Darlings of Decay

by Chrissy Peebles

  He entered the bedroom and found Amy, eyes closed, listening to music through a pair of ear bud headphones. She was lying on her side, arm stretched overhead. The way Jess slept after her pregnant stomach became too big for her to lie on her back. He set the uncapped syringe on the nightstand and stood over her, unnoticed. The next thing he knew, he was on top of her, pinning her down and stuffing a wadded up tee shirt into her mouth to silence her screams. He tore off her panties, wanting to take from her what Mitch had taken from Jess. She thrashed and kicked and spit the gag out twice before Max buried it so deep in her mouth that she struggled for breath. He reached to unzip his pants and something told him to stop. Whatever Nixon planned for her would be worse. He plunged the needle into her bare thigh and her body wilted. Max let her arms go and imagined Mitch’s reaction to finding her, restrained to a hospital bed in the Nixon Center basement. He slipped the paternity test into the breast pocket of her nightshirt where Mitch would see it and slung her over his shoulder. Nixon said he needed a female of child-bearing age. Amy fit the criteria. It hardly seemed payback, but it was a start.

  * * * * *

  Follow Max Reid’s descent into madness in Cure: A Strandville Zombie Novel #1, and Afterbirth: A Strandville Zombie Novel #2 available in e-book or print from Amazon and B&N retailers. Coming soon to KOBO.

  About the Author:

  Belinda Frisch's fiction has appeared in Shroud Magazine, Dabblestone Horror, and Tales of Zombie War. She is an honorable mention winner in the Writer's Digest 76th Annual Writing Competition and her novel, CURE, is the runner-up in the General Fiction category of the 2012 Halloween Book Festival. She is the author of DEAD SPELL, PAYBACK, CURE, and AFTERBIRTH.

  Find out more at: http://belindaf.blogspot.com/

  April Grey

  I'll Love Ya Forever, But...

  You know, it was a marriage they said would never last.

  Even I had my doubts. After all, I was a dancer—dancer, mind you, not a stripper--at the Pussy Cat A-Go-Go Club and he was this geeky post doc at his friend’s bachelor party. But I became a good professor’s wife. I hosted faculty teas and luncheons, kept the house spotless, made healthy meals, kept myself in shape and raised two beautiful boys—one now at MIT and the other at Cal Tech.

  Still, it’s supposed to be until death do you part. Death: the parting of the ways. This whole eternity thing—I never agreed to it.

  Faithful to a fault, that’s my Fred.

  And he wasn’t buried three days when he showed up at the back door covered in dirt, and his feet, well, he had no shoes on, just socks. Wet, muddy, slimy socks! He should have told me, put it in his will or something, to bury him in shoes. I would have done it—I can be unconventional. He should have warned me, but he was always the typical absent-minded professor.

  I was in such shock that I hadn’t the presence of mind to shut the door on him. So now he was on my freshly washed kitchen floor, with moldering leaves and what have you, and he grunts at me.

  "Huh?" I said, equally speechless. I kept that floor clean enough to eat off of and now look what he’d done.

  He grunted again. Prior to his demise my Fred was a well-spoken man, and he had this amazingly plummy voice for his lectures.

  "Fred, honey, I don’t know what you’re saying." He opened his mouth a bit wider and a few white crawly things, slugs, maggots, I don’t know, fell out onto the floor. I shrieked and ran for the disinfectant and my cleaning gloves. While I was under the sink, trying to decide on straight ammonia or pine fresh, he shambled over. He was right there and tried to embrace me as I stood up with my supplies. Well, no way, I thought, though I was pinned to the sink. He smelled of soil and decaying things. Still I tried to stifle my revulsion. This after all was the father of my boys, so I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. Neither could I accept letting him get one inch closer. I put out both my hands, filled as they were with cleaning products.

  He grunted plaintively, perhaps at the expression on my face, and turned around moving toward the living room—oh, my white shag rug! The one that I waited years for the boys to get old enough to head off to college before getting. The one that I made everyone take off their shoes before walking on. That one!

