***
Mia awoke the morning after to find Chloe gone. She stretched out her legs and with her free hand grabbed hold of the corner of the washing machine, pulling herself upright.
She blinked as she emerged onto the main living area - it was surprisingly bright. She wondered what time it was.
Chloe was huddled in one corner of the sofa facing the TV, remote control in hand. Her face was grubby, what makeup she had been wearing the previous day smeared around her eyes. It made her look much younger than she was. Empty potato chip packets littered the cushions around her legs
"Hi." Mia approached the sofa. Chloe's eyes flicked once in her direction, but she remained silent, staring at the TV. Mia sat down next to her.
Chloe was flicking her way through the channels. Most of them were blank - screens blue or black. One or two still had messages displayed. Bravo will return at 6.00am. Where every BBC channel had been was the same stark caption, black and red on white.
EMERGENCY BROADCAST SERVICE
Remain indoors
Keep the doors locked
Please stay tuned for announcements
Mia tried to take Chloe's hand, but she wouldn’t let her, so instead she walked to the front windows and peered out. She was still clutching the poker in one hand.
It was impossible to get a clear view of the minibus, but there didn't appear to be anyone out there. She unlocked the door and took one step through the gap.
The sun was high - just how long had she slept for in the end? - and the silence was overwhelming. No birds, no insects. No distant machinery or vehicles. The sky was empty of cloud and there was no wind. Mia was seized with the peculiar conviction that none of this was real, that it was a picture, an illusion. A computer generated image. She slipped her hand back inside, took the keys, pocketed them and then began walking towards the minibus.
Mr. Coombs had gone.
There was an irregular stain of darker tarmac where he'd fallen, but no sign of his body. If he was OK, why hadn't he come back to the cottage? Goosebumps bloomed all over Mia's neck and the back of her bare arms and she spun round. Perhaps he was in the teachers' dormitory? Gripping the poker with both hands she made her way towards the door – right at the end of the dormitory block.
There was no sign that anyone had been in there, and when she tried the door it was locked. She fumbled with the key ring.
The interior smelled of sweat and stale aftershave. Nothing was out of place that she could see - all of the beds were made. Mr. Radford's gross jumper was draped across one of the chairs.
A large pair of binoculars lay on top of one of the lockers. Mia slung them around her neck and looked about for anything else that might be useful.
There was a distant smash and Mia froze for a second before her knees gave way and she collapsed to the floor. There was a tiny sobbing noise. It was her.
After five minutes no other sounds were forthcoming. She stood up. The binocular strap dug into her neck as they bounced against her stomach. She crept across to the door and looked out.
Chloe was making her way down the road, rucksack on her back, already a long way past the minibus.
"Hey!" Mia began running down the road, poker in one hand, steadying the binoculars with the other, "What are you doing?"
Chloe didn't even look back. Mia skidded to a halt by the main door and darted inside.
The kitchenette had been ransacked, cupboard doors hanging open, a smashed bottle leaking concentrated orange squash across the linoleum. Mia ran back out again.
"Chloe!" Mia lifted the binoculars and focused them. Chloe was still ignoring her, not looking back, half running. What did she think she was doing?
Mia nearly dropped the binoculars when they revealed a movement in the bushes. Mr. Coombs, the front of his shirt a crimson bib, emerged and grabbed hold of Chloe before the girl had even registered he was there.
Mia ran back inside, locked the door and retreated to the utility room where she screwed her eyes tight shut.
Even from this distance she could hear the screams.
***
Mia opens her eyes. The angle of the shafts of golden light lancing through the front windows reveal it to be now late afternoon. She stretches, feeling better.
She has just awoken from a dream of Aiden, a dream in which he came back to rescue her. Perhaps it's a premonition? It is something she has been waiting for the past couple of days. She goes into the bathroom to freshen up.
