Monthly Archives: December 2013
Issue #11: The Day the Zombies Ruled the Earth
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from The Were-Traveler!
This holiday we have been overrun with zombies. Zombies have come and their day is at hand.
Among these 16 new zombiocalypse offerings are stories so sad you’ll get a lump in your throat, funny stories, and stories so scary you’ll sleep with the lights on. (But if the lights are on, the zombies will find you!) We also have some genre-blending stories, mixing genres like horror and fantasy or horror and sci-fi together. Extra Christmas Cookie points to those authors!
As a bonus story, I’ve included a version of a longer short story that I wrote for the Zombie Survival Crew (official online fan club of “The Walking Dead”) and they published it in their first anthology. It’s a story about teenage boys and their RPG zombie game and what happens when zombies get Twitter accounts.
Enjoy!
Issue #11: The Day the Zombies Ruled the Earth
29 AZA, by Adam Knight (flash)
The Embers Burn, and Gentle is the Arrow’s Stinging, by Jason Andrew (flash)
Wise Man’s Ending, by Matthew Frassetti (drabble)
Zombie Despair, by Tim Tobin (short story)
Boredom, by Bryan Nickelberry (short story)
Jason and the Zombie, by Bob Simms (flash)
Date Night, by Dana Wright (micro fiction)
Brinker’s Contract, by Michael A. Kechula (short story)
Marital Bliss, by Brian J. Smith (flash)
Safety, by Mac Jones (drabble)
A Light Snack, by Edward Taylor (short story)
Day 39, by Stevenhen Warren (drabble)
Necroambulist: A Story of Discriminating Tastes, by Lori Fetters Lopez (flash)
Onlookers, by Rebecca Gomezrueda (micro fiction)
Precious Cargo, by Michael A. Kechula (micro fiction)
BONUS SHORT STORY: Crunch Time, by Maria Kelly (long short story)
29 AZA, by Adam Knight
The boy—I guess it’s a boy—is nine or ten years old, but there’s no way to see his face. He wears black trash bags, one covering his torso, others on his arms, legs, and face. The seams are duct taped. An old ski mask conceals the eyes. He wears vinyl gloves and black galoshes. Not a trace of his skin is visible. He even took the care to write the insignia on his chest and CLEANUP PATROL on back in yellow paint. Crudely done, but accurate. So accurate that it makes my stomach feel as if it’s bottoming out.
–Trick or treat, he says, his voice muffled in plastic. He sounds like them. The PATROL.
Mutely, I hold the bowl of candy. Do I tell him? Does he have a grandfather to tell him the stories? Statistically, a living grandfather is unlikely. He’s a survivor’s child, and there weren’t many survivors.
He’s too young to understand. He knows the CLEANUP PATROLS from history, not memory. If he had lived through them, he’d never dare such a costume.
The kid shifts his feet, and the swishing plastic throws me back twenty-nine years. Houses were abandoned mausoleums. Their tenants roamed the streets, eyes vacant, heads sunken and bruised like rotting melons. We, the survivors, hunkered in the school gym. For months at a stretch, we guarded the exits, checked one another for infection, waited as the adrenaline ground our nervous systems into dull, useless knives.
Then the cavalry came. Fleets of bombers criss-crossed the nation’s skies, spraying the antidote to eradicate the infection and give the diseased their eternal rest. Then came the sorting of the dead. CLEANUP PATROLS rolled the dead into the center of the street and swept through town, wearing airtight vinyl suits, guiding the bulldozers that pushed the dead into The Incinerator, the hastily built monolith that devoured the dead and exhaled human smoke nonstop for two years. The haze smelled like burned pork. It still hangs over the city.
–Hey, old-timer, you okay?
I look down. I’ve dropped half the bowl of candy on the ground. I stoop down to pick it up. Old-timer. Twenty-nine years AZA—After the Zombie Apocalypse—the world population has yet to reach three hundred million. Many of those are survivor children.
Do I tell him the stories? How my wife, who before the ZA was a professor and endowed with one of the sharpest minds I knew, became a drooling, moaning thing as her cerebral cortex turned to soup? Tell him what it was like to see the CLEANUP PATROL roll my wife and son into the road for the ‘dozers? To watch the plume of smoke rising in the distance, choking the city in a brown haze?
