Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 1

by Jeff Strand

  Jimmy, so tough and confident. She liked the way his muscles tensed anxiously when she tied him up, as if he was expecting a beating from her, some bloodlust revenge from all the rough sex he’d put her through. She never answered him when he asked if she liked it that way, only moaned and screamed at the right times and bucked her hips back up against his cock when he most needed it. But she never got off that way. She only got off if the roles were reversed, and Jimmy never let her get there.

  She supposed she missed him to some degree. And the loneliness and horniness overtook her right about this time, later in the morning after she’d finished shooting all the intruders.

  The memories of Jimmy and their power struggle were getting her insanely hot. However, getting herself off was a risk. Leaving the post meant leaving the compound unguarded, and in the throes of an orgasm, anything could happen. She had many nightmares about stroking herself to the edge of climax, only to look up and see the rotting flesh of a starved zombie right above her face. And now, those nightmares had morphed into thoughts much more sinister and taboo, something she’d never dreamt of.

  If there were no more healthy humans left on the planet, who would she fuck? She thought it totally preposterous every time it popped into her mind, but this was a nymphomaniac’s worst nightmare. Now, her fantasies involved the zombies—if they were totally mindless, that meant they didn’t give a fuck what was happening to them.

  Lisa’s greatest turn on. Total control.

  If they were mindless, she could tie them up, fuck them relentlessly, beat them, choke them, punch them, and they wouldn’t know the difference. No emotional involvement. No cares. No emotional scars or distressed phone calls the next day, “Lisa, if you said you cared so much, why’d you do that?”

  Why? She laughed at the question now. She supposed it had something to do with Jimmy and all the things he’d done to her over the years. Who knew? Some of the people she fucked liked to be taken advantage of. There was one younger girl in the next town who begged to be tied up and brought to screaming orgasm with a little help from Lisa’s strap on and various other toys. But some of the men, not so much—except the sissies, and they weren’t much of a challenge. Lisa enjoyed dominating and fucking the tough guys … guys like Jimmy. Former jocks. Guys who talked a lot of shit about being tied up by a petite woman, yet came like geysers whenever she was finished with them.

  Lisa shifted uncomfortably and looked through the rifle’s scope again, hoping to find another one of the undead to shoot to distract her from her own horniness. Every day, she thought about what would happen if Jimmy the Undead came slowly shambling over the razor wire. Would she be able to shoot him? Or would she just tie him up and see if he could still pop a boner?

  The parking lot was finally quiet, all those forgotten souls dragging their limbs, looking for blood somewhere far away. It was time to go inside and look for something to eat, anything to take her mind off sex.

  She’d already raided all the lunches from the refrigerators in all the buildings, had gone through the MREs stashed away in the police station, and had even found a few things inside desk drawers—including an extra .38 special she’d found underneath in the police chief’s files. Lisa now doubled back through everything she could think of in search of food, but there was nothing.

  That meant it was time to go to the supermarket. Which probably meant facing more of them.

  Lisa didn’t feel up to it today, but it had to be done. She didn’t like leaving the safe confines of the admin complex, its great razor wire teeth protecting her like some loyal pet.

  She got the holster for the .38 and put it on, stuck the gun snugly inside and hitched the rifle up on her shoulder. She gulped down the rest of the water, filled her bottle up as much as she could, and headed out of the complex. The sun blazed down from its high noon position in the sky and Lisa’s skin crawled. The outbreak was only three months ago, and one of the first things that crossed her mind when it happened was that the worst of it would come in the high heat of the southern summer.

  She was sweating by the time she reached the razor wire. Several of the undead snarled and hissed at her, but they weren’t going anywhere: they were entangled in the wire. One man in his fifties, fat and balding, had his head firmly stuck in the fence like some overeager dog. A small but muscular woman, probably once an athlete, had impaled herself by a large tendril of fence and wire. Her intestines sprawled across the concrete, blood glistening in the hot sun. Many of the rest of the undead’s limbs were deeply caught up in the wire, so Lisa felt a quick sense of safety. And it was best to leave them. Bullets were reserved for the runners.

