Chivalry Is Dead

by Bennie Newsome

  A movement down the street caught his eye. He turned to look. Shambling down the center of the road was a German Shepard, its eyes were frosted over in death and its swollen tongue lolled lazily from its mouth. One of its ears was missing, and the side of its face was caked with dried blood.

  At the sight of the undead dog, resignation embraced Alex in a suffocating grip. Was there any point in going on? he wondered as he got in the car. The engine roared to life with a twist of the ignition key and, shifting the car into reverse, he backed out of the driveway. On the street, he straightened out the car and floored the accelerator, not once taking his eyes off the rearview mirror and the zombie mutt. The car shot backwards, hitting the dog at fifty mph. Alex stomped on the brakes, leaving a trail of scorched rubber, jammed the car into drive, then stepped down hard on the gas. The tires squealed in protest before the car leapt forward. He wanted to put as much distance as quickly as possible between him and that house and what lay within.

  The emotional impact of what had just transpired slammed into Alex like a freight train as he reached the center of town. His body started to shake and he stepped on the brake, slowing the car before turning into the Walmart parking lot. He pounded on the steering wheel as a primal scream ripped from his throat. He threw the door open and got out of the car, pacing in a small, frantic circle. Another scream tore from him as a voice inside his head told him he wasn’t being very smart. But in this situation, love won over logic; the pain and the anguish needed to be released. He kicked at the tire until his foot hurt and his strength fled. He sagged against the side of the vehicle, letting the tears flow. It was dangerous being out in the open, but at the moment he really didn’t care. Let them come and take him, too.

  After the tears ran their course, he continued to stand there, tempting fate as the salty trails dried on his face. He felt lost and alone, but there was nothing he could do about it. With a sigh and a final kick at the tires, he pushed away from the car and slid behind the wheel. He pulled out of the parking lot and started for home. It was the last place he wanted to be, but there was no place else to go where he would feel even remotely safe. He wanted to sleep, to shut out the world, even if it was only for a little while.

  Leaving the town behind, he made his way along the back roads towards home. He drove slowly, scanning the surrounding woods and fields as he passed. Chills slithered around his spine and caressed his skin and he shivered at what he was seeing—the reason why the animal population had become so scarce. Standing perfectly still within the foliage, he could see cats, dogs, raccoons, squirrels, rabbits, wolves, and deer; their eyes looked like frosted marbles. Occasionally one would wander into the road, each step a seeming effort as they made their way forward. They didn’t try to get out of the way of the oncoming car, and Alex only swerved to avoid the deer. All the others ended up under the wheels or splattered in the grill. He made a game of it, using it as a distraction to help burn off his anger at a world turned upside down and to put off the inevitable. Anything to prolong his return to the house he had shared with Eve.

  As the light started to fade from the sky, he knew there was no way he could put it off any longer. He parked the car on the dirt drive beside the house and disappeared around back to gas up the generator before going inside. He had been so focused on his self-appointed mission of running down the zombie wildlife that he hadn’t realized just how hungry he actually was until he was inside, but he was also exhausted, both physically and emotionally. Eat first, then sleep. There was some leftover stew sitting on the shelf in the fridge, but after one sniff, that ended up in the trash. He stared at the almost empty shelves. Bottled water, some bread Eve had made, and some vegetables; none of which appealed to him. Then he remembered the fish he had caught the other day. He had scaled and gutted them before wrapping them and sticking them in the freezer. With a sigh, he took the foil-wrapped package from the freezer. “Guess I’ll be sleeping first,” he said to the empty room. He had already made up his mind that he would be setting out tomorrow. To where, he didn’t know. The only thing he was certain of was that he couldn’t stay in this house. Everywhere he looked, he could see touches of Eve; the memories made it too painful to stay here. The sudden shift in the zombie population also made it too dangerous to stay. He climbed the steps and retreated to the sanctuary of the bedroom. He locked the door before stripping out of his clothes and climbing into bed. The .45 he placed on the nightstand, within easy reach.

