Dead Flesh: Stories of the Living Dead

by Hilden, Josh

  “Give the order little one,” Santa whispered.

  “Alright Rudolph, are we ready?” Lucy said taking the reins.

  The tall and powerful reindeer turned his head and nodded.

  “Let’s fly!” Lucy yelled and the sleigh took to the air.

  Frankenstein King of the Zombies

  When the dead rose I admit I was happy. I didn’t necessarily want the vast majority of the human race to be destroyed in an orgy of blood and violence, but neither did I feel much kinship with them either. After my birth I’d wanted to be a member of the human race and to participate in society more than anything else.

  Those desires ended soon after.

  I once asked Vlad about this. We’d been walking through Central Park during the great depression. He was on the prowl for a snack and I was just bored and in the mood for some conversation. He was one of the few people in the world that could understand my depression.

  “They are beneath us Frank,” he said eying a semi-comatose homeless man who seemed cleaner than most of the vagrants sleeping in the park that night. “They build the buildings, make the music, and write the plays that we enjoy. But they are still beneath us.”

  I laughed. Vlad still calls movies “Play’s” to this very day. Not that anyone was making new movies these days. I’d taken Vlad to see The Wizard of OZ the week before and the poor blood sucking bastard had cried and claimed he had just, “Gotten something in my eye,” when we’d left the theater.

  “It’s funny but it’s also the truth. We can love them like pets and care for the ones that pull our heart strings but our welfare comes first,” he finished and then swept down on the man for a snack. It was a rare occasion when Vlad took more than enough from a meal to feel full.

  He almost never killed if he could help it.

  That was the last time I brought the subject up. Vlad was older than me, wiser than me, and maybe smarter. Although that was debatable, I did have the brain of a genius after all.

  When the first reports of the dead rising and attacking the living began to appear I was in the far North of Canada. I decided in the 1980’s that what I needed was solitude. So I used a tiny fraction of my vast fortune to purchase a large island in the North West Territory. Sabbaticals such as this were far from unknown since my creation but I usually returned to the centers of human population after a few years of rest.

  The rise of the information age changed that.

  I became a techno junkie. As computers and instantaneous communications became more common, I found less need to physically associate with regular humans. The World Wide Web served all of my needs. From ordering food and supplies to simply chatting, I never needed to leave the confines of my compound. With my greater strength, vast intelligence, and no requirement for sleep I accomplished more than a hundred men could have in the same span of time. I made friends online and was able to interact with them. I was a master Warcraft Player, and I increased my fortune several times over through online trading.

  For those few decades I was happy.

  News reports were posted first on the fringe news websites. Then they began to filter to the major sites. When the Huffington Post banner read “THE DEAD WALK” I knew it was a serious issue. Still I was unconcerned. I could live up in the north comfortably for an indefinite period of time. Besides, humans were resourceful and clever, in some ways they were to be admired. I was sure they would be able stop or at the very least contain this plague.

  Surprisingly I was wrong.

  I may have remained safe and isolated as the world crumbled around me if it had not been for Susan. I met her online seven years before the zombies began to rise. She was fourteen then and her parents had signed her up for math tutoring online. I volunteered for things like this all of the time. Children have always been special to me. Especially since I once a child myself and hurt a little girl on accident. After she’d finished her tutoring we remained friends. We gamed together and talked on Skype nearly every night. Vlad thought it was good for me to have a pet that I could love and care for. He said he worried about me bottled away from humanity in my icy paradise.

  One evening I was viewing the increasingly horrific news when my satellite phone began to ring. Susan was one of three people, Vlad and Puck being the other two, who had my number. She’d only called it once before and that had been when she was seventeen and her dog had been hit by a car. I picked up the phone and was shocked to see my thick grey fingers were shaking.

  “Susan,” I said quietly.

  “Frank, oh thank god it’s you!” I heard the desperate relief in her voice. “They are everywhere Frank. I tried to leave the city and get to my parents place but the roads are filled with wrecked cars and the dead. Frank… the dead are everywhere.” She didn’t cry or scream but I heard the fear in her voice. It was then that I was truly afraid.

  Vlad was wrong. I didn’t love her like a pet. I just loved her.

