Best New Zombie Tales, Vol. 3

by Anthology

  The second tumbler of water was cooler and he passed its cold curve across his forehead, hearing the faint pops and creaks of the old house as it expanded and eased in the evening warmth.

  After what seemed hours, as cool blue shadows crept across the back yard, Harold opened the hall closet and grabbed the Remington pump, the one they’d left loaded by the front door through all these years after the Epidemic.

  He walked heavily to the bedroom door, twisted the knob and cracked it open. With shades drawn tight the room was cave-dark, cooler than the rest of the house.

  “You didn’t do this to me,” he whispered again, but the air in the room carried a sour undercurrent, vomit and urine. He took in Val’s still form, the comforter pulled to her armpits, the empty brown Valium bottle on the nightstand. She lay turned on her side, back to the door and one hand splayed on her thigh.

  Harold eased himself onto the bed, shifting quietly as if he might wake her. He held the Remington awkwardly in his left hand and thumbed the safety off. With his right hand he grasped Val’s cold, slack fingers, interlaced them with his own.

  He knew the accepted thing was to block the door and call the CDC, the police. They’d be out in minutes, zipping her up and whisking her away to the crematorium, but he also knew the virus had waned over the years. There was a better-than-even chance Val was dead, dead and gone. At some kind of peace now. He couldn’t bear the thought of some group of haz-matted strangers clomping through their house, tumbling her body into a rubber-lined bag.

  “In the morning, Val. I’ll call them in the morning.” He closed his eyes and tried to conjure memories of their first days together, her quick step and the bright sparkle in her eyes.

  The bedside clock read 11:45 when her fingers clenched hard on his. Her back arched and her heels drummed into his thigh.

  “It’s alright,” he whispered, and canted the Remington across his chest, barrel pressing into her skull. He pulled the trigger before a sound could escape from her writhing lips.

  Harold spent the night lying in the dark, ears ringing.

  ~

  “Harold, didn’t you call in sick?” Sally at the front desk smiled at him as he stumbled by. “Jonas’s been on your shift three hours.”

  “A bug, but I’m better now,” Harold mumbled. He stepped quick down the corridor to the locker rooms. How long before Sally phoned Levi and the little prick came snooping around for him?

  In the echoing tile-floored locker room he tugged on his vest and pulled the Mossberg from its brackets, thumbing the red cartridges into the magazine. In his locker door’s seam he had tucked a photo of Val and Stephen, taken some twenty years before at Lake Powell. They both wore goofy, sunburned grins, squinting into the camera lens, framed by placid blue water and smooth sandstone cliffs.

  “It’ll be okay,” he slipped the photo into his shirt pocket.

  Would this make any real difference? Deep down he had the answer. One man can’t shift the world’s balance. But people needed to know—to remember what happened. He couldn’t be the only one who thought like that.

  He pressed the Mossberg along his leg as he left the locker room, turning right toward the control center rather then left to the hydraulic push doors into the plant itself.

  Harold didn’t know the technician inside the control room, which was just as well. The man slouched in a rolling desk chair, a slight cowlick sticking up as he sipped from an insulated coffee mug. Video monitors stretched across the wall far wall, tiny black and white images of the plant jerking back and forth. To the left a flat screen monitor displayed a rapid cycling of numbers and digits, each culminating with tiny green dot, F237, M24, M458, F17.

  The technician turned his head, catching Harold’s reflection in the screens as he stood with door propped open by one foot. “Hey you know the rules, buddy. Nobody but management or control crews in here.”

  “Yeah, I know the protocol,” Harold stepped into the room, keeping the door open with the barrel of the Mossberg. “This door’s supposed to be locked down too, isn’t it?”

  “Hey,” the technician’s eyes darted to the shotgun, and he leaned to put his coffee cup on the desk. Harold stretched his free hand forward, clamping down on the bird-thin bones of the technician’s shoulder, his thumb pressed against the seat back. He jerked and the man rolled backward, past Harold and through the open doorway. The chair bounced hard over the threshold and the technician spilled into the corridor. Harold kicked the chair out after him and slammed the door. On the inside was a thick bolt. The control room was designed as a refuge of last resort. He threw the bolt and turned his back on the technician’s pounding and indignant squawking, narrowing the sounds from his consciousness.

