Murdermouth: Zombie Bits

by Scott Nicholson

  Daddy shot high and the pellets scattered through the tops of the trees and still the person kept coming, walking slow with a limp. Another person came out of the trees, then another. They was all headed in the same direction. Straight toward the church.

  One of them bent down and got Shep and I never heard such a sound from a dog. Daddy was cussing a blue streak and let loose both barrels and one of the people stood still for just a second, and I could see that gray face turned up toward the moon, the eye holes empty. Then his insides tumbled out but he kept on coming for us and Daddy was pushing me back through the door and we got inside and locked it.

  Daddy went up front and I could hear him crying. Except for that, the church was quiet. I thought the gray people might try to knock the door down but maybe they got scared away because of it being a church and all. I went up beside Daddy and waited until he was hisself again. He said he was sorry for showing fear in the face of the enemy and said Oh Lord, give me the strength to do your work. I said Lord, protect Momma wherever she is and Daddy said it was wrong to ask for selfish things.

  Daddy said the End Times was a test for the weak. Said you had to stay strong in the Lord. Said it about fifteen hundred times in a row, over and over, in a whisper, and it made me scared.

  I was about asleep when Daddy poked me with the gun. Said come here, son, over by the window where I can see you good. The moon was coming through the window and I could hear the gray people walking outside. They was going around in circles, all headed in the same direction.

  Daddy asked me if I got bit by one of them bugs. I said don’t reckon. He said, well, you’re looking a little gray, and I told him I didn’t feel nary bit gray. He asked me if I was getting hungry and I said a little. He gave me the rest of the bread and said eat it. I took a bite and he said you didn’t say thanks to the Lord. Then he thanked the Lord for both of us.

  I asked Daddy if Shep had gone to heaven. He said it depended on whether he was dead before the gray people ate him. Said Shep might have done turned gray hisself and might bite me if he saw me again. I almost asked Daddy to say a prayer for Shep but that sounded like a selfish thing.

  I must have finally dozed off because I didn’t know where I was when I opened my eyes. Daddy was at the front of the church, in the pulpit where Preacher Aldridge stood of a Sunday. The sun was about up and Daddy had the Bible open and was trying to read in the bad light. Somebody was knocking on the church door.

  Daddy said the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. Daddy stopped just like Preacher Aldridge did, like he wanted to catch his breath and make you scared at the same time. Then Daddy got louder and said we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

  I asked what did that mean and Daddy said the Lord come down among people and nobody saw the signs. Said they treated Him just like any normal person, except then He set off doing miracles and people got scared and nailed Him to the cross. Said it was probably gray people that done it. I asked Daddy if we ought to open the church door and see who was knocking.

  Daddy said gray people wasn’t fit to set foot in the house of the Lord. I asked what if it’s the preacher or the Hodges kids or Opalee Rominger from down the road. Daddy said they’re all gray, everybody. Said they was all headed under Hell. Said ever sinner is wicked and blind to their sinning ways. I didn’t see how Opalee Rominger could eat living flesh, because she ain’t got no teeth.

  The knocking stopped and I didn’t hear no screams so maybe whoever it was didn’t get ate up.

  I listened to Daddy read the Bible. The sun come up higher and I wondered about the cows. Did the gray people eat them all? It wasn’t like they ain’t enough sinners to go around. I didn’t for a minute believe that everybody was gray. There had to be others like us. There’s a hymn that says you’ll never walk alone. I don’t reckon the Lord breaks promises like that but I was way too scared to ask. Daddy’s eyes were getting bloodshot, like he hadn’t slept a wink, and he was whispering to hisself again.

  I drank water from the plate that Preacher Aldridge passed around on Sundays. The water tasted like old pennies. Daddy didn’t drink nothing. I asked him if he wanted the last can of sardines but he said man can’t live by bread alone but by the word of the Lord. I wondered what the Lord’s words tasted like. I wondered what people tasted like. I ate the sardines by myself.

  That night was quiet, like the gray people had done gone on to wherever they were headed. I woke up in the morning plenty sore and I asked Daddy if we could take a peek out the door. Daddy hadn’t moved, stood up there at the pulpit like he was getting ready to let loose with a sermon. He had the shotgun raised toward heaven and I don’t reckon he heard me. I asked it louder and he said you can’t see the gray people because ever sinner is blind. I said I ain’t no sinner but he said you’re looking mighty gray to me.