  Well, yes, Fred wasn’t wearing any shoes, but that only made things worse; there was already a trail of grime across my kitchen floor. I know that Martha Stewart claims she can get out dirt from shag, but can you take the word of a jail bird?

  It was time to lay down some guidelines.

  "Fred, Lovey," I said as I got out some chilled wine from the fridge. I froze. I had had that wine in the fridge chilling since before his accident at the lab. The dinner I had planned that tragic night was trout almandine with green beans and rice. Healthy meals, that’s what I strived for. Pulling myself together, I found the corkscrew and opened the wine. "Please sit down and have a little. I know this has been a stressful time for us both. Why, the boys lost a week from their classes, and only flew back last night. I’m sorry you missed them."

  I must have been getting through to him because he turned away from my shag and came back towards the kitchen nook where I had poured us two glasses of wine. I patted the wrought iron café chair, hoping he’d take a seat. I only meant to sip my glass of wine, but the sight of him, and his yellowing, hard boiled eyes, upset me. I downed it and poured a second glass.

  "Sweety-kins," I began, using the back of my hand to wipe away a dribble of wine from my chin. "This isn’t going to work out. You know I adore you, and I’ll love you always."

  He moaned and the sound of it drove a cold chill down my spine. I forgot what I was going to say for a moment, while I wondered what that green and fuzzy thing was on the side of his nose. Was it growing there?

  He was trying to say something, maybe that he loved me too. But did he love me enough to stop this insanity and head back to his grave?

  "You know, you can’t stay here. You’re dead and your new home is in the cemetery. Remember? We picked out the grave site together. You really loved those cypress trees!" I tried to be as gentle as possible. "And the funeral, I guess you don’t remember that, but the boys were there and all your colleagues from the University. And what would they all say after such a beautiful ceremony? It would be downright rude not to stay dead." I gulped down another glass of wine and felt the room whirl.

  "And I promise to visit you every week. Won’t that be grand?"

  He didn’t touch the wine, but grunting even louder returned to the entrance of the living room and my shag rug. I hadn’t gotten through to him at all, and now my rug was about to pay the price! Where was that reasonable man I had married? Gone forever, I feared.

  I didn’t know how I would stop him but I ran past him into the living room and stood in front of him, wordlessly begging him to stop. But stop he didn’t, instead he pushed past me and crossed my rug leaving a dank, black, oozing trail across it. But the rug was not his final destination, and he entered his study. I was tempted to shut the door behind him and lock it. But then what would I do? I had to somehow get him to understand his place in the world was the graveyard now that he was dearly departed.

  Inside the study I found him tearing through his desk. He slipped a vial of some grey-green concoction into his coat pocket, and then continued to throw papers on the floor. His study was the one place in the house where I wasn’t allowed to go while he was alive. After his demise, it had taken me hours to collect and sort his papers, but I didn’t complain about this new mess. I can be noble.

  With a happy grunt, he found his research journal. It was his habit to have two sets of notes, one in his study for him to pour over at night and the second one at his lab. I smiled and nodded--maybe he just wanted some reading to take with him?

  He brandished it at me. I read the cover, "Immortality Project." I sighed. Poor, poor Fred. I usually spent the time when he was talking about his work figuring out the dinner rotation or the week’s grocery shopping in my head. Had I known, I would have told him
what a dumb idea it was.

  Immortality? Who would fund something like that?

  "Is that it, Fred? You wanted to tell me what you had been working on? Well, I understand. It all went wrong, horribly wrong. You’re dead now, and it’s time to head back to Shady Elms. I’ll miss you, but I’ll come by every week with fresh flowers. You’ll see that being dead isn’t too bad."

  With a howl he rushed forward and lifted me up in his arms. I shrieked, and then I kicked and pushed against him, but to no avail--he was walking on my beautiful shag again--this time headed for our bedroom. Now I didn’t have just one filthy path to clean but two. I had to admire his strength though; lugging me around like that should have thrown out his back, but here he was carrying me without a moan or even a grunt.

