Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5]

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  After the towels were dropped off, the sulking cat given a thorough scratching to win a reluctant purr, and the lock double-checked, Janice went to the kitchen to make a snack. Some imitation bacon went into the toaster oven and she got out a knife to cut squares of cheddar. There were even crackers without the boys in the house, so she fixed herself a nice plate of treats and turned to the toaster oven when it beeped.

  Holly was standing in the doorway, her eyes trailing away to a corner. Janice checked in reflex for the cat, but he was still in his laundry room jail cell. The girl’s pants were damp from the inner thigh down to the cuffs. A new tear was in her shirt and fresh blobs of mucus were protruding from her nostrils when she exhaled.

  If only Holly had been a 1 like Janice, spaced out in bed during her episodes. Then Janice could sit at her bedside and knit or read a book, pretend that they were spending some normal, quality time together. There was nothing remotely normal about Holly at the time being. Her fingers flexed at her sides as she said, “Uhhhhhhhh.” Snot bulged from her nose and retracted. That was sickening.

  “Hi, sweetie,” Janice said, itching to clean her off. “Are you hungry? You haven’t had anything to eat for a long time.”

  Holly would prefer the bacon to the cheese and crackers. As the girl wandered into the room, her eyes still fixed to the corner, Janice thought better about pushing out a chair. This far into an episode, convincing Holly to sit wasn’t going to be possible. Janice put the bacon on the plate and brought it to the table. She lifted a cracker to her lips and said, “Yum.” When she crunched down on the salty surface, Holly’s eyes shifted to her.

  Janice ate a second cracker and a square of cheese under the intense gaze. The smell of pee was filling the kitchen. But that wasn’t going to stop Janice from enjoying the crackers. She intended to eat the whole sleeve by herself, sparing only a couple to Holly if she would eat them, which she wouldn’t.

  The girl’s eyes shifted to the plate and Janice said, “Eat the bacon, Holly. That’s why your tummy is rumbling. You’re starving.”

  “Uhhhh-buhhhhh.”

  “Bacon,” Janice said. That had to be what Holly was trying to say. “Bacon.”

  Holly mashed her fist down on the bacon, and brought the squirming mass of pink slices close to her lips. She smashed it into her mouth with all the lack of grace that a toddler would have, a girl who had come to Janice fully capable of using a fork and spoon. She wielded them from day to day with far more precision than messy Marquis possessed.

  The bacon went in. She chewed it with her mouth wide open. It looked like flattened worms being mashed around in there, saliva stretching over the palate as her jaw worked up and down. Janice didn’t prompt her to chew with her mouth closed. Holly wouldn’t understand the command.

  Pieces of the imitation bacon began to leak out of Holly’s mouth. Janice said, “Wrong way! Swallow.”

  But she didn’t swallow. She chewed and chewed, the bacon mixing with her spit and more pieces of it oozing onto her mucus-covered chin. Chunks hit her shirt or fell directly to the linoleum. Her eyes were still on the plate even though her body wasn’t turned to it. Then they rolled up to the ceiling. Disgusted, Janice forced herself to eat another cracker and chunk of cheese. Crackers couldn’t be bought by the cartful any more. It was a treat when the store had a shipment, and everyone was limited to a purchase of one box a day. They were usually sold out within a week, and the shelf just gathered dust until the next shipment arrived a few months later. And then the kids would hog them all an hour after Janice got home from shopping, and she wouldn’t get a crumb.

  These weren’t crackers she would have purchased before. She hadn’t really bought crackers ever, except when she was making soup. Her cart would have held all-natural, multi-grain olive chips for a snack, and her children had adored Cheesey-Wheezies. Now she loved these plain old crackers because they were rare, and for just this once, they were hers.

  A huge glob of bacon fell out of Holly’s mouth and hit the linoleum with a splat. It didn’t appear that a single calorie of it had gone down her throat. Two vacant brown eyes rolled from the ceiling to the plate. “Uhhhhhh.”

  Janice’s cell phone rang. She had put it up high in a basket by the door. Leaving Holly to the plate and hoping she didn’t pick up the bacon from the floor to chew on it further, Janice clicked on the screen. “Hi, Daniel.”

