Review of Eric Shapiro’s “Stories for the End of the World”
Stories for the End of the World is a series of short stories interspersed with three novellas. Perhaps they are all stories for the end of the world (at least, perhaps, for those in the tales-in one form or fashion), but if you are looking for straight apocalyptic fiction, not every story here qualifies, though a few fit that category. I had read two of the short stories previously, as they appeared in two separate Undead anthologies put out by Permuted Press. All the stories here have appeared elsewhere prior to being compiled for this book. While there are two ‘zombie’ type tales here, there are not walking dead throughout the rest of this book.
The three novellas were all first person tales and each had a very distinct flavor to them. ‘Days of Allison’ takes us to a future where people can order up robots that are so similar to humans that it is virtually impossible to tell the difference. The character in the story has a robotic mate ordered up-she is supposed to be docile and in love with him, and she is neither, which makes her both threatening and intriguing to him. The comment on the cover about Eric Shapiro being the next Philip K. Dick comes from this story. It certainly is a story that has echoes of Dick’s ‘Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?’ to it, with Shapiro’s own unique slant. The second novella, and my favorite story of the book, is ‘It’s Only Temporary,’ which is about knowing that the world will end and spending those last few hours on earth trying to grasp what you should do to live a life full of meaning and experiences. It was a touching story that had me thinking about it long after I was finished with it. ‘Strawberry Man’ came from the other end of the spectrum of the world coming from the end. Instead of a young man pondering on what he hadn’t been able to achieve in life, as was done with ‘It’s Only Temporary’, here there are reflections from an older man on a life full of conquests but dark secrets and horrible regrets.
The majority of these stories are told in first person, with one told in second person, which is always tricky and interesting to read (and it terrifies me-I doubt I will EVER attempt to write a story in second person). Quite a few of them were entertaining, though the internal dialog in some got a little bit long-winded here and there. Nothing that was a major gripe, but more along the lines of a pitfall that can occur in what is primarily first person narratives.
Overall, this is a very entertaining compendium of the author’s work. Some of the author’s stories were very thought provoking and at least some of it had a bizarro taste to it-especially ‘Newborn’, which was pretty surreal. I am guessing that some folks, looking for pure apocalyptic fiction, may be disappointed with this book, mostly because Shapiro takes his readers in some odd directions with some of his stories. The diversions are entertaining if you are open to them, and it is without a doubt a book that raised my eyebrow in intrigue more than once as I read it.
You can find Stories for the End of the World at: http://www.amazon.com/Stories-End-World-Eric-Shapiro/dp/1934861308/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292382578&sr=8-1
December 14, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff... | Tags: Bizarro, book review, horror, novellas, Permuted Press, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Great Review of Eye Witness: Zombie on Fangoria
It’s always really nice when an anthology you are in gets warm praise. It is even better when it is from one of the premier horror magazines in the business. But the icing on the cake is when they mention your story by name as one of tales they really liked.
It is always flattering and humbling to receive praise like this. The fact that this particular story in Eye Witness: Zombie is tied into the world where my Dark Trilogy takes place is even more gratifying.
So take a few seconds and swing by this link and check out the review for Eye Witness: Zombie from Fangoria!
December 4, 2010 | Categories: Dark Stories, The Shorts | Tags: book review, dark stories, Fangoria, horror, May December Publishers, short stories, writing, zombies | 1 Comment
Daily Bites of Flesh 2011 is up on Amazon!
Hey folks, just to let you know, Daily Bites of Flesh is now available on Amazon. It does look like it is out of stock right now, but my guess is that it just will need a day or two for them to have some inventory. It is a very hefty book, with over 500 pages of horror-rific flash fiction for you to check out. And it is the perfect time of year to get someone that calendar that will give them a spine tingling tale once every day. Nothing can beat that for the horror fan!
Hit the picture to head on over to Amazon to get your copy!
December 3, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: cover art, flash fiction, ghosts, horror, Pill Hill Press, short stories, vampires, werewolves, zombies | Leave a comment
Zombiality, another anthology my work appears in, is now available on Amazon!
I had mentioned this book a while back and posted the cover art for it. It is now available on Amazon, so check it out. I am very proud to be a part of this one and hope that many of the folks out there read this one. One of my favorite short stories that I have written is in it, “Humans Being Human.”
Hit the picture and it will take you over to Amazon. Thanks!
December 1, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: cover art, horror, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Dark Stories: George and Jason, Part 4
Well, I kept my promise. This final piece in the George and Jason introductory puzzle is complete and posted below. Please note, there will be another, briefer story about Jason that I will be posting next-it actually takes a further step back, and details his experiences before he met up with George and the others at the emergency shelter. But that is for another day. With this section of the George and Jason tale, we conclude their experiences up to where they meet Jeff and Megan.
And for a little plug for all of you out there: make sure you check out the sequel to Comes The Dark, which is Into The Dark. It is available on Amazon and Smashwords. I may be posting a few Dark Stories about some of the characters found in that book as well in the upcoming weeks, so stay tuned. You will want to have read the second book before you check them out.
And just as a reminder, if you haven’t read all the Dark Stories yet, go over to that page and you can read them all in order, including this one. Thanks!
As always, I do my best to clean up any typos and grammar errors before I post these, but I am sure I missed a few here and there.
So without further ado, here ya go!
George and Jason, Part 4
The tears did flow as George sat in the room with the unread romance novel open on his lap as he relived those last moments standing outside of the church. He was crying for Jason. He was crying for Al and Jennifer. He was crying for the family he still hadn’t returned to. But mostly, he was crying for a world that was lost forever.
***
They managed to make it inside the church. The metal shard had enough left in it to shatter a window too high for George to crawl through. He managed to boost Jason up to it, and the kid was able to climb inside. He unlocked a lower window, which allowed George to climb in and lock it behind him.
The bright flashes of light from explosives and spotlight out on the street diminished as the night went on, so it was difficult for either of the refugees to see much inside the room they were in. All they knew was that they had made it to a classroom for preschoolers, based on the tiny desks spread around the room. They didn’t feel up to exploring, so instead they huddled behind the teacher’s desk.
The sounds of battle diminished, though George couldn’t help imagining more screams out on the street. The logical part of his brain knew he couldn’t hear them from where he was hunkered down, but that didn’t make the nightmares any less real. The only comfort was that despite the fact that they could still hear the drone of the undead, it was greatly reduced and appeared to be getting further away as the night wore on.
George knew what that meant, but tried not to dwell on it. The ghouls had broken through the last barriers and were inside the schools, tearing through the last of the living.
We’re alone now. It was the cold, harsh thought that stayed with George throughout the night.
Dawn broke after a couple of sleepless hours. George was shocked when he realized Jason had dozed off shortly after they’d gotten through the windows and settled in behind the desk.
Rooting around, they found a few rags and were able to clean off the worst of the gore that cover both of them. After that, they set out to explore the place and see what rooms they could barricade from outside assaults.
George promised Jason that they would stay here for only a couple of days, until he figured out an escape strategy. The boy listened to the promise impassively, seemingly unconcerned about their current situation.
They pulled down blinds on the windows that had them and propped a few cafeteria tables up in front of other windows that faced the road. They secured the exits as best they could, which amounted to little more than moving a few desks in front of the doors and praying the undead wouldn’t notice that someone was now inhabiting the church.
A search of the premises revealed a small stash of food and drinks—stale crackers and juice boxes left over from the previous school year. The box full of bottled water was a nice bonus, along with a stash of junk food George found hidden in a janitor’s closet. It was better than nothing and would prevent them from starving if they were forced to stay for a while. They claimed their bedrooms on the second floor and hunkered down.
After a couple of days with no attacks on the church, they were able to relax a bit and start monitoring the situation outside. The amount of rotters roaming the streets was diminishing. With the lure of warm flesh gone, George’s best guess was that they had wandered into the schools, away from the blazing sun. A few would pop out of the school buildings every now and then. George would watch them from the second floor as they stumbled around, picking at the Humvees and other vehicles that were now collecting dust.
That was when George wondered if those sad creatures still had a shred of humanity left to them. He couldn’t help but compare them to the boy he was hiding out with. Jason was acting more like some sort of drone or robot with each day that passed. Nothing George did seemed to break down any of the kid’s hard earned barriers. The twelve year old spoke only when absolutely necessary. He followed George’s rules without question or complaint. He knew that they needed to be quiet; he knew that if he went on the first floor he was not allowed to let any of the doors slam shut and he needed to stay away from the windows. But none of that came up too often, because Jason spent most of his time in his room up on the second floor, alone.
Days passed and time crawled. George plotted and planned different possible escapes. At the same time, he felt the strong need to keep Jason sheltered, to prevent even more damage from occurring to him. He prayed to God to give him an idea of what to do and when to do it. He stared out windows and went through different scenarios in his mind. Every single one ended up with the two of them being surrounded and devoured by those things. Time ticked by and after a while, the ideas ran dry. George needed to get to his family, but he wouldn’t risk the boy’s life to do it.
The slim hope that someone might come to their rescue disappeared not long after they arrived in the church. George had held out little hope for the Ninth Infantry to come blasting in or some Navy SEALs to sneak them away, but he tried to hold on to the belief that there was someone, anyone, out there and that they were trying to figure out a way to save the people who were trapped, like him and Jason.
The thought that some savior might show up and save them was a ludicrous fantasy, but George couldn’t help thinking about it every now and then.
Mostly, George slept. And when he wasn’t sleeping, he would exercise. He would do sit ups, push ups, jog around the gym … anything to distract himself from the current situation.
The weeks went by and the food continued to diminish, but nothing happened-either outside or inside the church.
George was about to doze off after a pretty aggressive workout when he was jolted out of his daze by the Jason, who was peering at him through his bedroom door.
It was shocking to see the boy; he never entered George’s room. Now here he was-the door partially opened with him leaning in with a look George had forgotten could exist on Jason’s face: excitement.
“Someone’s here.”
It was all the kid had to say for George to jump up and get moving. No questions, no skepticism. Those two words were the most he had heard from Jason in several days and the emotion he displayed in the few seconds it took George to rush through the door was more than he had shown since they had gotten to the church. Jason waved him on, pointing toward one of the small windows at the end of the hall.
“Okay, Okay,” George said as Jason grabbed him by the arm and yanked him to the window.
The windows faced the street and were spaced far enough apart that you couldn’t see directly below, due to the roofline of the building, but you were able to see most of the street between the two of them. Jason was pointing out the left window, frantically jabbing at something down below.
“Over there!”
George moved up to the window and saw what the boy was so excited about. It was some sort of van slowing down in front of the high school. It was blue and he could see the silhouette of a driver who appeared to be staring at the sign posted nearby that stated:
GALLATIN EMERGENCY SHELTER. ALL FAMILIES AND INDIVIDUALS REPORT TO THE GYM FOR REGISTRATION.
One suitcase per family, clothes only. No pets! All food and water is provided. All food and water brought on the premises will be confiscated. NO FIREARMS! Please have valid state or federal ID available for inspection. Thank you for your cooperation.
George had memorized those words and even dreamt about tearing down the sign on more than one occasion. It felt like a mass grave marker to him; a sign painted in the blood of dead soldiers and refugees.
It was a man behind the wheel, George could see. He was wearing a tee shirt and a ball cap. Other than that, it was hard to tell much about him through the dirty window of the vehicle. The man was gesticulating at a passenger as the van slowed to a stop.
George could tell the vehicle had been through the ringer. It was banged up and splattered with gore. The rear windows were tinted and it was nearly impossible to tell if there was more than the driver and the person he was talking to inside. Got room for a couple of hitchhikers?
“Should we open the window and yell down to them?”
George shook his head at the excited plea as he continued watching the dark blue minivan inch down the street.
A cynical side of George did want yell out at the fools to tell them that they had picked the wrong street to cruise down. But mostly, he felt like he had just been shocked by defibrillation paddles. His heart was racing and his pulse was going through the roof with insane hope. Less than one hundred yards from where he and Jason stood were the only living beings they’d seen in ages.
The van came to an abrupt stop at the sign. The driver had probably read it, but was still jabbering at their passenger. What in the Lords name are these two squawking about? What could be so damnably important? George was getting irritated just watching the scene unfold below. He noticed Jason glancing over at him and realized he was mumbling, talking to the driver. He slammed his mouth shut and both he and the boy returned to looking at the vehicle.
“No.”
“Huh?” Jason responded to the whispered word as he continued staring out the window. He jumped when George exploded a moment later.
“No, God dammit, no!”
George slammed his fist against the glass, rattling it in its frame. Jason was surprised to hear the supposedly religious man he’d shared this place with lash out with blasphemy.
Looking back out the window, he knew why George had lost his composure. Dead people were surging out of the schools on both sides of the road.
The van shot forward, and Jason wanted to scream along with the man next to him, yelling at the driver to come back. The vehicle moved of sight down the road past where they could see them.
Their rescuers were going to leave before they even knew he and George were here.
Jason was angry at the people in the minivan. He wanted to lash out at them, kick them, and beat on them. In that moment he hated the other survivors for everything that had gone wrong in his life. Every bit of his pent up rage that had been festering for weeks came to the surface in an instant.
The twelve year old grabbed George’s arm and pulled on it until the big man snapped out of his angry trance. Jason almost dropped his hand when he saw the seething anger in the man’s eyes. It looked like it was directed at him and he was ready to move backwards out of the range of those large clenched fists. But the anger dissipated and Jason realized George wasn’t angry, he was frustrated.
“We need to go after them. We have to leave here, now. I can’t stay here anymore.”
George had a surprised look on his face. His mouth opened as he tried to sputter out a response, but Jason spoke again before he could.
“I know those people took off and those dead things are out there, but if we go out back we could sneak around those creeps, we can track those people down. They have to stop sooner or later. We have to try!”
George shook his head as he watched Jason’s face grow more panic-stricken with each word.
“It won’t work.”
Before the boy could blurt out a protest, George continued. “The van will be coming back anyway.”
Jason looked confused, but if what George was saying was true, it was all the better.
“Then we have to go downstairs. We have to let them know we’re here! Come on!”
Now it was George holding Jason’s arm, easily keeping him from racing for the steps. George continued to shake his head, a resigned look on his face. The tug of war lasted only a couple of seconds until George snapped.
“Jason! Shut up and listen!” The command had the desired effect and Jason steadied, at least for a moment. George turned and pointed out the window down the street in the direction the vehicle had headed. “Can you see out past the schools?”