She regards herself in the mirror. At least she has managed to stay clean and well turned out. There is no shortage of toiletries what with the contents of everyone's luggage. She still feels bad about that, it feels like an invasion of privacy, but what else can she do? As far as she knows they've all gone the way of Rebecca and no longer have any need for moisturizer and tea-tree oil conditioning shampoo.
She applies fresh makeup as she has for the past couple of days. This could be the day. The day that Aiden comes for her. She wants to look her best. Perhaps they will be able to get the minibus running again and escape together to somewhere secluded and safe.
The afternoon is always better. The morning still holds remnants of the nocturnal terrors, of the nightmares that prevent sleep for hours. But the afternoon? It is a time for daydreaming, a time to nap in safety. It's always bright, warm and quiet and the gnawing anxiety that dogs the morning is always gone. Her optimism about the future reaches its peak and she always feels safer venturing outdoors.
You never know. This could be the day.
She stands in the road, a warm breeze tousling her hair, which she has let fall around her shoulders. There has been nothing out here since the day Chloe disappeared. Mia scans the surrounding countryside through binoculars, looking for some sign of rescue.
The fields are empty. The roads silent. Mia has the world to herself. If only this could be the day. To share such a day with Aiden.
Mia feels lightheaded and lowers the binoculars. When was the last time she ate anything? There's plenty of food in the kitchen but she can't remember whether eating that tin of baked beans was this morning or the day before. Time is all starting to fragment and blur, like the heat haze above the tarmac.
There is something moving behind the heat haze.
Through the binoculars Mia can see a tiny figure stumbling up the road towards the cottage. The haze makes it difficult to focus, but she recognizes his The Horrors tour t-shirt. It's Aiden. He's come for her.
He doesn't look his best and stumbles and falls a couple of times. It's understandable. He must have been through a lot the last few days. But he made it back. She had been right all along.
Mia raises one hand in greeting, wanting to run to him but unable to move from the spot. Her feet glued to the sticky tarmac, she can only smile as he accelerates. There's no need for him to hide his feelings any more. He wants her.
One arm hangs limp at his side. Never mind, there's a first aid box in the cottage. His eyes are odd and vacant but they're looking at her and that's all that matters. She can hear him now, a faint groaning as he stumbles past the minibus and closes the final distance between them, his good arm outstretched.
His tousled hair sticks up in the same way it did when she first set eyes on him and got that feeling in the pit of her stomach. The feeling returns now and he is upon her. She throws her arms around his skinny ribcage. He's unwashed but underneath the sour odor there's still the smell of Aiden, just like the smell on that shirt of his that she pulled from his suitcase and has been holding onto in the night.
She turns her face up to his and they lock eyes just as he tears out her throat.
Rumors on the Wall
Matthew Wilson
"How's it look'?" Reeves asked when he came in the room.
Anders shrugged. "The dead 'ave never been too pretty, man."
Reeves flopped in the chair. Caffeine was a great help, if only sound defenders were not against the uniform code, the next eight hours of his shift woul
d fly by.
Instead, he pushed a frayed greasy y of his fringe aside and wiped the crumbs off the screen.
"Wat 'ave I told ya 'bout eating near the machines, man."
Stupid volunteers. They joined up on the program to get good grades but all they did was sit filling their face with junk food. Reeves had got three of them fired within a month. Maybe as punishment, management saved the worst for last.
"This machine costs more than you," Reeves spat on his sleeve and scrubbed at the diet soda stains on his work station. Considering Anders got out of breathe standing, the no calorie drinks were not cutting it.
Anders punched the air when he beat the level on his computer game and wrote rude words for his user name. "Wot'r we suppos'd ta learn from t'dead anyway?"
Reeves concentrated on breathing. He'd never had high blood pressure problems before. Not since Anders worked here. When he wrote those things about his wife on the walls.
A guy had to pass the time was no defense for insubordination.
Reeves thought all the wrong people were dead. The motto in the early days was know the enemy. Places like this had been set up all over town once infections spread.
