Quick Bites: A Short Story Collection

by Jennifer Rardin

  “Can’t we just tell him to go to Voodoo Vicky’s like—”

  “You can’t send him to that maniac,” D.D. interrupted. “It’d be no different than dropping a picnic basket full of plutonium into Iran’s presidential palace.”

  The sobbing had turned into muffled growls. Somewhere close by, a headstone cracked. Apparently Zombie Ralph didn’t like wandering around without directions. He was getting pissed.

  Paul sent a pleading look to D.D., whose eyes had suddenly gone as hard as the wall at his back. “We have to follow Vicky’s directions or else he’ll make us take Ralph’s place.”

  “Never happen.”

  “Why not? Brady, here, just wet his unlucky pants, and I can only stay awake for forty-eight hours. Vicky has a zombie pit bull that can track us down in about ten minutes, and then all it has to do is wait.”

  D.D. cocked her gun. The sound might as well have been a whistle. Zombie Ralph yelled triumphantly and came shambling around the corner as she said, “I’ll protect you.”

  She trained her sights on the dirt-caked head of the former CPA who’d suddenly developed a craving for living flesh. As he reached for his prey, she fired both barrels into his face, blowing away everything that had made him look even remotely human, while Brady screamed and hid his face in Paul’s shoulder.

  Paul couldn’t look away, though he tried to unsee the whole thing by knocking his head back against the mausoleum wall so hard that for an instant his sight was rimmed in black. Unfortunately it returned right away so that he witnessed Zombie Ralph’s head suddenly burst into flame as D.D. backed away. The fire flared three feet into the sky, burning so hot that he felt warmed from a distance away of fifteen feet. Then it died, leaving the headless zombie to pitch to the ground. Paul heaved a sigh of relief, which turned into a gasp when he saw the zombie’s hands were still trying to pull its body toward D.D.

  “What the hell?” he asked as Brady exclaimed, “Oh my God, oh my Lord, that is so wrong! He’s wearing white socks with his suit!”

  D.D. seemed to have forgotten they existed. She’d clipped her gun to some sort of metallic holster at her back and gone to a bag Paul hadn’t seen before that she had left near the other corner of the mausoleum. From it, she pulled a can of lighter fluid and a lighter. While she doused the aimlessly crawling body, she muttered to herself like a mathematician working out a difficult problem. “Maybe the fault is in the trajectory. If I shot from above, the slug would go through the head and into the body. Then the fire would ignite more mass. But how often am I going to get that chance? No, I think the explosion needs to occur at a higher temperature to begin with.”

  “What are you mumbling about?” asked Brady accusingly. “Can’t you see we’re traumatized over here?”

  “I’m firing up the zombie, aren’t I?” she asked.

  “So that’s how you kill them?” Paul said.

  “Yeah. Cremation, just like the family should’ve done to begin with. That’s what my slug should’ve accomplished, but I haven’t been able to get the formula quite right yet.” She sighed. “Maybe soon, and then they’ll have to promote me.” She flicked the lighter and quickly set Zombie Ralph’s remains ablaze.

  As she came to stand beside them, Brady asked, “Who’ll have to promote you? To what?” He nodded to the burning body. “Is this your job?”

  She shrugged. “Kind of. It doesn’t pay as well as Hooters, which is why I still have to work there too. Which isn’t easy when you’re trying to ace physics with Dr. Ford, I can tell you.”

  Oh! Oh! Smart and sexy! If I fell at her feet and kissed her dimpled knees, I’m sure she’d punch me, but would it be worth the bloody nose? She was still talking, but Paul lost the next few words in a happy daze as he let his eyes, and his imagination, wander over D.D.’s high cheekbones and full, red-coated lips. Her neck, so long and graceful, led his eyes to the generous bust that had been well disguised by her extra-large sweatshirt. Since her camouflage shorts didn’t complement her nearly as much as Hooters’ orange ones would, he promised himself to go grab a plate of hot wings before Voodoo Vicky could zombify him.

  When Paul tuned back into the conversation, D.D. was saying, “The group I work for is called the People’s Assembly, because it wasn’t formed by any branch of government. Just a bunch of concerned citizens who got together and decided to protect themselves and their community from people like Voodoo Vicky, who’d figured out how to manipulate entire communities sometimes without ever really breaking the law.”

