Living With the Dead: Year One (Books 1-2, Bonus Material)

by Guess, Joshua; Ribken, Annetta; Ayers, Rachel; Whitwam, Lori

  “But I don't want to leave, Uncle,” I started to say, but he smacked me across the face so hard I tasted blood.

  “Don't you smart off to me, boy! You ain't stayin' here with this bunch of faggots and fornicators! 'Lessen you want to be one of them yerself. Is that what you want?” To my way of thinkin', this bunch of faggots and fornicators were a sight better than what I was dealin' with, but it ain't like I had a choice. “You owe us, boy, don't you never fergit that. You shoulda been whipped right along with the rest of us. I say we go, and yer goin' with us.” He was right, I knowed it.

  I'm still watchin' that smartie, watchin' what he's doin'. He's got a group of zombies gathered over there, see 'em? They's jest standing there, I know they don't talk. At least, I don't think they do, but that smartie's got something going on. I wonder what he's doin' with 'em. He's walkin' 'round in a circle, 'round and 'round. Every once in a while he reaches out and touches one and they shudder. I wonder if it has somethin' to do with that bacteria thang Dr. Evans was talkin' 'bout. The wind's changin', I kin hear the leaves rustlin' and the smell is purty rank, but I think I'm still okay up here.

  Anyways, I was right about Preacher John. It warn't too long before he was back. Tole you he was ornery. Even the zombies didn't want to et him, and I don't blame 'em. He and Uncle Joe Bob huddled together for a coupla days, whisperin' and I jest knew they was up to no good. I tried to warn Patrick, but he didn't have no time fer me no more, and it wasn't like I had friends to tell. They's nice people at the compound, don't git me wrong, but livin' with Uncle Joe Bob and Momma didn't make me very popular. It's like nobody wanted nothin' to do with me.

  Any chance I had of gittin' along without Uncle Joe Bob and Momma was killed right along with Preacher John when he held up that little kid in front of him when we was tryin' to git some stuff from the armory. Somebody had the guts to take the shot, and down ole' Preacher went. The compound people were danged mad about the whole thang, but what can you 'spect from a man like Preacher John?

  There was a lotta harsh words thrown 'round, sure was. Oh, Uncle Joe Bob blamed it all on the preacher, but he was hell-bent on gittin' outta here. He was locked up for a spell when we tried to git some vittles from the storage, and I guess the people from the compound decided we all should git on with the goin' if we wanted to so bad. I didn't want to leave, and I'm thinking none of the other kids did neither, but we warn't never gonna be one of them and we all knew it. So even though they gave us a choice, it warn't much of one.

  That smartie is still circling around his buddies. He stops for a time at the ones he's touched and I could swear they's talking. One by one the rest kinda just wander off. I guess they ain't innerested in what he's sayin'. Dr. Evans said somethin' once about how they's changin', gitting smarter and passin' that along to the others. I guess they ain't all cut out fer it. Makes me wonder.

  Leaving the compound was hard, but it warn't nothing compared to what I had to deal with once we was outta there. Uncle Joe Bob ain't dumb when it comes to survivin', that's fer sure, but he leaves a heap ta be desired when it comes ta people skills. They's all holed up about five miles from here, but after a couple of weeks of getting' beat fer no reason and watchin' him have his way with all the women-folk whether they wanted it or not (and most of 'em didn't) I'd had enough.

  That's why I'm in this tree stand and watchin'. There's no way I can take on Uncle Joe Bob by myself. I'm jest a kid. But look at them thar zombies. They's strong, and they never give up. I ain't stupid. I bet I could be a smartie. And a smartie zombie's a sight smarter than Uncle Joe Bob.

  Annetta Ribken writes web copy by day, but by night she is deep in the bowels of her fiction addiction. Not only does she write her own words, she is an accomplished editor (she prefers the term “story doctor”) and works with other people's words, with permission, of course. She has been writing and reading since a tender young age, when words were chiseled on stone tablets, although she is nineteen in her head and can pass for twice that on a good day and with some help from Miss Clairol.

