Best New Zombie Tales (Vol. 2)

by Youers, Rio

  The bodies were pitifully light, skeletal, blistered skin flaking away, but they had walked out of Mexico alive. “We gotta get this shit in the chipper before lunchtime,” Bascomb said. “Stiffs’ll think it’s Thanksgiving.”

  “Your wife’ll be so happy,” Snopes said, “she might even let you get some.”

  “Fuck you, Mark. Least I got something to come home to…”

  They lifted one by the hands and feet, and were trying to sling it over on the tarp without spilling its innards, when Chet Bamberger came limping across the yard, with his chain and a chunk of drywall dragging behind him.

  “Oh fuck,” Snopes cried, and let go of the corpse’s feet.

  Bascomb let go a hair too late, and blundered into the piles of razor wire. He shrieked, “Eeeeyagh!” and jerked up, but the curling steel teeth snagged his uniform and flabby back and dragged him back into the thickest of it.

  Like all Ocotillo’s registered dead citizens, Chet wore a chain and a leather muzzle with a bike lock on the back, and only a tiny hole for eating. They were fed slurry and carrion from the chow wagon, but said supply had petered out as even the dead stopped coming down the road.

  Chet wasn’t wearing his muzzle.

  Snopes’s left hand went out to pull Bascomb free, while his right tried to draw his gun. Neither effort met with much success.

  Chet ignored them. He ambled over to the pile of bodies and squatted over one, lifted a neatly bisected hemisphere of a woman’s skull and slurped at it like a slice of cantaloupe. Snopes smashed Bamberger’s grill in when he put on the muzzle, so the slobbering hole he chewed his food with had no teeth in it.

  Somehow, this only made him more repulsive, more threatening. His crumbling gray hide was pocked with burns and brands and carved words. A Camel Filter butt jutted out of his left ear, and his right ear was melted off. With no TV and no Indian casinos down the road, Connie had been forced to take up a new hobby, but nobody had filed a complaint, so who was he to judge?

  The jingling music of the approaching chow wagon echoed through the streets. “Music Box Dancer” today, thank God. Snopes didn’t know why, but if he heard “Do You Know The Way To San Jose” one more time, he was going to eat somebody’s brains.

  Chet’s eyes were pointed at Snopes, but they were as vital as soft-boiled eggs, and was there any remorse in them, any horror, at what he’d become? Was there any spark of anything worth saving, in the rancid mayonnaise behind those dead eyes? Had there ever been?

  Snopes drew his gun and shot Chet Bamberger through the left eye, and then, because it wouldn’t close, through the right.

  The chow wagon pulled up in a cloud of dust. Something about the old ice cream truck always creeped Snopes out, even when it still sold ice cream. Now, with racks of chainsaws, baling hooks, flamethrowers, a wood-chipper in tow, and all the Rocket Pop and Dove Bar stickers slathered in sun-baked blood and a mist of ecstatic flies, the chow wagon only brought relief: somebody else to clean up the mess.

  “Murderer! Fucking murderer!” Fists drummed on Snopes’s back. They were ineffectual against his bulletproof vest, but knocked him off-balance when he tried to help Bascomb get free.

  Connie Bamberger kicked Snopes in the crotch. He tripped and fell on the body pile. His hand snagged in a body cavity and half a baby spilled down the back of his neck.

  “Murderer! Arrest him, Doug! I want justice!”

  * * *

  They grabbed him when he came into the courtroom. It was dark, but he recognized the deep-fried roadkill smell of Torres, who ran the Indian Skillet across the street, and Sturtevant’s livestock stink, McBride by the whiskey on his breath. Bascomb unsnapped his holster and took his gun.

  Connie Bamberger sobbed uncontrollably on the witness stand. Judge Dooling sat at the edge of the lamp glow with his hand on the revolver. “Now, Mrs. Bamberger has given her testimony, and her complaint has been reviewed.”

  “What is this shit?” Snopes shouted. “Get off me, it was self defense.”