Jason’s vision was pretty good, but the road was curved and the church was far enough back on the road that it was hard to see that far. He shook his head.
“I’ve been looking out this window, just like you have, for a month now. I’ve looked at it from every angle. Believe me-I’ve tried figuring a way out of here … probably a million different times.”
George pointed and Jason followed his finger. He saw the blue spec that was the minivan, way down the road.
“See them there?”
Jason nodded.
“That’s as far as they go. There’s a bunch of vehicles down there blocking the road … and here they come again.”
The van had turned around and was heading back toward the church. George’s resigned voice deflated Jason’s enthusiasm, but seeing the van return still excited him.
The kid turned to rush to the stairs and George did not grab him this time. Instead, it was his words that stopped him cold this time.
“They’re dead already.”
Jason halted his progress and turned back to look at George, an angry and puzzled look on his face.
“See for yourself.”
Jason hesitated, fearful of what he might see, but his curiosity was too much for him to resist as he moved back to the window.
The van was skidding around the parking lot next to the church. The angle wasn’t great and Jason could barely see the vehicle, but the van was getting closer and was surrounded by crowds of the undead.
The driver was darting in and out of the horde and was having a small amount of success, but from their elevated vantage George and Jason knew what was about to happen.
The van would run out of space. There were too many monsters to ram through. They would be forced to stop, and the driver and his passenger would be torn to pieces.
Jason watched the vehicle pitch and weave and knew in his heart they were doomed. He glanced over at George and realized the old man was only watching the scene unfold out of some morbid sense of curiosity, not because he was hoping the driver would figure out a way to escape.
“I can’t stay here. I’m going to help those people.”
Jason turned and ran for the stairs. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he had to do it fast. He had hit the bottom of the steps when George caught up to him and whipped him around by the arm.
“Are you crazy? Have you completely lost your mind? Jason, I know being stuck here sucks, but that doesn’t mean you should go on some suicide mission to try and save some people who are already dead!”
The anger on Jason’s face as he wriggle free of George’s grasp startled the man. He was even more stunned when Jason slammed a fist into his chest.
“I’m not going to kill myself! I’m gonna to save those people and they’re gonna take me out of here. You and those creeps aren’t going to stop me either!”
Jason kept punching George as he raged. It was like hitting a side of beef, but he didn’t care. The anger he’d felt only moments before toward the people outside had been redirected toward the man he perceived to be his jailor. George, stunned by the outburst, couldn’t react. He could only watch as tears of rage formed in Jason’s eyes.
That’s when it all crashed down on George like a ton of bricks. He’d been sheltering Jason all this time, believing that the boy was some fragile child who needed to be kept safe from the horrors outside the door. The reality was that it was impossible to keep him safe. Not here, not anywhere. Jason already knew this, and was willing to take any risk necessary to get the hell out of this mausoleum they’d been dying in for far too long.
If we hide out in this place any longer, we’ll die here. It was a simple thought, clear and precise in George’s brain. The clearest though he’d had since they’d arrived.
An image of Helen popped into his head. She was listening to him talk on his cell phone from the high school gym. He was promising her would be home soon, that nothing would stand in his way of getting back to his wife and daughters.
So what the hell have you done since then, George Montgomery? A whole lot of covering your ass, that’s what.
Taking a deep breath, George grabbed Jason’s hands and held them tight, bringing his full strength to bear in an effort to control the erratic kid. Looking him in the eyes, he smiled at the twelve year old.
“Ok, let’s do it.”
He nearly laughed at the surprised look on Jason’s face.
Jason’s surprise turned to joy and he tried to move away, but George pulled him back until they were facing each other once again.
“But we do this my way, ok?”
George peered into Jason’s brown eyes with a steely glare. They looked at each other and an understanding passed between them. After a moment Jason nodded vigorously. George smiled at him and winked, which elicited a confused grin from Jason.
“Come on, we don’t have much time,” George said as he wrapped his arm around the boy’s neck and gave it squeeze.
They moved toward the gym, ready to get down to business.
***
The run out onto the street felt liberating this time. For the first time since that horrible night long ago he was doing something. It was rash and there was a good chance it would be fatal, but this was the choice George had made: choosing a dangerous risk rather than slowly dying with only dust and despair to mark his final resting place.
When it came right down to it, there it had been no real choice at all.
He told Jason to sit tight while he ran across the street. He would make a break for the water tower as the attention of the horde was directed toward the people in the van. Hopefully the effort (along with the screaming and yelling he would do once he got to the tower) would lure enough of the mob in his direction and give the van a chance to break free and Jason a chance to either flag them down or escape into the woods behind the church.
After that, the plan was for George to run away from the tower before it was surrounded, or for him climb the sucker if he had to. He didn’t want to think too much about what would happen if he was forced to choose the latter option.
The first part of his plan went off without a hitch. There were some stragglers still roaming on the street as he ran across, but George only had to bowl over a couple. The rest were far too slow to react before he made it to the fence.
As he was running, he could see the woods beyond the tower and a twisted urge to keep on running raced through his mind, but the temptation passed as quickly as it came. George knew he had stood by doing nothing as far too many people died to even consider that possibility. He increased his speed and hit the chain link fence a second later.
As he climbed the fence, he realized that getting up the water tower would be next to impossible. There were X-shaped struts running between the metal stems of the tower, but no ladder to be seen.
George bit his tongue as nervous laughter almost escaped his lips. It was far too late to turn back. He reached the top of the fence and balanced there, one leg tossed over as he twisted his body around so he was facing the mass of dead bodies surrounding the van. The few he’d passed were moving in his direction, though most remained focused on the van. He glanced over at the woods one last time.
Take a deep breath, he closed his eyes. The buzzing noise he’d discovered a few weeks back had returned, bringing with it memories of that terrible night. The solider on top of the truck, bodies being torn to pieces everywhere he looked, Al bleeding to death on the asphalt, and Jennifer’s last words.
Feeling dizzy, George opened his eyes again, keeping his precarious balance atop his narrow perch. He focused on the van and took a deep breath.
He screamed. It was a long, howling wail contorted with pain and a rage that George didn’t realize he’d been holding in all that time. He clenched a fist and raised it up high, shaking it at the demons spread out before him.
In that moment, it came to him. The prayer he’d forgotten on THAT night—the one he thought he believed he’d never memorized, but must have, years before. It thundered out of him, billowing forth as if he was an avenging angel:
“The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; For You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You anoint my head with oil; My cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life; And I will dwell in the house of the LORD Forever!”
As he began shouting, they turned. As he continued, his voice rising, more came forward as they forgot the van. They moved as one, drawn forward by his words. It felt like that even as the rational part of his brain told George they were only coming to him because he was food; food that was screaming like a lunatic for all the world to see.
He didn’t care. What he did care about was how it felt to finally curse the monsters that had caused all this. All his emotions: the rage, the fear, the helplessness were funneled into the words he spat out at these interlopers and cast-offs. As he shook his fists at them, it was as if he was calling thunderbolts down from heaven at the heaving mass of death dragging itself toward him.
When the speech was done and the fervor gone, George tried to comprehend the response he got. His words had bounced off his impassive congregation like everything else the human race had thrown at them. But at least they were coming for him-that much was certain.
Jumping down inside the small compound, he watched as the first of the raggedy monsters slammed into the fence. George stepped back, getting the first daylight close-up of one of the creeps, as Jason called them. He had seen enough of them in the dark, but now was getting a full Technicolor display of the dead soldiers and refugees he’d shared the high school gymnasium with.
As gruesome as the crowd was, George was still relieved. He didn’t recognize anyone, and the niggling fear Al or Jennifer might crop up was something he doubted he could handle. But if they were in the crowd, they were indistinguishable from the rest of the rotting mass of corpses, which was a small blessing.
The fence appeared to be strong enough to keep the army of slavering maniacs at bay for at least few minutes. The rust on it didn’t inspire confidence, but at least the invasion force pounding on the chain link didn’t appear to have much in the way of climbing skills. All they could do was press their swelling, overheated carcasses up against the fence as they bashed at it and hissed at George. They seemed almost insulted that the meat so tantalizingly close was not willingly sacrificing itself.
More and more corpses crowded up against the fence. They were drawing attention of others … it was a domino effect: even those that could not have possibly seen or heard him were moving in his direction, away from the van.
Looking through the gaps in the crowd, George could see that there were fewer bodies pressed up against the Odyssey. It wasn’t rocking back and forth anymore, though many persistent attackers were still engaged in an effort to crack into it.
George frowned, his frustration with the driver of the minivan surfacing. Why haven’t they tried moving yet?
The path was clear, or so it seemed, though it was getting harder for him to see over the bodies tugging at the fence. He did see a smaller group of the infected splitting off from the main force coming in his direction. They were on the opposite side of the street, still near the van, but moving toward the church.
Looking over at his old hideout, George groaned. The kid had done it. He’d disobeyed the order to sit tight and wait. When all the attention was drawn away from the church, Jason would have had his chance to take off. Until then, he was supposed to be safe behind the closed doors.
Now that was shot to hell.
George watched in stunned silence as the twelve year old whipped a clunky text book out one of the second floor windows at the crowd of onlookers gathered around the front of the church. The book spun like an oversized shuriken and sideswiped what may have been an elderly woman. The creature had a cloud of messy white hair and the tattered remains of a flower print dress on, which were the only hints at its gender. The book spun the recipient of the blow around, but didn’t knock it over. What it did do was draw its attention, and moments later it was clawing and beating at the church doors.
Where the hell did he get the book? It didn’t matter much, but George surmised that Jason must have done some exploring in the classrooms and found a few teaching manuals. More rectangular missiles flew out of the window, smashing into the heads of the ghouls down below. Though it was hard to tell from a distance, it looked to George as if Jason was enjoying himself.
“Get out of there now, dammit. GET OUT!”
It was pointless-the kid couldn’t hear him. The maddening sound of hornets was too loud, and they were vibrating every bone in George’s body. He could barely hear himself.
Resisting the temptation to launch his body at a part of the fence still bare of smashed-up bodies, George paced behind the walls of his prison as more stiffened corpses made the pilgrimage to the church. His movements were spreading the ghouls out around the perimeter of the fence. As they tried following him, more blocked his view of the van and the church. He wanted to signal for Jason to just cut and run, but it was fast becoming clear that for the first time in a long time, the boy’s fate was entirely out of his hands.
The crowd outside the fence continued to shift, moving to the side of the compound George was closest to-at least most of them were doing that. There were more than enough to spread around and those pressed up against the chain link appeared unwilling to give up their prime spots along the fence line.
George knew he would have to make a break for it soon. The fence was starting to sway as more bodies pressed against it. It wouldn’t be long before it collapsed.
He was still sizing things up when he heard the roar of the van’s engine. Finally! At least the people in the van would be able to escape this nightmare, even if he and Jason were screwed.
Even as he thought about how futile this whole rescue effort had been, George had to smile. It beat sitting on his ass until he starved to death.
Moments later, George’s eyes widened as the sound of metal crunching against metal jolted him out of his reverie and he saw the blue prow of the minivan heading in his direction.
He managed to dive out of the way as the Odyssey plowed through the fence, smashing at least five stiffs into its grill as it did so.
George wobbled to his feet, still in a daze, as he finally got a good view of the scraggly driver of van when he rolled his window down. At the same time, the cargo door on the minivan slowly opened. A thin, haggard looking woman stood behind the door, a massive revolver in her tiny hands.
He was still staring at these ragged people, trying to comprehend what had just happened, when he heard one of them shout “Get in!”
November 30, 2010 | Categories: Dark Stories | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, Into The Dark, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Cover revealed for “Daily Bites of Flesh 2011”
Another anthology that one of my stories will be appearing in is being released shortly. In fact, it should be available at the publisher’s website, www.pillhillpress.com tomorrow. It should be on Amazon within a week. This is a compendium of 365 Flash Fiction horror stories. Flash fiction are stories that are less than 500 words each. Essentially, these are short flashes of terror, without all the extras that come with short stories and novels. The challenge is to create an environment and fill it with characters and a plot in a very short period of time. My flash, “Compulsion,” is one of the April stories, and one I am quite proud of.
If you are a fan of horror, this is a great way to get a huge dose of it-365 different stories to freak you out, and each in nice little bite sized pieces.
Check out the cover by the same artist who has done my books, Philip R. Rogers. It is beautiful. More details as the book becomes available, which will be very soon!
November 28, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: flash fiction, horror, monsters, Pill Hill Press, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Dark Stories: George and Jason, Part 3
Sorry it has taken me so long to post another part of George and Jason’s tale, but I should be able to get Part 4, the final part of their story, posted within the next week or so. There are other stories based on other characters, and now that Into The Dark is on the verge of being released, some of the other stories about characters appearing in that book will also be showing up here, on my blog.
As always, you can find all my Dark Stories listed in order on the Dark Stories page of my blog. So if you haven’t read all the ones that came before this, check out that page first. Thanks!
As usually, I apologize for any typos or grammatical errors. I try to do my best to insure that what I post is clean, but I am sure I missed a few things here and there.
So without further ado, here you go. I hope you enjoy this installment.
George and Jason, Part 3
George thumbed through a paper back romance novel he had commandeered from one of the preschool teacher’s desks. Wretched was the only word he could use to describe it. But it passed the time. He would not have been caught dead with such a book previously but now, with only Jason left to pass judgment, he could care less.
He thought about the boy and what was to become of him.
Jason would be a tall teen. He was gawky, scrawny perhaps, but he had the bone structure that indicated that he would easily break six feet as an adult. The boy was the whole reason they were holed up in this church instead of dead out on the road somewhere. George wanted nothing more than to take his chances and leave this place behind for good. He would take any risk that he could to return to his family. They needed him.
But so did Jason.
Jennifer had coaxed some other details out of the shy boy in the few days they were stuck at the high school. It was far more than George had been able to get out of Jason since then. His father lived up near Detroit and was not on speaking terms with his mother. She made the decision a year ago to move to Ohio for a fresh start. She got a job as a nurse and promised Jason a house to live in, so they moved to Gallatin where they could afford a cottage in the little town.
The move was a shock to Jason’s system. He did well in school, but being uprooted and losing all his friends had been tough. His mother was happy here so he didn’t complain for her sake.
The boy had lost touch with his father long ago. He barely knew the man and hadn’t said much about him unless prodded. Jennifer guessed that even though Jason acted like none of it mattered, he still missed his father a great deal.
