What Fears Become: An Anthology from The Horror Zine

by Piers Anthony

  Behind him the sounds of the arcade games and Hannah's laughter beckoned.

  He inched his way closer, kneeled down, reached out, his fingertips just inches from the shiny coin. He felt a tug on his arm, something pulling him forward.

  He snatched his hand back and scooted away. The flag ruffled next to him, and he realized the wind was coming from them. No way, he thought. You've been playing too many video games.

  "Come on!" he heard Travis yell behind him. "What are you doing out there?"

  Corey turned to him and said, "I'll be there in a minute!"

  He faced the mall walkers again. He sucked in a deep breath and let it out slowly. He crept forward, extended his arm, eyes on the coin—it was so close!

  The flag whipped and snapped.

  He felt the tug on his arm again, tried to pull back, but he was off balance. The force—strong as a tornado—dragged him out of the arcade and into the mob of walkers.

  He bounced off their legs and tumbled along the hard, dusty floor. Instead of falling under a train, he now felt like he'd plunged into a raging river. Bodies slammed into him like waves, knocking him down each time he tried to stand.

  He looked up, tried to spot Travis and the girls to call for help, but he was no longer in the mall. He was now at his high school graduation, crossing the stage, accepting his diploma. An elbow caught him in the ribs and he found himself in his college dorm room, kneeling at the toilet after drinking too much. A knee struck him, sent him spinning, and he was losing his virginity on Spring break. Then he was in a church, standing before a beautiful woman, placing a ring on her slender finger. Now he was in a hospital, holding a crying baby. Emotions flashed by in a strobe light of joy, pain, lust, rage. Then time seemed to freeze and he was standing in the rain, weeping over a grave. He'd never felt so alone.

  A hand grabbed him under the arm. Another seized his elbow. Wind rushed past his ears as they hauled him to his feet. A crowd of mall walkers surrounded him, their rheumy eyes fixed on him. An old man with saggy jowls and thick glasses said, "You okay?"

  Corey stared back at him in revulsion.

  "Looks like you're bleeding," a woman in a pearl-white wig said.

  Corey followed her gaze down to his right arm. He gasped when he saw the old, leathery skin with the scrape on it. This couldn't be real!

  He examined the rest of his body, his wide eyes shifting from his liver-spotted hands, down past his white shorts to his knobby knees and stick-thin legs, webbed with varicose veins.

  "What the hell?" he whispered, his voice a raspy croak.

  An old man in a pink Polo shirt crouched down, picked up something off the floor. He stretched his gnarled hand out to Corey and said, "Dropped your quarter."

  Corey reached out and took the coin.

  "Can't get home without bus fare," the man said.

  "I told you to get one of these fanny packs," the old lady told Corey, nodding down to the black pouch strapped to her waist. Corey smelled something foul coming from her pants.

  The crowd of walkers was moving again. Corey cast a glance over his shoulder, back into the arcade. Travis and the girls were playing Skee-Ball, oblivious to his departure. He opened his mouth to shout, but his dentures shifted in his mouth, changing his words to a jumbled slur.

  "Don't pay those hooligans any mind," the woman with the wig told him. "Someday they'll be as old as we are."

  As Corey marched, a calm fell over him, and he was relieved to be moving away from the arcade's flashing lights and noisy machines. He suddenly wondered what the appeal of such games was. He remembered liking them at one time, even playing them every day, but it seemed like so long ago.

  "You coming to bingo tonight?" the lady beside him asked.

  Corey found himself nodding. Activities like bingo and shuffleboard, or just reading a good book seemed quite appealing compared to the chaos of the mall. His legs ached, and he longed to finish the next lap, to walk out the doors where the bus would be waiting, to be back in the peaceful confines of the assisted living community, away from this teenage madness. He didn't understand how people could spend hours in this environment.

  He tried to remember how it felt to be young, to have his whole life ahead of him, unfazed by the ticking clock, or the changing seasons, oblivious to his own mortality.

  Where had all the time gone?

  About Chris Reed

  Chris Reed has been published over 60 times. His fiction has appeared in numerous small press publications, including Black Ink Horror, Midnight Echo, and Tattered Souls: The Provocative Boundary of Fear. His influences include Joe R. Lansdale, Fritz Leiber, and John Collier. Aside from writing, he enjoys browsing thrift stores, waiting for hockey fights to break out, and eating way too much pizza, sometimes simultaneously. He lives in Davison, MI, with his photographer wife and their two children.

  https://facebook.com/pages/Chris-Reed-Horror-Writer/263671795291

  WHAT THE BLIND MAN SAW

  by C. Dennis Moore

  In my dream, I could see. I saw my hands opening a bottle of wine. I heard a noise from the living room and I looked through the pass to see a woman sitting on my couch and smiling at me. I saw the wine being poured into two glasses, and then I heard the front door burst open. Then I woke up.