  I’ve always been careful with my husband’s feelings. Scientists are like artists, sensitive, but he just wasn’t getting the message. Something dropped off of him and wiggled itself down into the shag. I screamed and pounded my fists on his all too solid back, enraged that not only would I have to get it cleaned but fumigated as well.

  But just when you’d think it can’t get worse, it did. He crossed the threshold of our bedroom and I realized that he was about to violate the pristine ambiance of our bedroom.

  "Put me down, Fred. I’m not going to make love to you. No, means no!" He ignored me. Crossing the pale pink and beige carpet of our bedroom, he tossed me on the bed like a sack of turnips.

  "Please, in the name of all that is holy, there are 400 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets on this bed."

  Sex, great sex, had been the mortar of our marriage. In the bedroom together, we were frenzied, exotic animals pounding out our differences, but I draw the line at necrophilia.

  I opened my mouth to tell him no one last time, but he grabbed my jaw. With surprising deftness, he unstopped the vial I had seen him put into his pocket, and poured the stuff down my throat.

  It was as if liquid nitrogen had been poured into me, instantly freezing my mouth, jaw and neck. I felt it slide down my throat into my stomach, and an intense iciness enveloped my torso and spread through my limbs.

  The only heat remaining to me were my tears pouring down the sides of my face. As my vision faded, Fred leaned over and mouthed some words.

  I can’t be sure, I can only hope, but I think he said, "Trust me."

  Well, maybe Martha was right about getting dirt out of shag….

  ***

  For more stories and information, please visit :

  http://www.aprilgrey.blogspot.com and www.aprilgreywrites.com

  Michelle Kilmer and Rebecca Hansen

  EXCERPTS FROM THE SPREAD:

  A ZOMBIE SHORT STORY COLLECTION

  Written by Michelle Kilmer and Rebecca Hansen

  ***

  THE PRICE OF CONVENIENCE

  After the healthiest snack he could find at a mini mart – a snack pack of apples and grapes – Paul was back to his delivery route. His health had not improved and he was looking forward to finishing early. When he checked his clipboard for his final stop, he felt like going home immediately instead: it was Thea Mathes.

  “I have to get rid of this route,” Paul said to himself as he pulled his vehicle to the curb. Before he had even loaded his hand truck with her groceries, Thea was at her window watching his every move.

  Even if Paul could forget about this crazy woman, her doormat would remind him whose house he was at. It read “Wipe your feet three times before you hit the chime!” As he did, he could swear that Thea was counting. What would you do if I only wiped once? He wanted to ask her.

  Once his feet were clean she allowed him in. The entry hall was long and Thea had installed a large hand sanitizer dispenser on either end. She pointed to the one closest to the front door.

  “I have gloves on!” Paul protested.

  “I saw you blow your nose out there, Paul. What’s wrong? Are you sick? You know I don’t allow sick people into my house,” Thea said nervously.

  “No, I’m fine,” Paul lied. “I just had a tickle in my nose. It’s from all the cardboard boxes.”

  “Gloves off, sanitizer on.” Thea crossed her arms and stood watch until he’d done as she asked.

  “Ok, I smell like I’ve been drinking on the job now. Can I finish this up?” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen.

  “All right, but if I hear so much as a sniffle from you, you’re out and I’m calling your manager,” Thea declared. “It is a biological hazard to be sending sick people all over the city.”

  He pushed his hand truck down the hall, eyeing the second hand sanitizer dispenser as he passed by. “Hey Thea, this one’s running a little low,” he snickered.

  Thea appeared immediately with a refill bag but was disappointed to find that Paul had lied. “I knew I’d just refilled that one! Public health is not a joke, Paul!”

  Upon hearing his name used so casually once again from the mouth of a near stranger he became more irritated. “New company policy,” he said to himself in the kitchen, “no wearing nametags in crazy people’s houses.”