Jason lost his mother not too long before he had gotten to the shelter. It did not take much to figure that out since he had come to the place alone. He would not talk about it and all Jennifer could gather was that the National Guard had picked him up, perhaps in his house, or off the street, and dumped him in the shelter.
So Jason had lost his mother and then the one person he had latched onto when things had gone from bad to worse. George guessed that Jason felt that Jennifer had betrayed him when she had chosen to stay with her dying husband rather than escape with him from the parking lot.
It was a harsh assessment and George could not blame Jennifer for giving up when her husband, who was her high school sweetheart, was lying beside her with his lifeblood pouring out onto the asphalt. All she could do for the boy was to tell him to run away with George. That she could not see past her own grief and agony was nothing George could blame her for, but he knew Jason didn’t see it that way.
***
After George and Jason fled the parking lot of the high school, they kept moving around the building. As they got further away from Al and Jennifer, Jason managed to start walking on his own instead of forcing George to drag the boy along behind him.
Jason’s reaction to Jennifer’s abrupt farewell was worrisome to George, but his concern for the pre-teen’s mental well being had to take a back seat to bigger priorities.
They gradually made their way to a corner of the high school where they could spy what was going on out on the street. It took forever as George kept them sliding along the cold bricks of the building. The wall was not straight and it forced them to spend time creeping around corners, pausing to make sure they were not coming up on anything they couldn’t deal with. They reached several bushes that hugged the corner of the building and dove behind them, hoping they could hide there for a few moments. It was then that George realized how truly screwed they were.
The undead were scattered, spread out after moving in from north of the school onto the street between the high school and the grade schools across the street. They had pushed survivors they came across before them, herding them like cattle to the slaughter. By the time the hoard had reached the schools, its numbers were in the hundreds, if not thousands. Both soldiers and citizens alike had been defeated at every turn and it appeared that this was where the final battle between the undead and what remained of humanity in this region would take place.
The ghouls were in thick clusters surrounding islands of soldiers and the sound of automatic weapons fire were small disruptions to the deafening roars of the creatures. They were in the street, on the grass, everywhere, attacking everything living thing they could get their hands and teeth on.
Before that night, George had seen only bleak hints and whispers of what was happening outside the high school he’d called home for the past few days. It had been nothing worse than an uncomfortable itch at the base of his spine. That itch hinted at the truth of things, but nothing up until now had grabbed him by the throat and throttled him with the revelation that the world had come to an end.
George’s eyes zeroed in on a particular soldier on top of a pickup truck out on the street. It looked like he was dancing on the narrow roof as he dodged the grasping hands of the undead surrounding the truck. For an instant George was reminded of a group of concert goers trying to touch the leg of a lead guitarist as he jammed out on stage. The M16 in the soldier’s arms looked somewhat like a guitar, even as he fired into the crowd erratically, frantically trying to clear a path for a quick escape. Despite his efforts, the crowd wouldn’t part and the clot of ghouls around the truck kept growing thicker by the second. The dead clumsily attempted to climb the truck to get at him, but instead fell underneath the press of other bodies pushing on them from behind. Those that were crushed underneath served as step stools for the other stiffs who were able to get higher and closer to the soldier.
The young private continued to fire his weapon and bellowed resistance as he did. He hit the mark with the occasional shot and a head would disappear below the mass of contorting bodies, but mostly his attacks did little to influence the crowd, except perhaps to make it grow even more excited by his presence.
The ghouls dragged themselves onto the hood and into the bed of the truck behind the soldier, who was able to dodge their hands for a short while. The first few that that snagged his camouflaged leggings were easily shaken off. George was hunched down the bushes at the corner of the high school with Jason held closely in front of him as they watched helplessly as the terrible scene unfolded no more than fifty yards from where the hid. George could feel Jason shaking uncontrollably and tried to squeeze his shoulders tighter just to let the boy know he was safe, but it was useless. The middle-aged man would later recall whispering something like ‘everything will be okay’ in the boy’s ear, but wasn’t sure if it had been more to reassure Jason or himself.
George silently rooted for the soldier, who ran out of bullets and started swinging his M16 around like a bat, not with much hope of connecting with anyone, but more in an effort to deter those closest from reaching out to grab him. The young man’s screams increased in volume as he sidestepped several grasping claws and backed into another group of avaricious hands that latched on to his legs at the ankles. He attempted to turn and face these new attackers, his rifle still held out in front of him, but lost his balance and slammed down hard on the metal truck roof. A hollow clunk was the only sound George heard as the soldier crashed and was pulled over the side of the truck.
George, at ground level, couldn’t see what happened next, but he was cursed with a vivid imagination. He knew the man was being pulled apart, the angry ghouls snapping at one another as they fought over the tastiest morsels. The only consolidation for the soldier was that there were enough of the undead that it was unlikely there would be enough of him left to reanimate.
The ongoing carnage out on the street was almost hypnotic. There were numerous small groups of living humans trying to hold the line, but all of those groups were being infiltrated by the walking dead. So many of the infected were in army fatigues it was hard to tell who was alive and who was undead. George remembered how fast the old man that had bitten Al had changed and knew that those dying right now would be up and helping the other ghouls within minutes. It made the battle all that much quicker: soldiers often had no idea who was alive and who had reanimated, because both the living and the dead were saturated with blood and viscera.
Of all the crowding, surging undead, the largest concentration George could see was moving toward the entrance of the high school. Some of the guardsmen were falling back, around the bushes where George and Jason hid. George retained a firm hold on the boy as he watched the soldier’s run by. He felt like he was clutching a rabbit: he couldn’t squeeze Jason too tight, but if he relinquished his hold the kid would more than likely skitter away. But at that moment, Jason seemed sedate, not squirmy or making any noises that would draw any attention, at least.
One of the entrances to the high school was behind where George and Jason hid, and it was apparently the fall back position for many of the National Guardsmen. They were trying to delay the inevitable onslaught by seeking sanctuary inside the high school with the rest of the soldiers and refugees inside.
George wondered if the riot inside the high school had been quelled and how much innocent blood had been spilled in the process. After seeing the massacre outside, he suspected that anyone who had been killed in the clash between refugees and soldiers was probably better off than anyone still alive.
He scanned the front of the building, but his vision was blocked by part of the high school that jutted out onto the expansive lawn in front of the school. He couldn’t see the opposite end of the building, but did see the advancing horde moving in his direction. The ghouls were methodically following the retreat anyone left alive on the street … and those survivors were leading the dead straight to the high school.
George saw several vehicles moving erratically back and forth on the road and in the parking lot across the street, where even more soldiers were falling back through the doors of the elementary schools. Looking around, he dismissed the idea of trying to find a vehicle. There were far too many bodies already jammed underneath the wheels of several military vehicles and even a semi that had been commandeered by the National Guard. There was no possibility of driving out of the area.
George held his stomach in check as he saw more bodies being crushed under the heavy equipment and pulped beyond recognition. The few vehicles still in motion were barely moving as more ghouls mindlessly crashed against them in an attempt to reach the drivers. Bodies and appendages were dragged under wheels and bogged the machines down. Corpses ruptured and became wedged into wheel wells, forcing the vehicles to a standstill.
George forced himself to continue looking out on the street, which was starting to resemble the ninth circle of hell. There had to be something out there … something that would give them some spark of hope.
There has to be someplace for us to hide.
The screams echoed all around them. More of the dead filed past their hiding space, not sensing the two easy targets as they followed groups of soldiers streaming past. The sound of shattering glass and panicked shouts behind them told George that the people still alive inside the high school were starting to realize what they were up against.
Jason had grown still, only barely shivering. As George looked out on the street, he forgot about the boy for a moment. It appeared as if the dead were all clumping up out there, attacking the established positions of the soldiers while others surrounded the entrances of the two schools across the street. He watched as countless numbers of the wretched creatures crawled through shattered windows of classrooms that looked dark and vacant. Jagged shards of glass sticking out of the window frames were ignored as they sliced into the rotting bodies of the ghouls. Chunks of their flesh fell to the ground, bloodless and inert.
That was when he saw it-the one place in this nightmarish realm that they might make it to alive.
There was nothing surrounding the church. No soldiers and no stiffs. Gallatin United Methodist Church was posted on the sign out front. Flashes of light from weapons fire and spotlights being used lit up the building as George scanned it for damage or indications of someone hiding inside.
It looked like a simple church with a modest steeple that had been built onto. Another structure, attached by an extended hall, stretched north of the main structure. There was a set of double doors at the front of the church, but no other entrances facing the road. No visible shattered glass, no boarded up windows. It was next to the elementary schools, just north of them on the other side of the street. It would be a straight shot across from where they were hidden.
More of the undead had shuffled past where George and Jason were crouched behind the bushes. The battle raged on behind them and on the street in front of them. They had move soon.
George closed his eyes and tried to ignore the tumult of unnatural moans, human screams, and ear shattering explosions. He found it to be nearly impossible as he mumbled a short prayer.
As I walk in the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil.
He brain locked up, blanking on the rest of the passage. George promised that if he ever saw another bible he would memorize all of it.
He opened his eyes and grabbed Jason by the shoulders. The look on the boy’s face made George pause. Jason was still breathing, still conscious, but there was something in his eyes that sent a chill down the man’s spine. Jason looked dead inside.
George shook the boy, rattling the teeth inside his skull.
“Jason!” he screamed in a stage whisper. “We have to go! We have to go NOW!” He continued shaking the boy, almost as much for his own benefit as for the kid’s. It was activity, it was movement. It would keep him distracted enough that he might not freeze or go mad with fear.
Jason eyes moved, tracking until they focused on George, who stopped shaking him and took a deep breath. The blank stare remained, but it looked like there was a trace of curiosity in Jason’s eyes. It wasn’t much, but George would take it as positive sign that the boy was listening and knew what was going on.
“We have to go … there.”
George pointed across the street, pushing the itchy leaves of the bush out of the way to give Jason a chance to see where he was pointing. The kid stared at the church, but did little else.
George shook him again. “Jason! We have to go now!”
A barely visible nod was all George got in response. It was enough. After a quick survey of the area, he stood, tugging on the back of Jason’s shirt as he did. After a moment, the boy rose of his own volition. George put his hand around Jason’s neck and leaned in.
“Ready?”
This time Jason looked at George and nodded with confidence.
They took off running over the unkempt and slick grass that fronted the high school. A brief glance down confirmed that the grass was not slick with dew, but with blood.
The vivid image of hell returned as George imagined that they were slipping on the entrails of the dead, sliding downward into a pit toward Satan himself. The heat of several explosions nearby reinforced his nightmarish thinking as they slogged forward.
They ran, slipping in and out of flashes of light that showed ghouls surrounding them on all sides. Soldiers who were still alive kept the ghoul’s interest directed elsewhere. That was what George was counting on. If the infected discovered him and Jason, they might not break off an attack, but it would be best not to tempt them.
Their movements couldn’t be heard over the eruptions of screams or weapons fire, even as the duo weaved between clots of the infected and living that seemed more like a single organism with a thousand tendrils frantically waving about.
The dead grabbed and pawed at the living, smashing fists into armored vehicles that were stalled out, shattering glass or pressing themselves inward on small groups of men firing frantically into the crowd. Other survivors were doing better. They had managed to put down enough of the undead that they had created barriers made of piled corpses that encircled their positions. But even the most composed and calm soldiers were faltering, and as their ammunition ran out they were using their rifles as bludgeons before falling beneath a tide of rotting arms and gnashing teeth.
They kept moving, pausing only briefly to skirt the areas that would draw attention to them. The dead had won this battle and more than likely the war against humanity. They were too busy gorging themselves, swelling their ranks even further, to notice two dark shapes in the night as they ran past. As the duo inched closer to the church, a cold though ran through George’s mind: the human race was about to become extinct.
They hit the other side of the street and avoided a chain link fence that had been smashed flat by vehicles traveling back and forth over the grass between the school parking lot and the church.
They crossed the church lawn with Jason running at
George’s side. George knew the boy was suffering from the loss of Jennifer among other things, but as stunned and traumatized as he was, Jason still seemed willing to fight for his survival. That was something, at least. They reached the edge of the church, sliding across the wall until they were next to the glass doors. A quick tug on the handles confirmed they were locked.
Both the man and the boy were out of breath, wheezing and slumped over as they leaned against the building. After a few seconds, George slapped Jason on the back and led the way to the north side of the building, where the parking lot was. It was furthest from the action. It was also where he hoped to gain entrance to the church without attracting attention.
They crept along, paying close attention to everything behind as well as in front of them. George did his best to scan the area, but it was next to impossible to be sure they hadn’t been spotted. They managed to get to a darkened window and glanced inside at the chapel. It was nearly impossible to see much, but as far as George could tell, the inside of the church looked untouched by the calamity outside.
They kept moving, turning the corner and gliding into the parking lot. There was another set of glass doors and several windows that gave them a view of several vacant class rooms.
Great, it’ll be real tough for these bastards to get at us with all this damn glass, George thought sarcastically.
The side doors were locked as well. George peered inside and saw another set of doors beyond a vestibule that were wooden. The inner doors had small panes of glass in them at eye level, but he couldn’t make out anything beyond them. He turned and scanned the parking lot, trying to find something that might help them break into the building. An open dumpster sat at the back of the lot.
“Stay here,” George commanded Jason as he sprinted toward it.
There didn’t appear to be any movement beyond the lot, though the battle from the street remained thunderous. The side of the building was strangely peaceful and calm, as if it had a bubble of protection over it. George had already blotted out their harrowing experience on the street in his mind. A wrong move out there and he and Jason would have been dragged down in an instant, surrounded and engulfed, but that was in the past. The adrenaline coursing through him had him feeling energized and invulnerable.
He reached the dumpster and leaned over it. The whiff of stale garbage was pleasant compared the stench of corrupted human flesh that wafted on the air and stuck to George’s clothes like cigarette smoke. If he ever made it out of this place alive, the first thing he was going to do was ceremoniously burn the jeans and button down shirt he had put on that morning.
He pushed several garbage bags and loose trash about, leaning deeper into the container in an attempt to reach the back. As he lifted yet another hefty bag, he spied something that might work for what he needed. It was a broken piece of metal framing. He practically slid into the dumpster to avoid losing the spot where it was buried between several sticky plastic cups and what felt like a bag full of grass clippings. He got his forefinger and a thumb around it and grunted as he inched it closer, before managing to wrap his hand around it. George winced as the sharp piece of metal almost cut into his hand. It dug into the skin but didn’t break it.