Once the infection was done, some survivors took up looting, tribal violence, and reckless promiscuity. The world had nearly ended, the savage survivors argued. What outdated moralities could possibly hold us back? I never participated. I returned to my empty home, pilfered only what I needed to survive. I never indulged darker impulses. Except once. It was an old Colonial wreck down the street, more eyesore than house. My wife was gone, my son was gone, all my friends and family were gone, and that ugly heap of boards still stood. I got roaring drunk and threw Molotov cocktails in the cracked windows until I was sobbing, howling, and my shoulder felt like molten lead. In the crackling, red-hot silence I heard children screaming in the attic. They must’ve been hiding up there for months but not known the ZA was over. I tried to tell myself they were infected, too, and I was doing the world a favor. But I couldn’t get myself to believe it. Just like I couldn’t get myself to walk away. I just stood there in the street until the cries stopped and I smelled burning meat.
I put a candy bar in the kid’s bag, then a handful of them. I lose count; it doesn’t matter. No stories tonight. Let the boy keep the holiday in his own way, and I can keep it in mine.
–Happy Halloween, I mouth. The boy looks at me, then into the bag, then walks away without saying thanks.
~~
I am a writer and teacher in northern New Jersey. My stories have been published in several anthologies, including Song Stories, Vol. 1, The Big Bad Anthology, Told You So, Extinct Doesn’t Mean Forever, and Villainy. I have also ghostwritten a non-fiction book, and am under contract for two more.
The Embers Burn, and Gentle is the Arrow’s Stinging, by Jason Andrew
This story was previously published in A Quick Bite of Flesh: An Anthology of Zombie Flash Fiction (Hazardous Press, September 2012).
@Bree The Embers Burn, and Gentle is the Arrow’s Stinging ‘Neath the evening sky. The wind is in my face. I am free.
11:08 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Sparkles burn out of my eyes. The cola is flat. I can barely swallow it. I won’t let it win. I’ll jump out the window first.
09:08 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Aspirin kills the fever for a few hours. Six pills left in the emergency kit. You still there? Please be there. Can’t be alone.
05:08 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Managed to get to the attic. They can’t reach the hatch, but my arm has a scratch. Don’t know if it’s a bite.
04:03 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Run! Don’t try to make it here! I can hear them banging on the door!
02:31 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Leave him! If Jake has the fever, he’ll die like Clay! I read on the wiki that if he doesn’t have the fever, we can burn out the wound to prevent infection.
02:04 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree What’s left of Clay is screaming.
01:33 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Should have paid attention in class. This Russian guy knows what he was taking about. Thy foes encircle thee and watch with gleeful laughter and bended bow. Just like them. All at once. No mercy. I thought they were moaning or crying. All I hear now is laughter.
01:24 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree When are you getting HERE! Cable’s out. Power’s out. The only left if the generator and I don’t know how to set it up. I need to hear a voice. A human voice. A living voice.
01:19 PM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree I’m alone.
01:14 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree I handcuffed Clay to the wall in the basement. I couldn’t do it. Not with a shovel. I can’t still see bits of him in there. Don’t know what to do.
01:01 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree I’ve never seen him cry before. His eyes turned white. The infection spreads too quickly. I gave him one of the hits of acid. Don’t want him to face this in pain.
12:47 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree They broke through the window. I didn’t hammer in the nails deep enough. Clay killed three of them. Ran of out bullets and time. You ever smell one of them? Like a dead wet dog. I think one of them was our neighbor. She bit Clay’s arm. We’re trying to clean the wound.
12:17 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Forgot the fucking cigarettes! There will be no survival! Seriously, thinking of going to the car to get my extra pack.
11:39 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree We just fought one of the gangs. Killed Zombie Nelly. Didn’t feel as bad as I should. Clay picked up more gas for the generator. Should be able to survive for a few days until help can arrive.
11:37 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Be careful. The radio says that the streets are still pretty bad even with the military. Make sure you bring the Molly. If the world’s gonna end, I don’t want to be sober. All we have is a couple hits of acid.
11:20 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree The only thing to read is a book on Russian poetry. The world might be ending, but I’m not that desperate.
10:11 AM Oct 17th via phone
@Bree Can’t get a signal for the phone, but we can text out. Weird, huh? Are the dead really rising? You don’t think it’s a joke? Come over for a party!
09:17 AM Oct 17th via phone
~~
Jason Andrew lives in Seattle, Washington with his wife Lisa. He is an Associate member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, Active Member of the Horror Writer’s Association, and member of the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers.
By day, he works as a mild-mannered technical writer. By night, he writes stories of the fantastic and occasionally fights crime. As a child, Jason spent his Saturdays watching the Creature Feature classics and furiously scribbling down stories. His first short story, written at age six, titled ‘The Wolfman Eats Perry Mason’ was severely rejected. It also caused his Grandmother to watch him very closely for a few years.
