Hell Hath No Fury

by TW Brown

“Daddy! Run! It’s Peter! He’s a zombie!” Her father had grasped Annie by the arms, then caught sight of his best pistol, being held tightly by the muzzle in Annie’s right hand.

  “Now, honey, I taught you better than that. You need to show a gun the respect it deserves when you’re holding it. Here, like this.” He’d swiftly taken the gun and folded it against his chest as if he were nuzzling a soft kitten.

  “Dad. It’s Peter. He’s a zombie. Momma’s…well …Momma’s gone.”

  “Momma’s what?” Annie’s father had looked up, and then his gaze shifted to the blood-soaked, undead figure that was shuffling towards them. “Is that Peter?”

  “Daddy, run!” Annie had tried to tug on her father’s arm to prompt him to move, but he’d shaken her off. He’d slowly lifted the .38 caliber Ruger, carefully taking aim at his precious daughter’s zombie boyfriend. “Daddy, no! It’s still Peter!” She’d punched his right arm as hard as she could, throwing off her father’s aim as Peter approached. Her father had put a neat hole in the shingling that covered the side of their ranch house. Peter had grabbed her father by the shoulders and bit into his face with a solid crunching noise. Annie heard her father’s last screams as she’d sprinted to the barn.

  When she’d initially escaped to the barn, it was to find a good hiding place to outwait Peter. But she’d quickly realized, as she crept through the metal bars that kept the cows in place while they were milked, that what she had here was a tool she could use. A Grade-A zombie cage, in fact. She’d gone into the barn office and found some heavy leg irons, ones her father and his herdsman had used to hold the cows in place when the vet would come to inspect the herd. She knew she had two advantages on her side—she was faster than Peter, and she could fit between the tapered bars of the milking chute. All she needed to do was lure him into the narrow, barred partition, get a few leg clamps on him, and she would have herself one angry, but neutralized, zombie.

  Annie glanced over at Peter now as she milked. He was still facing the wall, moaning softly.

  “Peter? You okay?” He glanced at her over his shoulder and moaned again.

  Sometimes, Peter would react to her questions, or gaze at her with hunger in his eyes, and this was how Annie knew the man she loved was still inside the shell of this undead ghoul. His flesh was decaying, his hair was rotting out of his scalp, but deep down, he was still her Peter. She flashed him a bright smile and finished up her milking. She would worry about his depression later—right now, she had to feed the cows and the pigs.

  As Annie went about her routine, carrying bales of hay out to the trough, she wished she had company. After trapping Peter, she’d wandered back to where her father lay, and chopped off his head with the axe she’d found in the barn. It had been hard, nasty work, and she had cringed with every blow. Then she’d dragged her father’s torso out to the lagoon, where the cow’s waste collected, and waded in. Knee deep in cow manure, she’d allowed her father’s body to sink, slowly disappearing beneath the muck. Then she’d gone back for his head. Daddy’s eyes had popped open at the last second, and his mouth had opened in a grimace, right as Annie had launched his head into the lagoon…where it landed with a plop before sinking into the manure pit.

  Annie could not allow herself to cry. To her, crying would be like giving in. She couldn’t lose hope yet. Her parents were gone, killed by her brain-chomping, decaying boyfriend, but her heart kept telling her that one day Peter would be cured and they could put this terrible time behind them, living happily ever after. She had to believe this was true.

  Annie made her way back to the house. It was lunch time; she made herself a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato soup. She turned on the television to catch the twelve o’clock news. There were riots on the streets of New York City, and Times Square was being overrun by zombies. The National Guard had been called in, and the camera panned out to several young men in full riot gear taking aim at the shambling zombies. Heads exploded on the screen as the camera zoomed in on the crowd. The newscaster, a young brunette woman in a black suit and too much makeup, looked flustered. Annie noticed that the microphone in the woman’s hand was shaking slightly as she turned the show back over to the anchors in the newsroom.

  Annie missed the company of other living people, but there didn’t seem to be anyone left on their rural country road. She’d thought about going into town to see what was happening and who was left, but Annie was scared. The television broadcast images of putrefying zombies lumbering through the streets of towns all across the country; Annie herself had seen more of the undead than survivors just looking out the window. Two or three reanimated corpses would drag themselves down the road each day.