George heard a whimper behind him and slid out from the dumpster, in the process scraping up his belly to match his scratched hand. He turned to see where it had come from, but already knew. Jason was on the ground squirming backwards in a corner of the entryway as a large figure shambled toward him from the direction of the street. George could see others in the darkness behind the intruder and knew they had been followed. He took off running toward the boy.
The man was hulking. A huge gut protruded outwards and the arms, which had a multitude of bite wounds running up and down their length, wobbled as the he came at the young boy. To say the man was obese was the understatement of the decade. It would be more accurate to say that the man was carnival-freak sized. George estimated he weighed at least four hundred pounds. The waddle of flesh hanging from his chin had been chewed on, but only half devoured. The free floating skin and greasy fat beneath flopped and slapped against the open wounds on the man’s shoulders as he moved closer to Jason. There were stains running down the front of his shirt and onto his pants. Normally George would assume it was the blood, but wondered if the behemoth had been caught mid-meal and it was the remains of his last supper as a human being.
George closed the distance quickly, gripping the shard of metal in his hands. It was rather thin but the broken end was sharp and could spear someone pretty good. Knowing that there were others coming, he didn’t want to lose the sliver on his first attack.
The huge man noticed George and shifted its massive girth in his direction. No sound came from its mouth, but a bubbling hiss emanated from the wound in his throat and green goop spewed forth from it as the man silently growled. George rushed forward, launching his foot at the beast’s chest, sending it backwards. He was surprised at how incredibly heavy the man was, even in death. It toppled into the arms of one of the creatures following it.
Moving past the tangle of arms and legs on the ground, George lashed out with his metal weapon at a teenage girl. The metal bent, but the force of the blow knocked her to the ground. The girl had no lips or eyelids and looked cartoonish with her rictus grin and bulging eyeballs. Two more stiffs were behind her, but George could see no others following them. Those last two were still a few feet back.
The final two ghouls were moving slow enough and were far enough back that George had time to raise his heel and send it down with the full force of his weight onto the head of the girl he’d just smacked with the metal framing. A sickening crunch verified that he had shattered her skull and he avoided looking at what he was sure would be a grisly scene beneath his foot. He could feel the ooze of mushy organic matter clumping to the heel of his shoe.
George turned to glance at the two stiffs he’d knocked over and was happy to see that the smaller one’s legs were still stuck under the stiff he’d dubbed Gigantor. The diminutive one tried to reach out and grab for George, oblivious to the fact that it would have to extricate its legs from underneath the huge beast first to reach him.
Jason was back up and moving toward the fray. George waved him back, sending a well placed kick to the skull of the ghoul trying to grab for him from underneath Gigantor. Its head rocketed to the side and sprayed the asphalt with teeth and what looked to be an eyeball. George looked at his handiwork and realized even with the head trauma he’d just caused it was still moving. He kicked it several more times, until its arms stopped twitching.
Gigantor was desperately trying to get up off of his back, but like a turtle that had been flipped over on its shell he was having a hard time of it. He could wait.
George turned to face the last two monsters that were closing in on him and Jason.
They had been soldiers. The first’s uniform had been ripped off to the waist and he was a few organs short, although his ribcage was still intact. Most of the visible meat on its arms had been ripped clean off, with only bones and ligaments remaining. The other one had one arm and only two fingers remaining on the mauled hand at the end of the appendage.
Dropping the piece of metal, George charged at them. His fist nearly dislocated the first soldier’s jaw as it plowed into it. The blow knocked the creature back and gave George the time he needed to grab the other ghoul by its lone arm and spin it so its gnashing teeth couldn’t reach him. He sent the ghoul skidding across the pavement as he let go, leaving a trail of gristle behind. The one George had punched was already moving back for more, and the stench emanating from its open chest cavity was horrendous. He grabbed both sides of its head quicker that it could react and drove the skull down onto his knee. Pushing the head away, he watched the body tumbled before him. To insure the job was complete, George brought his heel down on the skull and then raced over to finish off the other soldier, who had managed to get back to his knees. A quick kick to its hindquarters dropped it to the ground again. George placed one foot on its back to hold it down while he stomped on its head with the other, until his shoe was soaked with brain matter.
George bent over, exhausted. He was going to have to deal with Gigantor still, but knew the fat man was probably still trying to get off his back. Filling his lungs with corrupted air, he tried to lower his frantic heart rate.
Despite the grim chores he had just completed, George felt exhilarated. How these slow moving, stupid creatures had conquered the human race within a span of just a couple of weeks was incomprehensible. Unless he had to face off against the entire horde on the street, he was certain he could manage just fine against them.
Taking a deep breath, George turned, ready to deal with Gigantor. What he saw sent shockwaves through his body. He had already been stunned several times that night, but nothing compared to what he was seeing now.
The boy that had been nearly catatonic only minutes earlier had managed to regain his senses enough to pick up the piece of metal George had dropped and beat the fat ghoul to death with it.
After it had stopped moving, had stopped grabbing for him, Jason had continued pounding on the head of the corpse, sending sprays of blood and some sort of black, oily discharge squirting out of it as the sharp piece of metal connected with it time and time again.
The look George saw in the boy’s eyes of a stone cold killer. There was no anger, no rage, just focus. He made no sound; there were no screams passing through Jason’s lips. He just kept beating on the dead man, obliterating the flesh and bone of his skull.
George hesitated before moving closer to the boy. At that moment he was afraid to try and separate Jason from the lump of dead flesh in front of him. All the bravado he’d felt at his meager victory against the ghouls slipped away in a heartbeat. It was like a cold splash of water to his face as he watched the twelve year old in his care take out all his frustrations on one of the monsters who wanted to corrupt him like all the others.
The boy was not just splattered with guts, he was drenched with them. Bone chips and a stringy substance that George did not even want to guess at dangled from the boys tightly curled hair as he continued pounding on the corpse with the bent piece of metal.
“Jason!” His voice carried over the muffled sound of battle out on the street. He used the same tone of voice he used when he was mad at his children. He prayed to God it would have the same effect on the orphan as it did his daughters. George got what he wished as the boy stopped the gore-drenched piece of metal from descending into the innards of the ghoul’s head once again.
“Stop that NOW!” George stood with his own clenched fists, trying to display an anger he did not feel, but needed to dredge up if he had any hope of saving Jason from oblivion.
Jason looked at George for a moment and then his eyes dipped back toward the dead man at his feet. After a moment, perhaps to insure that the man was indeed dead, he looked up again. Lifting his hand, he offered the thin strip of metal to George. The look on the twelve year olds face was the same hollow, shell shocked look that had been there earlier, back where they had hid in the bushes next to the high school.
There was something else there too. Through all the dirt and gore that covered Jason’s face, George could see tracks of tears running down it, leaving a trail of purity in a field of blood caked nightmare. The middle aged man felt like crying as well, as he realized that despite all Jason had been through, the boy’s soul was intact. It was pummeled and damaged nearly beyond repair, but it still remained. But for how much longer?
George held back the tears and slapped Jason on the back affectionately, smiling. It was not returned, but he still felt relieved. They were survivors. More importantly, their humanity was still intact.
November 26, 2010 | Categories: Comes The Dark, Dark Stories | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Announcement about the Kindle version of Comes The Dark
I wanted to post this as soon as this was official.
Press Release: Library of the Living Dead
November 22, 2010
The Library of the Living Dead would like to announce that the current Kindle version of Comes The Dark, by Patrick D’Orazio, is no longer be available, as of today, in anticipation of a revised and edited version being released to coincide with the paperback release of the third book of the trilogy, Beyond The Dark, in March of 2011.
It was recently discovered that some of the copies of the Kindle version of Comes The Dark included an early, unedited version of the entire Dark trilogy, including Comes The Dark, Into the Dark, and Beyond The Dark. Because of this discovery, the Library of the Living Dead will not be releasing the edited versions of Into The Dark and Beyond The Dark separately as kindle books. Instead, it will be releasing a Revised and Edited version of the trilogy, which will include all three books along with several bonus short stories from the realm of the dark trilogy that will be exclusive to this new kindle release.
The release of the paperback versions of Into The Dark and Beyond The Dark will go forward as planned, with Into The Dark being released in December of 2010, and Beyond The Dark being released in March of 2011.
More details about the Revised and Edited Kindle version of the Dark trilogy will be revealed before the scheduled release date.
Those who purchased the Kindle and got the entire trilogy got a glimpse of the raw, unedited version of the book. Given the reviews that have been posted that were based on that, I can’t complain. This wasn’t how things were exactly planned, but it works out quite well, giving my publisher and I the chance to re-release the entire trilogy on Kindle in a few months with some really nice bonus materials. That plus Into The Dark will be out within the next few days, which I am really excited about.
November 22, 2010 | Categories: Comes The Dark, Into The Dark | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, editing, horror, Into The Dark, kindle, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Houdini Gut Punch is now on Amazon!
For those folks who prefer to get their books from Amazon instead of Createspace, I am happy to announce that Houdini Gut Punch is available on Amazon!
So check it out. My story, “Consumer’s Paradise” appears amongst it pages. If you dig bizarro, don’t miss this tome of disturbing stories and odd tales.
Hit the picture to go straight to Amazon so you can pick up a copy today.
November 21, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: Bizarro, cover art, horror, Houdini Gut Punch, Library of Horror, short stories, zombies | Leave a comment
Houdini Gut Punch now available on Createspace-soon on Amazon!
Well boys and girls, my foray into bizarro has become real. Houdini Gut Punch, with my short story “Consumer’s Paradise,” is now on sale over at Createspace and shall soon be available over on Amazon and in other locales. I am pretty proud of my first foray into bizarro and have received a few compliments on my story, so I am pretty jazzed up about seeing it in print. So give it a look see!
https://www.createspace.com/3498329
November 18, 2010 | Categories: The Shorts | Tags: Bizarro Books, cover art, horror, Library of Bizarro Horror, short stories | 2 Comments
New Anthology I will be in-Strange Tales of Horror-cover revealed!
I had the privilege of being a part of May December’s first anthology release and I get that same privilege with NorGus, which is releasing Strange Tales of Horror and have revealed a rough of the cover art and the Table of Contents. My story, “VRZ” is in this book and I couldn’t be more excited about it. This is a anthology that covers a wide spectrum of strange horror tales and I am looking forward to checking out everyone else’s offerings.
Here is the cover:
Here is the Table of Contents:
Forward by Jeff Angus
November 1, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: cover art, horror, NorGus, short stories, Table of Contents, writing | 1 Comment
A few updates on my new book and other stuff
I thought it would be a good idea to pass along a few updates on things. First off, I wanted to thank Frank and the other folks at That Book Place for their hospitality this past Saturday. The book signing with Ben Rogers was a great experience and their book store is a fantastic place. If you are ever near Madison, Indiana, you HAVE to check it out. Great used books and they can order up any new ones that you are interested in as well.
In other news, the second book in my trilogy, Into the Dark, has been sent off to be formatted. Yep, the editing is complete and my obsessive-compulsive need to read it fifteen times in an attempt to catch every last mistake (which you simply cannot do, no matter how hard you try) is done. It is now in the extremely capable hands of Kody Boye, who is a formatter extraordinare. Philip Rogers is currently working on the cover and has passed along a rough draft of the back cover of the book, which looks great. While I have not seen the art for the cover, the theme will be similar to what was on the first cover. The back also retains that same flavor and to say that I am excited to see what Philip comes up with is the understatement of the year.
I will be working on another “Dark Story”, which is actually a continuation of the previous one, and will be about George and Jason again, very soon. I am hoping to have something posted within the next week or so. I am presently going to focus on a short story that has been nagging me for a while and try to get it done in the next few days, then I will be editing the next DS for the blog.
And for you folks who have not seen the back cover synopsis for Into the Dark, here it is again, for your viewing pleasure:
Six weeks ago, the mysterious virus came out of nowhere and engulfed the world. Everyone infected seemed to die … then rise again.
Jeff Blaine did his best to hold his family together and to protect them from the horrors scratching at their door, but in the end, they were ripped away from him like everything else that ever mattered.
Lost and alone, Jeff decided his only option was to destroy as many of the monsters that stole his life away before they destroy him as well. But when he discovers Megan, George, and Jason, three other survivors not interested in giving up just yet, he reluctantly accepts that there might still be a reason to fight and live to see another day.
Traveling through the blasted landscape their world has become, the quartet discovers that the living dead aren’t the only danger with which they must cope. Even other survivors who promise safety and security from the hordes of ghouls roaming the wastelands will test loyalties and their faith in humankind.
Jeff and his small band of newfound friends must forge a semblance of life in the newly blighted world. And they will have only the light of their own humanity by which to navigate as everything around them descends into the dark.
More updates as they come up. As I have already mentioned, Into The Dark will be released between Thanksgiving and Christmas, so it is coming soon!
October 25, 2010 | Categories: Comes The Dark, My Writing Experiences | Tags: Book signing, comes the dark, cover art, dark stories, editing, horror, Into The Dark, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment
Commercial for Library of the Living Dead!
Check out the commercial for Library of the Living Dead Press that was shot at Horror Realm last month. A lot of folks were involved with this and I had the privilege of being one of the zombies in the commercial. It was a blast! I’m the guy with the bloody face, by the way. Wait…everyone had a bloody face, heh. I’m the guy with the red shirt, if that helps. Well, it doesn’t matter if you can’t find me in the crowd, because we’re zombies-we’re sorta supposed to be hard to tell apart.
Enjoy watching the video. I know I enjoyed being a part of the making of it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuBxKOEcVMQ
October 21, 2010 | Categories: My Writing Experiences, Random Thoughts | Tags: comes the dark, commercial, horror, Horror Realm, Library of Erotic Horror, Library of Horror, Library of Science Fiction and Fantasy, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment
Great review for Eye Witness: Zombie
If you are looking to check out a great zombie anthology, there are plenty I could recommend. I am excited about the fact that Eye Witness: Zombie got a detailed review over at Zombiephile that talks about each story in detail that is included within its pages. Terrific review and I am proud to be a part of this one. Check it out over at: http://www.zombiephiles.com/zombies-ate-my-brains/may-december-publications-releases-new-zombie-anthology-eye-witness-zombie
October 17, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: horror, May December Publishers, short stories, zombies | 2 Comments
Dark Stories…Megan, Part 2
Here is Part 2 of Megan’s story. This leads up to her initial meeting with Jeff in Comes The Dark.
There will be more in upcoming weeks as I continue to sift through my old manuscript and try to dig free bits and pieces that I think might be worthwhile and contribute to the overall story of my trilogy.
