Tales of the Zombie Apocalypse (Issue #3 | October 2015)

by Anthony, Michael

  The Death Priest either didn't see the cross, or didn't care as he ran into it at full tilt in his desperate rush to taste Jessica's torn and bloodied flesh. Instead of getting a meal the Death Priest ended up with the top of a massive crucifix lodged in his bloated gut. She hadn't killed it but it had driven the cross so far into its stomach that it was scraping its spine. It sputtered and wailed at her with disgusting deathly shrieks as its stinking intestines slowly spilled onto the spotless marble floor, making sickening, moist sounds as they landed. It groaned, slobbered and moved its disproportionately small arms in vain. The Death Priest was fully immobilized, impaled on the bloodied symbol of his living religion.

  Jessica scoured the mausoleum for a means of escape and was rewarded when she found a small window in the bathroom, just big enough to fit her slim teenaged girl's frame. There was a small garden outside the window with a forgotten spade left leaning on the side of the building. Jessica grabbed it hurriedly; it was the best weapon she had at this point, crude as it was.

  "I need to get to Donny's place, fast!" Jessica thought in a blind panic. "I have to warn him, and his mom and little sisters before they end up like these... things."

  Donny's place was about a five minute walk from the mausoleum, which doesn't seem like much until you factor in the hordes of blood thirsty zombies crowding the streets and graveyard. Clutching her spade like a thrusting spear, she set off into the darkened graveyard at a jog, terrified but determined to get to her boyfriend and his kind family in time to warn them.

  Zombies lurched at her from all directions, but Jessica, a star athlete in her high school, was able to disarm or drive them off swinging the spade around her like a battle staff. The metal tip glinted in the moon light as it bit deep into one zombie's skull. She used it to knock another to the ground, and severed its neck with a vicious downward thrust of the blood coveted spade. She felt its spine crack satisfyingly right at the neck and did not look back, jogging towards Donny's house with a grim determination.

  To her luck and surprise Jessica didn't see a single zombie on the short stretch between the edge of the grave yard and Donny's little suburban bungalow. Tossing her gore coated spade aside on the driveway with a clatter she leapt up the front steps two at a time and thrust the front door open.

  "Donny! Donny baby, where are you?" She shouted desperately, running towards his bedroom in the basement. The door was wide open so she rushed in, but she saw no sign of Donny. The now all too familiar stench of decay filled her nostrils. Overwhelmed, Jessica bent over and vomited onto Donny's ivory white carpet.

  "What the hell is that?" Jessica said out loud. She turned around to go back upstairs and quickly found out. Donny was standing behind her, only it wasn't Donny. He had no visible wounds, but stunk like carrion and his eyes were too pale, deathly orbs instead of the beautiful sky blue they had once been. Jessica would have screamed if zombie Donny hadn't just seized her roughly by the throat and began to squeeze mercilessly. As her vision started to dim the last thing that Jessica Wells saw during her mortal life was the face of her lover, his barren, soulless smoke eyes fixated blankly on hers as he squeezed the last breath of life out of her body.

  “Maria and Tomas”

  Story #4

  By

  Garret R.

  Thud. Maria grunted, struggling as hard as she could to hold off the creature that was clawing its way desperately towards her. With a sharp kick from her booted foot, she knocked the beast off balance enough to catch her breath and look around for something to use against it. Lucky for her, this particular dead guy seemed especially slow and stupid – but that wasn't much of a comfort while still trying to keep it off of her.

  Scanning the ground nearby she found a large stick at the base of a tree. She gave the monster another sharp kick to the chest and lunged towards the stick, fumbling to get it between her and the threat as fast as possible. She managed to raise it, arms outstretched, just in time to feel the hot and rancid breath of her assailant on her face, mere inches from certain death.

  Maria glanced over to the base of the oak nearby. No signs of movement. Good. The zombie took advantage of her moment of distraction to try to slip under her makeshift barrier, but at the last second she managed to slam the rotting corpse away by lodging her feet against its chest and shoving it away with all of her might.