  The closest neighbor, Annie’s old high school French teacher, had wandered past about a week ago. Annie had adored Madame Bestow, and had almost called out to her when she saw the familiar figure walk by with her wiry, gray hair tightly wound in a bun and wearing a cardigan, skirt, and sensible flats, but Annie had hesitated. Madame’s bun seemed straggly; a few wisps of hair were out of place and flying wild. Her skirt was ripped on the side, and her leg had what appeared to be a large, festering wound gashed into her calf. Something was not quite right with Madame Bestow. Annie had put her hand to her mouth, afraid to move or make a noise. Madame had shuffled along past the house, towards town, and Annie had breathed a sigh of relief once she was out of sight.

  Annie didn’t have high hopes that she would find many living people left. She turned her mind to the task of cheering Peter up. Maybe a fieldtrip outside of the cage was in order.

  There was a major downside to this, Annie knew. To solve the problem of getting Peter out of the barn without his attacking her, she could only think of one solution. She was going to have to put a cold steel ring through his nose, much like a farmer leads a bull. There seemed to be no other way, and Annie dreaded the task of installing the ring itself. She’d found a ring in the barn office, as well as a hook to help lead him around, but nothing to help numb the pain. She had debated trying to puncture his nose with a holepunch to get the thick ring in, but decided that was too cruel. She was going to have to restrain him and push the ring through, just like she’d done to herself when she’d pierced her own ears. She still remembered how much that had hurt. She shuddered to think how Peter would react.

  She decided to go back out to the barn and visit with him, to see how he felt about the idea. Annie strongly believed that sometimes, with his series of grunts and moans, Peter was desperately trying to communicate with her. She would see how he felt about her idea.

  Peter was sitting cross-legged on the cement floor, rocking slowly back and forth. Annie’s eyes welled with tears to see him reduced to such a state. Blood crusted his filthy, grimy clothes, and maggots squirmed in a hole in his cheek that was widening by the day. He was falling apart, and Annie could do nothing to stop it.

  She struggled to remember the gentle young man who had traced soft patterns in her arm, caressing her as they spoke of their dream jobs, the type of home they’d like to live in (they both agreed that an in-ground pool would be heavenly,) even possible names for their future children. Her heart skipped a beat as she remembered his touch. She was so—well, let’s face it, Annie, she thought, you’re so horny it hurts.

  She swallowed hard and let out a short bark of a laugh at herself. Peter looked up at her and attempted to smile. Annie thought it was a smile, anyway. The flesh around his lips had rotted away, so it was more of a gaping maw through which his teeth and gums loomed large. Annie’s heart soared at the sight of it, though. He recognizes me, she thought. He remembers that he loves me.

  “Peter? Honey? How are you doing?” Peter continued to stare at her, blinking, and she continued. “How would you feel about going outside? Get some sun, maybe?”

  Peter unfolded his legs and stood up quickly; his speed alarmed Annie. She hadn’t thought he could move so fast. She supposed, though, with the proper motivation, even the lumbering undead could show flashes o
f speed. Like chickens, who mostly walked and pecked at the ground, but took flight in bursts of flurried feathers when alarmed. She continued on.

  “Here’s the thing, though, honey. I don’t know that you won’t try to eat me as soon as I let you out, so, ahh, I have to take steps.” Peter tilted his head slightly. A long line of spittle stretched down off of his chin, reaching towards the ground. “I’d like to…well…I’d like to give you a nose ring. How do you feel about that?”

  Peter blinked again, but gave no indication that he understood. He wasn’t grunting or groaning, though, which Annie took as a good sign. She held up the ring. The cold steel circle looked black in the dim light of the barn, and Peter’s eyes shifted to the loop in her hand. His forehead creased, but he didn’t turn away. Annie moved closer and started unhurriedly pulling tighter on the chains that attached to the clamps on his arms and legs.

