The Headhunter (Shorting the Undead & Other Horrors)
Page 4
At least until the monster came and stole her away from him again, this time for good. Six months ago now. The image of the she-beast came to him then, the crazed look in her eyes when they had surprised it in that alleyway off Second Street. With her last dying breath, Karen had made him promise her that he would track it down and take its head.
Six months. Now he wondered which he missed more: his wife or the sun.
You never really wanted to be a Headhunter, did you?
He frowned. The voice wasn’t Karen’s this time, but his own.
I did it for Karen. Always for her.
And what do you do for yourself?
Nothing.
That’s why this all felt like an exercise in futility. Nothing would bring his Karen back. Nothing would give him his life back. With a start, he realized he didn’t know how to do anything else, not in this world that didn’t need executive recruiters for insurance companies. He almost laughed then at the image of him sitting behind a desk and answering phones, as if the undead had any need for human resources.
“Actually, they do,” he said out loud. His voice echoed off the bare walls of the barn.
He reached down and tugged open the sack and grasped a handful of hair. Most of the blood had already drained out of the head, but he didn’t care about that. It was the brains he was after. And Reggie had been right about one thing: it was a good one.
“Fresh is best,” he told himself, chuckling. “Not like the old dried out crap I’ve been eating for the past week.”
He found a flap of skin beneath the back of the neck and, with a grunt, yanked it up and over the glistening white skull underneath, just the way Reggie had taught him. If he’d had any saliva, his mouth would have been watering, but the undead do not salivate. He reached down to retrieve the knife to crack open the skull.
And that’s when he heard the footstep.
He slowly raised his eyes to the door of the barn, at the figure standing there in silhouette. He could tell it was a female, though that was all. Damned glasses! Or maybe it was a girl. It had a slight frame, so much like Karen’s.
Had it seen him?
The figure didn’t move. Neither did he.
In her hands was a large axe. He wondered if it might be the one that belonged to the chopping block he was sitting on.
He licked his dry lips with an even drier tongue and waited. As always happened whenever he encountered one of them, he became acutely aware of everything around him: the distance separating them, the knife just beyond the reach of his fingertips, the head of the man he’d killed earlier that evening still in his hands.
“Daddy?” the monster whispered.
A flood of feelings came over him: confusion, love, longing, loss. His eyes dropped back down to the head. Then, without knowing why, he raised it up in her direction, as if offering it to her.
A sob escaped her lips. “You killed…. You killed my daddy!”
His heel nudged the knife. He felt the handle slipping over the block and coming to a rest against his calf. All he’d have to do was reach down. It’d be in his hand before she could even take a step into the barn.
The she-beast lifted the axe in her hands. A growl rose in her throat. He could see the tears on her face, tears of anger and sadness for the father he had taken from her. Tears of fear and hate for him. He knew all those feelings. He knew them all too well. And he wished for the thousandth time since Karen had become infected that day that he could cry for his own losses: for the life that had been taken away from him when she had crossed over, for the life he forsook when he followed her into the night. He wanted to cry out for the loss he had suffered when the monster had taken his Karen away from him the second time.
And yet there were no tears.
The girl wailed. She raised herself up and, in that moment, as the predawn twilight fell upon her face, he recognized her. His shock was complete. This was the monster who had taken Karen away from him! This was the beast he’d been hunting for the last six months. This was the girl who haunted his waking dreams, who ushered to him his only remaining memories of his wife.
But what’s she doing all the way out here?
He stood then, the knife somehow once more in his hand. He stepped forward, even as she raced toward him.
He watched as the girl raised the axe over him, raised it to bring it down upon his head. Everything, it seemed, was happening in exactly the same moment: the past six months, this moment, everything.
“Damn you to hell!” she screamed.
She skidded to a stop in front of him, and in that eternal moment the sun broke over the horizon and spilled its burning fire onto his face.
Yes, he thought, I am damned to hell. And the truth of it made him smile.
He raised the knife. In the corner of his eye, he watched as the blade arced through the air. He saw it leave his fingers, heard it clang as it hit the floor. He smiled as he lifted his head.
I am Damned, yes, but here is my redemption.
He felt the gentle whisper of the hatchet’s cold steel against his neck, and it was like the sweet kiss of his dear sweet Karen.
Now, at last, I will sleep.
†
Author’s note
What is it about the Undead that we love to fear? Other than the visceral terror they can invoke in us, what makes zombies and their ilk so horrifying? Is it because they’re mindless? Is it because they hunt and feed with no rational motivation, driven only by some carnal instinct, uncontrolled by rational thought? Is because we are their prey?