  As it landed several feet away, a dull wet crack could be heard and the creature collapsed, one leg broken off entirely at the knee. Seizing the opportunity, Maria scrambled around until she found a sizeable stone on the ground and sprinted toward the disabled fiend. Holding it down as well as she can with her arm, and tears streaming from her eyes, she slammed the edge of the rock as hard as she could into its skull.

  One hit. Two wet thuds.

  Maria breathed a sigh of relief as the zombie's form went limp, but continued to hold it down for another few minutes. After the creature showed no sign of movement or life, she slowly got up and backed away, keeping her eyes trained on the beast. Several tense moments later, she decided that it was actually dead and her heart rate returned to normal.

  From the base of the oak, a tinny cry rang out and Maria rushed over. From between two large roots, she pulled out a young child.

  “Tomas, Tomas, todo está bién mi Tomas, todo está bién mi pequeño” ("Tomas, Tomas, everything is ok Tomas, everything is all right my little one") she whispered quickly to the child, tutting quietly and trying to hush his cries. She looked around with wide eyes, continuing to shush the child and squeeze him against her slight frame.

  “Callá niño” ("Hush, child.") she whispered in a sharper tone, and the cries diminished to whimpers, and finally silence. Maria gave him a smile and placed him carefully into a sling across her chest. Between the sounds of fighting and the child’s distress, she was sure that something in the area must have heard them. It was time to get moving.

  Keeping her breath quiet and reflexes tense, she began to trek through the now lengthening shadows of the woods. The only sounds in the forest the crackling of leaves beneath her feet, which she cursed despite their softness, she worked to calm her racing thoughts and focus on their survival.

  Two more miles until she would reach her goal, a small tree-house by a pond that she and her brother used to play in years before everything went to hell. There were only two more miles of treacherous backwoods to go, once familiar, now terrifying. Two miles potentially full of roaming monsters that she might not have as much luck with as this one.

  Gritting her teeth, Maria silenced her fearful thoughts and focused on the task at hand: moving as quickly and quietly as possible and avoiding dangerous roots and rocks that might trip her up or even injure her. As the light faded, every sound became the next potential attack and she wove well out of her way to avoid anything that might well be just an innocent forest creature but could spell their death.

  Maria knew that any sounds she made had the potential to draw unwanted attention, but sacrificed some security to keep a steady pace. She knew that the night would bring infinitely more risk.

  Minutes went by with no indication of nearby zombies, and she fell into a rhythm. She felt Tomas’ heartbeat slow to the gentle pulse of a sleeping child and allowed herself a smile. The going would be easier with him asleep, and he would be much less likely to begin crying again.

  The ground became more and more difficult to discern, and Maria allowed herself a small light from the screen of her cell phone to guide the way. At the slightest crack or rustle around her she immediately hid the light, but with it she could travel much faster. She looked at the last sliver of sunlight as it fell behind the horizon and cursed the distance. A mile left to go in near total darkness.

  For her own peace of mind more than anything else, she found another sharp rock on the ground and gripped it tightly. She was determined that none of the walking dead would take her or her child without a fight. She pressed on in a tense silence.

  After another half mile she hear
d a crack and a low moan several yards away. She immediately cast around for a large tree, a bush, anything to hide behind and avoid another fight. The undergrowth was sparse but she managed to find a tree with one low hanging branch, which she pulled herself onto with a grunt and hiss of effort. Climbing a couple of branches higher, she lodged herself against the trunk and looked around with wide eyes for the source of the sound.

  The noises continued for a time but Maria was unable to spot the source, until out of the corner of her eye she saw him round a trunk about three yards from the base of her tree. A small gasp escaped her lips but she quickly silenced it and pressed her body as close to the tree as possible. She looked down to Tomas, still peaceful in the sling across her chest, and muttered a silent prayer. She tried to slow her breathing in an effort to not wake the child – a cry then would definitely draw the zombie’s attention.

