Darlings of Decay

by Chrissy Peebles

  “I love you, Bastian,” I said and brought the blade down.

  Like what you read? Check out the entire Nevermore Trilogy!

  Or check out Shannon’s Bestselling Urban Fantasy/Paranormal Romance Series

  "My name is Rylee, and I am a Tracker."

  When children go missing, and the Humans have no leads, I'm the one they call. I am their last hope in bringing home the lost ones. I salvage what they cannot.

  I'm on the FBI's wanted list. I have a werewolf for a pet, a Witch of a best friend, and I have no need for anyone else in my life.

  But when a salvage starts to spin out of control, help comes from a most unexepected direction.

  One that is dangerously dark, brooding, and doesn't know a thing about the supernatural.

  One whose kisses set me on fire.

  Newsletter Sign Up- http://bit.ly/SignUpSM

  Facebook Fan Page- Shannon Mayer Author

  Website- www.shannonmayer.com

  Lyra Mcken

  Finn

  A Zombified Short

  One day you’re minding your business thinking about how much you hate PE and wishing the fire alarm would get you out of there, and the next you get bit. It’s a strange feeling to have a human latch onto you with animal-like strength and rip off part of your leg. It is even stranger when they growl like a rabid dog and claw at your face. The weirdest thing was that he was my PE teacher at one time, and now… well, now he looked different.

  I’m lying on my belly in the dirt beneath the school. From here, I can see the parking lot and the front lawn. I’m not really sure what my plan is, but this is where I ran after I was bitten. The chaos in the gym was too much for me. The school has a very old foundation, and I knew I could belly crawl beneath it because I had hidden there from a bully two years ago. He transferred out to be a delinquent somewhere else long ago, but it stuck with me.

  I have been lying here since yesterday afternoon when I was bitten. The sleep I had fallen into was neither comfortable nor restful, but it had lasted off and on throughout the night.

  My leg is starting to hurt a little, and it probably doesn’t help that it is pressed against the dirt. The part of my shirt I ripped haphazardly to tie onto it will have to do for now. I am almost scared to look at it for fear I will see the black, rotting flesh I witnessed on those that were biting on others in the gym. I’m not really sure how long I’ve been tucked underneath the building, but it’s not really that much fun down here.

  Right after I had hidden in my dirt sanctuary, I had heard gunshots and screaming. The slow moving feet of what I’m calling the black flesh were visible, and I saw a couple of them fall.

  One in particular had struck me as odd because he clearly had a broken arm. It had hung lifelessly at his side. The strange angle at which it had hung made me sick, so I had averted my eyes. There had been a loud gunshot, and when I had looked back, his head was gone.

  As far as I can tell, I have been under here for hours. There really is no way to know. I wish wearing a watch was one of my things. No, I had to try to be cool with the power bracelet. It is a leather strap that snaps around my wrist, making me feel like a bad ass. I don’t feel too bad ass right now; in fact, I feel defeated. I’m pretty sure I have been bitten by a zombie, and since I don’t believe they exist outside of some of my favorite movies, I am having a hard time wrapping my head around it.

  I wish I had done so many things while I was alive. Third base with a girl sticks out in my mind, and now it’s never going to happen. Why did I have to be so shy? Speaking of third base, there’s my classmate, Cassie. I always thought she was pretty; I should have talked to her more. I wonder why she is running like that. I am going to get out and talk to her now.

  I see stars as I drag myself forward because the pain in my leg is almost unbearable. Sweat beads up quickly all over my body, but I will myself not to black out. I’m glad it took me awhile to get to the edge of my hiding spot because Cassie is pulling Nancy Drake out of her car and tossing her on the pavement. Either Nancy has a wound, or she has someone else’s blood on her. Cassie tells her to get back in the car and has taken off walking, so maybe she has had a change of heart and reconsidered.