  “I’m so sorry, I just wanted to let you know that they’re keeping us an extra day for an emergency vote,” Daniel said in a rush. “But then I’ll be back, I promise-” Voices yammered all around him and he added, “I have to go. Hold on, Bill, be right there! Janice, I’m so sorry-” He hung up.

  Her heart fell. She returned the phone to the basket. Holly had stepped partially on the lump of discarded bacon. It squished between the toes of her right foot. That was going to get tracked all over the house if Janice didn’t wipe her off.

  Clean up didn’t take too long. Holly had spaced out. Janice even got a swipe at her nose and chin. It was so hard not to fall back into the ever-on-repeat directions from parent to child, holding a tissue to Holly’s nose and saying blow, telling her to lift her foot, giving it a tickle, asking if she’d like to put on a pair of socks since her feet were cold. Undoing the button of the jeans, Janice had just pinched her fingers around the zipper when Holly groaned loudly in her ear. It was almost a scream, a frightening sound, and Janice backed away in reflex. The jeans would stay on until Holly either got them off herself or came out of her episode. But the shirt, Janice wanted to spare the shirt. It was one of Holly’s favorites, purple and with a little bear on each upper arm. “Sweetie, I just want to . . .” Why was she explaining? She was reaching down to the hem of the shirt when Holly threw herself at Janice and wrapped her arms around her waist in a hug. Planting her face squarely in Janice’s stomach, she tightened her grip.

  It brought tears to Janice’s eyes. She’d throw her shirt and Holly’s into the wash in a few minutes to get the snot, saliva, and bacon off. The cold was mild and the episode ending. After Holly took a shower, they could watch television together as the cat returned to his happy spot on the back of the sofa and the laundry machine rumbled beyond the unlocked door. Cartoons and Janice would mend the tear in the shirt as they shared the plate of snacks.

  Holly bit down.

  The pain was searing. Screaming, Janice pushed hard on Holly’s shoulders. She had a piece of Janice’s skin just above the navel in a death grip between her teeth. A growl came from the girl’s throat as she sliced the chunk of flesh free. Janice shoved her away, blood spilling down her stomach, both over and under the hole in the fabric.

  Holly had chewed on the bacon like she didn’t recognize that it was food. There was no such hesitation with the clump of shirt and bloody meat in her mouth now. She gave it a single chew, her upper lip curled and another growl emanating through the kitchen. Then she swallowed, and lunged at Janice for more.

  Janice ran around the table to put a barrier between them. “Holly, stop!” Blood reached her jeans and soaked in. The girl stalked along the circumference, her eyes on Janice’s stomach. Then her gaze shifted, and they looked at the same moment to the knife on the counter.

  Janice had left the knife on the counter.

  She’d cut the cheese with it and then the toaster oven had beeped. Without thinking, she had set the knife down and gone over to get the bacon, and then she’d seen Holly in the doorway and forgotten . . .

  They dove for it. Just as Holly began to close her fingers around the handle, Janice knocked it away. The knife spun over the counter. There wasn’t anything for it to catch on, since everything that usually rested there was on top of the refrigerator. It whirled around and around until it hit the side of the fridge with a dull thunk. They scrabbled after it, Janice using her greater height to reach over the girl’s head. Then Holly turned, intent on claiming more of Janice to consume, and Janice arched like a cat to keep her belly away. She pushed at the knife with the ti
ps of her fingers and knocked it behind the refrigerator.

  Then she recoiled and put her hand out to stop the girl’s advance. Curling her fingers around the girl’s forehead, she locked her arm and held her off. Her own blood was on Holly’s teeth and chin, mixing with her saliva and dripping down to the floor.

  Holly dropped and left Janice’s hand squeezing on nothing. She thought the girl had fainted from fever. But no, she had gone down onto her knees, where she launched herself at Janice’s legs. Janice parted them and Holly soared through, falling on her stomach as Janice leaped away.

  She should have put the girl in restraints yesterday. Set them up and had Corey help with holding Holly down to get the cuffs on. That had been a bad decision, and proof of it was now in sweet little Holly’s stomach. The restraints were in the girls’ bedroom closet on the highest shelf. Janice had to shut up the girl in a room and get them on the bed, hold her down and avoid the blows to get them on. With Corey gone and Judy at school, and Daniel not coming home . . .

