high pitched ringing that was suddenly in my ears was coming from.

"Move!"

Doc had already slid free of his seatbelt and was scurrying through the twisted remains of the driver's side window, kicking free the little clumps of safety glass that still remained. Though it hurt like hell to even breathe, I somehow found the strength to follow him and was soon crawling across grass and staggering to my feet. Doc had already regained his balance and had turned to look back toward the way we had come, one hand pressed tightly against his side as if he were hugging himself with a single arm.

I turned to look as well. The rotters on the bridge, in their single minded pursuit of the living, had done the same thing as the zombie on the overpass. We watched them falling and toppling through the air, a seemingly endless waterfall of decaying flesh as they spilled over the side of the bridge; their bodies hit the ground with dull thuds, the snapping of bones so loud that it was almost like the constant crackling of a fire hidden somewhere in their midst.

Doc slowly shook his head as if he were looking upon a mystery of nature.

"Crazy fuckin' zombies...."

I felt like an idiot standing there, grinning at my friend as wave after wave plummeted toward the ground: but the sun was warm, the birds in the forest behind us were chirping, and we were alive, by God, we were alive!

"New rule, Doc." I said as I spat blood from my busted mouth. "Number twenty-two: Stay the hell out of the cities."

Doc started to laugh then and I soon joined in, slapping him on the back as we began trying to salvage what supplies we could from the fallen remains of our once-proud chariot: I thought again how the sun was warm, the birds in the forest were chirping, and we were alive...if only for another day.

The Palomino And The Draft Horse

(Published in The Zombist: Undead Western Tales, Library of the Living Dead, 2010)

The fever had spread though Caitlin French as quickly as a prairie fire at the height of summer. Despite the blanket of snow covering the ground and temperatures so cold plumes of breath were exhaled through blue-tinged lips, her body still glistened beneath a sheen of sweat. Had she not been so tightly swaddled within the quilts and furs, it surely would have crystallized into an icy film by now and pulled her into Death's waiting arms. As it was, however, she spent most of her time sleeping, occasionally awakening and slurring through half of a conversation that held no rhyme or reason to her husband.

"The goats'll run dry, Cairieann. Won't ye water them, then?"

Her brother, Shamus O'Sullivan, trudged by her side; his feet crunched through the icy crust of snow and he shot a glance at his brother-in-law through blue eyes that betrayed the concern in his heart.

"Caireann was our baby sister." he explained. "Died when Caitlin was but a wee thing. Used t' call her my 'lil deenee shee. She had our mother's eyes, she did."

Ike French grunted but made no formal reply. Frost had begun forming in his bushy beard and every muscle in his body felt as though he'd been working the field for a month straight. His back ached and his knees throbbed with pain, but still he trudged on: one foot in front of the other, one step at a time, each yard of ground covered a hard fought battle to be won. He wanted so badly to stop and rest, to gather whatever dry wood they could find and coax flames from the kindling with his tinderbox. But there was still such a great distance to cover, so many miles before they staggered into town. The gray skies were covered with clouds so low and heavy that the sun was nothing more than a distant, hazy disk, which most likely meant another storm was coming. Maybe even a blizzard. He had no choice but to press on.

"Do y' reckon th' Walkin' Death done made it t' Laramie, Ike? Do y' reckon we can find help there?"

Shamus' voice quivered from more than just the chill of the wind and his hands trembled as he shifted the lever action carbine from one shoulder to the other. For some reason, he couldn't bring himself to look at his sister's husband so his eyes scanned the trees surrounding them instead.

"I mean t' say, she's th' only family I got t' speak of... ."

From behind them the palomino whinnied and Ike thought, not for the first time, how it almost seemed as if Old Scratch himself were working against them. In the beginning they'd had two good horses, a wagon full of supplies, and it seemed as if they'd be able to get Caitlin to a doctor before her condition took a turn for the worse. She would ride in the back, nestled within a bed he'd prepared for her and protected from the elements by the ivory canvas stretched across the bows of the Conestoga. Originally, he'd planned on making the trip alone; but when he had stopped by Shamus' homestead to share the news the stout Irishman had insisted on making the trip with them. He'd argued that they could cut the time in half by having one man drive while the other rested and Ike was hard pressed to find fault with his logic.

The week before they left had been especially harsh with snow falling from the heavens so furiously that at times it was impossible to see the barn from the window of their cabin. The wind had howled like a wounded beast and within days the earth had been buried beneath so much snow that simply opening the front door required Ike to lean into it with his shoulder and push with every ounce of his strength he could muster. By the time they hit the trail, the wheels of the wagon cut deep ruts into the drifts and the horses plodded along what seemed to simply be the flat plains the region was known for.

The snow, however, was as deceptive as the barker at a snake oil medicine show. It lulled the men into a sense of security as it glittered in the afternoon sun as if millions of tiny diamonds were half-hidden within the dunes. The monotony of the prairie, of this seemingly vast and endless field of white, allowed the mind to wander. Ike had been thinking about their friends and family back east, how they'd berated him as a foolhardy dreamer for wanting to make the trip westward with his new bride. After all, someday he'd inherit his father's mercantile and wouldn't it be so much better to start a family in Boston than out there amongst savages? Maybe they'd been right. If he would've been content with the lot he'd been dealt in life, they never would have found themselves in their current predicament. There were more doctors in Boston than trees and all within a reasonable distance. Back home, Caitlin would have already had the medicine she so desperately needed....

At that moment, the wagon pitched to the left and there was a crack so sharp that Ike could feel it vibrate through the seat and footrest. For a fraction of a second, the world was a blur of confusion: pots and pans clanging, something large (possibly Caitlin) thumping around in the back, the horses' high pitched braying, and the sensation of falling to one side. He'd thought for certain that the wagon had toppled but, as it was, the Conestoga only tilted awkwardly to one side.

"Dag blame it!"

He hopped down from the bench to survey the damage. Apparently, there was a pretty deep ditch that ran across the prairie at this spot. Deep enough that in the spring it may have even been a creek of some sort; the snow, however, had filled this little ravine so completely that only the slightest depression gave any clue that something other than solid ground lay beneath the accumulation.

"Sweet Mother Mary! What t'was that all about then?"

Ike squatted down next to the wagon and felt as if his stomach were as jumbled as the supplies in the back. If only he'd been paying closer attention instead of daydreaming like some impudent child; he would have noticed the horses and how they'd carefully stepped over this spot. Which in turn would have caused him to notice the indentation in the snow and allowed him to pull the brake lever in time.

Ike sighed and rested his elbows on the top of his thighs as he cupped his face with both hands. There was a moment of blessed darkness, a respite from the stinging glare of the sun; the worry that gnawed at his insides like a nest of baby rats, however, kept him from fully enjoying the relief provided to his taxed eyes. He chewed on his bottom lip and tried to breathe slowly as his muscles tensed.

"Ike... ."

Bringing Shamus had been a mistake. He liked the man well enough but could only tolerate him in small doses. The Irishman seemed incapable of keeping his fool mouth shut for more than a few minutes at a time. Always prattling on about one little thing or another, never giving Ike a chance to think. Sometimes his voice felt like a crosscut saw ripping through the bones of his skull as though it were soft pine; Ike would fight back vision of himself throttling the man, of squeezing his beefy hands around Shamus' throat until he was rewarded with blessed silence.

"Ike, talk t' me, brother."

"It's the axle." Ike finally said, his voice muffled by the hands covering his face.

"Snapped like a twig. Wagon's no good to us now."

He heard Shamus walking toward him, boots tromping through the snow; he must have been breathing through his nose for there was a slight, rhythmic whistle that grew louder as the man approached.

"So, what now then?"

"Now? Now we press on, Shamus. Ain't got no choice."

While Shamus tended to the horses, Ike set about dismantling parts of the Conestoga so that he could fashion a sledge. Some of the rails would make perfect runners and the canopy that covered the top could be cut with his hunting knife and stretched between them. He would make two sledges: one to haul the supplies and one for the woman whose soft moans drifted from the back of the wagon like the lament of a phantom trapped between worlds. They could secure one to either horse and he and Shamus would simply walk the entire way.

"I hear tale that th' Walkin' Death done spread like mad through th' South. Tis strange times we find ourselves in, you can be certain."

Shamus seemed almost obsessed with the stories cattlemen told and peppered his conversation with them every chance he got. The atrocities and carnage that befell large cities and small settlements alike, that cut down the young and old without discrimination. Mayors, blacksmiths, cowboys, genteel ladies with their frills and ribbons: no one was spared. For some reason, this fascinated the young man and captured his imagination like nothing else.

"Back home, they be callin' em na beo mairbh . . ."