  Back near the front door, Thea was on her hands and knees wiping the wood floor where the hand truck had rolled with a cloth and a disinfectant spray. “Paul, I can’t allow you to bring that cart in here again. It tracks too much dirt.”

  Her voice was sounding distant to him and his balance was wavering again, but with more intensity. Paul moved quickly to unload the boxes. This was more than a cold, possibly the flu. He pushed his hand truck into the hall and quickly slipped on a wet puddle of the spray that Thea had laid down. His head hit the floor with a thud.

  “Oh my word!” Thea yelled and rushed to his side. His eyes were closed. “Paul! Paul, wakeup!” She shook his shoulders and gingerly grabbed his chin and moved his face side to side in an attempt to rouse him. She put her face close to his chest. He wasn’t breathing and she could hear no heart beat.

  Thea stood up and ran to the dispenser on the wall. She filled her hand with a small pool of the sanitizing goo. She smeared some around his mouth and on his lips and for good measure, smeared some on her own face. “Ok, Thea. As soon as he starts breathing you can stop,” she comforted herself.

  She checked again with the hope that he had started to breathe on his own, but he hadn’t. Thea leaned toward Paul’s face; her lips approached his slightly parted set.

  Maybe it was the touch of skin on skin or just part of the reanimation process but as soon as she’d made contact, Paul returned to life. Thea screamed as his arms gripped her in a hug and he bit her lip.

  With a strength she didn’t know she had, Thea struggled free of his hold, opened her front door and ran from her house.

  This time Thea was absolutely certain that something was wrong with her. Others had called her a hypochondriac in the past, but this was different. A man had drawn her blood with his mouth, a mouth that had been god knows where.

  Two years prior she had a cancer scare, that no one else (not even the doctor!) thought was real. She had the weird looking mole removed just to make sure. Seven months ago she suffered severe burns to her lower legs, brought on by a close call with spontaneous combustion. The paramedics told her she had been sitting to close to a space heater. In between those two major incidents she was sick all of the time with any number of sneezes and sniffles that were floating around the neighborhood. That is why she had the dispensers installed and why she carried facemasks in her purse.

  Blood ran from her cut lip and she was panting heavily after running three blocks. I must look insane, she thought. She pulled one of the masks from her purse and put it on. It would at least cover the wound; whether it made her look more psychotic she didn’t care.

  She neared the police station but kept walking. Before she could report the attack something had to be done to protect her body. There was a drug store just a few more blocks down the road; she could get what she needed there.

  The door glided open for Thea and an employee in a red vest imme
diately greeted her.

  “Can I help you find anything?” he chimed.

  Thea felt she couldn’t answer the question. Small talk would only allow the disease to spread faster through her body. Ignoring him, she grabbed a cart and moved with purpose to the personal health and hygiene aisle. She watched him out of the corner of her eye. When she was certain he’d moved on, she started chugging bottles of cough syrup.

  Next, Thea picked up a bag of cough drops, ripped it open and unwrapped no less than ten of the herbal lozenges. She put the entire handful in her mouth and dropped the wrappers to the floor.

  A security guard appeared at the end of the aisle. The man was bulky and an entire foot taller than Thea. He walked confidently but slowly toward her.

  “Ma’am, I need you to put the merchandise down and follow me to the office,” the guard calmly stated. Thea looked up at him in terror and shook her head in declination.

  “I haf ta be helfy!” she cried out, cough drops spilling from her overstuffed mouth. “Healthy!” she yelled more clearly, collapsing to the ground amid the scattered lozenges, wrappers and empty plastic bottles.

  The guard mumbled something into a radio he’d unclipped from his belt. Without warning he grabbed Thea and escorted her to the office. Thea was made to sit at the worn, Formica-topped table in the middle of the room while the guard called the police.

  “Hi, uh, non-emergency. Yeah, I’d like to report a theft. Yes, the suspect is in custody. Yes, that’s the address. Ok, thank you,” the guard said into the office phone. He hung up and turned to face Thea. “The police are on their way.”