by Samie Sands
Arnaldo Lopez feels that the writers that have influenced him the most are - in no particular order - Lawrence Sanders, Ernest Hemmingway, Robert E. Howard, Harry Turtledove, Isaac Asimov, Dean Koontz, James Patterson and Stephen King.
Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?
Rick Eddy
IN EXASPERATION, I threw the newspaper aside. It landed face up, headline announcing, “Research Proves Zombies Exist.” Well, it’s about time. But suddenly I was sick of this surplus of zombies, seemingly everywhere now, even on page one of the local rag. With hundreds of cable television networks available, zombies seemed to appear on every other one. Reams of paper regurgitated zombie tales in books, magazines, graphic novels, comics, and fanzines, which carried reviews and commentary about the latest multimedia zombie lore. Around the Halloween season, the situation was worse, with any and all permutations of zombie dominating every aspect of popular culture, including costumes, fright houses, haunted hayrides, and the common trick-or-treater. The phenomenon of “zombie” had become institutionalized. With their own origin stories, mythology, legends, and myriad of backstories attaching like encrusted barnacles, zombies—to coin a phrase—had a life of their own. Now mainstream science wanted to get in on the act and legitimize them, too. What’s being done about it? As if some of us didn’t already know.
There is both a particular and universal aspect to zombies, beginning with their name itself. The odd English word “zombie” derives specifically from the Caribbean French and Creole ‘zumbi,’ itself a corruption of a more obscure West African Bantu term. In modern parlance the word has come to encompass everything from the “White Zombie” of the 1930’s film featuring Bela Lugosi, to the hordes of the simply-named “walking dead” featured in the television series of that same name, even to a continuous cameo role as frozen undead warriors in the imaginary world of the “Game of Thrones” saga. Originally a zombie was the creation of a malevolent voodoo witch doctor, brought into being to do the necromancer’s bidding, and often used as a tool by which to seek revenge for its master. Today the zombie is a widely, and wildly, inclusive category that incorporates the gamut of the classic voodoo resuscitation, everyday corpses brought back to life by random viruses or mysterious cosmic rays, the progeny of a mad scientist or creation of a rogue surgeon, and even inexplicable postmortem revivals of other species, such as birds, bears, and sharks. The ubiquity of the zombie has become so tiresome and predictable that many people don’t seem to know any longer where the legend leaves off and the reality begins.
Since the daily newspaper is now declaiming that science may authenticate the zombie, it’s time to review all the evidence. Zombie reports in their Haitian homeland have never been exhaustively investigated, despite the efforts of some intrepid researchers who have managed to link sightings of so-called “soulless ones” with the expert application of will-sapping and mind-numbing drugs to living human subjects. Certainly, there is a detectable philosophical overlap between the reputed process of zombification and the age-old human quest for eternal life, as evidenced by the mummies of Egypt and Peru or the reincarnation cults of the Hindus or Rosicrucians. Even blind followers of any given demagogue or crackpot are said to have “drunk the Kool-Aid” and been turned into mindless automatons. A zombie might be a reanimated thing of the flesh, a thing of the spirit, or both.
However, the most famous reanimated corpse of all time, although seldom acknowledged as such, is an itinerant Palestinian preacher and wise man from the 1st century—known through the centuries and the world over to billions of souls as “Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ”—the original revenant, the firstborn of the undead. Though it may sound sacrilegious to call Christ a zombie, well, just consider the evidence that fits the pattern: crucified unto death on a cross, in the tomb for three days, then rising again to appear in bodily form, repeatedly, over time and in various ways, to his followers. What more zombie-like behavior could we cite? The Resurrected One and his minions are surely the number-one operators in the murky and indeterminate realm of the undead. But by their fruits, you shall know them.
The doorbell sounded with the buzzing of a hundred angry hornets. I lifted myself slowly off the chair, shunted the newspaper aside and shuffled to the door. Through the peephole, I spied two young men standing tall, clad in white button-down shirts and black ties, oozing sincerity and piously clasping black books under their arms. I opened the door slowly and smiled.
“Hello, sir, we are Jesus’s Testifiers. May we have a few minutes of your time to bring you a blessing today?”
“Of course,” I lied, and stood aside so they could enter.
Both wore beatific smiles as I showed them to two chairs and resumed my seat in the easy chair. They began their line of questioning with an obsequious politeness, asking if I had heard the word of the Lord yet, and had I been washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and when appearing before the Throne would I be able to testify—
Suddenly I jerked the revolver out from between the seat cushion and armrest of my chair. I pointed and squeezed the trigger at each young man in quick succession, bullets blasting ragged holes into each chest and a spray of gore out their backs. They collapsed to the floor before the echoes of the gunshots had ceased.
Hurriedly I trundled the first corpse onto a thick blanket, then dragged it by the heels slowly out of the living room, through the kitchen and out the connecting door to my garage. I returned to retrieve the second body, hauling it out in the same fashion, on another blanket that would absorb much of the mess. By the time the two were in place side by side, their eyelids had begun to flutter. So I reached for the ten-pound sledgehammer leaning nearby, raised the handle over my head in a two-handed grip, and brought it down forcefully on the head of the first body, crushing the skull and macerating the brain. I repeated this action on the second. The garage floor was strewn with a gelatinous pulp of gray and pink. There would be some cleaning up to do.
