EYE WITNESS: Zombie
Edited by TW Brown
Cover Art by Robert Elrod
PUBLISHED BY:
May December Publications LLC
©2010 May December Publications LLC
Split-tree logo a registered trademark of
May December Publications LLC
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author
or May December Publications LLC.
Preface
Welcome to the debut anthology from May December Publications. This really is a dream come true. Some of the writers who contributed to this book may feel the same in a sense, but for me, putting all of this together has been amazing. I am very passionate about the written word, and what can I say…I absolutely dig zombies!
Let me introduce myself. My name is Todd Brown, President of May December Publications LLC. (It is sorta like being on a deserted island and calling myself king.) I have no delusions about how small we are, but everybody has to start somewhere. We will win our readers one at a time, and in doing so, we will grow. This anthology is a step in a journey that we hope will be long and wonderful.
What will make us different? First let me address the writer, published or not, who dreams of seeing their name in a table of contents. I believe our first rule is a good start: No Free Rides. Let’s be honest, we all have writers we flock to, and sometimes, that is not necessarily a good thing. Like many of you, I am a writer. (It doesn’t matter if you’ve been published or not, if you write…you’re a writer.) Not everything I write deserves to see itself in print. As painful as that may be, the truth is that I’ve written some bad stuff. So, should I be accepted to an anthology because the editor knows my name? Yeah, I didn’t think so either. To that end, all submissions for any anthology published by May December Publications are routed to a three-person review team WITHOUT the by-line.
So, Tonia Brown gets the same consideration as S. G. Browne. (No, he hasn’t actually submitted yet, but if he did, the review team—of which I am the only permanent member of the three—wouldn’t know until after the thumbs-up /thumbs-down vote was held.)
Now, a moment of disclosure here…I was worried I would not receive even one submission when I announced Eye Witness: Zombie. After two weeks, I had one story. But, we are gaining momentum. This will be good in that the competition for a spot in a May December Publications Anthology will increase. Sadly, that will also mean more rejection letters. I’ve received my fair share, so I know they sting. What you won’t get is a dismissive form letter. And, if you ask for specifics as to what would improve your chances, I’ll try to help. What will make our product stand out in a crowd is talent. That, my friends, resides in you…the writers.
Now, to all of you readers of zombie fiction…first, thank you for picking up this book. As far as anthologies go, I believe you will get your money’s worth. You may not love every story, but you will find ones that grab you and linger in the corner of your mind for a while.
What? Did I just admit that you may not love every single story in this book? Well, I sit on the three-person review panel. I read every submission. I did not give a thumbs-up to everything, but a two-to-one vote still wins. My vote does not weigh more. Why? Because, contrary to what I try to convince my wife and children…I don’t know everything. However, I do believe we have a lot of great zombie fiction between the covers.
One more note before I get to the ‘thank you’ portion and turn you loose in a world of undeath (provided you’re still reading this rambling missive). Edits and errors…I have tried, using Strunk and White, The Brief Handbook, and when all else failed, searched my library for an example to produce a well-edited anthology. I take full responsibility for every single spelling error or missed comma. To that end, if you find an error, please feel free to email the mistake and its page to me at: [email protected]. In the subject line include the anthology title and the words ‘editing snag’. We will check the mistake, and if it is valid, correct it in a future edition. After all…this book is yours. Much like a public park, let’s strive to make it a little nicer for those who come after. One note, we received submissions from outside the confines of the US. In the spirit of those writers, I opted to retain their spellings to keep the international flavor.
And now…the words of appreciation. My wife Denise; do you have any more room on your plate? This couldn’t happen without you. Byron Remple; what a great cover! Ian Lohrman; for connectiong me with Faron…wait until you see the panels he created for each story. Every writer who submitted a piece to this anthology; whether you were accepted or not…you made this book happen.
Enough of me…time for what you really came for…Eye Witness: Zombie!
Stay seated until the ride comes to a complete stop.
T W Brown
September 2010
Contents
Doomsday Ramblings by Tonia Brown
A Soldier’s Lament by Patrick D’Orazio
Childish Things by William Wood
Mere Symptoms of Living by Kris Ashton
All In Your Head by Stephanie Kincaid
The Nightmare by William Lederman
Run Through the Jungle by Tony Monchinski
Dredge by Nikki Sedlock
One Nation Undead by Mike Harrison
Eye in the Sky by John McCuaig
Embedded by Andrew Black
Baby Killer by Ron Harris
Dedications
This book is dedicated to:Kris Ashton, Andrew Black, Tonia Brown, Patrick D’Orazio, Ron Harris, Mike Harrison, Stephanie Kincaid, William Lederman, John McCuaig, Tony Monchinski, Nikki Sedlock, and William Wood
You will all always be my first.