  The creature's foot landed heavily on a fallen branch, snapping it in two with an earsplitting crack. Irritated by the noise, Tomas’ eyes began to flicker open and he began to whimper. Maria desperately stroked his head and hushed him but wasn't able to stop him from waking up.

  “Mírame Tomas, mírame y calla chiquito” ("Look at me, Tomas. Look at me and hush, my little boy." she whispered as quietly as she could, keeping her eyes trained on the dead man who didn't seem to have heard them.

  Tomas, sensing Maria’s tension, craned his neck around and caught sight of the corpse. He immediately began to whimper and then cry loudly, ignoring Maria’s frantic attempts to calm him.

  The thing's neck snapped to attention, and it began warily and hungrily scanning its surroundings for the source of the noise. Maria clamped her hand over Tomas’ mouth, finally getting through to him that silence was the best option. As Tomas’ cries become subdued whimpers, Maria carefully adjusted herself and threw the rock that she had been holding onto as far as she can in the direction she had come from originally.

  The rock crashed some twenty yards away into a pile of other rocks, causing a chain reaction and cascade of sound. The zombie immediately redirected his attention in that direction and stumbled off in pursuit of the noise, much to Maria’s relief. She watched as it reached the rocks and after a close inspection continued to sprint in the same direction.

  Keeping a close eye and ear out for the creature turning back, Maria slowly lowered herself down through the branches, shushing Tomas all the way down. When she got to the lowest branch, she paused and scanned around. No movement. Almost complete silence. Maria eased herself down on the branch and, after a moment’s hesitation, released her hold to fall and land as noiselessly as possible. Tomas had fallen asleep again.

  Only a mile left, she thought, hoping that she hadn’t gotten turned around in the dark and panic. She set off at a fast pace, less cautious now that her goal is so close. The darkness of the woods had grown so thick that she felt like she could hardly breathe, but she pressed on with only the thought of the tree-house and Tomas to keep her going.

  Just as exhaustion began to slow her stride, Maria stumbled across an old dirt path that she recognized as the one that she had used to follow to get to the tree-house with her brother. By memory she figured that she must have been only a few minutes away from her destination, and that realization rejuvenated her enough to break into a jog. The distance fell away beneath her feet and after a short time she reached the edge of a small pond and the tree-house came into view on the other side.

  The tree-house’s age definitely showed, but it still looked strong and stable. Suspended securely about fifteen feet up in the branches of an old but healthy oak, the structure had become overgrown with leaves, vines, and branches. The overgrowth seemed to almost camouflage it against the backdrop of the canopy, at least from a distance.

  Maria walked around the pond to come to the base of the tree-house’s ladder. She looked up to see that several of the steps had rotted or eroded away with the passage of time. That didn't worry her though; she was a strong climber, and the lack of steps would make it more difficult for any of the infected to reach the tree-house.

  Still wary of any sounds in the surrounding woods, Maria began to climb the tree. She made for the small wooden hatch at the top of the ladder that was the only entrance to the tree-house. Once she reached the top, she pushed against the hatch and managed to open it with a loud screech from the rusted hinges.

  The noise startled her, and she suddenly became tense. Maria slowly lifted herself into the tree-house, just her head at first, and took inventory of the space. Thankfully, the house was a one-room structure and she quickly concluded that it was not occupied. With a huff she pulled herself up through the hatch fully and eased it shut again. She took Tomas out of his sling and laid him down gently on a nearby chair.

  Relying on her cell phone for a light source, Maria looked around the room for anything that could be used as a weapon. First, she found an old armchair that she and her brother had painstakingly hauled into the house. She pushed it on top of the hatch with a grunt. No zombie would be able to surprise her, she was sure.

  Maria glanced over at Tomas again, whose chest rose and fell gently, and hazarded a gentle smile. They had made it. They’d be safe for at least the rest of the night. She looked at the armchair covering the hatch and decided that they are safe enough, and she was exhausted. She curled up on the floor beside Tomas’ chair and drifted into a fitful sleep.