  “I just have to make sure you’re restrained, darling,” she prattled on, tightening his binds. “I’ve seen some bulls go crazy during this procedure, and that’s even after the vet shoots their nose with Novocain. I know it will hurt,” she said, as Peter began to tug back, resisting the constricting of his chains. “But it will all be worth it in the end, right?”

  Peter was stretched tight now, his arms and legs fanned out in an “X” with his back against the steel bars. He wailed at his predicament, struggling to pull free. Annie slipped between the bars and gently touched his face.

  “I love you, sweetheart,” she whispered, and unclamped the ring.

  Annie struggled to stab the ring through the soft flesh of his septum, and Peter howled in pain and rage as she pushed. The ring was making a deeper puncture wound than she realized, and she was having a hard time getting it to poke through the skin. Peter began to yelp—loud, agony-filled wails—and Annie squared her shoulders and tried again. This time, the ring broke through the sensitive tissue, and she was able to clamp it shut.

  She was breathing heavily, and she realized she had been clenching her teeth tightly. She stretched out her jaw, opening her mouth wide, hearing it crack near her ears.

  “That was tougher than I thought it would be,” she laughed, looking at Peter.

  He had his eyes squeezed shut tight. His yelps had been reduced to a low keening, and for a moment, Annie felt guilty. She had just mangled him, after all. Dead or undead, it had to have hurt.

  “We’ll go out in a little while,” she murmured in his ear, before squeezing through the bars to loosen his chains. “In the mean time, I’ll bring you a nice pig.”

  Peter tore in to the pig’s brain with less enthusiasm than normal, Annie noted. There were tracks in the grime on his face, and she realized that he had been crying. She hated to see him like this, but she was at a loss for what else to do. It was all for his own good. She decided to wait a couple of days before bringing him outside, to let his nose heal a little bit.

  When Peter finished cleaning out the pig’s brain from its cranial cavity, he leaned back against the wall, giving the boar’s corpse a little kick. He closed his eyes. Annie could see his eyes moving back and forth beneath his lids.

  She leaned in to tug at the pig’s hoof, trying to maneuver the corpse down to the other end of the chute where she could pull it out of Peter’s cage and pile it with the other animal bodies just outside of the barn door. She’d used a sort of winch that she’d crafted with ropes and a hook to move the cows’ corpses once Peter had fed on them, but she’d been unable to pull them very far, even with the winch.

  The smell of the dead animals was unbearable, and Annie invariably vomited every day when she had to move a fresh body to the pile. She had taken to swiping Vick’s Vapo-Rub under her nose before this task, but the nauseating stench still permeated her sensibilities. It was her least favorite part of the day, and she tried to get it over with as quickly as possible.

  Annie had to open a metal gate to pull the corpse through, and Peter often made a stab at escaping when he heard her rattle the chain to unlock it. She kept her father’s pistol tucked in to the waistband of her shorts, and had had to fire more than one warning shot in Peter’s general direction over the past month. Today, however, he made no move to escape, and Annie figured his nose was probably still throbbing. She cleaned up the pig remains, hosed Peter’s cell down, and closed the barn door. Another beautiful day spent in the company of the zombie she loved.

  Peter seemed excited when Annie pulled out the hook a few days later, and she was encouraged that he recognized that the gaff meant that he was going outside. If he could still reason out this association, she figured, then he was still Peter-the-man, not all Peter- the-cannibalistic-monster. He winced as she hooked his nose ring through the bar, but waited patiently, moaning faintly from the back of his throat as she unhooked the clamps that held his neck, arms, and legs.

  Slowly, she led him outside, through the barn door. Peter walked with timid steps, and he held up his arm when the sunlight hit his face, moaning. Annie giggled. For the first time in a long time, Peter seemed happy.

  She led him out to the meadow next to the barn. She’d been worried about ticks, and sprayed herself with Deep Woods Off—she certainly didn’t want to deal with Lyme disease again, not after the summer she’d been having—but decided that Peter would probably be okay. His skin was a mottled, grey color, with blackish-purple sores sprinkled across his arms and legs, and she figured the ticks would probably leave him alone.