The bloodstains in the living room were stubborn and resisted my most intense scrubbing and applications of bleach. No matter. It would be a while before anyone would come looking in my direction regarding the random disappearances of a pair of door-to-door Bible thumpers. I had done the only right thing, under the circumstances. These undead sheep certainly do roam. They’re everywhere. Yes. You must see how I was certainly in the right.
Returning to the easy chair, I replaced the revolver in its hiding place in the crevice. I picked up the TV remote control and began clicking through the channels: Zombies, zombies, zombies. Wasn’t there anything else in the world anymore? Perhaps not. I tuned in a religious program on channel 473. It featured a preacher who propounded the love of the Good Shepherd for the sheep. The sheepfold needed to multiply, he inveighed. He promised that anyone calling in a generous gift to their worthy worldwide ministry would receive a personal home visit from their traveling evangelists. The toll-free number was displayed on the screen.
I reached for the phone.
Rick Eddy
RICK EDDY IS AN ORDAINED Lutheran minister with a background in mental health and human services. He has served variously as a pastor, prison counselor, foster care and child protective worker over several decades. Currently, he's working to translate some of his life experiences into poetry and short stories. Some of his influences are Universal and Hammer horror films, The Twilight Zone and The Book of Revelation. Although a native of Western New York, he has lived in several different regions of the US as well in Sweden and considers himself a citizen of the world.
Reanimation Lab
Sheri Velarde
THE FINAL FRONTIER for science is to prevent death itself, in particular, brain death as the brain is the only organ that cannot be transplanted and allow a body to retain their original personality. Once a brain is dead there is no bringing it back. Or is there? That is the premise of the Reanimation Lab, a place that can reawaken the truly dead. Those you love can be brought back to life by the power of science and stem cells. It was
a motto that Elizabeth knew by heart and believed in more than any other scientists that worked there.
Elizabeth went into this line of scientific study for a very personal reason, her mother lived in a vegetative state and had for decades. She had been pronounced brain dead after a car accident while Elizabeth was in college. That accident had changed the course of Elizabeth’s life. Numerous doctors had told her that her mother was gone, to just pull the plug and let go, then they both could be at peace. “No. She’s not gone. I will find a way to bring her back.” Elizabeth had sworn to herself and to everyone who tried to talk her into killing her mother.
Now all of her hard work and determination was about to pay off. She had found a way to regrow damaged brain tissue. Sure, her only successes thus far were a few rats, still, they had been completely brain dead and now were not only awake and aware but functioning well while still under observation in secluded cages. Soon it would be time to see how they dealt with being reintroduced to their society. Elizabeth knew that she should wait until all results had been gathered, but she had already waited too long. She wanted her mother and tonight would be the night she brought her back.
“Liz, we can’t do this. We’re breaking so many ethical laws, not to mention probably real laws that could get us arrested. We should wait until clinical trials on humans are approved.” Her friend and assistant Charles said even as he helped her prepare the samples that would be inserted into her mother’s damaged brain.
“No, my mother has been lying in a bed with machines breathing for her and tubes feeding her for far too long. Tonight we are going to give her life back.”
Yes, Elizabeth had broken some laws to get her mother’s body brought to her labs, but truthfully the nurse who had been taking care of her in a private facility seemed relieved that she would no longer have a job. It hurt to take care of someone in a coma that had no hope of waking up. However, it was that exact hope that her mom could wake up that had made Elizabeth the top neuro geneticist in the world. Deep down she knew that she should wait for the human trials to begin, but she couldn’t. After seeing her process work on rats, well she just knew that it would work on her mom. Soon she would have her mom, her best friend, her family back.
“Everything is ready.” Charles interrupted her thoughts.
“Good. Let’s get this over with. I’d rather apologize after my mother wakes up than explain what we’re doing and possibly be stopped. Besides, once I prove that this procedure works on human subjects no one will care that I broke a few rules.”
“I hope you’re right,” Charles said.
“Don’t worry, I’ll keep your name out of this if anything happens. We both know that I’m the one who could not only lose her reputation but her mother as well.”
“I know and that is the reason I agreed to help you, I just wish you would wait but I know I can’t talk you out of this.”
With that, they set to work. For the miracle that they were performing, the process itself was relatively simple. Her mother’s brain had been inactive for so long they hardly had to prepare her, most of her brain cells had already died off long ago. Now all they had to do was introduced specially treated stem cells near the brainstem and then watch them multiply. Her brain would regenerate, and she would wake up. Yes, something so simple had taken scientists decades to perfect, but it would change the world now that it had been, and her mom would be the first person brought back to “the land of the living”.
Two people performing brain surgery was unheard of, but she really only needed Charles to monitor anesthesia and hand her instruments. She would be able to implant the new material fairly easily in her mother’s depleted brain and then all there was to do was wait. The procedure went by without a hitch, though even Elizabeth was shocked at the state of her mother’s brain. Years of not being used and it had withered down to nothing. “That only means that the new cells will take hold that much sooner.” She said with confidence.