I hope you enjoy it.
Please note: I will be posting all of these stories in order on the page entitled “Dark Stories” on this blog, so they won’t be difficult to find for anyone who discovers them later on. As the second and third book are released, I will post more stories there and in regular posts as well.
Megan, Part 2
There was plenty of noise outside. Beyond the reinforced doors and boarded up windows, she heard them. The infected had come to the neighborhood in force. Megan could hear the moaning and every now and then a scream.
Sometimes they were close. So close that they seemed to be right outside the window. And when Megan heard them that close, it wasn’t the moaning that bothered her. It was something far worse. She tried hard to pretend she didn’t hear it, but it burrowed down beneath the thick layer of blankets and pillows she had shrouded herself with. It burrowed into her ears and down into her soul.
It was the sound of them eating.
That was when Megan realized there were far worse ways to go than suicide or being forced to starve to death as you waited in the darkness, alone.
The fear that those things might discover her hiding place opened up a black and shriveled up part of Megan. The idea of them breaking in and tearing through the house, which would force her to pull the trigger again, held her in thrall for days at a time.
But they never came for her.
One particular memory of those dark days stuck in Megan’s mind. It must have been a couple of weeks after everything had fallen apart. A giant crash echoed up and down the street as several gun shots were fired. Megan refused to look past the blinds and see what was transpiring outside.
She did sit up in bed and then froze, staring at her shuttered window, wanting to go to it, wanting to do something to help whoever was out there.
Megan was terrible at categorizing guns or the report that occurred when any were fired, but the shots sounded like they had come from a rifle. After the first few shots a different weapon discharged and sounded similar to the handgun sitting on her nightstand.
The gunfire had snapped Megan out of the paralysis for a moment, but even as her heart raced and she had to steady her breathing to avoid hyperventilating, she could feel lethargy creeping back in. She shivered inside the sweat drenched night shirt she’d been wearing for days as she pushed her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, her legs aching in protest as she did.
Megan hovered near the window but refused to pull the shade to look out onto her sun drenched street. The monsters out there were not coming for her this time, so she could drown in her sheets and pillows once again.
As the gunshots played out and the screams began, Megan stared at the .357 Magnum. What amount of energy would it take to burst through the front door and rush to the aid of the people out there? Wouldn’t trying to help be better than burying herself alive once again?
But in the end, all Megan did was stand next to her bedroom window and listen to the cries of agony, the sounds of pleading, and ripping and tearing that always came at the end of the attacks. She listened and let her mind create images of what was going on outside, because she couldn’t bear bending the blinds to know for sure.
There were more crashing noises and the gunshots subsided. The moans and screams grew frantic, an opera of voices covering every octave. Megan wanted to close them off but couldn’t. She couldn’t react at all-to help or to hide. She knew this was her punishment for letting Dalton die … and for participating in his death.
That was when Megan started to scream.
It took her a few moments to realize what she was doing. She was screaming into a pillow she had managed to pull off the bed.
Even as she screamed, Megan had a moment of clarity. The only thing to hope for was that it would go fast for whoever was being attacked. For the next few minutes all she heard was an increase in moans as her muffled screams were drowned out. More and more of the infected joined their brethren to take down the survivors.
Later, Megan realized then that her screams had stopped and her throat was a ragged mess. She had ripped it raw. She remained standing, holding her pillow with quiet desperation, as the undead tended to their needs outside.
At that point, someone must have broken free of the house they’d been hiding in and got out to the yard, and perhaps even the street. He was shouting for someone, but Megan couldn’t make out a name over the cries of the reanimated. Several more shots rang out and the screaming began again. It was a deep wailing at first-definitely a man, but toward the end it grew shrill and high pitched.
Megan tried to pretend she couldn’t hear what happened next but there was little doubt the man was being torn limb from limb. It sounded so close that she imagined the man making it to her front yard before her rotting neighbors pulled him down, swarming over his warm body. As his clothes were ripped away, the moans turned to hisses and squeals of delight as the creatures tore into their prize. Long after she believed the victim had mercifully ceased feeling any pain, one last scream rose above the sounds of eating. It was the cry of someone who no longer cared to be saved, but were instead drowning in a pain that overwhelmed all else.
Then the scream cut off. A sound like a wet branch snapping and then a short gurgle marked the end of the man who died on Megan’s lawn.
That was all Megan could take. She felt her knees give out as she collapsed to the bedroom floor. Curling up in a ball, she began to hum. It was what she did as a child to drown out people she didn’t want to listen to. As she curled even tighter and smashed the pillow over her eyes, Megan remembered her favorite rhyme.
Ms. Mary Mack, Mack, Mack, all dressed in black, black, black with silver buttons, buttons, buttons…
Megan repeated the rhyme over and over in her head to blot out the feeding noises as she crawled underneath her bed. The chant continued as the monsters that had been riled up by the introduction of new flesh continued their aimless wandering long after their feast was over. Megan didn’t realize she was sucking her thumb until it grew sore a few hours later.
Over the next day and a half the creatures drifted away and Megan faded in and out of a fitful sleep. Each time she woke up she would repeat the rhyme to avoid hearing them crashing around outside, searching for more food.
Megan was finally able to crawl out from underneath the bed, stiff and aching, two days after the attack.
She stared at the window for another day, teased by the idea of sneaking a peak outside. Nothing out there could be as bad as she had imagined, could it? She had to know if the cold creep of insanity tugging at her could be pushed back or if she should just embrace it, wrap it around her body like a warm winter coat and just drift into oblivion. Megan got close enough to touch the wispy material of her thin drapes. The fabric rippled gently in response to her touch, but she could go no further.
For the next few days, as Megan stared at the pattern the wallpaper border made around the room, she thought of Dalton a great deal. He was the only one of the dead who didn’t whisper to her, telling her to let go, to give up this charade of living. But the others would tell her that all she had to do was open the front door and step outside and all the lies would be over.
But Dalton never tried to speak to her like her dead neighbors did. The man who had died on the lawn, as well as the woman he had been with, came to her the most. The pain was fleeting, they said. It was just the body’s way of resisting its passage into the new existence they had all embraced. It was only a pain of transition, of shifting to a better existence.
She tried to ignore them, but as the hours ticked by and daylight faded into night, the strain of the words wore on her as her eyes drifted from the wallpaper to the gun on her nightstand.
Not yet. I made a promise to you Dalton. Not yet …
***
Dalton ran into the room and pulled her off the bed. “Come on hun, we have to leave!”
Megan was thrilled to see him again and knew he had come back to whisk her away.
“I have something to show you.”
Dalton pulled her out of the bedroom and down the steps. Megan nearly tripped her as she tried to keep up with her excited spouse. She managed to avoid a fall as they landed in the foyer.
Dalton smiled as he pulled his wife toward the front door. Megan resisted, but he smiled and gently shook his head. “I have something to show you.”
Megan looked at the door and saw that the makeshift boards Dalton had nailed over it were gone. Dalton put his hand on the knob and before Megan could protest, he pulled the door open.
Megan tried to scream and clawed at the hand wrapped around her wrist. She shook her head, pleading with Dalton.
Glancing outside, she saw the dark shapes of the dead. She stopped struggling and noticed that none of the stiff forms were moving forward, coming toward them.
Megan had never seen one of the walking corpses with her own eyes before. She had seen them on television, but had been hidden away in the house since the beginning, with curtains drawn and eyes firmly shut to what was going on outside.
The dead people on Megan’s lawn were not reacting like the crazed monsters she had been expecting. Instead, they stood silently, swaying back and forth, staring at her and Dalton in the doorway of their house, as if waiting for them to do something.
As they looked upon her, their eyes did not hide the emptiness behind them. There was no life there, no comprehension.
“I have something to show you,” Dalton repeated and put his hand on Megan’s shoulder as he pulled her out onto the porch. Megan looked in her husband’s eyes and her resistance faded.
The bright sun hit Megan’s face, nearly blinding her. Even with her limited vision, she could see the huge crowd that had gathered for them. As the two living people moved forward, the sea of rotting flesh stepped back to allow them to pass.
Megan smiled as she realized they were being allowed to leave! With that jubilant revelation she noticed something about the stiffened corpses all around her.
These diseased creatures were not moaning.
They were as silent as she was. Although they stared at Megan there was no hunger in their eyes. They didn’t reach out to touch or pull at her; they seemed to have no desire to violate her at all.
After a few minutes of trudging on blood soaked grass, Dalton spoke again. “Almost there,” he beamed at her as he looked back and grinned, his teeth dazzling in the sunlight.
Megan couldn’t remember how long they walked before the crowd ahead parted, revealing an opening. Not a large one, just a small circle of space free of the dead. Megan could see something on the ground, a bundle of some sort. But since Dalton was in front of her, leading the way, she couldn’t make out what it was.
Dalton turned away from Megan and dropped her hand. She stopped, watching as the man she loved knelt down and wrapped his arms around the bundle. He made quiet noises she could barely hear as he rose up.
When Dalton turned around Megan knew what he was holding. Dalton was smiling down upon the blanket wrapped shape in his arms, slowly bouncing it and cooing. It was their baby. Their little girl!
Megan tried to reach out to take the baby and cradle it in her arms, but they felt like there were lead weights at her side. She had always known they would have a girl-it had been her dream all along. She could feel tears rolling down her cheeks as she watched Dalton hold their infant in his arms.
Dalton looked over at Megan and smiled. “She wants her mommy. She’s hungry.”
At his words, Megan’s felt lighter and she was able to move forward. It was some cruel twist of fate that had kept the child from her for this long, but Megan knew, deep in her heart, that she would never be separated from her again.
As Megan moved closer, Dalton smiled encouragement at her. She saw a curl of black hair peeping out of the snug blanket and her heart quaked in anticipation.
Megan reached out for her child as she stepped up to her husband. She had forgotten the dark figures surrounding them, though the dead appeared to be leaning in to get a closer look at the child. Dalton gently handed the child over to his wife as she held out her arms.
A scream burst forth from Megan’s lips. She wanted to drop the bundle but Dalton’s arms were wrapped tightly around her and the baby. Megan’s scream continued, piercing the silence of the netherworld like a knife.
Her child, her baby girl, was one of them. Its grayish skin was stretched tight over its skull, its eyes pus filled even though the murky pupils fixated on its mother. Its mouth was filled with jagged little teeth that gnashed and clicked together with menace. As Megan’s screaming stopped, she heard an unearthly moan of the dead escape the baby’s lips.
“She needs to feed,” Dalton hissed and Megan looked at his face. He was one of them, too. Half of the skin on his face had rotted off and the stench was overpowering as he leaned in. “She needs to feed … and so do we.” A thick green line of drool trailed from the corner of his mouth where multiple jagged and broken teeth sat. The moans rose as Dalton lifted the baby up to Megan’s breast.
Megan was torn from her nightmare, clutching at her belly, sweat-drenched as she attempted to hold in the screams. The pain she felt in her gut was real-as real as anything else in this dark, dank place she inhabited. The once almost impossibly strong desire to bring new life into the world had shriveled and died as dreams such this one haunted Megan’s sleep, tormenting her endlessly.
As she sat trying to regain her composure, it dawned on Megan that it wasn’t some simple mercy that had woke her up before her dream could reach its evil conclusion, as it had done so many times before. Something else had disturbed her sleep.
Megan didn’t have to wait long to discover that it wasn’t the sound of moaning or some window shattering nearby that had jarred her sleep. It was an explosion.
When the next one hit, it sounded like a bomb had been dropped on the neighborhood. The bedroom walls rattled as several more bursts occurred. Megan tensed, unsure of where they were coming from and if they were getting closer to her house.
She gripped the covers close, knowing they would provide no protection, but having no idea what else to do as she stared at the windows. A rumble of another blast caused them to vibrate.
Megan remained stationary for several minutes, even after the thunderous explosions ceased. She listened, waiting for something, anything else to happen, but there was nothing. Not even the ever-present moaning of the dead.
What the hell just happened?
It was the only thought that raced through Megan’s mind as she slid off the bed and searched for her shoes. Her actions were automatic. She hadn’t slipped on her sneakers in weeks, but it seemed like the thing to do as she pondered the explosions and the meaning behind them.
It had to be the military. They had been working all this time to clear the city of infected and they’d finally reached the suburbs. It was the only explanation that made any sense.
Limping as her sluggish limbs woke up, Megan made it to her closet. She needed to get dressed. For the first time in the five weeks, the close caress of the nightgown she’d been wearing repulsed her. It stuck to her skin and smelled foul, almost ripe. And as she stripped it away, it was as if layers of fear and intimidation disappeared with it.
Two minutes later Megan was moving down the steps, weak but excited. She had snatched the revolver off the nightstand and held in front of her like some sort of shield as she stared at the front door.
Memories of her nightmare returned. Megan closed her eyes as a vision of the baby she had held in her arms jumped into her head unbidden. She sucked in a sharp breath and opened her eyes again, determined to push the nightmare aside so she could focus on the aftermath of the explosions she’d heard.
After staring at the front door for a couple of minutes, her heart racing, Megan shook her head to clear it of all the confused thoughts that had been swarming through her mind since she had been so abruptly awoken.
“Shit happens,” Megan mumbled as she stepped closer to the door. Her voice sounded odd. Scratched, deflated. It was not the voice she had lived with her entire life, but instead sounded weak, insecure … frightened.
Steeling herself, Megan took a deep breath before leaning toward the window next to the front door, putting her hands on the blinds. There were a few more moments of seconding guessing before she was able to get close enough to pull a slat down.
Megan had to line her eyes up with the area between the boards nailed in place. She blinked a few times and tried to adjust to the light of the mid-day sun after having spent weeks in shadow. When she was able to focus on her front yard and what lay beyond, it took her mind several more seconds to accept what she was seeing was real.
The neutral toned brick and vinyl siding houses and manicured lawns were gone. They had been replaced with a palate of blackened and burnt wooden and stone skeletons. Several houses were smoking and ruined, while others still stood. All the lawns were overgrown and bushes were beginning to run wild. Fires had destroyed some structures while leaving others intact. Cars out on the street were covered with layers of dust, ash, and garish splashes of blood.
The burnt houses with timbers jutting into the sky mirrored the corpses littering the street. While it was mostly bones and splashes of blood, a few unidentifiable chunks of human residue were scattered about. Several younger saplings that had been planted in the grassy patch between the sidewalk and the street had been bent and broken, and Megan blinked as she spotted what looked like an arm dangling from one of the snapped limbs.