  I don't remember if I screamed or not, but I woke up to the void of my blindness. I sat up and rubbed my face. My head was pounding! And my throat was full of sandpaper. I stretched and tried to stand up, but couldn't get any leverage to swing my legs over to the floor. Then I realized I was already on the floor. I felt the hardwood under me and realized I was naked, too.

  I felt around, searching for the bed to pull myself up, but my hand only met open air, so I pushed myself up to my knees and then stood. I tried to orient myself, but nothing familiar was within reach. I listened for a moment to make sure I was even in my own apartment. I had the sense of familiarity and I determined I was indeed in my own home.

  I just didn't know where in the apartment I was. What had happened last night? I couldn't remember.

  That wasn't a good sign. I didn't think I'd thrown a party, and I was pretty sure I hadn't gone out drinking after work, so why was my memory so foggy?

  I stepped forward carefully, but found nothing. I took another step and found the same. With my hands out, I moved forward, deciding to keep going until I found a wall, a chair, anything. I must have taken twenty steps with no result when, in frustration, I yelled "Come on!" and flung my arm out to the side, cracking it on the wall.

  I massaged my wrist, then felt the wall, trying to determine which wall. I felt a hook, then my keys, and realized I was near the front door. But when I moved to the side a little further, I made another discovery. The door was wide open, the jam splintered, and the lock was busted.

  I listened. I know the sounds of my apartment and am very good at sensing, not only a change in the air, but also the presence of someone else.

  There was someone here. I could feel that someone.

  "Who's there?" I asked. I don't know if I expected an answer. I didn't get one anyway. So I did the only thing left to do, which was to try again: "Answer me."

  Still no response. I couldn't tell where the intruder was, only that someone else was here. I had my bearings, so I moved for the cell phone that I always kept on the coffee table, deciding to call the police. But the phone had been moved; perhaps it was in my guest's hand now as he or she watched me and chuckled silently. In fact, the further I moved, the more I began to get the sense that whoever was here had moved everything in my apartment except the hook and my keys. At least moved them far away from me. I searched and searched, but touched nothing.

  As I probed around myself, seeking familiar things—I felt I was losing my place in the room again—my dread started to wash away, and was replaced by a swelling anger. I was about to yell at the intruder when my foot kicked the coffee table, knocking something over. I couldn't tell what it was, but I heard, indistinct and far away like a
ghost trying to break through, a woman's voice: "The candle!"

  Ignoring the table, I turned around, trying desperately to find the owner of that voice. I realized I could smell perfume.

  "I know you're there," I said. "And I think it's pretty bad when you have to rob a blind person, just so you know."

  More silence, as I'd expected. I kept listening, hoping to pick up any sign that would tell me who was here and what they were doing.

  I suddenly remembered that I was naked. I felt exposed and oddly humiliated, and I figured the only thing to do was take charge. I'd put some clothes on, and then I would continue searching for the phone. I stomped on the floor as I strode across the room, thinking if I was loud enough, someone downstairs might complain and that would send the building manager or someone up.

  My anger grew. I found the dresser and pulled open the bottom drawer, but before I could pull out my clothes, a scream came from the living room. It came faintly, as if from another apartment, but I knew it was the same woman who'd spoken a minute earlier. Screams are never a good sign.

  I went to the doorway, still naked, and said, "Get out."

  She screamed again and I had her position. I took off running, never mind whatever might be in my way, and tackled her. If I couldn't make her leave, then I'd take her down and strangle her if I had to.

  We collided and went to the floor and her screams doubled in volume and intensity. She thrashed about, but I wasn't letting go. My weight pressed down on her and my hands found her throat. I squeezed and she coughed and gagged. I heard another voice behind us, a man's voice this time. He said, "Knock off the shit, Marie. I told you to grab your stuff."

  This was the one I wanted, not the woman. I knew it. I had his position and I leapt, knocking him in the stomach, and to the floor. We struggled. He moved and got back to his feet. I moved after him, but tripped on something heavy in my way. I stopped and knelt to move it, then drew my hand back quickly when I realized it wasn't a what, but a who.

  I put my hands on the body lying on the floor, and ran them over it, to see if I could determine who it was. I felt pants. The fabric was fine, not coarse like jeans. I knew they were khakis with a brown leather belt and the shirt I felt was pale blue. But how did I know what pale blue was? Or khaki, or brown? How did I know the colors?

  I continued up the torso to the face.

  The body was a man, and he was clean-shaven. He wasn't breathing and that gave me pause. But I had to continue; I had to know who it was that was lying dead on my apartment floor.

  The face didn't feel familiar to me, so I didn't think it was someone I'd met before. The jaw was square with a dimple in the center. The nose was strong with a slight hump. The eyes were wet and open. I pulled my hands back in shock.

  Why were the eyes so wet?

  The man told the woman, "I said let's go, you cheating bitch!" and I heard footsteps, his strong, hers stumbling after, and the door closed and they moved down the hall.

