Undead Worlds 2: A Post-Apocalyptic Zombie Anthology

by Authors, Various

  The crowd erupted into cheers. People clasped each other excitedly as they shouted joyously.

  Among the crowd, Elsy spotted the girl. She didn’t cheer. She didn’t shout. Instead, she stared at Elsy, her hands clasped in front of her chest, fear making her look years younger.

  The crowd turned and filed into small doors on either side of the warehouse. Elsy was led around the back. The inside was hot, the stagnant air trapped between the metal walls. A staircase led up to a catwalk that encircled the warehouse floor.

  The entire building was eerily quiet. The once raucous crowd from outside had fallen silent. Not one person made a sound.

  Elsy looked into the pit below her. At least a hundred infected wandered aimlessly on the warehouse floor. The entire building reeked of their stench. Elsy tried to take slow, shallow breaths, trying to minimize the stench that entered her nose.

  Father Neal stepped up next to Elsy. He looked to the guards and simply nodded. The guards yanked Elsy forward to the edge of the catwalk. Without warning, they heaved her over the edge of the railing and let go.

  Elsy landed right on top of one of the infected, the creature softening her landing. It snarled up at her through mangled lips. One eye was missing along with the entire right side of its face. The flesh had healed in a disgusting knot of scar tissue and muscle, giving the creature’s head a lopsided shape.

  She scrambled off the creature and to her feet. All around her, the other infected stirred, rousing from the autopilot they fell into when food wasn’t present.

  They cast about, scenting the air, but they didn’t see her. An infected bumped into her, eyeing her before moving on. The horde grew agitated. The growls of a few stirred the others. The cacophony grew and the infected frantically scratched around the enclosure for the meat they knew was present.

  A broad, cat-like grin spread across Elsy’s face. She had walked through hordes before, unscathed. She knew that his horde would ignore her.

  The first time had been an accident. She had stared into her son’s eyes as he had awoken, knowing her time was up. Instead, he had turned from her, disinterested. When she had built up the nerve, she had stepped into a horde in broad daylight, moving amongst them. As one of them. Since then she had walked through each horde untouched.

  She scanned the horde, looking closely at the infected. Her son wasn’t here. He hadn’t been taken with her. But she still needed something and one of the other infected had to have it.

  There! A woman shambled about with a steak knife protruding from her neck. Elsy pushed her way through the crowd. She collided with one of the infected, a man. His lips peeled back in a snarl, the dry blood around his lips flaking. Elsy snarled back at him with her own imitation of the growl. The infected turned away, dismissing her.

  Elsy darted the last few feet to the woman. They met face to face, but the woman didn’t see her. Elsy looked into the woman’s eyes. There was nothing there. No recognition. No emotion. Just two empty windows to an empty mind.

  Elsy took a long deep breath. The woman may not recognize her, but she recognized the woman. She was the woman in the picture the girl had shown her. The girl’s mother.

  Without another thought, Elsy seized the knife and pulled with all her might. Scar tissue had grown around the knife where it was implanted in the woman’s skin. The woman shrieked, snapping at Elsy. A chorus of moans rose, answering the woman as the infected around her riled.

  None of them attacked her.

  Elsy gritted her teeth and pulled on the knife again. A wet tearing sound reached Elsy’s ears and the knife suddenly popped free, making Elsy stagger backward. Blood oozed from the freshly opened wound in the woman’s neck. The woman snarled at Elsy again but didn’t take a step forward. Instead, she cast about, looking for something else. Something to eat despite the meal standing in front of her.

  The crowd up on the catwalks was still utterly silent. Their lives depended on it. If the infected really got worked up, they might break free. Despite the quiet, their faces were curious, even a bit afraid. Some were even…hopeful.

  Elsy stepped forward, placing her hand on the woman’s shoulder. The infected growled at her, the way it would growl at another infected who crossed it.