  A flash fiction aficionado, Annetta has recently released her first collection of flash titled, Not Nice and Other Understatements, on sale at Amazon.com both in a Kindle edition and in print. This fine volume, which has been likened to a “jalepeno-laced jelly doughnut”, is also available in a variety of e-formats on Smashwords including a format for mobile devices and can be found for the Nook or in print on the Barnes and Noble website here . She is currently at work on Athena's Promise, an urban fantasy about a hotel run by a demi-goddess and a Gorgon on the edge of Zombie Town. You can keep up with her antics on her blog, www.wordwebbing.com, her author page at Amazon here or her Facebook fan page http://www.facebook.com/Annetta.Ribken .

  Options

  Joshua Guess

  Blood trailed behind her as she struggled to get the kids into the bathroom. There was only one window in there, small and high up on the wall. Whatever those things were, they wouldn't be able to get in that way. The door was one of the originals, too, not a flimsy replacement like the others she'd bought when she fixed up the old house. It was solid. Strong. It would hold them off.

  It had to. Didn't it?

  She pulled them past the narrow table in the hallway, the one that her husband kept telling her he'd fix. Year after year he'd said it, even on the day when he had gone our for a beer and never come back. She dragged them by their arms, her grip so tight they cried. Seven and four were too young to understand the danger. All they knew was that mommy was hurting them, and they wailed with the pain of it, and the betrayal.

  Past the table, rocking on its uneven legs as they brushed against it. The sound of shattering glass followed them down the hall. She slipped on a blanket covered with giant cartoon bees, her blood spraying across their smiling, woven faces as she righted herself.

  Finally, the bathroom. She pushed the children in and turned to close the door, free hand whipping to the waist of her pants to pull out the revolver her husband had left behind.

  There was one of them, right in front of her.

  Her mind was all rage as she raised the weapon and fired. The bullet hit the thing in the right cheek, tearing away a quarter of its face and dropping it instantly. There was another right behind it, and she raised her free hand to the butt of the gun to steady her aim. A second deafening blast of sound, and another blood-soaked creature was down.

  Four bullets left. There were at least a half dozen more coming down the hall. She pulled the door shut and threw the old-fashioned bolt that locked it. Seconds later, the door began to rattle against the frame as the relentless attackers tried to get in. She could hear the wood crack.

  Ignoring the stench of burned gunpowder and the confused cries of her children, she scrambled over them to look out the tiny window. Not large enough for her to go through, it might be just big enough for the kids...

  The yard beyond was littered with wild-eyed men and women, faces and chests drenched with scarlet. Right next to the house, not five feet from her, was a little boy holding a his teddy bear, still chewing on something that squirted crimson down his chin. Her eyes met the child's and in them she saw naked hunger. Almost lust.

  She sank down into the tub, arms resting loosely on her knees. The pounding on the door intensified, but she didn't react. She was trying to come up with a solution.

  With a sudden crack, the door slammed open. Her reaction was swift—two shots, two more of the attackers down. The ringing in her ears mingled with the screams of terror boiling from the throats of her children.

  More of them were scrambling over the bodies of their fallen brothers. Too many, too much to handle. The missing piece of her leg throbbed with agony, and her mind went to the news reports. Avoid bites. The bites are dangerous.

  Seconds left before they reached her. Before they reached the children, who were backing toward the tub, bottoms scooting across the floor. The first one crossed the doorway, and the weight of the gun in her hand seemed infinite.<
br />
  She lifted it anyway.

  She aimed, tears rolling down her cheeks, and spoke.

  “I love you both.”

  Monsters Unmasked: A Living With the Dead Novella

  By Lori Whitwam

  “If what you are is what you do when crisis comes, then they were monsters, worse than the shambling dead that surround us at all times.” –Joshua Guess, March 28, 2010

  It should be easy to tell who the monsters are in the middle of a global zombie pandemic. The blank-eyed swarms of animated corpses who want to gnaw on your flesh are the obvious choice. The reality, though, is it’s not always that simple.