  The control board was clearly labeled and no great shakes to cipher out. Harold thumbed off the override controlling the plant’s electronic doors. Every door would swing free and easy until he turned it back on. A flurry of activity in one of the monitors caught his eye, Levi barking into his radio, rustlers running haphazardly before the camera. Maybe they’d all leave the work rooms, come thundering into the corridor.

  Harold removed the photo of Val and Stephen and propped it beside the screens. All he had held dear in one faded scrap of paper.

  “I guess this’ll about do it,” his voice was a cracked whisper. This might shock them back into reality, make them remember what everyone had so easily forgotten.

  Something heavy hit the control room door and it shook in its frame but he paid it little mind. The technician’s radio squalled over and over. Harold cycled up the regulator controls and began shutting them down, one hundred to a screen. Five screens filled with urgently winking amber pinpoints when he was done.

  On the video monitors the Z-crews stopped their methodical movements, heads twisted back and forth, hands jerked, clawing at the air as they looked for something, anything to quell their hunger.

  Harold shut the monitors off one after another. This wasn’t something he wanted to see. Thin screams seeped through the walls, between static bursts of the radio. On the last monitor Levi and half dozen rustlers were in the corridor outside. They stopped pounding at the control room as, from the far end of the hall, a pack of Barneys and Betties surged through the swinging doors, coveralls stained dark, gloved hands and mouths smeared and clotted.

  They’d soon be out of the plant, lumbering into the city.

  Harold laid the shotgun up across his knees. When the noise died down he’d throw the bolt open and go out.

  He’d go out and see if he couldn’t get his family together again.

  The Last Supper (The Anatomy Of Addiction)

  JOHN CLAUDE SMITH

  “…yes, my friends, there is nothing new to report on this, the 300th day of… of infestation. As if there will ever be anything new to report. No, the turmoil that prevails is quite obviously terminal: the attrition of humanity… Just take a look out your windows… that’s if you haven’t already boarded them up. Otherwise, take my word, oh yes, yes. The horrors are real… and relentless…”

  ~

  The drug haze swells in his head as Razor tries to wake (WAKE UP!), but the effort is more akin to wading through mud. It feels like a turgid, convoluted descent into someone else’s ‘no longer private’ hell; someone’s corrupt imagination. Surely these images of decay and extinction cannot be nourished into fruition by the unconscious reels that project from the back of his brain and onto the white cranial screen he now views. It is a wasteland, a grainy, gray and rust-hued visual documentary cataloging the demise of civilization as we know it. Holocaust to the nth! Only it is much worse than an exclamation point, for there is no finality.

  The landscape is littered with dead people; walking dead people; feasting dead people. The morbid, leering eye––the prime reaction culled by the masses since the onset of the disease being cathode ray addiction, voyeurs of the visceral––gleans every bit of perversion, presenting in excruciating detail, the aimless gaze. The savage quest for any
thing meat: rats, cats, dogs… people; the horrendous corrosion and disorder. In one fell swoop the world changes; this is the way it is destined to be, there is nothing to be done about it. It is the blatant intrusion of grade Z cannibal films as Headline News (5, 6 and 11). The eye constantly scours the desolation, peering with clinical (carnivorous) curiosity as the final days unravel. It is a painstakingly slow process. Like picking a scab off a dying race, repeatedly prying it off to search underneath for the reasons why, prolonging the moments (seconds into minutes into hours into days…) before The End (my friend). Leaving the grave unoccupied…

  Razor twitches, realizing the scenes he witnessed are external, not internal. Cathode ray addiction indeed, amongst many other addictions ingested, snorted or shot into eager veins. He slams his eyelids shut, incinerating the light with the precious cool darkness, canceling the TV’s brutal exhibition. He immediately nods off. There are no dreams. There is no reason for them anymore.