  It felt strange sleeping alone after all this time. He pulled the extra pillow closer to him, which proved to be a mistake. It smelled like Eve, and for the second time in one day, the tears started to fall. Grief finally overtook him, and he drifted into dreamless sleep.

  A noise coming from somewhere in the house jolted him from his slumber. He was awake instantly, and seconds after his eyes were open, he was out of bed, gun in hand, and moving for the bedroom door. The sound was faint and recurring, but it was out of the norm, which is why it had pulled him from his sleep. He didn’t think anything had gotten into the house; none of the alarms had sounded, which didn’t necessarily mean anything, but the sound that had awakened him hadn’t been the crash of breaking glass or splintering wood. Nevertheless, he made his way downstairs and did a quick check of the doors and windows. There was no sign of forced entry. He followed the source of the sound and found himself in the kitchen, where the sight that greeted him sent shivers coursing all over his naked body.

  The foil-wrapped package that contained the fish was pulsing and undulating as if it contained something alive that wanted out. As he watched, it gave a twitch and the small parcel jumped a couple of inches into the air before it landed with a dead weighted thump. That was the sound that pulled him from his sleep—the sound of the fish landing on the counter. But how? And then he remembered he hadn’t cut the heads off the fish; he had only removed the scales and gutted them. Its brain was still intact.

  As much as the sight of the dead fish flopping around repulsed him, it also sent a signal to his stomach. It rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t eaten in quite some time. By the sun’s light slipping in through the cracks in the boarded up windows, it had been twenty-four hours or more since his last meal. He was not surprised in the least to find that he had slept the night through.

  Tentatively reaching out, as if afraid it, too, would start moving with a life of its own, he reached for the cast-iron skillet on the stovetop. He snagged it with his fingers, firmed his grip on it, then picked up the heavy pan and slammed it down on the fish. He took a step back, waiting. It continued to twitch and squirm, so he hit it again. When it continued to move around, he pulled open the drawer in front of him and reached inside, fumbling blindly, not taking his eyes from the fish. He found what he was looking for and withdrew his hand, coming out with an old, stained meat cleaver. He brought it down hard on the fish, severing the head from the body. Instantly, the fish went still.

  He eyed the still form and his stomach rumbled again, letting him know that it wanted food. Was it safe? Driving around yesterday and looking at all those dead animals come back to life…he’d damn near swallowed a bullet. He thought that would be easier than slowly starving to death, but he could hear Eve saying, “Don’t do it.”

  “Should I?” He set the skillet down on the stovetop, not once taking his eyes off the foil-wrapped package. Would the heat kill off the virus, or would he be sentencing himself to a slow painful death as the virus slowly turned him?

  His stomach rumbled again, giving him all the answer he needed. “Fuck it.” He reached for the bottle of oil and turned on the gas.

  Matthew is a civil servant, often seen vaguely shuffling bits of paper around from one bit of his desk to the next before mumbling something about “character development” and sloping off to write—which is his first love. He’s been published in a flash fiction anthology, some medical journals and two fiction magazines. As long as people keep foolishly accepting his work, he will continue writing - you
have been warned.

  Website: www.writeordie.co.uk and

  http://vikingbay.blogspot.com/ Twitter: @mnwjm1981

  Sometimes, we wish for the right thing at the wrong time. Mr. Munson’s The Life and Times of a Zombie is a masterful case in point. It proves the adage: Be careful what you with for—you just might get it!

  The Life and Times of a Zombie

  By: Mathew Munson

  The Apocalypse is over. It lasted for eighteen months— and it was hell.

  Up to a fifth of the population carried a rare genetic marker that activated one day, without any warning. The news reporters said things about “mutating viruses” and “environmental factors”, but to the majority of people, it was something that was happening outside their own front doors.