  Susan was living in Boston and going to school. That meant she was in one of the most densely populated areas in North America. If the reports were right she was going to be in a lot of trouble very soon.

  “Where are you?” I asked her as I raced around grabbing supplies and anything else I thought I might need. Thankfully I kept the jet fueled and ready in case of emergency and the skies were clear. Although I would have gone for her even if it was blizzard conditions.

  “I’m in my dorm room. Mindy and I barricaded the door. Frank… there are so many screams.” Her voice had gone cold.

  “Stay there, it’s going to take a few hours but I am coming for you,” I said just as I slid my thick heavy boots on, boots that I had not worn in a very long time.

  I could hear her breaking down into a sobbing mess on the other end of the phone.

  In The Air

  I called Vlad and Puck before the jet took off and didn’t receive an answer from either. Depending on where Vlad was at the moment he would be sleeping and unable to rise. Puck was often not available so I knew I would be doing this on my own. I thought for a second about calling Morgan but the last time she and I had spoken things had been messy.

  The air over the city of Boston was almost completely free of traffic but the ground was a mad house. I watched as large sections of the city burned and the roads were clogged with traffic jams and massive wrecks. I attempted to raise the tower at Logan Airport and was greeted with silence and static.

  My small Gulfstream jet was nearly on fumes, normally I would have refueled somewhere in Canada but I had to get to Susan, and I needed to land. I eyeballed the runways of Logan in the dying light of the evening sun and picked out a length I thought I would be able to land on.

  I would never claim that the landing I made was a good one. Even if the airport had been operational I would never have been able to fly the jet again. That being said it didn’t explode when it ran off the runway and into the safety barriers.

  On the Road

  I found an abandoned jeep near the terminal and was able to hotwire it. I have always been good with automobiles. All around gunshots and screams could be heard. Above all the noise I could hear the moans of the dead. It almost sounded like a language to me. A language that I should have been able to understand but I could not. I had yet to meet one of the risen dead and I was not looking forward to the encounter.

  Would they want to eat me?

  Would they see me as a threat?

  Those were both fair questions considering my fundamental physical nature. I had no time to stop and test those questions out. Susan and her roommate were trapped and they needed to be saved.

  Things were worse in the city than I could have imagined. All around me chaos ruled. Zombies chased and ate people. I could accept that, these creatures were just acting as their nature dictated. It was a horrible and gruesome nature and it would make me very happy to see all of them destroyed, but it was still their nature nonetheless.

  It was the humans that sickened me.

  All around
the worst of humanity was on display. Thieves, robbers, murders, and rapists were reveling in the freedom to explore and immerse themselves in their base instincts. I swear I would have stopped and helped if it had not been for Susan. “After,” I said to myself, “After I am sure that Susan is safe I will go out into the night and help as many people as I can.”

  At the School

  I arrived at the dorms of Susan’s school to find a scene of carnage. If it had been the dead besieging the building I would have figured a way around them. If the dead had overrun the building I would have plowed right through them. Instead there were a dozen men armed to the teeth.

  They had the female students on the grass in front of the building. Each of the male students, I counted seventeen, had been shot in the head and piled for burning. The remaining female students, eight by my count, were in various stages of being raped by some of the men while the others either looted the surrounding buildings or stood guard to keep the dead at bay.

  My Susan was there.

  I stopped the Jeep and threw it into park. Then I nearly ripped the door off as I exited the vehicle. My blood, such as it was, was pumping hotter and faster than ever before. All around me fires burned but at that moment I feared them not.

  “SUSAN!” I roared in my deep tortured voice. Then I was running toward them.

  The men I encountered first never knew what hit them. With one punch I put my hand through a man’s chest and felt as his spine smashed out of his back. I dropped him and turned to his partner twisting his head clean off of his body. He never even had time to scream.

  Then the bullets started to fly.

  I won’t lie, they hurt. If you ever see me get shot you’ll notice I don’t really react. This has more to do with stubbornness than anything else. A side effect of my creation process is that I heal very fast. You ever read that comic book about the little guy with the knives in his hands? Yeah kind of like him but with less emo bullshit.

  I smashed through the mass of bandits till I reached the area where the girls were being held. At this point the bad guys were retreating and giving me a wide berth.

