Hell Hath No Fury...

by Elsa Carruthers

  She eyed him, biting back a rebuttal. “Sir, please. I am sure that this isn’t a matter of...terrorism. If it was, someone would probably have died by now. Since they’re after you—”

  It was the wrong thing to say and she knew it. She’d grown to understand this man’s problems with the truth, standing across the desk from him every day for a week while the crowd grew outside. But instead of stammering out some sort of cover for the slip, she lifted her chin even as she saw him cringe. “Sir, please listen. I know you would like to be out of this situation. I have already suggested leaving. This is the only publicly published address where members of the public know they can visit you in person, even if they don’t actually... complete...that visit. This is also the only place in town that they show up.”

  He seemed to recover slightly; his eyes stopped darting to and fro and fixed on her. “...go on.”

  “Yes, sir.” She tried to ignore the growing taps, screeches and thumps against the glass, but there was a shake at the bottom of her voice. “Two months ago, a rash of suicides started among former aid recipients after your cuts went into effect.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “I’m getting to that.” She stepped out of the heels altogether, making him blink in confusion as she appeared to shrink several inches. “A week ago, news reports of missing corpses started coming in. Most of them from graveyards or the John Doe section of hospital or police morgues. They included several of the suicide victims. That crowd outside started gathering the same day. The press broadcast and printed pictures of some of their faces. And then their family members started calling in.”

  He had a blank look in his eyes as he stared back at her, as if he simply couldn’t process the words that were coming out of her mouth. “So you’re saying that the protesters outside, the ones pretending to be dead people, are relatives of these unstable losers who offed themselves a few months back? What is this? Their revenge on me?”

  She answered with silence, simply staring back at him as if waiting for his own words to sink in. As they did, she drew breath, and watched him shakily reach for the humidor again before speaking. “No. I said that the people outside are the suicide victims.”

  His hand fumbled with the heavy humidor, knocked it over, then spilled the cigars out as he tried to right it. She walked over shoeless to help him with it, mostly on instinct. Behind them, something pawed at the glass like a family dog left out in the rain. She didn’t realize that he had stopped at her words and now glared down at her dead-eyed.

  “So...these...crazies are dressed up to look like specific dead people instead of general ones. Wahoo. They must have scared up a make-up artist or something to help with that. You’re not telling me that the public—that you—people actually believe their bullshit?” A tiny, toneless yip of a laugh escaped him. “You really buy that these protesters are the walking dead?”

  Knock-knock-knock...knock...

  He snatched one of the cigars out of her hand and she backed off at a glimpse of his expression. “Well, I don’t. This is crap. And since you know so goddamn much, can you at least explain to me how the crowd keeps growing if we have men on the problem?”

  “The corpses stop moving when we forcibly contain them. They then end up down at the police morgue...and they keep walking back out. Sometimes they even have company—fresh bodies...my cousin’s a dispatcher and she—well, she heard the screams down there two nights ago—”

  His eerie silence made her look up warily, and she stared into his blank eyes and backed off another foot.

  “There are no dead people outside of my office,” he growled insistently.

  “But, sir...we’ve been cleaning up bits of corpses for days...they’re real. That’s why the smell. I can show you the forensic reports—”

  He went rigid, fists balled at his sides and the fresh cigar crumbling to aromatic fragments in his grip. “There. Are no. Dead people. Outside my office. Stop feeding me that media-hysteric bullshit right now before—”

  Wham! Someone bigger and stronger than the others was now slamming both fists on the outside of the glass, making it vibrate violently. Wham! Wham! Growls of frustration intercut the chorus of soft groans.

  “Goddammit!” Papers flew as he swept his arm across the desk; she flinched backward, nearly landing on her ass as her swollen feet caught on the carpet. “This can’t be happening! This is just a hoax! Why the hell am I the only one who can see that? The dead don’t just get out of their graves and come to visit! It’s just not possible!”

