First Time Dead Vol 1
Edited By TW Brown
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PUBLISHED BY:
May December Publications LLC
First Time Dead Vol 1
©2011 maydecemberpublications
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living, dead, or otherwise, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written permission of the author or May December Publications.
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Preface
Welcome to something very special. What you hold in your hands represents a dream come true for some. I can attest to the thrill of seeing your name in print that first time. My first zombie story appeared in a Living Dead Press anthology. I still remember the day I received my copy. I flipped to my story and just stared at it.
When my wife suggested that we throw our hat in the ring, I was hesitant. For the first year, she was going to have to shoulder a huge burden. Still, as the editor and only permanent member of our story review team, I didn’t lack my own workload.
Our first anthology was a real learning experience. However, I believe it matches up with anybody else’s. What makes ours special? One word: anonymity. I have no idea whose story I’m reading until the two other readers on the review team and I have finished and scored it. It keeps me from having a prejudice for names I am familiar with. This business can get ugly with cliques. I don’t think that a person should be accepted to an anthology because the publisher is their buddy. I’m funny that way.
The idea for First Time Dead came because I knew there was some talent out there just waiting to be discovered. But maybe they’d been rejected a few times. Then, they buy the anthology that shot them down and read it. And maybe, at some point, they said, “Are you kidding me?” Probably after reading a story that they are certain is not even as close to as good as theirs. Don’t we all feel that way sometimes? Well…now all of these people have broken the cellophane ceiling. Some of them might hang their hats on this one offering. Others may be the next BIG NAME. And you read them when they were just getting started.
So, I hope you enjoy sharing this moment with these no-longer-newbies. And if something really strikes your fancy…drop the writer an email. You might be surprised at how awesome you can make a writer’s day by telling them you liked their story.
As is our custom at May December Publications, I have honored the spelling differences that exist between my American authors and those from abroad.
Have we met?
TW Brown
This book is dedicated to everyone who has ever dreamed of writing and seeing their name in print
Contents
Hello Again
Twisted Words
Everything I know about Zombies I learned from Star Trek
Once Bitten Twice Shy
Just Another Day
Inland
He’s Not Heavy
As I Watch Her Walk Away
Things Worse Than Death
Death By Dad
Forgive Me, Father, For I Have…Burp
The Overpass
Hello Again
By Megan Tregler
The unincorporated area of Beauregard Parish, not far from DeRidder, Louisiana, has always been a dark place at night. When it was warm and humid, the little cluster of houses and businesses that didn’t quite deserve to be called a town seemed to be enfolded in an inky, wet wool blanket after sunset. On nights when it was clear, the great expanse of sky overhead would look as though a careless kindergartner had spilled a whole can of silver glitter across black construction paper.
If you were a night creature, as Jackson Pritchard had often thought that he was, one might think the sparkling expanse of bluish-black was beautiful. In fact, Jackson himself had thought of it that way, for a while anyway. Not anymore, though. The electricity had been sputtering on and off a few hours before it went out for good. It was then, when there were no comforting lights glowing in the windows of the other houses, that the night had become all-consuming. To Jackson, it seemed that, these days, the night held nothing but horrors. Where once there was a calming, easy harmony with the night creatures as they sang their little love songs in the high grass around the clearing behind Jackson’s house, now there was despair and darkness. The only light at night came from the moon, casting her eerie, sick reflection over the landscape, painting everything in pewter.
Jackson, sitting on his back porch, staring out at the tiny silver ripples on the surface of his retention pond, smokes a cigarette. Even though the pack can’t be any more than a few weeks old, his cigarette is starting to taste a little stale. He smokes it anyway. The little red glow is soothing, like watching a campfire.
Debbie would have told me I was going to get cancer and die from these, Jackson thinks as he examines the glowing cherry. The unexpected recollection of his wife raises a lump in Jackson’s throat. He looks at the pond again, subconsciously searching for the swimming raft anchored more or less in the center. His eyes tear up. The sparkles of the moon on the water blur, transforming it from mottled, moving, black and silver to a sheet of gray. Jackson Pritchard sobs once, loudly. It’s the sound a man makes when all his energy is spent, but he’s still got plenty of sorrow waiting to get out.
Somewhere, cradled in weeds and mud at the bottom of the pond, Debbie Pritchard’s body is resting. Jackson hopes she’s at peace out there. She loved the pond. She loved to sit and watch the cranes early in the morning as they stopped in to scoop up a fish for breakfast before heading on their way again. Jackson tries not to think about the fish in the pond; the ones he stocked each year, and were now, most likely, enjoying his wife’s visit to their watery domain. Thoughts can be like cancer, though. Sometimes, you just can’t stop them from forming and metastasizing. A wave of nausea sweeps over Jackson, making him spring up from the step and lurch forward with that panicked “Oh, God, I don’t want to throw up” feeling a person gets just before their last meal comes back for an encore. Jackson steadies himself on the railing, swallowing hard until the feeling passes. Jackson stands, swaying on his feet, still clutching the porch railing, staring with watery eyes out at the pond, gasping for air. The events of the past few days came flooding back to Jackson’s mind.