His short fiction has appeared in markets such as Shine: An Anthology of Optimistic SF (Harper Collins), Frontier Cthulhu: Ancient Horrors in the New World (Chaosium), and IN SITU (Dagan Books). In 2011, his story “Moonlight in Scarlet” received an honorable mention in Ellen Datlow’s List for Best Horror of the Year.
In addition, Jason has written for a number of role-playing games such as Call of Cthulhu, Shadowrun, and Vampire: The Masquerade. His most recent projects include Hunters Hunted 2 (The Onyx Path), Anarchs Unbound (The Onyx Path), and Atomic Age Cthulhu: Terrifying Tales of the Mythos Menace (Chaosium). He currently holds the position of Developer for the Mind’s Eye Theatre line published through By Night Studios.
Wise Man’s Ending, by Matthew Frassetti
Arthur ran as fast as he could, scrambling through the forest plagued by rotting trees and skeletal creatures. Bony snakes hissed, the skin rotting from their skulls. Arthur fled through the woods until there was nowhere else left to go.
“Death is almost upon you,” an encroaching zombie wizard shouted. The grand elder council paced forward, surrounding him. Arthur reached for his sword but was grabbed from behind. A sage tore away Arthur’s neck with awful teeth.
“No more heroes,” another mage yelled. “The age of quests is over! The zombie wizard apocalypse has begun. The world has gone dead!”
~~
Matthew Frassetti is a college student acquiring degrees in creative writing and game design. He also loves hockey. You can find him on twitter @MattFrassetti.
Jason and the Zombie, by Bob Simms
“Hello.”
The zombie looked up guiltily, hiding the cigarette in the cup of his hand. Then he realised the greeting had emanated from a small child, standing in the shadow of the fire escape stairs. He brought the cigarette back up to his lips and took a long draft. He nodded a greeting to the boy as he slowly exhaled. His audience stared in unembarrassed fascination.
“My mum says smoking is slow death.”
The zombie shrugged.
“I’m in no hurry.”
“She says only silly people smoke.”
“Does she?”
“Yes, and she says if she ever catches me, she’ll knock me into next week.”
“She sounds a treasure. Why don’t you go back to her?”
“I’m seven,” said the boy, as though that were a complete rebuttal of the zombie’s suggestion.
“You want to make it to eight?” said the zombie. The boy nodded. “Then go back to your mum.”
“Mum’s not here.”
“No, I can see that.”
“Mum’s gone out with Uncle Jack. He’s not my real dad.”
“Really? I bet he’s disappointed.”
“My real dad lives in Wales. I go and visit him sometimes.”
“I don’t suppose you could go visit him now?”
“No, it’s a long way away, and it takes all day on the train, and I’m only seven.”
“Look, you shouldn’t be out on your own, kid. Who are you meant to be with?”
“My sister, only she’s talking to some boys, and she’s pretending I’m not there, so I’m pretending I’m not there either, so I’m here. Why do you look like that?”
“Like what?”
The boy waved his hand in front of his face.
“You know, all white and green and funny looking.”
“Just a general tip to take with you through life, kid. Don’t make personal comments about people that are bigger than you, not if you want to see nine.”
“No, but why do you look like that?”
“I’m a zombie.”
The boy nodded and looked around the alley, as though he’d never seen the backs of buildings before. Then he turned back to the zombie and said, “What’s a zombie?”
“One of the undead.”
“What’s one of the undead?”
“I don’t know. Someone who was dead, and now’s alive. Walks around eating little boys’ brains.”
“Uncle Jack says if I had a brain I’d be a vegetable.”
“Really? He sounds a wonderful father figure. So he reckons you don’t have any brains?” The boy shrugged. “Oh well, I guess a snack is out of the question then. Didn’t your mum tell you not to talk to strangers?”
“Yes. Do you eat anybody’s brains, or just little boys’?”
“I don’t know. Anyone’s I suppose, them being in such short supply. Seriously kid, you need to go back to your sister before you get into trouble.”
“Would you eat a man’s brain too?”
“I guess.”
“Would you eat Uncle Jack’s?”
The zombie shook his head and dropped the cigarette onto the ground. “You don’t get on with your Uncle Jack?” he said, grinding the cigarette out under his foot.
“He’s okay, I suppose,” said the little boy. “I mean, sometimes he shouts if I don’t do what I’m told.”
“Oh, but I bet that hardly ever happens, you not doing what you’re told.”
“Sometimes. But Mum says it’s because he’s not used to children, but Dad is, so maybe if you ate Uncle Jack’s brains, then Mum would let Dad come back.”
