by P. J. Burgy
She signaled to Lizzie and Teddy, and they moved outside, shutting the door behind them.
The garden shack sat to their left, the graveyard open before them. More than a hundred different shaped tombstones poked out from under the deep snow.
“Uh, I don’t know about this,” Teddy muttered, setting his backpack down just outside the door. “That’s a lot of snow to walk through.”
“Get over it, whiner!” Helena said and took big steps out into the yard. She set the Molotov cocktails to the side, sticking the bottles into the snow. She plodded over to the shack and opened the door, looking inside. Something inside rumbled loudly. Raising a hand, she pulled on a string and a light came on above her head. “Found the generator and more gas cans. And some great new weapons!”
Lizzie fought her way over and in, kicking through almost three feet of snow. The shack wasn’t that big, but the wooden walls were lined with gardening equipment. Shears. A machete. A weed whacker. A spade. A rake. A hefty dirt shovel. Bags of salt and mulch. Gas cans. A hedge trimmer.
“No chainsaw?” Teddy asked, glaring in behind Lizzie.
“Hedge trimmer is kinda like a chainsaw,” Helena said.
“Not really, but, whatever.”
Lizzie saw an ax and picked it up. “I’ve chopped wood before. I can use one of these.”
“That’s a start.” Helena nodded. “Let me get that machete.”
“I want the machete…” Teddy grunted.
“You wanted the hedge trimmer.”
“No, I wanted a chainsaw. I’ll take the machete.”
“You can’t even lunge with that busted knee. Take the hedge trimmer. It’ll be easier.”
“So I can lightly graze them to death? I wanna chop off their heads, not give them a haircut.”
Lizzie eyed the siblings as they bickered. “Hey, focus…”
“I can dual wield with the machete and the gun.”
“Well, I can dual wield with the machete and the flamethrower. I can’t do that with a hedge trimmer.”
“Then don’t use the hedge trimmer. Maybe Lizzie can use it and you can take the ax.”
“Guys.” Lizzie held the ax up.
“I can’t believe there isn’t a chainsaw,” Teddy said.
A low moan rattled through the air, and they left the shack. The fire had spread up the front of the church, a warm light cast down on the surrounding area. Many yards away, at the entrance into the stone walled cemetery, two ghouls shambled through the snow on their way in.
“There’s no way we’re going to get to the gate in time to shut it now,” Teddy muttered.
“You wasted a lot of time arguing with me. That’s why!”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Guys,” Lizzie said, clenching her jaw. “Please.”
“Okay, focus time. There’s only two right now. The rest are probably on the way. We can take ‘em down and then shut the gate.” Helena held the machete aloft.
Lizzie gripped the handle of the ax, staring down at the two hobbling figures falling through the snow and tripping over hidden gravestones. Her eyes narrowed. She recognized them as locals – a young man who worked at the tiny gas station and a middle-aged woman that sometimes jogged down Main Street in tight yoga pants.
The man had a broken neck, his head flopping to the side. His jaw was broken, tongue hanging out, and one of his arms had been pulled out of the socket – sleeve and all – to leave a bloody mess of torn muscle in its place. He was still wearing his bright green and red uniform.
The woman had been ravaged worse. Her heavy jacket was torn and missing around her middle, which was itself torn open and hollowed out as if she’d been scooped empty. Bloodstains drenched her lower half, something wet and shiny dangling around her thighs from the hole in her gut. While her head didn’t flop loosely on her shoulders, she had taken a tremendous wound to her throat and bled profusely. Her long hair was down, tangled and matted with dried blood. She wailed.
Helena trudged to the back door, picked up one of the bottles and joined Lizzie at her side again. Sticking the machete into the snow, she took out a lighter and set the rag on fire, watching it burn brightly as it met the alcohol soaked portion of the cloth. She nodded and went forward, taking big steps until she’d come within twenty feet of the tripping, clumsy ghouls.
The girl grunted, arm back, and hurled the Molotov cocktail at the first of the two things groaning at her – the male. The glass bottle spun in the air, the fire whipping about as it traveled. It slammed into the man’s skull with a thick ‘BUNK’, bounced off and landed in the snow beside him. The male ghoul staggered slightly and moaned.
