The Undead That Saved Christmas Vol. 2

by ed. Lyle Perez-Tinics

But she’d been careless. She’d thought too long, dropped out of character.

  One of the dead ones a few feet to her right had turned her way, and now his dead, vacant stare was locked on her. She tried to clear her mind, to stumble forward, but the zombie’s gaze never wavered.

  He raised his hands like he was trying to take something from her and staggered after her, a moan rising above the wind and the cutting rain.

  She pushed his hands away and looked around.

  This wasn’t going to work. Every moment she lingered more and more of them turned her way. She scanned the crowd, and in the dark the only way out seemed to lead around the corner, where she had taken the stairwell once before up to his apartment.

  A limp hand fell on her shoulder and that was enough.

  She ran for it.

  * * *

  She stopped in front of 318.

  Jesus, she thought, had she really sunk this low? Getting torn apart by the walking dead almost seemed a joy compared to coming to him like a penitent. She’d thought she was done with guilt, with shame. But it hurt now more than ever.

  Utterly demoralized, she knocked.

  * * *

  He couldn’t sleep.

  In the dark he rose and put on his boxers and went to the kitchen to light a candle.

  Enough light filled the room that he could see her sleeping in his bed. The rain had washed away a good amount of dirt and grime from her body and hair, but her breath had still been enough to turn his stomach. And even in his sleep he couldn’t quite hide his disgust. He had dreamt of a zombie forcing her face into the soft part of his neck; and when he awoke, he’d found her, pressing her cracked and ulcerous lips into the well beneath his chin.

  Half-asleep, he’d recoiled from her, almost falling out of the bed before realizing that it was only a dream.

  Now, fully awake, he watched her sleep and tried to hate her.

  But he couldn’t.

  Who in the hell was he to judge anyway? She was desperate. She was lonely. She was scared. Wasn’t he all of that, and more?

  In fact, the only thing he had on her was the appearance of normalcy.

  The truth was he was drowning. His life was an act. His jokes; the Christmas decorations; his calendar keeping; all of it was a terrible, useless, stupid joke. He drifted from one empty apartment to the next, from one false front to the next, like a ghost blown on the wind, and he called it a life.

  Were they any different, he and Mindy?

  He couldn’t answer, not truthfully anyway; and eventually, he blew out the candle and crept back to bed and reluctantly put an arm around her as he drifted off to sleep.

  When he awoke the next morning, he was alone, the only sign she had been there a muddy stain on the sheets.

  He sat on the side of the bed, asking himself why he even bothered.

  She had left him, again, and this time it was because she knew he was the one who was faking. He was the hypocrite. He was the disgusting one.

  And she had found him out.

  * * *

  Mindy stopped in the doorway as she left Kevin’s apartment building and scanned the street.

  There were no dead in sight, but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. She’d seen it happen a few times over the last year. She’d be shuffling along with the others, absolutely nothing going on inside her head, and suddenly there’d be a scream. Another careless person had wandered into their midst, completely surprised by the sudden appearance of a zombie horde that, in reality, hadn’t been trying to sneak up on anybody. Most of the group’s kills were made that way, completely by accident, people caught by their own carelessness.

  Without realizing it she had assumed the awkward shuffle of the dead. Her bare feet, no longer sensitive to heat or ice or even broken glass, slid across the cracked and weedy pavement as though on autopilot.

  She tried to turn off her mind as well, but she found that much harder.

  She kept thinking of Kevin.

  What, exactly, had happened last night?

  Not what. Not really. She knew what had happened. That had actually been quite pleasant. Better than she remembered it, anyway.

  No, what she really wanted to know was why. And why now? She’d seen others before him. She knew they weren’t the only ones. She suspected - and she believed this without reservation - that there were more normal people out there than she’d seen. There had to be. The world couldn’t simply be empty. That wasn’t possible.

  But none of the others had managed to arouse her pity. She’d watched them die, and in some cases rise again, and she’d felt nothing.

  And then - Kevin.