She took little comfort from the fact that she saw only a scattering of bodies. There were bones strewn about her yard and what appeared to be a torso stripped free of its flesh sitting on the Miller’s porch across the street.
Megan stifled a whimper as she saw the remains. A wide trail of blood led away from the torso to the front door of the Miller’s house, which had been ripped from its hinges. Several of the other houses Megan could see from her vantage point looked broken into as well.
Rubbing her eyes, Megan took a short break from looking outside while she tried to keep her breathing even and controlled. She’d seen nothing lurking in the shadows outside and the silence from earlier remained intact. There had been no noise since the explosions. No tanks rolling in, no gunfire, and no more moans. She took a small amount of solace from the possibility that the dead had migrated away from the neighborhood, but was disappointed that the cavalry had not appeared.
Megan was still rubbing her eyes when she heard another noise off in the distance. It startled her even though it was no where near as loud or abrupt as the explosions had been.
Letting go of the blinds, Megan stepped back and felt her legs give way as she collapsed onto the floor. Raising the revolver with a quivering hand, she pressed it against her temple.
It was those things. She could hear them moaning. They were coming back.
“Where’s my goddamn rescue?” Megan whimpered as she tried to fight back the tears.
Shaking her head, she refused to believe that the explosions had been some sort of freak occurrence. No! It had to be something else-something more than just another fractured, hopeless misery in a world already filled with them.
Megan continued sitting next to the door, hearing the moans getting closer while her arms rested on her knees and her head slumped over between them. She held the gun up and began tapping the butt gently against the back of her skull. This went on for another minute or so until she heard a new sound and raised her head to stare up at the window.
At first Megan couldn’t place what it was. She’d been subjected to the muffled wailing of flesh eating predators for far too long and her ears needed time to adjust to the subtleties of this new noise. When they did, Megan jumped up so quickly she almost fell on her side as a grin split her dry, cracked lips. She rushed to the window and clawed at the blinds. Flattening her face to the board again, Megan scanned her street and the one that crossed it nearby.
Megan’s street was at the bottom of a hill, the road feeding into her section of the subdivision on a downward slant. With the thin slit between the two boards showing only a little of the outside world, Megan couldn’t see that far, but as she waited, her patience was rewarded a few seconds later.
“Oh my God…”
It was a van! It was racing down the hill toward her street. Megan could hardly register what her eyes were trying to tell her brain. It’s a goddamned minivan! She nearly fell on her butt as her legs threatened to give out on her again. The dark blue van sped toward Nelson Street, where Megan lived, getting closer by the second.
Giggling hysterically, Megan wondered why the army was using minivans instead of Jeeps or Humvees. The vehicle continued to get closer, but appeared to be slowing down. A twisted part of Megan’s mind whispered to her that it was illegal for someone to be driving that fast anyway. The giggling ramped up and she wondered if she should call the police on the driver. Megan’s felt dizzy from all the laughter, but she was determined to get the attention of the person driving the van. Otherwise they would drive past her house, hit the dead end at the end of Nelson, turn around and speed out of the neighborhood without a single backward glance.
The laughter cut off as Megan realized she had a choice to make. It was either time to leave this house which was not only Dalton’s tomb, but fast becoming hers as well, or to give up and end it all.
That was when Megan realized there was still a spark of life left inside of her. This was her one chance for redemption; her one chance for freedom. The hell residing outside the house was beginning to look no worse than the hell that had been living inside of her mind for the past few weeks. Megan heard herself whimper as she reached for the first board that covered the front door.
Tears replaced the anxious laughter as she tugged at the lumber hammered into the top of the solid oak door. As she did, Megan wiped at the small beads of moisture coming from her forehead and her eyes.
The boards didn’t budge with her feeble efforts. Megan was already out of breath after a few tugs and her arms felt like dead weights. Need to get to the gym more often. She rubbed her forearm and glanced over at the window. Dalton had spaced the boards across it so they could still look outside. That would give her a place to slip her fingers as she gripped the boards when she pulled at them. Setting the gun down on a small table next to the front door, she moved to the window.
Megan could feel the itch of panic as she heard the minivan’s engine continued to creep closer to her house. It was taking way too long to get here. Hadn’t the driver been flying down the road? Now what were they doing? They’d been slowing down, but how slow could he possibly be going now? The speed limit is 25 MPH and every good citizen should observe that limit, even during the apocalypse. A new wave of giggles threatened to return with that crazed thought, but Megan was able to force them down as she struggled with the boards over the window.
She moved to the other window on the opposite side of the door and wrapped her arms around one of the boards over it. The fact that the driver was slowing down was some sort of cosmic nudge, urging her to try harder so she could let them know she was here. Megan yanked at the board and it bent slightly toward her but had no further give in it. She shook it, but it remained securely affixed to the window frame.
Megan screamed in rage. “Let. Me. Out!” Each word was punctuated by a futile jerk at the board. She kicked angrily at the wall as she pounded on the wood. Exhausted, she almost slumped to the floor again, knowing she wouldn’t make it in time. The van would pass by and never even know she was inside, desperate to be free.
Megan’s head snapped up as it dawned on her. The garage! She stumbled as she ran through the kitchen. She almost slipped on the linoleum but made it the garage door and pawed at the knob. She was nearly hyperventilating and couldn’t hear if the van was still outside. She slid between Dalton’s Jeep and her little econobox in a rush to get to the big aluminum garage door. With no electricity, the door would just pull up.
Megan snatched at the handle on the door and nearly wrenched her arm out of its socket as she yanked on it. It didn’t budge. A wave of pain shot through her arm as she recoiled from the handle like it was a venomous snake. The door was jammed.
Megan stared at the garage door, exasperated. The house didn’t want to let her go. Slowly her eyes grew wide and she cursed her stupidity. Glancing up past the handle, she saw a rectangular shaped protrusion half way up the door. It was connected to two metal rods that spanned the door horizontally. Of course! Dalton had manually locked the garage door on his return from the failed supply run.
Megan wrapped her hands around the cold, dry metal and twisted it to the left and it did not budge. Turning it the other way met with success as she heard the satisfying sound of the lock opening. She leaned down and tugged on the handle, receiving the result she was hoping for as the door began to rise. She let it go up about halfway and glanced outside, free of barriers between her and the rest of the world for the first time in ages.
Megan had been prepared to run screaming to flag down the driver, but as she looked out on the scene past her lawn, she realized that perhaps her grand vision of escape had been a mistake.
Things could be worse.
That was what Dalton had said to Megan when this whole mess started. He had been trying to raise her spirits and kept on trying to until the end. He wanted her to survive, wanted her to keep on fighting and find a way out of the hell they were in. Now, despite her efforts to entomb herself in the bedroom they had slept in, made love in, and lived in, she had finally woken up. She was somehow still willing to fight after all this time; not just for herself, but for her husband’s sake … because once she was gone, who would be left to remember him?
So when she saw the scraggly looking man standing on top of the blue minivan, looking away from her as he stared at the top of the hill, she realized that despite how terrible he looked and how dire her circumstances were, things could be worse.
Swallowing hard, Megan stepped out into the sunlight.
“Hello,” was all she could think to say.
September 24, 2010 | Categories: Dark Stories | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment
Eye Witness: Zombie is out now!
Quicker than expected, the May December first person zombie apocalypse anthology, Eye Witness: Zombie has been released and is available on Amazon.
I am very proud of my story that appears in this anthology, as it ties into the world I created with Comes The Dark and its two sequels. My story is entitled “A Soldier’s Lament” and is my first foray into first person storytelling. I am used to doing third person traditional, but it was good taking a different perspective for this one and I am pleased with how the story ended up.
So check it out!
Here is the description on the back of the book (and the cover is listed one post below this one, so you can take a look at it there):
THE DEAD WALK! Slip into the skin of common men and women and experience the horror through their eyes. Follow the Zombie Apocalypse from its initial stages to the brink of the abyss, and over…into the pits of an unthinkable Hell on Earth. Tune into your local stations for the latest updates or stay here and follow the story as it unfolds on…Eye Witness: Zombie.
September 23, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: horror, May December Publishers, short stories, writer, zombies | 2 Comments
Cover for “Eye Witness: Zombie” Anthology
I am quite excited about this anthology from May December Publications. It is being released soon and contains a story of mine that is derived from the same world as Comes The Dark. I won’t reveal the connection, but suffice it to say, there are a couple of characters that appear in my trilogy that also appear in my story, “A Soldier’s Lament.”
This one should be out in the next month or so, and my copy is on its way from the publisher. I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
September 21, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: cover art, horror, May December Publishers, short stories, zombies | 3 Comments
First Dark Story-Megan’s Tale, Part 1
As promised, I am providing additional story lines to complement the main story in Comes The Dark and its two sequels. The stories I will be posting here on my blog were originally written with the intention of being included in the book. But for numerous reasons, they did not make the final cut. My hope is that by posting them on my blog it will give those of you who have read my book a chance to get to know some of the characters in the story beside Jeff a little better.
There will be a few of these stories for Comes The Dark, and a few more that I will post after the second book is released in the new year for characters that are introduced in that novel.
For now, here is the first part of my introduction to Megan. This story, along with Part 2, relates what she was doing before her meeting with Jeff early on in Comes The Dark.
I hope you enjoy it.
Megan, Part 1
Megan rolled over and stared at the wall. The bedroom, with its closed drapes and lack of light was the only place that gave her any comfort or peace anymore, if there was such a thing. At least sleep still came with relative ease. When she drifted off, it was the only time she could sever the tenuous link to reality she hated so much.
Certainly, there were nightmares, but they were tame compared to her waking reality. All Megan did was drift along like some raft on a meandering river, floating through one horrific experience to the next, never sure if she was awake or asleep as she did.
Despite whatever demons her mind dredged up when her eyes were closed, Megan still craved the sweet release of sleep. Nightmares felt real, but so did the occasional pleasant dream. Those rare moments when she was able to get lost in a dream were the only times she could forget.
That little bit of joy was her drug, so when she woke from them, Megan would bury herself in blankets and pillows and grasp at those fleeting images of happiness. But it never worked; once they were gone, they were gone for good.
No matter how bad or good her dreams became, Megan never made a sound in her sleep, or when she woke up. There was just too much of a chance that her voice would carry beyond the walls of her house. That could not be tolerated.
Megan kept staring at her bedroom wall. She’d been working on memorizing the pattern of the wallpaper border over the past few days. It was a floral print Dalton hated and it consisted of an assortment of red hued flowers repeating on the six inch border all the way around the room. Memorizing the pattern wasn’t much of a challenge, since there were only about ten different flowers on the paper, but doing so passed the time until she was able to drift off to sleep.
The rich color of the flowers matched the comforter and drapes, as well as the pillow cases and bed ruffle. Dalton faked nausea the first time he saw the entire set, but as a husband, he had learned how to pick his battles and bowed to his wife’s evil glare rather quickly when it came to such minor things.
Megan was proud of the decorative choices she’d made in the bedroom. It was the first room they’d finished in the house. The rest of the place was a work in progress, and had been since they’d moved in a little over a year ago.
This was their second place together, and purchasing the house had been the start of their “serious” stage. They bought a house that cost too much, picked out furnishings that maxed out their credit cards, and made plans to have a baby.
Megan and Dalton had been together for five years, married for three, and Megan had been feeling the itch to start a family for at least a year. This house out in the suburbs was going to be the place. The place where they really got going as a couple … and having the bedroom finished and tastefully decorated was the first step in that process.
Now the bedroom was going to be her mausoleum.
It wasn’t as if the food had run out. Megan had never been a big eater and she lost what little appetite she had when the world fell apart.
She could feel her muscles being devoured by her desperate body as she ate less and less. It was fighting her, resisting her desire to fade away. For some reason, Megan’s body wasn’t ready to give up on her just yet.
Before everything started Megan had barely topped “a buck five” as Dalton would say. She was sure if she checked her current weight, it would be a miracle if it was above ninety pounds.
“A strong wind’s going to blow you away if you’re not careful, honey.”
Megan grinned at the memory of her husband’s words. If she lost any more weight she might test that theory. Floating away might not be a bad idea.
Megan spent the rare occasion when she wasn’t lying in bed trying to read old magazines and books, but having never been a big reader, that didn’t last long. So instead, she dug up an old cookbook and flipped through it for hours on end, staring at pictures of recipes that would never be made again.
Ghosts of her old life were in everything that surrounded her. Not just in the cookbook, but in all the little things in the rooms she floated through like some sort of ghost; things they had bought together, made together. There had been so much to live for, but in the blink of an eye that was all gone.
Megan also spent a lot of time thinking about her sister in Pittsburgh. Sandy had three little boys Megan adored. They were all under six; each cuter than the next. “Aunty Mega” probably would never get to see any of them again. Sandy told her she and Phil were taking the boys down to the cabin in West Virginia just as this mess began and pleaded for Megan and Dalton to join them.
Unfortunately, things had turned bad so quickly that the National Guard clamped down on travel and Dalton nixed the idea of trying to make the six hour trip in their Jeep.
With all the reports of log-jammed highways and roadside attacks Dalton doubted they could even make it out of town, let alone to the mountains of West Virginia. Nope, they would stay in the house, stock up on necessities, and pray this wasn’t the end of times, like so many of those damn televangelists were shouting about over the airwaves.
But those bastards had been right.
Early on, Dalton planned on going out one last time to collect supplies-food, water, batteries … anything he could get his hands on. Megan remembered CNN blaring in the background that day, saying that it was Day Six of the crisis.
Dalton was going to take the Grand Cherokee, all their cash, and the revolver. His plan was to head to the closest grocery store and pick up whatever would fit in the SUV and return home as fast as he could.
Megan recalled the conversation before he left, when she was in a white hot panic and pleading with her husband to let her come with him or better yet, for him to not leave at all.
Dalton had gripped her shoulders as he tried to reassure her. “Honey, it’ll be alright. You can’t come with me. You have to stay and—”
“But I don’t even want you to go! Don’t you get it? It’s not safe out there Dalton. God only knows if the virus is here already. Please! If you have to go, let me go with you.”
Megan had gone on like that for over a minute as Dalton shushed her while shaking his head. He never broke eye contact with her the whole time.
Dalton’s level of calm began to overpower Megan’s determination and her hysterics lessened. In a normal situation, if her husband had shushed her she would have punched him in the chest. Not that her slight frame could pack much of a wallop, but he would definitely have known she wasn’t going to tolerate such a condescending attitude. But this time it was having the effect he’d hoped for.