  A pair of hands grabs me from behind. I can feel nails digging in through my pants. The scream I let out is less than manly. Who the heck is under here with me? Turning my head as far as I can, I see a man with dirty, red hair and a bloody mouth. He is unforgivingly sinking his fingers into my wounded leg. Scrambling through the pain, I manage to get out from under the building, but he is right on my heels not far behind me.

  A nearby zombie that looks a lot like my math teacher—but is missing half of his face—has spotted us and is coming toward us. Great, now I have to try to run. As I move, the t-shirt bit that I had tied around my leg falls off, but I am not moving fast enough. The math teacher is coming from one side, the red-headed blood face is coming from behind, and now it looks like Nancy Drake has come over to the black flesh side because she’s slow walking towards me from the parking lot.

  I am pretty much trapped. If I could run, then escaping would be no problem. It is time to face the fate I have been dealt: bitten by my gym teacher, and eaten by my math teacher and the girl who likes to wear the cat sweaters.

  To my surprise, the redheaded man starts walking away from me, and Nancy Drake sniffs me as if she’s some type of pretty dog. My math teacher walks into the side of the building, hitting his head repeatedly. He no longer seems interested in eating me, either. Now I know something is wrong with me.

  I look down at my leg to find the angry, black wound has spread around the teeth marks, and the flesh of my thigh is missing. Could it be they don’t want to bite me because I am infected? The realization hits me like a ton of zombies. I suddenly feel sick and spill the remnants of my lunch all over the ground. That square pizza and apple juice probably weren’t the best choices for lunch.

  I have a decision. I can crawl back beneath the school and just wait to turn into one of these black-fleshed, gray-skinned scary things, or I can walk into town and look for others like me. Cassie looked like she still had her thoughts about her. I wonder if I could catch up with her. She had a pretty good head start, and I am moving pretty slowly. I could just hang around here. Checking in with myself, I don’t seem to have a craving for human flesh, so that’s a good thing.

  My body feels compressed from lying underneath a building in a tight space for hours. Stretching feels good, except for my leg, which is throbbing. Pains shoot through me with every step.

  Moving into town seems like it will take too long, so I head back into the building to see what has transpired there.

  My body feels compressed from lying underneath a building in a tight space for hours. Stretching feels good, except for my leg, which is throbbing. Pains shoot through me with every step.

  None of the men who came in with guns is standing guard anymore, and there is literally blood everywhere. My Adidas shell tops slide as I attempt to hobble into the lobby to look around for any signs of life. There isn’t a place my eyes fall that isn’t riddled with body parts, blood, and intestines. What appears to be a teacher with a leg missing is crawling across the floor with an arm in her mouth. Gross! The whole world has gone mad.

  Making my way to the quad, I can see the carnage doesn’t end there. I stumble over football players, geeks, cheerleaders, pretty girls, and half the track team. I wonder how many people must have been turned in order to reach this number of bodies.

  I slide over to sit on one of the ugly orange benches so I can stare at a vending machine as I contemplate my next move, but then I catch movement behind it. A small girl jumps out holding what appears to be a plastic knife.

  “Back off, zombie, I mean it.”

  She trembles, which makes her less terrifying than the plastic knife she’s holding. I recognize her as Sissy, a pretty redhead who’s a year younger than me. Her face has been bitten, and for a minute, I wonder if she do
esn’t know. I think she has to know because half of her bottom lip is missing. The bite marks are huge, the bite is large, and it took half her bottom lip.

  “I’m not a zombie, at least not yet,” I tell her. I don’t bother to raise my hands above my head because the knife isn’t threatening. Seeming to relax a little, she looks down at my leg.

  “That looks nasty.”

  “It doesn’t feel too good, either.” I avoid saying anything about her face in case she is sensitive about it. The black flesh is already starting to show up around the graying skin as it dies. The smell of rot coming from us would be unbearable if we hadn’t already grown accustomed to it.

