The Ghosts of the Zombie Apocalypse

by Kayes, Greg

  Mike couldn't comprehend that sentence. He heard it but anything that he could possibly do about it presently escaped him as he watched the Master rise up from the floor like a classy kind of devil. He stood there facing Mike with his chin tilted down as the rim of a white Panama hat covered his eyes. The Master stood there with swagger while he leaned on a cane with his arms outstretched as if he were about to break into an evil song and dance. But none of that compared to his grin, a simple relaxed upper lip with a sliver of teeth shining through like luminescent porcelain gems. It was a grin that said "I got alllll day for what I'm gonna do to you. I ain't even upset. In fact I'm glad to see you. We're pals you and I. And I love my pals. I especially Love making time for my pals."

  It took Mike a minute to realize and register that the Master actually did say that. But he didn't move. Neither of them moved as they stared silently at each other. Fear sat there patiently, fear its self almost smiled.

  "So where is she?" The Master finally said.

  "Who." Mike said practically hypnotized

  "The one that got away." The Master said patiently

  They stared at each other silently for another minute before the Master brought his cane up and across Mike's head sending him tumbling through the stairwell's wall and further into the dark basement.

  "WHERE IS SHE!!!" The Master said with no patients at all.

  Mike's head throbbed. He wondered where the Master got a cane and why did it hurt so much when he was hit with it. But that's as far as he got before the Master picked him up by his neck, which would have been way more uncomfortable if he needed to breath, but was still plenty terrifying as it was.

  "I'm not going to ask you again." The Master said carefully "I'm just going to keep spending time! With my Pal!! Here!!!"

  Mike lay limp in the Master's grip on his throat as blow after blow was unleashed mercilessly on to him until the Master finished his sentence. Mike then slowly looked up at the fuming eyes of this daemon with surprise.

  "You really don't know where she is! Do you." Mike said making the Master's eyes go furiously narrow.

  Blow after blow, hell was brought down upon Mike's ghostly body. It didn't hurt he realized, it just felt like pieces of him were slowly fading or breaking off him and that sensation was like a pain completely indescribable in human terms. Little nicks and pieces of his body started to litter the floor and begin to sizzle into nothingness.

  That's when the door upstairs burst open.

  The world felt fuzzy. And it spun like vertigo. There was no sensation yet there were millions of them, like fireworks. Henrietta was both overwhelmed...and at peace. There was no memory, just burning rage. Rage and burning. All of her burned like a tremendous sunburn under her skin, itchy and hot...yet it didn't. It did and it didn't. Not one or the other but both at the same time...and neither, if such a thing were possible.

  Time didn't seem to exist but there was movement. She was moving...or Henrietta was. Why did she think that, who else was here?

  She was supposed to do something...

  ...who?

  Me?

  ...Me who?

  Just "Me", I guess.

  Henrietta looked around. She couldn't see anything. Nothing made sense. Her body felt like a fever full of burning, itching, over sensitive, rotting-

  "NO!!!" Henrietta shouted as she rejected everything, trying to pull back to herself. But she couldn't. There was nowhere to go back to. She couldn't remember where it was she wanted to go back to anymore. She couldn't remember anything anymore. Everything was so animal now. Wild, sick, and...hungry...So hungry.

  ...there was food upstairs. Maybe she'll feel better after she eats. Mother said you had to feed a cold...there was...food...upstairs...

  John was pumping water into the sink full of dishes when the basement door burst open. The corpse was standing in the doorway breathing heavily...and glaring at him. Other zombies had never noticed him before, little lone glared at him. This corpse however was and it was terrifying. The corpse then charged. It was then that all the chickens in the rafters got spooked and decided to attack...him.

  "What in God's name is going on?!" Mist said bursting out from sleep. "I was in the middle of a very important conversat-“

  Mist stopped mid sentence as a smell seemed to catch her nose.

  "Oh no."

  Henrietta's mouth was happily full of something juicy, delicious, and vaguely crunchy. She didn't know what it was or how she found it but it felt instinctual. Just one thing, why did it taste like chicken?

  John was on the floor covered in feathers and spur gashes all over his body. The zombie currently was trying to shove the other half of a whole chicken into her mouth. The other chickens had flown back up into the rafters to regroup after the surprisingly swift defeat of one of their own. They seemed to be studying their new enemy with frightening focus. John took that the moment to quickly scurry away.

  "Quick! Grab her and pull her into the basement while her mouth is full!!" Mist commanded

  The voice of command overrided his flight response and dictated his movements. Easily he picked up the unresisting zombie and rushed her down into the basement as Mist came running down after him with some rope and her shotgun.

  "We need to tie her up. Here!" Mist said tossing him the rope.

  Then as quickly as he caught it Mist shot her gun at an empty wall.

  "Get down!!" Mist shouted

  "Wha- Oh shit!!!" John expressed as Mist shot again and again at different spots in the basement before she blocked an unseen blow making her boots skid across the floor backwards.

  A poof of feathers made him remember about the zombie...which had also disappeared.