  I said I ain’t gray, and then he made me prove it. Said get on your knees and beg the Lord to forgive you. He pointed the shotgun at me. I didn’t know if he would use it or not, but the way his eye twitched I wasn’t taking no chances. I got on my knees but I was scared to close my eyes. When you close your eyes and pray it’s just you and the Lord. You’re blind but the Lord sees everything. I asked Daddy to pray with me.

  Daddy set in to asking the Lord to forgive us our sins and trespasses. I wondered if we was trespassing on the church. It belonged to the Lord, and we was here so we wouldn’t get ate up. I didn’t say nothing to Daddy about it, though. I added an extra loud amen just so Daddy would know for sure that I wasn’t gray.

  Later I asked Daddy how come ever sinner is gray. He said the Lord decides such things. He said Momma was a sinner and that’s why she was gray all along and her soul was already under Hell. I didn’t say nothing to that. Sometimes Daddy said I took after my Momma. I wished I’d took after Daddy instead and been able to pray all by myself.

  I said it sounded like the gray people was gone. Daddy said you can’t trust the Devil’s tricks. Said the only way out was through the Lord. I said I was getting hungry again. Daddy said get some sleep and pray.

  I woke up lost in the dark and Daddy was screaming his head off. He was sitting where the moon come through the window and he said look at me, look at my skin. He held up his hands and said I’m gray, I’m gray, I’m gray. Said he was unfit to be in the House of the Lord. He put the shotgun barrel up to the side of his neck and then there was a flash of light and sounded like the world split in half and then something wet slapped against the walls.

  I crawled over to him and laid beside him ‘til all the warm had leaked out. I was scared and I wanted to pray but without Daddy to help me the Lord would look right into me and that was worse than anything. Then I thought if Daddy was in heaven now, maybe I could say a prayer to him instead and he could pass along my words to the Lord.

  The sun come up finally and Daddy didn’t look gray at all. He was white. His belly gurgled and the blood around his neck hole turned brown. I went to the door and unlocked it. Since it was Sunday morning, I figured people would be coming to hear the sermon. With more people in the church, I could pray without being so scared.

  I stacked up some of the hymn books and stood on them so I could look out the window. They was back. More gray people were walking by, all headed in the same direction. I figured they were going to that place under Hell, just like Daddy said, and it made me happy that Daddy died before he turned gray.

  Time passed real slow and the bread was long gone and nobody come to church. I never figured so many people that I used to pray with would end up turning gray. Like church didn’t do them no good at all. I thought of all the prayers I said with them and it made me scared, the kind of scared that fills you up belly first. I wondered what the Lord thought about all them sinners, and what kind of words the Lord said back to them when they prayed.

  Daddy’s fingers had gone stiff and I about had to break them to get the shotgun away. He’d used up the last shell. The door was unlock
ed but nobody set foot in the church. I was hoping whoever had knocked the other day might come back, but they didn’t.

  The gray people didn’t come in the church. I figured if they was eating live flesh they would get me sooner or later. Except maybe they was afraid about the church and all, or being in plain sight of the Lord. Or maybe they ain’t figured out doors yet. I wondered if you go through doors to get under Hell.

  Night come again. Daddy was dead cold. I was real hungry and I asked Daddy to tell the Lord about it, but I reckon Daddy would call that a selfish thing and wouldn’t pass it on. I kept trying to pray but I was scared. Preacher Aldridge said you got to do it alone, can’t nobody do it for you.

  Maybe one of them Aye-rab bugs got in while the door was open. Maybe the gray people ain’t ate me yet because I ain’t live flesh no more. Only the Lord knows. All I know is I can’t stay in this church another minute. Daddy’s starting to stink and the Lord’s looking right at me.

  Like I’m already gray.

  I don’t feel like I am, but Daddy said ever sinner is blind. And it’s the kind of hungry that hurts.