  He’d told her his stupid jokes. He’d offered her a place to stay, all the food he had, even a warm bath. In the few days since she’d first seen him she hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him. Before him, walking around being dead was no trouble at all. She could go days at a time without a single thought passing through her mind. The world was one unending parade of nothingness.

  And then he came along, and she couldn’t take three steps without falling out of character, without thinking of the life they’d once shared.

  That’s what it was, she told herself. He was a window to the world that used to be, a shipwreck from her past that had mysteriously surfaced to haunt her mind. There was nothing more to it than that. He was nothing but a ghost, and she was merely lonely.

  But a voice at the back of her mind kept prodding, questioning.

  What if this was more?

  What if this was...love?

  Maybe, she thought. It was Christmas day, after all. She’d seen the calendar - the days gone by dutifully crossed out with a big red X - right before she’d walked out of his apartment. Christmas had a way of warming even the coldest heart.

  Wasn’t that the secret to Scrooge’s redemption? She’d never paid much attention to books in school, but she thought she remembered that much. For Scrooge, it hadn’t been fear of the grave, but fear that the heart would no longer love again, that made it possible for him to accept the spirit of Christmas into his life.

  She stopped then, a sudden alarm causing her pulse to quicken.

  She had fallen out of character again. She’d stopped walking like the dead. Like her mind, her feet had started to wander. If she’d happened upon one of the dead while walking like that, they’d have torn her to ribbons.

  But, for now, she was alone on the street.

  Turning, she happened to see her reflection in a shop window. And at first, that one quick glance threatened to send her over the edge of reason. She looked horrible. In a word, she looked dead. And she played the part well. Her hair was stiff with mud and probably blood too. Her face, which hadn’t been that bad back in the day, was discolored with God knows what; attractive, it seemed, only to flies. Her body was a bony jangle of sticks. She looked like a crack whore, though she imagined that even the crack whores of the world gone by had more self-respect than she did at that moment.

  She had nothing.

  But then her gaze shifted beyond the window, to the Sexy Elf costume in the display. For a moment she experienced an odd sense of displacement. It was her face, her gaunt, exhausted face, but her body was draped in the red velvety finery of the elf costume. Her fingers reached for, and could almost feel, the cotton candy fringe at the edge of the playfully short skirt.

  She smiled.

  Kevin O’Brien, you wonderful bastard. I’m gonna blow your mind.

  * * *

  It was Christmas morning.

  He had hoped to wake up late and spend the day with her, hopefully draw her out little by little. The two of them had been pretty good, he thought, back in the day. And they were certainly good last night. When they were good, it seemed, they was really good. He’d hoped it could be that way again.

  But she’d left him sometime in the night.

  His attempts to draw her into his world weren’t fair, he supposed. Why would she want to join him anyway? Hadn’t she foun
d him out? She knew he was faking it. He knew he was faking it.

  And he was tired of faking it.

  The choice, once he’d given it voice, was surprisingly easy to make. The only hard part had been accepting that as an option. But once he opened his mind to it, it actually made a lot of sense.

  He went to the billboard and spray painted a message for her.

  Then he went down to the street and climbed on top of a brick wall and waited for one of the dead to come along.

  He thought he’d be scared, but for the first time in a long time, he felt relaxed, at ease with himself and the world in which he lived. You can settle in quite comfortably to even the most horrific of circumstances, given enough exposure to it. All horrors lose their immediacy, their nastiness, sooner or later. The nerves can only be slashed and cut and shredded so many times before they deaden to the pain.

  No, he was past horror. What he was feeling now was worse than that. In the time before he met her, his world had been filled with zombies. The horror they represented was a shallow, fast moving river that beat him down and cut him on its jagged rocks.

  He had gone beyond that now.

  Here the waters ran far slower, but they were deep, endlessly deep, and what lurked down there was something he could not fight.

  For what lurked down there was love.

  A zombie was at the base of the wall, its hands clumsily racking at the bricks just below Kevin. Kevin stared into the thing’s eyes and saw the emptiness he’d fought against for so long, but had never truly understood. That would all change now. He had tried to get Mindy to live in his world, and that had failed. So now, he would live in hers.