  “But, sir—”

  Snap.

  Both of them turned to look as the insistent pounding started to edge with the noise of cracking glass. The doubled panes rattled in their frames, the outer layer sounding less and less stable. “What...no,” the big man mumbled, backing away and putting the desk between himself and the window. She snatched up the shoes before he could stumble on them and made sure, almost unconsciously, that he didn’t get between her and the single door. “Where the hell is the National Guard? Didn’t I just call them? Didn’t I—”

  Bam. Bam. Bam-crack-tinkle.

  “Yes, sir, you did. Five minutes ago. That’s not even enough time for them assemble troops.”

  “But I need them here now! These fucking things are breaking in—”

  “Then leave, you stupid—”

  He rounded on her, but she had had it at last and actually took a step toward him. “They aren’t blocking the doors. They aren’t trying to get in any other way. They are trying to get to you, but they’re slow as crap and don’t seem to react to things very quickly either. The National Guard will be here as soon as they can, but if you don’t want these things breaking in to get to you, all you have to do is go away!”

  “Bitch!” he roared, towering over her while her muscles tensed in a flight-or-fight debate. “What the hell do you know? I’m the governor of this state! I won’t be driven out by a bunch of sign-waving psychos! I shouldn’t have to put up with this shit! Now you get the National Guard on the phone and you make them come! You make them come now!” He wasn’t aware that he was chasing her toward the door, and didn’t stop ranting long enough to notice—until a blue stiletto-heel pump smacked him between the eyes.

  He skidded to a stop; they stood staring at each other in outraged shock.

  “Fuck this job.” Her eyes brimmed over, and she shook her head convulsively. “They’re only here because you’re here. If you go away, none of us will have to deal with them!”

  “This is my office!” he tried the roar again, and saw her raise her arm with the remaining shoe; he flinched slightly, and stammered on. “The-they’re the ones who should go away.”

  She had her other hand firmly on the doorknob. “Yeah. Well, I’m afraid reality just doesn’t work the way you want it to all the time. Unlike you, I have to walk through the mess outside. I don’t get to come in from your private underground garage and then sit here all day with your air conditioning and your stash of booze and your god-damned cigars. I actually have to see them, and you know what I saw? They’re all carrying documents. Official looking things. Government mail. Application forms. More. I made another cross-check when some of the names were published. Every last one of them has written you repeated letters in the last year about the situation that led to their deaths. Every goddamned one.” Her chin trembled, and her voice with it; she swallowed, and tears dropped from her eyes. “Those people have a grievance with you, and it was strong enough to get them back out of their graves.”

  She stabbed a finger at the wall of glass, which was shaking so hard that the curtains started to tremble. Cracks and shattering sounds intensified as more and more sets of mushy hands pounded on the windows. “They won’t go until they get in and make you deal with them. The rest of us shouldn’t have to suffer because you finally pissed someone off that you can’t get rid of! Just go away!”

  The whole time she raged at him, he stood there staring at her
, the reddish mark from her thrown shoe slowly fading as his expression shone with abject confusion. It was as if she had suddenly started speaking to him in Aramaic; she realized that not a single actual word she had said had registered. Instead, he seemed shocked at her tone...at her talking back to him.

  “Are you suggesting that I abdicate?” he asked slowly.

  She forced herself to calm, though deep breaths were out of the question. “No. I’m suggesting that you start holding all your meetings off-site until the dead out there—”

  “They’re not walking dead!” He was purpling again, veins in his neck standing out above his collar and his eyes going wild. “There is no such fucking thing as walking dead—stop saying that—I told you to stop saying that!”

  She raised the other shoe and he backed off slightly. “You know what? I told you what you need to do to deal with this situation. You can either take off, or you can go have an audience with a whole lot of badly aggrieved dead people.”

  His voice rose to a bellow. “There’s no such thing—”

  She didn’t realize he was reaching for her until his hand clamped on her shoulder and he missed the other. He tried to shake her one-handed and she smacked him hard on the inside of the elbow with the heel of her ankle-breaker. “Back off, or I swear I’ll press charges!”