  Those were the ones she hated the most. If only all the zombies shambled. They were only slow if they were a few days changed. The newly turned ones always ran at you.

  Lisa turned onto the main road and looked around. All clear so far. She walked carefully, the .38 firmly gripped in her sweaty hands and the .22 rifle bumped comfortingly against the small of her back. A vehicle would have been safer, but the ones left on the complex were either wrecked or out of gas. It was just one more thing on her list: get more gas or find a new vehicle. It would either have to have the keys in it or she’d just have to get lucky. Jimmy never got around to showing her how to hotwire a car.

  She came up on the centermost part of town that was scattered with little boutiques and bookshops. She walked in the middle of the street, far away from nooks and crannies of corners and alleys. The grocery store stood at the edge of downtown, and she had quite a few more blocks to go.

  The streets looked nothing like she remembered. Plastic bags floated lazily across the pavement. Heaps of trash baked in the hot sun, and a stale and shitty odor hung thick in the air despite the lowly breeze that occasionally touched down. Shops left and right were boarded up, smashed to hell and back or were just completely abandoned. An old bank boasted a red-lettered, spray painted message that read, “Go back now.”

  The crunching noise made Lisa stop and look around. At first, she couldn’t really decipher where it came, but closer inspection told her something was hanging out by the dumpster in the alley between Betty’s Books and that newish woo woo shop with the candles and weird figurines.

  Usually, the undead were attracted to noise and if you were quiet enough, you could easily sneak by without them even noticing you. Lisa had stopped and stared, hypnotized as if in some trance, her ears tracing the sound of the crunching and rustling from the dumpster.

  That’s no animal.

  It seemed her boots were glued to the hot asphalt and her limbs were locked. One of the undead had its teeth clamped around some poor soul’s femur and just then, Lisa’s mind whirled ridiculously and she wondered how on earth a body ended up in the dumpster.

  The zombie chewed relentlessly, probably trying to crack the bone to get to the delightful marrow inside, crunching and cracking until its own teeth crumbled and fell out of its skull. Its hair had somehow been singed off its skull, so it was difficult to determine its gender.

  Lisa stood there too long. If she had ignored the sound and just moved away quietly, the rest never would have happened. She would have been able to secure a few groceries and enough water and would have probably found a car or made it back to the admin complex with no problem.

  Maybe she screamed. Maybe it smelled her. Lisa didn’t know. It snapped its head around and looked up though, and that’s when she knew the shit was about to go down. It snarled and shuffled away from the body, eyeing Lisa like prized prey. Lisa could see its hollowed out chest: it looked like someone had tried to destroy it without realizing they were supposed to go in for the headshot.

  Lisa raised the rifle and fired.

  Nothing. No jolt, no delightful explosion of brains.

  I missed?

  The zombie opened its mouth and emitted a guttural scream. Lisa heard shuffling and scrambling, and then it seemed the entire downtown area came alive with the undead. They were everywhere now: mostly sha
mblers, but she could see runners in the distance, and they were gaining distance at an impressive rate. She fired at the closest one and its head exploded. Then another. Then another. She marveled at how much it looked like red fireworks.

  They were coming up fast now, filtering down the alley towards her like rushing water. It was time to run.

  Lisa’s boots pounded on the asphalt and she squinted at the sun just ahead of her. She bolted as fast as she could—the entrance to the admin complex was just over the horizon.

  And she could already see that was not an option. It had become infested with the undead; several of them were meandering across the parking lot towards her.

  How the fuck did they get in?

  She looked around frantically at the razor wire. One of the undead was face down on it, which provided the perfect safe spot—they had been using the body as a bridge. She made a split second decision to change direction and cut through the woods.

  Please don’t let there be any in here.

  She’d have to be careful. They could be behind trees, hiding behind bushes … just about everywhere she turned in the dense woods. It was not quite like walking down an open sidewalk.