The zombie looked away from the boy, towards the other end of the alley, as though searching for something. After a moment he coughed and turned back.
“Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll put him on my shopping list, okay? And if the supermarket runs out of brains, I’ll see what I can do. No promises, mind, and it might take a long time, but you just hang on there, okay? Come on.” He held out his hand, and the little boy took it. They turned and walked towards the front of the building. They had taken a few steps when a young girl rushed across the entrance of the alley, saw the boy and skidded to a stop.
“Jason, you little toerag, where have you been? When Mum finds out about this she’ll skin you alive!”
She marched into the alley.
“That’s my sister,” said Jason.
“Really? I wouldn’t have guessed,” said the zombie.
“You are so in….” Her eyes finally managed to shout over the panic-fuelled anger of her brain and her mouth formed a large ‘O’ as she registered what was holding Jason’s hand.
“Seven-year-olds need a lot of looking after,” said the zombie.
“Yeah, you’re telling me.”
“No,” said the zombie, still holding Jason’s hand. “I mean they need a lot of looking after. They get bored easily, they like exploring, they’ll talk to strangers without a second thought. That’s why your mum put him in the care of his seventeen-year-old sister.”
“Fifteen,” said the girl.
The zombie took in the makeup and the clothes.
“Really? Right, fifteen-year-old sister. Because fifteen-year-old sisters can be trusted to look after him, and not get distracted by, oh, I don’t know, boys who think she’s seventeen. Probably best for everyone if his mum doesn’t get to hear, I expect.”
He held Jason’s hand out, and his sister took it.
“So, you big Michael Jackson fans?”
The girl shrugged. “He was all right. It’s somewhere to go for an afternoon.”
The zombie jumped back and held his arms out straight in front of him. He la-la’d the intro to Thriller and treated the pair to a jerky dance. After a few bars he spun, pointed a finger at Jason and winked.
“The front doors must be open by now. Enjoy the show.”
Then he turned and walked back through the stage door.
~~
Bob Simms is an IT trainer by day, but it’s not as glamorous as it sounds. He was bitten by the writing bug in the Autumn of 2006 and is now totally addicted. He lives in the UK with his wife. His wish for the future is that other people would find him as funny as he thinks himself.
His debut novel – The Young Demonkeeper – reached the semi-finals of the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Awards 2011
Catch up with all his books at http://www.amazon.co.uk/Bob-Simms/e/B004HQG246/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1
(The UK is that little theme park off of the coast of Europe.)
Date Night, by Dana Wright
“How late are your parents going to be out?” Jared whispered into my ear as his hand groped toward the edge of my shirt. I wiggled away and reached for the remote control to the TV.
“They should be home in about an hour, why?” I handed him the bowl of popcorn from the coffee table and moved a little bit over on the couch. Flipping the buttons on the remote until it hit the Horror Movie channel, I settled back against an overstuffed pillow and tried to stomp the growing irritation that was threatening to boil over. It had taken me weeks to arrange this date and everything was going wrong. Everything!
“Jared, can we please just watch the movie?” I growled.
His lips curved into a smirk. “Why? Am I rushing you?”
I scooted down to the other end of the couch and stared at him, annoyed at his assumption. He was supposed to be different. “What did you expect? That I was going to fling myself at you the moment my kid brother went to sleep?”
An unpleasant smile crossed over Jared’s face and I wondered what had possessed me to even consider this guy as date material. All he was was a football jersey with more notches in his belt than I could count.
“Haley. I can’t sleep. They’re outside again.” Christopher stumbled into the living room, bleary eyed.
I rolled my eyes and slowly nodded. He had been listening in on my date again.
“Kid, your sister said to go to bed.” Jared huffed off the couch and loomed over my brother. “Look, there is nothing outside for the hundredth time. See?” Jared stalked over to the back door and opened it, stepping out into the yard.
“Close the door!” I shouted, panicking slightly.
Slamming the door and locking it, Chris grabbed my hand and we peered through the blinds.
Jared was surrounded by the shambling undead. He backed away and tried to run, but they were faster. Chris’s pet zombies had him by the neck and they dragged him to the ground. The beautiful sound of screams and ripping flesh echoed through the night and brought a satisfied smile to my face.
“Thanks Chris. He was really a jerk, you know?” I flipped the blinds shut.
“Yeah, well. I had to feed them, right?” He peered up at me. “You really need to be careful about the uber douche lords you keep bringing home.”
” Yeah. I know.” I sighed. “You wanna watch the rest of Legions of the Undead?”
“Okay. The guys are going to be busy for awhile anyway.” Chris peered out the back window looking dejected.