“Elizabeth, have you thought about what she might be like if she wakes up? With brain damage this severe, there is no knowing what will happen when the brain regenerates. She likely won’t retain any of her old personality, we have only seen rats wake up and eat. We have seen them resume basic life activities, we know nothing if the self is still intact when a patient wakes up.” Charles spoke her deepest fear, that her mother wouldn’t still be the mother she once knew.
“No, this will work. She may be confused, and she has over a decade of the world to catch up on, but she will be fine. I know it in my heart.”
Charles did not seem convinced but said nothing. However as soon as his mother was in recovery in a private room within the lab, good friend or not, Charles left as quickly as he could. No one else knew what they had done. She would take care of her mother herself for the next few days or weeks, staying at the labs herself and sneaking off whenever she could. She wanted to be the first face her mother saw when she woke up.
Weeks went by and her mother remained in a vegetative state. Elizabeth began to wonder if the procedure work on humans after all. Had her entire life’s work been futile?
Over a month after the procedure, Elizabeth sat by her mother’s bedside, thinking about pulling the plug on her mother’s life support for the first time ever. If she hadn’t woke up by now, maybe there was no bringing her back. It was then, at her lowest moment, that Elizabeth saw a flutter of movement from the bed. Her mother’s hand moved. She saw it, she couldn’t be imagining it.
Soon her mother’s breathing seemed stronger, with hope blossoming in her once more, Elizabeth removed the breathing tube and to her delight, her mother continued to breathe on her own. Laughing, Elizabeth called to her mother, “Mom? Can you hear me?”
Tears of joy slipped down her face as her mother’s eyes fluttered open. Blinking and unseeing after years of being unused. “Mom! It’s me, Elizabeth! There is so much that I need to tell you! So much!”
Gasps and grunts came from her mother’s mouth like she wanted to speak but couldn’t. “Don’t try to talk yet. It will take some time. But soon you will be strong and healthy once more.” Her mother stared towards her voice but made no sign of recognition. “It is just going to take some time,” Elizabeth said for herself more than her mother.
So, Elizabeth kept feeding her mother through a feeding tube but slowly started to get her to drink and eat on her own. Soon her mother could sit up but still couldn’t talk. Then one day she heard terrible sounds coming from her mother’s locked room. Elizabeth rushed to see what had happened to her mother, the rest of the lab still unaware of her mother’s presence. She threw the door open to see that her mother had ripped out the feeding tube as well as the other machines connected to her. Her mother stood near the door, shrieking at the pieces of the smashed mirror in front of her.
“Mom, it’s okay. Let’s get you back in bed.” Elizabeth walked towards her mom, trying to calm her down. She never saw the shard of glass in her mother’s hand until it had slashed through her throat. Elizabeth struggled to grab her mother, to somehow stop her, but before she could her mother had knocked her down and was lapping at the blood freely flowing from her artery.
Her mother got up and the last thing Elizabeth saw before darkness took her was, her mother, bloodied and still clutch the piece of mirror, running through the open door.
Sheri Velarde
SHERI VELARDE LIVES in New Mexico with her spouse and their dog.
Being an avid reader since an early age, she has wanted to be a writer for as long as she can remember. She has been writing all her life, but only recently started to actually try to pursue her dream of writing for a living. She specializes in all things paranormal and that go bump in the night. Her heart truly lies in exploring unknown worlds or adding the supernatural to our world. If it goes bump in the night or has magical connotations, Sheri writes about it.
She is constantly putting out new material with various publishers, so it is best to keep up with her on her website www.
authorsherivelarde.weebly.com.
During the day she works in accounting and in her spare time Sheri is an artist, independent comic writer/artist, and freelance non-fiction writer. She can often be found with her nose in a book or playing various games with her spouse and their friends. This includes D&D and Warhammer. Yep, Sheri is a nerd and proud of it.
Links:
Website/Blog: http://authorsherivelarde.weebly.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorSheriVelarde/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sher_V
Happily Ever Zombie
McKenzie Richardson
TAKING A RAVENOUS BITE of the grayish meat in my hand, a spark of euphoria runs through my shriveled veins. The warm blood soothes my sore mouth and I feel it drip down my parched throat. Some of it leaks out of the hole in my neck, but I am too hungry to care.
That’s the problem these days. I am always hungry.
I don’t remember much before the hunger. When I woke up, I was in a room all alone. A craving clawed at my stomach like a beast trying to escape. I wandered the room aimlessly, trying to find my way out, but my head felt like it was in a cloud.
At some point, I came across an opening in the wall and got an assist from gravity. I fell for what seemed like a long time, then landed hard, instantly snapping one of my brittle legs. I looked up at the tower I had fallen from. The pain in my legs was dulled by the hunger. I set out in search for food, one broken foot dragging after the other, my long hair snagging on branches littering the forest floor.
The first meat I found was good. But it was the second one that was the real treasure. That’s when I learned about the brains.