  The shortcut would take her into the next town eventually. That was the same town she and Jimmy used to visit when they wanted to get away. It was the town where she hooked up with a lot of other people, too.

  Wonder who I’ll run into.

  She ran a good ways before slowing down. Even in the shade, it was hot and sweat ran down Lisa’s back in large droplets. She wasn’t sure how far she’d have to hike, but it would be a couple of hours before she reached town on foot. And she wasn’t sure if it was infested with zombies.

  Doves cooed overhead and Lisa’s boots sucked hungrily at the mud, but otherwise there was no other noise. She sat down on a dry enough spot on the ground and leaned back into a tree to rest.

  How had it all happened so quickly? It had been just another normal day working at the library. She arrived early and Sarah was already there, as usual. They started making out wildly, like they always did before everyone else got to work. On quiet mornings when the book drop was nearly empty, like it had been on the morning of the infestation, they did a lot more than make out—they managed to work in a quickie.

  Yes, Lisa was getting wet thinking back on it now. Things had been going as they were supposed to—the morning was quiet, except for Sarah’s moans and pants and the occasional whisper of “no one can make me feel like you can” or “you’re so good.” Sarah definitely didn’t get enough of it at home.

  Lisa had been on her knees, licking Sarah’s slash all the way up and down when the back shipping door buzzer sounded. That meant someone was there early and they had to stop. And that’s when Lisa saw and heard sirens.

  It was hard to say exactly what happened after that. It was all a blur. There were tons of people outside the library, some smashed up against the windows in the front, and even more people behind them. The whole parking lot seethed with people, and there was lots of screaming and pushing.

  It didn’t take long before Lisa saw the man’s face—or obviously, what used to be a man. His face had been a mask of tortured hunger, so feral and inhuman and downright horrifying. Lisa knew something was terribly wrong, and her mind immediately shifted to Jimmy, but just then, stupid Sarah had opened the door to the library and was pulled outside. Luckily, Lisa was able to snap out of it and lock it behind her. Staying inside, away from those faces, was clearly the best option, and Sarah was quickly consumed by the sea of terrified faces.

  For the time being, anyway. You blew her head off this morning.

  Lisa got up from the ground and brushed her ass off. There was no need to sit around thinking about the past. What was done was done. She played the memory over too often in her mind anyway, which she assumed was a mixture of survivor’s guilt and a bizarre tinge of jealousy. At least Sarah was blissfully unaware of the terrible world that was to come.

  She continued trekking through the woods. It would take some time to get to the next town, but Lisa bit her lip in determination.

  Gotta get there before nightfall.

  At least, she hoped she could. Traveling at night was not an option. Runners could be anywhere, and once they smelled, heard or saw you, you were a goner.

  Lisa continued sloshing through the sodden woods, her feet aching. It was humid now and the sun seemed to siphon all the sweat from her body. She scoffed at having only half a bottle of water on her—she thought she’d have either made it to the grocery store or back to the admin complex by now, but that was what she got for being so optimistic.

  She finally took a large swig of water when she reached the edge of the woods. She could see the town of Walker just ahead, desolate and depressed just like, she was sure, any other town in the United States these days. Lisa knelt on the wet earth and set her sights through the rifle. She waited and watched.

  There were three ramblers just ahead, and they were meandering mindlessly through the theater parking lot. If they were shamblers, she might be safe—she always tried to conserve her bullets. The sound of gunshots usually brought more of the undead around. They were attracted to loud noises like flies on the dead.

  Lisa would have to cut through the movie theater parking lot to safety and hopefully, more food and water. The grocery store stood about three blocks away from the theater, but she didn’t know if Walker was totally infested with the undead, and these three shamblers just ahead spelled bad news. It was hard to tell what had happened to other cities, towns, communities—the power had gone off completely about two months ago, and the CB radio had been completely silent save for the rare crackle of static.

  She stood and trod carefully towards the parking lot, the rifle resting firmly on her shoulder.

