Disturbed Graves: Tales of Terror and the Undead

by D. Allen Crowley

  Disturbed Graves: Tales of Terror and the Undead

  By D. Allen Crowley

  Dark Autumn Multimedia and Publishing

  © 2011 by D. Allen Crowley

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the author, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a newspaper, magazine or journal.

  The final approval for this literary material is granted by the author.

  First printing

  All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Printed in the United States of America

  Table of Contents

  Trapped

  Frostbite

  Working Stiffs

  Secret

  The Wrong Prey

  Sepulcher

  For Whom the Gods Love

  A Darkness Within: Prelude

  Sarah’s Date

  Dark Heirloom

  Fat Bill and the Sea Monkeys

  Trapped

  Trapped was originally published at www.homepageofthedead.com and was written specifically for that site. Despite my deep and abiding love of all things zombie, I’d never written a true zombie story before. Well, actually, I did write a horrible zombie short novel when I was 12, but it has since been aborted and flushed. Thank the dark Pagan gods! Whereas that first attempt was the first time I realized I loved writing, it was puerile and very derivative. Hopefully, this one isn’t! By the way, I used the names of two friends, Larry and Scott, in this and they were more than pleased to find themselves at the mercy of my literary monsters. - DAC

  Larry awoke to a world of pain and the wet, coppery smell of his own blood.

  He screamed out as he realized that he was hanging upside down, suspended painfully at his waist by the tight strap of a seatbelt.

  “What…” he said, trying in vain to remember how he had gotten here. After a few seconds of failed recollection, he looked around at his surroundings. It was obvious that he had been in a car crash, but he was damned if he could recall how or why it had happened. All he could remember was packing the car that morning as he and his best friend, Scott, had decided it was time to bug out and head for the cabin up north. It was the end of the world, after all.

  The dead had started walking and it was only a matter of time before humanity was done.

  This had been the thought process and it was how he had gotten himself in his current predicament. The undead had gotten out of control in the city and the police had given up. It had seemed like a good idea at the time. He remembered his and Scott’s hurried preparations, pulling out of the driveway, and then blackness until he had just opened his eyes a few moments before.

  Suddenly, his vision was obscured and he felt a salty burn as blood ran into his eyes.

  He freaked out.

  He slapped his right hand to his face and smeared the blood out of his eyes, his heart beating madly like an injured sparrow in the birdcage of his chest. He started to hyperventilate as he realized where he was.

  I’m outside! Oh, sweet jumping Christ! I’m outside and I’m trapped in this car, he thought.

  His other hand stabbed at the seat belt release and he screamed anew as an all-consuming bolt of pain struck him. When he could breathe again, he held his left arm in front of his face and saw with horror that two pieces of white bone poked out of a bleeding gash in his forearm. He stared dumbstruck at the jagged, splintered ends of his own radius and ulna, shock making the details of the bones seem especially vivid.

  That shouldn’t be on the outside, he thought absurdly. This thought was quickly followed by the staggering reality that he was now well and truly fucked.

  He was puzzling over what to do next when the situation grew downright grave.

  Outside of the car, disturbingly near, he heard a shuffling sound and the unmistakably inhuman moan of one of the undead. It was a chilling sound that he had heard many times over the last few weeks, but it now sounded especially horrifying given his predicament. It had been only a matter of time before they found the overturned car, and Larry’s time had run out.

  He had the insane urge to lie still, like a child would upon waking from an especially vivid nightmare. He remembered doing just that when he was younger, the thought that the dream monster was still there in the waking world. If one lay still long enough, perhaps it would go away. However, in this new world, the monster wouldn’t go away and no amount of stillness would stop its coming.

  He heard the zombie grow closer, moaning and making a wet, snuffling sound. Larry realized it smelled him. It could literally smell the fear commingled with the pungent scent of his blood.

  Larry turned towards the driver’s seat, where Scott should have been, to find it empty.

  “Scott?” he said, looking around the mangled car’s interior. He was alone.

  Larry reached with his uninjured right arm and jabbed at the seatbelt release, afraid for a moment that it was stuck. In his mind, unbidden images rose of zombies crawling into the wreck and eating him alive as he lay trapped and screaming. This fueled a new round of panic.

  Just as he was sure that the release wouldn’t work, there was a click and he fell in a painful ball on the roof of the car. He managed to not fall on his broken arm, but it still hurt like hell.

  The moaning outside grew louder and he scrambled towards the opposite side of the car. Broken windshield glass slashed his uninjured hand and knees as he rolled to the road and tried to stand.

  Too late, he realized he must have wrenched his knee in the crash.

  He screamed out at the pain, and began crying as he fell back to the sun- warmed road. Were it not for the approaching zombie, he would have lain there until he died of blood loss. With a groan, his survival instinct and panic kicked in and he rolled up. He reached for his gun and was surprised d to find it still in the holster on his waist. He pulled out the Heckler and Koch USP .45 and popped the magazine. A quick survey showed him he had five bullets left.