“Well, that was anti-climactic…” Helena said, grimacing. She pulled the pistol out. “Plan B.” She fired twice, shooting the man through the knees. He went down, flailing his arms uselessly.
“Headshots!” Lizzie cried. “Destroy the brain!”
Teddy eyed her. “That’s zombies, Lizzie, remember?”
“Worked at the hardware store!”
“That was a shotgun. Took the whole head off. A bullet in the brain won’t do jack shit to one of these things!” he explained.
“Take out the knees first, then hack them up!” Helena cried, shooting the woman through the knees next, sending her toppling down. Plodding back to Lizzie and Teddy, Helena grabbed the machete, and made her way over to the wailing ghouls in the snow.
Teddy shrugged, his flamethrower ready. “I mean, I’ll set some on fire too. At least let me do something.”
Lizzie pointed at the open gate as three more ghouls came shuffling in. “You’ll get your chance. Here come some more…”
Just as Helena began to hack the head off the female ghoul, an elderly man with half his face missing came hobbling up, dragging his left leg. Behind him, another man, a local Lizzie barely knew, howled and whirled big, burly arms, his lower jaw completely missing with his tongue flapping at his collar bone. The third was a slender young woman with bright red hair, her throat torn open, and her shirt ripped to expose her bra and ample chest.
“Penny Wiesman!” Teddy lamented.
“She called me a loser when I was a freshman!” Helena stated loudly, in the middle of hacking the male ghoul’s head off as he writhed on the ground. The blade cracked through the bone, severing the head. He still thrashed but did so blindly. “I forgive you, Penny! I can’t hold a grudge.”
Teddy limped over, pulling the lever on the flamethrower, and set the first two ghouls ablaze. They went up like torches, engulfed in bright red fire with black smoke rising into the air above them. They seemed unaffected by the pain, continuing to shamble forward, falling into the snow.
“Snow is putting out the fire! Lizzie, come help me hack them apart! They can’t come after us if they’re in pieces!” the girl shouted, turning back to look at her.
“Ah!” Lizzie rushed forward on unsure feet, her legs cold and her fingers burning.
Helena shot Penny Wiesman in both knees and Lizzie stopped dead a few feet from the moaning girl on the blood-stained snow. She stared down at her, eyes wide and chest heaving. The wretched thing on the ground reached up toward her, hand out and fingers spread, her pale, ghastly face stuck in a frozen look of fear and pain.
Lizzie’s lungs clenched. “I’m sorry.”
She brought down the ax into its skull, cleaving the center in. Lizzie pulled the ax out, having to pull hard when it seemed jammed in the bone. She threw it down again, aiming for the neck. She struck flesh and tendons first, severing the ghoul’s head only partially. Once again, she struck down, decapitating it.
“Now the limbs!” Helena said, shooting the other ghouls in their knees as well. “Remove the limbs!”
Lizzie screamed, bringing down the ax over and over, going for the shoulders, for the elbows. Blood sprayed back at her on each blow. She took a step around the body, aiming for the knees next. Penny Wiesman, limbs cut away, twitched below her as Lizzie gasped for breaths. That dead mouth on the you
ng girl’s pale face gaped like a fish on the shoreline, the eyes just as empty. Lizzie brought down the ax right through her skull again, smashing it in.
“My my, this is fun. Dinner and a show.” Martin hovered in the air on the other side of the gate, hands in his pockets. He grinned widely when he felt their eyes fall on him. “Hello, Lizzie.”
“Hello, Martin,” she growled, panting. Sweat ran down her temples and cheeks, mixing with the blood. Her heart pounded.
“You’re so stubborn. I was getting agitated there for a while but now I’m honestly impressed. I don’t think I’ve been this entertained for centuries, my love.” He gestured in the air with a clawed hand, head cocked to the side. “I knew you were special.”
“You’re a sick freak!” she cried.
He chuckled. “I’ve been called worse.”
“We can do this all night!” Helena shouted as she hacked the limbs away from the elderly man’s gushing torso. His smoldering back twitched in the snow. “You’ll have to run back to your coffin soon, and then we’ll get you!”