  “Don’t worry,” Elsy whispered. “I’m going to free them from his grasp. Your daughter will be safe and cared for.” She didn’t know what compelled her to do this. She didn’t think they could understand her. She didn’t even think they were people anymore. How could they be? But if there was still some minuscule shred of humanity left inside the virus-riddled body, she felt the woman deserved some measure of peace.

  Elsy turned back to the crowd, her eyes drifting across the catwalk. "Your God did not abandon these people. He did not abandon you,” she screamed over the moans of the infected. She picked her words carefully. She didn’t believe in God. Not since the outbreak. She had never been religious, but she had been open to the idea of a higher power. What kind of God would let his people perish in such a horrendous way? What kind of God would allow thousands to be ripped to shreds? But these people believed. They needed to believe and she needed them to believe her. “He never left and he certainly did not send this plague. This plague was made by man. What other creature could create something so awful? And you” —she pointed her knife accusingly at Father Neal— “You walked hand in hand with the Devil to do his bidding.” Venom dripped from her words.

  Murmurs rippled across the catwalk. All around her, the infected began to moan. Their cries grew desperate as their heads turned up and they finally sighted prey. And yet, Elsy remained untouched.

  “It is not I who walks with the devil!” Father Neal cried in indignation. “You! You are a witch sent here to turn us from the true path of God!”

  “You murdered the innocent!” Elsy blood boiled. Her fists were clenched so tightly that her nails bit into her palms. “You feed them alive to the infected instead of helping the survivors and rebuilding a society that reflects God’s true kingdom! You feed your own sick fetish at the expense of innocent lives. You bathed yourself in power and used fear as a weapon against those who needed you! You are a traitor to God and a traitor to your people and you will be judged!”

  Elsy ran at the chicken wire fence, throwing herself at it.

  “She is one of the unpure!” Father Neal screeched. “She is wolf in sheep’s clothing come to ruin us all. Kill her! Kill her!” Before the words even left his mouth, Elsy had scaled the chicken wire fencing. She reached for the rail of the catwalk and pulled herself over. Neither of the guards moved toward her.

  “You are what is wrong with this world. You and everyone else like you,” Elsy hissed. Her heart thrummed in her ears. Her anger coursed through her veins like fire.

  Father launched himself at her haphazardly, hoping to use his greater size as a weapon. It wasn’t hard for Elsy to dodge his attack. As she stepped to the side, she swung her fist around, planting it squarely in his gut. With a sharp cry, Father sank to his knees, gasping for breath.

  “You spread lies. You spread fear. I won’t let you do that anymore.” Elsy turned to the others on the catwalk. “Let this be the dawning of a new age for us! Just because the world has been taken over by monsters does not mean we need to become monsters ourselves.” Some of the folks on the catwalks cheered. Some clasped their hands in hope.

  A growl from behind alerted Elsy just a second too late. Father Neal wrapped his thick arms around her throat, knocking the knife from her hand and instantly cutting off her air.

  Stupid! She cursed herself. How could you be so stupid as to turn your back on him?

  Before she even finished the thought, he cried out again and released her. Elsy sprung back to see the guards forcing Father Neal to his knees. Blood poured out of a new cut on his temple. She collected the knife from the catwalk, glad it hadn’t fallen down into the pit below.

  “Time for a new age.” One of the guards nodded.

  “You fools!” Father cri
ed. “You will burn in hell for this! You all will!”

  “No,” Elsy said firmly. “We will build a better world. A good world, but you will never see it.” Elsy nodded to the guards and they heaved him up.

  Father’s eyes grew wide and he realized what was about to happen. “No. No. No. No. No.” Each word grew more panicked than the last.