  “Damn it,” he said, “What was it you said, Scotty? ‘We’ll get more ammo on the way up to the cabin,’ Brilliant idea, Scotty. Brilliant.”

  Larry kicked himself for thinking it had been a sound plan at the time. He groaned in frustration as he slammed the magazine in with the palm of his hand and struggled to pull himself up.

  When he at last stood, he looked over the wreck of the car and was greeted by another shock.

  The approaching zombie was his best friend, Scott.

  “Shit, brother,” Larry breathed. It was obvious from his wounds that Scott had been thrown from the vehicle when it had crashed. He must then have died on the roadside and his now reanimated corpse was dragging its mangled body slowly down the sun sparkled asphalt, moaning and growling for Larry.

  Behind him, further down the road, Larry saw three more zombies slowly shambling towards the wreck.

  “Time to go,” Larry said, realizing he was in a worse state then even he could have imagined. Before he left though, he had to take care of Scott. It was the least he could do and he would have expected it from Scott had their positions been switched.

  Larry tested his wrenched knee and found he could use it provided he did so gingerly. He would not be running any races, but it might be enough to get him away from the undead that were bound to be after him.

  He limped around the car and made his way towards Scott’s prone figure. The zombie that had once been his friend turned cloudy, dead eyes up towards him and
reached a clawed hand for his leg. Without hesitation, Larry raised the pistol, took aim at Scott’s forehead, and pulled the trigger. There was a spray of blood and it was done.

  “Sorry, Bro,” Larry said, before turning, retrieving his backpack from the wreck, and limping off into the woods.

  It would be dark soon, and Larry was getting weak. He would need a place to hole up for the night. Someplace where he could rest, dress his wounds, and come up with a plan besides running madly.

  “Scratch that,” he said aloud, “…besides limping madly.”

  He found a hiding place completely by accident. He was making his way down a small hill on the edge of an open field when he tumbled and fell. He rolled down the hill in a painful tangle of arms and legs and came to rest in water. He found himself lying in a drainage ditch, trying to catch his breath. As he lay there, he glanced back the way he had fallen and saw a drain pipe protruding from the hill behind him. Its aperture was as dark and foreboding as the eye socket of a skull.

  He dragged himself closer, inspecting the culvert pipe. It was as broad as he was tall and, in the fading daylight, couldn’t see how far back it went. He thought about it for a moment before deciding to craw the rest of the way in. Utilizing the last of the fading light he retrieved a mini Maglight from his backpack and twisted it on.

  Peering into the gloom, he saw that the pipe ran back evenly for about ten yards before it terminated. There were rungs, so he assumed that the pipe must have gone up at a ninety-degree angle. Larry inched his way through stagnant water until he reached the back of the pipe. Shining his light up, he saw the rungs went up seven or eight feet and the pipe took another ninety-degree bend. It then continued in the same direction as the first section. Putting the flashlight in his mouth, he climbed up one handed and flopped onto the landing of the upper level of the pipe.

  The smell was much worse up here. It was an earthy, moldy smell that was mixed with raw sewage and other indiscernible, unpleasant odors. The pipe went on for another twenty yards until it backed up against a rusted metal grate. Spanning the entire pipe, it was packed with sticks and mud and other detritus. Larry dragged himself through the water and leaned against the grate, exhausted.

  He knew he was in bad shape.

  He shrugged again. On the positive side, it was the middle of summer and he didn’t need to worry about hypothermia; which was good because he was going to have to spend the night sitting in water. With his good arm he shucked off his pack and began to take inventory.

  An hour later, Larry was feeling better. His well-being was mostly attributed to his downing four Percosets with four good swigs from his flask of Irish whiskey. He had wrapped one end of his belt around the grate and the other around his left wrist. He had to reset the broken bone, and this was the only way he could think of to do so.

  He took a few deep breaths to steel himself for what he knew came next.

  “Hail Mary, full of grace,” he said, placing his feet on the grate on either side of the belt, “Jesus had a stock car, he loved to… race.”

  As he said “race”, he pulled as hard as he could.

  The agony of his arm bones resetting was like nothing he had ever felt. He screamed like he was being murdered and time seemed to stop. His vision went white and red and his whole being, his whole existence, became the pain.

  After an eternity, it ceased enough for him to breathe again. He fell to his side with a sob. Working quickly before he lost consciousness, he poured some whiskey over the gaping wound to disinfect it. The resulting burn seemed insignificant when compared to the prior pain.

  He wrapped a bandage around his arm and lay down in a fetal position, slipping seamlessly into unconsciousness. His last thought was that he should be safe. The zombies weren’t coordinated enough to navigate the bends of the pipe and the rungs of the ladder.

  Or so he hoped.

  Larry awoke to sunlight on his face. For a moment he forgot that the world had gone mad and that the dead walked, hungering for living flesh. But then the ache of his injuries brought him the rest of the way awake.