Ike, however, was tired of hearing it. It had been different when they were back home, sitting in front of the fireplace and enjoying a pull on their pipes. In fact, it hadn't bothered him at all. But out here, with Caitlin dangling so precariously over the eternal chasm, Shamus' infatuation was a constant reminder of exactly how much Ike had to lose. He wanted to yell at his brother-in-law, to call him names that would've made his mother's face blush; instead, he concentrated on the work and before long Shamus' voice became nothing more than a lull as devoid of meaning as the snippets of nonsense which crossed Caitlin's dry lips. Ike could care less if Atlanta burned with such intensity that the glow flickering on the nighttime horizon could be seen for miles. The three day siege at Fort Carson with wave after wave of rotters hurling themselves against the sturdy logs of the outer wall may have as well been halfway across the world... and the outbreak in Independence was no more than words from weary travelers. None of this mattered. Only Caitlin.

And so they'd left the wagon behind, it's wooden skeleton stripped like a carcass picked clean by the vultures and coyotes. It shrank into the distance until it was no more than a dark speck against the stark white snow; their footprints in the dunes and the grooves from the sledges trailing back served as a reminder of what they'd lost. From here on out the journey would be so much more arduous, so much more treacherous. Yet still they pressed on.

At night, the heavens twinkled with the distant light of the stars and constellations Caitlin had always been so enamored with; without low cloud cover to help trap what little heat existed between earth and sky, the temperature plummeted to the point that Ike's ears felt as if they were being pierced with millions of tiny needles. He'd pulled his coonskin cap down over them and turned up his collar, but these measures had little effect against the cruel tortures of a Wyoming winter.

When they were too tired to go any further, they rested. Ike and Shamus would fashion a temporary shelter from the remains of the wagon cover and as many straight saplings as they could fell. Had she not been lost within the fevered dreams of delusion, sleeping Injun style like this would have tickled Caitlin to no end. The red-haired woman probably would have even insisted on decorating their makeshift tepee with the designs and symbols they'd see when making the long trip westward.

During these times, Ike would wait until Shamus' breath had settled into a predictable rise and fall and snores rattled from the back of his throat. He'd then press himself so tightly against his wife's side that it almost seemed as if he were trying to merge into her; with one arm wrapped around her waist, he could feel the heat radiate from her body like the warm stones of their hearth. His other hand would stroke her hair, pushing the drenched strands from a forehead beaded with sweat and tracing his fingertips over the creases of her brow. And he would lay his face against her back, crying softly as he attempted to make deals with the Maker to ensure her safe passage. He would stay out of the saloons on the rare trips to town, would forsake cards, and even give up his pipe; he would read their Bible nightly and spend the remainder of his days extolling the virtues of Christ if only He would grant him this one, simple request... .

On the third day, he awoke to the chirping of birds and the soft rustle of the wind blowing against the flaps of their shelter. The interior still retained the smoky scent of the campfire from the night before and, while it was still cold, some of its heat also lingered within the cramped space. Shamus had apparently been up for a while, being fully dressed and writing in his journal, and Caitlin seemed more lucid than she had for days. Her eyelids fluttered open and recognition sparked in eyes as blue and tired as the timeless waters of the Atlantic.

"Ike, my darlin'." When she spoke, her voice was thin and weak, the words raspy; but at least she knew who he was, which had to be a good sign. "Where be we, my love? It's cold. So cold... ."

He pulled one of the quilts she had kicked off during the night and tucked it securely beneath her chin while kissing her cheek. Her face was hot against his cool lips and the freckles that masked her nose seemed to stand in sharp contrast to skin as pale as moonlight.

"Shhhh, Catie. Everything'll be right as rain. We're taking you to Laramie. To a doctor. You've been so sick, wife. But you'll be well in no time. Mark my words. Everything will be fine."

Ike's eyes had grown misty as he spoke and his bottom lip quivered like a babe's. His brow furrowed and he squeezed his eyes shut as a single tear slid down his leathery cheek.

"Shamus." he said when he thought he could speak in a steady, even voice. "Why don't you see if you can rustle up some wood? We'll have a spot of grub 'fore hitting the trail again."

Without so much as a word, the Irishman disappeared through the tent flap and Ike managed a crooked smile. Hope blossomed within his soul like the flowers of Spring: perhaps the fever had run its course; perhaps by the time they made it to Laramie his dear wife would need nothing more than a good rest and a hot cup of tea. Perhaps there was a loving God after all.

From outside the tepee, he heard Shamus' voice cut through the stillness of the morning in a wordless, guttural roar. The birds overhead took flight amid a flutter of wings and Ike's heart was squeezed by the icy fist of fear. Bolting from his wife's side and only taking time to snatch his six shooter from its holster, he burst from the tent in nothing more than his long underwear and socks.

Shamus stood a few steps away, his face contorted into a mask of anger and regret beneath his the wide brim of his hat. He saw Ike emerge from the tent, saw the wide-eyed expression of panic on his brother-in-law's face, and dropped his gaze.

"Ike, my brother, I'm so sorry. I don't know what happened. Both of 'em were here when we bedded down and I jus' don't know... ."His voice was a high-pitched plead, the words running together as he stumbled over them. "I jus' don't know."

Ike's eyes darted about the campsite. His mind reeled as he tried to make sense of what was happening and he brandished his revolver before him like a talisman against evil.

"Shamus... what did you do?"

"I'm so sorry, Ike, really I... ."

"What did you do, Shamus?" Ike's voice boomed through the dawn like canon fire.

"I swear, my brother, I tied 'em both securely. I know I did." Shamus dropped his voice to a whisper. "Least, I think I did. But my fingers were so cold. Stiff as a corpse, they were."

One of the horses snorted and drew Ike's attention to the trees surrounding their camp. The palomino stamped the ground, demanding its morning feed as the empty sledge strapped to its back shifted slightly in the snow. Its reins had been securely wrapped around the trunk of an Aspen and Ike stared at the horse. He took in the scene and his mind balked for a moment as it refused to see the obvious: he knew something was different, something was wrong... but couldn't quite place what. He watched as the horse shook its mane and a cloud of vapors were expelled through its nostrils with a snort. During their travels, the prairie had given way to forest and rows of trees receded into distance. Weaving in and out of the woods were two shallow trenches in the snow, separated by two feet or so. But there were also little u-shaped indentations between these grooves.

The mare. Where in Sam hell was the mare?

"I swear, my brother, I'm sure I hitched her tightly." Shamus' words, however, lacked conviction and it sounded more as if he were trying to talk himself into believing his own story.

"Our supplies, Shamus. Where in tarnation are our supplies?"

Ike's face burned as red as the streaks in the clouds from the rising sun. Though nearly naked, he couldn't feel the cold leeching through the cotton of his nightclothes or the dampness that soaked into his socks. Likewise, when the barrel of his Smith & Wesson began to tremble in his hands it wasn't from the freezing temperatures but from rage; it was almost as if his muscles were contracting like springs, pulling back tighter and tighter and waiting for the moment they would be able to strike out with pent up energy.

"I'm sorry, Ike, I really... ."

Apparently there had been flurries at some point during the night, for the tracks in the snow had been partly filled with fresh powder. They had to have been at least several hours old.

"Our food, Shamus. Our water!"

"I don't know what t' say... ."

Ike bellowed like an angry bear and launched himself at Shamus, his body crashing into his brother-in-law as both men fell into the snow. They rolled around in the drifts, Shamus warding off the fury of Ike's fists with his forearms and trying to push him away at the same time. Ike's face was contorted to the point that it he was almost unrecognizable: his eyes blazed and his lips were pulled back into a snarl as he yelled over and over.

"You've killed her, you damn fool! You've killed her!"

That had been three days past. Three days of carrying the few supplies that hadn't been on the now missing sledge; thirty-six hours of fighting their way through snow and battling against a wind that stung their faces as if blowing sharpened grains of sand. They ate what they could hunt, swallowed handfuls of snow to parch their burning throats, and drove on with muscles that protested even the smallest movement, Even the horse was beginning to show signs of exhaustion; its eyes were glazed and sunken, the ears hung limply, and its tail no longer swished as it walked. But there was really no other choice. The fever had returned with a vengeance, requiring them to strap Caitlin to the sledge in order to keep her from rolling off as she writhed beneath her coverings. And Laramie was still so far away. So many miles before they could collapse into the warmth of a doctor's office with its potbelly stove... .

"I said," Shamus repeated, "do y' reckon th' Walkin' Death has done made it t' Laramie, Ike?"

He was too tired to be annoyed, his heart too heavy with thoughts of his wife to snap at the man. "If so, then we drive on. All the way to Cheyenne if we hafta. I don't care, Shamus. I'll walk plum to China if'n it means saving this woman."

One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.

The palomino had grown skittish, prancing and shaking its head as if in protest. It's breath escaped in quick grunts and it seemed nervous; but, Ike supposed, that was to be expected. Animals have a way of sensing danger. No doubt, it completely understood the gravity of their situation.

"Easy there, 'ole boy. Easy."

