Zombies

by Otto Penzler

  “You’ve got to stop! We have to bury the—”

  “Clancy, we’ll never get them dug in time, and I’m not going to be shoveling a grave in the middle of a storm. Just cover them up with the tarp and they’ll be all right.”

  Clancy turned to him with an expression filled with outrage and alarm. Before he could say anything, a thump came from the back of the wagon. Mr. Deakin looked around, wondering if he had rolled over a boulder on the path, but then the thump came again.

  Out of the corner of his eye he saw one of the coffins move aside just a little.

  “Oh no!” Clancy wailed. “I told you!”

  An echoing thump came from the second coffin. Another burst of thunder rolled across the sky, and the horses picked up their pace, frightened by the wind and the storm.

  Clancy leaned into the back of the wagon. He took a mallet from the pack of tools and, just as the first coffin bounced again, Clancy whacked the edge of the lid, striking the coffin nails to keep the top closed. The rusted and mud-specked nailheads gleamed bright with scraped metal.

  Mr. Deakin had his mouth half-open, but he couldn’t think of anything to say. He kept trying to convince himself that this was some kind of joke Clancy was playing, or perhaps even the townspeople of Compromise.

  Just as he turned, the first coffin lid lurched, despite Clancy’s hammering. The pine boards split, and the lid bent up just enough that a gnarled gray hand pushed its way out. Wet and rotting skin scraped off the edge of the wood as the claw-fingers scrabbled to find purchase and push the lid open farther. Tendons stuck out along yellowed bones. A burst of stench wafted out, and Mr. Deakin gagged but could not tear his eyes away.

  The second coffin lid cracked open. He thought he saw a shadow moving inside it.

  Clancy leaped into the back of the wagon and straddled one of the coffins. He banged again with the mallet, trying to keep the lid closed; but he hesitated, worried about injuring the hands and fingers groping through the cracks. “Help me, Mr. Deakin!”

  A flash of lightning split across the darkness. Rain poured down, and the horses began to run. Mr. Deakin let the reins drop onto the seat and swung over the backboard into the wagon bed.

  Clancy knelt beside his mother’s coffin. “Please stay put! Just stay put! I’ll get you there,” he was saying, but his words were lost in the wind and the thunder and the rumble of wagon wheels.

  One of the pine boards snapped on the father’s coffin. An arm, clothed in the mildewed black of a Sunday suit, thrust out. The fingers had long, curved nails.

  “Don’t!” Clancy said.

  Mr. Deakin was much bigger than Clancy. In the back of the wagon he planted his feet flat against the side of the first coffin. He pushed with his legs.

  The single rotting arm flailed and tried to grab at his boot, but Mr. Deakin shoved. He closed his eyes and laid his head backward—and the coffin slid off the wagon bed, tottering for an instant. As the horses continued to gallop over the bumpy path, the coffin tilted over the edge onto the track.

  “No!” Clancy screamed, and grabbed at him, but Mr. Deakin slapped him away. He pushed the second coffin, a lighter one this time. The lid on this coffin began to give way as well. Thin fingers crept out.

  Clancy yanked at Mr. Deakin’s jacket, clawing at the throat and cutting off his air, but Mr. Deakin gave a last push to knock the second coffin over the edge.

  “We’ve got to turn around!” Clancy cried.

  The second coffin crashed to the ground, tilted over, and the wooden sides splintered. Just then a sheet of lightning illuminated the sky from horizon to horizon, like an enormous concussion of flash powder used by a daguerreotype photographer.

  In that instant, Mr. Deakin saw the thin, twisted body rising from the shards of the broken coffin. Lumbering behind, already free of the first coffin, stood a taller corpse, shambling toward his wife. Then all fell black again as the lightning faded.

  Mr. Deakin wanted to collapse and squeeze his eyes shut, but the horses continued to gallop wildly. He scrambled back to the seat and snatched up the reins.

  “This weather is going to ruin them!” Clancy moaned. “You have to go back, Mr. Deakin!”