  “Witnesses say otherwise. Mr. Bamberger was not aggressive, and the illegal aliens’ refuse was going to be processed for feed, in any event. You took a citizen’s life in cold blood, Deputy. You broke the law, and it is very clear.”

  “That’s not the real goddamned law! It’s not murder! Chet was already dead!” Snopes struggled in the arms of the other men, but Bascomb jabbed him in the back with his own gun. As his eyes adjusted to the light, he saw the gloomy courtroom was packed with people, half the surviving town gathered to watch.

  “All of us are equal before the law, Mark. I can’t sentence you to death, but you’ve shown that you cannot be trusted to wield force in our defense. We’ll have to ask for your badge.”

  Someone ripped it off his uniform. “Fine, take it and fuck you all.”

  “Excellent. And now, Doctor, tie off his arms.”

  Snopes bucked backwards, throwing Sturtevant into Torres, and driving Bascomb back into the door. His gun went off into the ceiling. Snopes jumped for the door, but Bascomb was quicker, and smashed him across the back of the head. The lamplight turned into a golden lava lamp glow as he collapsed on a plastic tarp.

  Dr. McBride was a veterinarian and a drunk, but he was Ocotillo’s only medical authority, so he tied Snopes off at the elbows and pumped him with a syringe that made the trippy light into a pointillist cloudscape.

  “Son, I’m sorry as hell,” McBride whispered in his ear. “We all know why you did it, but there’s gotta be law, and the law’s gotta be blind. My son, he’s dead, but he’s walking, so who’s to say he won’t get better? If we let you go on like you done––”

  Judge Dooling banged his gavel. “Don’t badger the prisoner, Walter. Deputy Bascomb, proceed.”

  Bascomb still bled from divots the razorwire gouged out of his neck, scalp and arms, but he did not hesitate to drag his partner’s right arm out across the floor and step on the wrist, heft the axe and slam it into the inside of Snopes’s elbow.

  From head to toe, he was bathed in lightning. Screaming blood and vomit and streaming tears––Snopes tried to fight, but he couldn’t even get the breath to scream for mercy when they tugged the other one away from his chest and chopped it off, as well.

  A little blood oozed out of the tourniquets, but Dr. McBride cauterized the stumps with a blowtorch and pronounced him sound.

  The gavel banged again.

  “Court is adjourned. Deputy, leave the defendant where he is. I’d like a word. No, touch nothing––”

  Snopes lay there, watching the silhouettes of the people he’d sworn to protect and serve file past the tarp. The sight of his severed arms, splayed out in front of him like spare parts from a model kit was very unsettling, but he couldn’t remember why until he reached out to touch them.

  He still couldn’t scream, but he found it very easy to cry.

  When the courtroom was empty, Judge Dooling rose from the bench, shuffled over to Snopes, and knelt beside him.

  “I know you think this is very cruel and unusual, Mark, but we all have to learn to submit to something bigger than ourselves.”

  Snopes’ response was garbled, even to himself.

  The judge sighed, touched his shoulder. “You think this is insane, but you are fortunate not to be able to understand. You probably won’t remember this, but I wish you would, so you could see how wrong you were, as time goes by, about the risen population of Ocotillo.

  “The dead are not wholly incapable of recovery, Mr. Snopes.”

  Dooling brought his face down closer to the deputy and picked up his severed left forearm. He stroked Snopes’s face with his own fingers, then took a bite out of the meaty belly of the exposed muscle, just above the clean cut at the elbow.

  “We are getting better,” His Honor said around a mouthful of flesh. “Order has been restored. We will rebuild our town, and it will be better than it ever was, with equal liberty and justice for all its citizens.”

  Snopes had all but blacked out.
His last clear memory was of the Judge: wiping his blood-slick lips, taking the scorched stumps of his arms in his hands, and licking them with his gray, ulcerated tongue, just like a stamp.

  But he heard him get up and call for Bascomb. “You’re free to go.”