Ike ran his hand along the soft, coarse fur and felt a tremor in the muscles beneath. Such a proud beast. So strong and eager to please. But how long could it go on like this? How long could it pull the weight of his wife behind it before all of the vitality was sapped from its body?

One foot in front of the other.

Caitlin thrashed against her restraints, calling out in voice that cracked and broke. "Cairieann! Get thee away from th' Dullahan, sweet sister! Get thee away!"

One step at a time.

Save for the party pushing their way through, the forest was silent. No birds chirped from the bare branches overhead, no squirrels barked to one another as they spiraled up trunks; only the sound of feet trudging through snow, of labored breathing, and the ramblings of a mind that thought it was in another place, another time.

It slowly dawned on Ike that this wasn't right. There should have been some sort of sound, something to alleviate the cloak of desolation that had suddenly been cast over the woods. Even on the coldest of days, there were always little signs of life. But, on this afternoon, it was almost as if all the animals were in hiding...

As the thought crossed his mind, Ike caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Something coming out of the trees, nothing more than a dark blur. No. Three dark blurs.

He spun around and called out his brother-in-law's name.

"Shamus!"

At first glance they looked like people who could have been his neighbors. The man wore a flannel shirt tucked into dust colored pants and sported a mustache that looked as perhaps he'd spilled syrup into it. Their boy couldn't have been older than fourteen, fair haired and lanky; and the woman was clothed in a white dress that had some strange pattern of red in it. Almost as if it had been splattered onto the cloth. There, however, the similarities ended.

Their skin was light blue and shimmered beneath a film of frost. Except for the tips of their noses; those were the color of charcoal and looked swollen and decayed, as if frostbite had begun to devour the soft tissue. All of them had sunken cheeks and a blankness in their unblinking eyes that seemed as cold and empty as a dried up well. However, the boy's lips were nothing more than ragged ribbons of flesh that made it appear as if his mouth were drawn into a constant snarl and gave the impression of emotion.

"Rotters!"

Though not nearly as fast, they moved like a pack of wolves on the hunt. When they had burst through the trees, they had been packed tightly together; but now they were splitting off, each forking in a different direction. The man seemed to have fixated on Shamus, who was struggling to remove the rifle from his shoulder. Somehow, he'd managed to get himself tangled up in the strap and he shuffled backwards as the man came at him with hands formed into claws that swiped at the air.

The rotter than had once been a child was making a beeline toward the sledge where Caitlin lay, strapped and defenseless. Like one of the packaged hams in his father's store. Just waiting to be devoured by a hungry family.

"No!"

Ike drew his sidearm from its holster in a fluid movement, pulled back the hammer with his and thumb, and tried to draw a bead on the Godforsaken creature as his heart pounded in his chest like tribal drums.

But then the woman was looming before him and he could see that part of her cheek looked as if it had been ripped and torn by predators. A hint of bone poked through muscle that looked like dark, twisted cord and her arms reached for him as he scuttled backward in an attempt to put distance between himself and this hideous creature. She was relentless and single minded in her pursuit, however, and quickly adjusted her course to match his own.

Fire spit from the end of the barrel and the shot sounded like a stick of dynamite compared to how quiet the morning had been. A hole appeared in the woman's bloody dress, directly between her sagging breasts. She staggered back a few steps and seemed stunned for a moment.

No blood leaked from the wound.

No breath formed vapors in the cold air.

Shamus was yelling and his rifle cracked again and again as the smell of burnt gunpowder permeated the clearing.

The woman shook her head like a dog flinging off water and came at Ike again: grasping, reaching, stretching her arms as if she could magically pull him into her deadly embrace.

He fired repeatedly, the bullets ripping into her torso but not so much as even slowing her down.

Relentless.

Single minded.

Ike had backed into a tree and the woman was now mere feet from him. Within seconds, her dirty fingernails would rake his eye as yellowed teeth gnashed at his throat.

Beyond her, the horse cried out in fear and Shamus continued his volley as quickly as his hands could work the lever action on the rifle.

Down to a single bullet before he'd have to reload, Ike tried to steady his trembling hands.

The dead woman filled his entire line of sight and her head lolled to the side as if her neck could no longer support its weight. She was close enough for him to see that her teeth were chipped and busted, like the craggy peaks of a miniature mountain range in her pale gums. Somehow, he knew this damage was from chomping against bone and the thought was like a splash of cold water on a drunkard's face.

He took a breath of cool air and held it. His hands were steady now, his nerves calm.

This was his last chance.

Her hands grabbed the lapels of his jacket and yanked him forward even as her mouth opened wider, revealing a tongue that was swollen and black.

Ike placed the barrel of the Smith & Wesson against her forehead.

The stench of the grave wafted from her open mouth.

He pulled the trigger one final time and watched the front of the woman's head disappear in a spray of dark blood clots and tiny shards of skull. It splattered against his face and oozed down his cheek, as cold as slush, as she fell backward and lay, motionless, in the snow.

He could now see Shamus running through the woods as the male rotter staggered after him.

Relentless.

Ike's vision wavered with tears as he realized the youngest of the creatures hadn't went after his wife after all. Instead, it stood near the palomino, throwing itself at an animal which managed to bob and weave away from its attacker. The boy would land face first in the snow and immediately totter back to his feet. With knees slightly crouched, he launched himself at the horse again and the scene replayed.

Single minded.

Ike ran toward the horse now, thinking only of his wife and wondering if it were possible this thing might suddenly become aware of her. If she moaned or called out her sister's name again, it might very well turn its attentions to easier prey. As he ran, he fumbled with the revolver, trying to slide bullets into the chamber but ending up with more glinting in the snow drifts than filling his weapon.

"Get away from her, you bastard!"

Shamus fired his rifle again and, guided by either skill or providence, the bullet found its way to the abomination's head, splintering the nose bone and spiraling upward into the soft pulp of the brain. At the same time, the youngest creature had positioned itself directly in front of the horse and threw himself forward once more. His arms wrapped around the stallion's neck, fingers clutching handfuls of mane, and he pressed his face into the animal's neck.

The horse whinnied in pain and reared back with such force that the boy could no longer hold on. A strand of flesh was gripped in the rotter's teeth and it tore away with a spurt of blood as the palomino's front legs kicked in the air.

The boy rushed forward again, as relentless and single minded as ever.

One of the hooves smashed into his head and threw the boy backwards, his body landing in the snow spread-eagle, almost as if he were a normal child making snow angels on a winter's day. Though the boy did not get up again, the horse continued to rear and kick as a wide crimson spray arched from the wound in its neck. Its hooves fell onto the boy's legs and the bones within snapped and cracked ,but still the horse continued to stamp at its fallen attacker. The broad feet hit with such force that the boy's body was lifted from the ground and thrown down again, dark blood squishing from the rotter's mouth and nostrils as organs ruptured and shattered ribs rammed through his clothing; but still the hooves thundered down again and again.

Ike and Shamus both arrived at the same moment, but by then the horse was more subdued. Its knees buckled and it struggled to stand, to smash it hooves one last time into the thing that had caused such pain; but blood continued to gush from the ragged bite and strength rapidly drained from its body. Within minutes, it thudded to the ground and was panted heavily as it lay on its side. The light of life slowly faded from its eyes and its attempts to right itself slowed until, with one last twitch, the beast's final breath was expelled.

Ike had busied himself with freeing Caitlin from the sledge and now held her in his arms like a baby, rocking slowly back and forth as he cried. She coughed and there was a wet gurgle from somewhere deep within her lungs as milky, green mucus shot from her mouth and slid down Ike's shoulder.

"Everything's fine, wife. Everything's fine."

But he knew it wasn't. With the horse dead, he and Shamus would have to pull the sledge behind them. True, they could take turns; but their bodies had already been pushed to the limit. Even before the attack, Ike's legs had felt as if each step might be his last. Only love for his wife had allowed him to continue pushing forward. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.

Now he felt as if he could barely carry his own weight, much less that of his beloved Caitlin. Add to that the burden of the poles pressing down onto his weary shoulders, the exertion it would take to cut through the banks of snow... even with Shamus helping, they would collapse before half the distance between here and Laramie had been covered.

"Everything's fine."

Damn those creatures. He wanted to shake his fists at the sky, to retract every prayer he'd ever offered up unto the Heavens, and to renounce his Maker for the cruelty inflicted on such a sweet, innocent woman. But all he could was hold his wife's sweat drenched body and kiss her fevered forehead tenderly.

"Sweet Mother Mary."

Shamus' voice sounded hollow and distant, as if it were reaching his ears from a world away.

"This thing, Ike... it's still alive."

Ike closed his eyes and listened to the wind moan through the trees. Of course it was still alive. As he'd kept thinking during the heat of battle, those things were single minded and relentless. So it stood to reason that it would still live while his precious Caitlin gradually succumbed to Death. All because the man who was supposed to be her protector and provider lacked the strength to pull her along. If only he shared the same traits he cursed in those rotters... maybe then he'd be able to do what was needed.