It's source was a Seal. It had not lived long once it washed up on the shore. Just enough to bite the first Samaritan to stroke it. Things had deteriorated since then.
Every year, almost like clockwork, a new virus seemed to come out like a darn boy band. They would kill a few old folks before the cure was found and everyone but Reeves it seemed would get their face in the paper or decorated with medals.
Instead, he festered down here, brooding with hate at each young punk who thought they could do his job better than he.
But this one was different. Anders had the arrogance to write down what others said behind his back. About what happened with his wife.
"Mary Shelley had it easy," Anders moaned, stretching his legs like he planned to do more with them than hike them up on the desk. He found a foul tasting crisp in the mountain of many and threw it at the hungry dead chained behind the glass. "Shaddap! I'm talking."
Reeves found a pen and worked on notes as he felt was his job.
"Wot are you talkin' 'bout?" He said, curious, despite his hate.
Anders shrugged and Reeves was repulsed his fat took some moments to stop shaking. "Shelly got her idea of bringing back old Frankie from eating crabs. She lacked the imagination alone to conceive of what we deal with daily."
Reeves looked at the back of Anders head, wondered how much pressure he'd have to apply to drive his pen some way so thick a skull. "Frankenstein was the doctor, genius."
How he wished to check this guys work certificate. Maybe he bluffed his way in, or he was son of someone important.
"Wotever, man." Anders said, assaulting Reeves senses more by opening his pepperoni pizza when Reeves forbade it. "All I'm sayin' is I'd like the maker of monsters to see what we're cooking here. Lookin' inside dead people’s heads to see wot keeps 'em alive."
"Wot you're sayin' is rubbish." Reeves muttered, turning a dial that lowered the air conditioning in the next room. He was paid to keep the reanimated corpses in as good state as possible. Experience showed when they got hot, pieces fell off.
An incomplete model was likely to give misleading readings.
"Yeah?" Anders said with complete disinterest, then quieter, added, "At least I didn't kill my wife."
Reeves felt his heart spring forward like an animal off its lead. "Wot d'you say?"
Anders chair squeaked, barely supporting his massive frame as he turned at a timid pace. He flashed his eyes like a guilty dog that had eaten the wallpaper "Me? Nuffin."
Reeves stood, "I knew it was you. Writing that filth on the staff wall."
Anders worked for the first time since he had entered the room. "I don't know wot you're talking 'bout."
Reeves would have grabbed his arm if the thought of touching him did not burn his tonsils with disgust. "Don't you ignore me, boy. I've been here since the infection started. I know more about the dead than you'll ever."
"I only repeated wot every one's sayin'," Anders confessed. "We all know you killed your wife 'cuz she was going with the neighbour. Then when the infection began, you saw you're chance and blamed their mutilated bodies on -"
"Shut up," Reeves wept, grabbing Anders round the neck. Unable to lift him off the chair, like a landing party struggling with a beached whale, through the tears, time lost it's meaning and Reeves did not know the student was dead for some time.
"She loved me." Reeves screeched. "Only me. Wot do you know of love, boy. You're just a - Anders?"
Reeves wiped his eyes and saw Anders protruding tongue was quite blue.
He poked him. Pushed him, then losing some control, slapped him.
"Damn you." Reeves cursed. Sixteen years he had worked night and day to be the best at his profession. Turning his back on home, his love life which made his wife find companionship in the arms of others
He had been trusted to study the dead and find the cure.
Unlock the science of why the dead did not lie down.
Now, tomorrow, when his employers came they would be horrified at what they found. At what he had done.
But this time, they would have proof of his crimes.
Unless.
Reeves greatest weapon against the living and the dead was his brain. The awful scheme it had created to get him out a tight spot should work again. He decided to open the door and let the dead feed on Anders.
There was enough to go round.
Anders was an unreliable idiot. Reeves would be more than happy to spread this rumour to his employer and say he'd given the fool a chance. Had left him alone five minutes while he went to the bathroom.