  Letting them go without acknowledgment, I felt the body again, probing the face, my fingers moving gingerly. Unease rushed over me like a flash flood as I felt where the eyes used to be. I was hearing something in my head, very faint but definite.

  I thought about that woman's voice. I did know it. From somewhere…did we work together? Maybe; then yes, I began to think that was it.

  Marie. Hutchins. Yes, and she had curly blonde hair and the reddest lips I'd ever seen. But…

  We had flirted with each other a lot and I finally convinced her to go out with me and we wound up here, in my apartment. Had something happened? Did she drug me and that's why I woke up naked in the middle of the floor?

  No, it never went that far.

  My dream. I tried to recall what had happened in my dream. In my dream, I was getting us wine, and then the door burst open.

  Who was it?

  A boyfriend?

  I had thought she was single.

  "You couldn't help it, could you?" he had said in my dream.

  He glared at Marie and I asked him, "Who are you?"

  He looked daggers at me, and said, "I'm her boyfriend, you douche bag. Is that all right?"

  I looked back at her, wondering why she hadn't mentioned this before now, then back at the bruiser in my doorway.

  "Listen," I said, "I don't know what's going on, but I think it's time for both of you to get out."

  He tried to grab Marie and haul her out, but I stepped in.

  "Easy, dude, let her walk on her own. There's no reason for that."

  His reply was a fist to the side of my head. He grabbed me and threw me into the wall, then grabbed the wine bottle and swung it at me. It hit me and that was it…I went down.

  But he didn't stop there. He pinned me and was choking me, and Marie was screaming, "Stop it, stop it, stop it!" over and over, and I glanced over at her, feeling the pressure of his fingers on my neck, and the bruiser said, "Don't you ever fucking look at her again!" He grabbed the wine bottle, shattered it and stabbed me in the eyes, then choked me again until I passed out.

  That was my dream.

  I am blind and dreamed I saw.

  I felt the body under me. I lifted the shirt and felt the abdomen. That scar could be anyone's. It was an appendectomy scar, just like I had, but it didn't prove anything.

  I knew what I had to do, and I didn't want to. But I had to know. Anger and fear competed for dominance.

  I opened the mouth.

  I had two teeth that never came in when I was younger. They were in the back, one on each side, so I had never bothered getting them fixed. My finger probed the corpse's mouth and found the two empty sockets, one on each side, near the back. I did know this person after all.

  I withdrew my finger, wiped it on the pale blue shirt, and then put all of my fingers to my own face. My dimple. The hump on my nose. My tongue worked into the sockets on each side of my mouth. My hands moved up and felt the wet gaping wounds where my eyes used to be.

  About C. Dennis Moore

  C. Dennis Moore lives in St. Joseph, Missouri where he works during the day as an inventory control clerk. He's been writing just about forever with over sixty stories and novellas published, plus a collection of his short stories titled Terrible Thrills. Recent and upcoming publications include the Vile Things anthology and his novella Epoch Winter will be published by Drollerie Press.

  http://www.cdennismoore.com

  A Woman's Secret

  Joseph Patrick McFarlane

  Black Plague

  Tatomir Pitariu

  POETRY

  A GUIDE FOR ETHICAL ZOMBIE MURDER

  by Emon Anthousis

  First find a weapon

  that doesn't need reloading

  something blunt and sharp

  like a baseball bat lined with razor blades

  Keep a safe distance for only one bite

  will cause the change

  and if that happens you'll become

  more familiar with our blades

  When one-on-one, aim for the head

  crush the undead life out of their brains

  When you are the minority aim for their legs

  then as they crawl, curb-stop their skulls

  If you're unsure if your attacker

  is a zombie or not

  it's better to be safe than sorry

  so chop that Mother-Fucker up

  If faced with a Zombie family member

  like a zombie-dad

  Ask yourself how much Human Meat

  would your dad like to eat?

  Finally, always keep your weapon at the ready

  the goal now is survival

  and remember

  Don't hold back or feel sad; they're already dead

  REDECORATING

  by Emon Anthousis

  I moved the furniture from this room.

  It became as barren as your womb.

  I lined my floors

  before the doors

  with plastic mats
/>   to catch the splats.

  I painted our walls today

  with your arterial spray.

  The excess paint

  I didn't want to waste

  so I grabbed my brush

  and in a quick rush

  I painted the inside

  before the paint dried.

  I rolled up the sheet

  around the unused-dried meat.

  I packed it in the car

  and drove away not so far.

  I buried it near a tree

  so it would no longer burden me.

  Now with the work done

  I return home to relax as one.

  RED PLANET

  by Emon Anthousis

  The mountain shudders and cracks open, spilling blood upon the Earth;

  The volcanic fluid rises and coagulates, forming four silhouetted riders.

  With each crashing gallop, the ground below quakes and splinters, releasing

  air as if the Earth screams out in pain. Those nearest are deafened

  by the echoing roar, and horror ensnares the people who remain.

  Like starved zombies, they dash toward Jesus' house, but no