"This here horse won't be gettin' back up. Na beo mairbh... they'll attack damn near anything. But only people come back. Tis the damnedest thing, I tell ya. The Devil's work."

Ike opened his eyes and stared at his brother-in-law. The man stood with his back to him, his boots buried in bloodstained snow with the unmoving palomino by his side. Leave it to Shamus to know all these little facts about the creatures, but not enough to prevent his tragedy in the first place.

Gingerly placing his wife on the ground, Ike stood and walked toward his companion. He knew what had to be done, but everything around him seemed as if it were obscured behind a veil of fog. He felt as though he were walking through a dream, as if an eternity passed in the time he took him to cross the short distance separating the two men.

He stood behind Shamus and looked over his shoulder at the rotter. From the torso down, it was a mangled mess of blood and fractured bones with its legs splayed out at angles nature never intended; the only damage above the shoulders, however, was a dent in its forehead shaped like a horseshoe. For the most part the creature was motionless, but its eyes flitted back and forth between the men and its teeth clacked together as it bit the air without moving its head.

"So, what do y' reckon we ought to do with this here thing, Ike? I s'pose we could shoot it in the head an' be done with it."

Ike realized his revolver was still in his hand but it felt weightless, as if it were nothing more than a scrap of paper.

"I know what I hafta do." It was almost as if the words originated from somewhere outside himself, as if they had formed in the air itself. "God forgive me."

Ike raised the revolver above his shoulder and, faltering for only a fraction of a second, brought the butt down onto the little knot at the base of Shamus' skull. The thud tingled through his arm and his brother-in-law grunted as he dropped to his knees. He knelt in front of the rotter, swaying like a reed in the wind, and Ike slammed the weapon into the back of the man's head again. This time Shamus crumpled to the ground, unconscious but not dead.

Still feeling as if he were moving in slow motion, Ike took the Irishman's arm in his hands. It was as limp as a lariat and offered no resistance as he lowered it toward the paralyzed rotter. The thing's teeth bit into the forearm, chewing and slurping hungrily but unable to pull away chunks of flesh without the benefit of moving its head. So it simply gnawed as blood pooled from the wound and dripped down the side of Shamus' sleeve; little droplets plummeted from his arm and splattered against the snow, looking for all the world like tiny roses in a sea of white.

Ike pulled the arm away from the creature's mouth and the flesh ripped with a wet, tearing sound. Allowing the ravaged limb to flop to the ground, he grabbed a fistful of red hair with one hand and removed the hunting knife he'd used to cut the wagon's canopy with the other. He lifted the Irishman's head from the ground and closed his eyes again as he drew the sharp blade across Shamus' neck. He felt the warmth of life gurgle over his fingers and squeezed his eyes even more tightly shut.

God forgive me... .

As Ike stumbled through the snow, the world around him looked grainy and darkness had crept in around the edges. The tip of his nose and his earlobes felt as if they were on fire; he'd toyed with the idea of rubbing snow on them to help ease the pain, but had talked with enough woodsmen to know this would only make matters worse. So he tried his best to ignore the sensation, knowing when the frostbite worsened the pain would fade.

Every muscle in his body quivered like a palsy victim and he thought he heard voices in the distance: his mother and father, his Uncle Timothy and Aunt Jane, calling his name as if they suspected Ike was lost and wished to guide him home. He tried to look for them, but it seemed as if the edges of reality were fuzzy and dark. Sometimes the blurry ring would close in, threatening to possible and shake his head, willing the world to return to focus.

It had been two days since the attack in the woods. Two days since he'd last slept. Ike had plodded on every hour, every minute, every second of that trip. Unable to stop for rest, unable to eat or fill his canteen from the frozen creeks he passed. He existed on sheer stubbornness now, forcing his body to do things it didn't like. Walk. Breathe. Move. But he had no choice. He had to keep driving on. For her.

Behind him, he could hear the runners of the sledge as they cut through the snow and every so often Caitlin groaned or uttered some incomprehensible sound. But that was good. It meant she was still with him, still alive. Laramie could only be half a day away now. She just needed to hold out a little longer.

Ike tried to open his mouth to speak but the moisture from his breath had iced, fusing his beard and mustache into a single entity. He cupped his hand over his swollen lips for a moment, allowing the relative warmth to melt his crystallized muzzle until he was finally able to speak.

"You hang in back there, hear?" he called back, though his voice was so raspy and soft he doubted she could make them out. "Everything'll be all right, wife. Just a spell longer now."

Shamus' words returned to haunt him: Do y' reckon th' Walkin' Death done made it t' Laramie, Ike?

He looked over his shoulder at the bundle of quilts and fur that was his bride, but staggered forward as he did. She was still strapped to the sledge after all these days. As it bumped over the snow covered ground, his eyes followed the two poles that ran from the stretcher to the shoulders that carried their weight.

Shamus... no, he couldn't think of him as Shamus anymore. Shamus was gone... this thing was no more than a draft horse, a mule to help ease the burden of labor. Nothing more. But this thing's mouth hung open almost as if it were physically unable to close it again. Shocks of red hair hung down in front of its eyes and if it felt the weight of the sledge it gave no sign. Its hands tried in vain to reach Ike, to find purchase on the life it so desperately wanted to take; but the bearded man was always ten feet ahead, always far enough that no amount of stretching would enable the thing to reach this proverbial carrot on a stick.

Do y' reckon we can find help there?

If not, there was always Cheyenne. He would continue to lead and the corpse of Caitlin's brother would follow, pulling the sledge behind it, single minded and relentless.

And if Cheyenne was overrun, then he would walk all the way to China if he had to.

One foot in front of the other.

One step at a time.

HIPS

(An excerpt from Sex in the Time of Zombies, Living Dead Press, 2011)

It was dark when she awoke. For a moment she laid in the sleeping bag with her eyes closed and listened to the shuffle of footsteps out in the hall. She could hear the heavy doors of the other cells being opened, one of the new girls sobbing softly, the murmur of conversation as her captors made their rounds... just like always. Every day the same sequence of events played out as if she were nothing more than a character in some macabre loop film. Judging by how muffled the sounds were, she knew she would hear seven other cell doors swing open before they made it to hers; and as the squeaking of hinges grew louder, so would the terse commands of their keepers. The same set of orders repeated in voices that sounded emotionless and bored. Day in. Day out.

Her bladder felt as if a heavy stone had grown in it overnight. The stone had sharp edges that raked against the soft, unprotected lining of the organ, flaring with pain as she struggled to hold it in. A little wooden bucket sat in one corner of her cell but even with the sleeping bag pulled up over her face she could still smell it: the stench of stale piss and caked-on shit, so thick that it seemed to lodge itself in little chunks in the back of her throat. A steady stream of urine would only make matters worse, churning yesterday's waste into a frothy, brown sludge and releasing even more of the noxious vapors. No, it was better to wait. Before they left her cell, they would empty it into the drum which sat across the hall. If not clean, at least it would be cleaner.

All part of the routine.

She finally opened her eyes and pulled the sleeping bag down to her shoulders. The view that greeted her was the usual brick walls that glistened with condensation, the concrete floor with its Rorschach stains of various bodily fluids; her cell was no larger than a broom closet and the only light came through the small, barred window on the wooden door... and even then only when torches had been lit in the hall. The wall opposite the door also had one of these windows, but beyond it was only a darkness so complete that she could only hear the things that shuffled on the other side..

That would change soon, however. It was also part of the daily routine; the moment her door opened, they would be at the window, grasping through the bars with hands that looked shriveled and mummified in the dim light of the cell. With fingernails worn down to ragged splinters, they would reach through and claw at the air, scratching at the bricks as if they could somehow erode the rough mortar through persistence alone. The creatures had deteriorated to the point that they no longer had an odor but anytime a freshie was added to the group there would be weeks where the stench of decay overpowered even the toilet bucket. Somehow, that was the worst part of the ordeal: smelling the greasy, sweet reek of rotting meat and knowing that once it had been someone just like her. Someone who had learned to cope with life in the cells as best as she could. Someone whom she'd spoken with, perhaps, through the bars on their doors. Someone who was no longer useful... .

"Assume the position, Mole."

The voice was closer now. Maybe only four doors down or so.

"I said, assume the position, Mole!"

More annoyed than angry. But if the unseen woman continued to resist, things could turn bad quickly. She'd heard (and felt) the beatings before: the dull thud and smack of sawed-off broomsticks against thighs; the cries of pain, the tears and sobbing and pleading apologies.

"Just do, it." she muttered. "Make it easy on yourself, Mole."

She felt her face grow warm and her stomach churned in a nauseous mixture of disgust and shame. Mole. She'd actually called the woman that. Like their captors, she'd stripped away every fiber of personality from her fellow prisoner with a single word. A word that reduced a living, breathing, thinking person into nothing more than a single characteristic. A word that left her mouth feeling so dirty that she would rather drink her bucket of waste than utter it again.