  Mr. Deakin knew full well that he was abandoning a farm of his own in Tucker’s Grove; but the consequences of breaking his agreement with Clancy seemed more sane to him than staying here any longer. He snapped the reins and shouted at the horses for greater speed.

  Lightning sent him another picture of the two scarecrow corpses—but they had their backs to the wagon. Walking side by side, Clancy Tucker’s dead parents struck off in the other direction. Back the way they had come.

  With a sudden, resigned look on his face, Clancy Tucker swung both of his legs over the side of the wagon.

  “Clancy, wait!” Mr. Deakin shouted. “They’re going the other way! They don’t want to come after all, can’t you see?”

  But Clancy’s voice remained determined. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve got to take them anyway.” He ducked his head down and made ready to jump. “A promise is a promise,” he said.

  “Sometimes breaking a promise is better than keeping it,” Mr. Deakin shouted.

  But Clancy let go of the wagon, tucking and rolling onto the wet grass. He clambered to his feet and ran back toward where he had last seen his parents.

  Mr. Deakin did not look back, but kept the horses running into the night.

  As he listened to the majestic storm overhead, as he felt the wet, fresh air with each breath he took, Mr. Deakin realized that he still had more, much more, that he did not want to lose.

  RICHARD (CARL) LAYMON (1947–2001) was born in Chicago, moving to California as a child. He received a B.A. in English literature from Willamette in Oregon and an M.A. in English literature from Loyola in Los Angeles. He worked as a schoolteacher, a librarian, and a report writer for a law firm before becoming a full-time novelist and short-story writer. While mainly known as a horror writer, he also wrote other fiction, notably mysteries, having stories published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, The Second Black Lizard Anthology of Crime Fiction, and many others.

  In his primary writing genre, horror, he produced about sixty short stories and thirty novels, achieving far greater success in England and Europe than in his own country. His work has received numerous awards, including four nominations for Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers Association: for Flesh, nominated for Best Novel in 1988; Funland, nominated for Best Novel in 1990; Bad News, nominated for Best Anthology in 2000; and The Traveling Vampire Show, which won as Best Novel in 2000. In addition, Flesh was named the Best Horror Novel of the Year by Science Fiction Chronicle. He also wrote several novels under the names Richard Kelly and Carl Laymon.

  “Mess Hall” was originally published in Book of the Dead, edited by John Skipp and Craig Spector (New York: Bantam, 1989).

  JEAN DIDN’T HEAR footsteps. She heard only the rush of the nearby stream, her own moaning, Paul’s harsh gasps as he thrust into her. The first she heard of the man was his voice.

  “Looks to me like fornication in a public park area.”

  Her heart slammed.

  Oh God, no.

  With her left eye, she glimpsed the man’s vague shape crouching beside her in the moonlight, less than a yard away. She looked up at Paul. His eyes were wide with alarm.

  This can’t be happening, Jean told herself.

  She felt totally helpless and exposed. Not that the guy could see anything. Just Paul’s bare butt. He couldn’t see that Jean’s blouse was open, her bra bunched around her neck, her skirt rucked up past her waist.

  “Do you know it’s against the law?” the man asked.

  Paul took his tongue out of Jean’s mouth. He turned his head toward the man.

  Jean could feel his heart drumming, his penis shrinking inside her.

  “Not to mention poor taste,” the man added.

  “We didn’t mean any harm,” Paul said.
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  And started to get up.

  Jean jammed her shoes against his buttocks, tightened her arms around his back.

  “What if some children had wandered by?” the man asked.

  “We’re sorry,” Jean told him, keeping her head straight up, not daring to look at the man again, instead staring at Paul. “We’ll leave.”

  “Kiss goodbye, now.”

  Seemed like a weird request.

  But Paul obeyed. He pressed his mouth gently against Jean’s lips, and she wondered how she could manage to cover herself because it was quite obvious that, as soon as the kiss was over, Paul would have to climb off her. And there she’d be.

  Later, she knew it was a shotgun.

  She hadn’t seen a shotgun, but she’d only given the man that single, quick glance.