  The genetic marker killed—instantly—all those who had it; and then, six hours later, reanimated them with their consciousness intact. Zombies walked amongst humans.

  There was a problem, though. These zombies weren’t the slow-moving, brainless creatures of folklore; they were fast… they were strong, and they were angry. Angry at what, no-one knew—not even the zombies.

  Finally, after eighteen relentless months of non-stop attack, when civilisation had almost fallen apart, scientists were able to develop an antibody that arrested the anger.

  It stopped the killing, but the world had changed. A quarter of the world’s population were dead—either permanently or reanimated as a walking corpse with memories. Those who survived were survivors of a global terror that no-one could ever have imagined; they were war-scarred and devastated. No-one was unaffected—everyone had lost someone. What made it more painful was that some of them were still walking around.

  The world is a barren place, even now. It’s 369 days since the vaccine was released into the atmosphere and my life changed...again.

  The first time my life changed had been when I had died. I had the genetic marker that turned me into something different and alien. I remember my death day clearly; I was in the supermarket with my wife. We were talking about mayonnaise of all things. I’d hoped my last words might be a little more profound, but you never know when you’re going to die, I guess. It’s weird how the mind remembers the little things. I still can’t remember the colour of my wife’s eyes, but that’s another story.

  Anyway, mayonnaise.

  “I don’t see why you’re so fussed about buying a brand,” I said to her. “Mayonnaise is mayonnaise.”

  “Except that this own-brand stuff tastes cheap.”

  I couldn’t argue; it tasted cheap because it was cheap. We needed to think about cheaper stuff, as we’d just started a family. With three-month-old twins—Robert and Sarah—demanding our attentions and our wallets, as far as I was concerned, we could do with a few more own-brand products.

  “Becky, it’s not as if—”

  I gasped as a shaft of pain shot up from the base of my neck up into my head. It felt like a poker had stabbed in and out of my brain; it was such a shock that I was left speechless; I put a hand to the back of my head to see what had happened.

  I blinked in surprise—there was nothing there.

  “Babe?” Becky asked, her face a mask of concern. “What’s wrong?”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but my eyes rolled up in my head, and I died, right there in the supermarket.

  Trust my last words to be about mayonnaise.

  Atheists tell you that there’s nothing beyond death. Mine should have ended there, in the middle of the sauces aisle of the supermarket, with my wife screaming for help as she cradled my body in her arms. Little did she know that, all around the globe, millions more families were going through the same thing—loved ones dying, without any warning, leaving behind parents, lovers, children and friends who were confused and grieving.

  My life, however, didn’t end there. It...paused...for six hours, then restarted in a morgue’s cold storage unit. Why six hours? I wish I could give you more of an answer, but I can’t...except “why not?”. Why not five, or seven…or six, I guess.

  I woke up in a strange, unlit tube-like room with no light and bloody cold. There was no way I would be able to sit up—while it was about eight feet long, it was barely a foot in height. I felt instantly claustrophobic and confused; looking back, I couldn’t imagine that the designers of these units didn’t expect many people to wake up after dying.

  The last thing I remembered was being stood in a supermarket with a bottle of mayonnaise in my hand and now I was freezing my … well, I was in this weird compartment and didn’t know where I was.

  I suddenly heard the muffled voices of two people outside the compartment; I felt a surge of anger well up inside me at their sense of freedom. They were out there, and I was stuck away in this stupid, sodding little box.

  I flipped onto my stomach and looked at the small door in front of me; it was securely locked from the outside with no key or handle for me to grab.

  I can’t imagine there’s much call for people needing to get out.

  “Hey!” I yelled out. “Can anyone hear me?”

  I waited for a reply, but none came. The two voices had obviously gone. I suddenly felt very scared…and very alone. After a moment, though, those feelings subsided and were replaced by something else…an anger that began bubbling away in the pit of my stomach, and then blossomed out to my chest and throat. I felt my fists clenching and my teeth ground together as the anger continued to throb deep inside my body.