  Elsy stepped up to him, her fingers caressing the side of his face. “What?” Her eyes grew wide in mock surprise. “Are you afraid of the death you sentenced so many to?” Her lips twisted into a wry smile. “Burn in hell.” The words came out in a vicious snarl. Her hand come up fast, driving the knife up through his chin. She pushed until the knife sunk in to the hilt. Father Neal’s eyes went wide as he tried to scream around the knife. Instead, all that came out was a muffled cry as blood poured over his lips. A smile curved the corner of Elsy’s lips up. With that, she shoved him hard.

  The man hit the railing and teetered for just a fraction of a second before falling over the edge. He landed hard on the concrete floor below, the thud resonating over the moans of the infected. As one, all the infected turned toward him. Their howls filled the empty warehouse, rattling its metal walls. A piercing scream cut through the air as the infected converged on the helpless man.

  Elsy stepped back from the railing, smoothing her hair and straightening her dress.

  “This ends here. These sacrifices die with Father!” Her voice boomed even over the shrieks of the feeding infected. “The Lord does not need our lives. He already has them. We must rebuild a world that is kind. A world that God wants for us. We will have to fight to survive and make no mistake, we will fight hard, but we will bring peace to this ravaged land.”

  “And what of the unclean?” a man asked, drawing some unwanted attention from the infected. “They…they are our families.”

  “They”—Elsy gestured to the pit below—“will be cared for. They are sick. Maybe one day someone will find a cure. Until that day, we will keep them contained where they can do no harm.” People nodded through the crowd.

  “If you don’t agree with me, if you wish to follow Father’s ideals”—Elsy’s eyes narrowed as she stared down the crowd—“then leave. You are no longer welcome here.” No one moved. She was sure there would be at least a few dissenters and she would make sure they left or they would be dealt with.

  “If no one has any objections, I would like to rest. My night was not entirely pleasant.” Many people cast their gaze down at the floor. “Good.” She nodded and shooed the people to exit the warehouse. She needed to get back to the gas station. She had to find Vincent before someone else did.

  At the edge of the catwalk, the girl lingered as the others filed out. Elsy smiled and strode over to her.

  “I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be.” Elsy cut the girl off, laying a gentle hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Father had everyone under his spell. People were…vulnerable. They need someone to give them hope and he took advantage of that.”

  “We should have known…” The girl shook her head.

  “Things have changed,” Elsy said, nibbling on her lip. “The world went up in flames. Overnight everything we knew disappeared.”

  The girl was quiet as they descended the steps of the catwalk and exited the building.

  “How did you do that? Walk amongst the unclean…the infected?” she corrected herself quickly.

  Elsy smoothed her dress again. Her fingers ran down her ribs, unable to smooth out the knot there. “A way that many would be stupid to try and wouldn’t survive.”

  The girl stared back at Elsy, her brow furrowed as she thought about Elsy’s words.

  Elsy smoothed the dress again. The act like a nervous tick as she tried to smooth away the knotted flesh that would never leave her.

  About R.L. Blalock

  R. L. Blalock’s love of reading started young, but her love of zombies started later in life. In 2008, when R. L. Blalock first watched the remake of Dawn of the Dead she instantly fell in love with the genre. Born and raised in Sacramento, California, R. L. Blalock now lives in St. Louis, Missouri with her loving husband, precocious three-year-old daughter, two dogs, and a bird. Stay connected with R. L. Blalock at rlblalock.com!

  I would like to give a special thank you to my wonderful and supportive mother who endures the nightmares of reading my work.

  The rest of the Death & Decay series can be found at Amazon.

  8

  Forget the Mall: Forget the Zombies 1.5

  by R.J. Spears

  [Author’s Note: This story takes place inside the first book of the Forget the Zombies series, Forget the Alamo.]

  The little old lady zombie clamped its teeth onto Neal’s throat like a lamprey eel, hard and fast with little chance of letting go. It all happened so fast that both Jenkins and I had no time to react or do anything. One moment, Neal was leaning over this old lady in a blue dress with bright yellow polka dots because she looked like she was in distress. The next thing you know, she was on him, yanking him to the floor.