Tonia Brown’s short stories have appeared in a variety of anthologies, such as Letters From The Dead, Tooth Decay, and Hungry for Your Love. She is also the proud author of several books, including Lucky Stiff: Memoirs of an Undead Lover, and the erotic steampunk series Clockworks and Corsets. Tonia lives in the hills of North Carolina with her loving husband and an ever fluctuating number of cats. When not writing she splits her time between reading, loving said husband, petting said cats and dreaming of her next novel.
Governor says rural residents live in false bubble of security *EWZN* “Zombies” sighted
Doomsday RamblingsReported By Tonia Brown
My name is Nathaniel Childers, and right off I feel I must admit that I’m a man of little worldly ways, and even less brain. So when my dear departed Bertha crawled out of her fresh grave and decided to come round for a spell one Saturday night, it didn’t seem at all like an unusual thing to a stupid old coot like me.
It was her heart that got her. I’m a skinny man myself, and I always told Bertha that her weight just wasn’t healthy. She was a big woman, to say the least. After all, they didn’t call her Big Bertha for nothing. I’d remind her, on a near daily basis, that a woman her size was bound for the cemetery at a young age. My Bertha proved me wrong by lasting almost sixty years before her ticker popped its gasket. I have to hand it to her though, with as good of
a cook as she had been in life, the real surprise was how skinny I kept.
I put her in the ground about a mile from the house, atop a hill with a pretty view of the countryside. Bertha always did like to look at the flowers and such, so I reckoned she would be real happy staring at them for all eternity. My plot is right beside hers, but I had no intention of joining her there anytime soon. Don’t get me wrong now, I love my wife and all, but death is a bit final for me. I figured Bertha wouldn’t mind if I waited my turn, real slow and proper like.
The night she came back, about five days after the fun-eral, I was mindin’ my own, watching the television and drinking from a tall Mason jar of white lightning, trying to settle into the life of a bachelor now that my wife of over forty years had passed on. I suppose I was expected to look for another wife, but in reality, even I knew that would be a wasted effort. A man as old as me is too set in my ways to make nice with some new ball and chain. Besides, who would want me anyways? Bertha might not have been much to look at, but at least she put up with my ugly mug without much complaint. No. I had supposed I’d live out the remainder of my life alone, with nothing but my still for company.
My still? Oh yeah, that was the one thing I might have loved more than my Bertha. I had spent my whole life perfecting the set up of it. The white lighting me and my still put out attracted attention from miles around. Even the law overlooked a little bootlegging just for the occasional flask full of the stuff. I was right tight fisted with the construct of my still. I wouldn’t even allow Bertha to come into my private shed. It was a lifetime of effort, well rewarded by the finest moonshine one man could make.
But back to Bertha, yes?
So there I sat, feet propped up on the coffee table, another thing I was never allowed to do under Bertha’s reign, liquor in hand and television a-blarin’ some trashy show she would’ve never let me watch. I almost didn’t hear her beating at the door. At first it was a thump, so low that it just registered in between the canned laughter and my own guffaws. Soon, the thumps turned into knocks and I was drawn away from my rest by the annoying sound of it. I pushed back in my recliner. Broken as it was, the feet never lifted, but the head would lean back far enough to let me look down the main hall to the door. When it was warm enough, I kept the front door open, so I could see who was there without having to get up. Not that anyone visited with us living so far out in the sticks, but the possibility was always there. Wasn’t it?
The pounding was persistent, so I leaned back in my chair, staring down the hall, wondering who in the Sam Hill was beating on my door so late at night. I strained as best I could, but all I could make out was a shadowy blob pressed against the screen. As usual, I had left the porch light off. I figured it not only saved me a bit of money at the end of the month not to burn the fooled thing, but that it also doesn’t do any good to leave it lit anyways. There’s nothin’ out this far except bugs and possums and coons.
And me.
And the thing at the door.
“Who’s thar?” I shouted at the blob.
The blob shifted about, then let out a low moan.
The sound of it made me straighten up in my chair. The moan was eerie sounding, low and cruel, but worse yet, the tone was of a hauntingly familiar variety. Turning down the television, I leaned into the moan, which went on and on, and seemed like it was never going to stop. Yup, I recognized that moan all right. For as much moaning and grumbling Bertha done in life, I could recognize her complaining tone anywhere. Couldn’t have belonged to her though, considering she was a good six feet under ground and at least mile away. She wouldn’t even walk the ten yards to the end of the drive, much less a mile. Even dead, I didn’t reckon Bertha would walk a whole mile just to see me again.
Then the moan came to an abrupt stop, at which the pounding started again.
I weren’t sure what to do about it. If the moan did belong to her, and she was alive, then I was going to be in a world of trouble. She couldn’t be though, the doctors all said she was gone. Heck, I even seen her corpse with my own eyes, stretched out on the gurney in that emergency room, blue as a cloudless sky with her chest as still as it could be. I remembered I kept watch on it, thinking she might start breathing again at any moment, but no, she was dead. I also remembered there was a passel of real pretty nurses coming and going to make sure the grieving spouse was well taken care of. Bertha looked deader than a can of ham that night. Still looked dead two days later at the wake. Last I remembered was her looking very dead as they closed her casket that last time.
