Best New Zombie Tales Trilogy (Volume 1, 2 & 3)

by James Roy Daley

  He stood in line, pretending to count his pocket change as he waited to order.

  Jeff bought three cheese burgers, fries, an apple pie, and a Coke.

  Roy went for a fish sandwich and a fountain drink.

  Jimmy got a soda and a bowl of chili.

  They grabbed a booth at the back corner of the main dining room as a trio of teens vacated their seats to leave. Jimmy pulled the plastic top off the paper bowl of chili as Jeff and Roy sat down on the opposite side of the table.

  “I hear they got a new titty bar open’n up over by the air base,” Roy said, sipping his drink. “Seeing as you don’t got no current attachments, Jim, maybe you’d like to check it out sometime?”

  Jimmy had steeled himself to keep cool, to just act normal so the others wouldn’t get suspicious, but he suddenly found himself speechless as his thoughts focused on how to execute the plan.

  “Damnit, Roy,” Jeff answered for him. “Can’t you see the kid’s just had his heart ripped in two?”

  Roy shrugged as he bit into his sandwich. “Just thought seeing some skin might cheer him up, is all.”

  Jeff’s bushy mustache twitched under his nose. “You ever think about anything else?”

  Roy paused his chewing for a moment then shook his head ‘no’.

  Jimmy reached into his pocket as the two men exchanged looks, splitting the bag’s seal with his hand. He had to force a neutral expression as his living fingers found the dead one. Then, with the finger cupped in his hand, he picked up the packet of Saltines that had come with his order and tore open the plastic. “Check out the peach by the register,” he said, crumbling the crackers. “I’d like to see her in one of them places.”

  The men looked over their shoulders, and he dropped the finger into the chili with the crackers, stirring it under with his spoon. Initially he’d planned to take a few bites before getting to business—to make the lunch seem more authentic—but the thought of swallowing a single drop of the food after the finger had been mixed in with it made his stomach flop over in protest.

  Get a grip, Jim. Think dollar signs.

  He churned the chili, feeling the finger’s weight against the plastic utensil. Then, with a furtive glance to make sure Jeff and Roy had their attention on their own meals, he scooped the finger into his mouth.

  It slid off the spoon, onto his tongue, taking up far more space than he liked.

  Don’t think about it, dumb-ass, just do it! he thought.

  And he did.

  He bit down, feeling the rubbery texture of the finger’s skin, the hardness of bone. The heat from the chili had yet to penetrate the cold from the ice and as his teeth came together, a frigid liquid spurted against the inside of his cheek.

  His empty stomach seemed to fill with a putrid green liquid in reaction to the sensation in his mouth and his body instinctively fought to expel the nauseating object. But just as he prepared to spew it onto the tabletop, Jeff and Roy turned away, facing the front of the store to look at the menu.

  They won’t see it! his brain raged. They have to see me spit it out!

  So he held it in his mouth, feeling its horrid presence.

  And it moved.

  He’d raised his hand, about to slam it down on the table to regain the men’s attention, when he distinctly felt the finger uncurl, its nail scraping the side of one molar.

  Every nerve in his body seemed to short circuit from the shock, and he stiffened in his seat, unable to move. Then the finger did it again, squirming like a half-dead worm trapped in a storm puddle, just as someone said, “Hey there, Jimbo!”

  Slapping him on the back—

  Gulp!

  —causing him to swallow!

  He felt the finger slide down his throat like a thick bite of licorice, pressing hard against his insides.

  Oh, shit!

  He clutched the table with both hands, tensing his neck muscles in a last ditch effort to stop the dead man’s digit from reaching his stomach. But then he felt one last squeeze deep inside his chest and knew it was already too late.

  “Jimbo,” he heard Tom, the foreman, say from behind. “You alright, man? Damn, I didn’t mean to surprise you like that.”

  The others set their food aside when Jimmy failed to respond, Jeff leaning in close, asking him what was wrong. Tom offered him a hand, but he pushed it away.

  “Outta my way, you back-slapping asshole!” he cried.

  Without another word, he leapt from his seat and raced for the bathroom.

  5.

  He elbowed his way through a group of teenage girls blocking the hall that accessed the restrooms, then shouldered the door open, only to slam it shut again and slap the lock into place. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror as he did, and for a heart-stopping moment thought he’d come face-to-face with an albino psychopath.

  Without wasting another second, he turned away from the mirror and crammed his own finger down his throat in an effort to puke. He reached as far back as he could, painfully stabbing tender flesh and poking his tonsils.

  He gagged a few times, but nothing came up.

  “Dammit,” he shrieked. “This can’t be happening!”

  He slammed his fists on the sink top and punched a hole in the plastic cover of the paper towel dispenser. He tried hitting himself in the stomach a few times, but when that didn’t work to bring up the finger, he took his frustration out on the waste basket in a flurry of kicks.

  Huffing out of exertion and fear, he leaned against the sink and paused to collect himself.

  “Think, dipshit! Think!”

