The Z Chronicles

by Ellen Campbell

  'The lights are somewhere on this wall.' There's a click, and the room floods with a dirty yellow haze that makes Little Shrew blink. Even as her pupils contract, she takes in the figures all around them. The straggling gait, the wild eyes.

  There are a lot of them.

  'Oh my fucking god,' Elie says.

  Little Shrew grabs her around the waist with a single beefy arm and bundles the pair of them through a door next to the lighting panel. Elie twists in her grip. 'No, that's a box room!'

  The door opens and closes again behind them, which to Little Shrew is all that matters just now. There's no lock, so she leans her weight against it. It's the best that she can do.

  Their new real estate consists of a dusty four-foot-by-four-foot cupboard with a tiny window up above their heads. They could probably reach it, but it's way too narrow even for Elie to climb through.

  The scratching begins at the door. To Little Shrew's ear, it sounds almost apologetic.

  Beneath her, Elie pulls an awkward smile. 'At least we have natural light.'

  * * *

  Elie starts singing again.

  'Can you stop with the singing?' Little Shrew has never asked for this before. Elie lapses into silence. Still the pair are locked together, mutual memories of happier times causing them to feel a closeness they cannot take from one another.

  'We're going to die in here,' Little Shrew says.

  'No, we're not.'

  'In case you haven't noticed, we're trapped.'

  'We'll find a way out,' Elie says. 'We're not trapped.'

  'We're stuck in here,' Little Shrew says, 'and they're out there. In what way are we not trapped?'

  Elie looks down and scrapes the toe of her shoe against the floor. 'We should be thinking about how we can get out, not wasting our time being pissy with one another.'

  Little Shrew is so angry that her fists become tight, fleshy balls. 'Seriously? You're going to call me pissy? Here, now?'

  Elie flinches. 'It's what you're being.'

  'Okay. Okay. So you want to see pissy. Fine. I'll show you pissy.'

  Elie visibly shrinks as Little Shrew tells her the truth — that she came over last night to kick Elie to the kerb. And yes, she knows how unlikely it sounds that she is choosing to dump someone who is blatantly out of her league, but why shouldn't she get a choice in the matter? She has agency, damn it. It's not as if she even asks for that much. Can't Elie just listen to her from time to time? Maybe take her side, just once? Would that be so hard? Why does she keep pushing Little Shrew to do things, like the running, that she clearly doesn't want to do? AND NO, SHE DOESN'T CARE THAT THE GODDAMN ZOMBIES CAN HEAR HER. If they're going to die anyway, Little Shrew isn't going till she's got this off her chest.

  'Why are you doing this?' Elie asks.

  'Doing what?'

  'Why are you trying to make me feel bad?'

  'Oh, I don't know, let me think. You drag me here at top speed, even though you know I can't keep up with you. You force me to take a weapon, even though I told you I didn't want one. You lead me straight into two hordes. You even club one to the ground in front of me and act like I should be grateful.'

  'I was just trying to protect you.'

  'Well, maybe I don't need your protection. Maybe I can do things for myself.'

  Elie pushes herself upright and takes a deep breath. She will not meet Little Shrew's eye. Finally, she says, 'We're gonna make it through that door. I swear. We'll find a way through if it kills us.'

  'That's a really crappy choice of words,' Little Shrew snaps.

  She is only sorry when she realises that Elie is crying.

  * * *

  The pair have been standing a long time in silence. Little Shrew is glad. She's long since run out of words.

  'The scratching has stopped,' Elie whispers.

  'Really.' Little Shrew is only really half-listening. She is staring out of the tiny box room window at the impossibly blue sky, watching a seagull as it trails lazily overhead. To have wings, she thinks. To fly away from this, leave it all behind.

  'You're not even listening.' Elie taps her foot. The sadness in her voice is something Little Shrew has never heard before, and it shakes her from her reverie.

  'I'm sorry,' she says.

  Just like that, Elie is in her determined place again. 'This is our chance. We're going out there.'

  'Right.'

