Wake Up Dead - an Undead Anthology

by Suzanne Robb

  Daddy is still gone! It's been almost eight hours now, and I'm awful scared for him. Please Lord, if you do one thing for me, please make sure that my Daddy is okay.

  Mommy is asleep in the rocker again. I don't know how she can sleep while those things walk around outside, although she has been drinking today; I saw her at the kitchen table with a big bottle of something. She didn't see me, which is good because I think she would have shouted at me for staring.

  Mrs Drewery is up again, and I think she is looking straight at me. I might have to move away from the window in a moment; I don't want to draw any of them towards us. I like Mrs Drewery – or at least I did before half of her face was missing and she looked so ghastly – but I'm scared of her now. She's got what they've got, and what they've got is bad.

  If I get it, I think I'd rather be dead, and I don't mean dead like the wanderers, I mean dead like the kind that stops you from walking around.

  Yes, Mrs Drewery is walking towards the window now. I have to climb down from the chair and hide. At least Mommy won't be screaming this time.

  Oh, Daddy, please come home!

  Daddy came home, and he had food and water. I was starving so I ate four pieces of bread and two apples. The funny thing is: I hate apples. The skin always gets stuck in my teeth and I spend hours trying to get it out.

  Mommy and Daddy are in the kitchen talking about what Daddy saw while he was gone. I heard Daddy tell Mommy that between our farm and town, he only saw two people alive. Peter Carson was one of them; Daddy said that Peter was in a bad state, but would survive, and that he was awfully upset because the wanderers had managed to get into his house and eat his family. That is terrible, and I will say a prayer for Peter Carson before I go to sleep tonight. The other person that Daddy saw was Molly Westacre, but he said that she would be dead by now as she was missing a leg, and it had already “gone green” whatever that means.

  Daddy just told Mommy that the only good thing about what was happening was that he didn't have to pay for any of the things that he brought home. Mommy is laughing now; I think they are both getting drunk. I saw Daddy bring two bottles in with him, which were the same as the one Mommy was drinking from earlier.

  Maybe Daddy is just trying to make sure that Mommy sleeps again tonight. Things are better when she is asleep.

  Daddy said that he didn't see Robbie while he was gone, which makes me think that my bestest friend is dead after all. I'm sad about that, but I promised myself that I wouldn't cry because it would upset Daddy.

  I'm just sitting here now, listening to the talking in the kitchen, and I don't know why I am still writing. What good are the ramblings of a nine year-old girl when there might be nobody left to read them? Not that I ever want anybody to read my nonsense. I think I am keeping this diary, though, for myself; for me to look back on in years to come and laugh out loud at how worried I was, and for no good reason, because in that future – the one where I can read my diary and laugh out loud – everything turns out to be okay.

  I'll pray for that tonight, and for Robbie, and for Peter Carson and Molly Westacre.

  And for us.

  Goodnight Diary.

  I woke up this morning to find that Daddy is not feeling too good. I think he might have drank too much, but he says that it is just a fever, and that we should continue to prepare because this afternoon we are going to make a run for it.

  I think we are trying to get to Redrock, which seems like an awfully long way to run. I've never run that far before; I hope I don't just keel over and die.

  Outside the window I can see only two wanderers, and neither of them are Mrs Drewery. The men are in the middle of the field, looking at each other, and then looking at the sky. To me, it looks as if they have only just noticed the sky, which is really strange because it has always been there. Perhaps the infection has made them forget it, the way it made Mrs Drewery forget that she was supposed to be teaching me how to stitch yesterday when she was by the barn. If it is a forgetful disease, then I definitely don't want to catch it, although I would like to forget the last few days if that was possible.

  Mommy is stood at the back door, just staring out. I think she's really scared today. Going out of the farm for the first time since the wanderers arrived is a terrifying thought, but we don't have much of a choice, and Mommy will just have to pull herself together.

  Daddy has just told me to make sure that I have everything packed that I need, but I don't really need anything other than him and Mommy.

  I am ready to go.

  Something is wrong with Daddy. I knew it this morning, but he has gotten worse. His face is white, and he is having trouble breathing. I can tell by his eyes that he is scared, and that scares me.

  “I'm just tired,” was his excuse, but Daddy never gets tired. He's having a lie down on the bed now, and I am sitting in the chair next to him. He is sweating, and his hands are shaking, but he is fast asleep. He looks like Robbie does when he is having a bad dream.