  It felt good.

  My left fist lashed out and hit the door. It went through the hard, cold metal like paper and I instantly felt the warmth of the room beyond. Looking back, I doubt it was that warm, but it felt like Barbados compared to the temperature inside my…well, cell, for want of a better word.

  I fumbled around for the lock. My fingers felt thick and clumsy, as if my brain was struggling to understand how to use them, but the anger I was feeling pushed those thoughts to one side...and consumed me.

  I could see a room beyond the small door that looked like the morgues I’d seen on TV shows; cold and clinical, with a couple of tables near to each other and various pieces of electronic equipment and knives and things dotted around the room. A couple of women were standing in the middle of the room, staring at me in shock.

  I don’t remember what happened next, although flashes occasionally come back to haunt me. More than anything, I remember the blood…and the feeling of power, surging through my veins as the adrenaline of the anger overrode any rational thought.

  The next thing I remember clearly was thinking that I should feel out of breath, but actually feeling as fresh as a daisy. As the savage feeling of anger gradually subsided, I leaned against a smooth, cool wall and opened my eyes.

  A different feeling began to churn inside my stomach. This time, it was horror. On the floor were three corpses, all ripped to pieces. Limbs were torn from torsos and heads from necks—and there was the smell of death and blood everywhere. Two of them were the women I had seen when I had punched through the door; they must have been doctors, judging by the white coats...or what was left of the coats. The third person—a man— had some sort of uniform on.

  Was he a security guard? I wondered.

  My eyes wandered over the gore and blood scattered all across the floor. Nausea began to overwhelm me; I felt my shoulder blades pushing deeper into the wall. My body was tense with fear and I felt sick and afraid. I glanced down at my hands

  I need to get out of here, I thought. I’ve killed people, oh my God, I’ve killed people, I’m a murderer, I’m a killer, oh God.

  I realised I was becoming hysterical and needed to get myself under control. Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and ran a hand through my hair. I needed to get out; the stench was getting further up my nose and I knew I would be sick if I stayed in here any longer.

  There was a set of automatic doors near me. I ran up to them, but there was no power to them. In desperation, I pounded at the doors—and I stepped back in s
hock as they folded in on themselves under my fists. It was like they were made of paper.

  “What the hell …?” I muttered.

  I stared dumbly at the doors, trying to figure out what I had done to make them cave so easily. Gingerly, I reached out and touched a piece of the door, which was now folded back so it showed the corridor beyond it. It felt like metal—cold and smooth—and looked like metal.

  Most likely is metal then, I thought. But how did I break through?

  I looked over my shoulder and swallowed; I’m not that strong, I know it. Was that actually me?

  The sight of those people, dead and ripped apart, made my head swim and I wasn’t able to control my nausea this time. I felt ashamed at losing control so vividly.

  I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and looked away from the mess I had left on the floor. There was no way I could clean it up; while the room itself looked like it had been quite sterile before I had killed three people, a pile of sick in the corner wasn’t going to make much difference to it now.

  I stretched the doors apart a bit more to get me out and I stepped into the corridor. It was empty, with each end curving away in different directions.

  I assumed this was my local hospital, the Queen Elizabeth, but since I had only been here a couple of times in my entire life, I didn’t know how to get around very easily.

  I hesitated, not sure what to do. Part of me wanted to stay here and wait for someone to walk past, but then I realised that they would then start asking awkward questions about what had happened in the morgue—and I wouldn’t know what to say. How could I answer their inevitable questions when I genuinely didn’t remember what I had done?

  I was suddenly conscious that I was naked; up to that point, it hadn’t even occurred to me.

  “I can’t go round like this,” I muttered to myself.

  I glanced around; there was still no-one walking in the corridor from either direction. I don’t pretend to be an expert on hospitals, but I started to get a weird feeling; surely this was unusual? Hospitals were busy places, everyone knew that. There should be people everywhere, shouldn’t there?