Stephen Jones (ed)

by The Mammoth Book of Zombies (mobi)

  Grandpa wasn't allowed out by himself because he had a tendency not to come back and we would have to go looking for him. Once I was allowed to go on a grandpa-hunt with my Dad, and we had to search the park just as it was starting to get dark. There were dozens of them - Deadies - sitting motionless beneath the rustling elm trees. They were seated in deckchairs around the bandstand with their hands in their laps, quietly waiting for the music to start. It was a strange sight. I stopped going to the park after that.

  A few days later I took grandpa to the cinema. I guess it was an odd thing to do, but I was supposed to be looking after him and there was a film I really wanted to see, one of those slasher films with music that creeps up on you, and I managed to pass grandpa off as alive, although the usherette looked suspiciously at us. Halfway through the film, just when the heroine had gone to the cellar to look for her cat even though she knew there was a homicidal maniac loose, I turned to find the old man staring at me with wide, flat eyes. He wasn't breathing of course, and his mouth hung open to reveal a thick dry tongue that looked as if it had been carved out of Spam. What bothered me most was the way he repeated one of his living mannerisms, tilting his head slightly to look at me, so that for a moment I couldn't tell if he was really dead. It was just the illusion of life, of course, but an unsettling one.

  A few weeks later, grandpa took it upon himself to revive another root-memory and peel some potatoes. He remembered the peeler but unfortunately forgot to use it in conjunction with a vegetable, and succeeded in removing most of the skin from his fingers before I came home from school and found him staring at a set of bony protrusions that looked like badly sharpened pencils. The very next day he sat down on the stove while the burners were lit and seared himself badly. My mother threatened to leave us if my father didn't arrange for him to be put somewhere, so the following morning found me standing on the doorstep waving goodbye to grandpa as he stared sightlessly back and stumbled off across the flowerbeds, led by a disinterested hospital porter smoking a joint.

  I rarely leave my bedroom now. I don't go to school anymore. There are just too many dead people about, and it bothers me. They blunder into the garden at night and follow you to the shops and fall down the steps of public lavatories and float past you on the ferry, and it's undignified. My mother seems to understand how I feel, and lets me have most of my meals in my room. She's become overfriendly with the cocktail cabinet these days, anyway. The extraordinary thing is, the living dead don't seem to count anymore. It doesn't matter that the stench of corruption is all around us. We've grown used to the smell. The government continues to chair pointless debates and issue toothless white papers. The general public has ceased to care or even notice. The fabric of society is gently rotting through, even if the dead aren't. So I'm formulating a plan, because someone has to do something. Somebody has to care. Somebody has to take affirmatve action before it's too late.

  Kevin Grady, Upper 4B

  "It makes you wonder what he thinks about," whispered Mrs Grady, pulling the tablecloth in by the corners and removing it. "He'll sit like that for hours on end, just staring down into the street, watching the people come and go."

  "You should be thankful," said her neighbour, helping her clear away the cups and saucers. "My Joey's a holy terror these days, out every night mixing with heaven knows what kind of riff-raff."

  She looked across at the chalk-faced child seated before the window, and a cloud of doubt momentarily formed in her mind. It was unnatural for a teenaged boy to sit so still. When you spoke to him he stared back in accusing silence. And the terrible way he looked at you, with murder in those deep-set eyes. "Joey tells me he's doing his homework," she continued, "but I know damned well he's running with that gang of his. I have no control over him, and his father's absolutely no help at all. But your Kevin…" She furrowed her brow and uneasily turned aside as the boy glanced at her in suspicion. No wonder his mother was bashing the Bristol Cream these days, with her son wandering about the house dressed in black, narrowing his eyes at every passing adult. He'd probably grow up to be a serial killer.

  "Kevin's a good boy," said his mother firmly. "He's terribly bright. And sensitive. He and his granddad were very close. He's been a lot quieter since the old man died. Wouldn't even come with us to the funeral. I hope it doesn't have any lasting effect on him."