  ~

  When he wakes his eyes feel like they are throbbing, not enough room in the sockets. As he shoved the throb to the back of his head, to the abandoned place where dreams once roamed free, he hones in on Sara. She’s still, lying still. Ribbons of blood trickles from her mouth into a pool of saliva, creating patterns that seem vaguely familiar. He remembers nothing (hitting, pummeling—this is my ride, senorita—Go away!), remembers something (sorry, I’m sorry, babe), and, as usual, denies everything, even his existence; this existence. She is face down on the hardwood floor: flat and smooth, the floor. The baby––what was her name?––is her miniature twin. Razor notices a slight rise in Sara’s torso, a slight ripple in the ever-expanding pool. He is uncertain if he can notice any discernable indication that the baby is breathing. Then again, his vision is tweaked, seeing doublouble and even tripripiple.

  He sits up, gaining focus while viewing the TV screen. The volume is forever mute. The color is faded like the bleached terrain outside, basking in hues of gray and rust. The radio is a whisper screeching in the far corner, settled into a nook next to a pile of filthy clothes. It emits an array of clicks, blips and static, epitomizing the final wheezing breath of this dying planet.

  Razor, stricken with pangs of compassion (more likely, flushed with guilt), unsteadily props himself up on his hands and knees. He belches and bile fills his mouth. He coughs, spitting the putrid yellow and red fluid on the hardwood floor; it splats, quickly assuming a Rorschach quality. Mesmerized, he searches for faces, secrets, unlocked doors…

  Suddenly Razor peripherally glimpses the hypodermic syringe. The needle––

  (Something sharp.)

  He reaches out and his balance sways, stumbling into the warm fluid, soaking his shirt. But he doesn’t realize this. Everything is sucked into oblivion, the comforting vacuum of nothingness…

  ~

  “…why do I persist to report the carnage? Perhaps it is journalistic instinct. Perhaps it abates some of the internal suffering, hoping that I’ve made a connection with somebody out there, my friends. At least one of you who understands, who is not already grist for the bone mill. [cynical snicker] Perhaps… perhaps it is the knowledge that if I sign-off, well…”

  ~

  There are no dreams, only memories:

  Razor bends the spoon, slightly, setting it on the table. It does not wobble. He then rips the end off of a Q-tip, setting the tiny cotton ball next to the spoon. He nervously twists the remains into a question mark. His hands are moist, his heart beginning to race. Anticipation is such a sweet addition to the rush. He taps the dope from its plastic baggy onto the spoon, the specifics of said dope unnecessary, the gist here deals as much with the process as it does with the high; nonetheless, the dope is crank, cocaine’s dirty white trash cousin. His anxious fingers are now concrete in precision. He squeezes water from the syringe onto the dope. Flipping it over, Razor uses the plunger end to stir the mixture; it dissolves almost instantly, leaving an oily film over the top. Good. He closes his eyes, his nostrils flare; a hint of ether. Definitely some good shit. Blood sings in his ears. His brain is a beehive––oh, yes, very good shit. His thoughts are focused, streamlined; he is the conductor. He drops the cotton ball into the mixture. It soaks up the liquid like the sponge it is meant to emulate, like the putty of a child’s mind. Always wanting more, whether it is knowledge, attention, or satisfaction.

  For Razor, it has always been satisfaction. Circumstances have only magnified this desire, altered the means by which his satisfaction is achieved. Now, satisfaction means escape, running away, hopping on the metaphysically mutated freight train raging through his body. He vaguely remembers some ancient classic rock performer’s nasal bleat and cackle: All Aboard!

  Razor uses the needle end to roll the cotton ball around, making sure to get everything. He puts the flat end of the needle on the cotton ball, drawing the plunger back. He raises the syringe to eye level, admiring the yellowish color. He pulls down on the plunger again, taps the syringe with his forefinger, and watches the bubbles rise. Sweat trickles down the sides of his face. Razor firmly presses the plunger back up. He clenches and unclenches his fist, tightens the belt around his upper arm. The veins protrude like mountains on a relief map. The needle pierces flesh. Razor gets the register; he is perfect as always: blood flows into the syringe. He inhales and exhales, emitting an audible sigh of pleasure.