  Grip broken, he blinked at her with a dumb-hurt look. “But—but I told you not to—”

  Crash!

  A man-shaped figure tumbled against the heavy curtain, spilling shards of glass and wood onto the carpet beneath. It flopped to its knees, one rotted arm flailing into view. It held a sheaf of papers...photographs of gathered children and a copy of an eviction notice. It moaned, and then pushed into the room, shoulder, then head, its blind-looking eyes gleaming faintly.

  The big man shrieked and shoved her aside, pushing open the door and lunging out of it with such force that he shoulder-checked her against the door frame and knocked her off her feet. He skidded on the linoleum flooring and then broke into a run, pounding away as fast as his Italian leather loafers would take him.

  She landed heavily, arms splayed. Fresh tears jolted out of her eyes on impact, and blood spilled onto her tongue where she’d bitten the inside of her cheek. But even as she was breathing off the shock, she looked up and around—at the two security cameras pointed at the doorway—and smiled in bitter satisfaction. She drank with half the security team, and knew they watched the camera feeds. It would be easy to get them to dub off copies of today’s video records for her to show to her lawyer.

  The governor was still screaming his way down the hall; she heard his voice echo as he made his way to the far exit. Like everywhere else in the building, it was clear; she had escaped down to the far end herself several times during the week, struggling for sanity as the noises at the window had grown more and more insistent. But of course, he had always called her back after a few minutes, barely long enough for a cry or a pee or a quick smoke break. In that time, she’d learned to think fast in the midst of all this craziness.

  In the office, the figure on the floor had risen and dragged itself across the makeshift threshold fully; it was followed by a few others, shuffling slowly and looking around in obvious confusion. This was their target’s office, but where was their target?

  She got up slowly, eyes locked on the figures. The mournful sounds coming from their rotting lips intensified as they moved one by one into the room, only to wander here and there, bumping into the walls and trophy cases. Sometimes, one of them would drop a bit of paper from the sheafs they all carried; though they were oblivious to the furniture they knocked over, each dropped photo or document was noted and picked up with ginger care.

  The smell sickened her, but the sound of the governor’s male-menopause Maserati engine roaring him away to safety was what really made her stomach churn. It took all the nerve she had, but she squared her shoulders and stepped back into the infested office, out of the view of the security cameras.

  None of them seemed to notice her. That was always the way; it was how she had managed when the crowd had gotten big enough to overrun the small parking lot adjacent to the lawn. She hadn’t had the easiest time nudging and beeping the creatures out of the way whenever she pulled her car out of the lot, but none of them had caused her any trouble, either. And why would they? They weren’t after her. They never had been.

  She watched the dead old woman looking around, face full of childlike confusion, like someone’s great-grandmother lost in a new rest home. A thin wail escaped her, and she flapped her paper-filled hands distraughtly.

  The aide crossed to the desk and scooped up a handful of the governor’s cards. There were no security cameras inside his office, probably for the same reason that he’d had her dress “sexy” every damned day since promoting her up from the clerical section. Snatching up the gold pen, she opened the governor’s date book, and copied a set of addresses onto the back of a few cards, breathing shallowly through her mouth. Around her, the cries of despair began to quiet. The man with the bullet hole through his cheek shuffled toward her, pausing a few feet away, and blinked slowly. She swallowed back bile and fear, and held out one of the cards to him.

  ***

  So that hot little bitch had been right after all; just getting away from the office really did the trick for him. No more weird noises or faces outside his windows, or awful, awful smells. Just the cleanness of the air was delicious to him. Yet, even so, it was very late before the governor could rest easy. Relaxing cost him hours—hours, and pills, and a fifth, and the thousand-dollar attentions of Candy, a curly-haired blonde who dozed now with her back to his bank of bedroom windows. But finally he drowsed, eyes hooding lower and lower as he stared over her shoulder at the moonlit glory of his broad, tree-lined back lawn.