  "I shouldn't think so," the neighbour whispered back. "Children are resilient. He's very quiet, though. He should go outside more and get some fresh air. Mix with the others. Swim. Play football." She threw the torpid child a look of desperation. "Anything."

  Mrs Grady unfolded her arms from her ample chest and looked about for the sherry bottle. "I wish he would, but he prefers to stay in his room watching horror films all the time." She poured overgenerous measures into a pair of amber glasses. "It gives him such an overactive imagination. I think Kevin sees the world differently to most children. He has some very odd ideas. I'm sure it's just a phase, but right now, well…" She turned to her friend and brought her face closer, confiding.

  "It's… the way he looks at us sometimes. Almost as if he wishes we were dead."

  24 - Robert Bloch - The Dead Don't Die!

  This is a story that never ends.

  This is a story that never ends, but I know when it started. Thursday, May 24th, was the date. That night was the beginning of everything for me.

  For Cono Colluri it was the end.

  Cono and I were sitting there, playing two-handed stud poker. It was quiet in his cell, and we played slowly, meditatively. Everything would have been all right except for one thing. We had a kibitzer.

  No matter how calmly we played, no matter how unemotional we appeared to be, we both were aware of another presence. The other, the kibitzer, stayed with us all night long.

  His name was Death.

  He grinned over Cono's shoulder, tapped him on the arm with a bony finger, selected the cards for every shuffle. He tugged at my hands, poked me in the back when I dealt.

  We couldn't see him, of course. But we knew he was there, all right. Watching, watching and waiting; those big blind holes in the skull sneaking a look at the clock and counting the minutes, those skeleton fingers tapping away the seconds until dawn.

  Because in the morning, no matter what cards turned up and no matter how much money changed hands, Death would win the game. The game, and Cono Colluri.

  It's funny, looking back on it now, to figure out how the three of us happened to get together that particular evening - Cono, myself, and Death.

  My story's straight enough. About six months beforehand I'd taken a Civil Service exam and ended up for a probationary period as a guard at State Pen. I wasn't too excited about the job when I got it, but I felt it might give me routine, a small but steady income, and a chance to turn out a book on the side. By the time a few months had passed, I knew I was wrong. The idea of turning out a novel in a background of security sounded fine when I started, but there was no security in a guard's life. I found I couldn't write. The bars and the concrete penned me in just as much as any of my charges. And I began to develop my own sense of guilt.

  I guess my trouble was too much empathy. That's a big word -meaning the ability to put yourself in the other fellow's place. "There but for the grace of God go I" - you know that feeling. I had it, but double. Instead of writing at night, I tossed around on my bunk and suffered the torments of the thousand men under my charge.

  That's how I got friendly with Cono, I guess - through empathy.

  Cono came to the death cell in an awful hurry. His had been a short trial and a merry one - the kind of thing the newspapers like to play up as an example of "quick justice". He'd been a professional strong man with a carnival - the James T. Armstrong Shows. The story was that he got too jealous of his wife and one of the other performers. At any rate, one morning they found Cono lying dead drunk in his trailer. His wife was with him, but she wasn't drunk - merely dead. Somebody had pressed two thumbs against the base of her
neck, and something had snapped.

  It was an ideal setup for "quick justice" and that's just what Cono Colluri got. Within three weeks he was on his way to the death-house, and for the past two weeks he'd been a guest of the state. A temporary guest. And he was moving out tomorrow morning - for good.

  That, of course, explains why Death showed up at our little card party. He belonged there.

  Oh, perhaps not for the entire night. He undoubtedly had rattled down the short - oh so terribly short! - corridor to the little room with the big chair. He'd probably peered and eaves-dropped on the electricians who tested the switches. He'd certainly have stopped in at the warden's office to make sure that the mythical pardon from the Governor wasn't on its way.

  Yes, Death must have checked all those things to make certain that this was really a farewell card party. And now the uninvited guest was kibitzing as Cono and I dealt our hands.