“You know as well I do,” Dalton said as she started to wind down, “there isn’t much you can do for me out there.”
The volume of Dalton’s voice increased as Megan grew agitated again. He glared at his wife. “I’m not taking a chance on something happening to you. And let’s not play bullshit games about who is capable of handling themselves better out there if things get crazy.”
Dalton LeValley stood a smidge over six feet tall and weighed in at a fit one hundred and ninety pounds. He was ex-military, though he’d not seen combat in his two years of active duty. Still, he’d been trained to deal with dangerous situations while Megan had taken a two week self-defense course offered down at the Y. She knew Dalton could deal with trouble and move faster without her tagging along, but the idea of being separated from him, even for an hour, terrified her.
Megan shuddered as she took in a deep breath. Closing her eyes, she tried to shut out all the logic her husband had thrust upon her. The world had gone mad and she didn’t care that what Dalton said made sense. She also didn’t care if she was being selfish. He didn’t have to go out at all. They had enough food and water for a couple of days, and this whole thing would blow over by then, wouldn’t it?
All that day there had been pictures on the TV showing riots. Sure, they were going on in places like New York and L.A., just like you would expect, but they were happening in smaller cities and just about everywhere else.
One story on the television had stuck with Megan. A convenience store clerk in Iowa had been hung from a light pole in front of his store because he tried to stop a crowd of looters from ransacking his place of business. Megan remembered the images of shattered plate glass windows, shelves stripped bare and the store looking like a tornado had hit it. But what resonated in her mind were the images of the poor man after he’d been lynched. He’d not just been hung; he’d been stoned as well. His face and body were a mass of bloody bruises and welts. The censors had stopped bothering to cover up such brutality by then, so she got to see it in all its glory.
Megan found it hard to believe that it would ever get that bad in their anonymous little suburb. Certainly, their subdivision was in an uproar, with neighbors panicking and wondering what to do, but the madness of the outside world hadn’t touched down in Milfield yet. Lots of people were leaving the area and a few teens were trying their hand at vandalism, but the overall perception was that this viral crisis was happening elsewhere and would never reach the local area.
It wasn’t until a camouflaged Humvee drove down their street with a loudspeaker announcing where the nearest Red Cross and National Guard shelters were set up that Megan realized the worldwide panic being wailed about on television had come to their little corner of the world.
The National Guard wasn’t requiring anyone to leave their homes. Dalton told Megan the military didn’t have the resources to waste on homeowners unwilling to evacuate. They were urging everyone to do so, but were too busy cordoning off areas of the city, battling rioters, and trying to maintain the peace to bother with house to house searches.
Some of the families in the neighborhood took the Guardsmen up on their offer, piling into their cars and heading to the shelters. Others like Dalton and Megan decided to hunker down and wait it out.
Dalton had dismissed the idea of heading to a shelter rather quickly. “Why should we spend the next month crammed into some shitty tin can like sardines eating lousy food when we can be comfortable here in our own house?”
Megan didn’t argue at the time. But now Dalton was heading out into that mess to do a little grocery shopping, where the possibility of facing looters wasn’t the worst thing he might have to deal with.
Dalton shook Megan. It wasn’t violent, but she snapped out of her reverie just the same as if he had slapped her.
“Megan! Please, let me go. We both know I have to do this.” He wasn’t pleading with her. It was the last gasp of rational arguing he would do before he got angry. It was easy to read him after five years together, although things had never been even remotely this intense before. Megan knew she didn’t want him angry. Because if something happened and she never saw him again …
Things didn’t seem normal outside their house but it wasn’t as bad as the horror stories the news had cooked up. If Dalton went out there, then everything would be real. Megan was beginning to understand that for her husband it already was already real, and had been from the moment he heard the first hints of trouble in other places on the news. Dalton had accepted this new reality immediately and had boarded up the house and rationed their food and water. He’d even packed the Jeep in case they needed to leave in a hurry.
As Dalton pleaded with Megan to let him leave, it dawned on her that the only reason he hadn’t proposed this trip a couple of days earlier was because he knew how she would react. He had waited as long as he could before broaching the subject, until he had no other choice but to make this trip if they were going to survive inside their barricaded house.
So Megan knew it had probably surprised Dalton when she pulled him close, hugging him, and nodded her approval, rather than choosing to continue arguing. The tension between them remained for a moment, but when Dalton’s stiff shoulders relaxed Megan knew things were okay between them.
Wrapping her hand around the back of Dalton’s neck, she pulled him close to whisper in his ear.
“Please Dal, be careful. God, just be safe … I can’t imagine what I would do—”
Megan’s words were cut off as her husband swept her into a big bear hug. Dalton kissed her on the forehead and then pushed her back so they could look each other in the eyes. She had to bend her neck back quite a bit, as she always did, to accommodate their difference in height.
“You know I’ll be as careful as possible. No screwing around, just getting what we need and then I’ll head straight home.”
He dropped his arms to his sides, still a bit tense, fearful that Megan was some sort of firecracker whose wick had burned all the way down, but hadn’t exploded. Megan gave Dalton one of her sleepy little smiles she reserved for those times when she had essentially lost an argument. Not that she would admit defeat, but it served to let her husband know that this firecracker was a dud. Megan’s smile didn’t reach her eyes, but it was good enough for Dalton. He pulled her close again and kissed her firmly on the lips before heading to the garage.
“Be back soon,” was all he said before getting into the Jeep and driving away.
Dalton did make it back. He had been through hell and the Jeep had suffered some serious dents but it returned, just like Dalton, in one piece. There was a small gash on his forehead, but no other visible wounds when he stepped out of the SUV.
He described people dying on the streets-some sick, but others looking more insane than anything as they roamed the area.
“People were trying to take the truck, grabbing at the doors. A bunch threw rocks at the police and the National Guard … hell, they were attacking them! Everyone out there is insane, I swear to God. But …” He paused, his face turning pale at the memory as he told Megan his story. “But it was those sick people, the ones who were infected. They were attacking everyone, ripping and biting them. Christ, there was so much blood. It was a fucking nightmare.”
Dalton hadn’t made it to a store. Two miles down the road past their neighborhood was as far as he got and that was more than enough. He tried to turn around but people were running everywhere, blocking his path. After a few minutes of negotiating traffic to a place where he could turn the jeep around, a bunch of teenagers began throwing rocks and surrounded the vehicle.
When Megan asked for more details, Dalton shook his head, only saying that he had gotten away and was fine. He wouldn’t let Megan touch him as he rattled off his story, spying through the slats he’d nailed over the front door and windows. It was as if he was worried someone had followed him home. When she tried to hug him, he darted away. He was too strung out to stand still for even a moment.
It was when he went to the sink a few minutes later and rolled up his shirt sleeve that Megan saw the bite mark. The wound on his arm looked superficial, but Dalton’s hooded sweatshirt was torn in a couple of places. There were blood spatters on his clothes and Megan wondered if there were any other wounds he was hiding from her.
Dalton pulled off his sweatshirt and tossed it into the trash can. Still agitated after cleaning up at the kitchen sink, he locked himself in the bathroom. Megan tried to leave him alone for a while, certain her husband just needed time alone to calm down. But when he didn’t come out for ten minutes, she couldn’t wait any longer and banged on the door, demanding Dalton talk to her.
When he came out, Dalton still didn’t want to be touched. The thrill of seeing him again had been replaced by a dread that grew inside Megan. Dalton was alive, but what he’d seen out there had rattled him to the core. He was supposed to be the cool and rational one-the one who remained calm no matter what. Instead, he looked like some scared kid who’d been frightened nearly to death.
The next few hours were almost as bad for Megan as it had been waiting on Dalton to return from his trip outside. She prided herself on knowing her husband fairly well, but even a complete stranger could tell that something was terribly wrong with Dalton LeValley. After any stressful event Dalton was always the first to make light of it, smile and joke, washing away the stress and forcing himself to forget. That was not the Dalton Megan was seeing here. It was then that she realized he was dealing with something more traumatic than a violent run in with some teenagers.
Megan had seen the broadcasts and watched the scientists debate over what was causing the virus to be transmitted so easily from victim to victim. There were countless theories, but the one that stood out from all the others was that it was transmitted through the blood-through bites and scratches.
She didn’t want to accept it, but there it was. Megan wept as she tried to deny the truth of the matter. Dalton had been bitten and he was infected.
Dalton was lying on their bed, and perhaps it was her crying that allowed him to see past his own pain for the first time since his return. He held out a shaky hand to his wife and Megan fought against the urge to recoil as she looked at the wound on his arm, which he wouldn’t let her see before. The bite mark had turned black, with red, puffy skin surrounding it. The infection was definitely in his blood, and she could see that the skin on Dalton’s entire arm looked discolored and in bad shape.
Megan wanted so desperately to touch Dalton, but what if the infection didn’t just spread through the blood, but from touch as well? As she stood above him, near the edge of the bed, her heart racing, Megan looked into the pleading eyes of her husband and realized she didn’t care.
She took Dalton’s hand in hers and climbed in next to him, feeling the heat radiating off of his body. He felt like a blast furnace as she touched his forehead. It was as if his brain was boiling beneath his skull. Megan immediately sprung up from the bed, mumbling something about getting him a cold washcloth, and ran to the bathroom.
As Megan doused the cloth in cold water her hands were shaking. As she glanced at the mirror a ghost stared back at her. There was no blood in her normally olive toned skin.
“Get a grip, Megan. Keep it together. You have to for Dalton’s sake.” The whispered words were drowned out by the running water, but had the desired effect. Megan was able to resist the urge to break down crying again. Instead, she turned off the water and rubbed away the tears that had already fallen.
Returning to the bedroom, Megan could feel the washcloth cold and wet in her hands. She leaned over the stationary form of her husband and gently put the cloth on his forehead, wondering if even though it was wet, it might burst into flames from the overpowering heat coming off of Dalton. When he grabbed her wrist Megan jumped, startled. She yelped before she could cover her mouth with her free hand as she stared into his eyes. The hazel color she had always loved was beginning to cloud over with a milky film.
“Promise me … promise me you won’t let me change …”
It was only a whisper. Megan stared into his dull and weeping eyes, fighting to break free of their hypnotic effect. She wanted to shake her head and turn away, to avoid seeing the ravages of the virus as it changed Dalton, twisting and warping him into some kind of monster. Although it was still her beloved husband lying before her, he was already changing as his body was consumed with poison.
Megan touched his face gently. “Everything is going to be okay, baby,” she said in a surprisingly steady voice. She forced herself to look deeper into Dalton’s eyes. His fetid breath smelled of rot and it was all she could do to not gag. Instead, Megan smiled weakly at him. She wanted to run to the toilet and throw up, but stood her ground. This was her husband, no matter what was happening and she had to make sure he knew she was there for him, would stay by his side no matter what.
Dalton attempted to smile. Although he was wheezing and showing all the signs of a terminally ill patient, he seemed to be winning the battle with his fear.
He retained his grip on Megan’s wrist as he spoke again. “I’m going to head down to the basement. Please help me get down there. We have some giant sized trash bags I can lay on. If you wrap a towel around the revolver it will muffle the blast and not drawn any attention to the house.”
Megan only heard the first sentence, and then the blood pounding in her ears was just too loud. She’d felt faint before, but nothing like this.
A couple of minutes later … or maybe it was much later, Dalton was still holding her tight and all she could remember was screaming “No! No! No!” over and over again while she battered his shoulders with her small fists. Dalton was weak, but still had enough strength to get control of Megan and hold her until she stopped. He waited patiently for her to regain some sense of comprehension before he spoke again.
“God I know this is hard honey. There is nothing easy about it. I love you. More than you’ll ever know. But I CAN’T change what’s happening to me. Don’t you see? Either I have to do this myself or you have to …” at that Dalton broke down crying, taking his arms away from Megan as his broad shoulders shook and heaved.
The world was ending right that second. Megan could feel it. There was nothing left. She would pull the trigger and murder her husband, then stick the barrel in her mouth to put the final touch on this nightmare. She sure as hell couldn’t stay here without him. That wasn’t going to happen.
At that moment Megan was angry. Angry at herself for letting Dalton leave the house and angry for not letting him go a few days earlier when it might have been safe outside. She was angry with Dalton for coming back infected. She was angry at God, who seemed to be turning his back on them. The world was coming to an end and God didn’t give a shit.
Dalton’s crying slowed as Megan’s rage grew. He tried to take a deep breath to steady himself, but a coughing jag took him and lasted several minutes. Megan sprung up and ran to get him a towel as Dalton spat up blood, bile, and whatever else his body was liquefying as the virus tore through his system. He gestured for her to stay back, but to toss him the towel.
As the coughing died down Dalton was able to speak again. “You have to live Megan. No matter how bad you feel, you need to make it through this.”
The look in Dalton’s eyes told Megan that her husband knew what she’d been thinking about. More tears flowed from her eyes as Megan shook her head violently. None of this should be happening. It wasn’t fair.
“I’ll be dead in a few hours, Megan. I know you don’t want to hear it, but it’s true. But you won’t be. You’re alive and I want you to stay that way. You can make it through this crap, I know you can! The house is fortified and by yourself there is enough food and water to last a long time.”
Megan could only stare at her husband. The idea of putting a bullet in Dalton’s head was abhorrent, but she knew that he would pull the trigger if she didn’t. That was as much a part of who Dalton was as anything else: once he made up his mind, he followed through to the bitter end. No chance things would be different this time.
Dalton took the towel and wiped away the spittle and sweat from his face, though his lips remained crimson from the blood he’d coughed up. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and Megan resisted the urge to rush to his side to help him. If he wanted to go down to the basement to commit suicide, he could do it by himself.
Megan wondered if the man she had loved since their third date would do more than say goodbye as he left their bedroom, or would realize he couldn’t go through with this and instead profess his endless love to her. It was a selfish thought, and she knew it. All she could think about was how this impacted her and her existence. She wanted Dalton to fight this thing, resist it, so she didn’t have to accept that this was truly the end of their lives together.
Megan watched as Dalton got out of bed and moved toward the door. He looked at her but said nothing. He could see the parade of emotions on her face and likely knew how impossible all of this was for his wife. And that was when it hit her.
Even as Dalton was dying, he was thinking of his wife, which was exactly what she was doing. In the last few hours of his life he was more concerned with her well being than his impending demise.
That was when Megan ran to Dalton and slid under his shoulder to help him make it down the stairs without stumbling or falling. She was too short for him lean on her effectively, but the pained smile on Dalton’s face told her how grateful he was.