  'Did you get a good look at the warehouse?' Pouting, Elie describes what she saw before Little Shrew bundled her through the door. The shamblers were mostly on one side of the room — the side with the exit that they're heading for. In the centre of the warehouse, there is a large stack of crates that forms a natural island in the space.

  'I'll head away from them, towards the door we came in by. Once they're all following me, you go out to the left. Head for the bay doors — the military cordon we saw earlier is just beyond. I'll double back round the crates in the middle, and catch you up.'

  Little Shrew can see, clear as day, that this is a suicide mission. 'You'll never make it.'

  'Watch me.' Elie pushes her aside and steps through the doorway. Little Shrew watches in amazement as she tags the arms of the nearest shamblers, causing them to stagger into others. The horde looks up as one, sees her; pursues. In seconds, as promised, Little Shrew's way is open.

  She should run, but she can't. Her legs are lead, her chest on fire. And she is sitting on the bleachers, watching in agony as Elie's graceful strides carry her forward. Elie is elite; she will succeed where others would fail.

  Little Shrew remembers what she told herself at the track meet the year before. Elie is just a girl. But she is so, so much more than that, and Little Shrew knows it.

  Elie gets clear of the crowd, rounds the crates and turns back on herself, exactly as planned. But there is a yelp. It's that ankle. Little Shrew would have rested it, but Elie carried on running, because owning up to pain of any kind was just too hard for her to do.

  In slow motion, Little Shrew watches as Elie's leg gives way underneath her. She watches the girl fall and land heavily. Dozens of the hissing denizens descend upon her, pinning her down.

  Little Shrew knows that she's calling Elie's name, but she can't hear her own voice.

  * * *

  She reaches for the wall to hold herself up. A tear rolls down her cheek.

  'I'm sorry at the way things have turned out,' Elie says. 'I'd hoped this would go differently. You must know that.'

  Little Shrew can't reply. Everything hurts too much, and she leans her head against the hollow wooden door. The surface is cool to the touch, and maybe cool is enough.

  'No,' Elie says. 'C'mon now. Get up.'

  'Why should I? I don't deserve to get out of here.'

  Elie wrinkles her nose, reminding Little Shrew of the exact face that Elie's mother pulled when she met her. 'Self-pity isn't an attractive trait.'

  By now, Little Shrew is a sobbing, wretched mess. 'I don't care.'

  Elie might have been small, but her heart was huge. You could have poured the world inside and never filled her up.

  'I just did what I had to do,' Elie said.

  'You didn't have to do that. We would have found a way.'

  Elie's eyes were dull. 'No, we wouldn't. You said that yourself.'

  'I didn't mean it! Why did you have to pick today of all days to listen to me?'

  The celebratory roaring from the creatures in the room next door sickens Little Shrew to her stomach and beyond. Elie pulls her around and stares into her eyes, the way that she did the first time that they kissed.

  'Little Shrew, listen to me. You need to focus. There's still time, but the window is closing. You know the way.'

  'I don't.'

  'Out of here, turn to the left, run to the bay doors. The cordon is just ahead. But you're going to have to move like lightning.'

  Little Shrew feels the strength return to her legs and pushes herself upright. She knows that she can't look back without breaking t
he spell.

  'There's something I have to tell you,' she says.

  For a moment, Elie's voice breaks. 'Do we have to do this now?'

  'When I said earlier that I was going to break up with you, I was just going to do it. Like you tear off a plaster quickly so the pain is there and then it's gone, you know? I was just going to say what I had to say and go. But when I got there, you were funny and you were kind, and it was like old times, like the arguments had never happened. So I couldn't go through with it. I knew it had to be done...but you were always so good. Too good for me. You were just...you, and I couldn't go through with it.'

  Elie is upon her then, her tiny arms snaking around Little Shrew's hips and shoulders. Little Shrew's eyes are closed, but tears are still streaming down her cheeks. The touch is so real, so undeniable, that she can almost fool herself that the arms are not her own.

  Just a girl. A girl who did a brave thing.