  I knew he was there, and Cono knew it too, but I have to hand it to the big man. He was cool. He'd always been cool; on the stand, swearing his innocence, he'd never lost his temper. Here in the cell, talking to the warden, to the other guards, to me, he'd never broken down. Just told his story over and over again. Somebody had slipped a Mickey in his drink and when he woke up, Flo was dead. He'd never harmed her.

  Of course, nobody believed him at the trial. Nobody believed him in the prison, either; the warden, the guards, even the other convicts knew that he was guilty and ready to fry.

  That's why I had the honour of spending the last night with him - he'd made a special request for my presence. Because, believe it or not, I believed him.

  Blame it on empathy again, or on the very fact that I noticed he never lost his temper. The way he talked about the case, the way he talked about his wife, the way he talked about the execution -everything was out of character for a "crime of passion" murderer. Oh, he was a big brute, and a rough looking one, but he never acted on impulse.

  I guess he took to me right away. We used to talk, nights, after I drew guard assignment on his bloc. He was the only prisoner awaiting execution, and it was natural that we'd get to talking.

  "You know I didn't do it, Bob," he'd tell me - over and over again, but there was nothing else to talk about, for him - "It must have been Louie. He lied at the trial, you know. He had been drinking with me, no matter what he says, and he offered me a slug out of the bottle behind the cookhouse, after the last show. That's the last thing I remember. So I figure he must have done it. He was always hanging around Flo anyway, the little crumb. The Great Ahmed warned me, said he saw it in the crystal. But of course, he came into court with this alibi and - oh what's the use?"

  There was no use at all, and he knew it. But he told me over and over again. And I believed him.

  Now, this last night, he wasn't talking. Maybe it was because Death was there, listening to every word. Maybe it was because they'd shaved his head and slit his trouser legs and left him to wait out these last few hours.

  Cono wasn't talking, but he could still grin. He could and he did - smiling at me and looking like a great big overgrown college boy with a crew haircut. Come to think of it, he wasn't much more than just that; only Cono had never gone to college. He went with his first carney at fifteen; married Flo when he was twenty-three, and now he was going to the chair two days before his twenty-fifth birthday. But he smiled. Smiled, and played poker.

  "My king is high," he said. "Bet a quarter." "See you," I answered. "Let's have another card."

  "King still high. Check. Funny thing, aces aren't coming up much tonight."

  I didn't answer him. I didn't have the heart to tell him that I was cheating. I'd taken the Ace of Spades out of the pack and put it in my pocket before the game started. I didn't want him to get that particular card on the table tonight of all nights.

  "Fifty cents on the king," said Cono.

  "See you," I said. "I've got a pair of nines."

  "Pair of kings." He turned up his cards. "I win."

  "You're just naturally lucky," I told him - and wished I hadn't.

  But he smiled. I couldn't face that smile, so I looked at my watch. That was another mistake, and I realized it as soon as I made the gesture.

  His smile didn't alter. "Not much time left, is there?" he said. "Seems to be getting light."

  "Another hand?" I suggested.

  "No." Cono stood up. Shaved head, slit trousers and all, he was still an impressive sight. Six feet four, two hundred and ten pounds, in the prime of life. And in just an hour or so they would strap him into the chair, turn on the juice, twist that smile into a grimace of agony. I couldn't look at him, thinking those thoughts. But I could feel Death looking; gazing and gloating.

  "Bob, I want to talk to you."

  "Shall we order breakfast? You know what the warden said - anything you want, the works."

  "No breakfast." Cono put his hand on my shoulder. The fingers that were supposed to have broken a woman's neck barely pressed my skin. "Let's fool 'em all and skip the meal. That'll give the nosey reporters something to talk about."

  "What's up?"

  "Nothing much. But I got things to tell you."

  "Why me in particular?"

  "Who else is there left? I got no friends. Got no family I know of. And Flo's gone…"

  For the first time I saw a look of anger flicker across the big man's face. I knew then that whoever had killed Flo was lucky when Cono got the chair.