  Sudden pain ripped into her heel and bloomed all around her foot. The jolting intensity caught her off guard, and so did the yelp that emerged from her mouth. The ramblers down the hill snapped their heads in her direction and began to run towards her.

  Lisa only had a split second to lift her foot and take a quick look. A large carpenter’s nail rudely protruded from her boot heel. Taking it out felt worse than stepping on it, but she ripped hard, threw the nail and limped back into the woods.

  The shamblers seemed to multiply: the three she’d seen earlier somehow exploded to about thirty, and about ten of them were fast. Lisa scrambled up the nearest oak, panting and swearing and oddly wishing for more water. She screamed again when she felt the tug on her foot.

  Unbelievable.

  She immediately recognized C.J. Riley, the foot fetishist who insisted on giving her money every time they hooked up. Lisa didn’t mind the cash, but it did, in a lot of ways, make her feel like a whore for taking it.

  “And now you want my foot again? Don’t think so,” Lisa said out loud, surprising herself. It was strange to hear a coherent voice, even if it was her own. She yanked her foot free and gave him a swift kick in the face. He stumbled back momentarily, but quickly came to and flailed around in an attempt to grab at Lisa’s legs.

  C.J. Riley, now tenacious and aggressive as a member of the undead, had always been pretty quiet when he was alive. She remembered him being demure, appreciative, and totally willing to please her and submit, and easily embarrassed. Now he was snarling and clawing at the tree bark trying to get at her. Lisa climbed higher, away from the smell of rot and the penetrating glare of the undead’s emotionless, feral eyes.

  She swallowed and grimaced—it felt like she’d been eating broken glass and her thirst was outrageous. Below, C.J. snapped his jaws hungrily, his mind no longer consumed with dirty thoughts of getting jerked off by pretty, well-manicured feet. Lisa rested her head back against the tree trunk and kept her eyes on the frenzy of ramblers below.

  She remembered the last time she’d seen C.J.—that was the time she almost got caught by Jimmy. She had gotten off of work early that day and headed to Walker to see C.J.—she needed cash
for new clothes and C.J. always paid her about 300 bucks every time they hooked up, so why not? She sure as hell wasn’t getting enough satisfaction at home. She liked being worshipped by C.J., dumb as he was.

  C.J. liked it if she’d been sweating in a battered old pair of heels for a good part of the day, so when she arrived, he immediately led Lisa over to the couch, placed her feet in his lap, and slowly slid her heels off. Lisa just watched and casually stroked his hard-on with her feet while he gave her a foot massage.

  “Mmm, baby, you look so fine today. That petite little body of yours always looks so good in skirts and those tight little blouses you wear,” he’d said with a wink. She thought it charming yet cheesy, but she smirked back at him. It was true: her small but fit frame drew a lot of attention from all kinds of patrons at the library. Lisa had dark skin and curly hair, which made her look incredibly exotic in a small town where most everyone was of the blue-eyed, blonde hair Dresden doll variety. She liked looking different.

  “If you like the way I look so much, why don’t you shut up and just show me?”

  C.J. had been happy to oblige: he obediently unzipped his pants and pulled out an eight-inch cock with a nice curve to it. Lisa licked her lips. After the foot play, he would be all hers. She’d even tied him to his bed and fucked him with her infamous strap-on a time or two. Just as she was thinking she ought to get Sarah to help her tag team C.J., the doorbell rang.

  C.J. shot her a weird look and zipped back up. She heard talking.

  “Lisa?”

  It was Jimmy calling for her.

  Shit!

  A brilliant excuse popped into her head. She just hoped Jimmy would buy it. She slipped her shoes back on and headed for the door.

  “Baby! What are you doing out here? I was just on my way back. Mr. Riley here called us to see if we had any books on podiatry. You know how I’m always telling you about Walker’s patrons complaining to us that their library’s collection is horrible. Nothing on podiatry. Right, Mr. Riley?”

  C.J. looked dumbfounded. She doubted he ever read or knew what podiatry was.