  She watched him, heart soaring, as Peter’s mouth widened. A barn cat had joined them in the field, and was rubbing against the tattered remains of Peter’s Levis. He grunted, seeming to delight in the feline’s attentions. Peter leaned over and scooped the cat up into his festering claws. He sank his teeth into the cat’s muzzle with one quick chomp.

  Annie gave a sharp tug at the nose ring with the gaff, and watched in horror as the ring pulled through the rotting flesh of his nose, falling off the end of the hook onto the grass with a plunk. Peter continued to gnaw on the cat’s head, sucking brains out through the holes where the cat’s eyes had been a moment before. Annie let out a shriek in spite of herself, and Peter looked at her, raising his eyebrows. He spotted the ring on the ground, and this time—Annie was sure—he was smiling, a wide, toothy, hideous grin. She pulled the pistol out of her waistband, flipped off the safety, and took aim.

  “Peter,” she sighed. “I don’t want to do this, honey. Please just go back in the barn quietly, and we can get back to our normal routine.”

  Peter straightened up, dropping the corpse and brushing cat hair off of his threadbare jeans. He continued to smile, and took a hesitant step towards her.

  “Please don’t,” Annie begged. “I don’t want to hurt you. I love you so much; please don’t make me blow your head off.”

  “Ahh-naaaa,” Peter groaned.

  Annie let the gun fall to her side, stunned.

  “Did you…did you just say my name?” she whispered.

  “Ahh-naa!” Peter repeated, edging closer, holding out his arms towards her. “Ahh-naa!” He stopped, cocked his head, and winked.

  Tears started to stream down Annie’s face as she stepped in to his arms. Peter was back; he still loved her, and everything was going to be okay. Her soulmate had returned to her, and…ugh. She recoiled a little in spite of herself. The smell of rotting flesh was repulsive, and her stomach lurched. She struggled to pull away, but Peter held on to her tighter as she squirmed.

  Annie started to scream, shrieking in a high-pitched, guttural wail at the top of her lungs. The last sound she heard was the cracking of her skull as Peter bit down to feed.

  Jennifer Allis Provost is a native New Englander who lives in a sprawling colonial along with her beautiful and precocious twins, a dog, two birds, three cats, and a wonderful husband who never forgets to buy ice cream. As a child, she read anything and everything she could get her hands on, including a set of encyclopedias, but fantasy was always her favorite. She spends her days drinking vast amounts of co
ffee, arguing with her computer, and avoiding any and all domestic behavior.

  True love never dies…especially in a world overrun by ravenous zombies! Zombie Love Song paints a terrifying picture of a nightmarish future where a totalitarian government actively performs cruel scientific experiments upon a poverty-stricken populace and undead “mutes” roam the landscape searching for a way to quench their insatiable hunger.

  Filled with dystopian social metaphors, ghoulish zombie imagery, frantic plot twists, and just the right amount of carnage, Zombie Love Song transports the reader on a thrilling journey that reveals how the apocalypse can somehow be less terrifying than the prospect of being without someone you love.

  Will our desperate heroine be reunited with her lost love before the “mutes” devour what’s left of humanity one bite at a time?

  Zombie Love Song

  By Jennifer Allis Provost

  I ran onto the porch and slammed the door; luckily, it was wood, not a flimsy screen. Still, it wouldn’t hold for long, not against what I was running from. I started to drag a wicker loveseat in front of the door, but stopped halfway. Not only did the door open out, the mutes could easily vault over the loveseat and grab me. Their prey.

  I flopped down on the cracked plastic cushions and released a cloud of all the dust that ever was. I hacked and sputtered until I could breathe and my vision cleared, only to come face to face with one of the monsters I was trying to evade. I shrieked as I fired my crossbow and dove behind the loveseat in one smooth movement, just barely covering my head as the remains of the creature splattered cold and wet across my back and neck.

  The first thing I noticed was the lack of smell; mutes had a rank odor about them that made a trash pit seem like a lovely place to lay your head, and the stench only intensified once they were dead. Cautiously, I lowered my arms and looked around, and then I noticed the splooge that covered me was orange. Pumpkin orange.