  “Susan,” I whispered as I approached her still form. I touched her gently and my heart soared. Her pulse was strong and steady.

  “Frank?” she moaned opening a puffy black and blue eye.

  “Yes Susan it’s me,” I said and hugged her. Her five foot five body was dwarfed by my seven feet of cool muscle.

  “Frankenstein,” she said and touched the mostly faded scars on my face.

  “Now you know,” I said to her and braced for the inevitable fear and revulsion.

  “I’ve always known,” she said and lifted her face to kiss me before I could react.

  My heart soared.

  Before we could do more than share a kiss one of the other girls began to scream. All around the open area in front of the dorms the dead were massing. In groups and knots they were being drawn to the pile of dead boys and group of living girls laid out for them.

  They were coming to feed.

  “What do we do?” Susan asked. She rose from the ground and began throwing on her ripped and tattered garments.

  I didn’t answer. Instead I got up and marched toward the nearest group of the dead. There were maybe twenty of the shambling and rotting things. One of Susan’s fellow girls, her roommate Mindy I realized, ran behind me. She looked at me and I didn’t see fear I saw hope. I put my hand on her small shoulder.

  “Gather all of the girls by Susan and wait for me.”

  Mindy nodded and I continued to the dead. Now I was going to find out what these things made of a man who was truly reanimated flesh. They were the universes cheap copy of my perfection. I felt insulted by their very existence.

  I planted my feet and squared me shoulders. “STOP!” I yelled at them. I don’t know what I expected. Looking back on that moment I was just getting myself ready for the attack. I never actually expected them to stop in their tracks. And not just the group in front of me, every zombie within eyesight had stopped and was doing… nothing.

  “Frank, what’s happening?” Susan asked taking my large cool hand in her small warm one.

  “I’m not sure,” I said dumbfounded. “I am not sure why Susan but they are listening to me.”

  “I think, Frank, that you may be able to save the world,” she said and snuggled into my side.

  At that moment I didn’t care about the world, though I would very soon. Right then I just cared about her.

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  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  When I was born on August 3, 1976 in the great state of Michigan the hills shook and the sky was swept with fire. These were portents of the greatness for my future that was written in the stars ... I'm still waiting for that greatness.

  My name is Josh Hilden and I am many things. I am a husband, a father, a son, a friend. These are all important things but at my core I am an artist and the medium that I work in is words. I am a writer of Role Playing Games, short stories, essays, poetry, novellas, and novels.

  In the everyday world I can be found spending time with my family and friends. I have been married to my lovely wife Karen since September of 1996. We h
ave six amazing children. We tend to be a family of unabashed geeks and gamers who were geek before geek was chic.

  If you are really interested in me I am very active online with a personal and a writing blog along with a plethora of social media outlets. All links are available at my website (www.joshhilden.com). If you have any questions or just want to chat hit me up!

  Published Works of Josh Hilden

  Fiction

  After the Storm (Short Story)

  As You Were…

  Beneath The Ice: A Mythos Novella

  Best Friends

  Bunny, Bunni, & Bobby Book 1: A Rabbits Tale

  Confession (Short Story)

  Dark Earth (Sample)

  Down the Slope (Short Story)

  Echo From the Past (Short Story)

  Family Business

  Flash Story Collection Volume 1

  Frankenstein King of the Dead Book 1: Overture of Chaos

  Frankenstein King of the Dead Book 2: Transition of Terror

  Frankenstein King of the Dead Book 2.5: Frank vs. The Rat Pack

  Frankenstein, King of the Zombies (Short Story)

  GI Joe: Worlds Without End The Return Part 1 - BREACH (Kindle Worlds)

  GI Joe: Worlds Without End The Return Part 2 - INVASION (Kindle Worlds)

  Into the Tall Grass (Short Story)

  Just Breathe (Short Story)

  Last Train Out (Short Story)

  Letters From Galileo (Short Story)

  My Dance with an Angel

  One Foot in Front of the Other (Short Story)

  One Way Ticket

  Please Mister (Short Story)

  Pulling Pots: A Mythos Novella

  Rescue Mission

  Room Check (Short Story)