  "So it has to be you. Besides, you believe me."

  "Go on," I said.

  "It's about the dough, see? Flo and me, we were saving for a house. Got better'n eight grand stashed away. Somebody's gonna, get it, so why not you? I wrote this here letter, and I want you to have it."

  He pulled the envelope out from under his bunk. It was sealed, and scrawled across its face in the sprawling handwriting of a schoolboy was the name, "The Great Ahmed".

  "Who's he?"

  "I told you, he's the mitt reader with the carney. A nice guy, Bob. You'll like him. He stuck up for me at the trial, remember? Told about Louie hanging around Flo. Didn't do any good because he couldn't prove nothing, but he was - what did the lawyer say? - a character witness. Yeah. Anyhow, he banks for all us carneys with the show.

  "Take the letter. It says to give you the money. He'll do it, too. All you got to do is look him up."

  I hesitated. "Wait a minute, Cono. You'd better think this over. Eight thousand dollars is a lot of money to pass out to a virtual stranger - "

  "Take it, pal." Again he smiled. "There's a string tied to the bundle, of course."

  "What do you want?"

  "I want you to use some of that dough to try and clear me. Oh, I know you haven't got much of a chance, and nothing to work on. But maybe, with the dough, you'll get an angle, turn something up. You're leaving this joint anyway."

  I jerked my head at that. "How did you know?" I asked. "Why, I only told the warden yesterday afternoon - "

  "Word goes around." Cono smiled. "They give me the office that you're springing yourself out of here this Saturday. That you aren't satisfied to be a screw the rest of your life. So I says to myself, why not give him the eight grand as a kind of going-away present? Seeing as how we're both going away."

  I balanced the envelope on my palm. "The Great Ahmed, eh? And you say he's with the show?"

  "Sure. You'll find their route in Billboard" Cono smiled. "They must be somewhere around Louisville right now. Heading north as it gets warmer. I'd sort of like to see the old outfit again, but…"

  The smile faded. "One more favour, Bob."

  "Name it."

  "Scram out of here."

  "But - "

  "You heard me. Scram. I expect visitors pretty soon, and I don't want you to stick around."

  I nodded, nodded gratefully. Cono was sparing me that final ordeal - the warden, the priest, the mumbling farewell, the shuffling down the corridor.

  "Goodbye, Bob. Remember, I'm depending on you."

  "I'll d
o what I can. Goodbye, Cono."

  The big hand enveloped mine. "I'll be seeing you around," he said.

  "Sure."

  "I mean it, Bob. You don't believe this is the end, do you?"

  "Maybe you're right. I hope so." I had no intention of getting into a discussion about the after-life with Cono, in his situation. Personally, I had a pretty good idea that once the juice was turned on, Cono would be turned off- forever. But I couldn't tell him that. So I just shook hands, put the letter in my pocket, unlocked the cell, and walked out.

  At the end of the corridor I turned around and looked back. Cono stood against the bars, his body outlined against the yellow light but blending into the shadows that come with dawn. There was another shadow behind him - a big, black shadow outlining a ghost of a figure.

  I recognized the shadow. Old Man Death.

  That was the last I saw -just the two of them, waiting together. Cono and Old Man Death.

  I went downstairs, then, to my bunk. The night shift came off and the day shift went on. They were all talking about the execution. They tried to pump me, but I didn't say anything. I sat there on the edge of the bunk, looking at my watch and waiting.

  Upstairs they must have gone through the whole routine, just the way you always see it in the B movies. Opening the door. Handcuffing him to a guard on either side. Marching down the corridor. Yes, just about now it would be happening. The night shift went outside to get the news, leaving me alone on my bunk. I looked at my watch again. Now was the time.

  They'd be strapping him down now, putting that damned black cloth over his eyes. I could see him sitting there; a big, gentle hulk of a man with a tired smile on his face.