  She motions for me to follow her, and we head to the other side of the quad to sneak into the hall. I watch her look back and forth nervously. I want to ask her if she knows they won’t bite us, but she grabs my hand, pulls me quickly into the hallway, and then into a classroom, shutting the door and pushing the desks closest to it up against it. I open my mouth to ask her what her plan is, and she shushes me with a finger. At the back of the classroom, she opens the supply closet.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me.” My voice echoes in the empty classroom, and panic overcomes her as she pushes me inside.

  “You want them to hear you, Finn? You have to be quiet.” She shuts the door behind us and turns on the overhead light, then, having second thoughts, turns it off again. The closet is bigger than it looked from the outside. It’s a small room with junk in it, such as school supplies, easels, and decorations for various holidays.

  “How do you know my name?” I just realized she called me Finn, and I don’t remember seeing her, outside of passing her in the halls.

  “You know mine, don’t you?” She blushes and looks everywhere except directly at me.

  “Yes, Sissy, I know your name.” I knew it because we had gone to the same school since she was in kindergarten and I was a first grader, so I assume that’s how she knows my name, too. I feel stupid for asking, and am back to wondering what the hell the plan is. “What’s the plan here?”

  She slides down the wall to sit on the floor, and I do the same.

  “Hide from the zombies until we are rescued.”

  Should I tell her I don’t think there’s a chance for us? I go with trying to find out how she was bitten instead.

  “So, tell me what happened when you saw the black flesh.”

  “The black flesh, that’s an interesting way of putting it.” Leaning her head back on the wall, she closes her eyes. “We were in Ms. Lewis’s English class. I was nodding off, and a gunshot brought me back to reality.”

  I nod, encouraging her to continue.

  “Some strange looking guy came in and grabbed her, dragging her to the ground. Once he sunk his teeth into her neck, blood went everywhere. It was so violent and just… horrific.” She shivers, keeping her eyes closed as if she is reliving the moment. “Then someone shot him in the head, came into the classroom, and shot her in the head. I watched it explode because I sit near the front.”

  “That’s tough.” I feel my leg start to tingle, and when I finally get the nerve to look down, I see the wound has spread even more. Feelings of doom and thoughts of dying are coming back to me. Changing the subject seems like a good plan.

  “You know my sister, Melanie, she’s in your grade.” Melanie was out sick today, thank zombie for that. Have I started to think in zombie terms already?

  “Finn, I used to come over to your house when I was younger. Melanie has gotten too popular to hang out with me now.” She looks down at her feet sadly.

  “Cecelia?” No wonder she knew my name; I saw her every day when she and Melanie were best friends. I have to learn to be more observant. “Why did you change your name? I like Cecelia.”

  “People just started calling me Sissy,” she says as she shrugs. “I can’t believe this is happening… a zombie apocalypse. I am really worried about my family.” I’m not going to tell her I’m sure it’ll be fine and that there’s nothing to worry about because I have no clue if that’s the truth.

  “I’m still going to call you Cecelia.” She smiles, and we have a nice moment in the middle of Hell.

  I hear the groans of recently dead people as they pass, and we look at each other. I know she thinks they are coming for us, but they aren’t.

  “You know, I never even got to kiss a boy.” She looks at me sadly and appears almost hopeful. Normally, I would be happy to oblige a pretty girl her first kiss at the end of the world, but this pretty girl has half her lip hanging off and a huge black wound above it.

  “Does that not hurt?” I am doing it. I am addressing the black-lipped elephant in the closet.

  “What? Does what hurt?” Great, she doesn’t know. Here goes all the peace.

  “Cecelia, I don’t want to alarm you, but you have a huge bite on your face, and some of it is missing.” I wait for the scream. It comes, but she flees the closet, throwing the desks out of the way while doing it as she rushes for the door. I guess her fear of zombies was taken over by her vanity. I follow behind her slowly, watching her dash into the ladies’ room. Her scream ricochets off the lockers because it is so loud. How the hell could she not feel that? Was she in denial?