  ---------------------------

  Tomas was crying. No, not crying – screaming at the top of his lungs. Maria awoke with a start to see that Tomas was no longer on the chair beside her. She immediately panicked and jumped up, frantically looking for her son. She followed the sound of his cries and spotted the bloody and rotting back of a zombie in the corner of the tree-house.

  “TOMAS!” she screamed. She grabbed the chair that she had left him sleeping on the night before and sprinted across the room. As soon as she got to it, she began beating the creature across the back with a savage frenzy, all strategy and caution thrown to the wind in her rage and panic. The zombie had turned its head in curiosity at the sound of her first scream, but was taken by surprise by her speed and subsequent ferocity. It fought to retaliate but made little headway against her beating, being pushed back against the wall.

  Finally the monster ceased to move, its skull entirely bashed in by the legs of Maria’s improvised weapon. She continued her assault though, until the creature’s face resembled little more than pulp. Her attacks slowed and eventually came to an end, and she noticed a pervading silence in the tree-house. Tomas’ cries had stopped.

  Maria rushed over to where she had originally seen the creature crouching and saw that a part of the floor had collapsed at some point, and she hadn’t noticed it in the dark of their arrival. Tomas was lying by the hole. The monster had grabbed the boy and his body was mangled almost beyond all recognition. The bites were centered on his midsection, with sections of intestines and organs hanging out. Maria choked back tears and tried to scream from a throat too raw to produce any sound.

  The only untouched portion of Tomas’ body was his face, gone pale from the blood loss, and his now flickering eyes losing what was left of their light.

  Through her tears, Maria saw a herd of the zombies at the base of the tree, watching her and waiting for what she would do. In a fit of reckless rage, she descended from the tree-house and screamed profanities at the monsters, filled only with rage and grief for her lost child. She didn't care anymore what happened to her, everything was lost the moment she let her son die. How could she have been so stupid, and how could the world have been so cruel as to take such a small and innocent thing out of it?

  Once her voice gave out, she threw herself at the creatures, clawing and punching with a savage and futile ferocity. At first the monsters seemed taken aback by her fierce attack, but they quickly recovered and began to retaliate. Maria screamed a raspy breath of pain and terror, as the first bite sunk into her upper arm. She jerked that arm away from the zom
bie, tearing off a chunk of her own flesh.

  After the first, the bites and claws were impossible to distinguish. All of Maria's existence became the white hot heat of pain and flesh being rent from her bones. As the last of her consciousness drifted away into the abyss, as a single thought consumed all of her thought:

  "Lo siento, Tomas!" (I'm sorry, Tomas!)

  “Haunted with Hell”

  Story #5

  By

  Jackson Hewlett

  Part 1: Death has no meaning

  The dead corpse lay on the pavement in front of Greg, rain beating down on it. The blood that ran from the open wound at the throat mixed with rainwater and flowed down an overtaxed gutter in a sucking sound. The body was contorted, as if it had been tossed to the side like garbage, laying face first on the ground with an arm twisted out and to the side; a gruesome reminder of an undead place. For whatever reason, someone, or something, had ripped the throat from this dead man and left him to bleed out all over the filthy pavement. Its sides had started to bloat out and rot.

  Greg turned away from the decomposing body, the rain pouring off his face. Tasting blood, he spit onto the pavement. He clutched his blood-stained machete against his chest as hard, as he could as if it would do any good. Concealed behind the corner of the building, he could hear the moaning of the zombie on the other side.

  He only had to wait a second and then it was there: Rain poured down what was left of its face, matting black hair to forehead of what had once been an office worker. The lower half of the cadaver's head was a sludge of gnarled flesh that had rotted away, but both rows of teeth were exposed. Matching ribs were displayed from a cavity in what was left of its chest. There was a giant shotgun blast to its shoulder where someone had attempted to destroy the monster, but to no avail.