  And only love could allow him to do this.

  He jammed his left hand down into the zombie’s face. It shook its head, as though to shoo away an insect, and then realized what was in front of it.

  The zombie grabbed Kevin’s forearm and clamped its teeth down on his wrist.

  “Mother fu - ”

  Kevin pulled his hand away, holding his wounded wrist in his right hand while blood oozed between his fingers. It hurt so badly he nearly rolled off the top of the wall. Already he could feel the virus creeping through his blood stream, racing for his heart. It felt like somebody was jamming a red hot copper wire up his veins.

  He didn’t have much time. Maybe thirty minutes, but probably less.

  Kevin rolled off the wall and trotted back to his apartment. Once inside, he washed the wound with hot water and wrapped it in a towel. It was already starting to smell like death. His head was soupy and walking to the chair in the center of the room was hard.

  But he made it.

  He dropped down into the chair and turned it to face the door and waited for the pain to stop.

  * * *

  This felt absolutely glorious.

  Mindy had spent the day cleaning herself up, scouring off the stain of more than a year of living down among the dead. Now, her hair was washed and brushed. Her legs were shaved, her skin soft and fragrant from cocoa butter, still a little pink from her bath. The Sexy Elf costume showed a lot of leg, and a lot of bruises and cuts, but those would heal. If her heart could heal, her legs certainly would.

  She felt better than she had felt in a very long time. She couldn’t remember a time she’d felt this good, even before the world died. Mindy Matheson had come back from the dead, and love had done it for her.

  And it was glorious.

  Now, she picked her way carefully through the rubble-strewn streets. The dead were out - the dead were always out - but there weren’t many of them around at the moment.

  Then she saw the sign, and she smiled.

  It’s all for you, Mindy Matheson.

  I love you.

  I want to be with you forever.

  She couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She sprinted up the stairs and down the hall to his door.

  Slightly out of breath, she knocked on the door.

  No response.

  Maybe he was out getting stuff, she thought. More candles, maybe. Or, God help her, even a bottle of wine.

  She turned the knob and swung the door in slowly.

  “Kevin?”

  ‘Twas a Season of Zombies

  By Rebecca Besser

  'Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house,

  No one was breathing, not even a mouse!

  Zombies had come in and feed on the living,

  Ending quickly this season of giving.

  Bones had been littered about without care,

  And one zombie cracked open a skull on a stair.

  They moaned and they ate what they could find,

  With no thought but to consume in their undead mind.

  Blood splashed presents sat under the Christmas tree,

  That would never be open with anticipated glee.

  For all was now silent along the snow covered street,

  Because all the families provided fresh meat!

  Story Art Cover

  By Ian Kobe

  www.squidsicle.com

  Dedication

  For Del Howison

  Author Bio

  Kelly Dunn is a freelance writer who lives in the shadow of Los Angeles. Her short fiction has appeared in the horror anthologies The Dead That Walk and Midnight Walk, and in the horror publications Necrotic Tissue and Aberrant Dreams. Her first novel, written with the help of her alter ego Savannah Kline, is entitled Beloved of the Fallen and was published by Ulysses Press. Kelly is also the editor of the Rainstorm Press horror anthology Mutation Nation: Tales of Genetic Mishaps, Monsters, and Madness.

  Emergency Rescue

  By Kelly Dunn

  Momma is a sad-face, standing at the window. I say, "I hungry, Momma" and pull on her shirt but she won’t look at me ever. She is quiet. Maybe it is the snow. I can hear it falling. It shines on the ground and in Momma's eyes. Pointy sickles are sharp from the roof.