Maybe Anders had knocked a button to activate the door release. Maybe his arm fat had knocked a switch as he reached for his blessed diet soda.
What annoyed Reeves most was when he pulled the alarm like a loyal and dutiful attendant, the coming soldiers would blast four or five good specimens to mess. To Reeves, the dead were more important than Anders.
At least from them he could learn something worthwhile and lend his name to history.
"Come on, fatty." Reeves laughed, preparing himself. He bent his knees to save his spine coming out of line. It had to look like an accident. There would be little left to show Anders death was human made.
Sensing movement, the dead threw themselves against the glass, hard enough to bloody the screens.
"Wait a minute," Reeves moaned. "Dinners comin'."
Man, this guy was heavy.
Slowly, Anders shifted like he was only winded, but through his large breasts, Reeves felt no heartbeat. Inch by inch, Reeves managed to lift the body off the chair.
He had to be quick. Data collected, showed the virus worked even after life was extinct in a form. He wanted the evidence destroyed. Not another cannibal-
Reeves howled like a cat with its tail caught in a door as he lost his grip and the massive Anders felt against him. Reeves tried to lock his legs but misjudging his balance, they both fell against the control panel, bounced off and landed hard on the floor.
Reeves tried to scream as Anders fell across him, pinning him to the ground. His gut so fat with junk, his size sixteen feet did not touch the floor.
Reeves felt all air knocked out of him and with the weight on his chest, pushing down, he could only force tiny gasps through his nostrils at a time.
Calm down, he thought.
He had to think, rely on his greatest weapon.
His brain.
"You always cause me problems, punk-" Reeves stopped talking when he saw the light on the control panel activate. He must have fallen against it, driven almost to breaking point with the force of Anders weight.
The button said door release.
No, no, no!
"Don't do this!" He wept
Wide eyed, Reeves tried to lift his head. To shift on his left shoulder and look behind him. but
couldn't manage it. Stuck like a sacrifice pinned in the sand for Eagles.
Behind the glass, a door opened.
The dead, shuffled forward, beyond the confines of their prison.
They were coming.
"Think, damn it!" He cursed himself. His beautiful brain locked by fear. He wished he could think of a way out. To be the genius he knew he was.
When the dead came round the corner, following their nose to the sweet tang of blood, Reeves knew, first and lastly it had let him down.
At the Zombie SuperMax
Kennith Crist
David McCully—Florence, Colorado
This shit just isn’t fair. And I don’t mean to whine like some kinda bitch, because I ain’t. I’m nobody’s bitch, man. Couldn’t be even if I was so inclined.
Before the plague started, and even for a while after, when things were still secure here at the Max, I was locked down in my cell twenty-three outta twenty-four and then I was out for one hour, at like two in the morning in the exercise yard, all by myself, to shoot hoops or run or whatever. Now I’m locked down totally. And I’m glad of that. That’s not what I’m talkin’ about when I say it’s not fair…
On the top tier of block three, a guard shuffles along, keys jingling slightly, one foot dragging just a bit. His breathing is harsh and his breath reeks of rot. His uniform is filthy with dried, crusted blood and specks of flesh. His face wears no expression, unless helplessness and hopelessness are expression enough. He is motivated by a lust and a hunger he cannot control and as he walks the run outside the cells, each con locked away inside holds his breath, not only to avoid smelling him, but to wait out this lottery of death that they go through daily.
Finally, the guard stops before a cell and fumbles out a key, and even before he inserts it clumsily in the lock, the screaming begins…
The screaming draws other guards to the tier and as soon as the door is unlocked, the prisoner inside attempts to fight his way free, still screaming incoherently. He is quickly caught in the mass of the undead and brought down onto the steel mesh flooring, where his blood rains down on to the tiers below as the screaming finally stops and the feasting begins…
Undead War (Dead Guns Press) Page 13