  None of that mattered. Holly was coming after her.

  Janice ran into the living room, debating if she should try to close herself up in her bedroom or flee out the door and dash over the yards to the neighbors’. But that would loose Holly on the streets of Lincoln. Catching her would be hard and God only knew who she would attack before they brought her down.

  The decision was made. She ran to the hallway. Lock herself in, let Holly beat on the door, wait it out until the girl was somewhere else in the house. Then Janice would slip into the girls’ room and do the restraints. The hard part would come after that.

  Nails raked down her back. Holly was right on her heels. Janice lurched away through the nearest open door. Tumbling to the floor in the bathroom, she kicked the door shut in Holly’s face. The knob immediately began to turn. Off the floor in a nanosecond, Janice punched the button lock.

  “Uhhhhhhhhhh.” Thump. Thump. Thump.

  She breathed. Then she checked out the injury to her stomach. It was a deep bite, bloody and painful, but no mortal wound. It was definitely going to leave a scar. Damon hadn’t liked her C-section scar, but she wasn’t married to Damon any more. Daniel was just going to rub antiseptic all over it, press a kiss to the bandage, and persist in his belief that she was the sexiest woman in all of reclaimed Lincoln.

  THUMP.

  She wished she had her phone. Then she could call the emergency number. Help, I have a Type 2 child in a violent episode in my house. Send a squad car. The doors and windows were locked, but they would bust their way in and get control of Holly in no time. They had done that many times before in other foster homes.

  And they’d give Janice a stern lecture afterwards about the importance of restraints with her Type 2 foster children. As they grew bigger and stronger, the danger increased. They’d talk to Janice like she was five years old. That would be unbearably humiliating.

  Pressing a wad of toilet paper to her seeping wound, she rummaged through the drawer for first aid. Holly thumped on the door and groaned, primitively furious that she couldn’t get in to eat her meal. “Uh! Uhhhh! Uh-uh!”

  That might be a good idea for the future. Having an emergency cell phone in the bathroom. The window was too small for an adult to climb through, not to mention that it was permanently barred. Someone had mentioned at a Foster Parent Night that he had a cell phone in every room of his house. Janice had thought that was taking it too far.

  Now she didn’t think that so much as Holly growled and jiggled the knob.

  The shirt was destroyed, torn and bloody, but there wasn’t anything else in the bathroom for Janice to put on. She patched herself up and relocked the cabinets to keep Holly from making a weapon out of tweezers and fingernail scissors. After washing her hands, she slipped to the door and listened. It had been quiet for a full minute. Had Holly gone off? Pressing her ear to the wood, she closed her eyes and concentrated on the sounds of the home.

  Nothing. No footsteps. No thumps. No groans. There wasn’t any sound but birds tweeting outside. Holly had gone off and was either walking around out of hearing range in the house, or had spaced out. The spaced-out times never lasted too long, so Janice just waited. The continuing silence could have had one more cause. It was possible that Holly had curled up and gone to sleep. She had only had a few hours of sleep after all. Janice was certainly feeling the deprivation.

  She waited another minute, listening and staring at her reflection in the mirror. She looked older at forty than her mother had looked at sixty-five. That was just sad. Her mother hadn’t even left her bedroom until she was dressed and made up, whether she was going out for the day or staying in. Janice looked fresh from a war zone.

  All was quiet in the house. Believing that Holly had most likely gone back to the kitchen to hunt for the knife, Janice put her hand on the knob. But she didn’t turn it. Some instinctual warning sounded in the pit of her aching stomach. She released the knob and got down quietly on all fours. Then she bent down even further and pressed her face to the linoleum. It needed to be mopped. Sticking her fingers a little under the door, she compressed the carpet there to give her a view of the hallway.

  Bare feet.

  Holly was standing on the other side. Waiting. And being totally quiet, to let her prey gather up its confidence and dare to come out of the hidey-hole. Even Mason wasn’t that devious of a 2. This one was cunning. All of the intelligence she didn’t have in her normal form seemed to have mutated into a crude intelligence in her episodic form.

  She’s just a little girl.

  She’s not.