  He looked up.

  Five feet away, in the roof of the pipe, a small circular grate was set. It was only two and a half feet around. Larry puzzled about it for a few minutes before he woke enough to realize that it was probably there so that county workers could inspect the grate at his back. Either way, it let enough light in that he could see without his flashlight. Just past the portal in the roof was another grate, like the one that he had leaned against. It was chained to the ceiling and it looked like it was big enough to block the pipe. It was accessible from the portal, probably to act as a back up to the first one.

  He sat up, wincing. He felt like a piece of raw meat that had been worked over with a tenderizing mallet. There was no part of him that did not hurt.

  He did a quick personal inventory and realized that most of his pain came from his broken arm. He inspected the bandage and saw that it was still dry and that there was no evident seepage. That was a good sign. Yes, it hurt. The pain was like the constant bray of a car alarm. The bone was set though, and he knew the pain would stop eventually. He’d probably never have full use of it, but he figured that was a small price to pay. He could have been dead, like Scott.

  He shuddered at the mental image of his best friend lying on the road with his skull blown open.

  Better bury that image, he chided himself, those thoughts will eat you up with guilt.

  He reached into his bag and grabbed two Percoset and chewed them up dry. He did a quick count and saw he had twelve left.

  Better conserve, he thought.

  All in all, and besides the pain, the arm wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. His knee, on the other hand, was going to be a big problem.

  During the night it had swollen and he winced as he tried, and subsequently failed to straighten it. It was mildly distressing to see that the leg of his jeans was stretched as tight as the skin of a sausage.

  “Not good, Larry,” he said, “Good thing you’ve got a week’s worth of MRE’s. It looks like you’re stuck here for at least a few days until the swelling goes down.”

  Larry spent the day napping on and off. He had nothing better to do and he figured rest couldn’t hurt him. He woke around two in the afternoon, ate, and just as quickly went back to sleep. He woke again as the sun was going down and took another painkiller before falling into yet another fitful sleep.

  Larry was dreaming of being in the car again, the moans of Scott growing closer and the stench of dead flesh getting stronger and stronger. He struggled with the seatbelt but it would not come loose.

  “No!” he screamed, over and over, “No! Let me out! Please! Somebody help me! I’m alive in here!”

  He abruptly struggled awake and find himself in total darkness. He was covered in a cold sweat, the final vestiges of the dream holding onto him. He shivered at the dream’s vividness, at the fear, and the smell of the approaching zombies.

  As he lay there he realized that, in fact, the smell in his dream was still almost overpoweringly vivid. It was so vivid it wouldn’t go away.

  And then he heard the gurgling moan of a zombie in the pipe with him.

  “FUCK!” He yelled, struggling to find his flashlight. His fingers found it by chance and he twisted it on in time to see a massive hand reach over the lip at the end of the pipe.

  The hand was mottled and gray. It was missing fingers. And it was as big at the palm as a dinner plate.

  Larry watched in horror, paralyzed, as a head followed the hand and looked at him with black, cloudy eyes. The zombie was missing its nose and much of the skin over its left cheek. It moaned again and Larry could see its yellow teeth working through the gaping hole. The zombie began to pull itself up into the pipe and Larry screamed at the sheer massiveness of the zombie. It seemed almost unreal.

  The person that the undead had once been was the biggest man Larry had ever seen. He was well over seven feet tall and must easily have
weighed four hundred pounds when he was alive. Now, its huge girth and height was made even more incredible by the bloating that had happened with death.

  The creature snarled and bared its teeth at him. Larry broke from his paralysis and scurried down the pipe towards the monster. As he did this, the zombie was pulling two tree trunk legs up behind it. It was now in Larry’s part of the pipe.

  It began crawling slowly towards him, moaning and gnashing its teeth in anticipation of an upcoming meal. Its swollen, rotting body almost filled the pipe from side to side.

  Larry reached the second grate that was suspended from the ceiling and began pulling on the chain. Too late, he realized that it was secured with a heavy-duty padlock. Larry glanced down the tunnel and saw that the giant zombie was drawing closer.

  Frenzied, Larry grabbed at his pistol and drew it. Aiming at the chain, he pulled the trigger and was immediately deafened by the resulting gun blast. The grate swung down towards him, slamming down on rusty hinges and barely missing him. His heart sunk when, a second later, he realized that there was no way to secure the grate. He cursed inwardly, knowing that the zombie would undoubtedly have the strength to pull the storm grate backwards. It would still be able to reach him.

  Sobbing in terror, Larry scooted back to his end of the pipe, reaching it just as the zombie began pulling at the storm grate. Confirming his assessment, Larry watched aghast as the undead monster began pulling on the grate.

  Larry lifted the pistol again and fired two shots at the zombie. The first struck it in its shoulder, causing no discernible damage. The second hit the zombie in its neck, passing through and gouging out a large chunk of meat. It was equally ineffective.