  Now: Razor presses the plunger, slowly (teetering [patient])—Hold it (this is better than), hold it (any heaven they… who are they?), hold it (could promise), pulling back on the plunger (in the afterlife: 1. death 2. hunger…), jacking off (that’s what Metal Fred called it, milking the high, lingering before surrender: teetering…), so good, so good… pressing in again, fully, the freight train in overdrive (All Aboard! Hahahahaha…)––Pounding on the door––shit, the cops––yanking the needle from his arm––

  SHITSHITSHIT! (pounding––no, wait––scratching…)

  derailed by paranoia, by…

  (scratching?)

  cops?

  ~

  eyelids

  quiver in defense

  light streaming in like sandpaper (abrasive––WAKE UP!)

  SOUND: scratching at the door, muffled pounding––the cops? Confusion. Why don’t they say something? Why don’t they—(WAKE UP!)

  There are no dreams, only memories… and Reality!

  The door splints from the pressure. They—the dead––slowly shamble through the opening; a throng of arms and legs and gaping maws converge to fill the allotted space. Like excrement forcing its way through an ever-widening sphincter, the bodies fill the doorway with disregard toward everything but the purpose at hand: the acquisition of food. They are scavengers driven by the hunger. That is all that they are.

  Rubbing his eyes, Razor back-peddles on his rump to as neutral a corner as possible, gagging on their abhorrent stench. His eyes are watery but clear, lucidly soaking in the true Reality manifesting before him. A Reality he had so tried to avoid… to escape from…

  The dead, in all their revivifying glory, tear the baby––what was her name?––to pieces, clutching and yanking with selfish fingers more akin to vulture’s talons. Eyes glazed like slivers of shattered stained-glass hope, patches of skin gray with putrefaction… if there is any skin at all; they are nothing more than the urge: to feed. This point is made abundantly clear by the constantly flexing jaws, chewing air, in desperate search of meat. And when meat is procured, momentarily sated by a fistful of flesh, stringy entrails, or once vital organs: grist for the bone mill.

  Sara’s scream cuts through the monotony, a jagged, agonizing wail, much like the rotting teeth that penetrates her flesh and unconsciousness. Razor cringes, impotent to react, eyelids slamming shut, fingers plugging ears, trembling. It is not as if he cares; his body coils inward––closing himself off out of a learned, well-oiled reflex of denial. She squirms, but already too many bony fingers dig into the freshly excavated cavity in her abdomen. They scoop her intestines into t
heir dust dry mouths, sucking as a child would on a plate of spaghetti. Her farewell refrain is a gurgling confirmation of participation in the ultimate physical travesty: to be eaten alive, a violation beyond reciprocation. The gurgling coda is eclipsed by one of the androgynous dead––gender and genitals having been withered by the passage of time––as it chews her tongue right out of her mouth.

  When Razor harnesses the courage to open his eyes again, it is to the same bleak scenario that closing his lids had blotted out. With dull, machine-like precision, the dead continues to strip the last of Sara’s meat from her bones, slurping the final droplets of blood from the hardwood floor. Some even suckle on her clothing––much as a baby would its mother’s bosom––drawing blood from fabric, or possibly even sustenance from the very scents that lingered within.

  Razor whimpers. It’s all his body can muster as a response to the cruel play before him: an improvisation of insanity. All he wants is to be away from this ramshackle theater of the macabre. It, too, is a violation beyond reciprocation, a reiteration of the reality in which he is trapped. Scrunched into the corner, he wishes he were wood, wishes he were able to blend into the wall. His eyes flicker to and fro, still looking for a means of escape… when he spots one.

  It glimmers, a winking reflection of light, a light at the end of the tunnel: the hypodermic syringe. Equidistant between the gorging horde and him laid the needle. Naked and singing, singing to him! He instantly becomes transfixed on it, focusing to a point of blocking out the madness. The bogus barrier his mind creates gives the impression that it had eradicated the obscene exhibition, bringing down the curtain, but not in the purest sense. He can still see them, but now it is as if they are behind a TV screen––their usual mode of intrusion, cameras poking out of windows, or on top of buildings, peering down on the deluge––their heinous acts being transmitted from some place far beyond the confines of the studio apartment. They are real––TV never lies––but are no longer his immediate concern.