  Dredging up the Dead

  J. W. SCHNARR

  October 25. Days at sea: 9

  Another accident on the tow today. The Frenchman we picked up in Halifax this time. Robert Denis (ROBE AIR if you ask him). Not paying attention, as usual. Honestly I don’t know why he spends so much time talking when he’s the only one on the crew who understands his accent. Anyway, he busted a couple of his fingers on the trawling line because he wasn’t watching where his hands were. I wonder how pissed he’ll be when he finds out. I’m putting him on gaff and knife for now, I guess…if he can hold a blade. Let him bleed cod for a few days. That’ll teach him to watch what he’s doing maybe. Jesus, we’re not equipped to handle this kind of stupidity.

  The sea was calm. We had a good haul today, low by-catch. I miss you Maggie.

  October 27. Days at sea: 11

  No trawl today. A storm came up last night, and we were in the middle of bad swells all day. Normally I’d make the boys work through it, but it was raining and the deck gets like a slide when the boat is rocking. Gotta be extra careful, with my ‘problem’ I can’t afford any injuries at all. There may be some hell to pay with Denis as it is, he complained loudly that he couldn’t even handle the knife yesterday, and the flopping cod tails were making things worse. If I’d known what a baby he was I would have left him in bloody Halifax.

  OH and to top it all off, somebody on the ship has been smoking pot. I can smell it in the cabin but nobody is confessing. I swear to Christ if one of them falls off the deck and drowns because they’re stoned, I won’t be held responsible. Idiots, in the finest sense of the word.

  The sea was choppy. No haul, so I’m heading north early. I miss you Maggie.

  October 28. Days at sea: 11

  Picked up something weird in the nets today. Two yellow barrels of ... something. We couldn’t tell what it was. They had Russian words all over them, and a poison symbol, so that’s a double strike in my book. Thing is, it was in the middle of a decent haul of cod. We dropped the net and these two barrels came clunking out of there. One of them had been ripped open by the trawling door. It was leaking black shit all over the fish. All over the trawl line too. Smelled like car exhaust a little. Probably nuclear waste. It had this really filmy texture like dish soap. If the Russians DID do a wholesale dump of some chemical shit around here, the entire area could be contaminated. Cod are like sponges when it comes to that stuff. I can’t come back to port with a hold full of contaminated fish. Not now.

  Fuckin’ dumpers. It’s like the old man always said: “The ocean is big enough to hide any man’s mistakes.”

  I ordered the boys to hose the deck, and we pitched the barrels back where we found em (after we got a sample, of course, I’m not a total bastard). I marked the spot we picked em up, and I relayed it to the coast guard. Not that they’re much use out here, but maybe they’ll send the Canadian Navy out to take a look at it. Either way, it’s their problem now, not mine.

  The sea was calm today. Good haul. Count two barrels as by-catch. I was thinking of your blue and white dress today Maggie, and the last time I saw you wear it. Church. Never had much use for God before that day.

  October 29. Days at sea: 12

  The hold is definitely contaminated.

  October 30. Days at sea: 13

  Okay, I’m writing this down because it’s just a little too fucked up for me to keep in my head. I can’t talk about it with the men because they’re already freaked out. Did we all touch that shit? I can’t remember now for sure. I know I did.

  The hold is definitely contaminated. We’re sitting on half a ton of gaffed and bled cod, and I’m probably going to have to dump the whole lot of it. Some of that Russian toxic waste got in there, and it ... caused a reaction when it came in contact with the fish. I don’t know how, but the haul we put in there yesterday is still alive the cargo has had their nervous systems affected by the substance from the drums. They dance and flop like they’re alive. We brought some out because at first we thought they were missed bleeds, and that can make your hold stink to high hell. They WERE bled though. I double-checked the cuts myself.

  Denis went off in mostly French about how we were all contaminated, and I swear I almost threw him off the ship. Last thing I need right now is some jackass going off half-cocked and freaking everyone out. I DID wash my hands again though, just to be sure.