  His breathing had just begun to ease when the door to one of the two toilet stalls clicked in its frame and slowly swung open. Jimmy looked up. A moment later, a balding middle-aged man wearing a business suit and wire-frame glasses stepped out, clutching his unzipped pants at the waist. Without making eye contact, he edged toward the exit like an overweight tourist who’d fallen into the lion pit at the zoo.

  Jimmy gaped at him. “Can’t you see I’m having a moment here, pal?”

  “I don’t want any trouble, Mister,” the man quickly replied.

  A dull silver cellphone poked out of the breast pocket of his shirt.

  Jimmy saw it and lunged at him.

  The stunned patron blubbered out a string of half-coherent pleas for release as Jimmy seized him by the lapels of his jacket and plucked the phone from his pocket. His pudgy hands flew up to ward off Jimmy’s attack, leaving his pants and underwear to collapse at his feet.

  “Please, Mister, don’t hurt me!”

  But even as he said it, Jimmy unlocked the bathroom, shoved the phone-owner into the hall, and yanked the door shut again before his bare ass hit the floor.

  Jimmy flipped the phone open and dialed Stuart’s number.

  “Hello?”

  “Stu, it’s me—”

  “Jesus, Jim,” Stuart said. “I’ve been trying to get a hold of you all morning. Listen, don’t—”

  “I swallowed it, man!”

  “What?”

  “The finger! The fucking thing’s in my guts!”

  Stuart’s reply came out as one word. “Wathefugitshididyou-dothatfor?”

  “I was hungry!” Jimmy bellowed back at him. “What do you think?”

  “Jesus, this figures!” Stu moaned.

  “What the hell does that mean?”

  “It means Sheriff Pickett came by this morning and told Harrington not to ship the corpse over to HCMC for cooking, that’s what! Some homicide detective called about him last night, and he’s on his way here right now to ID the body. If he’s right, our illegal amigo might actually be a Navaho serial killer!”

  “I don’t give a damn!” Jimmy replied. “I need you to pump my stomach!”

  “I don’t know how to do that!”

  “You’re the goddamn medical expert here, you gotta do something!”

  “Shit…I don’t know… Just give it some time; it’ll pass through you.”

  �
�I don’t want it to pass through me, you idiot! I want it OUT!”

  Suddenly a fist pounded on the bathroom door. “Open up!” a formidable voice ordered.

  “Jim, we’re in deep sewage here,” Stuart said.

  “Yeah, thanks for the tip!”

  Jimmy snapped the phone shut and shoved it into his jacket.

  “I said open up in there!” the voice ordered.

  Rather than go for the door, Jimmy kicked through the window at the back of the room and jumped into the alley, landing in a filthy puddle of dumpster runoff when he dropped to the ground.

  6.

  That night Jimmy tossed and turned.

  He’d gone to a roadside motel off the interstate rather than chance returning to his trailer, and he spent the better half of the evening waiting for the police to show up.

  Finally, around two a.m., he lay down on the bed. Sleep came in short spurts, but only out of exhaustion, and during the times when he dozed, he dreamed of the finger sloshing around in his stomach, refusing to digest.

  Or trying to crawl out the way it went in.

  Jimmy moaned at the thought, not wanting to recall it.

  He’d chugged a whole bottle of FiberAll for dinner in an attempt to be free of the thing, followed by half a package of Exlax that he picked up at a small market adjacent to his hideout. So far, neither had worked.

  Earlier, he tried to call Stuart but the bastard never picked up. On the contrary, his stolen cellphone rang about two dozen times, its display glowing with the names and numbers of callers he didn’t dare answer.

  He finally drifted off to sleep as the first red rays of sunlight bled over the horizon.

  7.

  When Jimmy awoke he went straight to the bathroom.

  The day had come and gone while he slept, and he felt confident that the long rest had given the meds time to generate some results. Much to his disappointment, however, he spent nearly twenty minutes on the toilet straining/praying to shit out the finger, all the while secretly fearing that he’d crap a whole hand.

  Back in the bedroom, the television droned. He’d left it on last night to escape the burbling sounds produced from his gut, and now some sitcom gave way to the ten o’clock news.

  “Our top story: a morbid case of burglary at the Hewitt County morgue—”

  Jimmy bound back into the main room with his pants trailing behind him.

  “—involving the theft of an unidentified corpse.”

  He watched the report in a state of stupefied captivity as the newscaster went on to explain how the county’s medical examiner had found the morgue’s autopsy room in disarray earlier that evening, a discovery that led him to a second scene of destruction inside the cooler. There, the perpetrator(s) had stolen the decapitated remains of a body that was being held for forensic testing as part of a murder investigation by authorities upstate. According to sources, the room’s stainless steel door had been torn off its hinges in order to get at the body.

  Jimmy dropped down on the end of the bed as he listened.

  The events of the last few days spiraled through his head, chased by the dread of whatever new miseries the future might hold, and all at once, he thought his wish to be rid of the thing in his stomach was about to come true.

  He clutched his midsection and ran for the bathroom.

  The lurching started even as he leaned over the sink. He seized the faucet handles to stabilize himself while the tremors passed through him, then sagged in despair when the convulsions concluded with nothing more than a foul-smelling belch.

