Stephen Jones (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Zombies (mobi)

  "What were you doing up at 'Teach Droch-Chlu' at this time of night? Are you a ghost hunter? Is that it?" And without waiting for a reply he continued: "I can telephone Macroom for a car to collect you, if you like. Where do you want to get to?"

  "To Cork City."

  "And where did your bike break down?"

  "Up the mountain track somewhere, near a river crossing. By a humpbacked bridge."

  "Ah, the spot is known to me. I'll go and pick your bike up tomorrow. Give me a number where I can contact you and I'll let you know what repairs need to be done."

  I nodded, frowning at him as I sipped my whiskey.

  "Why did you ask if I was a ghost-hunter?"

  "You asked for 'Teach Droch-Chlu'. That's what the locals call it hereabouts, the house of evil reputation. We call it that on account that it has a reputation of being haunted. You know, it is one of the old 'famine' cottages which have survived in these parts."

  I gave a diffident shake of the head and pressed the whiskey to my lips, enjoying its fiery warmth through my chill body.

  "I was looking for Father Nessan Doheny," I explained.

  The burly man stared at me a moment as if in surprise and then gave a low chuckle.

  "So I was right then? Well now, I hope that you didn't find him."

  I stopped rubbing my hands together and gazed at him in astonishment.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Because Father Nessan Doheny has been dead these last one hundred and sixty years."

  A chill, like ice, shot down my spine.

  "Dead one hundred and sixty years?"

  "Surely. Didn't you know the story? He led his flock to Musheramore Castle during the time of the 'Great Hunger' to plead with Lord Musheramore to help the surviving peasants and stop the evictions. The soldiers were called in from Mallow and given orders to charge the people who were kneeling on the lawn of the castle in prayer. Father Nessan Doheny was sabred to death with many of his flock."

  I swallowed hard.

  "And… and what happened to Brid Cappeen?"

  He roared with laughter.

  "Then you do know the old legend! Of course you did. It is local knowledge that 'Teach Droch-Chlu' was her old cabin. All part of the old legend. Well frankly, I think it is simply that. No more than a legend. Poor Father Doheny and the demented Brid Cappeen are long since dead. To think on it, the idea of an old woman reanimating the corpse of a priest to enact vengeance on Lord Musheramore and his ilk! God save us!" He genuflected piously. "It is a legend and nothing else."

  22 - Dennis Etchison - The Blood Kiss

  She had told herself that it might never get this far, all the while hoping against hope that it would. Now she could no longer be sure which was the delusion and which the reality. It was out of her control.

  "Chris? You still here?" It was Rip, the messenger boy who had hung around long enough to become Executive in Charge of Special Projects. Whatever, exactly, that denoted. He caught the door as he passed her office, pivoting on one foot and swinging the other up to cross his knee with his ankle, the graceful pose of a dancer at rest or the arch manoeuvre of a runner pretending that he was so far ahead he no longer had to hurry. She couldn't decide. She studied him abstractedly and feigned amusement as he asked, "Aren't you going to the party tonight?"

  "Do you care whether I go to the party tonight?"

  "Sure." He grinned boyishly, as though forgetting for the moment that he was thirty-five years old. "The network's going to be there, you know." He glanced up and down the hall, ducked inside and lowered his voice to make a joke of his naked ambition. "You hear what we're getting for Milo?"

  "Let me guess," she said. "A belly dancer? No, that was for his birthday. A go-go boy from Chippendale's?"

  Rip imploded a laugh. "You've got to be kidding. He can't come out of the closet till the third season."

  "You never know." You wish, she thought. Closet, my ass. I could tell you some things about Milo, if you really want to know. But you probably wouldn't believe me; it wouldn't fit your game plan, would it? Milo the Trouser Pilot. Dream on. "I give up," she said, "what?"