  Poor Robbie.

  I don't think we we'll be going off the farm today after all, and Mommy looks a lot calmer now. “If your Daddy is not well, then he is no good to anybody out there,” she told me as she pointed through the wooden boards on the window. “We're safe in here; they can't get in, and if we're really quiet they'll never find us.”

  I know that she's right, but my belly has started to rumble again, and I drank all of the water that Daddy came home with last night. If we stay much longer I think we're all going to die. I think I've already lost weight, and I can hardly lift up my arm now because I'm weak.

  Daddy has just been sick on his chin. It's not normal sick, though; it looks dark and sticky. I'm going to wipe it off before it makes a mess all over the bed, not that it matters. I don't think we are taking the bed with us when we make a run for Redrock.

  Oh my God! Daddy has the infection. I am in my room, and have pushed my dresser across so that he can't get in. I think he wants to hurt me, the way that he just hurt Mommy.

  She's dead! I know that she is, because he bit her nose off and she was bleeding all over the place. She didn't even scream when he did it. I think she was in shock.

  Oh, please God, this is wrong! This is all wrong! My Daddy is trying to kill me now. I don't know how much more of this I can take, but I know that if I kill myself then I will not get into Heaven, so I have to try to live.

  Daddy is slamming against the door now, but I know that it isn't really my Daddy; he has the forgetful disease, like the sky-starers, and he wouldn't be trying to hurt me if he remembered how much he loved me.

  Oh please make it stop! Please!

  I found Daddy's present under my bed. I forgot all about it, and it was still wrapped up. When I opened it, I found a gun and some bullets. Daddy would have loved it so much; he could have used it when he went out for water instead of that silly axe. He must have got bit then, and kept it from us because he thought that we would stop loving him if we found out.

  Well, I would have still loved him.

  I figured out how to put the bullets in. Daddy had shown me how last year. “Hopefully, you will never have to fire one of these, Flo,” he'd said, “but it's for the best if you at least know how.”

  After putting the bullets in and aiming the gun at the door – it's a heavy gun; I need both hands to lift it up – I waited for a while. The banging had stopped, and I haven't heard anything from Daddy for some time now.

  I'll give it a few minutes and then I'll go take a look. I'm heading for Redrock on my own now, and if God let's me, I'll make it.

  I killed Daddy but only because I had to. He was coming at me, and his teeth were all covered with blood and black sick. I didn't want to, but I shot him once in the belly. He didn't fall over when I shot him; he just looked at me funny, as if he suddenly remembered that I was his little Florence, but then he came again, and I shot him in the head.

  He fell over that time, and he didn't get back up. When he fell over, he landed on Mommy.
I'm glad he landed on her like that, because her belly was wide open and I could see all of her insides. Daddy covered all of that up for me; a parting gift for his beautiful daughter.

  I can see no wanderers outside, but that doesn't mean that they aren't there. I have Daddy's gun now, and a pocketful of bullets. If I can get to Redrock, then maybe everything will be fine.

  Hey, I may even bump into Robbie on the way.

  I'm going now, while it is quiet, and I'm leaving this diary behind because I know I will never want to read it again. The future, the one where I am laughing at my silliness, it's gone now.

  Goodbye Diary.

  God Bless.

  Maybe I'll bump into Mrs Drewery, and I can teach her a lesson or two with Daddy's present.

  AFTERWORD

  Think back, if you will, to a time when the undead were the most feared creatures imaginable, a time when the mere thought of somebody you love returning from beyond the grave would cover you with gooseflesh and send you running for the hills. A time before zombies could run quicker than Usain Bolt, and vampires had the propensity to sparkle whenever they decided to get a tan. The Golden Age of the Undead, or as I like to call it, anytime before 1990. The stories contained within this anthology, I hope, have terrified you the way the original Night Of The Living Dead terrified a whole generation when it was released back in 1968.

  I would like to thank each and every one of the authors who contributed to this book, and to you, the fans of the undead, for reading this book and continuing to support the authors contained within its blood-soaked pages.

  Without you, we are nothing but worm-food waiting to expire.

  But we all know, that death is just the beginning...

  ADAM MILLARD

  WWW.CROWDEDQUARANTINE.CO.UK

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