  The Christmas tree has sickles too, tin-sicles. That's what No-no says. The tin-sickles are shiny, too. I go away from Momma, past the pretty tree. There's twinkle lights with colors on it. I know what colors they are. They are red, and blue, and yellow, and pink ones. I know that from school. At school we get burritos and sometimes hot dogs. Declan at school bit No-no. He ran and bit! Declan bit lots of the kids. Declan is bad.Now it is Christmastime! No Declan. No school. . Momma got mad at No-no. Now she is at the window. No-no is lying down on the floor. His face turn green when the lights blink on him.

  It is cold. My tummy is noisy. I go into kitchen and get out the Cap'n Crunch. There are two bowls, one is only mine and one is for No-no. No milk, but I fill them full. Full of Cap'n Crunch. I take No-no his bowl. "No-no, eat," I say, but he doesn’t eat any. He doesn’t cry. He is only one eye open, like a pirate. His face looks funny now. On his jammies there is red and purply from where Momma hit him. He walked funny but he fell down and now he won’t get up. No-no is sick. I eat the Cap'n Crunch in the bowl. After I go to the corner that’s where we play Emergency Rescue. The guys are there.

  I get the best guys, the G.I. Joes and medics, all the soldiers and the Indian chief, and the tank, too. All of them. I bring them to No-no. No-no is a big boy now. I am big too but he is bigger. The guys can help him. No-no is on the floor and I put some guys on top of him and then the tank next to him. I put lots of guys around No-no. I make a big circle. They are guards. They can shoot bad guys. Like when the soldiers march-marched down the street. To get the bad guys.

  "No-no all your guys are here," I say. No-no kind-of smiles. The soldiers are his friends but the smile hurts him. I touch at his hurt face. He sticks out his tongue. "Uhhn," he says. He bites at my finger, justa tiny bit. No-no growls, tough. He is funny. I laugh.

  Momma turns around. She is a mad face. "BE QUIET. WHY CAN’T YOU BE QUIET?" That what Momma says. She looks so mad and I scared. I try not to cry 'cuz big boys don’t cry ever but I cry. Momma is moving to where I am with No-no and all the guys. Momma has no sho
es and she steps on some of the guys. Momma screams and fall down like a belly flop. Her hand touches No-no and he screams loud.

  "No-no!" I say. "No-no!" He is hurt and Momma hurt, too. The noise comes up and out my mouth. I scared.

  Momma gets up. Her hand hurt. Out goes her foot and Momma kicks me in the side. I fall down. Hurt. No-no screams so loud. She kicks No-no too on the floor. He is so loud my ears hurt. I get up. I run to Momma and hold her arm. "Momma don’t," I say. Momma hits. I lay on the floor, quiet. The pretty tree shakes when Momma bumps it. She is picking up No-no's hair. He screams but she is louder.

  "JONAH," she yells loud. "STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT." Over and over. She shakes him but he still screams. I hear her breath it is hot like fires.

  Momma is pulling No-no's hair and he is going along behind. It hurts him being pulled by his hair. The Christmas tree lights blink on, off. I follow Momma and No-no. Momma pulls No-no down the hall and through Momma's room, to the baffroom. She shuts the door. I am outside but I can’t get in. I sit next to the door.

  No-no cries and cries and I hear Momma's mad. She yells and hits I think. I hear the water. No-no is hurt in there and I touch the door. Momma is still making angry noise. The water splashes. Maybe it is a bath for No-no but sometimes the water is too hot. Sounds come out of me I can’t help it. There is lots of splashes but No-no doesn’t cry now. But he's hurt and I can’t see him. My nose is stuffy but I try be quiet. I listen. I want my soldiers and my medics but I sit still.

  I hear Momma breathe. She is scared I think. I hear more water and her loud steps and I scared and I think she might come out the door. I run and go under Momma's bed, but I can see, looking out. The baffroom door opens up. Momma carries No-no. No-no's mouth is open. His face is hurt. His arms and legs flop around. He is all wet. Water drip-drips on the floor.

  Something is wrong with No-no. Momma is still mad. I can see that. She holds No-no and walks out of the room. I hear the backdoor open. She goes out. I get out from the bed and creep to where I can see out the window. Momma takes No-no outside. Then she puts No-no down. Down on the ground.