  I learned that less than a week after the outbreak started, and it was like getting hit in the head. In this case, literally. I was a graduate student at Kentucky State University, studying for my degree in Library Science. I wasn’t a tough girl. In fact, I was a real Pollyanna. Life was wonderful, the future was bright, and there was never anything with fangs under the bed. I lived off-campus with my older brother, Matt, who managed a wholesale buyer’s club off of I-64. At first, he didn’t like having his little sister underfoot, but I was quiet by nature, and between classes and working part-time in the University library, he barely knew I was there.

  A couple of days after the “riots” were reported in Cincinnati, we knew something terrible was happening. I don’t remember which of us said the z-word first. It felt ridiculous, and I almost laughed, but soon it was all too real. Our parents lived in Cheviot, on the west side of Downtown Cincinnati. We heard from them once, the day it started, and they were planning to wait it out. I guess that didn’t go well, since we were unable to reach them again.

  When the zombies started turning up on the Kentucky side of the river, panic took over within hours. Matt hoped to get his store’s valuable supplies into the hands of those who needed them, rather than looters who wanted the power that came with a monopoly on essential goods. He didn’t want to leave me alone, so we headed for his pickup. I put my little beagle mix, Skip, in his crate behind the seats, and we went to assess the situation, dodging the groups of zombies that were beginning to clog the streets.

  At first, people still went through the motions of trying to do business, but things quickly spiraled out of control. Fights broke out all over the store, and some people began wheeling their top-heavy shopping carts right past the checkout counters. Nobody tried to stop them. Most of them were openly carrying guns.

  I got worried about leaving Skip in the truck in case someone stole it. I got him out, put on his leash, and rushed back inside to find Matt. He was in the warehouse, and a large truck was backed up to the loading bay. Any other time this wouldn’t have seemed unusual, but this was not a normal day. Matt was backed against a pallet of canned vegetables, his hands in the air, facing five men with shotguns.

  I froze, as Skip began to growl. I recognized the man in front. I’d seen him many times when I stopped by the store to shop, or talk to Matt about borrowing his truck. His name was Mason. He was taller than Matt, but thinner, though working in a warehouse had given him tight, ropy muscles. He had sandy hair that was always in his eyes, and he seemed shy, occasionally nodding at me but never speaking.

  He didn’t look shy now.

  Matt, foolish, responsible Matt. “You can’t just drive off with all this stuff, Mason! People need it. We have to help people coming in here get the things that might keep them alive.”

  A dry, emotionless laugh was Mason’s reply. “Hey, dumb-shit, you don’t get it. It’s every man for himself now.” Gunshots were heard through the loading bay door. “See? They’re here already. Me and the boys are gonna set us up a supply depot. This will make a real good start.” His eyes cut to me. “Maybe your sister’d like to join us. I bet she’d be real popular.”

  Matt took a step toward Mason, and in an instant Mason brought up his gun and fired. Matt flew backward, the pallet behind him rocking with the impact. That hadn’t been a warning shot. It hadn’t been to wound or incapacitate. Mason had shot Matt in the face, and I’m sure he was dead before the first drops of his blood hit the floor.

  I screamed, and Skip barked and lunged at the end of his leash. Mason swung the gun toward us, then dipped it down, pointed directly at Skip. “We don’t need this noisy little fucker.”

  His finger tightened on the trigger, and I let go of Skip’s leash. “Go, Skip! Run!” He leaped forward just as the gun went off. He yelped, but kept going, right out the back door.

  I sank to the floor. I looked at my dead brother, and hoped Skip would keep running and find somewhere safe until I could get him. I couldn’t wrap my head around what was happening. There were monsters outside, roaming our streets. This guy, who was barely older than I was, had a gun pointed at me. I began scooting backward, getting my hands under me so I could get up and run.

  “Oh, no you don’t, sweet thang,” Mason said. “Ellen, isn’t it? Miss Ellen Hale, always so cool and proper. Well, them days are over.” He moved toward me, swung his fist, and that’s all I knew for a while.

