Our Dead Bodies [Anthology]

by Wright, Jerry

  When they reached the parking lot the stood in a circle in an open area. After they huffed and puffed from the running, Sue Ann stood upright. “I think the person who was eaten was already infected with the IHC virus. Maybe, they were somehow immune to it turning them into a zombie but when the zombie tried to eat them, their limbs reacted to the virus.”

  “And this matters how?” Todd said through his gasps. “Knowing what it is eating doesn’t help us. We just need to find it and kill it.”

  “Well I know one thing for sure. I am not going back in that way.” Said Joe. Bobby turned back to look at the forest.

  “Fine we can go around from the road. But we gotta go now. It looks like a storm is rolling in.” He said pointing to the dark sky. The group of friends walked down the dirt road they had driven in on and turned right at the fork in the road. After a half an hour walk, they found a walking path that jutted into the forest. Bobby headed in first again and the others followed keeping an eye out for body parts. They didn’t find any but they did see bloody handprints on the trees that lined the path. They pressed on. After seeing an increasing number of bloody hand prints and trails of blood droplets in the dirt, Mary Beth was thoroughly creeped out. That is when she noticed that the wind had stopped. The trees were perfectly still and the air grew stale.

  “Guys…” She said quietly. But before she could point out the change in weather she saw a dark blurry figure tackle Bobby and drag him into the trees. He screamed for only a matter of seconds as his friends listened in horror. The screams turned to the sound of him choking on blood. Todd screamed and ran back the other direction and the same blur grabbed him and dragged him off into the dense greenery. The remaining three friends ran deeper into the woods as fast as they could. Joe was in the lead and ran faster than he ever had in his life. Soon he happened upon a small cottage that was used to store the park equipment. Luckily, he found that the door was unlocked and he jumped inside. He watched through a crack in the door until he say Mary Beth and Sue Ann run by. Quickly he grabbed them and pulled them into the cottage.

  They stood in the dark room breathing hard. Joe locked the door from the inside and made sure that they were away from the windows. No one knew what to say. Mary Beth was crying and Sue Ann just stared at the floor. Mary Beth’s sobs grew louder and louder. Joe stepped forward and put his hand over her mouth. “Shshhhhhhh” he said quietly.

  She blinked hard then looked at him and nodded. She tried to calm herself as best she could. The horror of the rapid attack replayed in her mind over and over. “They were just gone. They were just gone.” She repeated quietly over and over.

  Joe looked at her then at Sue Ann. “I guess he was still hungry.” He said. Mary Beth looked at him in shock.

  “Do you think this is funny?” She hissed.

  He shook his head. “No, not at all. I only said that because it doesn’t make sense. Every single zombie attack we know about, the Zombies attack enough to kill one person. Feeding off one person usually lasts them for a few days. They only attack out of hunger. But this one is attacking for another reason.” He trailed off.

  Sue Ann turned toward him. “They don’t have reasons. It’s their base instinct to attack for food. They don’t think about it or anything.” She spat.

  “This one might.” He said. Mary Beth’s eyes grew wide. Sue Ann shook her head refusing to believe him.

  “No, no. Maybe they are more like animals than we thought. Animals kill for two reasons, they are hungry or they feel threatened.” She hypothesized. Before Joe could make another argument he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned toward the window to see a bloody corpse staring at him. He stopped cold. The girls turned to the window and froze in fear. Slowly the Zombie backed away from the window and walked around the cottage toward the door. Joe immediately turned his eyes to the door knob. The girls gasped as they watch the knob twist. Zombies didn’t have reasoning skills. They shouldn’t know how to open a door. Joe was glad he had been extra cautious in locking it behind him.

  When the door didn’t budge the zombie pushed harder. Soon, the cottage was filled with the sounds of the zombie screaming and wailing in frustration. Then the wailing stopped and it got quiet. The three friends could hear each other breathing. They looked at each other and then looked toward the window. Joe slowly made his way over to look out. When he got close enough, he peered out through the glass window to see the zombie standing 4 feet from the door staring at it. Then, with one quick step, the zombie threw itself at the locked door creating a crack in the wood.

  “Quickly!” Sue Ann screamed as she began piling the park equipment in front of the door. They put shelves, tables and large metal tools at the base of the door. The pile rattled each time the zombie threw itself at the other side of the door. The three friends sat with their backs to the pile in order to add extra support to their barricade. The screeching sounds coming from the hysterical zombie flooded the cottage and the three covered their ears.

  After what seemed to be an hour, the screeching stopped and so did the banging.

  “Is it gone?” Mary Beth asked as she shook in fear. Sue Ann just looked at her. The blood had drained from her face and she looked paler than the moon.

  “I don’t know. But something is different. He tried to open the door with the handle. They shouldn’t be able to do that.” Joe said.

  “If there is something different with this one… if he is able to use reasoning then what happens next?” Sue Ann asked. She looked at Mary Beth and Joe. They seemed equally lost. “What if it didn’t kill Todd and Bobby for food or out of fear?” Sue said after a while. Joe and Mary Beth looked up at her not knowing where she was going with this.