  Outside the church, the morning is fresh and cold and smells like broken flowers. I hear footsteps in the wet grass. I turn and walk, and I fit right in like they was saving a place for me. I’m one of them, following the ones ahead and leading the ones behind. We’re all headed in the same direction. Maybe this entire world is the place under Hell, and we’ve been here all along.

  I ain’t scared no more, just hungry. The hungry runs deep. You can’t live by bread alone. Sometimes you need meat instead of words.

  I don’t have to pray no more, out here where it ain’t never dark. Where the Lord don’t look at you. Where we’re all sinners. Where you’re born gray, again and again, and the End Times never end.

  Where you never walk alone.

  About the author:

  I have written 12 novels, including The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration, and The Skull Ring. Other electronic works include Burial to Follow and the story collections Ashes, The First, Murdermouth, Gateway Drug, and Flowers. I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I write for a newspaper, play guitar, raise an organic garden, and work as a freelance fiction editor.

  Come to the Haunted Computer, become a Spooky Microchip, and help me build my next book. You’ll also find writing tips, free fiction, and survival tips.

  Talk to me via email, Haunted Computer on Twitter, or Scott’s blog. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try. If you hated it, why not try another one anyway? What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and what does kill you is probably lurking in my next book. Read on for more.

  You should read these other thrillers because you deserve a strange, daring adventure:

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  Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

  By Scott Nicholson

  Stoker Award finalist and alternate selection of the Mystery Guild

  For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won't stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.

  Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother's ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, "Free me." People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall's return.

  The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.

  "Sacrifice is the currency of God," McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.

  Learn more about The Red Church and the real Appalachian church that inspired the novel: The Red Church

  DRUMMER BOY

  Book II in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

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  On an Appalachian Mountain ridge, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as “The Jangling Hole,” and the wind carries a whispered name.

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  On the eve of a Civil War reenactment, the town of Titusville prepares to host a staged battle. The weekend warriors aren’t aware they will soon be fighting an elusive army. A troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, is rising from a long slumber, and the war is far from over.

  And one misfit kid is all that stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…

  Learn more about Drummer Boy and the Appalachian legend that inspired the novel: Drummer Boy

  THE SKULL RING

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  Julia Stone will remember, even if it kills her.

  With the help of a therapist, Julia is piecing together childhood memories of the night her father vanished. When Julia finds a silver ring that bears the name "Judas Stone," the past comes creeping back. Someone is leaving strange messages inside her house, even though the door is locked. The local handyman offers help, but he has his own shadowy past. And the cop who investigated her father's disappearance has followed her to the small mountain town of Elkwood.

  Now Julia has a head full of memories, but she doesn't know which are real. Julia's therapist is playing games. The handyman is trying to save her, in more ways than one. And a sinister cult is closing in, claiming ownership of Julia's body and soul . . . .

  Learn more about The Skull Ring and False Recovered Memory Syndrome: The Skull Ring

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  Learn more about Speed Dating with the Dead and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel: Speed Dating with the Dead

  BURIAL TO FOLLOW

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  When Jacob Ridgehorn dies, it's up to Roby Snow to make sure his soul goes on to the eternal reward. The only way Roby can do that is convince the Ridgehorn family to eat a special pie, but a mysterious
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  Novella originally published in the Cemetery Dance anthology "Brimstone Turnpike.”

  Learn more about Burial to Follow at the Haunted Computer: Burial To Follow

  FLOWERS

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  Features the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Award grand-prize winner "The Vampire Shortstop" and other tales of fantasy for young adult readers, such as “When You Wear These Shoes” and “In The Heart of November.” Includes a bonus essay and afterword, as well as a bonus story from the author’s teen-age files.

  Learn more about the young-adult collection Flowers and the award-winning “The Vampire Shortstop”: Flowers

  ASHES

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  A collection of supernatural and stories by award-winning author Scott Nicholson, including "Homecoming," "The Night is an Ally" and "Last Writes." From the author of THE RED CHURCH, THE SKULL RING, and the story collections FLOWERS and THE FIRST, these stories visit haunted islands, disturbed families, and a lighthouse occupied by Edgar Allan Poe. Exclusive introduction by Jonathan Maberry, author of THE DRAGON FACTORY and GHOST ROAD BLUES, as well as an afterword.