  “So what are you?” asked Brady faintly as he watched the Creever corpse burn. “Like, a militia member?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know what you’d call it. The PA’s a big organization, and I’m just a grunt who’s been assigned to guard this cemetery so nobody turns Clint Spakes or ‘Waltzing’ Hank Woodridge into the walking dead.”

  “That would be bad?” asked Brady.

  She nodded down at Zombie Ralph. “A lot worse than this.”

  Paul said, “Thanks for saving us,” as he walked forward and hugged her. It was a little awkward because he ended up holding her shotgun as well. Still, it was worth it, even when she said, “Don’t touch me.”

  He backed off. “Okay. But you said you’d protect us,” he reminded her.

  She sighed and motioned for them to follow her. “I will.”

  As soon as they left the shelter of the mausoleum, they could see the damage Voodoo Vicky’s spell had caused, tearing open the ground like it was no harder than a piece of cake, splattering dirt (they soon discovered) clear to the gates of the cemetery. Although strangely, the spell had also left a large pyramid of earth right beside Zombie Ralph’s grave, like a blanket he’d tossed aside just before hopping out of bed.

  “Look, Paul,” Brady exclaimed, pointing at the pile. “That’s a hoodoo. We just learned about it in geology class.”

  Paul began, “Wouldn’t it have to be made of rock if—”

  But Brady wasn’t listening. He’d become enchanted with the idea. “We got a hoodoo out of our voodoo. How cool is that?”

  D.D. snapped her head around. Paul thought she was going to grab Brady by the collar and tell him exactly how tired she was after saving his sorry ass and burning the corpse of the zombie who could well have chewed his cheeks off if she hadn’t blasted its mouth away, so the last thing she wanted to hear right now was some vain little gay dude gushing about voodoo hoodoos. Instead she said, “Brady? That shirt? Fabulous pick for the cemetery scene. I hope you can get it clean.”

  “What? Oh, this? Thanks!” He stopped talking, started humming, and every once in a while brushed off a hunk of dirt that had dried enough not to leave a smudge on his fingertips.

  Paul came up beside D.D. and said, “So, if you’re going to protect us, does that mean you’ll be hanging around with us a lot more often?”

  “Probably not,” she said. “The PA will assign somebody to you until you’ve learned enough to protect yourselves.”

  “Learned? What does that mean?”

  She looked up at him and smiled. “Paul, once a guy like Voodoo Vicky has you in his sights, you can’t be neutral anymore. You’re in this now.”

  Holding hard to a rising sense of panic, Paul repeated, “Like I said, what does that mean?”

  “You are now a member of the People’s Assembly.” She reached into her pocket, pulled something out, and slapped it into his hand. He looked down and saw that he held a big red button, the kind that would have maybe fallen off a clown suit. D.D. slapped him on the shoulder and said, “Welcome to the trenches.”

  Zombie Jamboree

  Rindall Hunt leaned against the tallest tombstone in Browen Cemetery. Naturally the name carved across the base of the obelisk spelled BROWEN. Herbert John (born 1825, died 1899) slumbered on the south side of the plot. As far as Rindall knew, he’d never risen on Halloween, called or not. Neither had his second wife, Deborah Jane, RIPing on the opposite side of the stone. But his first love, Elizabeth M
arie, who’d died in childbirth at the age of twenty-four, moved around so often that nothing grew on her grave but weeds.

  Rindall slammed his hand against the monument, wincing at the clacking sound that reminded him his digits hadn’t quite fleshed out yet. He bellowed, “Rise and shine, Bets. We’ve got work to do!”

  “What’s taking her so long?” Josh Payley paced the length of her grave. His stride was barely a shamble because he’d been dead the shortest amount of time, which meant he pulled himself together faster. The only gaping hole left on him was his nose.

  Rindall shook his head. Josh had to be reminded of everything at first. It was like that skull fracture had killed part of his memory for eternity. Rindall said, “She’s old, which means it takes her brain longer to reform.”