  Rip closed the door behind him. "We hired this bimbo from Central Casting. She's going to come in - rush in at five minutes of twelve, all crying that she just totalled Milo's car out front. You know, the white 450 SL? She's so sorry, she's going to pay for everything, if her insurance hasn't expired. Milo's freaking, right? So she gets him up to the bedroom where the phone is, she's looking for the number, she starts to break down, she whips off her dress and offers herself- when all of a sudden, surprise! It's a strip-o-gram! Happy Valentine's Day! We're all coming. You got a camera, Chrissie?"

  "I'll bring my 3-D."

  "What?"

  "See you there, R. Right now I've got to retype my outline." What time's it getting to be? she wondered.

  "You mean 'Zombies'? I thought it was all set."

  "It is. But Milo had some last-minute suggestions. Nothing major. He wants it on his desk tomorrow morning."

  "Great," said Rip, no longer listening. "Well, don't work too hard."

  If I don't, she thought, who will?

  "And Chrissie?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Have yourself a fabulous evening, stag or drag. Remember, Don't Open the Door's headed straight for Number One - we've got it made! Uh, thanks to your episode, of course. 'Queen of the Zombies' is going to put us over the top!"

  "Thanks for telling me that, R."

  And don't call me Chrissie, she thought, as he let himself out.

  I have it made, you have it made, they have it made, we have it made… I'd like to see them, Milo or anybody else in this production company, do the real work for once: interviewing writers, extracting stories, rewriting all night so there's something more than high concept to give the network… I should have stayed a secretary. At least I'd sleep better.

  But then where would they be? And where would / be? Back in Fresno, she thought. At my parents'. Instead of here, scuttling around behind the scenes to hold this surrogate family together. If I had a dollar for every time I've saved Milo's tight little ass the night before a pitch…

  With stories like this one, she thought, shuffling papers.

  I finally found the right one. Oh, didn't I. This time, miraculously, it was all there when it came in over the transom; the only real work I had to do was to punch it up a bit and hand it to M for the presentation. The perfect episode to launch the second season. That's what they called it. I wanted them to think it was mine, let's be honest. And it worked. Am I really supposed to give back this office for the sake of an abstraction? Who is Roger Ryman? With the specifics changed it will be all but unrecognizable by the time it shoots - I'll see to that; they'll let me do the script. Who else? And with it will come a full credit at last, Guild membership… Who will be the wiser? Ryman is probably earning an honest living somewhere, and better off in the long run. He'll never see it. I'll bet he doesn't even have cable.

  But what if one of his friends sees it?

  Forget it, Chrissie. Chris. You're psyching yourself out.

  You wanted in this way, admit it. You did.

  She removed the last sheet of her latest revision from the typewriter, the one incorporating the changes from today's meeting with Milo, and began proofreading from page one:

  QUEEN OF THE ZOMBIES

  by Christine Cross

  1. 24 HOUR SUPERMARKET - NIGHT

  Three o'clock in the morning. The market is under siege - by the walking dead.

  Zombie shoppers converge on the produce department, where the night manager and a checker, his girlfriend, are hiding behind the lettuce. He's got to get her out of there before they spot her. They want something more than fruit and vegetables.

  He makes it to the p. a. system, grabs the microphone, announces a special on liver as a diversion. The zombies shamble off to die meat department.

  He sends the checker crawling to the front door - but now zombie reinforceme
nts are pouring in from outside. She changes course, sidles between the aisles, is pressed back to the meat department, where the zombies are busy feasting on liver.

  One lone zombie arrives at the end of the cold case. All the meat is gone. Rings the bell with thick, jerky movements. No answer. So he climbs up over the counter, grabs the butcher hiding there, lifts him, sticks a hand into the butcher's abdomen and takes his liver.

  As the feeding frenzy continues, the checker is splattered with blood and guts. She screams.

  "CUT!"

  We see that a movie is being shot in the market. But the girl, who plays the checker won't stop screaming. As the zombies take off their masks she runs from the set, hysterical.

  "Great!" the director says to his fx man. "Only next time more blood, okay, Marty?"