  “What other reasons could it have?” Joe asked. Sue Ann shrugged. Just then a rustling noise came from outside the front of the cabin. All three immediately turned toward the noise. Then another sound came from behind the back of the cabin and they flipped their heads around. Thump! A sound came from the roof. They all looked up. Then Sue Ann grabbed Joe’s arm.

  “What if it knew that it was the last one… and it’s… recruiting…” She said slowly. The other two looked at her with new terror in their eyes. Just then they saw Todd in the window with blood dripping from his mouth and a dead look in his eyes. At the other window they saw a flash of movement and then saw Bobby’s eyes piercing through the glass as he gnashed his teeth. Crack! The roof gave in and the zombie was standing in front of them. Slowly, he walked over to the pile of stuff in front of the door. With incredible strength, he pushed it aside and opened the door for the other two fresh zombies. They slowly entered the cottage and cornered Joe, Sue Ann and Mary Beth.

  Before he felt the sting of the bite, Joe whispered, “but it was almost over.” The three died to the sound of teeth on their bones. They were spotted in town three weeks later.

  They were the start of the second epidemic.

  ZOMBIES DON'T CRY by Matthew Pierce

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Do it, Ray," she said with a dark look in her eyes, “just do it!”

  With hypnotized eyes, he stared at the long knife in his hand. The silver length of the cold blade felt strange and deadly as he ran his fingers over it…the whole thing seemed almost unreal and he looked down again at Cindy Stone. She lay there in the middle of the pentagram; a red hood drawn over her pretty face and her long black hair totally obscured from sight.

  “Chiagon chiagon ros soth-oth!” she shouted and something took complete hold of his mind when he heard those words. He suddenly found himself in a strange twilight between life and death where he could still recall some of the events that had lead up to that point, yet he was totally unable to call upon his reason to control his actions any longer.

  It was supposed to be just another weekend away with the rest of his biker gang “The Zombies” and he’d been looking forward to three days of unadulterated sex and orgies in the woods. All of the members of The Zombies motorcycle club had arrived at
Thompson Creek Woods the previous evening. It had been a Friday night, with a full moon, and the activities of the first evening did not disappoint. Ray could still vividly recall the drunken sexual pleasures he’d shared with Cindy and the other biker members of the club the previous evening. All of the bikers in his gang had dabbled in the occult and they all had an interest in dark rituals, but most of them, including Ray Mason, only really used these occult practices as a means of enslaving young girls to the group and having sex orgies with them.

  Ray had slept well and started drinking early that morning, even though the sun had scarcely reached a decent spot in the sky before he reached for the whiskey bottle. When Cindy insisted on taking him for a walk through the woods so early in the day he didn’t make much of it and thought, “What the fuck, let’s take a walk and see what this gorgeous biker chick has in mind. Probably just some new twisted sexual way of getting off, he’d thought as they winded their way down the barely visible path through the dense trees.

  They eventually got to a clearing and Ray immediately noticed the pentagram that was carved out on the large rock which protruded from the moist ground, right in the middle of the open space.

  “Nice spot for some private sexual ritual,” he’d joked when they came to a halt in the middle of the clearing.

  Cindy looked at him with her dark seductive eyes. She had the facial features of an ancient warrior princess and her body was both muscular and incredibly feminine. That much Ray Mason could personally vouch for, having spent some very intimate and naked moments with her the previous night. Cindy didn’t say a word and produced a small radio from her backpack. He’d expected some heavy metal rock music to blare through the early morning skies as she switched on the power, but instead, the most hauntingly beautiful violin music filled the silence. Cindy slowly undressed herself to the sound and rhythm of the enchanting music and soon she was swaying to and fro, completely naked in front of his mesmerized eyes.

  “Come dance with me, Ray,” she invited with a sweetness in her voice that was way too innocent to be true.

  “I’m glad you brought me out here for this private little ritual,” he’d whispered in her ear as they ran their hands over each other’s naked bodies and danced to the slow violin music. The first sign that this was not just some overly romantic manifestation of an enamored female mind was when Cindy reached for her backpack and produced a bright red robe, which she stepped into with losing her rhythm. Ray had seen one of these satanic robes before in a movie, but the level of his interest in the occult had simply not been high enough for him to go to the trouble of getting one for himself.

  “Nice, I like,” he whispered and swayed with her to the beat of the music. There was something absolutely mesmerizing about the whole thing and Ray could feel his heart beating like a drum inside his chest.

  “Do you want me, Ray?” Cindy asked and in that moment he knew that he wanted her more than he’d ever wanted anything in is life. Never mind the fact that he’d already fucked her a hundred times on these biker outings; this whole set up was so different and so sensually irresistible that he couldn’t bear the thought of not having her all to himself right there and then.

  “Yes I do and I’m gonna take you right now,” he’d whispered with the cocky self-assurance that only the leader of a vicious biker gang could possibly muster.

  “But that means nothing Ray…after all I’ve had sex with many of the other bikers in this motorcycle club…I mean, do you want all of me forever and ever…all to yourself?”

  “Yes I do,” he’d answered without thinking.

  “Would you give your life to be with me forever?”