  Plus, Bets liked to look her best when she emerged. Almost as good as the day she’d died. Josh, on the other hand, had been aboveground within five minutes, spitting beetle larvae and shaking worms out of his cracks.

  “So what’s the plan?” Josh asked as he hopped to the top of a nearby monument and teetered across it.

  “A big failure if you fall,” Rindall snapped. “How many times do I have to warn you about your reckless risks? I mean this; you break it, you dangle it.”

  “Dude, tell me you weren’t this big of a wuss when you were building skyscrapers.”

  Rindall snorted. “Not until I took a dive off one. Now get the hell down. Seriously, I’m not taping any more of your parts back together tonight.”

  “This is why your wife hired that dude to kill you. You know that, right? Although”—Josh paused, giving Rindall the once-over—“it might also have something to do with those threads. Even if it was the seventies, you should’ve known better than to buy a powder-blue suit.”

  Rindall threw up his hands. “Can’t we get through one invocation without—”

  A stirring at Rindall’s feet brought them both to the head of the stone. Just like in the horror flicks Josh had devoured in life and relentlessly retold in death, Elizabeth Marie Browen’s hand punched through the earth as if it was furious that somebody had allowed the crabgrass to spread so far. The second fist emerged quickly after, its fingers rising to give the guys a ladylike wave.

  But it wasn’t just a premature hello. Bets was signaling. Get me out! I have business to attend to! Also, my feet are stuck in the coffin again!

  They each took hold of a hand and heaved—but gently. Bets would be beside herself if one of her arms popped off this early in the festivities. Luckily she’d already wound new flesh around her old parts, and everything stayed together for the extraction. She heaved out of the earth, shook her hair to release the extra soil, and then flung it back to reveal huge brown eyes in a Tinker Bell face.

  “You are so pretty.” Josh said this every time they rose, but Bets never tired of it.

  She smiled. “I know. It comes of dying young. You are mighty handsome yourself.” She poked him with a finger, the tip of which was still bony. “So how is my drunken cuss?”

  Josh sighed. “One DUI and I’m stuck with a crap nickname for eternity.”

  Rindall shrugged. “Well, you did wrap yourself around a telephone pole.”

  “Can we not talk about me? We’ve been invoked, people! So where’s the party?”

  “Follow me.”

  Rindall led them to the corner of Browen Cemetery farthest from the gravel road that wound past it. A thick wood full of shadows and night creature noises walled them in on two sides, making for what the ghost hunters liked to call a spooktastic experience. But that was in the dark. Tonight, squint-till-your-eyes-water lights had been set up around a long table covered in red silk. Two television cameras faced the table from different angles, and a long, fat microphone was manned by bored-looking union men.

  “There you are!” A sexy, young thing dressed in Armani and black pumps tiptoed up to them, trying not to get her heels stuck in any of the mole runs that dominated the yard. “You’re late!” she snapped, her glossy red lips folding in on each other, threatening to leave a stain on her unnaturally white teeth. “Contestants are supposed to arrive half an hour before the show. What happened to you? By the way, I’m Holly. But you knew that.” She motioned to three chairs lined up on one side of the table and bustled off to talk to a tiny man wearing a headset and carrying a clipboard.

  Rindall, Bets, and Josh exchanged thoughtful glances. The caterers Rindall had summoned had already turned Holly’s real contestants away at the gate. It hadn’t been hard. One look at the caterers’ skeletal outlines (the youngest had passed in 1789, so it would be hours before the flesh began to form) had sent the publicity-hungry hounds baying in the opposite direction. Until now, Rindall had never considered the idea of replacing them.

  “Oh, why not?” Bets finally whispered. “What’s a party without a game of charades?”

  Rindall shrugged. Josh grinned, scratching the tip of his completed nose. And they took their seats.

  The hostess joined them, taking so long to adjust her clothing, hair, and microphone that Bets forgot her good intentions and reached for the woman’s arm with a meat-raking claw.

  Rindall slapped the back of her hand. “Cut that out. You know the rules!”

  “I’m hungry!”

  Josh said, “For such a little thing, you eat way more than I ever would have guessed.”