  He goes off to find the girl.

  2. OUTSIDE

  In the parking lot, the director comforts her. She wants to please, knows she's not giving him what he needs, but it's too much for her. She's cracking. She's about ready to get on the bus back to Indiana.

  The director needs her. She's going to be the Queen of the Zombies. He sends her back to the Holiday Inn. A hot bath, rest - what else can he do for her? He'll even rehearse her later, in private, if that's what it takes.

  She put down the pages. Perfect, and so was the rest of it. Now it really moved. Screw the outline, she thought; I could go to script right now, while I've got the momentum, if Milo didn't need to send this version to the network for approval first. A formality. I could keep working - I didn't want to go to that god-awful party, anyway. I can have it done ahead of schedule… They'll finally realize how important I am to this operation. It might even occur to Milo that he needs an Associate Producer. Why not?

  Was he still in his office? She could pay her respects now, beg off for the evening, explain that she's going home to work. That would impress the hell out of him. Wouldn't it?

  She clipped her pages together and reached for her purse.

  The hallway smelled faintly of disinfectant, and in the distance she heard already the bump and rattle of waste baskets as the cleaning woman moved from room to room in the building, wiping up other people's messes for them and making things right again. As Chris passed the reception area she saw the cart of brooms and cleansers behind a half-closed door, and beyond, through the window in Rip's office, the skyline darkening under a band of air made filthy by another day in the city. It was later than she had thought.

  "Good night," she called out.

  The cleaning woman straightened and wiped her heavy hands on her uniform, then let her arms hang limp with palms open, as if afraid to be accused of stealing. Her face was flat and expressionless.

  "Have a nice - nice holiday," Chris added. Well, it wasn't really a holiday. Did the woman even understand English?

  Before she went on they exchanged a last glance. The other's gaze was steady and all-accepting, beyond hope and yet strangely at peace. There was a hint of disapproval in the deadpan face; it left Chris vaguely uneasy, as if she were a teenager spotted sneaking in or out of her bedroom. In fact the look was almost pitying. Why? She lowered her eyes and moved away.

  She rapped on Milo's door, then entered without waiting for permission.

  The room was empty. Of course he hadn't bothered to say good night. Why should he? He never had before. That would change, of course. She had had her office for three days, but it would take awhile for that to sink in for all of them. Things would be different around here soon enough.

  She saw the usual signs of a hasty departure. A row of empty Coke cans, a drawer still pulled out for Milo's feet, a flurry of message slips like unfilled prescriptions curling next to the phone, a rat's nest of papers teetering at the edge of the desk.

  In spite of herself she found the sight more touching than appalling. He needed someone to bring order to his life, to tidy up after hours each night. He couldn't do it alone. It wasn't his fault, she reasoned; it was his nature… She felt like the sister who corrected his homework for him while he slept, the girlfriend who slipped him answers to the big test, the mother who saw to it that his hair was combed before he left for school. She was none of these things, she knew, but soon he would recognize her worth. The days of being taken for granted were over.

  She smiled as she crossed the office and set her corrected outline triumphantly on the glass desktop, where it would be waiting for him in the morning. He couldn't miss it.

  She stacked the message slips, centering her pages between the overflowing ashtray and the rings left by his coffee cup. She positioned his paperweight to hold the pages in place, aligned a pencil on either side to frame them, and started to leave.

  The cart was clattering out of Rip's office, heading this way.

  What if the cleaning woman rearranged things further, slid the pages to the bottom of the wrong pile?

  Chris would have to tell her not to touch the desk.

  But what if she could not make the woman understand?

  She sighed and emptied the ashtray herself, dumped the cans into the waste basket, wiped the glass top and lined up the rest of his artefacts so that nothing on the desk would have to be touched. As she pushed his notepad under the phone and made ready to leave before being caught in the act, the bell within the phone mechanism tolled once, disturbed by the impact. She blinked.

  And saw what was written on the top page of the pad.

  She blinked again, reread it, her mind racing to understand.