  He rinsed out his mouth, and was about to leave when he glimpsed movement in his peripheral vision. He glanced to the left, facing the room’s tiny window.

  And saw a dog staring back at him.

  Two yellow eyes glinted in the dark air outside the motel, reflecting the light from the bathroom, and Jimmy leapt backward in shock even as his over-stressed brain realized that the eyes had to be at least six feet off the ground.

  The window exploded in a hailstorm of glass.

  Blood-splattered arms reached through the frame.

  Jimmy shrieked as the attacker clutched fistfuls of his shirt, each hand a skeletal mess of torn flesh and exposed bone, as if the person outside had recently clawed his way out of a grave—or through a stainless steel door. Then, in a split-second moment of hyper-awareness he saw that the assailant’s smallest left-hand finger ended in a clean, circular stump.

  The missing stiff from the morgue, he thought. Oh, Jesus, it can’t be!

  He punched at the restraining limbs, struggling to break free. Several of the meatless fingers tore through his shirt, and he mewed in disgust when the cold bones touched his skin.

  Then the man leaned through the window, into the light.

  And Jimmy’s shouts of repulsion died in his throat.

  Somewhere in his brain the information being sent from his eyes failed to find a rational point of emotional reference, and terror, bewilderment, humor, and awe collided together with a paralytic affect.

  Unlike before, the corpse was no longer headless.

  At the point where the man’s neck should’ve started, a railroad of thick stitches connected the severed head of a coyote to the human skin of his torso.

  Jimmy shook his head in denial, unable to escape the glare of the animal’s yellow gaze as it stared down at him over a lipless snout filled with jagged white fangs. It pulled him to the edge of the window, inches from its reeking flesh, where a legion of maggots explored the bare patches of skin that dotted its fur.

  “It was an accident!” Jimmy heard himself repeating again and again.

  The chemical stink of formaldehyde wafted out from the thing’s dripping maw when it opened its jaws, and a new degree of terror pushed Jimmy’s mind to the edge of insanity as the monster started to laugh.

  “Yee-nadlooshii!” the undead nightmare declared, speaking each syllable with perfect clarity despite the mouth that produced them.

  Its putrid breath gusted into Jimmy’s face, but the ghastly state of the creature’s physical composition no longer compared to the terror of facing an intelligent being with supernatural strength and a malevolent spirit.

  Suddenly the back of his head crashed into the wall.

  A swarm of fireflies swirled across his vision, but when they cleared he saw the monster towering before him, still only halfway through the window, holding two equally shredded halves of his tee-shirt in its boney hands.

  Jimmy patted his bare chest, just then realizing that he’d braced both feet against the sink in an effort to escape the creature’s grasp and must have torn clear through his clothes!

  The coyote-headed horror roared, spraying spittle through the air.

  It gripped the edges of the window frame and with the gunshot noise of cracking timbers it yanked a five-foot section of the wall into the night.

  Sparks hissed from a severed electrical line and the bathroom lights went out.

  A ruptured pipe shot water at the ceiling.

  But Jimmy was already through the door and across the bedroom, fleeing from the building wearing nothing but his boxer shorts.

  Behind him came another thunderclap of destruction. Another downpour of rubble.

  Outside, in the parking lot, a blue convertible sat idling in the space reserved for the room next to Jimmy’s, trunk open, front end facing away from the building.

  Jimmy jumped into the driver’s seat without even touching the door and left twenty feet of burnt rubber smoking on the asphalt as he peeled away from the motel with the accelerator mashed to the floorboards.

  8.

  Stuart’s house emerged out of the murk.

  Jimmy drove the stolen car right up on the lawn and left the engine running when he hopped out and hurried to the door. No lights glowed in any of the windows, but he pounded on the door and franticly thumbed the ringer.

  When no one answered, he kicked the door open.

  Inside, he found Stuart sitting i
n the living room with a double barrel shotgun.

  What remained of his head was still dripping from the ceiling.

  9.

  Jimmy pushed through the police department’s front door at ten minutes to midnight.

  Deputy Vern Ferguson was eating a late dinner behind the long counter that separated the lobby from the offices, and Jimmy ignored the kid’s muffled commands to halt as he tried to speak through a mouthful of ham sandwich.

  “Hey!” the young officer shouted when Jimmy let himself through the partition.

  He found Sheriff Picket sitting at one of the desks in the open central area of the building known as the bullpen, and even from a distance Jimmy noticed the frown beneath his storm cloud of a mustache.

  And he wasn’t alone.

  A tall American Indian man in blue jeans and a suit coat (cop casual, Jimmy called it) stood off to the left. A roadmap of fresh cuts crisscrossed the man’s face, some linked by dozens of black stitches that looked all too reminiscent of the patchwork monster he’d faced at the motel. The sight stopped him in his tracks, and he had to make a cognitive effort to refocus his thoughts on what he’d come here to say.

  “Want me to cuff him?” Ferguson asked from behind, but the Sheriff merely motioned for the kid to go back and finish his food.

  “Sheriff, we got trouble,” Jimmy said.