“Puhtipstie had a population of just over four hundred. Spread out, of course – not all localized in town proper. Not everyone answered their door either. Trust me, I knocked on a lot of windows too.” Martin nodded solemnly, his fangs exposed as he smiled.
Teddy hissed under his breath. “Might need to go back for those gas cans in the shed. Not enough juice in this thing for that many more ghouls…”
Lizzie nodded to him. “I’ll go. Stay here and cover Helena.”
He nodded, not even bothering to look at her. “Maybe leave me the ax, okay?”
She handed it to him, and he hooked it under his arm, his flamethrower aimed forward. Lizzie bolted, leaping through the snow they’d already trampled nearly flat.
She heard Helena hacking away at the burly ghoul. Moaning echoed through the night, more ghouls on their way to the gate. She kept her focus on the shack and ran in, searching for the gas can. Finding it, she picked it up. Heavy. Her shoulder screamed at her, still sore from carrying Teddy for so long. On her way out, she paused to stare at the hedge trimmer. She took it with her, carrying it under her arm as she rejoined Teddy out in the graveyard.
Teddy took the gas can and gawked at the hedge trimmer when she wielded it outward with both hands. “Lizzie, that thing is useless. You can’t even cut through branches with it.”
“Oh…” She narrowed her eyes. “I mean, it’s… it’s good for close range, maybe if…”
“We’ve got more coming!” Helena cried.
The church roof exploded into flame, the windows shattering. The fire had spread from the front along the side and up to the pointed roof. Even the clergy house had been set aflame, the bright, warm light dancing across the cemetery and the ghouls piling in through the front gate.
“Can we get to the gate or not?” Lizzie asked.
“Got another five, then we can go for it,” the girl replied.
She had to reload after taking out a few more sets of knees, grumbling but doing so quickly. With how slowly the ghouls stumbled through the snow, it wasn’t like she had to panic, but Helena made a face the entire time regardless.
Teddy set them on fire, standing back a few feet after they’d fallen. He offered the ax to Lizzie. She shook her head, turned on the hedge trimmer and attempted to take the head off the first ghoul closest to her with the rotating blades. At one point, it had been a chubby blonde woman with a bad perm in an ugly flower printed house dress. Now, it was a shrieking ghoul with a gaping neck wound, two broken knees, and a giant gash where its face had been.
Flesh and blood sprayed outward, splattering her face, the blade unable to cut through the spine. She tried again, crying out in frustrating as she dug a trench in the side of the ghoul’s throat.
Teddy hollered over the whirring trimmer. “TOLD YOU.”
She cried out in exasperation and trudged back for the ax, throwing the hedge trimmer to the side to land in the snow. He happily handed it over to her and Lizzie went back to decapitate and quarter the thing the old-fashioned way.
They had a good system going: Helena shot their knees out and Teddy set them on fire. Lizzie and Helena hacked them to bits. They worked their way closer and closer to the gate, meeting groups of ghouls as they staggered in to charge at them.
Martin clapped, unabashedly amused. He rooted for Lizzie, shaking a fist in the air, and calling out her name. Hovering from left to right, he sang her praises in the sky, cheering her on.
“You’re filled with bloodlust, Lizzie! Sheer, brutal bloodlust! If I could get an erection, I’d certainly have one right now!” he called, hand on his groin.
“Gross!” Helena cried, hacking into a ghoul’s skull. Thick globs of gray brain matter burst out across the red tinted snow marking their path to the gate.
“Fuck you!” Lizzie screamed, bringing her ax down to sever the right arm from a shuddering torso. This one had been a waiter at The Blue Room judging by his attire.
“If it pleases you, then yes!” Martin cooed.
Teddy refilled the tank on the flamethrower as Lizzie and Helena panted hard and pushed forward past the latest wave of corpses. With only ten feet to go before they reached the gate, they moaned in frustration when another two figures appeared to slow them down.
Helena’s moan turned into a sharp, horrified gasp.
The first was a dark-haired woman with a bleeding hole where her left eye had been, her lips torn off to reveal her chattering teeth – gums and all. She wore a bloody nightgown, her neck bruised and swollen.