He remembers the lady on the news telling all the folks in TV land that reported incidents of domestic violence had mysteriously risen sharply, and that area hospitals were ill-equipped to handle the number of people being brought in with injuries. He remembers hearing the people in town talking about it, too, and how nervous they all seemed. He remembers how surprised he was to see his neighbor, Jim Warren, go running up the road to his wife, Carol, who was wandering around in a daze with no shoes on and her blouse only half-buttoned.
Then he remembers Debbie coming in from the garage where she’d been working, cursing and holding her hand where something, she thought it was a mouse, had bit her. He remembers her promising to call the doctor the next morning to make sure she didn’t need a rabies shot. He remembers waking up next to her, seeing her bathed in sweat and shivering uncontrollably. He remembers how obvious the fear is in her eyes as he dials 911 for an ambulance, and he remembers his own creeping fear as he hears the phone ringing over and over without being answered. Over the next hour he calls everyone he can think of, from their family
doctor to Debbie’s OB/GYN. He even calls Jim Warren’s house because Jim is a retired farm veterinarian. There’s no answer at any of the numbers he tries, and all the while, Debbie is getting worse. She’s been moaning on and off, alternately trying to kick the blankets off, or wrap them tighter around herself. Jackson is beside himself. He runs back and forth between the kitchen and bedroom, fetching ice or more blankets or water. Nothing helps.
The day wears on. Jackson remembers catching a glimpse of his own face in the mirror in the hallway as he was going past it, and how that reflection, haggard, scared, and exhausted, made him stop long enough to wonder if what was happening was real.
During the night, just when it seemed she couldn’t get any worse, Debbie seemed to rally. She stopped sweating and the chills seemed to go away. She said she wanted to sleep, so Jackson pulled the door mostly closed, telling her he’d be right outside if she needed him. He must have fallen asleep then, because the next thing he remembers is sitting on the floor in the hallway with morning sunlight coming in from the back door. He remembers the stiffness in his muscles as he stands and pushes the bedroom door open. At first, he thinks she’s still asleep, but it doesn’t take him long to realize her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling and unmoving. He doesn’t want to do it, but he puts his fingers to her throat, looking for a pulse that some part of him knows he won’t find. The sickening knowledge that his wife has died during the night settles around Jackson’s heart: heavy, chilling, and undeniable.
The memories of those two days while Debbie lay dying in their bed slacken their hold on Jackson. He drags his hand across his eyes, determined not to cry again, and instead focuses on the pond, both seeing and not seeing it. The water laps gently against the edge of the pond, and somewhere, an owl hoots to itself, making the scene far too serene to come at the end of such a truly horrific week.
He sits back down, taking another drag on his cigarette, his eyes still on the pond. Something’s not right there. That is to say, something apart from the fact that he sunk his wife’s dead body into that pond is wrong. As he watches, he starts to see a pattern form in the ripples on the water. It looks as though there’s something moving under the surface. He watches it more intently, noticing a small wake forming as whatever it is begins moving toward the shore. He tries to convince himself it’s nothing. It’s only some animal—an otter maybe—fishing in the pond. But it’s too big to be an otter. It doesn’t move smoothly like a swimming otter either. This thing darts forward, then stops, then goes again, like it’s moving as fast as it can until it gets hung up on something Jackson can’t see.
Maybe it’s Debbie, Jackson thinks, then barks out a crazed laugh. It wouldn’t be Debbie. Debbie was dead, and there was no coming back from that. Jackson pushes the heels of his hands into the hollows of his eyes, trying to press the tears back into his skull. He wipes his cheeks savagely and blinks to clear his vision. That’s when he sees the dark shape against the silver surface of the pond.
It sways side to side once…twice…three times… before standing upright. Jackson gapes at it, watching it struggle to get its bearings in the muck at the edge of the pond. There’s no question in his mind about what that dark, bi-pedal human shape is. He knows. It can’t be what he thinks it is, but somehow, he knows. In the same way, he also knows that if that thing reaches him, he’s going to be in real trouble. The dead don’t come back to have tea parties and talk about your day. He knows, somewhere in the deep, survival-instinct animal center of his brain, that he should stand. That he should run. But he’s transfixed. Then it, no…she coughs. It’s a wet, gurgling sound as she tries to clear pond water from her lungs. Though he can’t see her face, Jackson knows his wife—his dead wife—is standing at the edge of the pond. And soon, she’ll be coming for him.