  It was in Milo's familiar scrawl, his last memo of the day. She had no trouble making it out. It read:

  BILL S. TO WRITE QUEEN OF THE Z'S. WHO'S HIS AGENT?

  She stared at it.

  She put her hands on her hips, shifted her weight to one foot, then the other, looked out the window and saw nothing but blackness, and read it one more time before her eyes began to sting. The meaning was unmistakable.

  Milo had already assigned someone else to do the full script.

  She was not even in the running.

  She never had been.

  She would be lucky to receive a split credit. No, probably not even that much.

  Suddenly the scales lifted from her eyes.

  She could already envision another writer's name on the screen. Perhaps Milo's alone. It had happened before.

  It follows, she thought. God, does it ever.

  And I didn't even see it coming.

  Of course she wouldn't be able to file a protest, because that could lead to an arbitration that might reveal the true author whose work she herself had appropriated.

  I have, she thought, been had. Again.

  But this time I'm not going to settle for the bone they've tossed me. Not now.

  This time it stops here.

  She picked up the ashtray and hurled it across the room. It smashed into the framed LeRoy Nieman print hanging on the wall. Then she took back the pages and walked out of the office, bits of broken glass sticking to the soles of her shoes and grinding underfoot.

  Startled, the cleaning woman stepped aside.

  "Not this time," Chris told her through tears of rage. "Comprende? I - I'm sorry. Excuse me…"

  I've made a mistake. A terrible, terrible mistake.

  Or someone has.

  In her office, she riffled through the file until she found the original draft synopsis, submitted without an agent by an unknown whom she had never met, Roger R. Ryman. He had included both his home and work phone numbers on the title page.

  She throttled the receiver, breaking a fingernail as she dialled.

  At first he didn't recognize her name. But when she said the magic words, Don't Open the Door, he remembered the series and his submission and almost squeezed through the phone to lick her face.

  Yes, he would meet her anywhere, anytime.

  She gave him Milo's address.

  He didn't think it at all odd that she asked him to meet her at a Valentine's party.

  3. AT THE HOLIDAY INN
r />   She calls home tearfully. She's getting ready for that bath, when the director walks in.

  Everything's going to be all right. You can do it, he tells her. He'll work with her personally. He takes the part of a zombie during their run-through, touches her, grabs her, enfolding her. She responds desperately, forgetting the script. She needs him. And she thinks he needs her.

  4. LATER

  She calls home again - but with a different story this time. Yes, she's doing okay. She's going to make it out here, after all.

  "And Mama? I met a man. Not just any man. He's wonderful, so kind. He really cares what happens to me…"

  Great, she thought. Now the only question is, Which one is he?

  Bodies of all sizes and shapes streamed past her, arrayed in costumes of one sort or another - heart-shaped hats, dresses with arrows, shoes with cuddly designs, kitschy T-shirts, enamelled pins, patterned headbands, pastel jogging suits from the Beverly Centre, ersatz camp from Melrose Avenue. Teddy bears lurked in corners with billets-doux pinned to their bibs; mylar balloons drubbed at the ceiling like air bubbles at the surface of an aquarium. She gasped for breath as unidentifiable people bobbed around her, all luminous collars and teeth under the ultraviolet lights, and searched for an opening before the pressure of the music closed in on her again. As she swam against the flow for the nearest door, something like a pincer tried to grasp her thigh, while in the shadows the bears with their shiny black sharks' eyes seemed to move their heads, following her progress.

  Another record began to pound, "Waiting Out the Eighties" by the Coupe de Villes, as long-necked men with trimmed moustaches collected around a garish buffet in the kitchen. She had almost passed through when she noticed a huge dyed pate, its top cleaved to resemble the wings of a gull in flight. The centre collapsed to reveal a dull, livery interior as the men dipped hors d'oeuvres into the mould and made jokes, a thin film of workout sweat glazing their receding hairlines. She recognized the most animated of the conversationalists.