  'And now you've gone and sacrificed your life for me,' Little Shrew says, 'and I can never forgive you for that.'

  Elie's last smile is thin and sad, like sunshine in a lonely place. 'You should probably go,' she whispers.

  A moment later, the track stretches out before Little Shrew. It may as well be a thousand miles long. As she runs, she can feel the other competitors behind her, clawing at her, trying to drag her down.

  Her vision narrows as the horde descends. She hits the bay doors with all her weight and keeps going. Her heart is beating in her ears. She can feel a hundred eyes upon her as she stretches towards the finish line.

  And then, it's over, and Elie's hand is on her shoulder.

  'You did it, Little Shrew!'

  Just a girl, running.

  A Word from Kris Holt

  We all have a plan, those of us who love George Romero and Resident Evil. We all keep a sword under our bed, or a chainsaw in our garage. We know the quickest way to the mall, and we practise our stealthy moves when no-one else around is watching. We know where we'll get food, water and gasoline, and where we'll stay until society gets back on its feet.

  We know the zombies are coming.

  Lovecraft was arguably the first to raise the dead in Herbert West – Reanimator. Richard Matheson's I Am Legend raised the bar. What followed was inevitable. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies saw walking corpses in the world of Jane Austen. By the time that Warm Bodies became a movie, we were literally falling in love with the Living Dead.

  So what’s left to still fascinate us, to fire our imaginations when another wall of flesh crashes off our barricades? We may have explored every possible facet of the creatures themselves, but we’ll never stop wondering how we’ll cope on the day the dead rise – our friends, our family, our loved ones. Which of us will fall? Which of us will thrive?

  “Girl, Running” is about just that – two ordinary girls who run, because that’s all that’s left for them to do. They’re our friends, our family, our loved ones, and they’re the ones we’ll look to when the world crashes down.

  For more about my work, please my my website (www.4thousandwords.blogspot.com) or catch me on Twitter (@KrisHolt1).

  The Sin Eater

  by Stacy Ericson

  HEAT FROM A LONG AFTERNOON hung in the air and the cottonwood branches carved the simmering light into tight beams sliding through the trees. Dark sedans already lined the street. The girl fixed her eyes on the plate of deviled eggs she carried. Their concentric circles created gentle humps under the white dishcloth.

  Near the picket gate she placed her feet carefully, taking care not to catch the spiked heel of her pumps in the broken places where the pavement heaved, fractured by tree roots in the previous century. She blew gently on a piece of drifting cottonwood fluff before it could settle on the pristine towel.

  A gentleman unlatched the gate for his wife and the girl knew well enough to step back, allowing the couple to pass first. Despite the heat of the day, his wife wore a black sateen jacket and the girl could see pebbles of sweat rising beneath the powder on her face. A swift passage of lilac and then the woman stopped to shoot a sharp glance at her husband, still holding the gate. He didn’t look at his wife, but nodded to the girl and waited for her to pass be-fore carefully latching the gate behind her.

  Inside, guests already crowded both front rooms. A mahogany coffin squatted in the bay windows of the library. The girl snaked between murmuring couples, moving toward the kitchen where she could lay her burden down.

  “Why, honey, you brought those lovely deviled eggs? Why look at you in that pretty little dress. Bless your heart, I remember your mama wearing that very dress. She always did love a flower pattern.” The Widow’s sister dug thin fingers into her arm, pressing the girl toward a sideboard already laden with specialties from every kitchen in the township. An enormous arrangement of white carnations loomed over celadon green punch, criss-crossed pies, and cut-glass pickle dishes.

  “Let me take that for you, child.” Someone removed the plate from her hands, one neighbor plucking the cloth from the platter as if it were flyspecked and not bleached to an almost transparent veil.

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” the girl said.

  “Who would have guessed.” The Widow’s sister leaned in, her city accent hard and clear. “Everyone says he was in his prime. Cut down like that, his heart giving out, and right there on Main Street. Sister’s just beside herself. I can’t imagine what she’ll do now. This house is just too much for her.” She wedged the platter of deviled eggs between a macaroni mold and a pinkly gelatinous beet ring.