She, too, had a name once; but now she was simply Hips. Like her mother and boyfriend, it had disappeared into the mists of time and memory. Sometimes, while the darkened hallway beyond her cell echoed with snores, she would lay in the gloom and whisper that name over and over. As if it were some sort of mantra that could magically teleport her from this dank dungeon to some distant place where she would feel the warmth of sun on her skin and hear birds chirping overhead. Without fail, though, it always took her mind back to that last day of freedom. To the day she lost everything ...

They were hunkered down in a burned out storefront, hidden behind the charred remains of the front counter; the sun had set several hours earlier and a darkness had fallen across the town that made it seem as if they had been plunged into the void of space. The days of street lamps and the soft glow of curtained windows were over; no headlights splayed across the soot stained walls, no winking neon or stop lights cycling through their array of colors. And on that particular night there wasn't even the pale luminescence of moonlight to chase away the shadows.

With the darkness came silence as well. She'd never realized how noisy society was until it had all been taken away. The humming of air conditioners, traffic four blocks over hissing through rain-slick streets, the muffled beat of music seeping through the walls of bars and clubs: all those things were missing now. The million other tiny sounds her ears had learned to take for granted had been replaced with a silence so complete that only a high pitched ringing filled her ears.

And it was really the quiet that worried her most. They had ran their hands along the cinder-like edge of the counter and smeared the dark ash across their faces and arms commando style. They'd curled up beneath a black tarp Jeremy had found a few days back, had tried everything within their power to pass themselves off as just another cluster of shadows. So, in a sense, the darkness was their ally. Her boyfriend, however, had a tendency to talk in his sleep. In the bedroom of their apartment it had been nothing more than softly muttered gibberish, not even loud enough to wake her if she were sleeping. But out here that same sound would be like a loudspeaker broadcasting in the night: we're here, we're hiding over here, come get us, come quick... .

Which was one of the reasons sleep came in short, quick bursts. Even though she was so exhausted that her muscles felt as if they were made of overcooked spaghetti, she had to be ready. Ready to clamp her hand over Jeremy's mouth, to push the words back into his throat if she could. Ready to keep her loved ones safe.

She didn't have to worry about Mama, however. About two weeks earlier they'd been attempting to sneak through a heavily infested area just outside of Redfield. There were rumors of a FEMA rescue station nearby and her stepfather, Denny, had insisted on scouting the route ahead of them. They'd followed about fifty yards behind and hid behind dumpsters or wrecked cars when he'd form his hand into a fist and then move on when he'd wave. Start and stop. Duck and hide, picking their way through the rubble and debris of a once proud society. But then he'd been pulled down by a pack of corpses that seemed to appear from nowhere, ripped apart right before their very eyes. Sometimes she'd still see him in her dreams: the way he fought and clawed and punched even as his knees buckled from the force of the assault... the bright, crimson arc of blood that spurted with slow-motion clarity as teeth pulled strands of flesh and muscle from a throat no longer capable of producing sound. He'd been a good husband and decent stepfather but, in the end, had made a horrible scout. He should have pushed his ego aside and listened to her suggestions instead of simply shrugging them off. Maybe if she'd been the one running point things would've turned out differently.

But she'd learned quickly that in this new world regrets could quickly get your ass killed. You had to focus on the here and now, to push memory into the farthest corners of your mind and bury it beneath the weight of more pressing concerns. Food. Clean water. Shelter and survival.

The future operated on the same principle. In her previous life she'd had dreams: she'd finish college, get a job with a decent newspaper in a medium size town, get married, kids eventually. At some hazy point on the timeline of her life, the grandchildren would come bursting through the front door with squeals of Grandma!; she'd shower them with hugs and treats and smile serenely at the man by her side... the man whose face she'd seen morph from the smooth flesh of the young into a wrinkled mask of experience. But things had changed, hadn't they? Hopes and ambitions were now exclusively short-term; her ambitions had been reduced to making it through yet another night alive, of finding that mythical pocket of society that had somehow been untouched by the insanity that had swept over the world like a tsunami of death and mutilation. Life had been reduced to an almost constant state of now and those who dared to dream too long would quickly find themselves wrapped in the darkness of a sleep from which they would never awaken.

The world had changed. And she, in turn, had been forced to change with it.

The sun had just begun to paint the eastern horizon with streaks of amber and orange when she heard it: a scuffling sound from outside, so soft and furtive that it was almost lost beneath the rhythmic lull of her companions' breathing. Footsteps? The sound of well-worn soles sliding over concrete and asphalt?

She closed her eyes and tried to listen for the sounds to repeat, to lock in their distance and general location; but her heart hammered in her chest with such force that she could only hear the whooshing of blood as it surged through her veins.

The cold hand of fear squeezed her stomach and caused bile to shoot up through her esophagus and flooded her mouth with stinging bitterness; beads of sweat dotted her forehead and the muscle below her left eye twitched like a caged bird longing for flight.

She held her breath.

Remained perfectly still.

Listening.

Praying.

Maybe it had only been the breeze. A yellowed scrap of newspaper, perhaps. Or a small animal. Dogs and cats were few and far between these days, having been hunted almost to extinction by the same masters who'd once showered them with toys and treats. They were rare, but not entirely unheard of.

Could that be it then? Nothing more than a mangy cur scavenging for carrion?

She took a breath through her nostrils so slowly that it took nearly ten seconds for her lungs to fill. She could smell the musty scent of age within the store, the smoky ghost of the fire that had gutted this place and refused to leave its haunt... the sharp bite of dried sweat. If the stench of rotting flesh existed outside the shattered shop window, it was masked by these other odors.

But surely the reek of a rotter would've overpowered them? It had been so hot lately that the sun-bloated corpses who staggered across the landscape traveled in a cloud of fetor so repugnant that even the flies shunned them.

Had she imagined it all? Perhaps she'd slipped into sleep for a fraction of a second and her mind had amplified the sound of the tarp shifting into something much more sinister?

That had to be it. The dead were notoriously noisy, caring not for stealth or cunning. While it was true that they didn't grunt or growl or groan, they were clumsy for the most part and prone to knocking over precariously balanced piles of rubble or kicking old bottles as they shuffled forward. Surely a freshie or rotter would've tripped across the string of tin cans she'd tied between the splintered telephone pole and an old parking meter by now; they weren't smart enough to avoid traps, after all. Not even such primitive early detection systems as hers.

Mere feet away, something thumped against the floorboards of the store and every muscle in her body tensed.

Fight or run? Shit, how many of them are there? Shit, shit, shit... .

A long, slow creak as the wooden planks flexed beneath the weight of the intruder.

Just one. Has to be. More would be nosier. I can deal with just one. I know I can.

Her hand began crawling across the floor as if of its own accord, its fingertips searching for the cool reassurance of the tire iron.

Two blows. Quick crack to the skull to stun it. Then plunge the business end into the eye socket, go for the brain, use all your strength, all your weight, drive that fucker home.

The muscles in her arms and legs had begun to quiver with a mixture of fear and adrenaline; her heart thudded out a cryptic message in Morse code, and her throat felt as if it had somehow expanded to allow more air to flow into her lungs.

You can do this, girl. You wake up Mama and Jeremy and they'll be dead before they've even cleared the cobwebs outta their minds. You have to do this.

Her fingers wrapped around the smooth metal of the tire tool and she lifted it from the floor so slowly that it almost seemed as if she suspected it would disintegrate if hoisted too quickly. Though her palms were warm and slick, the weight of the weapon immediately caused her breathing to even out.

Drop that fucker fast and then get the hell outta here . . .

Opening her eyes, she saw a dark shadow against the golden glow of sunrise on the wall. The silhouette was human shaped and grew larger with each beat of her heart. She couldn't lie to herself any longer: they were not alone in this old store and the time had come to walk the tightrope between life and death.

She sprung from the floor with the speed of a striking serpent and vaulted across the counter in a single, fluid move. In her mind, a shrill battle cry trilled through the stillness of the morning and she felt the spirits of a thousand Amazonian warriors raise their spears and shields in solidarity. In reality, however, she was as silent and swift as sudden death; only her eyes reflected the intensity of the rage that boiled within her, the grim determination of a woman who would not go gentle into that good night.

The man across from her scrambled backwards as his hands flew up in an open palmed display of surrender; his eyes grew wide beneath his curly bangs and he continued backpedaling as his hoarse voice stammered words so quickly that the syllables all ran together.

"Wait! No! Alive! I'm alive! I'm living, here!"

For a moment, his pleading didn't register in her mind. She continued her assault; the tire tool was raised above her head like the sword of a charging samurai and, like those legendary weapons, seemed to demand a taste of blood before allowing itself to be lowered.

The man's hands shot to the rifle slung over his shoulder and snapped it into firing position as his knees braced himself against the force of the attack.

"Damn it, I'm not one of them!"

