Once they made certain the place was secure, they decided to christen the bedroom. It was the first real peace the couple had felt since the dead had begun walking the earth. For several days, the couple enjoyed their luck. When they’d discovered the well-stocked pantry in the basement…it seemed too good to be true. (And we all know about that saying, don’t we?) What’s more, there was a wonderful garden sprouting on the side yard full of fresh vegetables that would be ready soon.
Sure enough, several weeks passed, and the woman proved to be pregnant. The couple was overjoyed. They scarcely remembered the weeks of horror they’d endured, the friends and loved ones they’d seen torn apart at the hands of the undead.
One day, the wife was looking out a window at the garden when a craving struck. For so long, they’d eaten out of cans. What she craved was a salad made from the tasty looking vegetables of the garden. She wanted it so bad that it brought tears to her eyes; which wasn’t difficult these days seeing as how she was terribly hormonal.
“What’s the matter, sweetheart?” the husband asked when he walked in and saw his dear wife weeping.
“I’d give anything for a fresh garden salad,” she replied, wiping away her tears.
The husband thought she was being a bit silly, but he loved her very much and took her in his arms. Surely he could grant her this very simple wish. And if that was all it took to make her happy…so much the better.
He went out to the garden and plucked the rampion leaves, some tomatoes, cucumbers, and all sorts of fresh garden treats for a fantastic salad. He brought everything in, cleaned it, chopped and tossed it in a bowl, and brought it to his beloved wife. She ate every bit, her eyes rolling back in ecstacy, and moaning in such a way that had him wondering if he was actually satisfying her “special needs” because these sounds were so much more emphatic than those she normally made in the bedroom.
Of course, the next day, the cravings struck again. The husband went down once more into the garden and gathered the fixings for another salad. When he filled the basket he’d brought, he stood to return inside and make the salad. What he saw made him stop dead in his tracks. A woman was standing just a few feet away with her arms folded across her chest. This was no ordinary woman. She was well over six feet tall and looked like she could bench press a pick-up truck. Weapons stuck out from everywhere…and she looked really pissed.
“How dare you sneak into my home and just raid my garden,” the woman snarled. “I oughta cut you to ribbons and feed you to a zombie.”
“Oh please,” the man begged, “we didn’t know that anybody lived here. We thought that we’d lucked out. And my wife…she’s pregnant. I was just trying to care for her as best I can.”
The warrior chick seemed to relax a bit upon hearing the man’s sad story. And besides, she had to admit to herself that she was a bit lonely.
“…and then she got this craving for a salad. We honestly didn’t think anybody lived here. Plus, we’ve been here for almost two months—”
“How long?” The brawny woman’s attention snapped back to the man who was babbling incessantly.
“Almost two months,” the man answered in a meek voice.
“Well then…” the woman nodded, “you may stay as my guest. My name is Hildegard, but you can call me Hilda.”
“I’m Jess and my wife’s name is Cynthia.”
“And you may eat your fill of my garden as long as you help tend it and care for it in my absence.” Hilda threw an arm around the man’s shoulder and steered him back towards the house. “But I have one condition.”
“Anything,” the man agreed. And he meant it if it would provide his beloved wife with a place to stay that was relatively safe from zombies.
“If you ever leave, you must leave the child your wife is about to bear—with me. I can promise it a good life and would care for it as if it were my own.” In his fright and the unlikely probability that they would ever leave, the man agreed. Besides, it wasn’t like he had to tell his wife the agreement.
Things went well for a while. Hilda was often away foraging. (She travelled far and wide searching for steroids and HGH which was why she couldn’t bear children.) The happy couple eventually welcomed a beautiful daughter into the world. When Hilda returned and saw the baby, she was overwhelmed with a feeling unlike anything she’d ever known. She grew envious whenever she watched the couple play with the infant.
She left on one of her missions with a plan. Upon her return, she waited for the young couple to go to sleep, then she injected them with zombie blood. Before long, the couple became ill. Two days later they were zombies and Hilda split their skulls. You may be wondering why she didn’t just take them out instead of going through such a seemingly elaborate and roundabout tactic. It just so happens that Hilda has no qualms about killing zombies. But when it comes to living, breathing types…hey, everybody has their limits.
Hilda had always liked the name Rapunzel. It reminded her of a story her daddy read to her when she was a little girl. Thus, she called the child Rapunzel and watched her grow to become the most beautiful girl under the sun. And since that number had dwindled significantly since the apocalypse, she felt pretty confident that it was true.
When Rapunzel was twelve years old, Hilda began taking precautions any time that she went out foraging. Regardless of the child’s safety, she would lock Rapunzel in the bedroom on the second floor. When she would return, she would call the girl to the balcony and cry out:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair for me.”
Rapunzel had luxurious long hair that had never been cut in her life. It was almost golden and looked beautiful. Hilda made it a little game and had the girl give her braids a wind around the rail so that Hilda could climb up. (What? You can believe that zombies rose and wiped out humanity, but you have an issue with a girl growing her hair long, braiding it, and having it used as a rope? You have problems!)