  The hostess barked out a laugh. “Well, we have plenty to offer you tonight.” She nodded to clipboard man. “Our director, Tony, has found some…interesting edibles for you.” Another chuckle, but the hardness in her eyes robbed it of humor. “Of course, you know how it works on our show. We couldn’t call it Scared Stiff if we didn’t ask you to subject yourselves to some…icky moments.”

  “We’re comfortable with icky,” Josh informed her.

  She raised a perfect half-moon eyebrow as she eyed his fancy black suit. “But none of you seems to have dressed for it. And what’s this?” she asked, fingering Bets’s long blue skirt.

  “My Sunday best, and a sight more presentable it is than yours,” she declared. “You do realize if you lean forward any farther, those girls of yours may fall clean out of your blouse? Then where will you be?”

  “On the cover of every magazine in America,” Holly said with a smirk.

  “Thirty seconds!” called Tony.

  Holly raised her hand, like she expected time to stop until she was ready to continue. “We need some napkins here. Otherwise, our players might ruin their fancy clothes.” She touched a long, red-tipped finger to her straight, blond hair. “How do I look?”

  Rindall grinned. “I’d say you look good enough to eat, but Josh keeps telling me that these days comments like that will get me slapped.”

  “She does look yummy,” Bets agreed.

  Holly lowered her eyes to half-mast, pleased that the peons were suitably awed.

  Tony delivered the napkins and began a short countdown, after which a light went on in front of one of the cameras and Holly sailed into her introduction.

  Ignoring the jabber, Rindall checked their perimeter. Vague, misty movement told him that their client and the caterers were in position. Nodding briefly to his companions, he tuned back in to Holly’s spiel.

  “So the first game is always a tough one for our contestants.” She gave them a friendly smile. Rindall decided he liked her better when she was acting. “But that’s why you were chosen for our show. Because you believe you have the guts to meet our challenges.”

  As she spoke, Tony brought out three covered, plastic bowls and set one in front of each of them. Rindall peered into his and saw a mass of small black spiders. Josh had slugs, and Bets was shaking a container full of maggots.

  “What do you want us to do with these?” asked Bets.

  “In order to stay on the show, you’re going to have to eat them,” Holly said brightly. “But if you’re scared stiff…” She paused to give the red-light camera a significant look. “You’ll be forced to take the walk
of shame.”

  She pointed out to the yard, inviting the second camera to look as well. What they all saw was a path lined with the glowing crosses that the grieving buy to decorate the graves of their lost ones.

  “Now, Holly, that’s just tacky,” said Rindall. While the hostess worked to keep her smile in place, he went on, “I think we should institute different rules. Starting with freeing these poor, defenseless creatures.” Rindall, Josh, and Bets popped off their lids and dumped the creepers onto the table. They all immediately crawled to the opposite side, moving in such concert together that Rindall wouldn’t have been surprised to raise a magnifying glass and see the lead spider waving a flag and playing the retreat on a tiny bugle.

  Holly’s cheeks blazed. “What? What?”

  “I’ll show you what.” Rindall crooked his forefinger and the caterers moved forward, easily overpowering Holly’s crew and setting them in a manageable bunch at the foot of one of the lights.

  “What?” she screeched, digging her fingernails into her cheeks at the sight of nearly thirty skeletons moving like the well-trained regiment they’d once been.

  Josh tapped Holly on the shoulder, making her jump and scream. He grinned. “I move quiet for a dead guy, right?” He pointed to his bare feet. “Best sneakers in town! Good enough to turn the tables on you, Miss America. Yeah.” He nodded vigorously as her eyes widened. “We’re playing a new game now.”

  “What do you mean?” she croaked.

  Josh grinned. “Now, Holly, we’ve heard that people say you eat interns for breakfast, but we’ve also been informed you gotta be tough to survive in this business. So instead of shredding you like roadkill, we’re giving you a choice. The caterers will offer you three types of food. Two have been laced with enough arsenic to empty the voting booths in Dubois.”

  As Josh spoke, the caterers stepped forward, setting a rose-patterned china plate in front of her. It contained three items: a paste made from flour, water, and the ashes of the cremated woman in row nineteen; the deep-fried eyeballs of her newly buried neighbor; and a dead frog that had been gutted and stuffed with wild greens.