His sharp tone cut through the haze of battle and she stopped so suddenly that momentum almost caused her to stumble forward. They stood facing each other for what seemed to be an eternity: she with the tire iron poised and ready to strike, he with the bore of his rifle staring at her like a dark, unblinking eye.

"Please, I don't want to shoot you. But I will. I swear to God, I will."

"You're... you're really alive?"

"No, I'm the smartest damn zombie that ever existed. What the hell do you think? Of course, I'm alive."

She felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice whispered in her ear.

"It's okay, sweetie... "

Jeremy. She'd been so focused on her attack that she hadn't even heard him stir. But it stood to reason that the flurry of activity would've awakened him. Mama, too, most likely.

"Look, folks, I'm here to help. I really am."

Together, the two of them lowered their respective weapons. She was breathing heavily now, her chest heaving with each breath, and for some reason tears had begun to make the world around her swim in and out of focus. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the bearded man in the tattered clothes whom she'd been mere seconds away from killing; but he wavered as if she were viewing him from the other side of a waterfall and the first tear had just begun to leave its warm path down her cheek as he unclipped the walkie-talkie from his belt.

"Eden Team, this is Serpent Six, over."

There was a hiss of static and then his voice again.

"Serpent Six to Eden Team. Come in, Eden Team. Over."

"Serpent Six this is Eden Team. Over."

The voice was thin and soft, but it was the voice of someone else like them. Someone left alive in a world ruled by the dead.

"Eden Team, I have three survivors. Two female, one male, none apparently infected. Repeat... I have three survivors. Over."

"Serpent Six, rendezvous at Alpha Base One at oh-nine-hundred hours. Reanimate activity in sector seven high. Advance with extreme caution. We'll notify The Garden that the mission was successful and we're coming home. Over."

"Copy that, Eden Team. Serpent Six, out."

There hadn't been much time for conversation, but she'd learned the man's name was Donnelly and he was apparently nothing more than a small cog in a much larger machine. What the man on the other end of the radio had referred to as The Garden.

The Garden, Donnelly had explained, was a collective that had established a fortified outpost about half a day's walk from their current location. Whereas the dregs of humanity seemed content with cowering in the shadows like frightened animals, The Garden had loftier ambitions. They were going to rebuild society, reclaim the coveted position at the top of the food chain, and re-establish mankind's dominance over the world. The human race, he said, had been decimated and the undead far outnumbered the living. But in the future they envisioned, the tide would be turned. Children would be trained as efficiently as soldiers and once their numbers were great enough they would rise up against the undead in one, final battle. Within fifteen to twenty years, tops, the world would be theirs again and the blight of the living dead would be no more than a chapter in history books yet to be written.

It had sounded so promising: a place where they would be sheltered from the horrors of the outside world, a society that still functioned, that sent out teams to find those still left alive and bring them back... no wonder they referred to themselves with terms like Eden and The Garden. True, their ambitions sounded lofty. But at least they still had goals and plans. At least they could envision a world that consisted of something more than picking at the carcass of civilization like nomadic scavengers. At least they had hope.

So they had followed this man, Donnelly. She and Jeremy and Mama had allowed him to guide them through the maze of mangled cars and toppled buildings. They had slipped through the wreckage of the city like ghosts, skirting around enclaves of rotters so skillfully that the dead never realized they were there. For the most part, they progressed in silence; but every so often, when Donnelly decided they were well out of harm's way, they would stop for a quick rest. During this down time, they would whisper to one another and she slowly began to grasp the full extent of The Garden's plans.

"To beat your enemy," Donnelly had told them, "you first have to understand him."

He was part of Eden Team, whose job was to search out those wandering the wastelands who would be able to assist in repopulating the cities of the earth. But there was also a group he referred to as The Tree of Knowledge. Their entire purpose, he said, was to study the undead menace. But not, just the ways in which they could be dispatched. No, The Tree of Knowledge wanted to know everything they could about their adversaries.

"Everyone knows a bite will kill your ass and bring you back. But did you know that any exchange of bodily fluids will do the same damn thing? You kiss someone who's infected, for example, and get even the smallest amount of spit in your mouth and you're done for."

When he spoke about The Garden and its various projects, his voice raised slightly in pitch and the words came more rapidly. Breathlessly, he told them about the actual gardens where they grew crops, the kitten nurseries with their self-replenishing sources of meat, and the various ways they had of collecting and purifying water; and the entire time, his green eyes shone with the light of the true believer.

His enthusiasm was as contagious as any of the corpses in this God forsaken land. As they pressed on, her mind was filled with images of what The Garden would be like: how she would never have to know the sharp pangs of hunger or the fear of darkness again. Perhaps she and Jeremy would be able to recapture the sort of life that, just hours ago, she was sure they had been robbed of. Only, hopefully, it would be better than she'd ever dreamed.

Her stepfather had never really approved of her boyfriend. He'd said Jeremy was weak and unfocused, that she could do so much better than a guy whose major goal in life was to beat the most current level of whatever video game he was playing. And, on some level, she'd kind of agreed with Denny... even though she would never outwardly admit it. She'd silently hoped that someday her boyfriend would tire of being just another telemarketer tethered to his cubical by a headset; maybe he'd start to dream of management or even actually creating the games he loved playing so much. A little time at the gym wouldn't have hurt either... even before fresh food had become as rare as gold, Jeremy had been thin and gangly. Kind of like a tall, pubescent boy really.

But maybe The Garden would have the positive effect on him that had somehow been lacking in their previous lives. Perhaps there he would find something he was so passionate about that his eyes would spark with excitement the way Donnelly's did. He might even decide that he wanted to become part of Eden Team and those thin arms might bulk up with the same sinewy muscle that strained at the sleeves of their guide's t-shirt. Not that she wanted him to be exactly like their new-found benefactor; she did love him for who he was, after all. But a little maturity wouldn't hurt... would it?

After what seemed like hours of walking, the group finally crested a small hill that overlooked a valley lush with trees and a patchwork of multicolored foliage. The sun was hanging low in the sky but the temperature had already begun to climb which caused her skin to be coated with a sheen of sweat. From this distance she could just make out a stream that snaked its way through the valley below; its waters sparkled as if millions of pixies bobbed on its surface and it was all too easy to imagine how cool that water would be as it lapped against her sunburned skin, how good it would feel as it quenched the dry harshness of her throat....

"Wait here."

Donnelly's command had pulled her thoughts away from the meandering creek and back to the cluster of camouflaged tents clustered just within the grove of trees before them. Three men walked out to meet him, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders by a thin strap. All of the men were similar in build to their guide: muscular, seemingly well-fed and healthy, and obviously selected for Eden Team because of their athletic physique. However the center of attention seemed to be a short bulldog of a man with a neck so thick and brown that it could have passed for the trunk of a small tree. As the others spoke, this man kept shooting glances at the newcomers through his spectacles and something about his gaze had made her feel like an insect beneath a microscope.

She shifted her weight from foot to foot and kept discovering new patches of skin on her arms and face that needed scratched; something about this little man and his cold, hard eyes made her uneasy.

"Must be their leader." Jeremy said. "Kinda looks like a general, huh?"

She'd nodded in response, maybe uttered some non-committal answer... she couldn't be sure. All she knew was that, for reasons she couldn't understand, she now felt as uneasy as if they were standing among a group of ravenous rotters. But that was ridiculous. These people were here to help, right? They were Eden Team. From The Garden.

The group of men disbanded, Donnelly disappearing into the woods as the others walked slowly toward them. The one Jeremy had referred to as a general seemed to be smirking slightly and she'd gulped hard, trying to tell herself that it was simply thirst that made her feel as if her airways were constricting.

Maybe if they'd actually said something, she would have felt better. But no. General Bulldog and one of them men stopped several yards away from them and seemed to study the small group with their eyes. At the same time, the other man circled around them and for some reason the image of a pack of dogs came to mind: the way they would circle their prey, cutting off any means of escape before lunging into their attack.

But that was silly. Of course these men would be wary. The world was full of people who saw the apocalypse as a handy excuse to simply do whatever the hell they wanted. Rapists, murderers, thieves: as the number of survivors had decreased, the sins of those left alive had grown exponentially. It made sense that they would be very careful about the people who were brought into their fold.

It was all entirely logical. But logic did little to assuage the nervous tightening in her stomach and even less to silence the voice in the back of her mind which whispered that something just wasn't right.

General Bulldog's eyes studied her for a moment and for some reason she felt the same way she had when she'd walked through the din of catcalls and innuendo of construction workers. Like she was nothing more than a piece of meat, something to be had and discarded.

"Useable. Good hips."

His voice was gruff and abrupt and somehow sounded as if he were passing judgment on her. She immediately felt herself stiffen as her hands balled into fists; she wanted to spit some caustic remark back at him, but her mind balked and left her simply standing there with her mouth agape.

The little man's eyes darted to Jeremy and for a moment he almost seemed to wince.