The edge of the pond where that black horror is standing is maybe seventy-five yards away from where Jackson sits frozen in terror. He watches the dark shape stagger forward. It trips over some piece of debris hidden in the reeds at the edge of the pond and straightens again. Jackson can hear the damp, labored breathing sound the Debbie-thing is making. She’s closing the gap between them, and Jackson is still immobile. He feels a sensation he’s become very familiar with over the last few days—panic—come rising up out of his bowels. He clamps his mouth shut to keep the scream that’s building there inside.
Debbie is less than fifty yards away. Jackson can see her details now. He sees her hair hanging from her skull in dark, wet ropes. He sees how her cotton nightgown is plastered to her body, the body he adored so much. He sees the vacant look in her eyes…her dead eyes. Though those eyes have gone from brown to milky-white, it’s obvious that she can still see him. She moves faster, covering the distance quickly. Jackson can hear her snarling. That breaks his stupor.
Within a second, he’s on his feet and up the three cement stairs, clawing open the screen door to the house. The screen door slams behind him so hard that the lock catches and he’s running for the front hall closet where he keeps his rifle. He moves automatically. His muscles are more aware of what he intends to do than his brain is as he loads the shells into the double barrels of the long gun. He can hear Debbie clearly now, grunting with the effort of climbing the small stairs to the back porch. Jackson turns back down the hallway and stops at the entry to the kitchen. He levels the gun at the back door, holding his breath. By the light of the lantern on the table, he sees her dead, fish-white hand smack against the lower screen of the door, tearing it as she tries to haul herself up to a standing position again. He waits. She lurches to her feet at last and stares at the door for a moment, confused by the handle. Jackson still waits. He knows he has one, maybe two shots at most, and he needs them to count. After pawing at it for a few seconds, Debbie gives up on working the door handle. She raises her fists and beats the screen in, howling as she does it. She tries to push her way into the kitchen, but gets caught on the crossbar of the door. Under her grunts and snarls, he can hear the aluminum of the door groaning as she tries to push through it to get at him.
Jackson takes a deep breath. Unbidden, his mind flashes more memories of Debbie. He sees Debbie as she was when they first met: young and blonde and beautiful. He thinks of Debbie on their wedding night, and of Debbie cooking breakfast on some random winter morning. Finally, his mind brings up the image of Debbie lying dead in their bed two days ago, shortly before he wrapped the bed sheets around her body and carried her out to the pond. He didn’t hesitate any longer. He fires the gun, both barrels, and Debbie’s head disappears in a red, chunky spray that makes a pattering sound as it falls, like rain hitting pavement. The body goes rag-doll limp and slumps over the door’s crossbar, which finally gives way, wrenching the door off its hinges and spilling the still-twitching remains on to the floor.
Jackson slumps back against the kitchen’s doorframe, gasping. He hears the gun clatter to the linoleum floor. He comes to the realization that he didn’t know what tired was until just now. He watches the body of his wife for a good thirty seconds, noting her nerves twitching out in what he hopes will be their last movements. When the pool of blood spreading slowly from the ragged stump of what used to be Debbie’s neck reaches to about the middle of the kitchen floor, Jackson knows it’s time to go. This time, he feels no need to bury the body. He leaves it lying right where it is as he plucks the keys to his truck from the hook on the wall. He pauses only long enough to pick up his gun and to grab the box of ammunition from the shelf in the closet. Half a second later, he’s out and down the front steps. He doesn’t even bother locking the front door.
Somewhere, he doesn’t know where exactly, he hears more groaning noises drifting over the landscape. On some level of thought, some level other than the one he’s presently using, Jackson thinks that the ruckus with Debbie must have attracted more of them, more things like what Debbie had become. The gut-turning horror of the thought of more of these things, these walking corpses, nearly grabs Jackson’s consciousness and makes him star
t screaming. Somehow though, somehow he holds it together. There’s a distance of about fifty feet between his front porch and the concrete slab where his truck is parked. Though he doesn’t see anything else in the drive, he knows that not being able to see them doesn’t mean that they aren’t there just the same. He takes a steadying breath. He flips through the keys on his ring, making sure the truck’s key is in hand and ready. He looks from side to side and listens. He can’t hear them any more.
Figuring that there’s no time like the present, he counts to three and bounds down the front stairs. Every step he takes sounds like thunder in his ears. That other level of his mind is screaming at him to be quieter while the more base and animal part can think of nothing but getting to the vehicle, opening the door, and locking himself safely inside the truck. He runs so hard that he almost can’t stop in time and he plows his body into the side of the truck. His key skitters around the edge of the lock until finally sliding home. The door opens when he pulls on it, and he launches himself into his truck.
That other nagging voice in his mind reminds him that the engine was being funny about when it would start and when it wouldn’t and he should have had that checked out when it first started happening. He slots the key into the ignition, says a quick prayer, and throws it in to reverse. Luck is with him tonight and the truck’s engine starts without protest.
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