  ***

  I couldn’t feel my arms. The only light I could see came from a narrow crack between two broad metal doors. I made out the shapes of crates and boxes stacked around me, and concluded I was in the back of the truck Mason and his goons loaded with stolen merchandise. The engine rumbled, but we weren’t moving. The lack of motion may have been what nudged me back to consciousness.

  A quick inventory told me my hands were bound behind my back, and my head throbbed. In the dim light, I discovered the chill I felt was due to my shirt being pushed up under my arms, exposing my bra, and my jeans were unbuttoned and unzipped. They remained in place, though, and I hoped that was a good sign.

  The doors banged open and I squinted, ducking my head away from the light. “Well, the princess is awake.” I recognized Mason’s condescending, contemptuous drawl. I didn’t say anything. “Ignore me if you want, princess. Won’t do any good.”

  As my eyes adjusted to the brightness, I saw pallets of food, bottled water, and other items stolen from the wholesale club, as well as cases of bourbon. I surmised we’d made another stop, looting the Buffalo Trace Distillery on the north side of town, while I was unconscious. Fabulous. I read enough novels to know liquor was a high-value commodity in any survival situation. I also knew enough about mean drunks to be even more afraid.

  Mason climbed into the truck and reached behind me. He grabbed my bound wrists and jerked me to my feet and then out into the early March sun. I saw that we were behind a run-down two story hotel off the highway. The windows were boarded up, and I noticed signs of a recent fire scorching the walls to one side of the back door. A power pole canted against the building.

  He pushed me ahead of him, and I was ridiculously grateful that my shirt slipped down to cover me, though I had to shuffle, thighs together, to keep my jeans from slipping down. We went up the stairs to the second floor. I heard other women calling from behind doors fastened with latches and padlocks. Some were shouting for help, but mostly I heard sobbing. I wondered how long it would be before I was doing the same thing.

  Near the end of the hall, Mason unlocked a door and pushed me inside. A stocky, greasy-looking man stood near the bathroom, which was lacking a door. The Welcome Wagon, I supposed. Mason handed me off to him and left, with a final visual grope before the door closed.

  I looked around. The room took “no-frills” to a whole new low. There was a bed with a pillow and blanket, and a table with two plain chairs. That was it. No lamp, since it appeared the building had no power. No dresser. Nothing on the walls. After my hands were released and I asked to use the bathroom, I found no shower curtain, and the lid to the toilet tank had been sealed with some sort of epoxy, leaving no access to the metallic bits inside.

  When the jailer departed, I heard the snap of the lock and curled in a ball on the bed, as tears squeezed past my tightly-clenched eyelids. Matt was dead, for offering what would have been no more than a token resi
stance to the group of armed thieves. Skip was missing, maybe hurt or dead. Did zombies eat dogs? Since I’d seen my first zombie only twenty-four hours ago, I didn’t know much about their habits and behaviors, except that they’d eat me if they got a chance. Maybe a gunshot was the cleanest death any of us could wish for now.

  It must have been a couple of hours later when I heard the lock rattling. A tall, gangly guy of maybe eighteen entered. He set a tray on the table and tossed a small, cloth bundle at me. I shook it out to see a light green t-shirt style dress.

  “Go put that on,” he said. “Take everything else off, and give it to me, except your socks. You can keep those.”

  I stared at him for a second, unable to comprehend. When I came out of the bathroom wearing the dress over my own bra and panties, I was sent back and forced to remove them. He left me a small lantern, cautioning me to use the battery sparingly, because I’d be forced to “earn” another one. He took my shirt, jeans, bra, underwear, and shoes.

  Before he left, he said, “Mason will be up soon. He breaks in all the new ones. But I think I’ll see about getting a turn with you when he’s done.”

  I shuddered. Though it had never been much of a mystery, I now had confirmation. I would be raped. Repeatedly. Death-by-zombie was starting to sound like a good exit strategy.

  Though I wasn’t hungry, I ate the canned stew and sliced white bread on the tray, and drank the bottle of water. My spoon was plastic. I mused that unless the zombies were somehow defeated soon, sliced white bread from huge assembly-line bakeries would be a thing of the past.