  “Your mama was famous for these,” said the sister, and plucked up an egg, leaving a gap in the circling pattern. The girl shifted the platter slightly to the right to hide a chip in the porcelain.

  “What’s your secret?” The other women leaned in.

  The girl glanced toward the kitchen, trapped by a wall of matrons in navy and black. “My secret?” She ran damp hands down the front of her dress. “You can’t keep a secret in a town this small.”

  “Isn’t that the truth. But your Mama sure kept to herself, didn’t she?” For a moment no one said anything, the silence as empty as Main Street on Sunday morning. Then the sister spoke again, “I don’t think she ever told a soul what she used to devil those eggs. That little bite at the end? What is it? Cayenne?”

  The girl closed her eyes, seeing suits and trouser legs. “Well, there is a little Cayenne.”

  “But you are just not telling, are you? Something else? That secret ingredient… I can’t put my finger on it.” The sister slid her tongue along the side of the glistening egg white, then turned to the others, “Can ya’ll figure it out?”

  “Surely, I can,” one neighbor said, taking a judicious sample. “After all, there’s only one store in town, and I doubt her Mama went all the way into Newtonburg, just for one secret ingredient.” The women looked at each other as their friend chewed and swallowed. They looked at the egg as if it were their sworn enemy. At last it was decided. “Chili sauce, I’d stake my reputation on it. Heinz Chili Sauce.”

  The Widow approached and conversation stopped as she asked, “Can someone get me a drink?” Everyone moved at once. In seconds a punch glass appeared. The Widow looked at the girl. She blinked slowly, waved the punch glass aside. “Lime sherbet won't do right now,” she said. A little island of pale foam slid dangerously close to the edge of the glass. “Too sticky.”

  An old woman came out of the kitchen. She carried a bottle of beer and the mourners parted before her.

  “Why you don’t want that, Sister. That beer is warm. Honey, if you want a beer let me get you a cold one…” The city accent hung harsh in the silent room. The Widow stepped toward the girl and there was silence.

  The old woman stood in the kitchen door and waited until all eyes were on her, then spoke into the silence. “Neither in the streets nor in the meadows will he walk again, nor in his own hall,” she said and handed the beer bottle to one of the men.

  Each man passed
the brown bottle to another, who passed it on.

  The girl cleared her throat. She coughed. For a moment it seemed that she might be choking. “Dry mustard,” she said. “The secret ingredient. A pinch of dry mustard changes everything.”

  The Widow picked up a napkin and a tiny plate. “So that’s the family secret is it? Something you and your Mama shared.” she said. “I always wondered.” She looked at the iridescent plate in her hand. “This china, I forgot how delicate it is. See?”

  She held one small plate up. “You know these plates, I forget how delicate they are. See, they're like little shells. It’s a wonder they never get broken at these funerals. But they don’t. They never seem to break no matter how many times we use them. Sure enough they just…they just show up at the next one.”

  In the silence the mourners watched as the Widow chose food from the side-board. Corn bread, a chunk of salt ham, one cherry tomato, one slice of canned pineapple.

  “Have you paid your respects?” the Widow said to the girl, holding the beer bottle now in one hand and the little plate in the other.

  The Widow and the girl passed easily through the crowd. They walked from the dining room, through the entry and into the library without touching another soul.

  The girl clasped her hands before her, but she raised her head. As she passed the stair, she smiled at the little boys on the second step. The blonde one smiled back and waggled his fingers at her as if they had just met outside the library.

  They stopped by the coffin. The satin was the same pearly color as the dead man’s face. He wore his blue suit, a new tie tied up tight beneath his chin, but no one had replaced that one missing button and its tiny thread curled up in a question mark at the bottom of his vest, where the jacket parted just above his belt. She thought of it, that one dark button, tucked away in the powder box on her dresser at home. The shirt she had not seen before. Pale blue. Forget-me-not blue, they called it this year. His hands were no longer so large, but tucked in at his sides, as if they had never been his.