  A faint stench reached his nostrils; he wrinkled his nose, trying to ignore it. Beside him, Candy mmphed and wiggled slightly under the coverlet. “Is it garbage night?” she mumbled sleepily.

  “No, my trashcans are on the other...side.” He let out a sigh, then slid out of bed, toes searching for his slippers in the dark. “Probably a skunk or something. I’ll hit the back lights. Scare it off.”

  “You’re the best, babe.” She started to roll over toward the window to reach for her bag, but stopped when he spoke.

  “Don’t smoke in my bed.” He walked over to the wall controls for the backyard lights, a yawn closing his eyes briefly. He almost missed the dark shape shuffling toward one of the windows.

  He froze in mid-step, sucking air, and then turned reluctantly for a second look.

  The figure, still obscured in the deep shadows that ran from the edge of the trees to under his eaves, limped slowly but determinedly towards the window. Its head wobbled slightly on its shoulders, and one arm seemed...shorter...than the other.

  Heart pounding, he yanked the drapes closed on all four windows, then stood there panting, sudden ice-sweat dripping off his chest and shoulders.

  “What is it?” Candy sat up, peering over her shoulder at him worriedly.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” he mumbled as he headed for his liquor cabinet.

  Tap.

  E.J. Tett is the author of fantasy novel The Kingdom of Malinas, and co-author of horror anthology Casting Shadows. She has appeared in Aphelion, The Horror Zine, Everyday Weirdness and Short-Story.Me. She lives in Somerset, England with her family. Mostly, she dreams of zombies. You can find out more about E.J. Tett at http://emmy-j.blogspot.com/

  Jaywalkers are a thorn in the side of all drivers at the best of times. And zombie jaywalkers? Theworst.

  Welcome to life in E.J. Tett’s Snowcombe –a name shared both by her riveting page-turner, and a hill on which zombies are sequestered for the sake of keeping nearby towns populated by people with heartbeats. But soon after a car accident involving a jaywalking ghoul, an eclectic group of unlikely heroes are thrown together in a fight to save the lives of themselves and their fellow townsfolk. The zombies hav
e broken free, they’re getting stronger and worst of all – they’re still famished.

  So sit back and get comfortable, but not too comfortable…perhaps a seat near an exit would be for the best. After all, the zombies from Snowcombe have had a taste of freedom. Who knows where – and who – they’ll be sampling next?

  Snowcombe

  By Emma Tett

  Sam turned the dial on the radio, only glancing at the road every now and then. She huffed when she couldn’t pick up her usual station, wondering if it was the fault of her car radio or down to something else.

  The body standing in the middle of the road appeared from nowhere. By the time she saw it, it was too late, though she slammed on her brakes.

  There was a violent thud. The body rolled over the bonnet, hit and smashed the windscreen and then fell into the road. The car screeched to a halt, swerving to the side of the road, and Sam gripped the steering wheel tightly, her heart racing.

  She looked back. The body lay in the road all twisted and bloody. Was it a person or a...?

  “Zombie,” Sam said, when the body started to unfurl and get brokenly to its feet. It had been a man once, young, gangly. Now it was one of the undead.

  Sam was tempted to reverse over it, but she didn’t want it to get stuck under her wheels. She looked back at her windscreen and cursed.

  With a growl of annoyance, she took off her belt and got out of the car. The zombie was staggering slowly towards her, dragging its left leg.

  “Piss off,” she snapped at it.

  She took a quick look into the thick covering of trees to either side of the road to see if anything else was lurking there. Then she removed her coat, bundled it around her fist, and smashed out the car windscreen.

  The zombie held out its arms, reaching for her though it was still a distance away. Sam glared at it. She pulled the car door open, brushed glass from the driver’s seat and dashboard, then got back inside and closed the door.