A few years later, it so happened that a young man out searching for anything he could find happened across the house on the bluff. He was sneaking around the fence, peeking over it and looking for signs of life. The place was well tended, so he was pretty sure there were survivors. He just didn’t know what sort. He’d met some nasty folks in his years. Then he heard the singing. The voice was so beautiful that he stopped and just listened. It was Rapunzel, who, in her loneliness, was singing to pass the time. The young man wanted to get a better look, but he wanted to be sure it wasn’t a trick.
He found a place to hide and spent the afternoon listening to that amazing voice. The day passed and he didn’t see any signs of activity until early in the evening. A woman arrived—not just any woman, but the biggest woman he’d ever seen in his life.
He heard her call:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
Whereupon Rapunzel let down her braids after giving them a wrap around the balcony rail. Then, the woman climbed up and to the girl.
The young man was struck by a few things. The first being the corded muscles in the woman’s arms. In fact, he was only partially certain that the musclebound behemouth was actually a female. Then there was the braids-long-enough-to-lower-down-as-a-rope thing that he had to really shake his head at. Lastly, but certainly not least, was the fact that Rapunzel was a major hottie!
So, he thought, if that is how it’s done, then I’ve got to give it a shot. He found a spot where he could keep a watch, and he waited for the Amazonian-beast-of-a-woman to leave again. Sure enough, a few days later, the opportunity he was waiting for came. He waited to be certain that the coast was clear, then he vaulted the fence, went to the balcony, and called:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
A moment later her hair fell to the ground and the young man climbed up. (Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on the hair thing. Seriously?)
At first Rapunzel was dreadfully frightened, for she had never seen a man before—not living anyways—but the young man quickly introduc
ed himself.
“My name is Dave Prince,” he said. “I heard you singing and can honestly say it is the most beautiful thing I’ve heard. And now that I’ve seen your face, it makes so much sense, because you are the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid eyes on.” (Is this guy smooth or what?)
Rapunzel quickly overcame her fear. And when David Prince asked if she might consider letting him see more of her and maybe hooking up, Rapunzel gave it some serious consideration. It didn’t hurt that David was in fairly good shape and had a bit of that Tom Cruise handsomeness going on. He’d definitely be an inprovement over that muscle bound Hilda, she thought. Thusly, Rapunzel agreed.
“And maybe we can go back to my compound,” David suggested. “We’ve got some good security, even a bio-fuel run generator that provides us with electricity. We have movie nights and all sorts of stuff.”
“I’d gladly go with you,” she said, “but how will I ever get down?”
David didn’t think it was that big of a leap down, but Rapunzel apparently had a thing about heights. There was nothing he could say that would convince her to simply climb over the rail and jump. He offered to catch her, but she was just too phobic.
“How about you bring back something like a rope that I could climb down,” Rapunzel suggested.
“It’s a few days away,” David explained, “so don’t stress. I’ll be back in about a week.”
Rapunzel might not have ever seen a man before, but that didn’t mean she didn’t have an inherited knowledge on how to keep one under her thumb. She slipped out of her dress and pulled the dumbstuck young man into her bed. (If David wasn’t hooked before…he was after a piece of that.)
He left a little while later with a glazed look on his face. Rapunzel watched him climb the wall and vanish into the woods. She was still standing on the balcony basking in the sun and the afterglow of her first sexual conquest when Hilda returned.
They went through the whole hair dropping ritual (which some of you still need to just get over) and up Hilda climbed. The big woman sensed something was off right away. Then, Rapunzel spoke.
“You’re actually kinda heavy, aren’t you, Auntie Hilda?” Rapunzel said as she coiled up her braid.
Then the big woman walked into the room. (I think we can all agree that sex has a very distinct scent.) She didn’t even need to see the sheets to know something had gone down in her absence.
“Wicked child!” Hilda cried. “What did you do? I thought I shut you away from the world, but you’ve deceived me.” In her fury, she seized Rapunzel’s beautiful hair, wound it several times around her left hand and pulled a knife from her belt. Slice went the blade, and the lovely braids fell to the floor. (There, you can let it go now. The whole ‘hair’ aspect of this story is done.) Next, the heartless bitch moved Rapunzel to this hideout she had in the desert, that she used when she went on long runs, where the girl was forced to live in misery and solitude.
At dusk on the day Hilda returned from banishing poor Rapunzel, she tied the braids to the rail and waited. Sure enough, a short time later she heard a man whisper:
“Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair.”
She dropped the braids over the side and stepped back into the shadows. David Prince climbed up, but instead of his dear Rapunzel, that enormous woman was waiting for him with angry, poisonous looks.
“Aha!” she cried. “You’ve come to take your sweet little piece of ass away, but the little chickie is gone from the nest, she won’t be singing anymore for the likes of you; this pussy has taken yours away and before she’s done she’ll give you a beatdown like you’ve never known. You’ve lost Rapunzel…you’ll never see her again.”