  Neal’s screams filled the food court, echoing to the heights of the forty foot ceiling and reverberating into the mall. Blood sprayed from the wound, shooting onto the floor like a geyser.

  Jenkins backpedaled away, his arms pinwheeling in the air, wanting to be as far away from the old lady zombie as he could be. If he could have teleported, he would have been in Alaska.

  Neal’s eyes stared directly at me and said, “Help me!”

  Neal, who managed the pretzel shop. Neal, who loved bulldogs, Australian Shepherds, and nearly all four-legged creatures. Neal, with the broad smile and the kind eyes and chatty ways. Neal, who had lived in Florida and had decided that San Antonio would be a good place to relocate. Neal, who didn’t know how badly that would turn out for him.

  Neal, who I had only known for less than thirty minutes, but had already felt like I had known him a lifetime. Maybe that’s because his lifetime ended right there in front of me.

  At that point, my experience with zombies was limited to seeing a man devoured by one outside my hotel and running into another one on the street. That was just the beginning of the fun.

  What I did know was that Neal was way past helping. If there was one thing I had learned from the media in the past couple of days, one bite meant that you were infected. Infection meant death and subsequent reanimation.

  In other words, Neal was already dead, but he didn’t know it. Neal, whose last name I didn’t know how to spell because it wasn’t on his name tag, but I swear he said it was Smead. Now I would never know his last name for sure.

  Still, he fought for the precious few moments he had left, punching at the old lady’s head and face. After three quick blows, he dislodged her and rolled away, trying to get some distance from her.

  She wasn’t done with him, though, and stumbled to her feet, blood dripping from her chin, looking like a dark red bib. She snarled and took a step toward him.

  I jumped forward and kicked the old woman in the side. She wasn’t all that big, probably weighing less than a hundred pounds. My blow sent her sailing across the floor into a mop bucket, spilling dark gray water on the floor and sending the mop skittering in my direction.

  She recovered astonishingly quick and scrambled to her feet. She snarled like some kind of rabid animal and took a step toward me. I knew it was on.

  Despite the fact that I had my gun at my side, something prevented me from pulling it and shooting the old lady. Shooting old ladies was against all the rules I had been taught. Old ladies were meant to serve tea and watch soap operas.

  So, I snatched the mop off the floor and pushed the mop part into the old lady’s torso, knocking her back. That only made her mad. She growled and tried to bat the mop away, but I yanked it back and then slammed it into her again. This time she went down.

  “Shoot her!” Jenkins yelled from behind me.

  She tottered back to her feet and started toward me again. Still, my prohibition a
gainst shooting old ladies restrained me from pulling my gun.

  Instead, I put the mop on the floor, lifted the handle, and then brought my foot down onto the middle of it, snapping it in two. I kicked the mop part away and brandished the sharp point at the old lady.

  “Listen here, grandma, you better stay back, or else I’ll stick you,” I said, poking the jagged point at her.

  She couldn’t have cared less and stumbled my way.

  “Stab her!” Jenkins yelled. “Stab her in the face!”

  Things were getting nasty.

  “She’s not an old lady anymore, Grant,” he yelled at me. “She’s one of those things.”

  Those weren’t magical words, but they broke through all my social inhibitions against killing little old ladies. Jenkins was right. She wasn’t an old lady. She wasn’t even alive.

  She came toward me and I pulled back the mop handle, getting ready. Her arms were out and her hands clutched the air, wanting a piece of me.

  Well, that wasn’t going to happen.

  With every ounce of force I could muster, I stabbed the mop handle forward, and it flew like an arrow. The trajectory took it right into the old lady’s eye socket. Something in my stomach clenched up when I felt the jagged end impact with the back of the woman’s skull. I’m a man with a strong stomach, but even I have my limits.

  Her arms fell to her side, and she slid off the broken mop handle and went down like a puppet after someone had cut its strings. The sound of her body hitting the floor only increased the sickening feeling in my gut.