  I sit in the hall and listen to her swearing about someone saying he slapped her awake, not that he bit her while she slept. Not understanding any of it, I doze a little. I’m not sure how much time is passing as I fade in and out of consciousness. I dream of my family being eaten… not a cool feeling.

  When I wake, it is dark again. I can tell by looking through the windows on of the double exit doors where there is no sun shining through. at the end of the hall . I don’t hear any crying from the bathroom, so I assume Cecelia has finally passed out.

  I sense something coming down the hallway. I don’t know what it is, but I know it’s delicious, whatever that means. I stand from the ground as my stomach rumbles for the first time in two days. My mouth waters as I move toward it. I sense it is afraid, and that it is running. Why not chase it?

  Catching it isn’t hard. It’s hurt, but it hasn’t been bitten by one of us. I latch my teeth onto her neck before I realize what I’m doing. It’s one of my classmates, but I rip a hunk out of her neck because I need to feed. What the hell is wrong with me? Cecelia yells and runs at me.

  “Finn, stop! Stop eating her!” I am horrified as I drop the poor girl on the floor. I can feel her blood run down the sides of my face.

  “I’m sorry, Cecilia. I don’t know what came over me.” Cecilia doesn’t answer. She plunges her face lays into the stomach of the girl even though the girl is still alive. I realize there’s no hope for either of us.

  ZOMBIFIED

  By

  LYRA MCKEN

  GRIMIORE PRESS

  Great Minds Think Aloud

  Prologue

  "You know, it just makes me mad that the news thinks we aren't people too," I said to Neil.

  Of course, my words were spoken in what we Zombies affectionately call “Slopar,” so he did not understand me. To him, it sounded like lots of moaning and noises, but I continued anyway, as I determined what part of the leg was the meatiest. I normally don't like the drumstick of a man, but I was feeling particularly hungry today.

  In the days before I was completely transformed, I had heard the news stories about us, saying we were monsters. They said lots of things but the ones that stood out to me now were soulless and evil.

  "We are people," I continued, as I sunk my teeth into his thigh, ripping off a piece, despite his protests. "Just because we are a little dead does not mean we are any different than you, Neil. Can I call you Neil?"

  I was talking through mouthfuls of him. When he didn't respond, I continued to snack away on what I assumed, by the build, to be an athletic thigh.

  “Are you a runner, Neil? You taste like a runner.” Happy with my choice of dinner, I continued my rant and made myself comfortable on the cement of the parking lot where we had stopped.r />
  "Like, how they say that we lumber about in groups with no order, and that is just not true. We actually lumber around with our friends. The lady right over there, with only half of her arm, is my favorite person to walk slowly through an abandoned town with."

  I was fairly certain that Neil was almost dead. The color had drained from his face and the blood had stopped spewing from the artery in his leg. In case he could still hear me, I continued to ramble. "There are exceptions. There is this one guy who has to walk in the back of the mob because he drags his leg behind him and it slows us down. We dated in middle school. I tolerate him, but his breath always smelled like cheese and he called me ‘tart.’ I hated both of those things."

  I nudged Neil at my joke, but instead of laughing, he fell over. I debated staying there while I waited to see if he would become zombified, as well. Since my body did not move fast anymore, I figured it could happen before I made it across the parking lot, so I began my slow march toward my friend, Rose. She seemed to be enjoying herself, as I could see her happily eating the brains of a young blond lady.

  As I passed by a car window, I caught a glimpse of my slow moving form and stared for a minute. "Zombie life does absolutely nothing for my complexion," I yelled, over my shoulder to Neil, as I took in a gray face with sunken in eyes.

  Continuing on my path to Rose, I tried to push my appearance from my decaying mind. I wondered if it was just my imagination that I could hear parts of me rotting. I remembered my mother always telling me to take care of my body.

  “Your body is your temple, Cassie.” She would correct my posture by jerking my shoulders back. “You should make sure you treat it as such.”

  “If only my mother could see me now.” I was still talking to Neil, as my progress had not taken me out of his earshot. “She would really be proud of her baby girl.”