David Prince was beside himself with grief, and he tried to make a run for it, but Hilda was just too much. She caught him before he made it to the rail and gave him the worst ass-kicking on record. It didn’t kill him, but when he woke up on the other side of the brick wall in the blackberry bushes; his eyes were both swollen shut so bad that he thought he was blind.
Even though it was dangerous, he wandered away from the place so the woman wouldn’t find him and beat him up again. In a stroke of double good luck, no zombies came along while he stumbled blindly; also he went in the opposite direction of his compound and ended up in the desert. (I know it’s a little too convenient, but sometimes it’s nice to have a ‘happily ever after’ ending.)
He was staggering along when he heard a familiar voice singing beautifully. He stumbled towards that sound and began to call out his beloved’s name. When she saw him, Rapunzel couldn’t believe it. She called his name and he made his way to the voice. It turned out to be an old jail, and once the swelling went down, he could see.
David busted the woman out of the joint. They made it back to the compound where David lived, and got married. A little while later, Rapunzel came up pregnant and gave birth to twins—a boy and a girl. And (everybody sing along) they lived happily ever after.
The end.
13
The Three Dwarves
Based on:
Die drei Männlein im Walde
When the FEMA shelter just outside of Hood River, Oregon was overrun by zombies, the survivors made a run for Timberline Lodge up on Mount Hood. In that group of survivors, there was a man whose wife was bitten. She had to be put down on the second day. There was also a woman whose husband didn’t even make it to the exit door that fateful night. A dozen zombies fell on him and ripped him into so many pieces that there wasn’t enough to come back.
Both of these people had a daughter. The man’s daughter was named Penelope and the woman’s daughter was named Christina. During the journey to Timberline Lodge, the girls walked together and got to know one another. When they reached the mountain resort, everybody was able to find a room, and steps began to convert the place into a stronghold against the undead.
One day, while Penelope was visiting Christina, the girl’s mother, Diedre, said, “Listen to me, go and tell your father that I want to marry him. As a family we’d get one of the suites instead of just a regular room. It makes perfect sense. Plus, we’ll get a better share of rations and a larger plot when it comes time to grow food. You will see the biggest reward since you’re the oldest daughter, and I’ll be sure that you get the best of everything.”
Penelope went back to her dad’s room and told him all that was said. Dirk seemed to listen to everything with only partial interest.
“What should I do?” Dirk, Penelope’s dad, asked after a long silence. “Marriage is a joy, but it’s also torture.” He couldn’t seem to make up his mind. Finally, he took off his boot and said, “See this boot? There’s a hole in it. Take it into the bathroom, hang it from the shower rod and pour water in it. If the water stays, I’ll take a wife; if it runs out, I won’t.”
Penelope had no idea what on earth her dad could be thinking, but she did as she was told. The water pulled the sides of the hole together and the boot stayed watertight. She scratched her head, then went and told her father how it turned out. He didn’t seem to believe it either and went to see for himself. Sure enough, the boot held water. Dirk went to Diedre’s room and commenced the courting part of the relationship. A short time later they were married.
The very next day, in their newly assigned suite, Penelope woke and was pleased to find that a hot bath had been prepared just for her using the entire family’s allotment of washing water for the day. At breakfast, she got the cup of fresh goat’s milk and two spoons of peanut butter for her oatmeal. Christina was allowed to use the bathwater after Penelope when it was cold and dirty, and she got no peanut butter for her oatmeal, much less any of the fresh goat’s milk. On the second day, both girls washed from a separate bucket of warm water with a clean cloth, split the goat’s milk, and each had a spoon of peanut butter with her oatmeal. On the third morning it was Christina with a hot bath, a full glass of goat’s milk, and two spoons of peanut butter while Penelope got cold, dirty water, no milk and plain mush. And th
at’s how it was from then on. The wife, Diedre, hated the stepdaughter like poison and racked her brains for ways to actually go out of her way to make things worse for the poor girl. For one thing, she was envious, because her stepdaughter was beautiful and sweet-tempered, while her own daughter was ugly, foul-mouthed, and horrid.
When winter finally came to the mountain, the survivors actually relaxed since it was unlikely that zombies would be roaming about in the chest-deep snow. One cold morning, Diedre made a dress out of paper and called Penelope to her room.
“Put on this dress and go out into the woods. I want you to bring me a little basket of strawberries. I have a craving for them!” Diedre said with a sneer.
“My goodness!” Penelope said. “Strawberries don’t grow in the wintertime; the ground is frozen and everything is covered with snow. And why do you want me to go out in this paper dress?—it’s so cold your breath freezes. The wind will blow through it and the brambles will tear it off me.”
“Don’t you dare talk back to me!” cried the stepmother. “Now get a move on and don’t show your face again until that basket is full of strawberries.” Then she shoved a piece of dry flatbread at the girl. “This will do you for the day,” she said. Meanwhile, she thought, she’ll die of cold and hunger out there, and I’ll never see her again. Or…maybe she’ll step into a snow drift that has a nasty zombie waiting in its depths.
Gruesomely Grimm Zombie Tales Page 8