  Paul was giving her the goodbye kiss and she was wondering about the best way to keep the man from seeing her when suddenly it didn’t matter because the world blew up. Paul’s eyes exploded out of their sockets and dropped onto her eyes. She jerked her head sideways to get away from them. Jerked it the wrong way. Saw the clotted wetness on the moonlit trunk of a nearby tree, saw his ear cling to the bark for a moment, then fall.

  Paul’s head dropped heavily onto the side of her face. A torrent of blood blinded her.

  She started to scream.

  Paul’s weight tumbled off. The man stomped her belly. He scooped her up, swung her over his shoulder, and started to run. She wheezed, trying to breathe. His foot had smashed her air out and now his shoulder kept ramming into her. She felt as if she were drowning. Only a dim corner of her mind seemed to work, and she wished it would blink out.

  Better total darkness, better no awareness at all.

  The man stopped running. He bent over, and Jean flopped backward. She slammed something. Beside her was a windshield plated with moonlight. She’d been dumped across the hood of a car. Her legs dangled over the car’s front.

  She tried to lift her head. Couldn’t. So she lay there, struggling to suck in air.

  The man came back.

  He’d been away?

  Jean felt as if she had missed a chance to save herself.

  He leaned over, clutched both sides of her open blouse, and yanked her into a sitting position. He snapped a handcuff around her right wrist, passed the other bracelet beneath her knee, and cuffed her left hand. Then he lifted her off the hood. He swung her into the car’s passenger seat and slammed the door.

  Through the windshield, Jean saw him rush past the front of the car. She drove her knee up. It bumped her chin, but she managed to slip the handcuff chain down her calf and under the sole of her running shoe. She grabbed the door handle. She levered it up and threw her shoulder against the door and started to tumble out, but her head jerked back with searing pain as if the hair were being torn from her scalp. Her head twisted. Her cheekbone struck the steering wheel. A hand clasped the top of her head. Another clutched her chin. And he rammed the side of her face again and again on the wheel.

  When she opened her eyes, her head was on the man’s lap. She felt his hand kneading her breast. The car was moving fast. From the engine noise and the hiss of the tires on the pavement, she guessed they were on the interstate. The highway lights cast a faint, silvery glow on the man’s face. He looked down at her and smiled.

  The police artist sketch didn’t have him quite right. It had the crewcut right, and the weird crazy eyes, but his nose was a little larger, his lips a lot thicker.

  Jean started to lift her head.

  “Lie still,” he warned. “Move a muscle, I’ll pound your brains out.” He laughed. “How about your boyfriend’s brains? Did you see how they hit that tree?”

  Jean didn’t answer.

  He pinched her.

  She gritted her teeth.

  “I asked you a question.”

  “I saw,” she said.

  “Cool, huh?”

  “No.”

  “How about his eyes? I’ve never seen anything like that. Just goes to show what a twelve-gauge can do to a fellow. You know, I’ve never killed a guy before. Just sweet young things like you.”

  Like me.

  It came as no surprise, no shock. She’d seen him murder Paul, and he planned to murder her too—the same as he’d murdered the others.

  Maybe he doesn’t kill them all, she thought. Only one body had been found. Everyone talked as if the Reaper had killed the other six, but really they were only missing.

  Maybe he takes them someplace and keeps them.

  But he just now said he kills sweet young things. Plural. He killed them all. But maybe not. Maybe he just wants to keep me and fool with me and not kill me and I’ll figure a way out.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “A nice, private place in the hills where nobody will hear you scream.”

  The words made a chill crawl over her.

  “Oooh, goosebumps. I like that.” His hand glided over her skin like a cold breeze. Jean was tempted to grab his hand and bite it.

  If she did that, he would hurt her again.

  There’ll be a world of hurt later, she thought. He plans to make me scream.

  But that was later. Maybe she could get away from him before it came to that. The best thing, for now, was to give him no trouble. Don’t fight him. Act docile. Then maybe he’ll let his guard down.

  “Do you know who I am?” he asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Tell me.”

  “The Reaper.”

  “Very good. And I know who you are, too.”

  He knows me? How could he? Maybe followed me around on campus, asked someone my name.