  Something terrified Henrietta. She could feel it more at her core than her skin. Something she couldn't remember made her terrified. It felt as if she were at the other end of her current meal. She didn't like it. She didn't like what was in her mouth anymore. She spat it out then threw up.

  She then heard voices, but couldn't understand them.

  "Well, well, well, Mist! How've you been?" The Master said jovially

  "Hello Harry." Mist said as she struggled to hold back the locked blow Harry was pressing on her with his cane.

  "What's it been, fifty years?"

  "More than that." Mist said as she broke the grapple and let loose another gunshot that missed.

  "Time’s been hitting you hard Misty. You had better aim back then." Harry said as he brought his cane back down on Mist who parried it with her shotgun with a clang. "I remember when you fought way harder when I killed and ate your daughter. Where is that fiery daemon I remember so well?" He said as Mist deflected another blow.

  Mist shot her gun again before knocking away another blow.

  "She’s had a long time to get experience." Mist said "I remember when you took this seriously."

  "Oh I am. I am." Harry said as he swung his cane rapidly precise again and again. "It's you after all."

  Harry managed to land a thrust into Mist's belly making her keel over only momentarily "Nothing but the best for my Misty."

  "Likewise." Mist said as she stood up and deliberately shot her gun at an empty adjacent wall.

  Soft white light mist started to fill the room. Harry was starting to have a hard time moving.

  "What is this?!" Harry said perplexed

  "This is my house." Mist said as she swung the butt of her gun upside his head.

  Mike lay motionless on the ground. He took Mist's advice to get down after she knocked the Master of him with that gun shot. He had just given up at that point from trying to make sense of anything from now on. Guns now hurt ghosts, so that’s a thing. It makes about as much sense as anything else here. Still even if he wanted to move he couldn't. Harry[12] had beaten the stuffing out of him, for real.

  Mike felt like one of those paper dolls that a one handed blind kid made for an arts and crafts project. Pieces of him, nicked out of his body, littered the ground around him. Well
it could be worse. He was just having a hard time thinking of what could be worse at the moment but it had to be something. Yes definitely something. Something would definitely be worse than this. Never a truer word had been thought.

  Still...it probably couldn't be as bad as Henrietta right now. Her corpse had come over here and thrown up a chicken. A whole chicken! If the head wasn't already severed on that bird I would definitely hate to be that zombie when it woke up. But it can't be easy for Henrietta in there right now being rejected from her own former body. That's gotta be a bruise to the ego.

  Harry felt his ego bruise as the butt of the gun smacked his face again. This day shouldn't be happening. Too many unexpected things were not going his way. He was supposed to be the unexpected thing that happened to other people. Well, he didn't live like this as long as he had in order to let something like this happen again. Time to get serious.

  The house started to shake as timbers above Mist began to crack loudly. Sudden tremors in the ground threw her off balance making her trip to the ground.

  "Quit being a sore loser." Mist said sitting up. "You lost. Shaking my house isn't going to change that."

  "I'm not shaking your house." Harry said

  It was then that the ground burst open.

  John was freaking out. The room was getting dusty from all the gun smoke making it hard to see. Which was bad because somewhere in here was a zombie that actually noticed him. And to put a cherry on top of all that, Mist was having convulsions on the ground.

  Mist was hanging on a ledge to an endless abyss by her frail fingertips. She knew it wasn't real of course but little yet important parts of her brain didn't know that. To them they were facing imminent death making her heart race uncomfortably.

  "So this is how you took my daughter’s life." Mist said

  "That obvious, huh." Harry said "I'll admit, it's a bit cliché to kill you in your dreams-"

  He was cut short because Mist let go.

  "I guess you were done hanging around." Harry said before turning his back to the cliff and then receiving a heavy blow to his face.

  "What the-!!" Harry said in pain

  "-I told you," Mist said looking youthful and strong as she stood floating in the air with her long beautiful chestnut hair billowing gracefully in the wind. "This is my house!"

  John stood protectively beside Mist while handling her shotgun like a club. Thankfully Mist had stopped convulsing but was unfortunately twitching randomly in small spasms. He didn't know what the hell was going on right now but he dare not move her. There still was that unusual crazy possessed zombie loose down here and he wanted his hands free for that.

  Mist had told him not to kill the zombie, unless it couldn't be helped. Well either way the shotgun was empty and he was pretty sure it wasn't loaded with normal bullets what with everything else going on in here. Some bad juju was going down-

  Mist was suddenly on her feet as something shot away from her like a bullet, stirring the smoke and crashing loudly into the wall.

  Well that never happened before. Harry thought as he pulled himself off the wall staggering. That usually works.

  "Screw this. I'm just going to burn your house down." Harry said as he flew into the ceiling...And was knocked painfully back by the solidity of it.

  "F--k!"

  Mist nudged John and said quietly "Go and close the door, quick!"

  "What?" John expressed

  "Just do it!"

  "But the zombie!"

  "-isn't nearly as terrifying as if we let this daemon I'm fighting go free!"

  "Why?"

  "Because the zombie will just kill us and eat our body, as where he will kill us and eat everything else that isn't our body."

  John stood there thinking for a second

  "Ooh..." John finally expressed

  "Yea."