But then again, even with all their fancy learnin’ the doctors still didn’t know everything. That privilege was held for but one being. And according to the scripture, He wasn’t giving that up anytime soon. Which left me to wonder just how long a woman could lay looking dead to the world, but still be alive on the inside.
I gulped the last of my moonshine to straighten my nerves. No sooner had I swallowed that burning mouthful, when the pounding stopped. It was so sudden that I almost choked on my own liquor. In the silence there came the distinct sound of creaking, high and screechy, as whatever it was on the porch shuffled about across the worn wooden floorboards. The creaking settled it. There was no doubt that the thing on the porch was my Bertha come back to me.
Only Big Bertha Childers could make a porch scream for mercy like that.
I got to my feet and drug myself down the hall to meet my fate. She was going to be sore, I just knew it. Not only had I buried her alive, but I put her in her best church gown, too. I could just see it in ruins from pulling herself free of the soft earth. Yup, she was going to be sore all right. No wonder she was moaning.
As I reached the end of the long hallway, the creaking came to a stop.
“Bertha?” I called out.
No one answered. Not a moan. Not a creak.
I flipped on the light, and to my surprise, and not to mention delight, the porch was indeed empty. I figured I must have imagined the whole thing. Or maybe it was the moonshine talking. Sure. That was it. No way my Bertha could be back. She was dead. Dead and buried and not coming back.
“Bertha,” I whispered to no one in particular.
The idea of her being gone hit me pretty hard just then. You know, I tried to be a man about the whole thing, not shedding a tear in the hospital, or the wake, or the funeral. I told myself I wouldn’t miss her endless prattle, her constant complaints, her hogging the bed at night. But there, in the silence of my empty home, I couldn’t help but feel the loss of her. She wasn’t there any more to butter my bread, or fetch me another beer, or rub my aching feet. And she knew my feet ached an awful lot.
It was at that point I realized I might just miss her after all.
Before I could come to grieve her good and proper, the sound of shattering glass filled the house. I left my post at the front door, moving about as quick as my old feet could carry me, heading toward the back end of the house. There, I found the kitchen in shambles. The place looked like a tornado had been through it. All of the countertop sundries were pushed to the floor with big patches of sugar and flour all over the place covering everything in a layer of white like some winter baking wonderland. The fridge was standing open and most of its contents were also on the floor. Cabinets stood wide with broken plates and busted cups in heaps upon the kitchen tiles as well.
And in the midst of it all sat my Bertha, with her head hung low.
So she was alive, only she didn’t look well. Not well at all. Her hair was matted with mud, while her mottled arms and legs were smeared with streaks of blood and dirt, all evidence I supposed of her breaking free from her coffin. Her Sunday-go-to-meeting dress was just as I suspected it would be, in ruins, tattered and caked with filth. She was going to give me what for about that. I just knew it.
I cleared my throat and asked, “Bertha?”
At the sound of her name, she jerked her head up to face me. I thought my big woman wasn’t much to look at before, now she was something I never wanted
to see again. Last I set eyes on her she was blue and swollen and down right ugly, but no more than usual. This Bertha wasn’t just uneasy on the peepers, she bordered on hideous. Her face was a mess of bruises and cuts, with one of her eyes just outright gone, God only knows where, and the other rolling about in its socket like it might pop free any second. She opened her mouth at me to let out another low moan, revealing a set of black swollen gums as a border for grimy teeth.
Now, I’m not a clever man by any stretch of the imagination. I ain’t no doctor, or preacher, or even a high school graduate. In spite of all of this, even I knew that the woman sitting in the middle of my kitchen floor was Dead. She was Dead with a capital ‘D.’ Heck, she was deader than she was the day she died, if that was at all possible. And from the looks of things, it sure was.
I suppose I accepted her unusual return part out of shock and part out of grief. Perhaps I thought of it as providence. There I was just on the verge of sorefully missing her when she up and came back to me. Sure she was dead, but I ain’t a picky man. I’ve always been of the school of taking what I could get, when I could get it. Before I knew what was happening, we settled into our old routine.
“Bertha! Look at you. You’d think as much as that dress cost you’da done took better care of it. Talk about letting yourself go. I can see right through all the way to your undies. You want everyone to see your bloomers? Come on, let’s git you outta that rag and into your house coat.”
I moved in, holding my arms out to help my late wife from her position on the kitchen floor, and that was when the smell hit me. It was putrid and rotting and just plain awful. Covering my nose, I staggered away gagging and wrenching, trying my best not to vomit all over the sugar I had every intention of sweeping back into its container after I had Bertha settled in. It was a good thing I stepped back, ‘cause just as I did Bertha lunged for my arm, snapping at the air with her nasty teeth just moments after I jerked away. I didn’t think much of it at the time. I just supposed after spending five days buried in the ground she was powerful hungry.
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