The second was a man in a white tank, the fabric torn across the chest and his ribs showing through the gash. He had a pair of faded jeans on, his gait awkward as he stumbled forward. His face, pale and petrified, shined with blood. The bite wound on his throat still bled, leaking down his shoulder. His hair was tawny and light brown, and his beard, now coated in viscera, mostly all gray. He let out a gasping gurgle.
Lizzie frowned deeply.
“DAD!” Helena screamed.
Teddy shouted something as well, his words muddied and garbled as he let out a wail of grief and anger.
Her body frozen, Lizzie waited with the ax clutched in her trembling hands, lips parted as she felt herself wanting to collapse. She didn’t expect Helena to act so quickly.
The girl fired off four shots in rapid succession, taking out the knees on both ghouls. She shot repeatedly at her father’s head, bursting his skull. Her screams rattled the night, her mouth hanging open as she heaved and backed away.
Lizzie rushed in and hacked both ghouls to bloody pieces, her arms stiff as she severed their limbs. She went to Helena and bumped into her shoulder. The girl stared away, focused on Martin, her brows knit tightly.
“I was in your house,” Martin mused, floating sideways in the air outside of the cemetery, right near the gate. He licked the front of his teeth. “I was curious about the tiny hunters. As it turns out, you little scamps are descended from a notorious bloodline. Janette Jean Guerin was your mother, yes? Good ol’ JJ. For such a short lifespan, she left quite the swath of destruction – well, before she settled down and had you two. Her mother’s name was a curse word among my kind, trust me. As was her mother’s. And hers before. The boogieman’s boogieman. I’m honored to be the one to end your line.”
“Come down here and give it a shot, fucker.” Helena aimed the gun at him, smiling roughly. She waved the machete in the air as well. “I double dog dare yah.”
“Ah, I can’t. Holy ground gives me the nastiest heat rash. However, if you’d like to step outside and meet me here, I’d be happy to join you in fisticuffs.” He smirked.
“Better idea. I’ll just stake you after you crawl back into your coffin,” Helena said. “Dawn’ll be here soon.”
Martin shrugged. “If you feel that you must try, I won’t attempt to sway you. I’m prepared.”
Teddy grumbled. “After we stake you, I’m torching you.”
Sigh
ing, he spread both hands out, shaking his head. “You’ll be traveling on foot the entire way, through the snow and fending off my servants along the road. It’ll take hours to reach town, let alone my house. I doubt you’ll make it.”
Teddy sneered. “I feel highly motivated!”
“Oh, and with that leg? You’ll slow them down.” Martin frowned. “You’re just a liability at this point, little boy.”
“Shut up, Martin!” Lizzie made a beeline for the gate and slammed it shut, throwing the latch into the locked position. She backed away slowly, heaving on the cold air.
A few more ghouls arrived and pawed at the bars, reaching their arms in, and wailing.
Martin’s nose crinkled. “I mean, good job, Lizzie. That’ll sure keep them out. But you’ll need to open the gate to come after me when the sun comes up. There’ll be more by then.”
“I’ll worry about the morning when it comes,” she said.
“Your life is safe, my love. I told you – none of my servants would harm a hair on your head. They’re programmed to merely bring you to me. Your friends, on the other hand,” he said, gesturing to Helena and Teddy. “they’ll be torn to shreds.”
Lizzie scowled at him, baring her teeth. “Then maybe I’ll go alone and kill you myself.”
“Doubtful. You love me, Lizzie. Even now.” He touched his chest, eyelids drooping as he smiled at her. “When we danced, I felt it. When we kissed…”
“I didn’t know what you were!”
“Yes, you did,” he said. “You knew exactly what I was by that time, my precious one. I told you. You had some passing reservations – those dead females bothered your tenuous sense of morality for a few seconds before you promised to pledge yourself to me. Vous aimez un monstre, Lizzie. I am what I am, and you accepted me.”
“No, I didn’t!”
“This little… situation here… this is the last remnant of your guilty conscience kicking about in its death throes. I felt similarly when I was turned, you know. When I had to kill to survive. It took me decades to see humans for what they really are.” His grin returned, his fangs gleaming from the crackling fire raging across the nearby church. “You’re still human, so it’s harder for you.”