While working on an upcoming zombie pandemic novel (tentatively called Touch Me & Die), I began to question the whole concept of the monsters as “mindless” creatures. Of course, classic zombie lore is heavily founded on the idea that these monsters are mindless; it is why the brain-eaters so frightening and compelling.
But what if they weren’t as mindless as we think they are? What if a story were written from their point of view? What we flipped the idea of “monsters” on its proverbial ear and we became the monsters?
It was with these questions in mind that I wrote The Headhunter.
I hope reading this story was as thought-provoking and entertaining for you, Dear Reader, as it was for me to write.
†
Thank you for reading
The Headhunter
I strive to write the best stories possible
and would love to know your thoughts on this one.
Did you like it? How did it meet your expectations?
If it didn’t, how might I improve it?
Please consider adding your voice to the discussion
on your favorite book site.
Your input is valuable to me.
All my best,
Saul
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My undying thanks to the devoted staff of Brinestone Press for their keen eye and gentle but firm touch in helping me bring this story to life, for believing every step of the way that I could raise the dead.
To my devoted fans and followers on Twitter (http://twitter.com/saultanpepper), especially the zombie apocalypse junkies. Everything’s better with the #zombie hash tag.
My deepest gratitude goes to my family for their unflagging support. Without them, I would not be able to create worlds with such richness to them.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saul Tanpepper is a writer of speculative fiction for teens and adults. A former molecular geneticist originally from Upstate New York, he now calls Northern California home.
If you enjoyed The Headhunter, please check out the short story collection Shorting the Undead and Other Horrors: a Menagerie of Macabre Mini-Fiction, available from Amazon. Additional title
s from this collection also available in electronic format.
For more information about the author and his writings, please check out his website: http://www.tanpepperwrites.com.
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Other titles available by Saul Tanpepper
Shorting the Undead and Other Horrors:
A Menagerie of Macabre Mini-fiction
Eight terrifying tales of the Undead and the Unliving.
Includes:
Occupied (a supermoto champion is trapped on an airplane with the Undead)
Mr. November (four boys, a haunted house, and the World Series on Halloween night)
The Headhunter (a story of redemption, salvation, and zombie hunters)
The Object of Her Obsession (a young woman's desire is so strong it reaches beyond the grave)
Nocturne (a man with a dark secret and an even darker obsession)
Outsourced (a dark comedy about the economy and zombies that crave more than brains)
Open Wide (payback comes in the form of a dentist's drill)
Golgotha (a scientist's attempt at a zombie antidote goes horribly awry)
Approximately 88,000 words
For older teens and adults
Available in paperback (252 pages) and digital formats
Other titles available by Saul Tanpepper
Insomnia:
Paranormal Tales, Science Fiction, Horror
Seven short stories and novellas.
Includes:
The Grin
The Scenario Egg
A Thing for Zombies
Reached in Error
Raise the Dead
The Sacrifices We Make
The Promises We Keep
Approximately 84,000 words
For older teens and adults
Available in paperback (252 pages) and digital formats
Other titles available by Saul Tanpepper
The Object of Her Obsession
There's something about Felipe-Janssen knives, the fancy ones you used to be able to get at Milano's onTenth Street in downtown Grand Forks. My Uncle Phil got us a set of them for Christmas a half dozen years back, the ones with the guaranteed Eversharp™ blades that come in one of those fancy velvet-lined boxes.
Most of them are gone now. Misplaced or thrown away. All except the filleter. I was always so careful
to keep that one hidden away. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't get lost or misused like the others.
Three summers. That's how long seventeen-year-old Emma Harris has been secretly watching Jesse, the boy her uncle hires to fix the fences on their remote North Dakota ranch. Now, three years after her father's death, Emma is ready to make him hers. There's just one problem, and it's her mother.
Other titles available by Saul Tanpepper
A Thing for Zombies
It's funny, the things you get used to seeing, now that they've passed the Undead Amnesty laws. Funny how quickly you learn to ignore them. But then one of them walks in like this and you realize there are some things you'll just never get used to.
Like zombies wearing g-strings.
Seventeen-year-old Kevin Velasco is about to have his heart broken.
But if crushing on his lifelong best friend, Jamie, weren't bad enough, she's obsessed with someone else. Or...some thing: the Undead. How can a guy compete against that?
So, when an attractive young zombie shows up at the pool where they lifeguard, Kevin becomes desperate. But his pushing forces Jamie to make a mind-blowing confession, leaving Kevin to wonder how far she's willing to go for the Undead.
And, more importantly, how far is he willing to go to win her back?