"Weak. Bad stock."

Then onto Mama.

"Too old."

A moment of silence before the man spoke again.

"Tree of Life has an adequate number of test subjects. These two are useless."

It happened with the quickness of a lightning strike. One moment, these two groups of people were simply standing on the hillside staring at one another as a cloud passed across the sun. The next, General Bulldog and his underling had their rifles shouldered as if by magic. Two shots rang out and echoed through the valley below, startling a flock of birds into flight as twin puffs of spent gunpowder filled the morning with their sulfuric odor.

Jeremy and Mama's heads snapped back as a crimson mist seemed to spray in slow motion from the dime-sized holes that had appeared in their foreheads. Their bodies crumpled to the ground, falling atop one another while unblinking eyes stared at the boots of the men who'd killed them.

She'd screamed and turned to run then, spinning around just in time to see the stock of a rifle racing toward her face. A flash of pain, dark spots that had exploded like antimatter fireworks in her field of vision, the sensation of falling backwards... and then nothing but darkness.

When she came to, her forehead throbbed as if her heart had taken up residence just above the bridge of her nose. Her entire face ached and she could feel something tacky on her bangs, something that felt like half-dried glue. Reaching up, she winced as her fingertips brushed her wound: streaks of pain radiated from a central point and her head immediately felt as if it had tripled in size; she was nauseous, as if her stomach were on the verge of purging what little food it contained, and she viewed the room she was in as if through a fog. But even so, she realized that the dark stains on her fingers were partially congealed blood.

"Just cooperate."

The voice was familiar, but not overly so. Where had she heard it before?

"It'll be easier if you do."

She turned her head toward the source of the words and it seemed as if it took the world a fraction of a second to catch up with her. But when it did, she saw Donnelly. He was on the other side of the door, looking in through the little window with his hands wrapped around the bars. For a moment he became nothing more than a blur before snapping back into sharp focus.

"You should feel honored, really. They don't select just anyone."

He seemed to be looking everywhere but directly at her. As if he couldn't bring himself to meet her gaze.

"Wh... where am I?"

Her voice sounded as if it were coming from the end of an infinitely long tunnel and only the stabs of pain that accompanied the movement of her jaws convinced her that it was her own.

"The Garden. You're safe now."

Something about his tone sounded almost apologetic. Or as if he were trying to convince himself of his own statement.

She closed her eyes for a second and was suddenly back on the hillside. She saw Jeremy and Mama lying in the grass, their blood mingling in a collective pool below them. Unmoving. Silent. Dead.

Her eyes snapped open and, even though it hurt like hell to do so, her brow furrowed as she glared at the man on the other side of the door.

"You bastard. What they hell have you done? What the fuck... ."

But then she was sobbing, her back heaving with tears as her fingers pressed against her temples and bubbles of snot erupted from her nostrils.

"I'm... I'm sorry. It had to be done. For the good of all. For... humanity. See? There's a greater good. A higher purpose. But for what it's worth... I am sorry."

That was the last time she'd ever seen Donnelly. In the beginning, she'd entertained fantasies of him returning in the middle of the night; dreams of keys rattling in the lock and the door swinging open to reveal him silhouetted by torchlight , ready to whisk her away from this place and make amends for the evil he'd brought upon her.

But that was so long ago and she now knew he would never return. On some level, he probably did feel bad for his part in what had happened; but she couldn't help but remember the look in his eyes as he'd described the work done here. What she'd rightfully identified as the passion of a true believer. Any guilt that kept him awake at night was undoubtedly overshadowed by the zeal of his belief.

The door to her cell swung open and two men shuffled inside. This morning it was the ones she thought of as Fred and Barney, which meant that Larry and Curly would be making the evening rounds.

Barney glanced down at the clipboard he held in his hands and thumbed through the pages with bored detachment.

"Says here her last period was two weeks ago."

Fred nodded and propped his sawed-off broomstick against the wall.

"Assume the position, Hips."

In the beginning, she'd fought. She'd scratched and bit and kicked and ripped out clumps of hair. She'd been beaten until it hurt to take a breath, had been held down and forced to take part in the routine no matter how much she squirmed and writhed. She'd had breakfast and dinner withheld. Even though it was the temperature and consistency of warm puke, it was still food... and she'd gotten tired. So tired of the purple and green bruises, of trying to sleep when it felt as though her ribs had been kicked by a wild mule. No matter how hard she fought the result was always the same. Donnelly had been right: it was much easier just to cooperate.

And so it was that she closed her eyes, bent over in a wide-legged stance, and gripped her ankles. She imagined that she was back in her little apartment: Lady Gaga was on the radio and Jeremy was bitching about some cock-knocking camper who'd just picked him off three times in a row. Outside, an ice cream truck called to children with its pied piper jingle and the scent of curry drifted from the Singh's apartment next door.

She tried not to let the cold glass of the rectal thermometer shatter the illusion as it invaded her body, tried to convince herself that she was only gritting her teeth because Jeremy had launched into another curse-laden tirade against the sniper who'd become the bane of his existence.

The DJ on the radio was calling for sunny skies with a ten percent chance of precipitation; but then his voice melded with Barney's nasal whine as she felt the thermometer glide out of her most secret of places.

"Congratulations, Hips... you're ovulating."

She heard one of them crossing the room, cursing beneath his breath as he picked up the waste bucket with a slosh.

"Hard to believe someone so pretty can smell so damn bad. Shit."

She kept her eyes closed as she stood upright, continued envisioning her apartment, the potted plant by the door, the opening notes of The Entertainer as her cellphone lit up with Mama's number.

It had been Fred complaining about the bucket. Which meant Barney was currently bringing in the gruel that passed as breakfast. As if on cue, the smell of the meat and vegetable slop overpowered the curry of her dream world.

"Eat up, Hips. You're gonna need your energy."

They both laughed as if they'd heard the joke the DJ had just made about lesbians, potpourri, and open cans of tuna. And then her door creaked shut, there was the click of the lock, footsteps, and the entire scene replaying itself in Scar's cell.

She bit her bottom lip and tried to take a long, slow breath but the air seemed to stick somewhere in the back of her throat.

Ovulation.

She knew what that meant. Within an hour, there would be a stream of men coming through her cell. Each one having his way with her. Each one filling her with millions of tiny swimmers, some of which were destined to trickle down thighs that would soon feel raw and stingy. For the next few days, she would know practically every man in The Garden. Multiple times. Some would border on brutality with their savage thrusts and the twisting of her nipples; others would behave as if this were simply another chore, no different than cooking the slop or slaughtering the cats which went into it. A select few would be shy and apologetic, each telling her that she had to understand that there was a greater good.

They had to repopulate the world after all. They had to outnumber the dead. To have children who would grow into soldiers. To keep the gene pool as diverse as possible.

Within a few months, her fate would be decided. If their seed didn't take purchase, if her belly didn't begin to balloon out and her monthly flow come to end, then she would be declared barren. She didn't know exactly how it would be done, but the end result would be the same: she would end up on the other side of this cell, in the darkness with the other rotters, just another subject for The Tree of Life to experiment on.

She opened her eyes and saw their hands reaching through the bars of the wall's window. Flaky skin, some deteriorated to the point that strands of muscle could be seen beneath patches that had been eaten away by time. They grabbed and grasped with mindless enthusiasm, seeking purchase that would never come.

But the living would come. And come. And come.

To them, she was nothing more than an incubator, just another breeder in a long row of nameless women.

She walked over to the hands, keeping just out of reach and inciting them into a frenzy with her presence.

Those men had killed Jeremy. Had killed Mama.

They'd locked her up and humiliated her on a daily basis.

Raped her countless times all in the name of procreation.

And they'd kill her, too, if she didn't produce a child soon. But what if she did? Nine months of respite? Nine months of being in the maternity wing before being transported back to this dingy cell? Wouldn't it be worse then? Knowing that there was better food, more comfortable quarters with no chance of beatings for fear of damaging the fetus? It would all begin again. The daily inspections. Assuming the position. The monthly violations.

The hands were so close that she could see the little black specks beneath what was left of the fingernails. They clutched at the air, seeming to squeeze invisible stress balls with sheer abandon.

Even now Donnelly, and others like him, were probably out there. Scouring the countryside. Searching for fresh stock. For new victims, for more women to defile.

How long would this go on?

"No more."

Her voice was a soft whisper but was filled with more resolve than the loudest shout. She could still fight back. She could bring the entire Garden crumbling down, could utterly destroy all they'd worked so hard to build. And it would serve the bastards right.

She extended her hand quickly before she had a chance to lose her nerve. Thrusting it into the darkness, through the bars on the little windows, squeezing her eyes shut.