  "I'll just go and get the door then."

  God damn it! What the hell was going on here?! Harry thought. He couldn't posses like he was use to, the ceiling walls and floor were too solid to fly through, and the smug way that Mist was beating him was really starting to piss him off!

  Well besides Mist, his crippled pet, and...whatever the hell that was running toward the door, there was a zombie around here. Let's use that.

  Lights danced and fizzled in lines across Henrietta's eyes like a bright light streaking again and again across them. Fireworks exploded painfully throughout her head and body as if a full out war were taking place within them. The world around her was a constant fever dream of shifting hallucinations. On a whole this was a solid top six on the list of worst days ever.

  That's when something jumped in her from behind and yanked her away from her eyes. Something familiar, something that went "What the hell are you doing here?!"

  Coherency snapped back to Henrietta like a crack of a whip across her face. She was back in that strange solid chamber...And that man was there. That man...That man!!!

  Henrietta threw herself at the unknown man who had eaten and regurgitated her. Flailing blow after blow down upon the surprised well dressed intruder. There and then she unleashed her inner berserker. She barely noticed the jabs he made back at her with his cane. She didn't care. Rage consumed and drove her.

  Henrietta blindly piled on her onslaught upon him...until something stopped her. Something else in the room.

  John panted heavily and painfully as he lay on the floor holding the zombie back from on top of him. For some reason it went limp, and for another reason it didn't try to bite either of them. Mist was currently knocked out on the floor a little bit away during the berserk zombie rage. Luckily for Mist (but not so much for his ribs) he was able to pull it off her before any real damage occurred to her. Annnnd there was a passed out zombie on top of him pinning him to the ground...So that was a thing.

  It wasn't human but it wasn't animal either. It shifted unstably but with structure like a surreal cascading sand dune folding in and out on itself. It was like something consuming yet sustaining in a chaos of explosions...And hunger...And...confusion?

  Henrietta wasn't sure if the thing was capable of thought, being what it was, but she could defiantly tell that it was very confused and bewildered at the presence of both her and the sadistic asshole being there. The Man also seemed to be bewildered by its company but she didn't care about him. But this thing felt foreign and familiar and that feeling really confused her.

  The best way Henrietta could describe it was as if an intruder broke into her home, had forced her out, and started taking care of the plants and nothing else. It was then that she felt like a refugee returning home after a war. Sadness welled up tight in her eyes as she finally understood where all this rage was coming from. Slowly...very slowly she began to scream, scream as if now was the time to truly let out all the pain, all the grief, all the sadness over everything, everything lost, everything taken from her, from everyone else, by this...this alien invader! She screamed like...it all made sense.

  *Gong*

  Those two...they were the same. Both the man and the zombie entity destroying and consuming to keep alive.

  *Gong*

  But where the man consumes completely, the zombie consumes to take over...to sustain a separate living thing.

  *Gong*

  My body isn't actually dead.

  *Gong*

  It's just...suspended.

  *Gong!*

  Clarity struck. Peace swept through Henrietta in waves of serenity. She was alive and her body had been waiting for her to come home. It may be decaying slowly under the rule of this oppressive dictatorship of a zombie entity but now...it was time for a revolution.

  Henrietta spoke but in a way that could not be heard. She spoke to her body in an old language but in a new way. A language that she developed when she grew up in order to understand what her body was saying, to know when it hurt, to listen to when it felt good, to hear what foods made it feel happy along with the language she learned as a ghost. She talked to her body in the only
way she knew how, like a dead human.

  "Let us consume the consumers." Henrietta said to her body.

  It got weird. John had managed to pull the semi conscious Mist as far as the stairs after the zombie rolled off him screaming but now jets of steam were fissuring off its body. Heat could be felt irradiating off it as spasms rolled constantly throughout its body. It also seemed to be losing massive amounts of weight very, very quickly. Mist started to chuckle painfully behind her swollen face.

  Then the whole room shook as if a bomb exploded without the explosion. John's heart sank. It was turning mystic dangerous again. He almost wished it was turning zombie dangerous. He could handle the zombie...sort of. He knew where he stood with zombies. But all this ghost stuff was...well, far beyond his capabilities.

  A wall exploded as another stream of smoke shot away from the zombie like it had done before with Mist. So by John's count one of two ghosts just got kicked out of that body and he couldn't figure out where he'd prefer the evil one to be. Both places seemed equally as bad. That was when the air turned dense and cold and he heard a really, really angry voice yell at the end of a very long tunnel. He couldn't make out any of the words but you just knew it was pissed.

  Mist was just starting to come around when she saw steam coming off the zombie. She couldn't tell if it was real or metaphysical, some days it was just hard enough to tell if you were dreaming or simply asleep[13]. Then suddenly Harry was ejected from the corpse. She didn't see that coming but at this point what did she expect?

  Harry began to yell but Mist couldn't hear what he said. Her head was still throbbing from the zombie beating earlier. It was just as well she didn't hear him because he just saw her defenseless on the floor and any quick wit she might have said would only have made him come at her faster. That said he was coming at her.