Dalton’s last few hours were better than Megan could have hoped for. They talked about everything, cried, and even laughed a few times.
Toward the end, Dalton touched Megan’s cheek with shaking hands as he started to fade. She watched as her husband fought to stay coherent, her face stunned and fearful.
Dalton had avoided telling Megan what to do up to that point, instead sharing the memories they both cherished in an attempt to forget his impending doom, if only for a little while. But as he felt his body shutting down and the pain gripping him so tightly he could barely resist crying out in agony, Dalton knew he had to explain what needed to be done.
“Do it before I turn. Don’t wait long; it probably won’t take more than a minute or so after my heart stops.” Dalton’s eyes were closed as he spoke and his skin was a gray, almost translucent as the virus’s victory over his body was nearing completion.
Megan heard the words and despite the fact that Dalton’s eyelids remained closed, she nodded down at him, knowing that if she said anything her voice would crack and she would lose control.
She was still considering pulling the trigger on the .357 Magnum not once, but twice. It would be so easy: they would escape this lunacy together. ‘Til death do us part-that was the vow, wasn’t it? But what if she didn’t want death to part them?
Megan remained lost in her thoughts, only half listening to the rattle of Dalton’s breathing, when she realized that the basement was silent. She glanced down at her husband and tried to hold back the flood of tears as she realized he was gone. His chest had stopped rising and the loud and ragged breathing had cut off. Dalton was laying there, his head resting on a garbage bag she had placed beneath him at his request, his eyes closed for the last time.
So when he sprung back up a moment later Megan felt her heart stop and her bladder let loose. Dalton grabbed his wife’s arms, looking at her with eyes that were dead and unseeing.
Megan didn’t time to ponder the fact that she had waited too long to do what he had asked. All she knew was she was going to die on the basement floor as her husband attacked her. As he pulled her close, she prayed the pain would be fleeting.
Before she could scream out or squirm loose he spoke.
“… make it! … to keep fighting!”
It was all Dalton could spit out. He fell back so fast his skull thumped against the concrete floor, his grip loosening (later there would be welts where he had grabbed her).
This time there was no doubt Dalton was truly dead. He was gone and taken with him everything Megan loved in the world. His last words echoed in her head: he wanted her to keep fighting.
The terror of his death grip on her receded and her heart rate dropped back to normal. Megan’s head was pounding, but she felt more alert than she had been in a long time. The jolt to her system had cleared her head.
Megan stared at the body of her husband as she stood. She lifted the dead weight of the pistol as she hovered over Dalton’s corpse. She was the only mourner he would ever have.
It was up to her to say good bye.
Megan reached for the towel and wrapped it around the muzzle as Dalton had instructed her.
What if I wait? The though slithered through Megan’s head like a serpent, its forked tongue tickling and teasing her. What if I wait to see if he gets back up? I’ll be able to look in his eyes and know for sure.
The thought that Dalton was somehow still in there, inside his ruined body, splashed Megan with irrational hope. She looked at him with love in her heart, wanting to touch him again and wanting him to touch her as well. He’ll look at me and know who I am. He’ll understand what happened and still know he’s my husband.
“No…”
Megan shook her head. She raised the gun and rubbed the towel against her wet forehead.
“I love you so much Dalton. I would give anything to have you back with me. But I …”
The pain in Megan’s stomach made her double over. A huge knot had formed inside her gut. She moaned and almost fell to her knees, but somehow retained her balance.
“You’re the best man I’ve ever known. I will always love you Dalton.”
As she pulled the trigger, Megan swore she saw her husband’s eyes opening. The gun kicked and the towel covering the barrel shredded away as the bullet traveled at a tremendous velocity and blasted a hole the size of a dime in Dalton’s forehead. Megan blinked as she fired and when her eyes opened again she saw that Dalton’s eyes were still closed.
Megan avoided looking at the mess splattered across the garbage bags underneath Dalton’s head. Instead, she grabbed a couple of extra trash bags they’d brought down and laid them on top of him. She unwound the towel from the gun and dropped it beside the body. She was trying to be as clinical and removed from the situation as possible.
It isn’t Dalton, it’s just his corpse. She repeated that over and over in her head in a vain attempt to drown out the part of her mind that wanted to believe if Dalton had come back he would recognized and love her still.
Megan’s thoughts bounced against one another, tormenting her until she raised an arm to her mouth and bit down, hard. The torment inside of her head disappeared with a muffled scream as the coppery taste of blood filled Megan’s mouth. She kept screaming as she stumbled up the steps.
Somehow, Megan managed to hold on to the gun all the way to the bedroom. Later, she would contemplate using it on herself again, but always at the back of her mind was her husband’s dying wish. She held on to the weapon, keeping it close, telling herself it was there, just in case.
September 14, 2010 | Categories: Dark Stories | Tags: comes the dark, dark stories, horror, short stories, writing, zombies | Leave a comment
Cover of the “No More Heroes” anthology released
Another anthology that I will be appearing in, this one filled with superheroes and villains, will be coming out later this year. The cover art was just released and I am thrilled with it. I am excited about being involved in this one, as it gave me a chance to stretch my wings and write in a completely different genre. My hope is that this anthology will do well so that there is an opportunity to continue some of the stories that have been developed with this new world of good and evil.
So check out this cover. This one is going to be cool!
September 6, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: cover art, Library of Fantasy, short stories, Superheroes, Villains, writing | Leave a comment
Interview over at Living Dead Corner
I was recently interviewed by Mike Gardner over at Living Dead Corner about Comes The Dark as well as some of the short stories I’ve been working on. We also chatted about the upcoming sequel and the third installment in my trilogy, along with some other interesting topics. Take a look see over at: http://livingdeadcorner.blogspot.com/2010/08/interview-with-author-patrick-dorazio.html
I want to thank Mike for taking the time to interview me and asking some great questions. It was fun doing the interview with another up and coming horror writer.
So click on over and check it out!
August 28, 2010 | Categories: Comes The Dark, My Writing Experiences, The Shorts | Tags: comes the dark, horror, interview, short stories, writer, writing, zombies | Leave a comment
A modest plug for The Zombist
Well, I have learned that it is not good form to write reviews for anthologies that you contributed to-at least not in places like Amazon, where the reviews are scrutinized for any affiliation to the author(s) of a book and anything that appears to be biased is treated as less than sincere, unfortunately. I do understand the logic there, though I am a compulsive reviewer, at least of every zombie book I can get my hands on. I don’t feel the need to review everything I read, but certainly those books that are near and dear to my heart are ones I like to review, and The Zombist certainly falls into that category.
I just got finished reading this massive tome, which clocks in at more
than 450 pages of tales of zombies in the old west. Twenty nine authors provided stories for this book, and the amazing Dr. Pus, publisher for The Library of the Living Dead, couldn’t resist bringing out something that was heavy enough to bash a zombie’s brain in rather than breaking it into two separate volumes. So anyone who is a fan of zombie fiction is going to have a lot to entertain them and get a great bargain in the process. We get a pretty good cross section of creative stories in this book, with the traditional Romero slow movers and speedier creations that have become more popular more recent years, zombies sent from hell, zombie ghosts, and the voodoo zombies as well, which are sprinkled through out this book and offer a nice change of pace from the regular flesh eaters (don’t get me wrong- I LOVE my regular flesh eaters!). My own story “The Woeful Tale of Dalton McCoy” is one such story, and I have to say I enjoyed creating a bit of voodoo and setting it in the area of the country I grew up in.
Quite a few authors I have gotten to know over the past year contributed to this book, along with many others I wasn’t familiar with, but loved discovering them through their stories in this book. Many, if not most of the stories in this book stood out as excellent, and the one that really stuck with me was probably Michael C. Lea’s “The Hot Springs Zombie Incident of 1875” which gets some big bonus points for creative use of a zombie as well as leaving me torn between laughing and cringing by the end of his tale. A lot of the other stories were just as entertaining and some were even quite touching, as the occasional zombie story tends to do. Most folks who don’t read this sort of stuff tend to think it is all about the gore and the zombies themselves, but those of us in know enjoy zombie stories because of the compelling human element of them. I think that is what sets the zombie genre apart from most other monster based horror genre tales-the monsters aren’t the stars of the story, the human beings are.
Another writer with an excellent story in this book is Jamie Eyberg, who unfortunately passed away, along with his wife, in a tragic accident this week. My sympathies go out to his family on their loss. It is my hope that Jamie’s memory will live on through the wonderful stories he has created and that this may provide his loved ones some small comfort in the years to come. I know that at least a couple more of his stories will be appearing in upcoming Library anthologies. Jamie, you will be missed.
I am very proud of my work in this anthology and even more proud of the fact that I am sharing a Table of Contents with such a tremendous group of writers. I won’t be writing a review of the book on Amazon, so instead, I offer this: if you enjoy westerns, and enjoy horror, then The Zombist is right up your alley. You get a huge value with such a massive tome of twenty nine different tales of undead mayhem, along with six guns, shamans, Voodoo Priests, and even a few historical characters, like George Custer, thrown in for a bit of added flavor. Go check it out-you won’t be disappointed!
August 19, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff..., The Shorts | Tags: book review, horror, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, writer, zombies | Leave a comment
Review of Jonathan Moon’s “Mr. Moon’s Nightmares”
Mr. Moon gives us a bevy of tales that run the gamut from outright horror drenched tales that grab you immediately and desperately try to tear you limb from limb to the more subtle, nuanced stories that slowly reveal themselves, much like an old legend or ghost story told around a campfire on a cold, crisp fall evening. While I was perhaps expecting more tales like “Wasp Stings and Fever Dreams”, which deals with a blurred line between reality and dark fantasy, based on my exposure to another one of Mr. Moon’s works, The Apocalypse and Satan’s Glory Hole, I think I was quite surprised, in a very good way, that the author can spin a diverse range of yarns that are compelling and reveal themselves with a ease that is very satisfying. Mr. Moon is quite the story teller and he gives his audience an introduction to a region of the country that gains more richness with each story. I am reminded of Stephen King’s consistent return to parts of a gloom cloaked part of Maine when I read through each of Mr. Moon’s tales of the dark reaches of the mountains and forests of Idaho. It is clear that there is an affinity for this region that allows the author to present both an appreciation for this area of the world while still making it almost oppressively mysterious and frightening for the reader.
There is a diversity of stories here, a bit of something for everyone, with a couple of larger novella sized, along with several short stories and even a few poems. Grasshopper season is a winding tale that weaves in and out of this book in eight different chapters. I enjoyed most every story, but if I were to find something to critical about, it would lie with “What Really happened to ‘Dirty’ Dick Wilkins.” The story itself is a fine, creepy novella that takes us back to the old west and a mysterious town where no one seems to grow old, but the editing needed to be tightened up. There were some minor spelling gaffs throughout the book, but they were far more significant within that story. But again, the story was good-holding my attention throughout with its rich characters and gruesome secrets hidden inside the mountains. For punch in the gut impact, my favorite story had to be “The Little Box of Ladybugs” which was a quick shock to the system. “The Full Moon Express” and “Parched” also stood out for me as top-notched short stories that dealt with tantalizing, good old fashion horror that I found highly entertaining.
Overall, this book is eminently satisfying. Mr. Moon is a crafter of stories, pure and simple. He knows how to set the mood, give the right amount of ambiance, and then provides the eerie creepiness that immerses the reader in the doom and gloom of each tale.
Mr. Moon’s Nightmares can be found at Amazon:http://www.amazon.com/Mr-Moons-Nightmares-Jonathan-Moon/dp/1451577249/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1280633669&sr=1-1
July 31, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff... | Tags: book review, horror, Library of the Living Dead, short stories, westerns, zombies | 1 Comment
Review for the Orange Bizarro starter kit
You may not like bizarro. It may not be your cup of tea. I decided to read the two bizarro starter kits after having read a small dosage of it in a few other forms and wanted to be immersed in it, to really understand what it is all about. After reading both kits, I have decided that trying to extract a particular logic or style of writing from the various authors who participated in these books is a futile effort. Bizarro may not make sense on a traditional level of thinking, but I think the main thing is that it makes sense in whatever realm or universe the story that is created inhabits.
I have seen some bizarro that seems to be heavy with symbolism while other tales perhaps don’t have any more depth than a lark the author decided to take off on, but some of it is quite beautiful and obscene at the same time. I probably haven’t read enough of this style of writing to be an honest judge of it, and haven’t read enough of what influences its authors, which is conveniently posted in the bio of each of them in both of the starter kits, but I know that I can go from enraptured to repulsed within the same tale with more frequency in bizarro than anywhere else. And I think that is a key element of this type of work-it is something that doesn’t allow you to relax, or rest as you breeze through passages that are interconnected with regular, everyday logic. Instead, you are forced to remain vigilant, observant of every word, every phrase, because within may lie a totally different experience, a different exposure to something unique and strange.
The Orange Bizarro Starter Kit can be found at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1933929006/ref=cm_cr_thx_view
July 5, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff... | Tags: Bizarro, Bizarro Books, book review, short stories | Leave a comment
Review of The Bizarro Starter Kit (Blue)
I picked up the Bizarro Starter kit, both Blue and Orange, at the recommendation of a friend who has written bizarro and felt that these two books were excellent primers on this genre. I have not read the orange yet but am looking forward to it. I have read one full length bizarro novel by Andre Duza and another short story by Carlton Melick III, both related to zombies, but little else. I have read a wide array of unique and strange fiction throughout my life, but bizarro is certainly in a class by itself.
A definition, or rather, definitions of bizarro appear at the beginning of this book, so I won’t attempt to expand on them. What I can say is that based on the ten different authors, all with very unique stories, is that bizarro is not just the genre of the weird-it is a genre that allows us to step alternately into worlds of the surreal, humorous, and horrific, sometimes all at the same time. Every story in this book was stylistically different than the rest-there was no solidifying theme running through the book. They challenged me as a reader to keep up with what the author was creating at every step. It seems that in a bizarro story, things can turn dramatically on a single sentence, even when some elements are used repetitively to bring a point across. This is not a genre to hop into assuming that you will be able to relax and casually blur over certain passages and retain full comprehension of what is going on.
I won’t lie and say that I “got” it with every story written here, but I was entertained by most of these efforts, amused, repulsed, and intrigued, which means that these stories kept my interest, even if I wasn’t sure of the exact path that I was being led down by each author.
June 19, 2010 | Categories: Other folk's stuff... | Tags: Bizarro, Bizarro Books, book review, short stories | 2 Comments
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