  Janice stood and took stock of her situation. There was no way out of the bathroom except the door. Rapping on the glass wouldn’t get the neighbors’ attention, since the window faced the backyard and a tall fence framed it. There was no phone to call or text anyone. In the locked cabinets was a tiny pair of scissors, and that was all she had for a weapon.

  She opened up all of the cabinets to see if she’d missed anything. From now on, there was going to be a phone in every room, and quite possibly a tranquilizer gun. Under the sink was her big bag full of cosmetics: lipsticks and eyeliners, foundation, dozens of nail polish bottles, and a Lovely Dust blush. The price sticker was still stuck to that one. She had bought it on an impulse from the dollar bin, charmed by the big pink container with the metal décor on the lid. Five inches tall and six inches wide, it was a faux vintage piece that reminded her of her mother’s wealth of cosmetics. The container was so cheerful that it had brightened up the whole cart full of mundane things.

  Then Janice had gotten it home, opened it up just once, and swiftly covered it. It had been a waste of a dollar. The blush inside was a garish color that only a woman selling herself on the street could love. The brush was an odd poof of fabric in the shape of a pillow. One was supposed to swipe it over one’s cheeks. The container was much too large to keep on a bathroom counter and she was never going to use the blush, so into the bag it had gone. She should have taken it back to the store for a refund.

  She thought of a way to immobilize Holly. Taking out the scissors, she broke up the solidified blush. Into chunks, smaller chunks, she set aside the scissors and broke up the dust even further in her fingers. Her skin flushed bright pink and blush spilled over the counter as she worked at it. Then she left the container there and turned to the shower. Her stomach throbbed as she stretched to undo the opaque plastic curtain from the hooks on the bar.

  This had to be done carefully. Undoing the button lock with a sharp snap, she retreated into the shower with the blush in her hands and the curtain down around her feet. She stood there while the knob was tried. Click-click. Silence. Click-click.

  Janice watched in the mirror as the door gave way. First she saw Holly’s dirty hand, traveling with the knob as the door opened. Just cleaned off, and already the girl was dirty. But it wasn’t dirt. It was Janice’s blood. Holly came in, her gaze latched to her hand. It lifted from the knob and she stuck her bloody fingers in
to her mouth to suck on them.

  The girl was cunning. But not cunning enough to use the mirror to tell her where Janice was. Holly came into the bathroom a little farther, almost cross-eyed as she was still looking down to her hand. Reddish tinted saliva dripped down to her wrist. “Uhhhhh.” There was almost a tone of pleasure to it. The blood tasted good.

  In the instant that Holly turned to the shower, Janice threw the container of dust into her face. The groan turned into a cough as pink exploded over the bathroom. Then Janice jerked up the shower curtain and dove at her. Blinded by the powder, Holly jerked and tried to throw out her arm, but Janice wrapped her up like a burrito.

  The girl didn’t like it. “Uhhhhhhhh!”

  Then she was covered up, the curtain extending over her head by a few inches and dragging at her feet. Janice looked down to the raging little face, the thrashing head and shoulders. Her struggles were violent as Janice picked her up, threw the bundle over her shoulder, and carried her into the master bedroom. Then she set her down on the floor, pinning the curtain closed with her foot, and jerked three of Daniel’s belts from the closet.

  This wasn’t how she wanted to treat Holly, or any child. She wanted her own children back, to kiss their heads and shout at them to stop fighting, drive them to school and beam at Parent-Teacher conferences when collecting accolades about their behavior and grades. They hadn’t heard their mother’s voice a good fifty percent of the time, but they were perfectly attentive to their instructors. She had loved being a mother. The hard times never lasted long; the sweet ones shined in her memory and forced everything else into shadow.

  Once the girl was thoroughly strapped, Janice went to the girls’ bedroom and brought down the restraints. This was a ruin of childhood, a ruin of parenthood. A ruin of the human race.

  The girl thrashed in her bindings, striking herself against something. Janice checked on her. The only movement the girl could pull off was to flop around like a beached fish. Returning to the girls’ bedroom, she fought with the mattress to get the restraints on. Although she was sweaty when it was done and wanted to take a break, she went back for the girl. Janice couldn’t rest until Holly was pinned down for good.