  I sent this in to the Coast Guard. I told them I’m dumping my hold, too. We’ll do that the next two days and then flush it out with seawater. That’s five days work lost, but it’s a lot better than having my damn boat taken away for bringing in a hold full of toxic waste. They’re pissed, of course. They don’t want me dumping toxic waste either. Too damn bad.

  The sea was calm today. No trawl. I miss you Maggie. I miss simpler times.

  October 31. Days at sea: 14

  This is totally fucked. I got the Canadian Navy telling me to come home, and I got the Russian Navy telling me to meet up with a science ship they dispatched to try and figure out what the hell is in those canisters. I told them both they were contradicting each other, and now I’m being told to “stand by for further instructions.” In the meantime, we dumped our hold. The smell was unbelievable. And the fish ... if I didn’t see the bleed cuts and knew for a fact that some of those fish have been out of water for days, I might think differently about them. The fact is, they ARE ALIVE, to some extent. They actually swim in the water, though kind of lazy and half assed. Like they’re airsick maybe.

  It really unnerved the crew watching thousands of cod swimming like that in the water, away from the boat. Especially Robert Denis, who cut most of those fish himself. I was happy to see them go. There was a pod of sperm whales about a thousand feet off the bow when we made our dump. It didn’t concern me at the time, but now I’m thinking: what would happen if they got into those sick fish? Seems like an easy meal. If they’re smart, they’ll steer clear.

  I hope they’re that smart.

  The seas were calm today. No trawl (obviously). I’m thinking of the time when you and I went to Churchill for your sister’s wedding, and we ended up spending the weekend in the jet tub at the hotel. I miss you Maggie. God love you.

  November 1. Days at sea: 15

  I moved the boat. I know we weren’t supposed to, but those fuckin zombie fish (There! I finally said it! and I feel like an idiot now, thanks!) were lolling around still, swimming on their sides, or upside down. It’s like they have nowhere to go, so they just swim around the boat. Some got into the rudders, so when I started the engine I was chopping the hell out of them. Worse, they seem to not even notice the damage. I saw fish chopped in half with both sides trying to swim. I get the head, maybe, but the tail end? how is that possible?

  That pod of whales is still in the area, and that has me worried. There are a couple of bulls in that pack, must be thirty feet long. There’s nothing you can do to scare ’em off either. Looks like they’re taking me up on that easy meal.

  I hope they’re fine; Maggie I remember how much you loved whale watching from the bow of the ship. Denis was actually laughing and pretending to shoot them with a harpoon gun. I told him to get his shit together. It’s going to be no end of problems with that man, I know it now. I don’t care anymore if he drops an insurance claim on me or not. I don’t have any. Let him sue me.

  The hold is clean. We trawl tomorrow!

  I’m expecting word from the Russians soon. I hope they brought a translator.

  The seas were calm today. No trawl. Thinking of whale watching with you Maggie. I wish you could see this pod!

  November 2. Days at sea 16

  Two men are dead. Ray Stevens and John Kruthers. I’m not really sure what to write, but I need to write
something. Lately the act of writing in this book you gave me is the only thing that’s been stable in the world. I’m a little drunk, so I apologize for the melodrama. How selfish am I? Two men with families are dead today and all I can think about is how shitty my own life is. Well, John Kruther’s wife was always a bitch, but I am still hurting for her. Nobody deserves this. Hell, I don’t deserve this either.

  We were halfway through our second trawl when something got snagged in the trawling net. It was huge. It rocked the boat. Almost threw a rudder. I ordered a full stop, and we tried to raise the net. It’s not unheard of to get snagged on an underwater rock or even a wreck down there that the GPS missed. Hell, I figured that’s what it was. I was dead wrong.

  We cranked the hoists and started pulling this damn net out of the water, but it was really slow going. It was coming though, so I had hope that there wasn’t too much damage to the net. That’s all I would have needed, you know? Those things are expensive to replace.