  “Yes I would,” he said and from that moment on every move they made had taken on a different, ancient meaning. He was no longer the master of his senses. Cindy reached into her backpack and produced a large marijuana joint. She lit it and they both inhaled deeply as they took turns smoking it. When Cindy produced another bright red hood and insisted that he put it on, he hadn’t so much as blinked. Ray Mason wasn’t in control anymore and he’d been reduced, for the moment, to being Cindy’s obedient slave. The vicious leader of The Zombies biker club leaned back against the large rock and watched in morbid fascination as Cindy produced a black book from her backpack and started reading from its contents. He couldn’t understand any of the words she read, but each sentence had sent a cold chill down his spine.

  “Geagin rabando sexterenas…contraribus retendo sachendos!”

  “What the fuck are you reading?” he’d asked after one particularly ominous sounding sentence.

  “Just some beautiful words to prepare us for the crossing,” Cindy smiled and kept reading from the strange book.

  “Here, now you read us some of the poetry,” Cindy said and handed him the book. “The Satanic Bible in Ancient Latin by Anton LaVey,” it said on the cover and Ray could still remember that he, for a fleeting moment, felt like throwing the book as far as he could and running for his life.

  “It’s just some poetry…come on read to me Ray,” Cindy said and when he looked into her sweet dark eyes all thoughts of resistance melted away.

  “Machissimo omnes credentialis” he read and the words rolled off his tongue and cut through his mind like some long forgotten voices from the past.

  “That was beautiful…now let me read you some more while you hold this for me,” Cindy said and handed him an ancient sacrificial knife. She took the book and read some more of its enchanting contents while he looked at the knife from all angles.

  “If you really want me forever you will have to sacrifice both of us on this rock,” Cindy announced and for some reason, her words made absolute and perfect sense to him. “But before we proceed there is something we have to put on,” she said and took two necklaces with ornamental crosses from her backpack. She put one of the necklaces around his neck and slipped the other one over her own neck.

  “I thought that was only for vampires,” Ray said, but Cindy didn’t even blink an eyelid at his attempted joke.

  “Do this and we will be together forever…I promise you we will never ever die as long as we wear these crosses,” she whispered and Ray nodded his head. He stared at her the way a deer stares at the oncoming lights of a truck in the night.

  I’m gonna lie down now…I want you to take me over the crossing first…do you know what to do?” Cindy asked and looked at him from the dangerous depths of her dark eyes.

  “Yes. I take you first and then I follow you to the other side where we will be together forever,” he answered and Cindy nodded her head.

  “Put it through my heart and then fall into it yourself,” she said and Ray looked up at the clear blue sky one last time. Then he lifted the blade high above his head with both hands. He hesitated for a moment before he brought down the knife with deadly force.

  The blade penetrated Cindy’s heart and she let out a blood-curdling scream before looking into his eyes one last time.

  “I’ll be waiting for you,” she said and then blew out her final breath.

  “I will be with you just now,” Ray Mason whispered and fell into the sharp steel of the sacrificial blade. The handle of the blade stopped dead against the rock surface and the other end cut through Ray’s heart in an instant. The pain was incredible and shot through his body like a lightning bolt. He rolled over on his back and watched as the blue skies above his head slowly turned black.

  Then it all faded away and Ray fell next to Cindy’s inanimate body in the middle of the clearing.

  CHAPTER TWO

  They looked at one another with slight surprise and for a second the whole thing seemed like it had only been a bad dream. It was getting dark already and Ray realized that they must have been lying in the clearing for a couple of hours.

  “We made it…how do you feel?” Cindy asked and Ray’s mind took a moment longer than usual to interpret the words. He ran his fingers across his face and his flesh felt cold to his touch.

  “I can’t
feel anything,” he answered and looked at Cindy’s empty eyes. She was still beautiful and her body still looked inviting, yet Ray felt absolutely no sexual desire for her anymore. Instead, he felt that a bite of her flesh would be delicious. The only thing that stopped him, for some reason which his mind couldn’t quite fathom, from taking a hold of her and feasting on her body was the cross she had around her neck.

  “Whatever you do don’t take off your cross,” Cindy said and he nodded his head.

  “I have enough crosses in my bag for all the other bikers of our club,” she added and looked at Ray to see if he’d understood her meaning. Ray nodded his head again and looked at the knife where it had fallen to the ground after their ritual.

  “You and me baby, we will start a brand new biker’s club,” he said in a cold, deadly voice.

  They walked back to the place where the rest of the bikers had been camped out and stopped far enough away from the camp to make sure that their presence remained a secret to the other bikers. A couple of the rough looking bikers were sitting around a fire and it was clear from their slurred speech that they were already drunk.

  “Where the fuck is Ray and Cindy?” one of the bikers asked and handed the bottle of Tequila in his hand to the topless girl next to him.

  “Forget about those two and come take care of these two,” the girl said and shook her tits to make her point.

  Soon the two of them were both naked and Ray watched dispassionately as they kissed and started another biker orgy. Two other girls joined in the fun and some heavily tattooed male bikers also got rid of their clothes.