It didn't hurt as badly as she thought it would. The bite was quick and felt no different, really, than the time she'd been nipped by the neighbor's chow as a kid. Wrestling her arm free from the rotter's weak grasp she immediately wrapped the open wound in the hem of her dirty smock and applied pressure. Blood blossomed on the fabric like a rose in a dirty field of snow, but it had been nothing more than a flesh wound. Within fifteen minutes, the blood had clotted and she licked the iron tasting flecks from the tip of her finger. If anyone bothered to ask, she's simply say she'd jabbed a splinter from the door into it. But no one would. She knew this as surely as she knew the contagion was flowing through her veins, poisoning her healthy cells with the infection of the walking dead.

"Bring it on, fuckers!." She shouted so loudly that her vocal cords felt strained with the words. "Bring it fucking on!"

At the same time she heard another voice, this one echoing through the corridors of her mind instead of the hallway with its series of cells and captives: it was the voice of Donnelly, culled from her memory.

"Did you know that any exchange of bodily fluids will do the same damn thing? You kiss someone who's infected, for example, and get even the smallest amount of spit in your mouth and you're done for."

So let them come. Let the parade of rapists begin. She would spread her legs and would welcome them into her body, would take every single man in the colony if they sent him. She would exchange bodily fluids with each and every one and let them have their way.

She would have her revenge.

From down the hall she heard a door swing open. A male voice doing an off-key rendition of Snoop Dogg's Sexual Seduction.

Laying back on her sleeping bag, she closed her eyes and waited for him to enter her cell.

"My name is Alejandra." she whispered.

"My name is Alejandra"

AUTHOR'S NOTES

Gospel of the Dead: This was the first zombie fiction I'd ever written. I'd had the idea in my head for quite some time, originally envisioning it as a novel before realizing that it would probably work better as a short story. I had many false starts as I tried to flesh the idea out into a workable first draft and had actually begun to worry that I wouldn't be able to translate this one into something useable at all. Until I had the idea to try writing it in the style of biblical passages. After that, the story flowed out rather easily which tells me that was the way the tale was meant to be told. It wasn't until I began compiling Box of Rot, however, that I realized exactly what a bitch it was to format this type of manuscript. So to the anonymous editor who worked on Zombology 2, I extend my heartfelt apologies. An author is expected to suffer for his art, but that's no reason to pass that suffering on to another innocent soul.

Black Market Funeral: This story was written specifically for Through The Eyes of the Undead anthology and came to me as I was taking a smoke break at work. There was a funeral home directly across the street and I was watching the undertaker and his assistants wheel a shiny, black coffin into the back doors. One of the guys looked furtive and sneaky and the phrase 'black market funeral" popped into my head. The rest fleshed itself out that evening. Incidentally, my good friend and respected friend, Carl Hose (who wrote the introduction to this collection) had a story featured in this anthology as well. However, neither of us realized we'd shared a table of contents until well over a year into our friendship.

A Mother's Love: I don't really know what to say about this one. I don't really remember what the inspiration was for writing it. It was just one of those tales which spontaneously appeared as I typed it, so we'll move right along.

Letter # 35: Library of the Living Dead Press put out a call for submissions that I simply couldn't pass up. The anthology would be called Letters from the Dead and it would consist of letters found in the aftermath of an undead apocalypse. These would be the last words of those who didn't survive the onslaught, preserved for posterity. And it really is a one of a kind book. The manuscript was originally entitled "Letter to My Unborn Daughter", but the editor decided that letters don't have titles and went with a numbering scheme instead. It was the right thing to do. Tonia Brown, author of The Cold Beneath and Skin Trade, did a reading of this letter for the Library of the Living Dead Podcast and poured so much emotion into the narration that my eyes were streaming with tears by the end... even though I knew exactly how it was going to end. If anyone is interested in hearing this powerful reading, search Youtube for Box of Rot and you should be able to find a promo featuring it. In fact, I'd prefer that people actually listen to the story rather than read it... she captured the raw emotion of the narrator perfectly.

Full Court Press: This story was originally written to be a submission for an anthology entitled Eye Witness Zombie, which would have featured stories about reporters and the media. However, I wasn't happy with the first few drafts; by the time I'd come up with something I actually liked, I'd missed the deadline so I had to find another home for it.

Fur Elise: When I released my short story collection, Sex in the Time of Zombies, I'd originally envisioned it as a ...in the Time of Zombies series where each book which feature stories tackling a different theme. This one was slated for Love in the Time of Zombies, but I never actually followed through with the series and was left with this story hanging around.

Our Last Hope: What can I say? I love sci-fi. So I jumped at the chance to pen something for Zombonauts: Zombies in Space. The title for this one is a direct homage to Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope; I also wanted to write something that had a classic sci-fi flavor. Something along the lines of Damon Knight's short story, To Serve Man. And this was what I ended up with.

Rule 22: This story is a slightly modified excerpt from my novel, The Dead & Dying. The modifications were needed so that it would read less like two separate chapters (which is what it truly is) and more like a continuous narrative. The reason these changes were made is that Library of the Living Dead Press (who are also the publishers of The Dead & Dying) were putting together a charity anthology entitled Night of the Giving Dead and this story was to be among the table of contents. Sadly, the anthology was eventually cancelled.

The Palomino and the Draft Horse: This is my wife's favorite out of all my undead short stories. When I was writing it, I wanted to have some background music playing that would evoke an atmosphere of cold desolation. So I went with the theme from the movie Fargo, looping on my computer hour after hour after hour. The song was so ingrained with the writing that I still heard it in my mind as I was editing and formatting the story for this collection. Also, here's a bit of useless trivia. In The Dead & Dying, there's a scene where a fevered old woman is being pulled through the snow on a makeshift stretcher and one of the characters says she feels like she'd been through all of it before, perhaps in another life. That line was a direct reference to this short story.

Hips: This is one my favorite stories that I've written. It is included in both in Sex in the Time of Zombies and Journalstone's Warped Words for Twisted Minds. Out of all my short stories, regardless of whether or not they include zombies, this one has had the strongest response from readers. It was written longhand while drinking coffee at a Tim Horton's over a week of lunch hours. Not really too much more to say about it as I like to think the story speaks for itself.

# # #

If you enjoyed this collection of short stories, you might also like the following books by William Todd Rose

 Sex in the Time of Zombies

Even in a world filled with the living dead, sex exists.

A stripper hell-bent on survival faces off against the living dead in a no-holds barred dance of death.

A lone soldier, separated from his unit, finds that the ghosts of his past may very well be more dangerous than a hotel overrun with zombified furries.

A boy faces his inner demons, ready to do anything to be accepted by his peers.

A woman, captured by slavers, finds out there are worse horrors than the walking dead.

From the first day of the undead apocalypse to points far in the future, this book explores the roles sex and sexuality play in determining survival.  
Sex . . . zombies. . .love. Let the infection begin.

The Dead & Dying

In an apocalyptic world where the dead roam the earth, Carl Teegarden lays dying. Fatally wounded by the undead, he watches his lifeblood drain from his ravaged body and struggles to come to terms with his inevitable fate. Knowing that this fate will not necessarily end with his final breath, he fights through the pain and looks back upon his life, remembering the events which have led to his lonely demise. Only he isn't alone. The spirit of a woman with whom he'd found love in a ruined world stands by his side, her loyalty transcending the barriers of life and death. Smoldering across the room is the ghost of a small child whose hatred of this man burns with such intensity that no amount of suffering can sate his thirst for revenge. All the while, legions of the walking dead scour the countryside for the slightest sign of life. As their destinies intertwine, stories of love and devotion intertwine with failing and regret across a timeline marked by the grim struggle for survival. And in this nightmare world, each will come to understand, in their own way, exactly what it means to be numbered among the dead and dying....

The Seven Habits of Highly Infective People

Bosley Coughlin can travel through time. And the future does not look good.

Through a heady cocktail of drugs and the occult, Bosley slips through time and space and glimpses The End. Cities lay in ruins, and those who still cling to life hide in the rubble like frightened animals. Walking carcasses shamble through the debris exacting a horrible fate upon any living they find.

This horrific future is the only world fourteen year old Ocean has ever known. Starving and alone, she struggles for even the most basic of necessities: food, water, shelter, love...

In the present, Bosley stumbles across Clarice Hudson and soon realizes that she is much more than a simple shop girl. One by one, she displays the seven symptoms of the contagion that will bring Bosley's world to an end and create the nightmare Ocean calls home. Clarice may hold the key to stopping the coming apocalypse and sparing Ocean from the atrocities of mankind's imminent future... but only if Coughlin is willing to push beyond every notion he's ever held about right and wrong.

"Compelling, interesting, and will keep you intrigued from start to finish... a very unique and wild ride."--Patrick D'Orazio, author of COMES THE DARK

"There is a very TERMINATOR-esque feeling to the narrative... deserves a spot on your shelf."—T.W. Brown, author of ZOMBLOG

"I kept imagining The Dude (from THE BIG LEBOWSKI) telling a drugged out version of H.G. Wells' THE TIME MACHINE... This is a book that is really worth reading..."--BuyZombie.com