“Hey. They had to eat. You can play with them tomorrow. Just make sure you put them away before Mom and Dad get home.”
“Yeah.”
“Hey. You want some popcorn?”
“Yeah. Extra butter!”
“You’re so disgusting.” I shuddered, and went into the kitchen to toss a bag in the microwave.
Maybe next week would be better.
~~
Dana Wright has always had a fascination with things that go bump in the night. She is often found playing at local bookstores, trying not to maim herself with crochet hooks or knitting needles, watching monster movies with her husband and furry kids or blogging about books. More commonly, she is chained to her computers, writing like a woman possessed. She was a contributing author to Siren’s Call E-zine in their “Women In Horror” issue in February 2013, a contributing author to the Potatoes Anthology Wonderstruck Anthology, Shifters: A Charity Anthology and the Roms, Bombs and Zoms Anthology due in late 2013 from Evil Girlfriend Media. Dana also reviews music for Muzikreviews.com and has been a contributing writer to Pagan Living, Eternal Haunted Summer and Fabricoh Magazine.
Follow Dana’s reviews:
Twitter: @dana19018
Marital Bliss, by Brian J. Smith
This story first appeared in Pill Hill Press’ “E-Mails Of The Dead.”
TO WHOEVER FINDS IT,
IF YOU’RE READING THIS, THAT MEANS I DIDN’T MAKE IT. OF COURSE I DIDN’T MAKE it or else I wouldn’t be writing this. But dead or alive, someone needs to know what happened. I won’t bore you with some stupid scene break, cut into the past and then pull you back into the present like most writers do. If my wife Natalie had still been alive, then she’d be the one writing this and not me. Sad part was, she’d gone out to check the gas gauge in the Taurus when they surrounded her and tore her apart like a Charleston Chew; a shotgun with eight shells can’t hold back an army of twelve.
Besides, I told her to stay in here, told her we were fine right where we were but she doesn’t listen. Claustrophobia, cabin fever killed my wife—not the walking dead. No, I didn’t stutter. The walking dead; as in George Romero and Brian Keene, get the picture?
According to the news reports, a military cargo plane crashed outside of our town while en route to Andrews Air Force Base. The toxin they were carrying spilled onto the local cemetery and voila! instant zombie apocalypse. The townspeople fell like dominoes.
Natalie perished last week. The bars on the windows and the two shotguns that were posted at the front and back doors were only enough to give you that sense of power a gun loves to give. I would’ve saved Natalie, maybe even traded places with her, but the shotgun was too far away and there was too many of them.
It’s not that I didn’t want to do it. The only shotgun available was out of reach and if I’d gotten it in time they would’ve already bit her so the idea in itself was useless. I’d just have to kill her myself later on, anyway. The booby traps I set up a week ago had been used up; my ammo was depleting. Eight shells in my shotgun which, in case we forgot, isn’t worth dick in the face of an army.
Yes, I do feel guilty about Natalie. I would’ve done anything to have her back right now—anything. It’s not my fault she doesn’t listen to me. She does whatever she wants to do no matter what I say. You can only say so much before you give up and let them learn on their own.
The four zombies at my kitchen window glared at me like a zoo exhibit, baring blackened gums and yellow teeth. The four dead cheerleaders at my back door would’ve been perfect Playboy cover girls if they weren’t dragging their intestines with them. From the look of the bars on the windows, the next good breeze would blow them away. The boat still had some gas in it; maybe I could create a diversion and speed away from this little shit hole. The beach was three blocks away, a gray blue body of water that pounded the rocks at night and swayed gently under the moon.
The front door caved in and hit the floor so hard it rattled the windows. Two adults, another dead cheerleader and a ten-year old boy stumble into the house, baring coal-cannibal grins wet with hunger. They shove me to the floor and the cheerleader straddles me while the other three gnaw at my stomach and legs.
Hey kid, watch it.
Those edible panties aren’t cheap.
Sincerely,
Jennifer
~~
Brian J. Smith has been featured in E-Mails of the Dead, Book Of Cannibals 2: The Hunger, Pill Hill Press’ 365 Days of Flesh Fiction, Metahuman Press’ The Dead Walk Again and And The Nightmare Begins…Vol.1: The Horror Zine and such magazines as Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine and such e-zines as The Horror Zine, Postcard Shorts, Thrillers Killers and Chillers, The New Flesh and The Flash Fiction Offensive. He currently resides in Chauncey, Ohio with his brother the writer J.R. Smith and six dogs; his novella “Dark Avenues” and his two story collection “Two Shots” are available on Kindle.