  “You’re Number Eight,” he said. “Just think about that. You’re going to be famous. You’ll be in all the newspapers, they’ll talk about you on television, you’ll even end up being a chapter in a book someday. Have you read any books like that? They’ll have a nice little biography of you, quotes from your parents and friends. The bittersweet story of your brief but passionate relationship with that guy. What was his name?”

  “Paul,” she murmured.

  “Paul. He’ll get a good write-up, himself, since he’s the first guy to die at the hands of the Reaper. Of course, they’ll realize that he was incidental. You were the intended victim, Paul simply an unlucky jerk who got in the way. He got lucky, then he got unlucky. Good one, huh? Maybe I’ll write the book myself. He got off and got offed. Or did he? Which came first? Did he go out with a bang?”

  “Why don’t you shut up?”

  “Because I don’t want to,” he said, and raked a path up her belly with a single fingernail.

  Jean cringed. Air hissed in through her teeth.

  “You should be nice to me,” he said. “After all, I’m the one making you famous. Of course, some of the notoriety may be a trifle embarrassing for you. That book I was telling you about, it’ll have a whole lot about today. Your final hours. Who was the last person to see you alive. And of course, it won’t neglect the fornication in the park. People read that, a lot of them are going to think you were asking for it. I suppose I’d have to agree with them. Didn’t you know any better?”

  She had known better. “What about the Reaper?” she’d asked when the movie let out and Paul suggested the park.

  “He’ll have to find his own gal.”

  “I mean it. I’m not sure it’s such a great idea. Why don’t we go to my place?”

  “Right. So your demented roommate can listen through the wall and make noises.”

  “I told her not to do that anymore.”

  “Come on, let’s go to the park. It’s a neat night. We can find a place by the stream.”

  “I don’t know.” She squeezed his hand. “I’d like to, Paul, but . . .”

  “Shit. Everybody’s got Reaperitis. For god-sake, he’s in Portland.”

  “That’s only a half-hour drive.”

  “Okay. Forget it. Shit.”

  They walked half a block, Pa
ul silent and scowling, before Jean slipped a hand into the rear pocket of his pants and said, “Hey, pal, how’s about a stroll in the park?”

  “Didn’t you know any better?”

  His hand smacked her bare skin.

  “Yes!”

  “Don’t you ignore me. I ask you a question, you answer. Got it?”

  “Yes.”

  The car slowed. The Reaper’s left hand eased the steering wheel over and Jean felt the car slip sideways. It tipped upward a bit, pressing her cheek against his belt buckle.

  An off-ramp, she thought.

  The car stopped, then made a sharp turn.

  A cold tremor swept through Jean.

  We’re getting there, she thought. Wherever he’s taking me, we’re getting there. Oh, Jesus.

  “You thought it couldn’t happen to you,” he said. “Am I right?”

  “No.”

  “What, then? You were just too horny to care?”

  “Paul would’ve kept on pouting.” Her voice was high, shaky.

  “One of those. I hate those sniveling, whiny pouters. Take me, for instance—I never pout. That’s for the losers. I never lose, so I’ve got no reason to pout. I make other people lose.”

  He slowed the car, turned it again.

  “I hate pouters, too,” Jean said, trying to keep her voice steady. “They stink. They don’t deserve to live.”

  He looked down at her. His face was a vague blur. There were no more streetlights, Jean realized. Nothing but moonlight, now.

  “I bet you and I are a lot alike,” she said.

  “Think so, do you?”

  “I’ve never told anyone this before, but . . . I guess it’s safe to tell you. I killed a girl once.”

  “That so?”

  He doesn’t believe me!

  “Yeah. It was just two years ago. I was going with this guy, Jim Smith, and . . . I really loved him. We got engaged. And then all of a sudden he started going with this bitch, Mary Jones.”

  “Smith and Jones, huh?” He chuckled.

  “I can’t help it if they had stupid names,” she said, and wished she’d taken an extra second to think up names that sounded real, damn it. “Anyway, he spent less and less time with me, and I knew he was seeing Mary. So one night I snuck into her room in the sorority and smothered her with a pillow. Killed her. And I enjoyed it. I laughed when she died.”